Date: Fri, 28 May 93 10:55:13 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V16 #633 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Fri, 28 May 93 Volume 16 : Issue 633 Today's Topics: Detecting planets in other system (3 msgs) for (a) man Hubble vs Keck Kepler's dream of space travel (3 msgs) Magellan Aerobraking Underway Moon Base Tom Wolfe's THE RIGHT STUFF (Russian books) Tom Wolfe's THE RIGHT STUFF - Truth or Fiction? Two Hairs Past a Freckle Why is everyone picking on Carl Sagan? (3 msgs) Welcome to the Space Digest!! Please send your messages to "space@isu.isunet.edu", and (un)subscription requests of the form "Subscribe Space " to one of these addresses: listserv@uga (BITNET), rice::boyle (SPAN/NSInet), utadnx::utspan::rice::boyle (THENET), or space-REQUEST@isu.isunet.edu (Internet). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 15:51:17 GMT From: Leigh Palmer Subject: Detecting planets in other system Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993May25.223554.8207@Princeton.EDU> Stupendous Man, richmond@spiff.Princeton.EDU writes: > Why space-based? The main problem on the ground is scintillation >noise due to the atmosphere. Borucki estimates that one needs a >9-m scope and 8 hour exposure on the ground to reduce scintillation >noise to 1 part in 100,000, but only a 1 to 2-m scope and 30-minute >exposure in space. > > Assuming a solar-type star, Borucki finds the expected signal >to be a 1% decrease in light for Jupiter, 0.1% for Uranus and 0.01% >for Earth. These are really tough limits; solar-type stars themselves >tend to vary by ~ 0.1% or so (= 0.001 mag = 1 millimag) on short time >scales, which makes looking for Earth-sized planets very hard indeed. > > Why so many systems (tens of thousands quoted above)? Because >you expect to see very few events per year in an individual system; >the numbers Borucki quotes are between 10^(-2) per year (for planets >with orbital radii 0.3 AU) to 10^(-6) per year (10 AU). So you have >to look at lots and lots of systems to see more than a very few >events. I understand all of that. A quick geometric calculation will show that, for the parameters of the Jupiter-sun system, the chance of catching an alignment capable of producing a 1% occultation is about one in five million! If we (I think optimistically) assume that ten measurements are necessary on each of ten thousand stars to establish satisfactory signal-to-noise ratio, then using your figures above the survey would require five hours per star, or 50,000 hours = six years in all, running at a 100% duty cycle. If everything worked perfectly, and every star had just one Jupiter, the chance for a "hit" during that six years would be about two percent! I sure wouldn't want to devote a significant fraction of my life to a project with so little promise of even marginal scientific return. I don't think I'd want my tax money spent that way, either. I bet there are lots of more productive ways to use a 1-2 m scope in space. Leigh ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 15:59:15 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: Detecting planets in other system Newsgroups: sci.space In article wa2ise@netcom.com (Robert Casey) writes: >I vaguely remember seeing a discription of a satellite with extremely long >antennas (hundreds or maybe even thousands of meters long) ten or fifteen >years ago. Don't remember if it actually flew, or was just a proposal. >It was to do observations of very low frequency radio radiation from >natural sources in the sky. One or two such missions have flown, but I don't know very much about them. (The long-antenna technology was pioneered by Canada's Alouette satellites, but the Alouettes' attention was directed downward -- they did ionospheric science rather than radio astronomy.) -- 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, 26 May 93 18:06:07 BST From: Ata Etemadi Subject: Detecting planets in other system Newsgroups: sci.space In article , wa2ise@netcom.com (Robert Casey) writes: -| In article <1993May26.022030.11815@cc.ic.ac.uk> atae@spva.ph.ic.ac.uk writes: -| >G'Day Dave -| > -| >Its coherent meaning a kilometric laser (kaser ?) as opposed to polarisation. -| >Sorry I didn't make it clearer. Its a matter of the scale-length on which the -| >effect occurs. Not all planets would exhibit this lasing effect. On stars the -| >scale-lengths are too large I guess. This is a guess since no one to my -| >knowledge has done science at this wavelength. If they did, they sure kept it -| >quiet. Hopefully some planets would stand out really well over the background. -| -| I vaguely remember seeing a discription of a satellite with extremely long -| antennas (hundreds or maybe even thousands of meters long) ten or fifteen -| years ago. Don't remember if it actually flew, or was just a proposal. -| It was to do observations of very low frequency radio radiation from -| natural sources in the sky. -| Henry? Hi Robert I now have it on good authority that the interplanetary medium would not significantly affect this radiation hence the Moon observatory looks good. Unfortunately I have found out that stars can emit at these wavelengths. Although, as I pointed out, no research has been done at these wavelengths so we don't really know what will be observed. The Kilometric signature of stars may be completely different to that of planets. It maybe that you are probably referring to the recent Italian-American project to experiment with a tethered satellite as launched from the shuttle. I was told it was shown on TV in the States. As always the US is a 100 years ahead of Europe when it comes to access to information. But I also vaguely remember another similar project proposal (sans the satellite). The currents in the wire due to the Earth's magnetic field would mean it would not be feasible to have the satellite orbiting the Earth, but around the Moon would be perfect. Anybody want to fund a feasibility study ? best regards Ata <(|)>. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 May 93 13:30:52 EDT From: "Darryl O. Cottle" Subject: for (a) man In response to my off-the-cuff analysis Roger Noe writes: > In article DOCOTTLE@ukcc.uky.edu > ("Darryl O. Cottle") > writes: >> One poster stated that the "a" WAS said but too softly for the radio >> equipment to pick it up. > > It was spoken, although hurriedly, and is easy to miss because of > radio interference. I can hear it. > And I can't hear it. Of course my ears have suffered from being near 6" gun mounts off 'nam and rock music and rock concerts which may be a reason why. Paul Simon said "a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." Perhaps I WANT to hear it as a mistake? Don't know but its possible. (I notice the increase in mis-spellings on this and other networks during "flame wars"). I should've been a proof reader I guess. To my ear the "for man" or "for a man" was as tight to the ear as if someone had said format. And yes, there is a crackle of interference in between. Shall we agree to disagree?? >> If my memory serves Neil himself was the FIRST one to say that he had >> not said what he had intended to say. > > You have a reference for that? After more than half a lifetime (nearly a quarter century)? Not likely. Just my memory and its none to certain at times. > I've heard Armstrong speak on this > subject (albeit many years ago) and what I recall him saying is that > he did say "for a man", as intended. >> Now to the question of whether or not Neil said "for a man." I'm >> not a speech pathologist > > To my midwestern ear, Neil's "for a man" is clear as day. Perhaps to > others, it's more like "fera man". I can understand why those not > accustomed to the many varieties of midwestern speech patterns > continue to mishear these words. Again I distinctly hear "for" rather than "fer" or "fera". And don't let my sig file fool you. True I'm a briar-hopper by birth and current residence but I spent the first 14 years of my life in/around Dayton Ohio. I'm familiar with at least some midwestern speech patterns. >> To say the word "a" >> n the middle, however, requires a shift of the jaw, tongue, and >> lips all three. > > Not true, not at all. Keep in mind this is a schwa, an unstressed Is that that little upside down "e" that is in dictionaries anymore? > vowel with a sound like "uh". Also, the o vowel in "for" is schwa'd > (phoneticists have a real term for this, I don't recall what it is) so > that it's almost the very same vowel as the "a". If you want to speak > like Neil, you run these two together with a little r in between. Sometimes I say "a" as in say, sometimes "uh" as in "duh!" I covered that later in my "article." (I wouldn't've dignified it with THAT title.) > >> reproduce my interpretation of what I heard. >> >> "That's one small step" "for man" "a giant leap for >> mankind." > > This doesn't help your argument to get another word wrong in the > "quote". That's "ONE giant leap" and there's a smaller pause between > "one" and "giant". I realized that goof after I left the office and first thing the next morning sent a correction. SOMEHOW my acknowledgement of my misquote wound up immediately AFTER your posting. Now how'd THAT happen? ;-) I'm not subscribed to this list (and that was my first post to it after "lurking" for a couple of years - didn't feel qualified to say anything until a question about audio came up) and I can't bring all the fancy tricks to bear that I could if I WERE subscribed (considering all the flame wars I'll probably pass on THAT idea) so composing a reply to any- thing is a bit cumbersome. I had to copy your posting to a separate file and then "retrieve" it into my response so I could add all the little greater than symbols to designate who said what and when. I can't hear enough space in the audio recording for an extra syllable but it certainly doesn't mean that it isn't there. I appreciate your response and now I'll have to go listen to it several more times. I promise to TRY to hear an "a" ok? > -- > Roger Noe noe@cs.uiuc.edu etc. p.s. I didn't hear the alarm clock in the Beatles "A day in the life" immediately either but later I did. It was great fun to play it and watch people's faces to see if THEY heard it! +- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- -+ | (snail mail) |"I don't know what I'm doin'!| (voice) | |*Darryl O. (Doc) Cottle | If I ever DO figure it out,| 606-257-7577 | | Agricultural Economics | I'll prob'ly go HIDE!!" | or | |*431 Ag Engineering Bldg 2| "Brother" Dave Gardner | 606-254-8914 | | University of Kentucky |-----------------------------|--------------| |*Lexington, KY 40546-0276 | "Where were you born?" | | - - - - - <> - - - - - - | "Oh, are you one of them astrology dudes? | |* = short form of address | I'm a Cancer with a bad moon risin'!" | |--------------------------| Cheech Marin (Born in East L.A.) | | (electronic) +--------------------------------------------+ | docottle@ukcc.bitnet or else try docottle@ukcc.uky.edu | +- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- -+ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 16:09:16 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: Hubble vs Keck Newsgroups: sci.space I wrote: >>...write off the Hubble program entirely and build 2.5 more Keck... > >It wouldn't give you Hubble's UV or faint-object capabilities... Actually, there are two or three more Hubble capabilities it wouldn't duplicate either, although they're secondary issues. Hubble is in a far better position to do high-speed photometry, although that's about to become academic, at least for a while, since the photometer is being sacrificed for the mirror fix. It's also in a much better position for deep infrared work, although it'll be a few years before it gets an IR instrument (the IR people lost out on the initial instrument selection, but there's an IR instrument slated to go up on the next Hubble revisit, scheduled for 1997 or so). And I'm under a vague impression that the astrometry work, which will use the fine-guidance sensors after the mirror fix, is also not possible from the ground, although I don't know details. -- 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: 26 May 93 15:34:47 GMT From: Robert Coe Subject: Kepler's dream of space travel Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.space jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez) writes: > I ... just CAN'T resist giving you all this little puzzle. To WHOM did > Kepler write a letter in 1610 saying: > > Who would have believed that a huge ocean could be crossed more peace- > fully and safely than the narrow expanse of the Adriatic, the Baltic Sea > or the English Channel? Provide ship or sails adapted to the heavenly > breezes, and there will be some who will not fear even that void.... So, > for those who come shortly to establish this journey, let us establish > the astronomy.... I'd have to guess Galileo Galilei. ___ _ - Bob /__) _ / / ) _ _ (_/__) (_)_(_) (___(_)_(/_______________________________________ bob@1776.COM Robert K. Coe ** 14 Churchill St, Sudbury, Massachusetts 01776 ** 508-443-3265 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 17:12:58 GMT From: Jack Sarfatti Subject: Kepler's dream of space travel Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.space In article , bob@1776.COM (Robert Coe) writes: > jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez) writes: > > > I ... just CAN'T resist giving you all this little puzzle. To WHOM did > > Kepler write a letter in 1610 saying: > > > > Who would have believed that a huge ocean could be crossed more peace- > > fully and safely than the narrow expanse of the Adriatic, the Baltic Sea > > or the English Channel? Provide ship or sails adapted to the heavenly > > breezes, and there will be some who will not fear even that void.... So, > > for those who come shortly to establish this journey, let us establish > > the astronomy.... > > I'd have to guess Galileo Galilei. > > ___ _ - Bob > /__) _ / / ) _ _ > (_/__) (_)_(_) (___(_)_(/_______________________________________ bob@1776.COM > Robert K. Coe ** 14 Churchill St, Sudbury, Massachusetts 01776 ** 508-443-3265 All of this can be rationally understood and tested if we drop the requirement of invariance of the inner bra-ket product in time evolution. This can be done and still not violate conservation of local probability current. There is a lot of evidence, like the above, that our "wetware" is able to operate beyond standard "unitary" quantum mechanics in this precise sense. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 17:39:06 GMT From: Jack Sarfatti Subject: Kepler's dream of space travel Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.space In article <1993May26.041100.17721@galois.mit.edu>, jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez) writes: > I have just begun reading "Kepler's Dream" by John Lear, and while I > haven't gotten too far yet, I highly recommend it to everyone who likes > the little mind-blowing nooks and crannies of history. Kepler's > "Dream," or "Somnium," was a book he died before publishing, and which > seems to have remained fairly obscure. It is written in the form of a > fantasy about space travel, but its subject is apparently mostly lunar > geography. (Selenography, perhaps?) > > I will describe it more when I have read it all, but for now I just > CAN'T resist giving you all this little puzzle. To WHOM did Kepler > write a letter in 1610 saying: > > Who would have believed that a huge ocean could be crossed more > peacefully and safely than the narrow expanse of the Adriatic, the Baltic > Sea or the English Channel? Provide ship or sails adapted to the > heavenly breezes, and there will be some who will not fear even that > void.... So, for those who come shortly to establish this journey, let > us establish the astronomy.... > > I had been a fan of Kepler ever since reading the details of how he > found that planetary orbits were elliptical, etc. (an incredible train > of thought and lots of hard work!), but this really bowls me over. > > > The lesson is that precognitive remote viewing is the quantum mechanism of creative genius and inspiration! In technical terms, the bra-ket is not time translation-invariant. This may connect with Roger Penrose's idea that "one graviton" collapses the wave function so that there is a curious connection between gravity and mind after all as I intuitied in my 1975 best seller SPACE TIME AND BEYOND. EP Dutton. I am now revising it for multimedia CD ROM in interactive game version. ------------------------------ Date: 26 May 1993 17:04 UT From: Ron Baalke Subject: Magellan Aerobraking Underway Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary,sci.geo.geology Paula Cleggett-Haleim Headquarters, Washington, D.C. May 26, 1993 (Phone: 202/358-1547) Franklin O'Donnell Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. (Phone: 818/354-5011) RELEASE: 93-98 MAGELLAN AEROBRAKING, GRAVITY STUDIES UNDERWAY Having successfully completed its original mission of radar-mapping the planet Venus, NASA's Magellan spacecraft is embarking on a new experiment that will give scientists glimpses into the planet's interior and a better understanding of its atmosphere. On May 25, the spacecraft completed its fourth 8-month cycle of orbiting Venus, during which it collected data on the planet's gravity field, particularly close to the equator. On that same day, Magellan executed the first in a series of aerobraking maneuvers to be conducted over the next 80 days in which Magellan dips into Venus' atmosphere, taking advantage of drag on the spacecraft to lower its orbit. The maneuvers are designed to place Magellan in a circular orbit, allowing it to get better gravity data at the planet's north and south poles. "This experiment is a scientific bonus for what is already a highly successful mission," said Dr. R. Stephen Saunders, Magellan Project Scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. According to Saunders, the gravity data that Magellan is collecting allow scientists to "see" into the interior of the planet because they can gauge the density of the material underlying various parts of the planet. In recent weeks, for example, Magellan passed over a region dominated by three volcanoes -- Hathor, Innini and Ushas. "They occupy a broad swelling of the Venusian crust believed to result from upwelling of hot material from the deep interior, a phenomenon known on Earth as a `hot spot,'" Saunders added. In other ways, Venus seems to be distinctly different from Earth. While Earth's surface geology is largely created by tectonic motion -- enormous continental plates that move slowly over an underlying magma -- the Magellan team found little evidence of plate tectonics on Venus. One possible exception is the Ovda region at the western end of the equatorial Aphrodite Terra highlands. "In this region we see what appear to be the closest thing on Venus to Earth's continents," said Saunders. "It has features that seem to have been formed by compression of the Venusian crust in a process that may resemble some plate tectonic regions on Earth." Saunders said that Ovda and similar terrains -- called tesserae, are intensely fractured regions that are pushed upward compared with most of the planet -- may represent ancient crustal materials on Venus. "They could, in fact, be fragments of the oldest rocks on the planet," he said. During Magellan's fourth 8-month orbital cycle which ended May 25, flight controllers collected gravity data by monitoring the frequency of the signal sent to Earth from the spacecraft. Changes in the gravity field would make Magellan speed up or slow down slightly, causing the frequency of its signal to change by tiny fractions. During that cycle, however, Magellan was in a widely looping elliptical orbit, a 100 miles (170 kilometers) by 5,300 miles (8,500 kilometers). Because of the varying distance, Magellan could collect high-resolution gravity data at the equator but not near the poles. If successful, the aerobraking maneuver will put Magellan into an orbit 125 by 375 miles (200 by 600 kilometers) above Venus. The change will be made gradually over the course of about 80 days. The change in orbit also will provide important new data about Venus' atmosphere which can be studied through its effect on the spacecraft. The upper atmosphere varies with the 11-year cycle of sun activity. "We currently are approaching a solar minimum which means that the number of sunspots and solar storms will be at a minimum," said Saunders. Magellan has fulfilled all of its prime mission objectives, mapping 98 percent of the surface of Venus with many areas covered up to three times. "This provides us with stereo imaging," said Saunders, "as well as a long-time base so that we can search for surface changes in the high-resolution images." -end- EDITORS NOTE: Photographs are available to the media from NASA's Broadcast and Imaging Branch, 202/358-1900. B&W: 93-H-195 thru 1204 Color: 93- HC-182 thru -189 ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| Ron Baalke | baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov | | | | __ \ /| | | | Jet Propulsion Lab | ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |__ M/S 525-3684 Telos | Never laugh at anyone's /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | dreams. |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ | ------------------------------ Date: 26 May 1993 09:16 PDT From: "Horowitz, Irwin Kenneth" Subject: Moon Base Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993May26.121826.24031@ke4zv.uucp>, gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes... (in reference to optical interferometry from the Moon) >It's highly unlikely it could be done on Earth, but for the more mundane >reason of atmospheric turbulence. In space it could be done by using >laser beam interferometers as a reference for the interferometer element >spacings. This would allow arbitrarily fine post processing correction >depending only on computational power available. > I'm sorry, Mr. Coffman, but you are wrong on this. The capabilities of such a system are limited primarily on the spacing between the elements in the interferometer, and trying to properly align a space-based interferometer that is more than a few hundred meters across is a daunting technological task. On the lunar surface, there is no such problem. And as for the best place to do astronomy, I quote from a 1986 NASA study on Lunar-based astronomy (ed. Wendell Mendell): "...we conclude that the Moon is very possibly the best location within the inner solar system from which to perform front-line astronomical research." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Irwin Horowitz | Astronomy Department |"Whoever heard of a female astronomer?" California Institute of Technology |--Charlene Sinclair, "Dinosaurs" irwin@iago.caltech.edu | ih@deimos.caltech.edu | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 14:54:48 GMT From: Dennis Newkirk Subject: Tom Wolfe's THE RIGHT STUFF (Russian books) Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle,rec.arts.books In article <1tvphg$huh@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> br105@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Jeffrey A. Del Col) writes: >Does anyone know whether people associated with the Russian space program have >published books about its early days? Well, there aren't too many widely available in the US, but these are a good start. SURVIVAL IN SPACE, By YURI GAGARIN and VLADIMIR LEBEDEV, 1969 Pioneers of Space,1985/89 Progress Publishers Moscow Three Paces Beyond the Horizon, by V. Lysenko translated by G. Egorov, 1989 The last two have the earliest setting and will introduce readers to some of the important personalities and are very truthful. They consist of chapters written by those directly involoved. There are also books by Titov (Our Blue Earth?), Tereshkova (I am Seagull), and Bykovsky (Cosmonaut No.5) about their experiences. Titovs was translated by NASA long ago (its some "NASA-TT-F?" series book). I don't remember much about Titov's or Tereshkova's book, so its a good bet they are mostly old propaganda. Korolev's biographer is working on a big book but I don't know if any release date is planned. Glushko's name appeared on some books, but I don't know of any about the early days that are translated. Cosmonaut Georgi Grechko is looking for serious funding to do a years work collecting data on the N1 lunar landing project. He knows most of the people who were involoved and is afraid their knowledge will be lost. Any wealthy volunteers? Contact me and I'll FAX him the good news. Dennis Newkirk (dennisn@ecs.comm.mot.com) Motorola, Land Mobile Products Sector Schaumburg, IL ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 15:56:31 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: Tom Wolfe's THE RIGHT STUFF - Truth or Fiction? Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle,rec.arts.books In article <1993May26.071424.26094@ee.ubc.ca> davem@ee.ubc.ca (Dave Michelson) writes: >>... The mission they were to fly was approximately that flown by Apollo 7. > >Note that "Apollo 1" was to use a Block I command module which didn't >incorporate many of the features required for a lunar mission... I don't >believe that a Block I CM was even capable of docking with a lunar module. >Its main function was to get *something* flying so that at least some >of the systems could be checked out... Indeed, the block 1 CM had no docking tunnel. It was one of those things, like the Saturn I, that looked like a good idea early on but ended up being bypassed in the end. -- 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, 26 May 1993 16:23:21 GMT From: "Dale M. Greer" Subject: Two Hairs Past a Freckle Newsgroups: sci.space For those on the net who don't like the American units of measurement, i.e., inches, feet, etc., because they are too much related to real things. Aviation Week & Space Technology / May 24, 1993 reports on the Hubble mission: "Hubble's mirror is too flat by 2 micrometers, or about 1/40 the thickness of a human hair." and "The total stroke of the actuators [to adjust the Costar mirrors] is equal to the length your hair grows in 15 minutes." The article also stated that the Costar unit is "about the size of a telephone booth" and its ten corrective mirrors range from "about the size of a U.S. quarter dollar" to "as big as a dime." For the humor challenged, please note that I'm not criticizing the Hubble folks for coming up with these analogies, but I still think they sound funny. _____________ Dale M. Greer, whose opinions are not to be confused with those of The Center for Space Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas UTSPAN::UTADNX::UTDSSA::GREER or greer@csssun10.utdallas.edu "Do a good day's work, and be Somebody." - Andy Taylor ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 15:53:40 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: Why is everyone picking on Carl Sagan? Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993May26.094319.3298@iti.org> aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) writes: >I don't like him because he usually lets his politics dictate his >science. His nuclear winter theory was bogus scientifically but he >pushed it because it agreed with his politics. He opposed human >exploration of space saying it wasn't good science. Then he decided >the cold war would end if the US and USSR went to Mars together... The way I read Sagan is that maybe ten years ago, he decided that preventing nuclear war was his *highest* priority and everything else was secondary. Out of that flowed most everything he's done since (well, in the popular eye anyway -- he is still doing planetary science now and then). Nuclear winter actually wasn't "bogus"; there is room for real concern about the climate effects of a major nuclear war, and the problem had not previously been recognized. However, the TTAPS (the S being Sagan) paper's estimates of the effects were either overenthusiastic (if one is being kind) or blatantly overdone for maximum PR effect (if one is being cynical). Certainly the doomsday-for-humanity tone of the book that followed does nothing to discourage the cynical interpretation. -- 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: 26 May 93 12:21:15 EDT From: "John F. Woods" Subject: Why is everyone picking on Carl Sagan? Newsgroups: sci.space aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) writes: >Then [Sagan] decided >the cold war would end if the US and USSR went to Mars together. >Suddenly, humans in space was GREAT science. And note, of course, that it was "humans in space ONCE" that was "GREAT science"; Sagan didn't want a long, drawn-out program of permanent exploration, just a quick one-shot that would kill the cold war and then get out of the way of the unmanned craft he favors. ------------------------------ Date: 26 May 1993 12:49 EST From: "Robert S. Hill" Subject: Why is everyone picking on Carl Sagan? Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993May26.132454.27612@bnr.ca>, agc@bmdhh286.bnr.ca (Alan Carter) writes... >In article <26MAY199308281366@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov>, bhill@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov (Robert S. Hill) [that's me] writes: >|> I think the combination of jealousy and suspicion of popularizers with >|> some obvious breaches of taste in Sagan's public self-presentation are [... my nattering deleted and lots of good discussion by Alan deleted ...] Me: >|> Jealousy of >|> popularizers is one of those unfortunate things that happens in any >|> specialized profession, but Sagan did nothing to disarm it. > Alan: >He goes and gets the funding *and doesn't even apologise*? The swine. You're right, of course, about the need for popularization, and I'm not arguing with that; I think it's a highly legitimate professional activity. And, Cosmos was remarkably successful in reaching a broad audience. And, even though I groaned at a lot of stuff, I pretty much liked the show. Mostly, I was trying to explain What Some Other People Were Saying (tm). Still, perhaps I am allowed a few mild worries. The gee whiz approach can backfire. People in general are smart enough to know that science isn't magic, and that we slog away at a desk or bench every day like any other white-collar worker. So when we try make ourselves look like alchemists who are in search of the philosopher's stone, or perhaps even worse, the `face of God,' they know perfectly well that we are talking like idiots or snake-oil salesmen. Did Sagan contribute to this problem, or did he help fight it, or was he neutral? Or did he make a negative contribution that was outweighed by the positive one? This last I think is likely, but we have no way of knowing for sure. Bob Hill ---------------------------------------------------------------- bhill@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov In no way representing any of the following: Hughes STX Corp. Code 681, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 ------------------------------ End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 633 ------------------------------