Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson Received: from unix2.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, 25 Mar 91 20:11:07 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: Precedence: junk Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Mon, 25 Mar 91 20:10:52 -0500 (EST) Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #295 SPACE Digest Volume 13 : Issue 295 Today's Topics: Toward 2001 - 18 Mar Re: German conference highlights doubts about ESA's manned space plans Re: Nick's latest statement re: launch costs, and a suggestion about un 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: 16 Mar 91 15:10:21 GMT From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!unix.cis.pitt.edu!pitt!nss!freed@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Bev Freed) Subject: Toward 2001 - 18 Mar *********** TOWARD 2001 *********** Week of 18 March 1991 A Weekly Feature of SPACE CALENDAR + = Domestic (USA) Earth event * = Domestic (USA) space event o = International Earth event # = International space event -------------------------------------------------------------------- REPRINT INFORMATION This information is reproduced by permission of the Space Age Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Copyright March 18, 1991. Reproduction in any form without written permission violates federal statute with penalty of up to $50,000. SPACE CALENDAR is edited and published on the Big `Space' Island of Hawaii. ==================================================================== * * * * * * * + STS 37 Atlantis NASA Kennedy Space Center FL Discovery of hairline cracks in the hinges of the orbiter's fuel line doors will not delay the mission, scheduled for 4 April. Until OV-105 Endeavour makes its maiden flight in 1992, bringing the Shuttle fleet back to its operational minimum of four, NASA is showing exemplary caution. * * * * * * * # Meteosat Program / MOP-2 GeoStationary Orbit Technicians at ESA's Space Operations Center at Darmstadt, Germany, expect the recently launched MOP-2 satellite rocket to become operational by May 1991. ESA will operate the satellite on behalf of Eumetsat. * * * * * * * + Space Travel Services Inc Houston TX Texas may lose the company to a midwestern state where officials are more receptive to their plan to send an individual to the Mir 1 space station. Texas called the offer a lottery last month and closed it down. * * * * * * * o Spar Aerospace Ltd Mississauga, Canada Work on the RadarSat and Space Station programs is mainly responsible for a revenue gain of 44 percent during 1990. The company cleared C$2.7 million on overall revenues of C$336 million. * * * * * * * + International Fusion Research Project Livermore CA A prototype fusion reactor could be built by 2005, according to Alexander Glass, project head of a 15 nation effort to develop fusion energy technology. Nations involved include the USA, the USSR, Japan, India, and the 12 member nations of the European Community. * * * * * * * o India Earth Observation Bangalore Officials at the Indian Space Research Organization report they are using the IRS-1A satellite to keep track of fire and smoke emissions coming from large oil slicks around Basra, Iraq. * * * * * * * + Joust-1 Launch Cape Canaveral AFS FL Scheduled for 29 March at 08:30, the first Joust microgravity launch will carry 10 materials and biotechnology experiments for the Consortium for Materials Development in Space in Huntsville. The one-stage Space Data Corp rocket will provide 13 minutes of microgravity. * * * * * * * + New Shuttle Turbopump Stennis Space Center MS The testing program at NASA Stennis under the Alternate Turbopump Development Program will keep both the B-1 and A-1 test stands busy, according to Earl White, resident manager of the Pratt & Whitney office at Stennis. * * * * * * * + Pacific Telecommunications Council Honolulu HI Just weeks after the largest ever PTC conference, organizers are calling for papers and recommendations for the 1992 conference. The focus of PTC'92 will be "social, political, and economic integration at the national and regional level in the Pacific hemisphere." * * * * * * * + Lunar Footnote (Statistic) 6,668 Days Since Moon last visited by humans. * * * * * * * o International Space Year 1992 (Quote) The most important policy objective of the ISY . . . is to instill a new Space Age frame of reference in the thoughts and actions of governments and individuals." -- The late U S Senator Spark M Matsunaga, Hawaii -------------------------------------------------------------------- ABOUT SPACE CALENDAR Space Calendar provides a weekly preview of upcoming events in the space industry. It is published weekly by the SPACE AGE PUBLISHING COMPANY from offices in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. For a free sample of the printed publication, use the address, telephone, or fax numbers for the Hawaii office listed below. SPACE AGE PUBLISHING COMPANY also publishes SPACE FAX DAILY from its offices in Cupertino California. For information about SPACE FAX DAILY use the address, telephone, or fax numbers for the California office listed below. HAWAII OFFICE: 75-5751 Kuakini Highway, Suite 209, Kailua-Kona HI 96740; 808-326-2014, fax 808-326-1825. CALIFORNIA OFFICE: 20431 Steven Creek Blvd, Cupertino CA 95054; 408-996-9210, fax 408-996-2125. ==================================================================== --- Opus-CBCS 1.14 * Origin: NSS BBS - Ad Astra! (412)366-5208 *HST* (1:129/104.0) -- Bev Freed - via FidoNet node 1:129/104 UUCP: ...!pitt!nss!freed INTERNET: freed@nss.FIDONET.ORG ------------------------------ Date: 12 Mar 91 00:56:00 GMT From: sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!linus!philabs!ttidca!quad1!bohica!mcws!p0.f851.n102.z1.fidonet.org!Kieran.A..Carroll@ucsd.edu (Kieran A. Carroll) Subject: Re: German conference highlights doubts about ESA's manned space plans From: kcarroll@zoo.toronto.edu (Kieran A. Carroll) Path: wciu!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!rutgers!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo!kcarroll Newsgroups: sci.space Subject: Re: German conference highlights doubts about ESA's manned space plans Message-ID: <1991Mar11.165626.25181@zoo.toronto.edu> Date: 11 Mar 91 16:56:26 GMT Nick Szabo szabo@crg5.UUCP write: Subject: Re: German conference highlights doubts about ESA's manned space plans Date: 8 Mar 91 01:53:56 GMT > In article <1991Mar7.172412.17631@zoo.toronto.edu> > henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: > > >Experience so far says very strongly that if you plan to do in-space repairs, > >you had better plan to have humans (or the imaginary just-as-flexible > >teleoperated robots which will be available almost right away now for sure, > >really, trust us) on hand. > > Or, if you prefer not to pay the $1,000,000++/hour cost of an EVA, you > could make sure it works before you launch it. Nick, to ``make sure'' that a satellite ``works'' before you launch it, you might have to spend anywhere from millions to tens of millions of dollars, depending on the complexity of the spacecraft. What level of reliability do you want to design into the satellite, and verify via ground testing? 99%? Or three nines? Or four? Do you want dual-string redundancy? Or are you going to make your designers hate you forever, and insist on triple-string? All those satellites that we've seen fail on orbit, including the ones that the Shuttle was sent up to repair, were designed by people who tried to ``make sure that it works'' befoire launch. Many of the people involved in design of these are very smart, and very conscientious, probably more so than you and I. Satellites don't typically fail because of sloppy design or construction. They fail because >nobody< can imagine beforehand >all< the things that might go wrong with a complicated, custom-built device. My view is the cost of using spacecraft could be made cheaper if moderately-priced on-orbit check-out and servicing facilities were available to be rented out. That way, a great deal of the expense in designing spacecraft could be eliminated (``the NASA way'' of design wouldn't have toof the expenses of ground-testing the beasts. However, this assumes that you have >people< in orbit to do the testing and repair --- because the things that will go wrong with your satellite will be exactly those that you didn't anticipate, and so you won't have built your teleoperated robot to handle that unexpected contingency, and so the robot won't be able to effect the repair. -- Kieran A. Carroll @ U of Toronto Aerospace Institute uunet!attcan!utzoo!kcarroll kcarroll@zoo.toronto.edu -- : Kieran A. Carroll - via FidoNet node 1:102/851 (818)352-2993 : ARPA/INTERNET: Kieran.A..Carroll@p0.f851.n102.z1.fidonet.org : UUCP: ...!{elroy!bohica,elroy!wciu,cit-vax!wciu}!mcws!851.0!Kieran.A..Carroll : Compu$erve: >internet:Kieran.A..Carroll@p0.f851.n102.z1.fidonet.org ------------------------------ Date: 14 Mar 91 04:22:00 GMT From: agate!linus!philabs!ttidca!quad1!bohica!mcws!p0.f851.n102.z1.fidonet.org!Fraering.Philip@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Fraering Philip) Subject: Re: Nick's latest statement re: launch costs, and a suggestion about un From: dlbres10@pc.usl.edu (Fraering Philip) Path: wciu!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!rex!rouge!pc.usl.edu!dlbres10 Newsgroups: sci.space Subject: Re: Nick's latest statement re: launch costs, and a suggestion about un Message-ID: <26964@rouge.usl.edu> Date: 13 Mar 91 20:22:37 GMT [First, I would like to apologize to those of you who are seeing this article twice; in the first draft, I had offered to try to put Nick in touch with a prominent spacecraft engineer so he could put across his side of the story. However, I should have realized that the engineer in question probrably has better things to do than that, and besides, the arguments already exist on paper. Nick has only to go to his nearest college library and look them up. Henry Spencer's suggestions were good. I would like to suggest two more: _Mechanics_ by Symon and _Mechanics_ by Fowles. After all, a little physics background could help a lot. I thought about omitting Symon, but maybe you deserve to struggle through an ambiguous text, or maybe not :-) ] In article <21317@crg5.UUCP> szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes: >Essentially, space transportation customers want what every other >transportation customer wants (surprise!). Chemical rockets seem >to be only capable of meeting these needs at a rate over >$5,000/lb. >-- >Nick Szabo szabo@sequent.com >"What are the _facts_, and to how many decimal places?" -- RAH Two comments: 1. Okay, I want to see the facts on that assertion about the limiting factor in chemical rocket price, and to several different decimal places. To paraphrase RAH, it's math, or it's opinion. [ Here also was previously an argument I was making about Pegasus. Since I seem to be wrong about it, I won't repeat it.] I would also like to suggest a more rational choice for units for calculating the cost of putting some mass in orbit: instead of dollars per pound, put Canadian dollars per kilogram. Much more rational that way. But wait! It can be reduced further: If we substitute the British Pound for the Canadian dollar, we can renormalize the units totally into the metric system! Because take out a one pound note. Look at it. It has ONE NEWTON! So if you can, give the cost in Newtons/Kilogram, which I think is a unit of acceleration. Phil Fraering dlbres10@pc.usl.edu "Why not furlongs per fortnight?" - many of the Apollo program astronauts. I _think_ they were joking. -- : Fraering Philip - via FidoNet node 1:102/851 (818)352-2993 : ARPA/INTERNET: Fraering.Philip@p0.f851.n102.z1.fidonet.org : UUCP: ...!{elroy!bohica,elroy!wciu,cit-vax!wciu}!mcws!851.0!Fraering.Philip : Compu$erve: >internet:Fraering.Philip@p0.f851.n102.z1.fidonet.org ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V13 #295 *******************