Date: Thu, 23 Jul 92 05:00:01 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V15 #025 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Thu, 23 Jul 92 Volume 15 : Issue 025 Today's Topics: 2nd (last) RFD sci.space.planets (2 msgs) Answers to PLANES of the ecliptic question antimatter explosions Antiproton-Boosted Microfission (was: Antimatter ...) ESA Future first man on moon date and time Galileo Update - 07/22/92 Magellan successors? (was Re: Support Lunar Resource Mapper Too!) (5 msgs) Propulsion questions (2 msgs) Testers for Astronomy Lab: NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS!!! U.S. Black Programs UFO-pic from Phobos2-probe posted ! Visual acuity (2 msgs) Visual acuity in microgravity Whales Whales and dolphins Welcome to the Space Digest!! Please send your messages to "space@isu.isunet.edu", and (un)subscription requests of the form "Subscribe Space " to one of these addresses: listserv@uga (BITNET), rice::boyle (SPAN/NSInet), utadnx::utspan::rice::boyle (THENET), or space-REQUEST@isu.isunet.edu (Internet). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 Jul 92 15:13:05 GMT From: "Richard H. Miller" Subject: 2nd (last) RFD sci.space.planets Newsgroups: sci.space,news.groups,sci.astro In article <1992Jul21.222548.23205@ucsu.Colorado.EDU>, knapp@spot.Colorado.EDU (David Knapp) writes: > > One thing that almost all posters ignored was that one of my main > reasons for suggesting a new group would be to *stimulate* planetological > discussion, not solely to move traffic around. Cross posting is always > (unfortuntely) an option. Right now, wading through a bunch of > vague subject lines in sci.astro that may or may not have interesting > planetary contexts is time consuming and unenlightening. With a group > devoted just to planetary issues, we could all just read that group! This is never a good reason for forming a group. The presence of a newsgroup will almost never generate discussion. In general, newsgroups follow rather than lead topics. If you want to stimulate the discussion, the normal was is to either 1) Start topics threads in existing news groups and when you have enough traffic. spawn your new newsgroup off. 2) Start a mailing list; When you have enough people [around 100] then you can form a news group. The idea that a newsgroup will generate posting has resulted in several low usage news groups such as comp.edu.composition,comp.internet.library, comp.lang.idl-pvwave,comp.lang.sigplan,comp.org.issnnet and sci.comp-aided. Let's not create another one -- Richard H. Miller Email: rick@bcm.tmc.edu Asst. Dir. for Technical Support Voice: (713)798-3532 Baylor College of Medicine US Mail: One Baylor Plaza, 302H Houston, Texas 77030 ------------------------------ Date: 22 Jul 92 15:36:02 GMT From: Ilana Stern Subject: 2nd (last) RFD sci.space.planets Newsgroups: sci.space,news.groups,sci.astro I would just like to point out that David Knapp appears to have either gotten me confused with someone else (partially) or mis-edited an article I followed up, as he has credited me with a few words I did not write. His quotes of my email and articles are basically correct, except I did not say: >"...I agreed to withdraw my objection >if (1) an effort be made to allow access by non-Usenet people (comparable to >SPACE Digest), and (2) Earth be excluded from discussions involving politically >hot topics like ozone depletion and global warming, not because these topics >are unworthy, but so this won't become yet another fiery political group." He has correctly stated my basic position (that I would only support sci.space.planets if it would not duplicate sci.geo.meteorology). -- /\ Ilana Stern DoD#009 | Whoever first said, "Things are seldom as they \_][ ilana@ncar.ucar.edu | seem," was wrong. Things are usually as they \_______________________| seem. Otherwise, they wouldn't seem that way. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 10:01:58 GMT From: Hartmut Frommert Subject: Answers to PLANES of the ecliptic question Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro I wrote: >The galactic North Pole is at > >L=0.018 B=-29.81 degrees in Solar System Main Plain coord's. >[ calculated from > Solar System North P: R.A.= 18 h 00 m = 270.00 deg, Dec = + 66.55 deg > Galactic North Pole: R.A.= 0 h 49 m = 12.25 deg, Dec = - 27.40 deg ] I took J2000 coord's if I rem' right (now I took from my 1986 MS thesis). >This implies an *inclination* of >i_g = 119.81 degrees >(and a node Omega_g = 90.018 degrees). So the inclination of both axes/ >equators is approx. 60 degree, the direction of rotation is opposite. [..] >----------- >From: Bill Gawne, Space Telescope Science Institute >The galactic north pole (J1950 coordinates) is at >right ascention 12 h 49 m, declination 27 degrees 4 minutes. which is my galactic SOUTH pole to good approximation. Look at the direction of rotation (right hand rule..). [..] Hope this clears. -- Hartmut Frommert, LS Dehnen, Physics, | E-Mail: Univ of Constance, P.O.Box 55 60, | or D-W-7750 Constance, Germany | + SAVE THE WHALES ! BOYCOTT NORWAY ! + Phone: +49-(0)7531-88-3747 | + Whales R intelligent. Whale killers not. + + Whale killing is murder. Eating whales is cannibalism. Eat whale killers. + ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jul 92 16:43:13 BST From: amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk Subject: antimatter explosions According to Dr. Forward, antimatter explosions of small quantities are not a big problem. Anti-matter doesn't make a good bomb because it doesn't really detonate. It blows itself into a cloud that annihilates over too large a space and time to cause damage commenserate with its' energy density. ie, it is a big fizzle. Also, it is fairly clean because there are not lots of heavy nucleotides created. So you get a slow flash with a nasty dose of line of site gammas. The neutrinos flash off into the universe and not much else happens. If you are close enough to get hit by the muons,etc you are probably close enough that the muons were the least of your worries... As to the Kg on the farside: It probably would not be quite the damaging GT explosion you are imagining. It would blow itself and the plant to kingdom come, but it would still be reacting as peices went upwards. Since the moon is surrounded in vacuum, I would guess that a great deal of it would not even annihilate at all, unless it went suborbital. If that were the case, we could follow the bouncing antimatter fragments... ------------------------------ Date: 22 Jul 92 13:05:55 GMT From: Blake Philip Wood Subject: Antiproton-Boosted Microfission (was: Antimatter ...) Newsgroups: sci.space All the postings so far have missed the most realistic application of antimatter to space propulsion: antiproton-boosted microfission. This is being investigated by a number of folks at Penn State, in collaboration with some people at Phillips Lab in Albuquerque. The Penn State lead is R.A. Lewis. The reference I happen to have on hand is from Nuclear Science and Engineering, (109) p.411 (1991). The basic idea is that hitting a U235 or Plutonium nucleus with an antiproton makes it so unstable that you get an average of 16 neutrons out of the resulting fission, as opposed to the usual 2-3. This means that the critical mass which can be completely fissioned is very small. The paper I referenced above discusses using an ICF arrangement to compress a Plutonium pellet, then irradiate it with antiprotons at peak compression. The advantage of this approach is that you can do it with quantities of antimatter which can be produced today in large accelerators. The article above quotes results from another paper which suggests that fissioning one 70mg Plutonium pellet per second in this fashion, each event requiring only 2e8 antiprotons, could yield 5GW of power in a complete propulsion system with a specific mass of only 0.07 kg/kW. -- Blake P. Wood - bpw@ctxsys.lanl.gov (505) 665-6524 Group P-1, MS-E526, LANL, Los Alamos, NM 87545 ------------------------------ Date: 22 Jul 92 14:04:12 GMT From: Matthew DeLuca Subject: ESA Future Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Jul21.192638.5594@eng.umd.edu> sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu writes: >Should look up terms like "in kind" aid. And "cheaper facilities." And >"hypersonic wind tunnels." And other goodies which could be rented at cost. This is probably the best bet for cooperation between Russia and the ESA, but there is going to be a *very* strong domestic lobby for keeping jobs of this nature within the host countries, and not shipping them off to Russia, no matter how much money is saved. If you think U.S. labor interests are bad, you should look at Europe... -- Matthew DeLuca "I'd hire the Dorsai, if I knew their Georgia Institute of Technology P.O. box." Office of Information Technology - Zebediah Carter, Internet: ccoprmd@prism.gatech.edu _The Number of the Beast_ ------------------------------ Date: 22 Jul 92 16:08:38 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: first man on moon date and time Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Jul21.191349.1@mcclb0.med.nyu.edu> meyers@mcclb0.med.nyu.edu writes: >at what time the first man stepped on the moon and when it wass >televised... 2256 EDT 20 July 1969. The TV coverage was live (well, subject to the speed-of-light lag...). -- There is nothing wrong with making | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology mistakes, but... make *new* ones. -D.Sim| henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 23 Jul 92 00:22:13 GMT From: Ron Baalke Subject: Galileo Update - 07/22/92 Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro Forwarded from: PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE JET PROPULSION LABORATORY CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011 GALILEO MISSION STATUS July 22, 1992 The Galileo spacecraft is more than 204 million kilometers (about 127 million miles) from Earth, and some 269 million kilometers from the Sun; its speed in orbit is 20,651 meters per second or 46,194 miles per hour. The spacecraft has flown about 2.13 billion kilometers (1.32 billion miles) since launch. This week Galileo is conducting exploratory activities with the high-gain antenna deployment motors and retracting its rear- view low-gain antenna. On Monday, the flight team sent the mini- sequence for these operations to the spacecraft. Tuesday, the spacecraft turned to a warming attitude (31 degrees off the Sun) and turned on the antenna-deploy motors for less than 2 seconds, and today, Wednesday, the motors are being turned on for another 2 seconds after 24 hours of warming. (The first deploy-motor pulse was done April 29, when the antenna tower region was somewhat cooler). Thursday, July 23, the spacecraft's second low-gain antenna, which pivots down on a long mast from one of the RTG booms, will be driven back up to its stowed position. This action will exert small forces on the spacecraft, which will be measured using the spacecraft gyros. Engineering telemetry for these events will be captured on the spacecraft tape recorder and played back each day. The engineers believe these activities may provide a better under- standing of the antenna situation to support future action. ##### ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| Ron Baalke | baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov | | | | __ \ /| | | | Jet Propulsion Lab | ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |__ M/S 525-3684 Telos | Most of the things you /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | worry about will never |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ | happen. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Jul 92 10:13:20 GMT From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey Subject: Magellan successors? (was Re: Support Lunar Resource Mapper Too!) Newsgroups: sci.space In article , phfrom@nyx.uni-konstanz.de (Hartmut Frommert) writes: > seds%cspar@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov writes: >>Support Lunar Resource Mapper as well [...] >>Do you know that after Mars Observer's mission is over, that we will >>know more about Mars and Venus than about the Moon! That is tragic and >>must be corrected. > On the other hand, that our knowledge on the Moon needs improvement, and, > therefore, LRM, should in *NO* way mislead anybody to think that we know > *ALL* interesting things (or even too much) on Mars and/or Venus. So also a > successor of Magellan, as well as Mars Observer (and LRM) should be taken > into consideration. I asked Dr. Gordon Pettengill this question last year: "Is there a successor to Magellan?" The answer is no. Magellan is giving such a stupefying quantity of radar mapping data that it will take decades to sort it out, and no system giving, say, higher spatial resolution is currently planned. Venus orbiters and landers have given a pretty good view of the planet. I suppose having an orbiter in place to give long-term information about the atmosphere and magnetosphere would be a good idea-- Pioneer Venus Orbiter is about to die. The U.S. program is not ready to build landers, and the Russian program has put the planet on the back burner in favor of long-neglected Mars. A Venus rover would be neat, but a rather tough engineering challenge. Maybe more balloons? Anyway, I think you're going to see a long hiatus in Venus exploration. Flying a Magellan-type mission to Mars or the Moon would be neat, too, but synthetic-aperture radar demands a heavy committment of tracking-network resources. It was the *only* way to get maps of the Venerian surface; since optical methods work well on other bodies, it's much less urgent to try SAR. Titan is an obvious choice, and indeed Cassini-- which will orbit Saturn, but encounter Titan multiple times during its mission-- is intended to carry SAR which will map a handful of narrow strips of Titan as it swoops by. I think Mars Observer and Mars 94 are appropriate, but I'm really unhappy about the lack of priority given to studies of small bodies. CRAF is dead, Vesta doesn't look too healthy, and Rosetta seems awfully far away. Maybe there is hope in the new smaller, faster, allegedly-cheaper probes like SDIO's Clementine or the one APL is supposed to be cooking up for NASA (LEAP, was it?). The Moon definitely needs a going-over with Nineties instrumentation. But you've heard me say that for years-- even *before* I met Dennis Wingo. (-: "Do you know the asteroids, Mr.Kemp?... Bill Higgins Hundreds of thousands of them. All wandering around the Sun in strange Fermilab orbits. Some never named, never charted. The orphans of the Solar higgins@fnal.fnal.gov System, Mr. Kemp." higgins@fnal.bitnet "And you want to become a father." --*Moon Zero Two* SPAN/Hepnet: 43011::HIGGINS ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jul 92 14:55:44 GMT From: Doug Mohney Subject: Magellan successors? (was Re: Support Lunar Resource Mapper Too!) Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Jul22.041320.1@fnala.fnal.gov>, higgins@fnala.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes: >Flying a Magellan-type mission to Mars or the Moon would be neat, too, >but synthetic-aperture radar demands a heavy committment of >tracking-network resources. Why? If you say "due to the large amounts of data sent back from the mission," I got a great come-back for you :-) Previous signature chastized by Canadian Grad Student who flayed the United States as a bully from his bastion of free speech in Pittsburgh, PA. Yes, fact IS stranger that fiction. -- > SYSMGR@CADLAB.ENG.UMD.EDU < -- ------------------------------ Date: 22 Jul 92 15:16:03 GMT From: Martin Connors Subject: Magellan successors? (was Re: Support Lunar Resource Mapper Too!) Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Jul22.041320.1@fnala.fnal.gov> higgins@fnala.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes: > I asked Dr. Gordon Pettengill this question last year: "Is there a > successor to Magellan?" > The answer is no. In a way, there is a successor to Magellan, but not for Venus. It is the Canadian Space Agency's RADARsat, which will do SAR mapping of Earth. The launch is scheduled in 1994. It is not certain, however, that the data will be so widely or freely distributed as that of Magellan, as RADARsat has a profit motive. We may end up in more of a Landsat or SPOT-like situation, where there is great interest in the data but thinking people cannot afford to get them. Martin Connors - Space Research - University of Alberta ------------------------------ Date: 22 Jul 92 15:56:54 GMT From: Martin Connors Subject: Magellan successors? (was Re: Support Lunar Resource Mapper Too!) Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Jul22.151603.23977@kakwa.ucs.ualberta.ca> martin@space.ualberta.ca (Martin Connors) writes: > It is not certain, however, that the data will be so widely or freely > distributed as that of Magellan, as RADARsat has a profit motive. We may > end up in more of a Landsat or SPOT-like situation, where there is great > interest in the data but thinking people cannot afford to get them. I note with interest in the EOS (Jul 7 1992) that arrived just after I posted this, the new US National Landsat Policy Act, which will change how Landsat data is available...to quote from the article: "The Landsat Policy Act repeals provisions concerning commercialization of Landsat data and requires that all data gathered by federal agencies be made available to non-profit organizations at marginal cost, provided the agency that collected the data deems that it will not be used commercially." The comments on RADARsat may still hold though. Even if Canada follows in the US' footsteps in this, RADARsat is actually to be run by a separate corporation... Martin Connors - Space Research - University of Alberta ------------------------------ Date: 23 Jul 92 00:33:29 GMT From: Ron Baalke Subject: Magellan successors? (was Re: Support Lunar Resource Mapper Too!) Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Jul22.041320.1@fnala.fnal.gov>, higgins@fnala.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes... > >I asked Dr. Gordon Pettengill this question last year: "Is there a >successor to Magellan?" The answer is no. Magellan is giving such a >stupefying quantity of radar mapping data that it will take decades to >sort it out, and no system giving, say, higher spatial resolution is >currently planned. The former Soviet Union was planning a Venera mission to Venus around the year 2005, but those plans apparently have been dropped. NASA has no plans for a followup mission to Venus. Because there won't be any more Venus missions for at least 15 to 20 years, this is a good enough reason to keep the Magellan mission going as long as possible, and to not turn off the spacecraft next May which is what is currently planned. >I think Mars Observer and Mars 94 are appropriate, but I'm really >unhappy about the lack of priority given to studies of small bodies. >CRAF is dead, Vesta doesn't look too healthy, and Rosetta seems >awfully far away. Maybe there is hope in the new smaller, faster, >allegedly-cheaper probes like SDIO's Clementine or the one APL is >supposed to be cooking up for NASA (LEAP, was it?). Galileo's flyby of the asteroid Ida has been approved and will occur on August 28, 1993. The proposed NEAR mission has a very high likelyhood of being approved and will be launched in 1998 and arrive at the Nereus asteroid in 2000. ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| Ron Baalke | baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov | | | | __ \ /| | | | Jet Propulsion Lab | ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |__ M/S 525-3684 Telos | Most of the things you /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | worry about will never |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ | happen. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Jul 92 14:37:41 GMT From: James Davis Nicoll Subject: Propulsion questions Newsgroups: sci.space In article <13626@mindlink.bc.ca> Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca (Nick Janow) writes: >ott@astroatc.UUCP (Michael Ott) writes: > >> Just exactly how do you store antimatter? I would think perhaps magnetically >> suspended in a vaccuum, but can "vaccuum-enough" vaccuums be created? > >Sure. Pump out most of the air, then spray in some antimatter to remove the >rest of the air molecules. :-) Which brings up the question of 'how hard a vaccuum is space and how often will molecules impact the antimatter fuel?' Even a block of am in lunar orbit should lose *some* material due to interaction with the solar wind, and such. James Nicoll ------------------------------ Date: 22 Jul 92 16:14:06 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: Propulsion questions Newsgroups: sci.space In article cbeale@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Christopher Beale) writes: >I think there is some research going on somewhere with inertial propulsion. >As it turns out, the old right-hand-rule with spinning disks appears to >exert a minute force without the classical mass expulsion conservation of >momentum deal... I'd be very surprised to see any reputable research being done on such subjects. The slightest hint of a violation of conservation of momentum would be screaming front-page news in physics, and there's been no such news as far as I know. -- There is nothing wrong with making | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology mistakes, but... make *new* ones. -D.Sim| henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 92 22:00:20 GMT From: "Kalle T. Tuulos" Subject: Testers for Astronomy Lab: NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS!!! Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms,comp.windows.ms.programmer,comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,sci.astro,sci.space,sci.edu ebergman@nyx.cs.du.edu (Eric Bergman-Terrell) writes: >*** Beta Testers Needed for Windows 3.X Astronomy Program *** >Name: Kalle T. Tuulos >US Mail Address: Pirttilahteenkatu 37, 20320 Turku, Finland >E-Mail Address: katuulos@utu.fi >Version of MS-Windows: 3.1 >Version of MS-DOS: 5.0 >CPU: 486DX2-50 + SX-12 >Math Coprocessor (not required): - + - >Memory: 8MB + 2MB >Graphics Card: Trident 8900C SVGA 1MB + IBM LCD-VGA >Printer: Panasonic KX-P1124 -- Kalle T. Tuulos katuulos@utu.fi - a physics student from University of Turku, Finland ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jul 92 12:32:38 EST From: PHARABOD@FRCPN11.IN2P3.FR Subject: U.S. Black Programs On 22 Jul 92 07:16:34 GMT Andrew Palfreyman asked: >Please would you indicate the location of this "Antelope Valley" >location? Antelope Valley, California, 34.45 N 118.20 W, next to Edwards A.F.B. J. Pharabod ------------------------------ Date: 22 Jul 92 11:59:17 GMT From: Colby Kraybill Subject: UFO-pic from Phobos2-probe posted ! Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors,sci.space,alt.paranormal,sci.skeptic In article leo@zelator.in-berlin.de (Stefan Hartmann) writes: >Hi, > >I have posted the much discussed UFO-pic from the phobos 2 probe into > >alt.binaries.pictures.misc and alt.alien.visitors newsgroups ! > I am posting a follow up image to this "UFO-pic" that I think many people might find to be interesting. The image is in gif format and will be posted to the same two groups mentioned above. -- Colby Kraybill Space and Planetary Image Facility University of New Mexico ------------------------------ Date: 22 Jul 92 12:41:37 GMT From: John Roberts Subject: Visual acuity Newsgroups: sci.space -From: kjenks@gothamcity.jsc.nasa.gov -Subject: Re: Visual acuity for MS -Date: 21 Jul 92 00:54:06 GMT -Organization: NASA/JSC/GM2, Space Shuttle Program Office -But there's a whole lot more than just the one number to be -considered. Astronauts, like pilots, can't be colorblind. They -have to be able to recognize warning colors. --- Ken "20/200" Jenks, NASA/JSC/GM2, Space Shuttle Program Office - kjenks@gothamcity.jsc.nasa.gov (713) 483-4368 There are many degrees of color blindness ("challengedness"? :-), and very few people are *totally* color blind. Is the restriction against *any* degree of color blindness, or are there intermediate standards? Are the Shuttle warning lights and color displays selected for maximum visibility to partially color blind people (like traffic lights are supposed to be)? There *are* legal standards for color selection in safety signals. John Roberts roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 14:46:06 GMT From: James Davis Nicoll Subject: Visual acuity Newsgroups: sci.space In article <9207221241.AA29196@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov> roberts@CMR.NCSL.NIST.GOV (John Roberts) writes: > >There are many degrees of color blindness ("challengedness"? :-), and very >few people are *totally* color blind. Is the restriction against *any* >degree of color blindness, or are there intermediate standards? > >Are the Shuttle warning lights and color displays selected for maximum >visibility to partially color blind people (like traffic lights are supposed >to be)? There *are* legal standards for color selection in safety signals. Hmmm. There are (according to a biologist I know) two possible types of receptors for the colour green in human eyes (Peak reaction is at two different frequencies). I wonder whether the slight difference ever makes a difference in reading displays... James Nicoll ------------------------------ Date: 22 Jul 92 12:07:07 GMT From: John Roberts Subject: Visual acuity in microgravity Newsgroups: sci.space -From: ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) -Subject: Re: Visual acuity for MS -Date: 21 Jul 92 22:49:05 GMT -Organization: Engineering, CONVEX Computer Corp., Richardson, Tx., USA -As a side note, even astronauts with perfect vision (on Earth) -usually wear contact lenses on orbit because the shape of the -eyeball changes when there is no gravity to distort it. A person who follows such things more closely than I do has told me that wearing contacts in space is fairly unusual, because of the trouble handling them in microgravity. One person on STS-50 did wear contacts, and they made a point of showing him cleaning them and putting them in on the video downlink, as though that were something fairly unusual. Many of the astronauts wear glasses while in orbit. There are ongoing tests of changes in visual acuity in microgravity, but I don't know whether anything definitive has been found yet. I think the current theory is that fluid shift may have some influence on the shape of the eyeball, rather than direct gravitational distortion. John Roberts roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 08:33:32 +0000 From: Geir Warhaug Subject: Whales Thanks to John Robert. The whale we now hunt, is treathning to wipe out the Bluewhale. There are more than one side in this case. Geir ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jul 92 16:33:08 BST From: amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk Subject: Whales and dolphins The social structure of dolphins is among the most complex on Earth, right up there with Homo Sapiens and Pan. Dolphins form small cooperative groups that will sometimes form coalitions with other cooperative groups. What is interesting is that they may be the only other species that understands the double-cross in the Machiavellian sense. They will work with a group until it becomes in their interest to work with yet another group against the first group. This is often used by groups of males to kidnap (forcefully) and rape female porpoises, and by female groups to attempt to prevent same. So much for the peaceful, lovable porpoises... But they definitely are far, far up the scale of social evolution. ------------------------------ End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 025 ------------------------------