Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson Received: from beak.andrew.cmu.edu via trymail for +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl@andrew.cmu.edu (->+dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl) (->ota+space.digests) ID ; Mon, 22 Oct 1990 01:31:50 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Precedence: junk Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Mon, 22 Oct 1990 01:31:16 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V12 #478 SPACE Digest Volume 12 : Issue 478 Today's Topics: Re: Homebuilt Manned Rockets Re: Homebuilt Manned Rockets RE: SPACE Digest V12 #468 Re: Names Re: Hubble Space Telescope (revisited) Re: Theories needed on life RE: SPACE Digest V12 #468 Re: more talk about space stations Re: Hubble Re: Mammoth Magellan Data Hybrid replacements for SRB's (was: Man-rated SRBs Administrivia: Submissions to the SPACE Digest/sci.space should be mailed to space+@andrew.cmu.edu. Other mail, esp. [un]subscription notices, should be sent to space-request+@andrew.cmu.edu, or, if urgent, to tm2b+@andrew.cmu.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 18 Oct 90 19:04:14 GMT From: usc!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!caen!math.lsa.umich.edu!sharkey!cfctech!teemc!fmeed1!cage@ucsd.edu (Russ Cage) Subject: Re: Homebuilt Manned Rockets In article <1990Oct18.090711.4117@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> draper@cpsin2.cps.msu.edu (Patrick J Draper) writes: >In article yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu (Brian Yamauchi) writes: >>Is there anything inherently more complex about building a manned >>(suborbital) rocket than building a manned supersonic jet? > >I'm sure it would be MUCH more complex than building and operating a jet >plane. Mercury and Gemini were hardly simple. Mercury and Gemini had fewer parts than a modern airliner. The major differences that I can see are: 1.) Pressurized life support system is required (no external makeup air is available), and 2.) The main aerodynamic consideration is hypersonic re-entry, rather than stall to supersonic handling (fewer and simpler). The problems for a Mercury seem simpler than for a supersonic airplane. Remember also that the Germans had most if not all the technology to put a man into orbit in the 1940's, if they had used it correctly. >Rocket fuel is more explosive than jet fuel. In fact, a rocket fuel >explosion can equal the force of a similar weight of TNT. This is a red herring. The explosion of nitrocellulose is nearly as powerful as TNT, but nitro-based powders are used in extremely simple and cheap machinery to propel bullets every day. The handling is well-known and quite safe. Kerosene-based rocket fuel, RP-1, is almost identical to JP-4 jet fuel. (I shouldn't be too hard on this guy, he's from Moo U.... ;-) -- Russ Cage Ford Powertrain Engineering Development Department Work: itivax.iti.org!cfctech!fmeed1!cage (CHATTY MAIL NOT ANSWERED HERE) Home: russ@m-net.ann-arbor.mi.us (All non-business mail) Member: HASA, "S" division. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Oct 90 21:37:32 -0400 From: "Allen W. Sherzer" Subject: Re: Homebuilt Manned Rockets Newsgroups: sci.space Cc: In article <1990Oct18.090711.4117@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> draper@cpsin2.cps.msu.edu (Patrick J Draper) writes: >>Is there anything inherently more complex about building a manned >>(suborbital) rocket than building a manned supersonic jet? >I'm sure it would be MUCH more complex than building and operating a jet >plane. Mercury and Gemini were hardly simple. "In the realization that manned space exploration has been a very high cost undertaking, NASA has conducted research to determine the reasons why, for example, the cost of a spacecraft should cost orders of magnitude more than simlilar devices, constructed from similar materials, employed in other industries. The research pointed to no single factor or group of factors (such as specification levels, materials, manufacturing methods, for example) which explained the differences. The primary cost influence found by the research is simply the organization which did the job. Thus, manned spacecraft programs had their own unique set of cost determinants, different from those of, for example, civilian aircraft, military aircraft, and even unmanned spacecraft. Development practices, while generically the same from one industry to another, where found to vary according to the culture of the organization performing the work" -- H. Mandell "Barriers to America's future in space and some possible remedies" 1988 Allen -- +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Allen W. Sherzer | What should man do but dare? | | aws@iti.org | - Sir Gawain | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Oct 90 14:00 CDT From: Flint Deadbolt Subject: RE: SPACE Digest V12 #468 c c /\__ \ \_ 2108 Hayes Street; # 415 \ \ Nashville, TN 37203 \ SUMATRA & ENVIRONS, Ltd. O \_ \_ \ Jon Ciliberto "Running at 300 Baud < \ from the heart of Medan." \ <_ O \_ CILIBERT@vuctrvax 615.320.1478 o. \ \ >__/\___/ ------------------------------ Date: 20 Oct 90 22:44:07 GMT From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: Names In article <9010200215.AA05115@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov> roberts@CMR.NCSL.NIST.GOV (John Roberts) writes: >>... The text portion is only in russian >>but a gazetteer at the end lives latin equivalents. > >That's another problem - the character set has changed over the milennia. >The English alphabet has several significant differences. Cyrillic >is completely different at least in appearance... Actually, it takes about an hour to learn the Cyrillic alphabet well enough to produce recognizable (if often slightly incorrect) pronunciation, the more so because it is rather closer to being phonetic than ours is. When you do this, surprise surprise, an awful lot of the technical words become recognizable, ignoring the slightly strange endings. -- The type syntax for C is essentially | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology unparsable. --Rob Pike | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 20 Oct 90 15:47:21 GMT From: uc!cs.umn.edu!kksys!wd0gol!newave!john@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (John A. Weeks III) Subject: Re: Hubble Space Telescope (revisited) In article <41353@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> v064lnev@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu writes: > Not long ago, our nation's National Aeronatics & Space Administration, > launched a very interesting piece of equipment into an orbit about the > planet upon which we live. It was often said that the equipment would > revolutionize the way we look at ourselves, our world, and the cosmos. In a cynical manner, Hubble has already done this. It has especially revolutionized how journalists look at NASA. > "It would allow us to see to the very edge of the universe," our great > scientists told us. "It might even unfold the mysteries of life!" one > other scientist grasped. It had cost us, the tax-paying people of the > nation, the grand total sum of one billion dollars. It was the Hubble > Space Telescope. A billion dollars is not all that much money for a space project. Voyager cost nearly a billion dollars thought its life, and the program was done on the cheap. The grand tour proposals would have costed far more. The only way to learn how to build space equipment and run space missions is to send stuff up. No matter how careful one is, somethings are going to go wrong. The real problems that the American space program has is that it suffers from short term funding problems and NASA seems to have to learn too many lessons the hard way. Hubble will yet accomplish its mission parameters. The big difference is that scientists will have to work much harder to get the data, whereas a "perfect" Hubble might have handed the data back on a silver platter. -john- -- =============================================================================== John A. Weeks III (612) 942-6969 john@newave.mn.org NeWave Communications ...uunet!rosevax!bungia!wd0gol!newave!john =============================================================================== ------------------------------ Date: 21 Oct 90 16:27:48 GMT From: usc!bbn.com!saustin@ucsd.edu (Steve Austin) Subject: Re: Theories needed on life dmurdoch@watstat.waterloo.edu (Duncan Murdoch) writes: >In article <10168@ubc-cs.UUCP> mgobbi@cs.ubc.ca (Mike Gobbi) writes: >> >>A planet 3 or 4 times the size of earth? Do you mean 3xmass or 3xradius? >> >>In the latter case, we are talking about a 27-G planet! i think that the >>only conceivable life forms on this planet would certainly be aquatic. That >>way they are relatively immune to the effects of their mass. >No, a planet with 3 times the Earth's radius, but the same density, would have >just 3 times the gravitational force at the surface. The mass would by 27 >times higher, but the inverse square law would reduce that because you'd be >3 times further from the centre. Agreed, but a good point made by Mike though. High gravity probably does not mean massive skeleton/muscles if the organism lives in a high-density fluid. The original poster's question was vague, but I think most people would agree that gravity at the surface would be a key question. I would think that the progression would be: High gravity: The organism would best best off if surrounded in some high density fluid. This way it would be supported by bouyancy, not by leg muscles/skeletons. A key factor in the technological development would be the availability of an energy source. For different fluids, the mileage would vary - chemical reactions might be hard to produce in something like water, but if the fluid was chemically active, the high pressure around may help. I would not expect these things to be space explorers, due to the large amount of energy required to attain escape velocity. Low gravity: Organisms should have much less difficulty getting around and could afford to evolve more sophisticated thinking equipment and manipulative equipment. I would expect the low gravity people advance technologically much more quickly than [all other things being equal] their low gravity counterparts. Space exploration would be a good deal easier since the escape velocity of a planet is (I think) proprtional to sqrt(gR) [g = gravity at surface, R = radius of planet] Steve Austin ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Oct 90 14:03 CDT From: Flint Deadbolt Subject: RE: SPACE Digest V12 #468 michaelm@vax.MCD.3Com.Com (Michael McNeil) writes: >In article <1990Oct18.213753.34575@eagle.wesleyan.edu> >dlinder@eagle.wesleyan.edu writes: > >> [ what would humanoid life on high-G planet be like? ] >It's highly likely that humanoid life wouldn't exist even on a planet >just like the Earth It seems the definition of "humanoid" here is basically physiological. Surely all that is essentially "human" in human beings can reside in any biological construct (i.e., Classically Cartesian, I don't think that our physical bodies go very far to determining our "self." (Kant would beg to differ.)) /\__ \ \_ 2108 Hayes Street; # 415 \ \ Nashville, TN 37203 \ SUMATRA & ENVIRONS, Ltd. O \_ \_ \ Jon Ciliberto "Running at 300 Baud < \ from the heart of Medan." \ <_ O \_ CILIBERT@vuctrvax 615.320.1478 o. \ \ >__/\___/ ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 90 21:51:46 GMT From: usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!caen!math.lsa.umich.edu!sharkey!cfctech!teemc!fmeed1!cage@ucsd.edu (Russ Cage) Subject: Re: more talk about space stations In article <90291.111258GIPP@GECRDVM1.BITNET> GIPP@gecrdvm1.crd.ge.com writes: > note for AWS: Allen, before you jump in with the amazing LLNL inflatable >station for only .5 bil, save it, unless you have something new to add. >please take no offense, but until LLNL gets reasonable on cost figures, no >one is going to take them seriously. it will probably cost them .5 bil just >for paperwork to get it going. As I recall, LLNL explicitly stated they would waive FAR's for their station, because they drove up the cost. Calling LLNL's numbers unrealistic because they do not allow enough money for the paperwork, when they propose doing without, is dishonest. -- Russ Cage Ford Powertrain Engineering Development Department Work: itivax.iti.org!cfctech!fmeed1!cage (CHATTY MAIL NOT ANSWERED HERE) Home: russ@m-net.ann-arbor.mi.us (All non-business mail) Member: HASA, "S" division. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Oct 90 04:32:12 GMT From: olivea!orc!inews!hopi!sstrazdu@apple.com (Stephen Strazdus) Subject: Re: Hubble In article <130942@pyramid.pyramid.com> lstowell@pyrnova.pyramid.com (Lon Stowell) writes: >It is unfortunate that NASA is totally unaware of the meaning of >the words "Public Relations". I have seen prints of Hubble >photos and am fairly impressed. If they ever fix the sucker >will likely be overwhelmed. > >HOWEVER, I am extremely UNDERWHELMED that none of the photos >have made it into mainstream media...specifically network TV. I specifically recall seeing the following on network news programs: - The picture of the double star discovered during focusing of the telescope (before the spherical aberration was announced) - The picture taken by hubble of super nova 1987a. - Magellan images of Venus on at least 2 seperate days. - The picture of Saturn taken by Hubble. In addition I have seen many HST and Magellan images in Newsweek and the local papers. >Is this because the networks refused to show the photo's or >because no one thought to offer them? moot question. -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Strazdus | sstrazdu@hopi.intel.com | Insert your favorite .sig here. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Oct 90 03:44:40 GMT From: usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars!baalke@ucsd.edu (Ron Baalke) Subject: Re: Mammoth Magellan Data In article <1990Oct21.193411.20391@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov> pjs@euclid.jpl.nasa.gov writes: >A graph on a nearby wall states that around March 1991, the >data returned from Magellan will exceed that returned by all >other planetary probes combined (pushing 1 trillion bits). > >Hmm, let's see, ftp'ing over a 56kbaud link... :-) > The Magellan data will be stored on 60+ CD-ROMs. One CD-ROM holds 680 megabytes of data. This is only after 8 months of mapping. Then when you include the extended mission.... ____ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| | | | | __ \ /| | | | Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |___ Jet Propulsion Lab | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| M/S 301-355 | |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ Pasadena, CA 91109 | ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 90 18:55:44 GMT From: usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!caen!math.lsa.umich.edu!sharkey!cfctech!teemc!fmeed1!cage@ucsd.edu (Russ Cage) Subject: Hybrid replacements for SRB's (was: Man-rated SRBs In article <3338@orbit.cts.com> schaper@pnet51.orb.mn.org (S Schaper) writes: >How to the throttleable solids developed by a private US company using LOX for >the oxidizer measure up in this evaluation? - Hybrids still have the entire fuel tank as a combustion chamber. - Hybrids would still probably require field joints in the casing. + Hybrids are throttleable in real time. + Hybrids can be made in-flight restartable. + Hybrids are not subject to runaway combustion due to fuel defects. + Hybrids can be shut down on command w/o undue hazard. + Hybrids are safer to transport, assemble and stack (as in "no danger"). -- Russ Cage Ford Powertrain Engineering Development Department Work: itivax.iti.org!cfctech!fmeed1!cage (CHATTY MAIL NOT ANSWERED HERE) Home: russ@m-net.ann-arbor.mi.us (All non-business mail) Member: HASA, "S" division. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V12 #478 *******************