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 ; Sat, 24 Nov 1990 02:14:35 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: Precedence: junk Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Sat, 24 Nov 1990 02:13:39 -0500 (EST) Subject: SPACE Digest V12 #589 SPACE Digest Volume 12 : Issue 589 Today's Topics: Re: STS 38 Observation Reports -- red? Re: Psych effects + Space M+A+X USENET Apology Re: Big bang discovered 1400 years ago ? Re: Congrats to Ted Molczan Re: Magellan Update - 11/12/90 Hubble Investigation Report (Forwarded) Galileo Update - 11/21/90 Commercial Shuttle Proposals Future systems - Commercial Shuttle and LRBs Re: LNLL Inflatable Stations 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: 21 Nov 90 01:56:43 GMT From: unmvax!ariel.unm.edu!ghostwheel.unm.edu!john@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (John Prentice) Subject: Re: STS 38 Observation Reports -- red? If the red color of the shuttle was due to the passage of light through the atmosphere, as has been suggested by people on the net, then why haven't people been seeing this phenomena regularly over the last 30 years? Certainly other spacecraft have been as large (or larger) such as Skylab, Mir, etc... One would think that if the explanation is as simple as just illumination by light passing throught the atmosphere, it would be a common phenomena. John Prentice john@unmfys.unm.edu ------------------------------ Date: 21 Nov 90 07:45:06 GMT From: att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!src.honeywell.com!msi.umn.edu!cs.umn.edu!kksys!orbit!pnet51!schaper@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (S Schaper) Subject: Re: Psych effects + Space M+A+X A scientist or scholar would not set about trying to prove or disprove such a proposition, but to look at the data to see what they suggested. ************************************************************************** Zeitgeist Busters! UUCP: {amdahl!bungia, uunet!rosevax, chinet, killer}!orbit!pnet51!schaper ARPA: crash!orbit!pnet51!schaper@nosc.mil INET: schaper@pnet51.cts.com ------------------------------ Date: 21 Nov 90 14:44:56 GMT From: rayssd!plw@sun.com (Paul L. White) Subject: USENET Apology for my post responding to the Koran & the Big Bang et al. I saw the article in talk.bizarre and in a lapse of judgement, responded to it, going for the cheap laugh... I don't find it very amusing this morning. I want to state that I am very tolerant of other's beliefs, even when I don't understand them and that my posting does not reflect my everyday attitude toward Moslems. Furthermore, I apologize to Cat Stevens, it was a joke in very poor taste. Oh well, another lesson learned the hard way.... =============================================================================== Paul White plw@rayssdb ============================================================================== ------------------------------ Date: 21 Nov 90 18:08:28 GMT From: mentor.cc.purdue.edu!pop.stat.purdue.edu!hrubin@purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) Subject: Re: Big bang discovered 1400 years ago ? In article <299@sgfb.ssd.ray.com>, plw@sgfb.ssd.ray.com (Paul L. White) writes: > > Your article on the koran and the Big Bang was extremely enlightening. [Note: the article quoted seems to be missing here.] There is no problem translating the Hebrew of Genesis in this manner. -- Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399 Phone: (317)494-6054 hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet) {purdue,pur-ee}!l.cc!hrubin(UUCP) ------------------------------ Date: 21 Nov 90 18:42:32 GMT From: aramis.rutgers.edu!gauss.rutgers.edu!math.rutgers.edu!cromar@rutgers.edu (Scott Cromar) Subject: Re: Congrats to Ted Molczan In article <15754@venera.isi.edu> rogers@wlf.isi.edu (Craig Milo Rogers) writes: ; In article <4213@otis.oakhill.UUCP> charlie@oakhill.UUCP (Charlie Thompson) writes: ; >I picked up a copy of the Washington Post today and noticed ; >that fellow satellite chaser Ted Molczan made the 'Around the Nation' ; ... ; ; I noticed a similar article in the Los Angeles Times. It was ; attributed to United Press International. Do you suppose UPI treats ; the Usenet as an incoming newsfeed? ; ; Craig Milo Rogers CNN also mentioned this during their coverage of the shuttle landing. -Scott Cromar cromar@math.rutgers.edu ------------------------------ Date: 21 Nov 90 19:40:55 GMT From: usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars!baalke@apple.com (Ron Baalke) Subject: Re: Magellan Update - 11/12/90 In article <44.274782AD@ijcr.fidonet.org> Darin.Arrick@ijcr.fidonet.org (Darin Arrick) writes: > > You mentioned that Congress must approve Magellan's extended mission. >Why is this? > Congress has to allocate the funds to support 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: 21 Nov 90 19:51:04 GMT From: usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov!baalke@apple.com (Ron Baalke) Subject: Hubble Investigation Report (Forwarded) HUBBLE INVESTIGATION REPORT TO BE RELEASED Dr. Lew Allen, Chairman, Hubble Space Telescope Optical Systems Board of Investigation, will brief the press on the board's findings at 2:30 p.m. EST, Tuesday, Nov. 27, 1990, at the NASA Headquarters sixth floor auditorium, 400 Maryland Avenue, SW, Washington, D.C. Copies of the board's final report to NASA will be available at the briefing. Also participating with Dr. Allen will be Dr. Lennard Fisk, NASA Associate Administrator for Space Science and Applications, and those members of the The briefing will be carried on NASA Select television, Satcom F2R, transponder 13, 72 degrees West longitude, frequency 3960 MHz, audio 6.8 MHz. ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| | | | | __ \ /| | | | Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |___ Jet Propulsion Lab | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| M/S 301-355 | |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ Pasadena, CA 91109 | ------------------------------ Date: 21 Nov 90 21:36:58 GMT From: usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov!baalke@ucsd.edu (Ron Baalke) Subject: Galileo Update - 11/21/90 GALILEO STATUS REPORT November 21, 1990 The health of the Galileo spacecraft continues to be excellent. Yesterday, Venus data on tape recorder tracks 3 and 1 was successfully returned. Today, the final Venus data playback will occur; track 2 data playback is in process. Also today, the NIMS (Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer) instrument was powered on. Preliminary data indicates NIMS operation is normal. ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| | | | | __ \ /| | | | Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |___ Jet Propulsion Lab | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| M/S 301-355 | |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ Pasadena, CA 91109 | ------------------------------ Date: 22 Nov 90 03:12:35 GMT From: usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!zardoz.cpd.com!dhw68k!ofa123!Wales.Larrison@apple.com (Wales Larrison) Subject: Commercial Shuttle Proposals >I know Rockwell was considering a Commercial Shuttle a while back. >Do you know why they abandoned the idea? With these changes it >sounds like a very viable option. You should write up some white >papers and send them to Congress. I'm not that familiar with the Rockwell shuttle proposal - I've heard of it, but I've never seen any details. Boeing also looked at a similar concept, as did a couple of European financial houses. The most serious proposal I've seen was from Space Transportation Corp a few years back. They had lined up serious funding through Sword Financial (who put together the Alaska pipeline financing). SpaceTran actually submitted a proposal to NASA to buy and operate a Shuttle orbiter - the only group which to my knowledge which did submit a concrete proposal. That proposal floundered on two fundamental grounds - liability and priority. SpaceTran proposed to buy and pay for operation of a shuttle orbiter, reimbursing NASA for use of facilities and components, in exchange for the revenues from commercial users. However, NASA would not give this "commercial" shuttle priority at KSC or even guarantee they would launch this vehicle with any payloads (without uses, no revenues to SpaceTrans...). Similarly, there was no agreement reached where NASA could not terminate use of such a vehicle, or would pay for damages if damaged by NASA-contract launch personnel (termination liability and operational liability). Without some type of liability or priority agreement with NASA, the financing was not made available from the financial markets (no control of cashflow meant no money..). Both of these topics keep coming up as problem areas in commercial space proposals (OSC, ETCo, Leasecraft, ISF/CDSF, SpaceHab, EDO, Boeing's Commercial SSF Logistics, etc.) They end up getting resolved on a case by case basis which is time-consuming, costly, and greatly increases the commercial venture risk. To my mind, the problem was that SpaceTran was only proposing to add 1 orbiter to a NASA-controlled and operated system. To make a commercial shuttle work, you have to turn everything from mission planning and component procurement to flight operations over to a private sector contractor. As Henry Spencer stated in a couple of related messages: HS>The big problem that has hit all attempts at commercializing the HS>shuttle is NASA, which does not want to lose control of the HS>program....[Deleted words] Sure, they see it as their meal-ticket. But similar programs have been transferred to the private sector (including DoD, DoE, HHS, and NASA programs), and in most cases have worked out fine. HS>Well, the obvious reason [why this can't be done] is "because HS>NASA will never give it up"... Which is the same thing that was said about the Delta and Atlas programs. (And was said about Intelsat). It just takes a top-level (Presidential level) policy decision, and support in Congress... As for the white papers - I've already written a couple and circulated them through some folks within the beltway. They've informed me I'm not the only one proposing this... And I understand there may be some interesting discussions regarding this going on with the Augustine Commission. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Wales Larrison Space Technology Investor -- Wales Larrison Internet: Wales.Larrison@ofa123.fidonet.org Compuserve: >internet:Wales.Larrison@ofa123.fidonet.org -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: 22 Nov 90 03:10:02 GMT From: rex!samsung!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!sdd.hp.com!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!zardoz.cpd.com!dhw68k!ofa123!Wales.Larrison@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Wales Larrison) Subject: Future systems - Commercial Shuttle and LRBs >>recurring costs for LRBs are about $5 M per flight, with about a >>$2B development cost. ... They increase performance by anywhere up >>to an added 30-50,000 pounds. At current SRB costs of about $30 >>M per flight (at 8 flt/yr rate), this pays back at 39 flights, or >>between 3 and 5 years of operations. > > This translates to a savings of $25M per flight. After 39 flights >you will save 25M * 39M = 975M. Still less than the 2B development >cost. On the other hand, the Shuttle would lift twice as much so it >may balance out on cost/pound. However, it looks like this does not >factor in the cost of money . Is this correct? Pretty close. I got the 39 flights by assuming a basic system demand, e.g., there is a specific set of things we want to do in space, and to do this we have to take some X pounds into orbit over some number of flights. Then I wrote a set of equations relating the cost to do this project based upon performance (basic shuttle performance assumed at 45,000 lbs) and number of flights - and solved for number of flights for breakeven. For every flight you fly using LRBs, you trade against almost 1.7 flights using SRBs. This means you are trading $5M for 75,000 lbs against $60M for 45,000 lbs. This is what gave the 39 flight number. I didn't crank in cost of money since cost of money analysis is difficult to apply here unless we estimate benefits from system improvements. Cost of money analyses doesn't work unless we assume some benefit from the increased payload performance. [Note; this is a textbook classic case from corporate financial analysis. For example, improvements to a factory must always quantify the benefit of the improvement. If you define benefit/profit only as reduction of cost it puts you into a death spiral - infinite profit when costs are zero... so you maximize return if you don't produce anything!!] To do cost of money analysis we have to put a price tag on the benefit from an improvement to an existing system. For a rough answer, let us assume each payload pound is worth at least some reasonable transportation cost (since someone was willing to pay at least this much to put it into orbit in the first place...). Assuming a 3 year development activity, 30,000 lbs of increased performance, a 10% rate and $3000/lb benefit of performance,this gives us (in $Millions): Year 1 2 3 4 5 6 Development -500 -1000 -500 Usage (@8/yr) +200 +200 +200 Benefit +720 +720 +720 BOY Cum Cost 0 -500 -1550 -2220 -1522 -548 Interest -50 -155 -222 -96 -55 EOY Cum Cost -500 -1550 -2200 -1522 -548 +247 Which is payback at about 24 flights, or about 3 years of operations, 6 years from start). If we reduce the benefit of increased performance, this moves the payback out. If we increase the flight rate or the benefit value, it pays off faster. If we assume no $ benefit from the increased performance, the payback period moves way out (like 20 years) - but that doesn't make sense, does it? Why spend the money if you aren't getting some benefit from the increased performance? ------------------------------------------------------------------ Wales Larrison Space Technology Investor -- Wales Larrison Internet: Wales.Larrison@ofa123.fidonet.org Compuserve: >internet:Wales.Larrison@ofa123.fidonet.org -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: 20 Nov 90 14:36:29 GMT From: sun-barr!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!emory!hubcap!ncrcae!ncrlnk!ncr-mpd!Mike.McManus@apple.com (Mike McManus) Subject: Re: LNLL Inflatable Stations In article <1250@iceman.jcu.oz> eempa@iceman.jcu.oz (M Parigi) writes: > > In article <2732@polari.UUCP>: > In article <9011142140.AA02302@iti.org>, aws@ITI.ORG ("Allen W. Sherzer") writes: > > > > >>In practice the station will need a spun section attached to a despun > > >>section. > > >+As I said, already in there. The airlock is at 0G. > > > > >I would still want to despin the station for EVA which could be > > >fairly often. > > > > And they don't. > > Allen > > climb down the rotating station hanging on to it for dear life, with the > whole universe and earth rotating at 4 times per second above your head, > with an uncomfortable suit on, I certainly wouldn't be in any mood to do > any work! I think if the kevlar shell did get damaged, the only way to get > a human on the outside of the spinning section would be to have it despun! I'd have to agree. Wouldn't the rotating station create an outward force which would tend to push an astronaut away from the outside of the station, as opposed to an outward force toward the shell (artificial gravity) if the astronaut were inside the station? I guess if the astronaut could somehow get there in the first place, and then strap on some kind of support harness to stay in place, it might be workable. Otherwise, trying to hold on to a platform spinning at 4 rps and get useful work done would be impossible! It would be the same problem as trying to do that down here. Also, I haven't heard any details about how to design the required bearings and slip-rings for the 0g center portion of the LLNL station. Is this a solved problem, or does it need a special attention? -- Disclaimer: All spelling and/or grammar in this document are guaranteed to be correct; any exseptions is the is wurk uv intter-net deemuns,. Mike McManus Mike.McManus@FtCollins.NCR.COM, or NCR Microelectronics ncr-mpd!mikemc@ncr-sd.sandiego.ncr.com, or 2001 Danfield Ct. uunet!ncrlnk!ncr-mpd!garage!mikemc Ft. Collins, Colorado (303) 223-5100 Ext. 378 ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V12 #589 *******************