Date: Thu, 6 May 93 05:12:40 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V16 #535 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Thu, 6 May 93 Volume 16 : Issue 535 Today's Topics: ASTRONAUTS---What does weightlessness feel like? BBS in Space? Boeing TSTO (Was: Words from Chairman of Boeing) Cape York is dead; Long Live PNG! Commercials on the Moon Coriolis (was Re: ASTRONAUTS---What does weightlessness feel like?) Drag-free satellites Gamma Ray Burster Mystery and Mind/Matter Enigma - Common Answer? Russia's OPERATIONAL Starwars Defense System Visas for astronauts after an abort (2 msgs) Why go to Pluto 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: Wed, 5 May 1993 23:58:21 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: ASTRONAUTS---What does weightlessness feel like? Newsgroups: sci.space In article Bob_Hearn@qm.claris.com (Robert Hearn) writes: >> : Some people are more prone to it than others, like some people are more >> : prone to get sick on a roller coaster ride than others. > >But are they the same set of people? If I get queasy on a roller coaster, >would I necessarily have a problem with zero G? ... Nobody has yet found *any* test that can be done on the ground which predicts spacesickness especially well. There is a great deal of interest in being able to predict who will get sick, since it hurts productivity on extremely expensive missions, but so far no way to do it. In particular, there is no particularly strong correlation between susceptibility to more ordinary forms of motion sickness and susceptibility to spacesickness. At least, not that the research people have been able to find -- I don't know if they've tried roller coasters :-). -- SVR4 resembles a high-speed collision | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology between SVR3 and SunOS. - Dick Dunn | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 May 1993 23:54:13 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: BBS in Space? Newsgroups: sci.space In article <3_713_6352bdf7f83@Kralizec.fido.zeta.org.au> ralph.buttigieg@f635.n713.z3.fido.zeta.org.au (Ralph Buttigieg) writes: >This is just an idea that has occurred to me. We can make telephone calls to >international aircraft via the imarasat satellite system. Can such calls be >made to an orbiting space craft? ... There's no fundamental reason why similar equipment couldn't be carried, but at present it's not. >...what would be involved in setting up a BBS on Mir or an eventual >international Space Station... A good reason to do it, and a pile of money to pay the Inmarsat charges. Inmarsat phone calls are *not* free. -- SVR4 resembles a high-speed collision | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology between SVR3 and SunOS. - Dick Dunn | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 May 1993 00:19:49 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: Boeing TSTO (Was: Words from Chairman of Boeing) Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1s5vk3$4ci@access.digex.net> prb@access.digex.net (Pat) writes: >|... But if you are *already* in the >|aerodynamics business, and plan to stay in it, that changes things a bit. > >Maybe, boeing is in the business of getting launcher money to >improve their aerodynamics business. like they may not care about >the launcher, but if they can get moeny to pay for developeing a >large fast mach 3 civil transport, then they have something. Maybe, although the first stage of such a launcher isn't going to look much like a transport. But my point was that it's not necessary to assume the worst about their motives. They are not trying to build the simplest launcher they can; they are trying to optimize their future revenues, bearing in mind that their main business is aerodynamics. It may well make sense to build a launcher that also gives them experience with large hypersonic aircraft. It's not the optimum way to build a launcher, but the extra cost of doing it that way is an investment: they'd be learning how to build hypersonic aircraft, and also establishing a very visible track record in that area. This could be very valuable to an aerodynamics company even if the actual hardware has no other direct application. They may still be perfectly serious about building a good launcher; remember that "good" and "optimum" are not the same thing. A non-trivial side issue, by the way, is that you can build experimental aircraft with much less hassle than experimental rockets. As Gary Hudson put it (at Making Orbit): "You can build an aircraft with less paperwork than it takes to build a house." -- SVR4 resembles a high-speed collision | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology between SVR3 and SunOS. - Dick Dunn | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 May 1993 00:38:31 GMT From: Adrian Lewis Subject: Cape York is dead; Long Live PNG! Newsgroups: sci.space gnb@leo.bby.com.au (Gregory N. Bond) writes: >A story appeard on the (Australian) ABC radio news last night that is >of interest. It is also mentioned in "The Australian Financial >Review" this morning (4/5/93), p14. (Don't say I don't give >references!) >Space Transportation Systems is the company that was the preferred >bidder for the Cape York space port, [...]. There was a >one-last-time, firm-and-this-time-we-mean-it deadline for STS to line >up funding for CY that expired without a whisper in December. >Last night there was an announcement by the Prime Minister of Papua >New Guinea [...]. STS has been given an in-principle >go-ahead for the establishmnent of a commercial spaceport on an as-yet >unchosen PNG equatorial island. The project was predicted to cost >about $USD 920m. Talks with internation funding sources are >continuing, and STS is "confident about their success." A feasability >study (a $mil or so) is about to begin and could be completed by the >end of 1993. >This pretty much implies that Cape York is dead, and the report said >as much. More details as they come to hand. >Greg. Interesting isn't it? I could well imagine that they choose Manus Island in the Admiralty Islands (Bismarck Archipelego). It is 2 deg S, and has a large abandoned air and naval base from WWII. However, any site in PNG is going to suffer from the problem of political instability and law- and-order troubles. I know a number of people who have worked in PNG over the last five years and nearly all of them consider it too risky to work there these days. Also, PNG has a very high level of thunderstorm activity, which may be a problem for the launch vehicles. adrian ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 May 1993 01:33:00 GMT From: Francois Yergeau Subject: Commercials on the Moon Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993May5.013235.19013@sol.ctr.columbia.edu> kjenks@gothamcity.jsc.nasa.gov writes: >Hans Erik Martino Hansen (u920496@daimi.aau.dk) wrote: >: I have often thought about, if its possible to have a powerfull laser >: on earth, to light at the Moon, and show lasergraphics at the surface >: so clearly that you can see it with your eyes when there is a new >: moon. > >Nope. The atmosphere distorts the outbound laser beam too much to >provide a useful image. But if you put a laser in LEO.... > >Hey, any physicists out there wanna take a stab at the power >requirements on that laser? Ok, but would-be entrepreneurs are in for a disappointment. First off, let's see what spot size we can get at the moon. Let's say we have this nicely figured 10 meter mirror in orbit, and we half fill it with a gaussian laser beam to avoid diffraction effects. Wavelength is half a micron, distance 384000 km, so I get a spot size of about 25 m. Not bad. Now suppose we're trying to trace out a circle with an angular diameter of 10 minutes of arc, one third the diameter of the moon; we don't want to make it much smaller because the resolution of our eyes is about 1 min. At the distance of the moon, the radius of this circle is about 550 km, so the total surface area we'll have to illuminate works out to roughly 2.pi.r.w = 90 sq km. How much _intensity_ do we need? I could go into considerations of the albedo, the sensitivity of the eye, etc, but it's much simpler to use the sun as a standard candle. The solar constant is about 1300 W/m^2, a good portion of which (1000, say?) is in the visible. We'll need to get a good fraction of that, a tenth say, to get good contrast against the sunlit moon. So 100 W/m^2 over 90 km^2 gives us 9 GW to be delivered at the moon. We can perhaps gain an order of magnitude or even two by restricting our advertising to dark portions of the moon, but this is the ballpark we're playing in. We haven't put laser efficiency in the equation yet. If we assume 10% (very optimistic, unless gigawatt visible diode lasers are developped soon), we need to generate 90 GW in orbit, and dissipate 90% of that as waste heat. Anybody cares to compute the size of those radiators? >If you could put one up in LEO, say on a Pegasus launch, you could I'm afraid Pegasus is not up to the task, unless a major upgrade program is undertaken. >program it remotely and sell advertising time. Solar panels for power, Assuming i) 100% efficient solar panels, ii) a 100% efficient laser and iii) we want =, the surface area of those panels needs to be equal to the area illuminated on the moon. Accounting for the efficiencies of real panels and lasers, but lowering our intensity requirements a bit, we still need many square kilometers of panels. Tough luck. Or is it a happy ending? -- Franois Yergeau (yergeau@phy.ulaval.ca) | Qui se fait brebis le loup Centre d'Optique, Photonique et Laser | le mange. Dpartement de Physique | Universit Laval, Ste-Foy, QC, Canada | ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 May 1993 00:00:42 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: Coriolis (was Re: ASTRONAUTS---What does weightlessness feel like?) Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.physics In article zowie@daedalus.stanford.edu (Craig "Powderkeg" DeForest) writes: > The Huntsville ride is definitely pretty good. Anybody know offhand what > the peak acceleration is? > >3.mumble G's. It's a simulated Shuttle lift-off. Okay, if they're simulating the shuttle accurately, then max is 3G. The shuttle goes to some lengths (e.g. throttling the main engines down late in flight) to limit accelerations to 3G; it was a design goal. -- SVR4 resembles a high-speed collision | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology between SVR3 and SunOS. - Dick Dunn | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 6 May 1993 00:44:07 GMT From: Isaac Kuo Subject: Drag-free satellites Newsgroups: sci.space Hi, To all: Sorry for the flame-bait. I spoke too hastily at first, and after a while, the truth which I suspected but unfortunately did not air came out (that the effect involved was due to longitutidinal differences in the Earth's gravitational field). So, here are my conclusions: 1. There is significant longitudinal differences in the Earth's gravitational field. 2. Those differences, and not the Earth's oblateness, are used to affect the orbits of certain satellites. 3. Drag-free satellites are satellites which use a reference mass within a shell accelerated by air friction, solar radiation,etc.. which are compensated for with thrusters based on the reference mass. 4. Drag-free satellites may be used to study tesseral harmonics, as well as LEO air resistance, but do not inherently use such harmonics in any way. -- *Isaac Kuo -->isaackuo@math.berkeley.edu<-- * ___ * * _____/_o_\_____ * Who am I? Where am I? What do *(==(/_______\)==) * I do? The address says it all. * \==\/ \/==/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 May 1993 02:00:46 GMT From: Jack Sarfatti Subject: Gamma Ray Burster Mystery and Mind/Matter Enigma - Common Answer? Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro >Article 45994 in sci.physics: >From: baez@ucrmath.ucr.edu (john baez) Subject: Re: Consciousness - tackling the mystery (was: Roger Penrose) (long) Keywords: consciousness, dualism, materialism, multiple drafts Date: 3 May 93 19:52:05 GMT >In article <1993May3.084651.14520@sei.cmu.edu> firth@sei.cmu.edu >(RobertFirth) writes: >>In article <1993May3.002543.4807@ousrvr.oulu.fi> kempmp@phoenix.oulu.fi >>(Petri Pihko) writes: >>>Libet has clearly demonstrated that a cortical stimulation lasting less >>>than 500 ms is not perceived consciously. It seems it takes at least 500 ms >>>for brains to produce consciousness - that is, we become aware of what >>>happens with a roughly half a second delay. >>I'm sorry, I simply don't believe this. 500 ms is twelve frames of a >>standard movie, and there are many examples of perceptible movie effects >>that last only for four to six frames. Experiments on subliminal >>perception show that, in some cases, even single frames can have an effect, >>though the observer can't describe what is seen. >>Besides, if there was a half-second delay in our perception of a stimulus, >>no arcade game in the world would work. > First of all, I am pretty sure that a flash that lasts almost half a second can be perceived >consciously. Second of all, this is unrelated to whether there is a half-second delay in conscious >awareness of the flash. Third, the whole point about reaction times is >that one reacts BEFORE one is consciously aware of doing so, even though >it SEEMS as if one is aware; the mind "back-edits" its story of what is >going on, as has been shown by many experiments. The famous example is >how foot-racers will start running before they are consciously aware >(sorry if this is redundant) of doing so, EVEN THOUGH their memory says >otherwise. Exactly, Baez did get it right. It's because of this that Penrose correctly point's out that we are faced with two options: 1) Past cause/future effect (i.e. no teleological final cause) is true. Therefore, consciousness is an effect of action and free will is an illusion under the above conditions. 2) The mind is quantum mechanical in a non-standard way that allows nonlinear and nonunitary operators and nonlocal dynamical interactions, perhaps, in the sense of Brian Josephson's idea. There is strong delayed choice which can be tested in the physics laboratory by monitoring the recoil of a nanotech scale beam splitter in a delayed choice interferometer experiment. That is, free will demands that the choice to act is after the act. The responsible morally culpable choice is a future cause whose past effect is the behavior. This is why, Penrose, in Emperor's New Mind, writes: "Suppose there is even something vaguely teleological about the effects of consciousness, so that a future impression might affect a past action." See also his pp 442, 444, 212, 445 for more details on this. Fred Hoyle in his book Intelligent Universe says of living systems "It seems to me that biological systems are able in some way to utilize the opposite time -sense in which radiation propagates from future to past. Bizzare as this may appear, they must somehow be working backwards in time." p.213 There may be dramatic non-biological astrophysical evidence for advanced real photons in the enigmatic data on gamma ray bursters now coming in. No standard model can explain them. They are isotropic like the microwave thermal retarded photons.They come in very short time pulses sometimes a short as a frraction of a second with fluctuations of less than a millisecond (10 km light transit time e.g., p. 117 May 1993 Scientific American). If these gamma photons are advanced from the future universe, rather than retarded from the past universe, then , because of the expansion of the universe, the advanced photons would be blue shifted and the pulses would be shortened in time because they start from a future universe of weaker curvature back to our universe of relatively stronger curvature - the opposite of the cosmological redshift. ------------------------------ Date: 5 May 93 19:03:37 -0600 From: mcelwre@cnsvax.uwec.edu Subject: Russia's OPERATIONAL Starwars Defense System Newsgroups: sci.space Russia's OPERATIONAL Starwars Defense System In February 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin proposed to the United States and the United Nations a global defense shield (with "Starwars"-type weapons) BASED ON RUSSIAN TECHNOLOGY. Some people might wonder what the "backward" Russians could possibly have that would be of value for the S.D.I. research and development program. The little-known TRUTH is that the Russians started deploying an OPERATIONAL "Starwars" defense system in September 1977, and it has greatly grown and improved since that time. It is a SPACE TRIAD built around CHARGED-PARTICLE BEAM and NEUTRON-PARTICLE BEAM WEAPONS. In this article I will describe the Russian system as it developed from 1977 to 1983, and give several examples of how it was used during that period. But first I will try to convince readers of the credibility of my main source of information about it. My main source is articles published in a weekly legislative newspaper, WISCONSIN REPORT (WR), of Brookfield, Wisconsin, (P.O. Box 45, zip 53005), written by the late Dr. Peter David Beter, a well-respected Washington, DC attorney, Doctor of Jurisprudence, and expert and consultant in international law, finance, and intelligence, who received much of his information from associates in the CIA and other intelligence groups of other countries who disapproved of many of the things happening or being planned behind the scenes. They believed that at least limited public exposure might delay and ultimately prevent the worst of those things, such as NUCLEAR WAR and NATIONAL DICTATORSHIP, from taking place. Dr. Beter started appearing on local radio and TV talk shows, but soon found himself being BANNED from them, as a result of government THREATS to cancel broadcast licenses. So he started producing monthly one-hour cassette tapes and sending them to a growing list of subscribers. From June 21, 1975 until November 3, 1982 he recorded eighty (80) "Dr. Beter Audio-Letters" (AL), plus eight "Audio Books", and three special topic tapes. On September 1, 1977, Wisconsin Report started publishing transcripts of those Audio-Letters. Based on information from his sources, Dr. Beter PREDICTED the bombing of the U.S. Marines in Beirut A FULL YEAR BEFORE IT HAPPENED, WARNING that the U.S. Pentagon and the Israeli Mossad were CONSPIRING TO DELIBERATELY ARRANGE IT in order to try to get Americans angry at the Arabs and generate public support for PLANNED military action against them, [AL #78, #79, and #80 (11-3-82).]. He reported the impending assassination of Anwar Saddat of Egypt SIX DAYS BEFORE IT HAPPENED, [AL #68 (9-30-81) and #69.]. And Dr. Beter predicted what he called the "retirement" of Leonid Brezhnev one week before Brezhnev officially "died", [Note that the word "retirement" was used for the TERMINATION OF REPLICANTS in the 1982 movie "Blade Runner".], and his quick replacement with Andropov which occurred only three days after the "death" of Brezhnev, to the surprise of all government and media analysts, [AL #80 (11-3-82).]. He could "predict" these events because we was INFORMED about the PLANS to carry them out. Subscription application and renewal forms for Dr. Beter's tapes would usually say, "Subscribe to the Dr. Beter Audio-Letter and watch the news start making sense." RUSSIA'S SPACE TRIAD OF STAR WARS WEAPONS In September 1977 the Russians started launching MANNED killer satellites, called "COSMOS INTERCEPTORS", armed with CHARGED-PARTICLE BEAM weapons, into earth orbit, [12-15-77 WR; and AL #27, Topic 1.]. By April 1978 there were about THREE DOZEN of them, and they had FINISHED DESTROYING all American spy and early warning satellites, [5-18-78 WR; and AL #33, Topic 2.]. On September 27, 1977, in what Dr. Beter called "THE BATTLE OF THE HARVEST MOON", a Cosmos Interceptor in Earth orbit used a NEUTRON-PARTICLE BEAM to wipe out a secret American laser-beam base nearing operational status in Copernicus Crater on the Moon, [11-3-77 WR; and AL #26, Topic 1.]. The Russians quickly deployed their own military bases on the Moon, the second leg of their space triad, starting on October 4, 1977, with seven EXTREMELY POWERFUL charged- particle beam weapons BASES on the near side of the Moon and three support bases on the far side, [2-9-78 WR; and AL #29, Topic 1.]. The first test of the Moon base weapons occurred on November 19, 1977, ironically at about the same time as the release of the first "Star Wars" movie with its "death star" weapon. The Russians were aiming at the eye of a cyclone near India. But they miscalculated the deflection of the beam by the Earth's magnetic field, and the beam struck the ocean too close to the shore causing a TIDAL WAVE that killed many people, [2-9-78 WR; and AL #29, Topic 1.]. A blast of charged-particle beams from two or more of the Russian Moon bases fired in quick succession would create the DESTRUCTIVE EFFECT OF A HYDROGEN BOMB on its target. The third leg of Russia's triad of space weapons is the "COSMOSPHERES". The first-generation Cosmospheres were weapons platforms that were ELECTRO-GRAVITIC (could hover against gravity), ATOMIC POWERED, horizontally positioned by rocket thrusters, somehow invisible to radar beyond about 40 miles (perhaps from a radar-absorbing coating), armed with CHARGED-PARTICLE BEAM weapons (at least a hundred times less powerful than those in the Moon bases), equipped with "PSYCHO-ENERGETIC RANGE FINDING" (PRF) which tunes in to the actual ATOMIC SIGNATURE of a target or object and canNOT be jammed, and some of them were also armed with microwave BRAIN-SCRAMBLING equipment. In late 1977 and early 1978, there was a strange rash of giant AIR BOOMS along the east coast of the United States and elsewhere. These air booms were NEVER satisfactorily explained, by either the government, the scientific establishment, or the news media. They could NOT be positively identified with any particular Super Sonic Transport plane (SST) or other aircraft, and indeed they were MUCH LOUDER than aircraft sonic booms. The giant airbooms were actually caused by Russian Cosmospheres firing CHARGED- PARTICLE BEAMS down into the atmosphere in a DEFOCUSED MODE (spread out) for the purpose of announcing their presence to the WAR-MONGERS in the United States Pentagon. [2-9-78 WR; and AL #29, Topic 1.]. The main purpose of any "Star Wars" defense system is to protect a country against nuclear attack. During the weekend of January 20, 1980, Russian Cosmospheres accomplished such a mission. A NUCLEAR FIRST STRIKE against Russia by the then BOLSHEVIK-CONTROLLED United States was being started with a total of 82 special secret aircraft that can sneak up to a country's shoreline under water, surface, change configura- tion, take off, and fly at treetop level to their targets. Dr. Beter describes part of the action in his Audio-Letter #53, recorded on January 21, 1980: "At that point the real action got under way, in the Caspian Sea and off northern Norway. The Subcraft, with Israeli pilots, were on their way. They were traveling under water on the first legs of their attack missions.... "Late Saturday night, Washington time, a coded signal was flashed to the Subcraft to continue as planned. By that time, the northern contingent of Subcraft were in the White Sea. The southern contingent had reached the north end of the Caspian Sea. It was already daylight, Sunday morning, the 20th, for the Subcraft contingents. Their orders were to wait out the day under water, out of sight; then, after nightfall, they were to continue their steady approach to get close to their targets. The Subcraft were maintaining strict radio silence. They were also deep enough under water to be invisible from the air to either the eye or radar, yet they were also hugging the shoreline in water too shallow for Russian sonar to pick them up. And their infrared signatures were negligible as the result of extensive development. In short, by the standards of Western technology, they were undetectable. But in AUDIO-LETTER No. 42 I revealed Russia's master secret weapon. It is called "Psycho-energetic Range Finding" or PRF. It is unlike sonar and similar techniques. PRF tunes in to the actual atomic signature of a target, and there is no method known by which PRF can be jammed. "By deploying their Navy to the Arabian Sea, the Russians are pretending to be fooled by the Bolshevik distraction with the aircraft carriers. In this way they encouraged the Bolsheviks to launch the Subcraft toward their targets. They waited until the Subcraft were far away from their bases and out of sight of the Bolsheviks, who are directing the American first-strike operation. But the whole time they were being tracked by Cosmospheres overhead using PRF, and shortly after 1:00 A.M. yesterday morning Eastern Standard Time, the Cosmospheres began firing their Charged Particle Beam Weapons. There were 10 Subcraft in the White Sea. Each disappeared in a blinding blue white water spout of steam, smoke, and fire. In the north end of the Caspian there were 19 Subcraft--they, too, met the same fate.". [2- 7-80 WR; and AL #53, Topic 3.]. The 3rd-generation Russian JUMBO COSMOSPHERES were first deployed in April 1981, in parallel with the first U.S. Space Shuttle mission. They significantly interfered with that MILITARY mission, in ways which were successfully covered up by NASA using techniques similar to those shown in the movie "Capricorn I". [5-7-81, 5-14-81, and 5-21-81 WR; and AL #64, Topics 1-3.]. Jumbo Cosmospheres are much larger than the 1st- generation models, and use ELECTROMAGNETIC PROPULSION instead of rocket thrusters to move around. For about two years after Dr. Beter stopped recording his Audio-Letters in November 1982 (because of heart trouble), his distributor, Audio Books, Inc., published some newsletters titled "NewsALERT", using information passed on to them by Dr. Beter or received directly from his sources. A special supplementary issue, dated March 26, 1984, describes how Russian Jumbo Cosmospheres captured two communication satellites right after launch from U.S. Space Shuttle Mission #10, found anti-satellite (ASAT) missiles mounted on one of them, and dumped both satellites into useless orbits. NASA had fun TRYING to explain two-in-a-row failures of a highly reliable PAM-D satellite booster. Russia's offer to share their "Starwars" defense system with the rest of the world might also extend to SCIENTIFIC SPACE EXPLORATION. For example, the United States is planning to send two unmanned flyby and sample-return space missions to a comet. These missions would cost BILLIONS of dollars, take twenty years from now to complete, and could FAIL in DOZENS of ways. A Russian Jumbo Cosmosphere could COMPLETE a MANNED version of such a mission in a matter of MONTHS (if they have not already done so), since these Cosmospheres can accelerate continuously. Note that the United States has announced a deal to purchase at least one SPACE REACTOR from Russia. Now you know what the Russians originally developed and used them for. THE DR. BETER AUDIO-LETTERS ALL 80 Dr. Beter Audio-Letters (about 50 KB each) and an Overview (about 75 KB) have been digitized by Jon Volkoff at "eidetics@cerf.net" and are available from him and from some FTP sites where he sent them. Jon Volkoff states: "I know of two ftp sites (there are a few "gopher" servers too) as follows: uglymouse.css.itd.umich.edu (141.211.182.53), under /pub/Politics/Beter.Audio.Letter ftp.uu.net (192.48.96.9), under /doc/political/umich-poli/Beter.Audio.Letter ." I especially recommend Audio-Letters #64, 74, 40, 53, 54, 55, 45, 46, 47, 48, 78, 79, and 80, and the Overview. ALL of these will fit on a SINGLE 3-1/2-inch disk formatted for 720 KB. Audio-Letter #64 is about the "STS-1 DISASTER/ /COVERUP". Audio-Letter #74 is about the "SECRET PURPOSE of the Falklands War", and includes IN-VISIBILITY Technology and a Russian NEUTRON BOMB. Audio-Letter #40 is about the "MILITARY PURPOSE of Jonestown Mass-MURDER". For more information, answers to your questions, etc., please consult my CITED SOURCES. UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED. Robert E. McElwaine B.S., Physics and Astronomy, UW-EC ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 May 1993 00:30:04 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: Visas for astronauts after an abort Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1s9br9INNq25@rave.larc.nasa.gov> C.O.Egalon@larc.nasa.gov (Claudio Oliveira Egalon) writes: >... What if after a launch, there is >one of these nasty aborts and the Shuttle has >to land in a foreign country (Spain or Morroco). >Do the astronauts need a visa for staying there... Technically, they do, but emergencies are special cases. If there was some reason why they had to stay on in the country of landing, the local authorities typically would issue short-duration visas as necessary; if they left immediately, they would probably be treated like passengers in transit. It would be much the same situation as an aircraft making an emergency landing at an unintended location -- the paperwork for the intended trip should be in order (e.g. the aircraft should have proper documents), but the extras needed for the emergency (e.g. local visas) would be arranged when it happens. If it's a country where emergency-landing rights have been prearranged, some of the formalities might well be bypassed entirely. NASA does make advance arrangements with the countries containing major abort sites. -- SVR4 resembles a high-speed collision | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology between SVR3 and SunOS. - Dick Dunn | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 6 May 1993 01:57:45 GMT From: "Kevin W. Plaxco" Subject: Visas for astronauts after an abort Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1s9br9INNq25@rave.larc.nasa.gov> C.O.Egalon@larc.nasa.gov (Claudio Oliveira Egalon) writes: [Concerning transatlantic aborts to spain/north africa] >Do the astronauts need a visa for staying there >or NASA has some kind of special arrangement >with the governments of these countries??? In '85 a Saudi Prince went up as a mission specialist. At the '86 worlds fair, the Saudi Pavilion had his prayer rug (the Immams, after arguing whether or not the Kabba could be considered a pillar that rose infinately into the sky, decided that in space, Mecca is everywhere, so it didn't matter which direction he pointed during prayer: still, actually kneeling on the rug must have been difficult in micro gee) and his passport. The latter was open to the page featuring his Spanish visa, obtained beforehand for the "unlikely event of an abort landing in Spain". There are international treaties regarding the repatriation of astronauts. -Kevin ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 May 1993 00:40:24 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: Why go to Pluto Newsgroups: sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary,sci.space In article cain@geomag.gly.fsu.edu (Joe Cain) writes: > The lead time for going to Pluto is so long it should be done >as soon as possible... The main issue is not so much the lead time, as the fact that conditions on Pluto are uniquely favorable for scientific observation *now*, and this opportunity will be gone in a decade or two, not to recur for a couple of centuries. Right now, Pluto has an atmosphere, and nearly all of the surface of both Pluto and Charon is sunlit in the course of one rotation. Neither of those desirable conditions will last. > A Pluto probe should not be done only to Pluto if there is >some way to hook around Uranus or Neptune to get some more information >about them, their moons and rings... Neither Uranus nor Neptune is anywhere near a fast trajectory to Pluto. >Maybe an asteroid flyby might also be programmed in... Last I heard, the Pluto Fast Flyby folks had concluded that it wasn't likely that this could be done. This mission needs such a high cruise velocity that there is *very* little flexibility in its trajectory. >... There are many reasons to try to put a >probe in an orbit around Pluto and/or Charon (hmm, now how does one >do that?) Maybe there is a good Lagrangian position? Orbiting Pluto or Charon would be easy enough with something like nuclear-ion propulsion, which would take rather too long to develop. With chemical fuels, forget it. A fast flyby is the *only* mission that NASA can realistically fly within the deadline. -- SVR4 resembles a high-speed collision | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology between SVR3 and SunOS. - Dick Dunn | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 535 ------------------------------