Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson Received: from hogtown.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 ; Sun, 27 Jan 91 02:14:09 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <8bcbqwW00WBwIsbk4h@andrew.cmu.edu> Precedence: junk Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Sun, 27 Jan 91 02:14:04 -0500 (EST) Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #079 SPACE Digest Volume 13 : Issue 79 Today's Topics: NASA Headline News for 01/24/91 (Forwarded) Re: Fred (was Re: Firm Fred Decisions) Why man rate? (was: space news from Dec 17 AW&ST) Magellan Update - 01/21/91 Re: 2 dimensional objects Gamma Ray Observatory science briefing and spacecraft showing scheduled at KSC on Jan. 29 (Forwarded) Administrivia: Submissions to the SPACE Digest/sci.space should be mailed to space+@andrew.cmu.edu. Other mail, esp. [un]subscription requests, should be sent to space-request+@andrew.cmu.edu, or, if urgent, to tm2b+@andrew.cmu.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 Jan 91 18:55:01 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: NASA Headline News for 01/24/91 (Forwarded) Headline News Internal Communications Branch (P-2) NASA Headquarters Thursday, January 24, 1991 Audio Service: 202 / 755-1788 This is NASA Headline News for Thursday, January 24, 1991 Kennedy Space Center processing crews continue on schedule with their refurbishment and preparatory work on Discovery, Atlantis and Columbia. Discovery's auxiliary power units have been leak tested and all functional checks have been completed. Work to be completed, through the remainder of the week, includes final payload bay door closure and preparations for the orbiter's roll over to the Vehicle Assembly Building. In the VAB, the right forward center segment of the solid rocket booster stack was mated yesterday. The right forward segment and frustum remain to be stacked. On Atlantis, work to install the remote manipulator system has been completed. Remaining tasks expected to be accomplished this week include water and waste system servicing, installation of windows 1 and 6 in the crew cabin, and main engine preparations in anticipation of the main engine flight readiness test, scheduled for this weekend. Work on Columbia continues to be limited to that which can be done while the vehicle remains in the VAB. This includes tile work, S-band antenna troubleshooting, and landing gear door thermal protection installation. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Magellan spacecraft and its imaging radar continue to perform well in orbit about Venus. Jet Propulsion Laboratory spacecraft controllers report that telemetry from Magellan's reaction wheels indicates brief periods of momentum buildup near the alarm limits. Corrective commands were to be sent up yesterday. There have been 118 days of radar mapping since the mapping mission began 131 days ago. Forty-seven percent of the surface of Venus has been mapped by Magellan's radar, to date. Ninety-eight percent of the data from those radar orbits has been successfully received at JPL and has been or is being processed. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Kennedy Space Center will host a science briefing and photo opportunity for the Gamma Ray Observatory on Tuesday, Jan. 29, at 10 a.m. EST. Participating in the briefing will be: Thomas P. Breakfield, KSC payload operations director; John R. Hraster, GRO project manager, and Dr. Donald A. Kniffen, GRO project scientist, both from the Goddard Space Flight Center. Members of the STS-37 flight crew will also participate. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * NASA's Educational Affairs Division will present an educational video conference on Tuesday, Jan. 29, to announce and discuss the student results from the tomato- seeds-in-space experiment. Budding student scientists throughout the nation planted gardens last spring and summer to experiment with tomato seeds, which had been on board the Long Duration Exposure Facility for nearly six years as part of the Space Exposed Experiment Developed for Students (SEEDS). Dr. Jim Alston, Park Seed Company director of research, will review the SEEDS project and describe the results of his research. Park provided the seeds and managed the subsequent distribution of space-seeds and ground-control-seeds to the nation's schools. Ken Selee, a teacher from Turlock, Calif., will give a teacher's perspective on the SEEDS activity. Dr. Kenneth Wiggins, Director of the Aerospace Education Services Program, Oklahoma State University, will present the preliminary findings summarized from data submitted by the student participants. More than 30,000 educators in 50 states are expected to participate in this broadcast. These one-and-a-half-hour, interactive video conferences bring teachers up to date on NASA programs, demonstrate aerospace activities for the classroom, and announce new programs, products and activities available to classroom teachers. The Jan. 29 conference -- the third in a series of four -- will be transmitted on Westar IV, channel 19, from 2:30 to 4:00 p.m. EST. Here's the broadcast schedule for Public Affairs events on NASA Select TV. All times are Eastern. **indicates a live program. Thursday, 1/24/91 1:00 pm NASA Update will be transmitted. 1:30 pm "Living Well in Space" production. Tuesday, 1/29/91 10:00 am **Gamma Ray Observatory science briefing with Goddard project manager and scientist from Kennedy Space Center. 12:00 pm NASA Production will be transmitted. All events and times may change without notice. This report is filed daily, Monday through Friday, at 12:00 pm, EST. It is a service of Internal Communications Branch at NASA Headquarters. Contact: CREDMOND on NASAmail or at 202/453-8425. NASA Select TV: Satcom F2R, Transponder 13, C-Band, 72 degrees West Longitude, Audio 6.8, Frequency 3960 MHz. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jan 91 22:03:48 GMT From: mojo!SYSMGR%KING.ENG.UMD.EDU@mimsy.umd.edu (Doug Mohney) Subject: Re: Fred (was Re: Firm Fred Decisions) In article <1991Jan24.152726.12117@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov>, lvron@earth.lerc.nasa.gov (Ronald E. Graham) writes: >By the way, if you folks in this group were calling Space Station Freedom >"Fred" before, does that mean we have to call it "Ed" now? Just asking. We could call it Mr. Ed, and have someone named Wilbur in charge of the program.... Doug Mohney, Operations Manager, CAD Lab/ME, Univ. of Maryland College Park * Ray Kaplan was right * ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Jan 91 19:25:59 -0500 From: "Allen W. Sherzer" Subject: Why man rate? (was: space news from Dec 17 AW&ST) Newsgroups: sci.space Cc: In article <1991Jan24.170524.4957@freedom.msfc.nasa.gov>: >>>I also don't think it would cost that much to man-rate one of the more >>>reliable, smaller launchers such as the Delta, >>It shouldn't cost anything more. >It would cost substantially more. First of all, you'd have to develop >a capsule, with attendent redundant flight controls, life support, >heat shields, adaptors and fairings, etc. We use Soyuz. We mount it on a Delta for 20% the cost of a Shuttle flight. We could also put it (and 50K to 100K pounds extra payload) on a Delta or Titan derived HLV for half the cost of a Shuttle flight. >The costs just go on and on. That's the problem. We double the cost of everything to get 0.01% more safety out of it. It's just not worth it. >I just got out some Martin Marietta literature on the Delta. In it they >advertise a launch success rate of 93.9%. You need to look deeper since Martin makes the Titan not the Delta. They will fudge the figures to make Titan look better. In the entire 30 year history of the Delta this is an accurate figure. However, their success rate over the last 13 years is 98.33%. Independant estimates of Shuttle success rates put it at about 95% and it's operational record so far is about 96.66%. Now if you where going into orbit would you rather fly on the launcher with a 98.3% record or a 96.6% record? If the less safe one costs five times as much, how would that affect your decision? >Although it's hard to quantify due to the small sample >size, the Shuttle over several hundred flights should do substantially >better than that (if that many flights were made), and I daresay that if it >didn't, it would be canned pronto. Don't look now but the Shuttle *IS* being canned. > It's just that you >can't ask it to do something that it was never intended to do. If you >don't believe me, ask some of the folks who worked on man-rating the >Atlas back in the '60s.) There is no need to ask them. We HAVE sent people up on Delta's. Funny how they managed to make it do something it was never intended to do :-). >>This calls into question the entire 'man rating' process. Why add all that >>expense when it doesn't add to safety? >Because it does. Not from what I can see. The Shuttle is at best no safer than the non-man rated alternatives and at worse a little less safe. What figures do you have which indicate otherwise? BTW, on January third Norm Augustine made the exact same point in a Congressional hearing. As you know his committee advocates building a heavy lift vehicle. One member asked him about man-rating this new launcher. He pointed out that may not be needed because of the safety of the hardware. It turns out that the system MUST be safe enough for people because the payloads are worth far far more than the crew. If it wasn't safe, nobody would fly their payloads on it. Allen -- +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Allen W. Sherzer | America does best when it accepts a challenging mission. | | aws@iti.org | We invent well under pressure. Conversely, we stagnate | | | when caution prevails. -- Buzz Aldrin | ------------------------------ Date: 21 Jan 91 19:27:43 GMT From: elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov!baalke@lll-winken.llnl.gov (Ron Baalke) Subject: Magellan Update - 01/21/91 MAGELLAN STATUS REPORT January 21, 1991 The Magellan spacecraft and its radar system continue to perform nominally. All of the STARCALS (star calibrations) and DESATS (desaturations) of the past weekend were successful with few star rejects. Fluctuations in the downlink signal margin caused mission controllers to alert the telecommunications experts on the Spacecraft team. It was suspected to be a DSN (Deep Space Network) station problem, not a problem with TWTA-B (high power transmitter B), but is still being studied. The DSN complexes experienced a variety of communications problems during the weekend, some of which delayed the lockup with the spacecraft signal and resulted in data losses ranging from a few minutes to fifteen minutes, with a total estimated at 47 minutes. ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| | | | | __ \ /| | | | Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |___ Jet Propulsion Lab | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| M/S 301-355 | |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ Pasadena, CA 91109 | ------------------------------ Date: 21 Jan 91 10:32:42 GMT From: hplred!myers@hplabs.hpl.hp.com (Tom R. Myers) Subject: Re: 2 dimensional objects > 2 dimensional objects (beings?) without any height? WHAT? Is this > plausible in a 4 dimensional universe? Sounds like the script writers have "borrowed" the plot of the book, "Flatland" (I forget the author). Good Reading. TRM ------------------------------ Date: 23 Jan 91 20:41:22 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: Gamma Ray Observatory science briefing and spacecraft showing scheduled at KSC on Jan. 29 (Forwarded) Mike Braukus Jan. 23, 1991 NASA Headquarters 202/453-1549 Randee Exler Goddard Space Flight Center 301/286-6256 George Diller Kennedy Space Center 407/867-2468 KSC Release No. 11-91 GAMMA RAY OBSERVATORY SCIENCE BRIEFING AND SPACECRAFT SHOWING SCHEDULED AT KSC ON JAN. 29 The Gamma Ray Observatory (GRO), which is scheduled to be launched aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis in April, will be the subject of a science briefing and a showing of the observatory to be held at KSC on Tuesday, Jan. 29, at 10 a.m. EST. The Gamma Ray Observatory follows the Hubble Space Telescope as the second in NASA's "Great Observatory" series of astrophysics observatories. GRO's four scientific instruments are designed to study gamma ray sources in the universe. GRO will be the heaviest NASA low earth-orbiting satellite ever deployed from the Space Shuttle, weighing nearly 35,000 pounds. Participating in the briefing will be: Thomas P. Breakfield, Director of Payload Operations, Kennedy Space Center John R. Hraster, GRO Project Manager, Goddard Space Flight Center Dr. Donald A. Kniffen, GRO Project Scientist, Goddard Space Flight Center Also participating on the panel and present at the showing of the Gamma Ray Observatory will be the members of the STS-37 flight crew. The astronauts flying aboard Atlantis for this mission are Steven R. Nagel, Commander; Kenneth D. Cameron, Pilot; and Mission Specialists Jay Apt, Linda M. Godwin, and Jerry L. Ross. The briefing will be carried on NASA Select, Satcom F2R, Transponder 13. The V-2 circuits will also carry audio of the briefing and may be dialed directly by calling Area Code 407/867-1220...1240...1260. At the conclusion of the briefing to be held at the KSC News Center, media will be provided transportation to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility (PHSF) for the GRO/astronaut photo opportunity. Electronic flash is permitted, however, all lighting equipment must be self contained and battery powered. High pressure sodium (orange) is the available light used in the facility. Appropriate clean room attire will be furnished. In order to maintain payload cleanliness standards, leather or vinyl cases are not permitted within the clean room. Special plastic bags will be furnished to carry camera accessories. Flat, closed-toe shoes are required to be worn; no sandles or high heels. No flame producing devices or tobacco products may be taken into the facility. Media needing accreditation should contact the KSC News Center at 407/867-2468 to arrange for badging. Foreign press not possessing U.S. citizenship must arrange for their accreditation no later than 10 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 28, to allow 24 hours for processing. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V13 #079 *******************