Date: Fri, 4 Dec 92 09:58:40 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V15 #504 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Fri, 4 Dec 92 Volume 15 : Issue 504 Today's Topics: DC-X status? HST black hole pix *or* Hubble Hype? (Was: HST black hole pix) NASA employement outlook NASA has 5 hand grenades still on the moon from Apollo missions (2 msgs) physiology in zero-G Pop in space Rush Limbaugh says ... Rush Limbaugh says problems with HST are a DoD hoax! (2 msgs) Saturn V fates shuttle downtime Shuttle replacement (2 msgs) Space probe to pass Earth Terminal Velocity of DCX? (was Re: Shuttle ...) (2 msgs) Voyager's "message"... What did it *say*?!? 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: 4 Dec 92 03:28:13 GMT From: "Michael V. Kent" Subject: DC-X status? Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Dec3.004254.4380@nuchat.sccsi.com> rkolker@nuchat.sccsi.com (Rich Kolker) writes: >TJ told me flight >test should begin in late March/early April. According to Bill Gaubatz, program manager for SSTO, DC-X is on schedule for an 8:00 am launch on 23 April 1993. Mike -- Michael Kent kentm@rpi.edu Flight Test Engineer Tute-Screwed Aero '92 McDonnell Douglas Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute These views are solely those of the author. Apple II Forever !! ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 92 02:17:13 GMT From: Gerry Santoro - CAC/PSU Subject: HST black hole pix *or* Hubble Hype? (Was: HST black hole pix) Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro Is this image available on any ftp site in GIF form? It would make an excellent startup screen on my mac. Ranking right up there with the Gaspra image from Galileo. My congratulations to the HST team for a most *excellent* picture -- whatever it is. gerry santoro academic computing/speech communication penn state university ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 04 Dec 92 11:13:42 GMT From: EAIESEC2%BMSUEM11.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU Subject: NASA employement outlook Is there everyone who knows the conditions under which a belgian aeronautic engineer can aplicate to NASA ? What jobs can he involve? Thanks in advance for him Christofer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * AIESEC WAROCQUE MONS (BELGIUM) * EARN/BITNET : EAIESEC2 AT BMSUEM11 * * * INTERNET : EAIESEC2 AT vm1.umh.ac.be * * Joel CROQUET * * * Christofer DUMONT * * ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Dec 1992 23:38:40 GMT From: Dillon Pyron Subject: NASA has 5 hand grenades still on the moon from Apollo missions Newsgroups: sci.space In article , pgf@srl03.cacs.usl.edu ("Phil G. Fraering") writes: >In article <1992Dec1.213904.2097@sunspot.noao.edu>, >bbbehr@sunspot.noao.edu (Bradford B. Behr) writes: >> In article <1992Dec1.152624.3587@pixel.kodak.com> >dj@ekcolor.ssd.kodak.com (Dave Jones) wrote: >>>Wasn't there an Urban Legend to the effect that Armstrong & Co. were >>>issued .45 automatics just in case? >> >> Just in case of bug-eyed moon monsters or giant mutant space goats or >> secret Nazi bases? Not likely. It is quite possible that they had >> sidearms in the command module in case they splashed/crashed down in >> the wilderness somewhere and had to hunt for food or defend themselves >> from ravenous but terran beasts. >> >\Ordinary firearms wouldn't work in a vacuum anyhow. >/The gunpowder couldn't burn. The same might be true at high >\altitudes on the Earth's surface, as I've heard that in a >/particular South American city (I think it was La Paz, Bolivia), >\there's not enough oxygen in the air for them to really require >/a fire department. > >\--KB SET MYTH_DESTRUCT/ON That's odd. We had quite a bonfire at 22000 ft. in Nepal (above base for Cho Oyu). Or is Nepal too backwards to know? And I guess my Glock really didn't go off in 10 ft of water. BTW, muzzle velocity if much higher if the barrel is full of water. Bullet doesn't have to break the surface tension. SET MYTH_DESTRUCTION/OFF > >How did the mortars work, then? Heavy boots to hold down an atmosphere? > >Phil No, silly, they poured liquid air in. Or was it that they were really on a stage in New Mexico?????? > -- Dillon Pyron | The opinions expressed are those of the TI/DSEG Lewisville VAX Support | sender unless otherwise stated. (214)462-3556 (when I'm here) | (214)492-4656 (when I'm home) |"Pacts with the devil are not legally pyron@skndiv.dseg.ti.com |binding!" PADI DM-54909 |-Friar Tuck _Robin Hood:The Hooded Man_ ------------------------------ Date: 2 Dec 92 23:37:13 GMT From: Bob Noble Subject: NASA has 5 hand grenades still on the moon from Apollo missions Newsgroups: sci.space Gunpowders don't use air. (Think about it: there's not enough air in that little brass capsule to make all that hot smoke.) A necessary part of any propellant is the oxidizer in its chemical makeup. Solid rocket boosters (from Estes Industries to the STS-SRBs) don't need air. Many solid rocket fuels are just dilute (slower burning) "gunpowders", anyway. On the other hand, lubricants would probably sublimate (boil off in the vacuum) in space, and exposed metal parts of conventional firearms would eventually cold weld as they wear against each other (oxygen keeps this from happening on Earth). In any case, I would not want to be on the wrong end of a firearm on the Moon any more than anywhere else. A bigger problem might be having them go off spontaneously. Daytime temperatures on the Moon may be hot enough to set off some powders. ,,, (o o) -------------oOO--(_)--OOo------------- | Bob Noble | | Hewlett-Packard | | Loveland Div. | | t679-3803 | | fax 303-679-5954 | | noble@hpsmpa.lvld.hp.com | --------------------------------------- ~ ~ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1992 03:12:00 GMT From: Dave Michelson Subject: physiology in zero-G Newsgroups: sci.space In article henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >In article <1floeqINNaat@rave.larc.nasa.gov> sdd@zip.larc.nasa.gov (Steve Derry) writes: >>|> Bear in mind, also, that Gemini flew missions up to 14 days long with no >>|> sanitary facilities at all. They used diapers. >> >>... Mike Collins describes usage of an apparatus >>to measure and sample urinary output... > >Wups, my mistake: what I meant was "no facilities for solid wastes". Urine >disposal they did have, but it wasn't until Apollo that even the stick-on >baggies became available for bowel movements. You're not kidding, Henry. You did make a mistake... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- NASA SP-121 GEMINI MIDPROGRAM CONFERENCE Including Experiment Results Manned Spacecraft Center Houston, Texas Feb. 23-25, 1966 p 68 Food, Water, Waste, and Personal Hygiene System ... Defecation System The defecation system consisted of individual plastic bags with adhesive- lined circular tops. Hygiene tissues were provided in separate dispensers. Each bag contained a disinfectant packet to eliminate bacteria growth. Use of the bags in flight required considerable care and effort. Adequate training and familiarization enabled the crews to use them without incident. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- There is no detailed summary as to who used the bags and when... However, another NASA SP summarizing Gemini EVA results indicates (in a long table) that the defecation bags were carried aboard GT-12, a flight of relatively short duration. I just couldn't imagine the flight surgeon allowing astronauts to sit around in "dirty diapers" for several days anyway... -- Dave Michelson davem@ee.ubc.ca ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 92 00:23:09 GMT From: Michael Ellis Subject: Pop in space Newsgroups: sci.space torh@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Tor Houghton) writes: > > Hi, > > > I have been wondering about something for a long time, and I just got > the idea of posting it here. > > If a blob of, say Coke, was floating weightlessly in space (inside a > spaceship - normal air pressure), would the "fizz bubbles" go from the > centre to all directions? > Maybe it would become and expanding blob of pop as the bubbles form but stay roughly where they formed in the liquid. I don't know for sure, but I'd hazzard a guess that you wouldn't want to open a can of Coke in a weightless enviroment. :) ME ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1992 03:37:40 GMT From: zellner@stsci.edu Subject: Rush Limbaugh says ... Newsgroups: sci.space > The popular American radio personality Rush Limbaugh stated today that > the problems with HSTs mirror are a Department of Defense hoax. He says > that the DoD took over control of the HST program ... I am an astronomer who has worked daily in the Observation Support System of HST Operations since launch. We monitor every operation of HST, and we look at and evaluate every image that comes down. In order to make proper evaluations of what we see we must have some familiarity with every program that is being executed. Two of the programs already executed are my own as scientific Principal Investigator as well as employee in HST Operations. I can assure you that the spherical aberration is in the images exactly as described, and that all of the programs are pure astronomy, nothing at all to do with DoD. > Rush has over 13 million listeners ... I don't think that he would make > such a statment without a reason to believe it is true ... how come nobody > else said anything about this?? There is no law against telling a lie on radio, television, or in the news- papers. That's called freedom of the press. But there ARE laws against calling someone a liar in public. That's called libel or slander. Maybe Mr. Limbaugh should give us a call (410-338-4700). We would be happy to give him a tour and let him watch the data actually come in. Ben ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 92 04:51:18 GMT From: Mary Shafer Subject: Rush Limbaugh says problems with HST are a DoD hoax! Newsgroups: sci.space On 4 Dec 92 01:38:31 GMT, rkornilo@nyx.cs.du.edu (Ryan Korniloff) said: R> The popular American radio personality Rush Limbaugh stated today that the R> problems with HSTs mirror are a Department of Defense hoax. He says that R> the DoD took over control of the HST program so they could study a strange R> radio source that could possibly be another civilization's radio R> emmisions. And that the DoD cooked up the story of the faulted mirror to R> cover up there actions. Not that I know anything specific about this, but how in the world would you use a _light_ telescope to look at _radio_ waves? There's no way that the frequencies of interest could be imaged with a telescope--visible light and radio have vastly different ranges. You can't see radio waves, can you? How would Hubble do so? Yes, I know that Hubble has other, non-visible-light experiments but the reason we all know about them is because they were working so well while the mirror was being checked out. Obviously the military hadn't preempted them, which is another piece of evidence against this theory. R> Rush has over 13 million listeners and has may connections into the goings R> ons of many behind-the-scenes happenings. I don't think that he would make R> such a statment without a reason to believe it is true. Yeah, and I'm Marie of Rumania. Did you know that "gullible" isn't in the dictionary? R> Could some NASA insiders shed some light on this!? I'm a NASA flying qualities engineer, which makes me one kind of insider, but probably not the one you're looking for. Still, I think it's a bunch of hooey. -- Mary Shafer DoD #0362 KotFR NASA Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA shafer@rigel.dfrf.nasa.gov Of course I don't speak for NASA "A MiG at your six is better than no MiG at all." Unknown US fighter pilot ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1992 05:14:15 GMT From: David Knapp Subject: Rush Limbaugh says problems with HST are a DoD hoax! Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Dec4.013831.2563@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> rkornilo@nyx.cs.du.edu (Ryan Korniloff) writes: > > >The popular American radio personality Rush Limbaugh stated today that the >problems with HSTs mirror are a Department of Defense hoax. He says that >the DoD took over control of the HST program so they could study a strange >radio source that could possibly be another civilization's radio >emmisions. And that the DoD cooked up the story of the faulted mirror to >cover up there actions. The Hubble PI in our department will be interested to hear this. He seemed to be thinking that he was doing science with it. >Rush has over 13 million listeners and has may connections into the goings >ons of many behind-the-scenes happenings. I don't think that he would make >such a statment without a reason to believe it is true. Oh, I'll bet he could. >Could some NASA insiders shed some light on this!? This is a rather >radical statement. Not unlike ol' Rush though. >I have followed the developments closely enough to know >that there is a repair mission due next year and an instrument will be >replaced with COSTAR to correct the mirrir flaw. And what about the >investigations into the contractor who made the mirror? Was NASA wsting >it's time!? This can't be and with 13 million listeners how come nobody >else said anything about this?? How many optical telescope designs do you know that double as radio telescope designs? -- David Knapp University of Colorado, Boulder Perpetual Student knapp@spot.colorado.edu ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 92 06:05:09 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: Saturn V fates Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle,sci.space In article <70787@cup.portal.com> BrianT@cup.portal.com (Brian Stuart Thorn) writes: > Finally, I can't imagine that NASA paid to have the Apollo 19 booster > shipped to KSC when they knew that it would never fly. I doubt even > Apollo 18 would have made the barge-ride. Bear in mind that they didn't *know* it would never fly, at the time. That decision wasn't made until the mid-70s, when they decided that the shuttle modifications to KSC would not preserve Saturn compatibility. Until then, there was some possibility that the remaining Saturn Vs might get used for something if funding could be found. According to Stages To Saturn (NASA SP-4206), as of June 1975... SA-513, originally for Apollo 18, had been used to launch Skylab, except that its third stage, unused, was in storage at KSC. The first stages of SA-514 and SA-515 were in storage at Michoud. It appears that neither had ever been to KSC, as of that date. The second stages of SA-514 and SA-515, and the third stage of SA-514, were in storage at KSC. The third stage of SA-515 was at Marshall, having been used to build the backup Skylab. (The primary Skylab was a rebuilt Saturn IB second stage, not a Saturn V part.) (Specifically, it came from SA-212.) The instrument units (guidance sections) of SA-514 and SA-515 were in storage at Marshall. Finally, to add further confusion, bear in mind that the second set of Apollo cancellations scrubbed not Apollos 18 and 19, but Apollos 15 and 19. The Saturn Vs were used in sequence even so, but the Apollo 15 CSM was used for Apollo-Soyuz and the Apollo 15 LM never flew. -- MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s. | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)| henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 92 04:18:54 GMT From: "Michael V. Kent" Subject: shuttle downtime Newsgroups: sci.space In article henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >If you're willing to accept data from other programs as indicative, the USAF >figures that large solid rocket motors generally have a 1-2% failure rate, >which would give a shuttle loss rate of 1 in 25-50 (two SRBs, remember) if >everything else was perfectly reliable. (There is definite evidence that >shuttle landings should not be considered perfectly reliable.) You might >want to discount that some on the grounds of greater redundancy and more >attention given to the shuttle SRBs in particular. Wouldn't Castor IV-A's count as solid rocket boosters? Delta II is 31 for 31, and it uses 9 Castors a launch. That's 279 for 279 on the Castors. Come to think of it, they're even built by the same people who make Shuttle SRBs. Mike -- Michael Kent kentm@rpi.edu Flight Test Engineer Tute-Screwed Aero '92 McDonnell Douglas Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute These views are solely those of the author. Apple II Forever !! ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 92 02:11:01 GMT From: Mary Shafer Subject: Shuttle replacement Newsgroups: sci.space On 4 Dec 92 01:04:38 GMT, hugh@whio.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz (Hugh Emberson) said: [Reference to flight costs of $10 million per hour] Hugh> A ordinary jet fighter doesn't cost that much, but how about a SR-71 Hugh> or a B-2? Both of those planes are fairly radical, the SR-71 needed Hugh> special handling, almost like a space craft. The SR-71 is to be referred to in the present tense, thank you very much. Dryden's entire budget for the last fiscal year was about $100 million and out of that we supported the F-18 HARV, the F-15 HIDEC, three SR-71s, two X-31s, the AFTI/F-16, the NB-52B, two F-16XLs, the X-29, the F-104G, the CV-990, a T-38, and six support F-18s plus simulators for the research aircraft and some others, a water tunnel, a lot of institutional support, and afair amount of research not tied to any of these listed aircraft plus brought a significantly-sized integrated test facility on line. I'd estimate that we flew well over fifteen hundred hours on the various aircraft, including research, chase, and proficiency flights. I'm pretty sure that the SR-71s flew at least 20 hours. So, I'd say they're not all that expensive. (I should mention that we were not the sole support of the X-31s, the AFTI/F-16, and the X-29, though.) Hugh> I wouldn't be surprised if a DC-1's operating costs are within an Hugh> order of magnitude of those of a SR-71 or a B-2. I would be. The SR-71 represents mature technology and it's just not all that expensive to fly. Maybe when DC-1 is 25 years old.... It just occurred to me to wonder how you're going to define operation time. Does time on orbit count? My inclination is to count only time under power. Obviously, including on-orbit time will drive the hourly costs down but on-orbit time isn't very significant in the life cycle costs. (In airliners, for example, it's pressurization _cycles_ that are important, not length of time pressurized.) I went to the DC-X PDR (Preliminary Design Review) and I'm sorry to say that the first thing that popped into my mind when they showed me the mission profile was "Up like a rocket, down like a stick". ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 92 04:12:18 GMT From: "Michael V. Kent" Subject: Shuttle replacement Newsgroups: sci.space In article prb@access.digex.com (Pat) writes: >In article kentm@marcus.its.rpi.edu (Michael V. Kent) writes: >we'll have to wait for the DC-X. DC-X, even if successful, will do nothing to reduce the uniqueness of the Shuttle. It will prove some important concepts for the SSTO program and will hopefully pave the way for a full-scale manned prototype, but it will not replace the Shuttle. What I'm trying to say here is that the SSRT program is doing some get-your- hands-dirty engineering the way it used to be done in this country -- by building X-planes to do the impossible. It desperately needs to be done. But when you have all of your eggs in one basket (like the Shuttle) you don't throw away that basket, even if someone shows you a picture of a real pretty basket meant to replace it. >>>NASA hasn't reduced the cost of access to >>>space in 30 years. >>Maybe not, but it did make it 8 times more reliable and an order of magnitude >>more frequent. Guess you have to walk before you can run. >I dont know, while we went distance x with shuttle, the russians >using their aging protons and those goofy soyuzes went 10X. Oh? That is very much a debatible point. The Russians launch a LOT of rock- ets, which is good if you're a rocket scientist. But what do they accomplish? Their satellites last weeks to months, while ours (Western) last years to decades. They have a space station with a permanent two-man crew. We have a Shuttle flying eight 10-day missions per year with a seven-man crew. It's two different approaches, really. Many simple things vs. a few complex, and there are benefits and drawbacks to each. Which approach is better? Well, they've gone head-to-head twice. The first was Apollo, the second was Desert Storm. Draw your own conclusions. (The Iraqis had some very top-of-the line Soviet equipment, including T-72 tanks and MiG-29's. They also had a numerical advantage of 6 to 5 and the advantage of holding the territory in dispute. (Traditionally, an invading army needs about a 3 to 1 advantage to be successful.)) >who holds the records for manned spaceflight. who has the record >for spacewalks. The Russians, on both, for total time. But considering 70% of everyone who has ever gone to orbit has done so in the Shuttle, the Americans have certainly put more people up more times. >who understands more LEO lifescience. The Americans. Mir is not very useful for life science research, other than for sitting around and breaking records. The medical data from Mir has been of very low quality. NASA learned more life science on one Shuttle mission (SLS 1) than the Soviets did during four years of Mir operations. As I understand it, however, Mir does good work in the materials research area. >We took one path, the stuck to the old one. i bet they think they >made the better choice. They do (as far as aerospace is concerned :) ) A few months ago a delegation from Russia (aerospace professionals) were given a tour of some American facilities. They were surprisingly unimpressed with our computational and manufacturing capabilities. It's not that they could do better, it was that they just didn't think it was very useful. Mike -- Michael Kent kentm@rpi.edu Flight Test Engineer Tute-Screwed Aero '92 McDonnell Douglas Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute These views are solely those of the author. Apple II Forever !! ------------------------------ Date: 3 Dec 92 19:52:28 GMT From: Bruce Watson Subject: Space probe to pass Earth Newsgroups: sci.space In article Subject: Terminal Velocity of DCX? (was Re: Shuttle ...) Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Dec3.143759.2535@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes: >The proposed DC *is* a rocket, it *is* a low margin system as any >SSTO has to be, and it has exactly *zero* flight history. It will >use throttleable engines with variable geometry *based* somewhat >on RL-10 technology at first, but radically new and never flight >tested. Later it intends to use aerospike engine designs that have >*never* been tested, even on the ground. It will be difficult for >it to live up to rocket standards of reliability, much less airliner >standards of reliability. This is radically new engine and control >technology being pioneered on a very marginal flight article. The >cost and reliability levels being bandied about have no basis other >than wishful thinking. Gary, why do you insist on confusing the experimental prototype (DC-Y) with the hoped-for commercial spaceship (DC-1)? By the time people are seriously interested in certifying this thing as an airliner, there will be *lots* of flight experience with the technology, we will know whether payload margins are sufficient to allow adequate safety margins (as others have pointed out, these are two different things), and the engine and control technology will not be new. Nobody is suggesting airliner-level certification of DC-Y. The whole point of building DC-X and DC-Y is to move the concept out of the paper-concept stage and into the hard-engineering-data stage. Nothing less than functioning prototypes will suffice, given the novelty of the approach. -- MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s. | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)| henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 3 Dec 92 23:43:10 GMT From: Dave Michelson Subject: Terminal Velocity of DCX? (was Re: Shuttle ...) Newsgroups: sci.space In article henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: > >The FAA, which legally defines "airliner" for purposes of US aviation, >reportedly disagrees. Details, please, Henry! Did you see this in AW&ST? -- Dave Michelson davem@ee.ubc.ca ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 1992 01:31:27 GMT From: "David M. Palmer" Subject: Voyager's "message"... What did it *say*?!? Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space rick@ee.uwm.edu (Rick Miller, Linux Device Registrar) writes: >Does anyone know (or know who knows, or where to find out) what the heck >the "message" on Voyager's gold plate was supposed to 'mean'? In case I'm >naming the wrong vehicle, I'm talking about a rectangular plate on which >is inscribed a man, a woman, a simplification of the vehicle itself, a >chart of our solar system showing the vehicle's flight-plan, and a couple >other things. A full translation of the Pioneer plaque is as follows: ----------------------------------------------------------------- HUNGRY? NEED WOMEN? Come to beautiful planet Earth for the best in munchables and abductables. Thirsty? We've got Oceans Galore! Hey you parasites out there!!! We are great hosts! Or just assume our forms and replace us one by one ...as Thousands have done already! Get your picture taken with Nessie, Bigfoot and Elvis. Feel like a little excitement? Why not a trophy hunt? (Just watch out for the guy with the BIG muscles.) And best of all, our puny weapons are no match for your superior intellects. So stop on by, third planet from The Sun. (sector zed-zed-9, plural zed-alpha) Just scan for I Love Lucy reruns and follow the transmissions. Parking is available on the White House lawn. -- David Palmer palmer@alumni.caltech.edu ------------------------------ End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 504 ------------------------------