Date: Mon, 8 Mar 93 05:16:56 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V16 #290 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Mon, 8 Mar 93 Volume 16 : Issue 290 Today's Topics: Alternative space station power Australia & the Space Station a whining shit Charon Electronic Journal of the ASA (EJASA) - March 1993 [Part 2] Gaspra Animation Meteorite Collecting mystery satellite? PFF Mass Reduction (Was Re: Charon) Spot the anon poster! SSF_REdesign The courage of anonymity (2 msgs) Water resupply for SSF (?) Without a Plan 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: Mon, 8 Mar 1993 00:14:19 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: Alternative space station power Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993Mar6.173923.7110@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> fcrary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Frank Crary) writes: >>I doubt it very much. Have you *looked* at thermocouple efficiencies? >>They are, roughly speaking, terrible... even by photovoltaic standards. > >Not necessarily: Thermocouple efficiencies depend on the temperature >at which waste heat is rejected. Ideally, you could lower that down >to 3 deg Kelvin... Actually, about 25K is the best you could do. There is more out there in the sky than the microwave background radiation. Starlight, the Zodiacal light, etc., all contribute. >... However, even getting close to 3 >Kelvin would be unrealistic. In Earth orbit, for example, you would >have to point it away from not only the Sun, but also the Earth and >Moon. You would also need near perfect insulation between the cold >plate and the rest of the craft... Indeed so. The usual rule of thumb is that you could get 70-80K in the neighborhood of the Earth, if you worked hard with sunshades and earthshades and insulation -- not a very practical approach for big arrays. -- C++ is the best example of second-system| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology effect since OS/360. | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 05 Mar 93 19:02:42 GMT From: Ralph Buttigieg Subject: Australia & the Space Station Newsgroups: sci.space * Original Sector : SPACE * Original To : All (3:713/635) Acording to the current edition of the CSIRO's Space Industry News (SPIN) there could be an important involvment by Australia in the US Space Station. It seems that the Russian Soyuz capsule will likely be the ACRV (the station's lifeboat). If so, Australia is the number one landing site. At the Station's orbital path, Australia is the only large land mass with enough space, few trees and quick access to emergency care. In November 1992 a joint assessment team from the ASO, NASA, the CAA and the Russian Soyuz Office examined four representative sites and found them all suitable. ta Ralph --- Maximus 2.01wb * Origin: Vulcan's World-Sydney Australia 02 635-1204 (3:713/635) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Mar 93 02:55:00 GMT From: Jay Maynard Subject: a whining shit Newsgroups: news.admin.policy,alt.privacy,comp.org.eff.talk,sci.space After posting an article once again defending his posting of a tabloid account pretending to be the last words of the Challenger crew, and claiming that posting anonymously took more courage than posting behind one's name (that one *REALLY* set the bullshit flag), the idiot using the anonymous service writes: >Right. So -- Anne Frank should have kept her kvetching trap shut, right, >right, Mr. Kulawiec? This comparison is one of the most odious I've seen in a long time. Anne Frank was at danger of her life. You are not. ...that is, unless the readers you cowardly offended in sci.space catch up with you. -- Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu | adequately be explained by stupidity. "Support your local medical examiner - die strangely." -- Blake Bowers ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1993 00:26:59 GMT From: "Richard A. Schumacher" Subject: Charon Newsgroups: sci.space Why does Goldin want the Pluto Fast Flyby craft to mass less than 110 kg, vs. the 165 kg strawman proposal? Does he hope to use something smaller than a Titan 4 to launch them? (See Eos, Transactions, AGU v 74 # 7, 17 Feb 1993 for a nice overview of PFF.) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1993 23:05:20 GMT From: Larry Klaes Subject: Electronic Journal of the ASA (EJASA) - March 1993 [Part 2] Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space,sci.misc,sci.geo.geology,alt.sci.planetary in the distance. The images also revealed that the penetrometer had dropped itself right on top of one of the ejected camera covers. VENERA 14 relayed data to Earth for fifty-seven minutes. In that time the lander revealed that its surface sample was similar in composition to tholeiitic basalt, a common mineral on Earth with low potassium levels. Also in contrast to its twin lander's findings, the probe recorded two possible and very small seismic events from about three thousand kilometers (1,800 miles) across the planet. New Mission Directions The successful mission of VENERA 13 and 14 had achieved another milestone for the Soviet Union in its exploration of Venus. As in the past two decades, the sending of spacecraft to the second world from the Sun was far from over. Both the Soviets and the United States were focusing on the deployment of spacecraft which could map the planet's surface from orbit with more sophisticated radar than that carried by the PIONEER VENUS Orbiter in 1978. The Soviets were also working on a very ambitious expedition which would not only land on Venus again but place two balloon probes in its thick and wild atmosphere at the same time. This would allow scientists to study the planet's air for several days in a row rather than with the quick plunges of earlier probes. These new missions would truly reveal the entire planet to humanity in the coming years. Bibliography - Barsukov, V. L., Senior Editor, VENUS GEOLOGY, GEOCHEMISTRY, AND GEOPHYSICS: RESEARCH RESULTS FROM THE U.S.S.R., University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1992 Beatty, J. Kelly, and Andrew Chaikin, Editors, THE NEW SOLAR SYSTEM, Cambridge University Press and Sky Publishing Corp., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1990 Bova, Ben, and Trudy E. Bell, Editors, CLOSEUP: NEW WORLDS, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1977. Burgess, Eric, VENUS: AN ERRANT TWIN, Columbia University Press, New York, 1985 Burrows, William E., EXPLORING SPACE: VOYAGES IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM AND BEYOND, Random House, Inc., New York, 1990 Fimmel, Richard O., Lawrence Colin, and Eric Burgess, PIONEER VENUS, NASA SP-461, Washington, D.C., 1983 Gatland, Kenneth, THE ILLUSTRATED ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SPACE TECHNOLOGY, Salamander Books, New York, 1989 Greeley, Ronald, PLANETARY LANDSCAPES, Allen and Unwin, Inc., Winchester, Massachusetts, 1987 Hart, Douglas, THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SOVIET SPACECRAFT, Exeter Books, New York, 1987 Harvey, Brian, RACE INTO SPACE: THE SOVIET SPACE PROGRAMME, Ellis Howood Limited, Chichester, England, 1988 Johnson, Nicholas L., HANDBOOK OF SOVIET LUNAR AND PLANETARY EXPLORATION, American Astronautical Society, Univelt, Inc., San Diego, California, 1979 Koppes, Clayton R., JPL AND THE AMERICAN SPACE PROGRAM: A HISTORY OF THE JET PROPULSION LABORATORY, Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, 1982 Lang, Kenneth R., and Charles A. Whitney, WANDERERS IN SPACE: EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM, Cambridge University Press, New York, 1991 Montoya. Earl J., and Richard O. Fimmel, SPACE PIONEERS AND WHERE THEY ARE NOW, NASA EP-264, Washington, D.C., 1987 Murray, Bruce, Michael C. Malin, and Ronald Greeley, EARTHLIKE PLANETS: SURFACES OF MERCURY, VENUS, EARTH, MOON, MARS, W. H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco, California, 1981 Murray, Bruce, JOURNEY INTO SPACE: THE FIRST THREE DECADES OF SPACE EXPLORATION, W. W. Norton and Company, New York, 1989 Nicks, Oran W., FAR TRAVELERS: THE EXPLORING MACHINES, NASA SP-480, Washington, D.C., 1985 Smith, Arthur, PLANETARY EXPLORATION: THIRTY YEARS OF UNMANNED SPACE PROBES, Patrick Stephens, Ltd., Wellingborough, Northamp- tonshire, England, 1988 VOYAGE THROUGH THE UNIVERSE: THE NEAR PLANETS, By the Editors of Time-Life Books, Inc., Alexandria, Virginia, 1990 Wilson, Andrew, JANE'S SOLAR SYSTEM LOG, Jane's Publishing, Inc., New York, 1987 About the Author - Larry Klaes, EJASA Editor, is the recipient of the ASA's 1990 Meritorious Service Award for his work as Editor of the EJASA since its founding in August of 1989. Larry also teaches a course on Basic Astronomy at the Concord-Carlisle Adult and Community Education Program in Massachusetts. Larry is the author of the following EJASA articles: "The One Dream Man: Robert H. Goddard, Rocket Pioneer" - August 1989 "Stopping Space and Light Pollution" - September 1989 "The Rocky Soviet Road to Mars" - October 1989 "Astronomy and the Family" - May 1991 "The Soviets and Venus, Part 1" - February 1993 THE ELECTRONIC JOURNAL OF THE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF THE ATLANTIC March 1993 - Vol. 4, No. 8 Copyright (c) 1993 - ASA ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1993 04:04:35 GMT From: Ralph Seguin Subject: Gaspra Animation Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary,comp.sys.amiga.tech >taken by the Galileo spaecraft shortly before its closest approach to the >asteroid in October 1991. The animation is in FLI format. Using anonymous >ftp, the animation can be obtained from: > > ftp: ames.arc.nasa.gov (128.102.18.3) > user: anonymous > cd: pub/SPACE/ANIMATION > files: > gaspra.fli > gaspra.txt (see below) Ok. Does anybody have an ANIM version of this, or an Amiga .FLI player? .FLI datatype? ------------------------------ Date: 6 Mar 93 01:17:51 CST From: John Liskey Subject: Meteorite Collecting Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro I am curious if there are any other semi-active collectors of meteorites other than myself on here? Or even someone who studies them? If so drop me some email! John Liskey johnl@amiganet.chi.il.us ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Mar 93 06:55:39 GMT From: Matt Bartley Subject: mystery satellite? Newsgroups: sci.space Last night (7 Mar. UTC) I was visually observing the Hubble Space Telescope. I tracked it starting around 3:10 UTC and kept it in sight until it eclipsed around 3:15 UTC. While I was tracking it though, around 3:14 UTC I saw another bright satellite enter the field of view of my binoculars. This was at about 35 degrees elevation and 150 degrees azimuth. It headed toward the southeast sky and eclipsed about a minute later. My location is 33d 49' 1'' N 117d 48' 11'' W (Orange, CA - not the location of this news site) Whatever it was, it isn't on any of the databases distributed on archive.afit.af.mil. This is the 3rd time I've unexpectedly seen satellites when I've been looking for other ones. Is there any way to determine what they are? What kind of observation is needed to establish their orbit? -- Internet: mdbomber@leland.stanford.edu Matt Bartley UUCP: mbartley@exair.villa-park.ca.us 73 de N6YWI ICBM: 37 25' 30'' N Cost of this message has been billed to 122 10' 00'' W US government as indirect research cost. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Mar 1993 02:40:23 GMT From: Jeff Foust Subject: PFF Mass Reduction (Was Re: Charon) Newsgroups: sci.space In a recent article schumach@convex.com (Richard A. Schumacher) writes: >Why does Goldin want the Pluto Fast Flyby craft to mass less than >110 kg, vs. the 165 kg strawman proposal? Does he hope to use something >smaller than a Titan 4 to launch them? The main reason to cut mass is to reduce the flight time to Pluto. According to my sources in the PFF team at JPL, each 10kg cut in s/c mass cuts the flight time by approximately 3 months. Thus you can shave > 1 year off the flight time of the mission, which has many benefits. -- Jeff Foust [96 days!] "You're from outer space." Senior, Planetary Science, Caltech "No, I'm from Iowa. I only work in jafoust@cco.caltech.edu outer space." jeff@scn1.jpl.nasa.gov -- from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1993 02:32:55 GMT From: peter bachman Subject: Spot the anon poster! Newsgroups: sci.crypt,sci.astro,sci.space,comp.org.eff.talk,alt.usage.english And I thought the anon poster was a Turing test. Now I am bummed out.Unless of course the machine was programmed that way.!!! ------------------------------ Date: 05 Mar 93 16:37:02 From: David.Anderman@ofa123.fidonet.org Subject: SSF_REdesign Newsgroups: sci.space Anton, There are several possible new designs for SSF, ranging from a simple cut-down of the current design - leaving a man-tended platform, to a station using Russian components and launchers. The wild card in the speculation is the US Senate race in Texas, which may result in the most conservative design possible being selected soon. At any rate, we will know within 90 - 180 days. If the process works poorly, and the Texas Senate race intereferes, we may see a poor design, with Goldin out the door shortly thereafter... --- Maximus 2.01wb ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1993 03:12:31 GMT From: Dave Hayes Subject: The courage of anonymity Newsgroups: news.admin.policy,alt.privacy,comp.org.eff.talk,sci.space an8785@anon.penet.fi (8 February 1993) writes: >As far as anonymous postings in general, the threats of >personal violence that the Challenger post unearthed, for me, >more than confirmed my decision to use it. ... >I think it takes far more courage to post anonymously than to >hide behind your affiliations. May I humbly suggest a deeper perspective from which to view this? An interesting phenomena of human nature is perceived when one observes that, more often than not, people's writings are given credibility based soley upon the perceived source. Rarely is it the case that the content of the writings themselves are perceived in an unbiased way, and then "tried out" or "tested" to see if the ideas are workable or not. In simple terms, who gives a damn where a concept came from? Is it a concept or idea one can use? _Could_ what is being said be true? Will it work, and will it work for the reader? "Science" is supposed to be based on just this premise. It is even more interesting that the most flak comes from a group in a hierarchy professed to be guided by these ideas. -- Dave Hayes - Network & Communications Engineering - JPL / NASA - Pasadena CA dave@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov ...usc!elroy!dxh Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Mar 1993 02:20:14 -0500 From: "Mr. Michael Miller" Subject: The courage of anonymity Newsgroups: news.admin.policy,alt.privacy,comp.org.eff.talk,sci.space I don't think anonymous posting is a courgeous thing (usually), but I do think cowardice has an important place in the world. For example, what if I want to say that consensual sex is a good thing, men are not inherently evil, and women are not always superior to men. If I had an employer who also happens to be a feminist (of the man- hating, "Let's castrate 'em all!!" variety; I'm not saying I disagree with every feminist), I would really like to be able to post anonymously. This sort of argument does not just apply to political issues. What if I am a programmer and my employer thinks (s)he is one too? If the boss thinks bubble sort is the best thing since sliced bread, maybe anonymous posting would be the best way to publish an essay on the wonderful superiority of quicksort. There are some people with whom one should not publicly disagree under one's own name. When you want to disagree with such a person, cowardice is simply the intelligent way to do it. Of course, people will hide behind anonymity to post drivel, but many people already post drivel without anonymity. Some anonymous posters are stupid cowards and some are smart cowards. Do you really want to ignore all the smart cowards? -Mike Miller michael@umbc.edu -- This message has been known to cause cancer in laboratory animals. The previous sentence, like this one, is false. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1993 06:33:27 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: Water resupply for SSF (?) Newsgroups: sci.space In article szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) writes: >>The deployment phase is the single diciest part of a sail design... > >Nevertheless, you think a small group of volunteers can pull it off, >no? ... Maybe. In our case, our whole design ended up being driven by deployment problems... and we ended up with something that would pretty definitely work, but would be severely unsuited to the sort of precise shape control needed for a mirror. I don't think this was an accident; the more control you want over the final shape, the harder deployment gets. The problems are not unsolvable, but they are definitely beyond the current state of the art. This is a significant development item, not something you can take for granted as a trivial detail. >The uncertainties are similar for both Rosetta and comet mining, >regardless of material volume. These uncertainties weren't anywhere >close to being a show-stopper. The probe sends back detailed pix >for over a month, so that the best site can be picked... This isn't the hard part (although it's not entirely trivial, given that the final approach isn't that precise -- see the recent paper in the ESA Journal). The hard part, as I said, is *surface operations*. Wandering around nearby, taking pictures, even closing in for a gentle landing: these things are straightforward extensions of what we already know how to do. But when you're within (say) 1m of the comet and you have to get something done, with time lags too long for teleoperation and very little knowledge of surface properties... then you have stepped into the Twilight Zone of guesswork and hope. Again, these problems are not unsolvable, but solving them is not going to be cheap or quick, and it's going to take more than one attempt to get something reliable enough to be generalized to a mining system. These are not solved problems; these are not easily-solved problems. They are beyond the current state of the art, and it's not even clear just how far beyond they are. -- C++ is the best example of second-system| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology effect since OS/360. | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 7 Mar 1993 18:27 CST From: wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov Subject: Without a Plan Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1ndlggINN5v8@access.digex.com>, prb@access.digex.com (Pat) writes... > >Dennis, does anice job of hitting the problems with space research >on the nose. > >As i see it, Research in space will only be fundable and viable >for the masses as an economic venture or a political goal. > What about freedom? The moon is an awfully long way from D.C. I have been to lectures and had discussions with those who postulate a declaration of independence of the users of an advanced SSF from their earthbound bretheren. This paradigm was touched upon in Fallen Angels and to me is the most thought provoking portion of the book. >Columbus discovered the new world, while looking for a cheaper route >to asia for spice and gold. Columbus did what he did for Spain because Italian merchants already had a cheap way to get to the orient. The westward route never became profitable until the Panama Canal. Spain supported Columbus because they saw it as a way to break the monopoly on oriental trade that the Medeci's and other Florintine merchants had on world trade. I was shocked to read that one bank in Florence in the late 1400's had a greater cash flow and made more money on a year by year basis than the entire GNP of Elizabethan Britian! So even then politics played a role in commerce. It wasen't a cheaper route per se that the Spanish wanted, just one not dominated by the Italians. > >The american colonies were mostly funded as cheap places to store prisoners >or places for political refugees to hide out. > The "quote" storing of prisoners did not begin until decades after the initial settlements were begun in the Northeastern US. Again, the primary reason for the colonies was to act as a counterweight to the Spanish colonies of South and Central America who were raking in billions to the treasuries of the Castile. Also it was not until after the stunning victory in 1588 of the British over the Spanish armada that began this policy. From a power perspective the Brits wanted to exploit the land since the Spanish had already exploited the nations of the rest of the Americas. >Certainly explorers like the french and lewis and clark went for >mapping or to seek exploitable resources. > The French and the Americans were mostly looking for the fabled Nortwest passage that would give them better access to the orient than had the Mediterranian nations. Remember at the time of Lewis and Clark the Western expansion had not proceeded past St. Louis. In the interim, the French and the Americans reaped the rewards of the fur trade by tapping the animal resources of a virgin land. For all of their effort to blaze a trail, the Nortwest is still the least developed portion of North America. >But polar explorers went mostly as symbols of national pride. > Yep >Certainly we as a nation are willing to put money into R&D and science >missions. The planetary science program does get a fair bit of money >in real terms, and the payoff from astronomy work is unlikely >in the next century. What is the payoff from the planetary program for the poor black in South Central Los Angeles or anywhere else for that matter. Believe me I support planetary science but this engenders part of my whole point. What is the purpose of this effort? How does it postively effect life here. Knowledge simply for the sake of knowledge; is that enough to justify the program? Will mapping Charon and Pluto add to our knowledge of the global variance in temperature on earth? Should we even use utilitarian arguments to bolster the unmanned space program? These are the types of questions that should be raised and answered by a philosopy that supports a purpose to what we are doing. Until we can do this we merely fight a tactical battle with other special interest groups that say that they can achieve the goals that the space program has relative to improving the lot of man for much less. > >However manned space to-date is a cadillac program. it's been done for >reasons of Glory, and not much economics. Until manned space can >find an economic route, it will remain a lab bench process. But Pat the manned program in the 60's was the single beacon of hope in a world that seemed headed toward destruction both from the bomb without and the social upheaveals from within. Within that context it is easy to see why the most popular program ever to be on television, with its next generation follow on is still on television 27 years after its debut. The manned space program has always had one overreaching idealistic metaphor; hope for a better future, hope for peace, and hope that together we can solve the problems of the world. While technocracy in the last twenty years has devolved into failed programs in every sphere that it touched, the beginning, burning vision of Von Braun, Goddard, Ley and others still lives on as the primary justification of the manned space program. It is wrong to apply the cost/benefit analysis to the manned space program. We can never quantify the hope that it brought and how that hope changed the lives of those who took heart in that hope. In the 90's as global ecological problems seem to be replacing the problems of the cold war and the bomb, the space program and its potential contributions to solving the environmental problems should be emphasized. This may rekindle the hope that lately has been waning, that we can make it as a civilization and as free men and women. Remember that in all of the environmetal scenarios that are out there, the loss of individual freedom is a PREDICATE to solving the problems, with the sole exception of the space option. > >Genetic technologies were lab bench ideas until the 70's when it turned >out there was big money prospects in them. Now Genetic technologies >are multi-billion dollar investments. > Agreed, so were communications satellites until the 1970's. The only reason that GEO comsats ever made it was because the government subsidized the launchers, the development costs of the satellites, (along with Hughes) and legitimized the whole system by setting up INTELSAT, thus assuring the common carriers AT&T ITT and others that this would not compete with existing CHEAPER transatlantic but would allow them to profit by giving them the keys to the store. >NASA has lost sight of it's mission. it has been pursuing GLory at >the expense of Economy. We don't need in the critical sense, >a manned lab, what we need are low cost technologies to provide >that lab. Then the market will provide the lab. > Fromt day one NASA's mission has been prestige building and showing forth the flag of America to the rest of the world. Since Apollo NASA has been adrift, even though when STS 1 was launched it was hearlded by the world as showing that America still had what it took to do great things. I agree that we need low cost technology but those are merely words unless there is a purpose for having low cost technologies. What technologies are you talking about? The market has been singularly reluctant to bring new technologies to the market in the last decade. Even with the silicon revolution still in progress we have not made a single fundamental discovery outside of high temp superconductivity (which by the was was developed here at UAH by a single graduate student under direction of faculty with no big budget) in the last 15 years. State direction in technolgy is a two edged sword. Only those technologies that pass the cost/benefit analysis are accepted and by definition a fundamental discovery cannot be calculated in its value until it has been discovered. This is the primary reason that I support SSF. Because we do not know what we will discover up there but we do know that in a unique environment such as space, things work differently. The question is is this unique environment worth the trouble and the cost. Based upon what we do know about the POTENTIAL up there I say yes. If we get up there and in thirty years find out that there is nothing that we can do up there better than here, or if we make no new fundamental discoveries that will significantly aid the general welfare of our nation, then we will be actually saving future generations money by finding out now. If there are fundamental discoveries that aid the general welfare of our nation and the world then the question is answered and we go onward and upward. >Diving has been around for centuries, but the developement of key technologies >allowed it to flourish. > >Cheap, light, effective air compressors/pumps. Strong light glass >for visors. Water-proof suits and neoprene wet suits. >oxygen re-breathers. Strong light air tanks. high performance fins. >cheap, accurate pressure and depth gauges. >Scads of underwater tools, Advanced breathing mixs. Effective >diving tables for dive medicine. > >There have always been riches in the sea, but they weren't reachable >until the technology improved. > But none of these technolgies would have been developed when they were without the military imperative of WWII to drive them. They would have happened eventually but diving technology would be no where near where it is today without its effective implementation by the military for use in war. >caisson disease killed hundreds. Off shore platforms used to be limited >to ~100 ft for numerous reasons, now drilling in 1 mile of water >is practical. > These are nice logical steps toward the future. You forget that the oil technology that you speak of was developed originally by Hughes with the Glomar series of "research platforms" that were funded by the CIA to scoop Russian subs off the floor of the pacific. In the first case finding a cure for a disease directly, positively effected the general welfare of the nation and the world. In the second, the indirect effect of enabling the exploration of new hydrocarbon resources is to make energy more available for our pet cars. >What the space program has never done, is deliver one of two things. >Either Cheap technologies or A worthwhile goal. > I beg to differ here. The phone you speak on for long distance and the computer that you use to read this message were developed both by and for the space program, at least in their genesis. It has been the genious of the marketplace to take these technological developments and capitalize on them. Remote sensing has done much to lower the cost of monitoring our environment and the potential of the future LEO constellation comsats is mind boggling. The manned program has effected medicine probably more than any other field of space effort. Our efforts to understand the human body in extremes of operation and the technology required to to the monitoring has been directly and successfully tranferred to the private sector. My best friend was able to live a year and a half longer because of advances in monitoring the human body enabled the early detection of his cancer. What is the value that you place on that year and a half? What about the recent hurricane in Florida. Because of satellites we lost only 11 lives. A similar hurricane earlier in this century in the same area cost hundreds of lives. How do you do a cost/benefit analysis on that? >I am a sport diver. i don't do it for pay, i do it for fun, >just as i used to fly for fun. I do it because it's affordable, on a >upper middle class income. > >The people who opened the american colonies didn't come here because it >was fun, they came because they could marginally afford it, and they had >a goal. FREEDOM. Canadian oil men work in hellish areas, for the money. > Most could not even afford it. They came as indentured servants, or willing white slaves in order to escape a too structured life and gain riches for themselves and their posterity. Military issues were important as well. >The space program has not been able to either provide cheaper technologies >or worthwhile places to go. > >If NASA were to work on : Hard Suit/ Skin suit technologies, that would >be a plus. > >Cheap ELVs or SSTO's, that would be good. > >Closed cycle life support > >Native materials exploitation programs. > >All these areas have been given frankly lip service. in favor of >Glory programs. Until they make a goal, Cheap access to space, >it will remain a minor program. > >pat No if you truly look you will see that it is the politicians that have given lip service to the ideas that you state above, not NASA. I have re-read a book that was published right after the Apollo 11 landing that showed neat pictures of multiple LEM launches and resource exploitation and closed cycle life support, but as I spoke of in my previous post, it is not worth that is supported but expediency. We have no plan, George Bush tried but retreated in the face of opposition. It has to come from us now and now is the time to develop a plan and take the lead from the politicians and do it ourselves. Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville ------------------------------ End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 290 ------------------------------