Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 06:09:21 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V16 #010 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Wed, 6 Jan 93 Volume 16 : Issue 010 Today's Topics: *** BUSSARD RAMSCOOP *** (2 msgs) ASTM, Saturn and MOL (Stages to Saturn) Orbital elements of junk in space wanted pub/SPACE/GIF at ames.arc.nasa.gov EMPTY ??? russian solar sail?+ (2 msgs) SEI Space elevator Stupid Shut Cost arguements (was Re: Terminal Velocity (2 msgs) 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: Tue, 05 Jan 93 17:24:28 PST From: Jason Cooper Subject: *** BUSSARD RAMSCOOP *** Newsgroups: sci.space > Good grief, guys. Since we're speculating all over the place here about > science-yet-to-come, why not build a quark-catalyzed ramscoop. All the > advantages of muon-catalyzed fusion except that the Quark doesn't decay. > All you have to do is crack open a hadron! If you want more details, > please let me know and I'll post them. (I'm only half joking, by the way. > Quark-catalyzed fusion is a "serious" possibility if quarks can be unbound. > Emphasis on the if.) > > -- > Dave Michelson > davem@ee.ubc.ca Well, I wouldn't say it's TOTAL science-yet-to-come. Small parts are, but a large part of it is quite possible. Sure, and I'll bite on that quark-catalyzed thing too. Jason Cooper ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Jan 93 17:27:43 PST From: Jason Cooper Subject: *** BUSSARD RAMSCOOP *** Newsgroups: sci.space Sorry, couldn't quote all of this one. Firstly. I see what you are talking about _now_. Sounds not too bad. However, it still seems to me that carbon-catalyzed may be a great way to go. 1) your carbon keeps coming back and 2) you won't have to carry around what I see as becoming GIGANTIC amounts of antimatter. So what YOU are talking about is using antimatter as a partial source of the energy to get the hydrogen to FUSE? Sounds good thus far... Scramjet... You know, that may be a SUPERB idea! Though you can't use it initially, I'm looking at seperating the magnetic coils into groups that are individually controlled. Such things as a bussard scramjet could be used at high velocities (near the theoretical limit of non-scramjet engines), which would give us 4 stages... Conventional drive (perhaps an injected nuclear pulse engine?) Carbon (or antimatter) catalyzed fusion drive Proton-Proton fusion drive Scramjet p-p fusion drive Sound good on that end? Any more help on the carbon-antimatter selection would be MUCH MUCH MUCH appreciated! Jason Cooper ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 17:33:32 GMT From: Dennis Newkirk Subject: ASTM, Saturn and MOL (Stages to Saturn) Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993Jan5.180900.25657@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> hughes@gary.enet.dec.com (Gary Hughes - VMS Development) writes: > >Does anyone know if 'Stages to Saturn' is still purchaseable? Not a real one unless you find it at a used book store, etc.. I checked last summer and you can only get a photocopy through NTIS (National Technical Information Service) for about $60-70. Dennis Newkirk (dennisn@ecs.comm.mot.com) Motorola, Land Mobile Products Sector Schaumburg, IL ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jan 93 02:29:06 GMT From: Bruce Watson Subject: Orbital elements of junk in space wanted Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993Jan5.153035.29862@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu| wdwells@nyx.cs.du.edu (David "Fuzzy" Wells) writes: |||I'm looking for a '2-line orbital elements list' of junk, i.e. deceased |||satellites, rocket-bodies and other debris that is still in orbit. |||I have one very old list, but where could I get a list that is up to |||date? (I don't know from where I got the list I have) ||| ||Two-line orbital elements for **every unclassified object in orbit** ||are available on the Reports and Information Dissemination Remote ||Bulletin Board System by modem. Phone (301) 306-0010. ||-- |Sorry Bruce, thanks for playing. Seeing how _I_ work with the entire |satcat on a daily basis, I must inform you that the Unclass elsets that are |found at this BBS cannot be the entire list. That's right, you are not |allowed to know about ALL the Unclass birds (or pieces thereof). For |BTW: I cannot give out Unclass elset files except to government agencies via |a written request. Even this is subject to approval. Sorry. I highly |recommend using NASA's satcat (found at your favorite astro BBS or ftp site). Well, until you can give them out, his best bet is Kelso's list of 180+ two-lines, Molczan's list of 700+ and the RAID BBS with far more. | -- Bruce Watson (wats@scicom) Bulletin 629-49 Item 6700 Extract 75,131 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 06 Jan 1993 11:21:08 +0100 From: Paul van Harn Subject: pub/SPACE/GIF at ames.arc.nasa.gov EMPTY ??? Can someone please enlighten me as to what has happened with the FTP site ames.arc.nasa.gov, directory pub/SPACE/GIF ? I tried to get some of the Galileo images as described in one of Ron Baalke's messages, but I couldn't find ANY files in that directory, and I'm sure there used to be LOTS of them ! Thx in advance, regards, Paul. =============================================================================== Paul van Harn Internet: paul@dcs.prime.com Databasix Information Systems B.V. Voice: +31-340662455 Rijnzathe 8, 3454 PV De Meern or Telefax: +31-340665033 P.O. Box 179, 3454 ZK De Meern, The Netherlands =============================================================================== ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jan 93 04:41:35 GMT From: David Goldschmidt Subject: russian solar sail?+ Newsgroups: sci.space There is a race being planned by the World Space Foundation (Federation?) from geosynchronous orbit to the moon. (At least it was planned as of November.) They were hoping to get it off by 1995. As of November they had 3 entrants, I think the French, the Japanese, and the WSF itself. The Russians were trying to get together a team. I expect that there are financial problems, but I don't know for certain. I have seen pictures of a sail the WSF actually built; it looked like it was about 50 meters on a side. It was a square design, which surprised me; the heliogyro design, developed by R. H. Macneal (at JPL?) has several advantages, including stability (its spinning), and ease of deployment. The design looks something like a helicopter rotor, with long narrow blades that can be pitched about their lengthwise axis for control. Heliogyros are also lighter per area than sails that have to be rigidized by mechanical means. It's true that solar sails don't function very efficiently in planetary orbits, but there are some benefits for having the first real trial with them close to home. Most notably, if anything goes wrong there won't be much of a control delay due to speed of light transmission. Dave Patterson, guest on this account ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 05:43:25 GMT From: Dave Michelson Subject: russian solar sail?+ Newsgroups: sci.space In article ida@atomic (David Goldschmidt) writes: > There is a race being planned by the World Space Foundation (Federation?) >from geosynchronous orbit to the moon. (At least it was planned as of >November.) They were hoping to get it off by 1995. As of November they had >3 entrants, I think the French, the Japanese, and the WSF itself. The >Russians were trying to get together a team. The World Space Foundation has been around for at least ten years. They're based in Pasadena and a substantial fraction of the membership of this non-profit organization are JPL employees. Their main (only?) objective is to get a solar sail into orbit and prove the concept in practice. Just in case anyone was wondering. -- Dave Michelson davem@ee.ubc.ca ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 00:54:38 EST From: John Roberts Subject: SEI -From: aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) -Subject: Re: Stupid Shut Cost arguements (was Re: Terminal Velocity -Date: 5 Jan 93 14:53:12 GMT -In article <4JAN199322375651@judy.uh.edu> wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov writes: -> [model deleted] -This model fails the test put to it in 89. According to your model, when -Bush proposed SEI in 89 it should have triggered another increase in -NASA funds (like Shuttle and station did). It didn't. That's because SEI didn't sell, largely because of the projected horrendous cost (~$400 billion, if I recall correctly). In fact, the proposal of the SEI "package deal" may have had a negative overall effect on manned space exploration, because even very small projects that get the SEI label attached are perceived as committing the government to the whole program at current projected costs - sort of like someone trying to sell a $10 million mansion to a person with a middle-class income by setting the first payment at ten dollars. John Roberts roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 00:41:43 EST From: John Roberts Subject: Space elevator -From: chris@chrism.demon.co.uk (Chris Marriott) -Subject: Re: Question:How Long Until Privately Funded Space Colonizati -Date: 5 Jan 93 19:13:12 GMT -The "space elevator" - basically dropping a cable from a geosynchronous -satellite to Earth (and, of course, another one upwards so the centre of -mass stays still) is probably the most *lethal* device one might conceive -of building! Imagine the cable breaks near the mid-point. You have 38000km -of cable falling to earth at *orbital* velocities, enough to wrap itself -around the entire equator of the planet! Go figure out the kinetic energy -involved. How much ocean would it vaporize? Massive medium-term climatic -changes at best - "nuclear winter" scenarios. A new Ice Age a distinct -possibility. Go figure the kinetic energy yourself. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. :-) John Roberts roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jan 93 02:58:46 GMT From: "Allen W. Sherzer" Subject: Stupid Shut Cost arguements (was Re: Terminal Velocity Newsgroups: sci.space In article <72958@cup.portal.com> BrianT@cup.portal.com (Brian Stuart Thorn) writes: > Excellent news about Soyuz ACRV, but even considering Shuttle > launch costs, it seems cheaper to launch by Shuttle or Russian > booster instead of Titan or Atlas. For station logistics, we should use Atlas(Titan)/Soyuz for crew transfer and Zenith Star HLV's for material. This will save us $2 to $3 billion per year (we can start on the Lunar base with the savings) PLUS produce significant reductions in overall US launch costs. > Neither is man-rated, and There is no need to man rate. It adds cost but doesn't affect safety. If it where your money would buy the $70 million 98% safe Atlas or the $90 million 98% safe Atlas? > If it is your contention to replace Shuttle with Atlas-Soyuz, that's > another matter. I think it would cost too much to reconstruct Atlas > manned launch facilities for just two or three launches per year, > and I think manned Titan III/IV is now a pipedream. As I said, there is no point in man rating. Facilities costs can be paid with the interest on the savings. In addition, I assume we would be looking at 10 to 20 launches per year. If you want to refute, let's see some concrete numbers. Allen -- +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves | | aws@iti.org | nothing undone" | +----------------------109 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+ ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jan 93 17:46:24 GMT From: Matthew DeLuca Subject: Stupid Shut Cost arguements (was Re: Terminal Velocity Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993Jan6.025846.15440@iti.org> aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) writes: >Facilities costs can be paid with the interest on the savings. It's statements like this that make me wince when I read your posts. You can't get interest on money just because you don't spend it; if NASA magically saves a billion dollars a year because of your schemes, the money *doesn't* get stuck in a bank somewhere. In addition, you've already budgeted the money elsewhere, so you aren't getting any absolute savings anyway. Besides, even if we do save all the money you claim, I don't see it being a fair trade for scrapping chunks of the U.S. aerospace industry in favor of the Russian industry. The end result will be that we'll be buying from others forever, because it will be the Russians developing the next generation of hardware, and not us. It's just not worth it. -- Matthew DeLuca Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!matthew Internet: matthew@phantom.gatech.edu ------------------------------ End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 010 ------------------------------