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 ; Thu, 11 Apr 91 02:12:16 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Precedence: junk Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Thu, 11 Apr 91 02:12:10 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #393 SPACE Digest Volume 13 : Issue 393 Today's Topics: Re: back-up crews SPACE Digest V13 #384 Re: comsat cancellations and lawsuits Magellan Status for 04/10/91 (Forwarded) Re: Space Stations, Money, Startrek Re: Laser launchers Re: "Face" on Mars Re: comsat cancellations and lawsuits Re: comsat cancellations and lawsuits Re: Underground Nuclear Test in Nevada compressed air launcher Re: comsat cancellations and lawsuits 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: 10 Apr 91 15:24:17 GMT From: pa.dec.com!shlump.nac.dec.com!ryn.mro4.dec.com!troa01.enet.dec.com!sklein@decwrl.dec.com (Susan Klein) Subject: Re: back-up crews In article <8025@eos.arc.nasa.gov>, brody@eos.arc.nasa.gov (Adam R. Brody) writes... >Since they abolished back-up crews since STS 4, what is the plan if >someone gets sick or for some reason cannont make the flight? How long >before the flight do the crew go into quarantine to prevent catching >someone's cold or the flu? During the STS 36 in February/March 1990, Commander John Creighton had a cold and the launch was delayed to allow him to recover. The launch was also delayed for other reasons, such that when he flew, he no longer was suffering. There was no mention of replacing him. However, on STS 33 in November 1989, Pilot John Blaha replaced David Griggs, who was killed in June 1989. Blaha had recently returned from a space mission as Pilot and was available. This situation has reoccurred. On STS 42 scheduled for January 1992, an astronaut will be required to replace Manley Carter. He was a mission specialist on board this mission of the Internation Microgravity Mission. He died last Friday in a plane crash in Georgia. Since he is a medical doctor, and other astros listed on the flight are also medical doctors, I would suspect that he would be replaced by an astronaut, who is a doctor, or has a medical background. Anna Fisher comes to mind, she is not currently assigned to a flight and she is a doctor. Since that flight is less than a year away, I expect that NASA will announce a replacement very soon. Susan Klein sklein@troa09.dec.com --or-- ...!decwrl!troa09.dec.com!sklein --or-- sklein%troa09.dec@decwrl.dec.com ------------------------------ ReSent-Message-ID: Resent-Date: Wed, 10 Apr 91 18:14:36 EDT Resent-From: Tommy Mac <18084TM@msu.edu> Resent-To: space+@andrew.cmu.edu Date: Wed, 10 Apr 91 01:56:48 EDT Reply-To: space+%ANDREW.CMU.EDU@msu.edu From: space-request+%ANDREW.CMU.EDU%CARNEGIE.BITNET@msu.edu Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #384 Comments: To: space+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU To: david polito <15432DJP@MSU.BITNET>, Tom McWilliams <18084TM@MSU.BITNET> Subject: Re: Fred on the Moon >Other inconveniences: > Supplies: the energy difference between getting them into low orbit > and getting them to the moon is quite big. > > No 0G. > > Basicaly the startup cost is dozens/hundreds of times that of LEO. > Politics, politics, politics ... Assumption: We are putting things in space for the end result of getting some- thing back, whether it's knowledge, energy, or materials. Assumption: We would eventually like to get back more than we send up. Consider the resources in LEO: Good place for tracking, mapping, etc Good place for energy harvesting (tho GEO or higher would be beter still) Research and processing requiring zero gee. Research on the 'geography', like mag. fields, aurora, etc. Aaaaand, resources on the moon: Good place for telescopes, or anything requiring a stable platform, no air. Energy harvesting opportunities as good as LEO (50% incident, due to sundown) Oxygen, Iron, Silicon, who knows what else, can be gathered there. Just as good for mapping, considering optics technology (and lack of atmos.) Good place for 'catching' small asteroids, possibly comets. Reserach the lunography, seismology, etc. The only thing that LEO seems to offer that the moon doesn't is zero gee. But, don't fret. We'll go through LEO on the way! Everyone can be happy. I suspect that a base in LEO would necessarily follow a base on the moon. I doubt if an LEO base would lead to a moon base. I would even argue that a base on the moon would open up space (assuming someone bothered to do R&D on the processing and export of Lunar materials). (PS- the energy to get to the moon is not that much more than GEO, and we put things there all the time.) Tommy Mac It is easier to defend a planet 18084tm@msu than part of a planet. Acknowledge-To: <18084TM@MSU> ------------------------------ Date: 10 Apr 91 19:26:06 GMT From: agate!bionet!uwm.edu!rpi!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: comsat cancellations and lawsuits In article <9104101840.AA05604@iti.org> aws@ITI.ORG ("Allen W. Sherzer") writes: >>NASA had agreed to launch those birds at a >>specific price, and should have done its best to arrange launches (presumably >>on US launchers) for them at something resembling that price. > >Of course shuttle prices are subsidized so much that that would be >impossible. They charge $150M for a flight which costs them over $500M. Well, if expendables are as cheap as everyone says :-), the shift would actually save them money, so no problem. If not, they spent 2.5 years not flying the shuttle, which would have helped the finances a bit. I suspect that (say) GD would have been overjoyed if NASA had handed them an order for 20 Atlases to cover the ex-shuttle payloads, and there would probably have been some nice bargains to be had... -- And the bean-counter replied, | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology "beans are more important". | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 10 Apr 91 23:15:44 GMT From: usenet@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: Magellan Status for 04/10/91 (Forwarded) MAGELLAN STATUS REPORT April 10, 1991 The Magellan spacecraft and its radar system are performing normally. The star calibrations continue to produce occasional filter rejections of the reference stars, but the attitude updates remain in the acceptable range and the pointing accuracy is very precise. The weekly command sequence was successfully sent to Magellan along with the radar control files and that sequence is now being executed. Today marks the 243rd day since Magellan went into orbit around Venus on August 10, 1990. That means that Venus has turned once on its axis since Magellan arrived and the spacecraft is now back to the point of the first orbit. Mapping started 36 days later, so the first mapping cycle will be complete on May 15. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Apr 91 19:46:41 GMT From: tahoe!jimi!herbert!doug@apple.com (Doug Phillipson ) Subject: Re: Space Stations, Money, Startrek In article <10941@ncar.ucar.edu> steve@groucho.ucar.edu (Steve Emmerson) writes: >In <.6+g+vn@rpi.edu> mvk@aix01.aix.rpi.edu (Michael V. Kent) writes: > >>... The major >>task for Freedom is to learn how to live and work in space. Once we have >>that we can work on expanding the facilities. > >Odd. Don't we (i.e. the human species) already know how to live and >work in space? Haven't humans spent up to a year in space with no >major problems? > >>... Fourth, astronauts will spend about 1.5 hours a day exer- >>cising. One of the things we need to know is what exercise is necessary >>and why. Freedom will help provide that answer. > >Odd. Don't we already know the answer to these questions? (And isn't the >necessary amount of excercise closer to 4 hours per day?) > >Steve Emmerson steve@unidata.ucar.edu ...!ncar!unidata!steve I agree, I thought we spent billions on Skylab to answer these questions! Now lets just get out the after action reports on what we learned from Apollo and Skylab and get on with building a REAL station, not a tonka toy! #include ------------------------------ Date: 9 Apr 91 03:52:26 GMT From: van-bc!rsoft!mindlink!a684@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Nick Janow) Subject: Re: Laser launchers henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: > The loud part I'll agree with, especially when the payload is still at low > altitude. It's manageable. A rocket is kind of noisy too. For a 20 kg payload, you could drop it from a high-altitude plane or give it a boost with a compressed-air launch tube, linear accelerator or whatever. Such an initial boost saves on the amount of propellant mass the laser system has to lift; leave the engine _and_ the propellant mas on the ground. :) This "initial boost" is probably even more worthwhile for larger payloads. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Apr 91 11:29:39 GMT From: swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!ccut!wnoc-tyo-news!astemgw!kuis!rins!will@ucsd.edu (will) Subject: Re: "Face" on Mars In article <4jbg#8#@rpi.edu>, jimcat@itsgw.rpi.edu (Jim Kasprzak) writes: >Are you sure this wasn't just science fiction? yes I am quite sure, and i'd agree with you about the chaiots of gods aspect. In any case thats what they put on. will... ------------------------------ Date: 10 Apr 91 16:31:45 GMT From: agate!bionet!uwm.edu!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: comsat cancellations and lawsuits In article <1991Apr9.153821.12299@pbs.org> pstinson@pbs.org writes: >> A curious assertion. NASA *is* the government, being a government agency. >NASA, like the Smithsonian Institution are in a murky gray area. They are sort >of connected with the government, but neither are of cabinet level. What difference does it make whether they're at cabinet level??? NASA is an "independent agency", not under any cabinet-level department, but it is most assuredly part of the government. Its budget and much of its management is from Congress, its employees are civil servants, they take orders from the White House, etc. etc. You can't get much more government than that. -- And the bean-counter replied, | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology "beans are more important". | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 10 Apr 91 13:55:49 GMT From: swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uu.psi.com!pbs.org!pstinson@ucsd.edu Subject: Re: comsat cancellations and lawsuits In article <1991Apr9.234822.25971@zoo.toronto.edu>, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: > In article <1991Apr9.154154.12301@pbs.org> pstinson@pbs.org writes: >>> As I said in my original posting: there was ample cause to *renegotiate* >>> the shuttle launch contracts, perhaps shifting them to expendables... >> >>How can you *renegotiate* a shuttle launch contract to launch something the >>shuttle is now *prohibited* from launching? > > Please read what I wrote. You renegotiate a *launch* contract to go up > on something else, of course, like the expendables that NASA still had > in (admittedly limited) inventory at the time and could have bought more > of. The birds that got bumped were precisely the ones that *could* fly > on other launchers. > And they DID fly on another launcher named Ariane after Hughes made arrangements with ArianeSpace. Then sometime AFTER the satellites were in orbit Hughes decided they had paid the French more than they wanted to. Why should NASA have to renegotiate a contract to launch something the French aerospace company had already orbited? By the way, there is a satellite rescue mission coming up next year sometime. Do you happen to recall, Henry, who owns this satellite? I certainly hope it isn't a Hughes bird. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Apr 91 12:34:08 GMT From: agate!bionet!uwm.edu!rpi!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!news-server.ecf!ecf!murty@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (MURTY Hema Sandhyarani) Subject: Re: Underground Nuclear Test in Nevada In article <1991Apr8.153608.26946@welch.jhu.edu> jimh@welchlab.welch.jhu.edu (Jim Hoffman) writes: >>In article <1991Apr5.143519.25044@ecf.utoronto.ca> murty@ecf.toronto.edu (MURTY Hema Sandhyarani) writes: >>> >>> Yesterday there was another underground nuclear test in >>> Nevada. Why are we allowing this to continue? >>> >>> I am sure that if all the readers of sci.space got >>> together and denounces such tests by countries of >>> the world, they would have to stop. >>> >> >This is, in my opinion, a very serious science problem. Science has given >the military the ability for mass destruction on a global level and the >military needs to know if they are doing something that is self destructive like >the ever increasing environmental problems. In fact, if there is something >that ALL scientist of ALL types could come together over, the environment >would win my vote! We can't live without a sound ecology. > >Jim > This is the first comment that actually understood what I was getting at in my original post. Thank you, Jim. Hema Murty murty@ecf.toronto.edu ------------------------------ Date: 10 Apr 91 17:38:43 GMT From: agate!stanford.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!spool.mu.edu!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!rex!rouge!pc.usl.edu!dlbres10@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Fraering Philip) Subject: compressed air launcher --text follows this line-- George William Herbert, Joat extroardinaire (what's a Joat?), wrote: >The japanese proposal was to use a compressed-gas cannon to loft a H-2 >rocket at transonic speeds. NASDA was last heard complaining about safety of >fueling such a vehicle in the gun's barrel... >-george william herbert >gwh@ocf.berkeley.edu Everything suddenly becomes clear; why go through so much effort for so little increace, etc... It's not meant for NASDA. It's for ISAS. They've finally figured out a way around the limitations NASDA put in to keep space science in Japan on the back burner by restricting them to Scout-size rockets... For anyone who doesn't know, ISAS is limited in the rockets they can use, even though NASDA's boosters are licensed American technology (except for the H-1 upper stage and the H-2) at least in part, and part of the licensing agreement says that NASDA isn't to sell launches on these boosters (i.e. the boosters were licensed for reasearch purposes? could someone correct me on this?) But hopefully, the air compressor launcher can get around this; it will allow ISAS to launch more ambitious missions with the boosters it is currently allowed to use by law; the boosters don't have to be fuelled at the bottom of the launch shaft, because ISAS's stuff is all solid fuelled... It all makes good perfect sense right now. All the errors in the above, except what may have been in gwc's quote, are mine, but some of the better parts are probrably due to some advice given by Henry Spencer. Phil Fraering dlbres10@pc.usl.edu "X-rays are a hoax." Lord Kelvin -- Phil Fraering dlbres10@pc.usl.edu "The geomagnetic storm has ended. Activity has returned to generally unsettled conditions." - Cary Oler in a Geomagnetic Storm Update. ------------------------------ Date: 11 Apr 91 02:07:49 GMT From: swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!mvk@ucsd.edu (Michael V. Kent) Subject: Re: comsat cancellations and lawsuits In article <1991Apr9.091742.12288@pbs.org> pstinson@pbs.org writes: >In article , dlbres10@pc.usl.edu (Fraering Philip) writes: >> >> This is really twisted, when you think about it: "Based on past >> wrongs by 'aerospace companies' which may or may not include Hughes > (they do include Hughes) Do you have anything particular in mind, or is this a blind hatred? >various escape clauses came into play. By the way, the suit is against NASA >and not the government even though the decision to bump comsats from the >shuttle originated not with NASA, but the WHITE HOUSE. If Hughes REALLY thinks >it has a gripe, it should have gone after the Government. NASA is just as much >a victim as Hughes. The suit is against NASA because it is with NASA that the contract was signed. The White House did not sign any launch contract. If NASA wants to use that as their defense, they may do so. The legality of it will be decided in court. >> Come on, if the government thinks something wrong has occured, then >> they should fight for their rights, > The government IS fighting and HAS brought charges against some aerospace >firms. In fact the recent cancellation of the A-12 attack bomber is an example >of the government's new get tough policy on overcharging and mismanagement, not >to mention misleading the Secretary of Defense with inaccurate claims about the >atack bomber's state of development. The reason for the A-12's cancellation is unknown at this time, but it has nothing to do with overcharging or mismanagement. The only entity who misled the Secretary of Defense on the issue was the Navy. It seems the new get tough policy is a bit misplaced. Any resemblance of these opinions to any official policies, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. -- Michael Kent mvk@itsgw.rpi.edu McDonnell Douglas Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute St. Louis, Missouri Troy, New York Apple II Forever! ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V13 #393 *******************