Date: Fri, 21 May 93 05:58:21 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V16 #605 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Fri, 21 May 93 Volume 16 : Issue 605 Today's Topics: Billsats Billsats and blimp skeet Billsats on other space ads Boeing TSTO concept (sort-of long) Dark sky property rights Does HAL own *Discovery*? (was Re: murder in space) Impediments to NASA productivity Liberal President murders spaceflight? Liberal President murders spaceflight? (was Re: SDIO kaput!) Neil Armstrong's first words (the real ones) New DC-X GIF Orion Spacecraft Patriot/video/sat games R101 Space Billboards and Low-Cost Access to Orbit Von Braun and Hg (was Re: About the mercury program) Wanted: Pointer to ESA and NASA distributor of calls for proposal Why Government? Re: Shuttle, "Centoxin" (2 msgs) Will NASA's Mars Observer Image the Face on Mars? 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: Thu, 20 May 93 19:05:18 EDT From: Tom <18084TM@msu.edu> Subject: Billsats Rob Dobson sez: >The point, which you avoided, is this: does adding a space billboard >to the night sky make human life any better? I (and lots of others) >think not. The only argument Ive heard in favor of this proposal >is "o, its progress, you eco-freaks just want to stop progress.", >which ignores the crucial point that putting a billboard in space >doesnt make life any better for anyone except those who will be getting >paid for it. Ah, the central question rears it's head! What defines better? You say a billboard would not make life better, but the fact that someone is considering spending megabucks on it suggests that you don't have a line on objective truth more than any other objector or supporter, when it comes to valuation. Consider your assertion: "putting a billboard in space doesn't make life any better for anyone except those who will be getting paid for it". Replace "putting a billboard in space" with any action you don't happen to like, and you have an instant, portable complaint for any action whatsoever. Also, presumably they will make life better for the people doing the paying, or they wouldn't do the paying. So I'm not convinced that this is a good argument against them. Since the billboards are being designed and planned, I would suspect it is up to the objectors to come up with a good argument against them, especially since the sky belongs to the builders as much as the objectors. -Tommy Mac ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tom McWilliams 517-355-2178 wk \ They communicated with the communists, 18084tm@ibm.cl.msu.edu 336-9591 hm \ and pacified the pacifists. -TimBuk3 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 May 93 19:54:59 EDT From: Tom <18084TM@msu.edu> Subject: Billsats and blimp skeet Dale Greer sez; >>There seem to be more anti-billsat people and they seem to be >>willing to make great sacrifices to fight against billsats. I doubt >>that the pro-billsat people are willing to fight as hard for their >>point of view. Phil replies; >True. But you also let the whole world see, in plain view, that >you're an even bigger jerk than someone who puts up adsats. >I mean, just think for a second: when was the last time you saw >anyone who shot at the goodyear blimp described as something other >than mentally deficient? Man, I miss all the interesting stuff! Who shot at the goodyear blimp? Did they get it? Did it go pppppthhhh all over the sky? :-) -Tommy Mac ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tom McWilliams 517-355-2178 wk \ They communicated with the communists, 18084tm@ibm.cl.msu.edu 336-9591 hm \ and pacified the pacifists. -TimBuk3 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 May 93 19:50:28 EDT From: Tom <18084TM@msu.edu> Subject: Billsats on other space ads Paul Dietx sez: >Another variation would be stimulation of luminescence in the upper >atmosphere by irradiation from the ground (say, pulsed VHF or >microwaves). Kind of an artificial aurora. Or, combine the two, say >with a dust cloud in low orbit and some hefty raster scanned lasers >or microwave beams. But I suspect the power level required would be >too high. Well, now we know how to make a little cash on the side when the laser launcher is idle :-) -Tommy Mac ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tom McWilliams 517-355-2178 wk \ They communicated with the communists, 18084tm@ibm.cl.msu.edu 336-9591 hm \ and pacified the pacifists. -TimBuk3 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 May 1993 18:39:21 GMT From: "Robert A. Schultz" Subject: Boeing TSTO concept (sort-of long) Newsgroups: sci.space Nick Haines (nickh@CS.CMU.EDU) wrote: : In article <2041@heimdall.sdrc.com> spfind@sgidq7.sdrc.com (jeff : findley) gives us information about Boeing's TSTO proposal. : Didn't Boeing participate in the technical studies for SSRT, and come : up with an SSTO design of their own? This line: Yes the design was shown in Popular Science??? The Boeing proposal was a horizontal take off and landing beasty that looked a lot like a big cruise missle. Around '83 or so I can also remember finding a mini-shuttle proposal in Av-Leak by Boeing. As I recall a small orbiter was to be placed on top of a (highly) modified 747. The 747 would carry the orbiter to 30K+ feet and then a Shuttle Main Engine mounted in the tail of the *747* would kickin and run the 747 at some hugh angle of attack (45???) to some hugh altitude (100k ft???) and release the little orbiter which would then get the rest of the way under it's own power. Does anyone remember this article and if so, the AvWeek issue??? -- Rob Schultz | If you think my opinions reflect those Boeing Computer Services | of The Boeing Company then you have not schultz@bcstec.ca.boeing.com | read many of these disclaimers... ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 May 93 15:30:53 PDT From: Charlie Prael Subject: Dark sky property rights Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space,sci.econ jhart@agora.rain.com (Jim Hart) writes: > Sorry, you can't simply claim a share, we are not talking here > about socialist utopian notions like "the common heritage of > mankind." You have to demonstrate that you've made an investment > in the use of dark sky. I've suggested distributing shares to > organizations and individuals in proportion to the amount of money > they've invested in ground-based astronomy equipment. That's simple, > measurable, and reasonably fair. There may be other good ways to > distribute the dark sky, based on measuring the amount invested in using > or improving our view of the sky, based on the common-law tradition of > right-by-usage. Jim--Actually, since airspace is a non-privately-held, governmentally vested "property" right, dark sky would probably fall into the same category. As such, it would have to be treated as a communally-held property, until and unless it was divided into fungible elements as you describe. If such happened, it would either (a) be sold by the vestin organization on behalf of the polity, or (b) be divided into discrete shares and distributed equitably. Your criteria for "dark sky" users would possibly entitle them to additional shares, but I would find it hard for those same criteria to be used to disqualify other, "civilian" users. You would, in short, disenfranchise individuals based on their non-monetary use of dark sky. In this country, that would die in court fairly quick. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Charlie Prael - dante@shakala.com Shakala BBS (ClanZen Radio Network) Sunnyvale, CA +1-408-734-2289 ------------------------------ Date: 20 May 93 16:26:14 -0600 From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey Subject: Does HAL own *Discovery*? (was Re: murder in space) Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1te51d$bci@st-james.comp.vuw.ac.nz>, bankst@kauri.vuw.ac.nz (Timothy Banks) writes: > In article <1tdnfd$smc@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov> sean@gomez.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Sean Barrett) writes: >>In article mgemmel@cs.vu.nl (Martin Gemmel) writes: >>>Anselm Lingnau (lingnau@math.uni-frankfurt.de) writes: >>>} Wouldn't Discovery (with nobody on board besides HAL, a computer) be an >>>} abandoned vessel which anybody could pick up for its scrap value? >>>No, because HAL is still on board. >>Nonsense. Only a person (or a corporation) can own something. > > Hmmm....anyone asked HAL what he thinks? Hey, Bill, isn't HAL > a year old or so now? :-) Probably still waiting for the ethernet > 'nection to hook him into the net so he can read comp.ai and/or mail Yes, he is over a year old, but doesn't have a Usenet connection yet. Probably some red tape within UofI at UC is holding it up. As for corporations, in the SF novels of Alexis Gilliland, AIs are incorporated so they can be treated as people for legal purposes. "Read my lips, Hal: Bill Higgins Open the Pod Bay doors!" Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Bitnet: HIGGINS@FNAL.BITNET SPAN/Hepnet: 43011::HIGGINS Internet: HIGGINS@FNAL.FNAL.GOV ------------------------------ Date: 20 May 93 18:07:41 From: Brian Yamauchi Subject: Impediments to NASA productivity Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space In article <1993May20.144520.8156@sol.ctr.columbia.edu> kjenks@gothamcity.jsc.nasa.gov writes: >4. Contractor vs. Civil Service Expertise > We have evolved a system whereby overworked, underqualified Civil > Servants supervise technically challenging work which is done by > Contractors. Frequently, the Civil Servants lack the technical > expertise to even understand what the Contractors are doing, much > less evaluate the Contractors for efficiency and performance > ratings. We need to put in place policies which require that Civil > Servants have the necessary technical skills to operate our > Programs even if the Contractors disappear overnight (which happens > more often than is necessary, causing more inefficiency). > Using Civil Servants to perform technical tasks should logically be > more efficient than paying a Contractor, his manager, his Human > Resources department and his security guard to perform the task. > We frequently contract out tasks which could more efficiently be > accomplished by Civil Service personnel simply because it's easier > to do the paperwork to hire a Contractor than it is to hire (or > temporarily transfer) a Civil Servant. This is a barrier to > efficiency. I think most of Ken's points are right on target, but I'd like to add a few comments on this point above. I've worked for both defense contractors and NASA contractors. In the case of defense contractors, the government gives the company money, the company gives the engineers equipment and salaries, and the engineers build a product. In the case of NASA contractors, the government gives the company money, then assigns civil servants to watch over every step taken by the engineers, constantly butting heads with the company managers who are also watching (and arguing) over every step taken by the engineers. At least, this is the way things seemed to work at KSC, and I've heard (second-hand) that JSC is organized in a similar way. The problem is not that either the civil servants or the contractors are incompetent or unmotivated, but rather that there are constantly conflicting lines of authority. Contractor engineers are often caught in a tug-of-war between company managers and NASA project leads. (And often the only way to get things done is to ignore management entirely, and just do it...) NASA's current contract management approach is amazing in its ability to preserve all of the bureaucratic inertia of the public sector without sacrificing one bit of the corporate politics of the private sector. My suggestion would be to specify only the design requirements for products, then adopt a completely "hands-off" approach until the product is delivered -- with the understanding that if the product is not delivered on time, on budget, and up to spec, the contractor won't receive any future projects. -- _______________________________________________________________________________ Brian Yamauchi Case Western Reserve University yamauchi@alpha.ces.cwru.edu Department of Computer Engineering and Science _______________________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 May 1993 23:05:00 GMT From: "Phil G. Fraering" Subject: Liberal President murders spaceflight? Newsgroups: sci.space aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) writes: >At the same time, I think it is a big mistake to equate right with >pro-space and left with anti-space. In my experience this issue >crosses those boundries. There are many people on the left and right >with excellent space credentials. And more people on both sides with poor ones, I suspect... > Allen >-- >+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ >| Lady Astor: "Sir, if you were my husband I would poison your coffee!" | >| W. Churchill: "Madam, if you were my wife, I would drink it." | >+----------------------27 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX-----------------------+ -- Phil Fraering |"Number one good faith! You convert, pgf@srl02.cacs.usl.edu|you not tortured by demons!" - anon. Mahen missionary ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 May 1993 23:01:27 GMT From: "Phil G. Fraering" Subject: Liberal President murders spaceflight? (was Re: SDIO kaput!) Newsgroups: sci.space prb@access.digex.net (Pat) writes: >In article <1tdnpb$jok@skates.gsfc.nasa.gov> xrcjd@resolve.gsfc.nasa.gov (Charles J. Divine) writes: >|Carter himself did not seem that protechnology in general. His >|general approach to problems seemed to be puritanical preaching -- >|not let's see what we can do. >Let's not forget, Carter was a nuclear engineer, >and seemed a whole lot more realistic about what could be done >as opposed to reagan who had no idea what the laws of physics were. >pat Funny. Maybe we ought to shoot all the nuclear engineers and find more people ignorant of physics. Then we might get some research into advanced propulsion done. Phil (who's seen the rationale behind the star wars announcement, which is a heck of a lot more rational than Tsipis and Sagan would like to think. Or would like you to believe.) (it's not secret, anyone could -- Phil Fraering |"Number one good faith! You convert, pgf@srl02.cacs.usl.edu|you not tortured by demons!" - anon. Mahen missionary ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 May 1993 21:25:33 GMT From: kjenks@gothamcity.jsc.nasa.gov Subject: Neil Armstrong's first words (the real ones) Newsgroups: sci.space etssp@levels.unisa.edu.au wrote: : Here is a transcript (my own) of Neil Armstrong's first words on the : surface of the Moon. Taken from the NASA short film, "For all mankind" : of the Apollo 11 mission. [...transcript deleted...] Here is what Collins wrote in "Carrying the Fire." Aldrin: "Contact light. Okay, engine stop. ACA out of detent." Armstrong: "Got it." Aldrin: "Mode controls, both auto. Descent engine command override, off. Engine arm off...." CAPCOM: "We copy you down, Eagle." Armstrong: "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." -- Ken Jenks, NASA/JSC/GM2, Space Shuttle Program Office kjenks@gothamcity.jsc.nasa.gov (713) 483-4368 "HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH FIRST SET FOOT UPON THE MOON JULY 1969, A.D. WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND." ------------------------------ Date: 20 May 93 22:46:42 GMT From: Andy Cohen Subject: New DC-X GIF Newsgroups: sci.space A new DC-X photo will be available very shortly on bongo.cc.utexas.edu....pub/Delta Clipper The photo is of DC-X on the static firing test platform.....DCXSnds.gif I'll OCR the article text tomorrow...... I also included a photo of the latest Delta II launch....what a bird...Delta.gif ------------------------------ Date: 20 May 1993 22:12:46 GMT From: Doug Mohney Subject: Orion Spacecraft Newsgroups: sci.space In article , henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: [some factoid] >My apologies -- my memory must have failed me on this one. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Head for the hills! The world is coming to an end!!!! Software engineering? That's like military intelligence, isn't it? -- > SYSMGR@CADLAB.ENG.UMD.EDU < -- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 May 93 19:24:33 EDT From: Tom <18084TM@msu.edu> Subject: Patriot/video/sat games Thomas Clarke writes: >>I expect Hollywood has exaggerated for dramatic effect. X-ray >>vision from orbit is just not available. >>I think the imagery was supposed to be in the infrared. Dean Adams replies >>Yes... the main "exaggeration" I thought of is that they were showing >>it as LIVE VIDEO. I doubt very much if that is how the sats work. Fred sez: >>I think you can safely bet that there is real-time imagery capability >>available. Dean again; >>YES, but "real-time imaging" does not have to mean live 30 fps video. Fred; >YES, but is it your contention that because it does not *have* to mean >live 30 fps video that it *does not* mean 30 fps video? In other >words, are you asserting as fact that no such system exists? YES, but he said he doubted it, not that it IN FACT, doesn't exist. Are you asserting as fact that such a system does exist? Or just that you'd bet that it does? In my mind the big exaggeration was how the view during that video- game like scene was always from directly above. They watched the event occur for a good 3 minutes or so, so the satellite would have crossed a good portion of the sky, from the camp's POV, so why wasn't the view from an angle at first, then straight down, then from the opposite angle? Also, what luck, having the meat of the strike occur during the 3 minutes of the entire orbit when the satellite could watch! :-) That was my favorite scene in the movie, BTW, but I'm not sure why. I found it pretty haunting, the way it depersonalized death so much. -Tommy Mac ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tom McWilliams 517-355-2178 wk \ They communicated with the communists, 18084tm@ibm.cl.msu.edu 336-9591 hm \ and pacified the pacifists. -TimBuk3 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: 20 May 1993 21:38:43 GMT From: "Palmer T. Davis" Subject: R101 Newsgroups: sci.space In a previous article, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) says: >[T]he R101 people had >funding that the R100 group could only dream about, and did things like >building complete mockups of complex areas of the design... but once they >made a decision, it was very difficult to change it. In fact, that's how R101 wound up with diesel engines. The design team had originally planned to use them, and several articles were published lauding their improved safety. When it was discovered that the diesels were too heavy, the design team tried to switch to the Rolls-Royce gasoline engines that the Vickers team was using on the R100, the Air Ministry squashed the idea. Consequently, the R101 wound up with a total usable lift of less than 35 tons, versus 57 on the R100.... -- Palmer T. Davis ___ UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of \X/ this IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED. ------------------------------ Date: 20 May 1993 20:25:31 GMT From: steve hix Subject: Space Billboards and Low-Cost Access to Orbit Newsgroups: sci.space In article <11922@blue.cis.pitt.edu> sheaf@donald.phyast.pitt.edu (Sheaf) writes: >(I'd also like to know... can't I be against space-billboards without > being an "anti-billboard person". Why do "right-wing conservatives" > always feel they have to resort to steroetyping everyone who disagrees > with them like they are all part of some big movement ? It sounds either > very childish or very paranoid...) If you look around a bit, you'll find that "true believers" of any stripe tend to stereotype their opposition. "Right-wing conservatives", "left-wing liberals", "wild-eyed visionaries" or any other bunch you want to characterize that believe strongly in something or other do it. Must be some sort of indoor sport or other. On the other hand, for at least some of these types of groups, being paranoid may not mean that someone else isn't out to get them. -- "...Then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise anyone who receives it, in the belief that such writing will be clear and certain, must be exceedingly simple-minded..." Plato, _Phaedrus_ ------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 May 1993 21:04:10 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: Von Braun and Hg (was Re: About the mercury program) Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993May19.080213.17270@ee.ubc.ca> davem@ee.ubc.ca (Dave Michelson) writes: >Nevertheless, von Braun *was* involved in Redstone booster development for >Mercury. Ley's account suggests that the elongated version of Redstone >might have been developed specifically for Mercury... Was it? Alas, I can't answer that -- insufficient data. My personal guess would be that it was a minor variation of existing hardware. Stretched Redstones were nothing new -- the first stage of the Jupiter-C that launched Explorer 1 was a stretched Redstone -- and the whole point of the Mercury-Redstone combination was to do some early testing using a booster that was cheaper and had a better reliability record than Atlas. >When was ABMA transferred to NASA? Didn't that happen when NASA was >created? Wasn't responsibility for JPL transferred at the same time? Nope, wrong twice. :-) NASA was formed in the second half of 1958 -- exactly when it happened depends on which milestone you pick, although 1 October is the usual date. Keith Glennan, its first head, wanted to acquire both JPL and ABMA, but started out with neither. He ended up accepting a compromise in which NASA got JPL (in early December of that year) but not ABMA. It wasn't until mid-1960 that most of ABMA turned into Marshall, after it became clear that the military didn't need Saturn and NASA did. -- 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, 20 May 93 22:58:17 BST From: Ata Etemadi Subject: Wanted: Pointer to ESA and NASA distributor of calls for proposal Newsgroups: sci.space I have searched Gopher space, and looked around in WWW with no success. If anyone knows the address, I would be most grateful for it. best regards Ata <(|)>. -- | Mail Dr Ata Etemadi, Blackett Laboratory, | | Space and Atmospheric Physics Group, | | Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine, | | Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2BZ, ENGLAND | | Internet/Arpanet/Earn/Bitnet atae@spva.ph.ic.ac.uk or ata@c.mssl.ucl.ac.uk | | Span SPVA::atae or MSSLC:atae | | UUCP/Usenet atae%spva.ph.ic@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk | ------------------------------ Date: 20 May 1993 21:11:39 GMT From: Doug Mohney Subject: Why Government? Re: Shuttle, "Centoxin" Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space In article , tbrent@bank.ecn.purdue.edu (Timothy J Brent) writes: >Sure defense spending promotes new technologies but so do the national >labs. Sure they put people to work but they don't really earn us any >thing. So what is the price for national security? It's not zero, and it's not trivial. >And guess what. It's paid for by taxes. Now, your deeply ingrained >Republican indoctrination should have set off bells at that. If your >going to tax people why not spend more on developing marketable products. It should not be the government's role to develop marketable products. The Commies tried that and they came out with medocre solutions. >Hell, we would do better to pump money into developing HDTV and maglevs >than B-2 and SDI. That's true. Without SDI, there'd be no DC-X, now would there? No Clementine, either. HDTV? Oh, yah, we still haven't figure out a standard for that. Amazing how much money the Japanese have poured into their HDTV "standards" and how much they'll lose once *hehe* we (The United States, god bless our consumers) decide upon a standard. > Aren't you embarrassed that the Japanese are kicking >our butts in the electronics department? Mommy, mommy, our big companies were too FAT and LAZY to compete and they lost this round. Next round will be different. They also had the luxury of being protected by U.S. forces for the past 40-plus years and being rebuilt with U.S. money. > Does it bother you that the >first commercial maglev in the world will operate in the US but be >of German origin? If the Germans had carried their fair share of defense before the fall of the Soviet Union, they wouldn't be building maglevs for us, but that's a whole 'nother story. >. Remember your children. Typical bleeding-heart "We are the world" response. Software engineering? That's like military intelligence, isn't it? -- > SYSMGR@CADLAB.ENG.UMD.EDU < -- ------------------------------ Date: 20 May 1993 17:50:53 -0400 From: Pat Subject: Why Government? Re: Shuttle, "Centoxin" Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space >In article <1tghgs$e6@nml1sun.hsc.usc.edu> khayash@nml1sun.hsc.usc.edu (Ken Hayashida) writes: > >>Jim, do you want tens of thousands of people on welfare? You and >>other liberal democrats want to cut defense spending, kill our nation's >>greatest assets in science and technology, put hundreds of thousands >>of skilled engineers + blue collar guys on the assembly lines out of >>work, and then tax us more. Get a damn clue. I am so sick and tired >>of this blantly false rhetoric about how bad the shuttle program is. Let's see if we can get this right. 1) when the government gives money to people to support their lifestyle, that is welfare. 2) Welfare is bad, when the recipients are poor, minority groups. 3) Welfare is Good, when the recipients are Rich companies and Upper middle class technocrats. Carl sagan pointed out, in testimony yesterday, that if Job preservation is the raison d'etre of NASA, then Why doesn't the US government buy Gary indiana. Job preservation puts NASA att he same trough as Inner city poor, Defense line workers, Heavy industries,,,,, Spinoffs are no justification for any project. Either it's worth doing, or it's not. We decided that Saturn wasn't worth doing any more. Why not decide Shuttle isn't worth doing. Or SSF. We are abandoning 2/3rds of the Strategic nuclear arms program, we are de-commisioning Navy ships, why not de-commision 1-2 shuttles.? Keep a minimum flying, cut the staff, a nd go on on more worthwhile activities. pat ------------------------------ Date: 20 May 93 22:59:52 GMT From: Dan Williams Subject: Will NASA's Mars Observer Image the Face on Mars? Newsgroups: sci.space Henry Spencer (henry@zoo.toronto.edu) wrote: : In article gene@jackatak.raider.net (Gene Wright) writes: : >All consipiracy theories aside, (they are watching though :-)), will NASA : >try to image the Cydonia region of Mars where the "Face" is? : : They plan to try. It's not particularly high priority. Nobody in the : planetary-science community believes the "face" is anything but a natural : rock formation that happens to resemble a face when lit from the right : angle. (Such formations exist on Earth too.) There was a lava tube in the Mt. Saint Helen's area that if you were on the right side of the cave going down and you shone your lamp on the left side in the upper part you could see George Washingtons face. Amazing! He was never there on the way out. -- -------------------/\/\__/\/\------------------------------------- Daniel J. Williams \/0~__~0\/ These opinionated statements are mine! Email: ( /oo\ ) and no-one elses. djwilli@uswnvg.com |/VVVV\| 450-8569 \_**_/ Sometimes the Dragon Wins. ------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ id AA22324; Thu, 20 May 93 18:14:44 EDT Received: from CRABAPPLE.SRV.CS.CMU.EDU by VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU id ab28199; 20 May 93 19:10:56 EDT To: bb-sci-space@CRABAPPLE.SRV.CS.CMU.EDU Newsgroups: sci.space Path: crabapple.srv.cs.cmu.edu!fs7.ece.cmu.edu!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!howland.reston.ans.net!usc!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!utzoo!henry From: Henry Spencer Subject: Re: Space Billboards and Low-Cost Access to Orbit Message-Id: Date: Thu, 20 May 1993 20:27:13 GMT References: <11922@blue.cis.pitt.edu> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 16 Sender: news@CRABAPPLE.SRV.CS.CMU.EDU Source-Info: Sender is really isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU In article <11922@blue.cis.pitt.edu> sheaf@donald.phyast.pitt.edu (Sheaf) writes: >I think "visiting LEO" would be still be wishful thinking in 100 years, >let alone 10-20... especially if the only technology we're >talking about developing here is how to put stuff in orbit more cheaply. Why? Putting stuff into orbit more cheaply is *the* problem blocking space tourism (and a lot of other things too). >A commercial launching venture is not going to put money into R&D for >spacetravel, which still has major, possibly insurmountable technological >barriers. *What* technological barriers? Please be specific. -- 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 605 ------------------------------