Date: Fri, 28 May 93 13:56:47 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V16 #636 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Fri, 28 May 93 Volume 16 : Issue 636 Today's Topics: Boeing TSTO concept (sort-of long) Comet Shoemaker-Levy, Possible Collision With Jupiter in 1994 (2 msgs) Detecting planets in other system (2 msgs) Galileo's HGA? (2 msgs) Hey Sherz! (For real!) Cost of LEO Kepler's dream of space travel Magellan Aerobraking Underway (2 msgs) Magellan Update - 05/26/93 Meade 2045 4" Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope For Sale NASA CD-ROM add/price Seeding Mars with "Mars box" life Space Marketing would be wonderfull. The crew is toast (2 msgs) Von Braun and Hg (was Re: About the mercury program) 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 19:54:40 GMT From: Terry F Figurelle Subject: Boeing TSTO concept (sort-of long) Newsgroups: sci.space In article Azx@zoo.toronto.edu, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >In article <1to6bu$bvf@access.digex.net> prb@access.digex.net (Pat) writes: >>>... a better trick: inject liquid hydrogen (I think >>>it was) into the bypass ducts of the regular 747 engines, and burn it... >> >>I guess that makes Nitrous injection look pale :-) How would this >>differ from a conventional afterburner? ... > >The main difference is that the air stream in question has not gone through >the engine core; this is its only exposure to fuel. The boundaries are >admittedly rather fuzzy, since there are afterburning turbofans that use >both the core flow and the duct flow in their afterburners (although they >generally have rather low bypass ratios, hence are a different sort of >animal). > >>If they seriously boost thrust, did they have to rre-design >>the thrust pylons? > >I'd expect so, but I didn't see technical 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 Current 747-400 pylons are good for about 400 klbs thrust continous. Right now they're mounting 777 pylons/engine mounts to test 777 engines on a 747-100 test bed (they only change one engine on each side). The 777 engines will have thrusts from 70-120 klbs under normal operating conditions. I didn't work on the 747 TSTO study but I suspect they just replaced the hollow fuse pins with solid ones. The pylons themselves are pretty much overkill to allow for long life, cracks, etc. We're looking at using the 777 wings/engines on the 767 AWACS with some high altitude mods. Should be good for 60,000 - 65,000 feet and 0.95 mach. With the lighter weight of the 767 body it would have three times the thrust/weight ratio of the 747-400F (the best 747 thrust/weight ratio). After looking at the GE 777 engine core, I would guess you could get 200-250 klbs thrust with afterburners which the 777 wing/767 body combo should be able to handle. Is there much of a payoff for getting slightly above 65,000 feet or mach 0.95 for a TSTO? I would suspect you'd need major mods for trans-sonic operations and I don't think any of the HSCT designs have much payload capacity. --- Terry F Figurelle Boeing Defense & Space Group email: tff@plato.ds.boeing.com PO BOX 3999, Mail Stop 6K-66 phone: 206-393-0963 fax:206-393-0901 Seattle, WA 98124-2499 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 01:53:22 GMT From: apryan@vax1.tcd.ie Subject: Comet Shoemaker-Levy, Possible Collision With Jupiter in 1994 Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary > The current computations indicate that the comet made a close flyby > of Jupiter at only 0.0008 AU on July 8, 1992 (this is within Jupiter's > Roche limit), and will make an even closer flyby of Jupiter on July 25, 1994. > > IAU Circular 5801 further discusses the orbital trajectory of the comet, > and indicates that it is possible that half of the pieces of the comet may > collide with Jupiter over a three day peroid in July 1994. The surviving > pieces may remain as satellites to Jupiter or be thrown closer to the sun on > short-period heliocentric orbits. Is there likely to be any visible effect on Jupiter? (My gues is "no" - not even HST will see anything, nucleii prob less than mile across=tiny compared to Jupiter). -Tony Ryan, "Astronomy & Space", new International magazine, available from: Astronomy Ireland, P.O.Box 2888, Dublin 1, Ireland. 6 issues (one year sub.): UK 10.00 pounds, US$20 surface (add US$8 airmail). ACCESS/VISA/MASTERCARD accepted (give number, expiration date, name&address). Tel: 0891-88-1950 (UK/N.Ireland) 1550-111-442 (Eire). Cost up to 48p per min (WORLD'S LARGEST ASTRO. SOC. per capita - unless you know better? 0.036%) growing fast! up another notch by late May 1993!-----^ ------------------------------ Date: 27 May 93 01:24:29 GMT From: Paul Dietz Subject: Comet Shoemaker-Levy, Possible Collision With Jupiter in 1994 Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary In article <1993May27.015322.1@vax1.tcd.ie> apryan@vax1.tcd.ie writes: > Is there likely to be any visible effect on Jupiter? (My gues > is "no" - not even HST will see anything, nucleii prob less than > mile across=tiny compared to Jupiter). My guess is "yes". A 1 km^3 block of ice has a mass of about 10^12 kilograms. This liberates 1.8 x 10^21 joules of energy when falling onto jupiter (about 400 gigatons of TNT). Remember, Jupiter's gravity well is some 28 times deeper than Earth's. The rate at which sunlight hits Jupiter is about 8x10^17 watts. So, the energy liberated by the impact is about 40 minutes worth of insolation. I expect a significant fraction of the energy would be converted to light, and radiated over a period of seconds or minutes. Jupiter could become significantly brighter, even to the naked eye. If the block is smaller, or its density significantly less than 1, the energy liberated is of course less. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 22:11:17 GMT From: Brenda Kalt Subject: Detecting planets in other system Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro In article <1993May26.184001.16542@cs.ucf.edu>, clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke) writes: |> In a recent issue of Science there is a discussion of a project |> to look for MACHOs (Massive Compact Halo Objects - things like ^^^^^ |> planets, brown dwarfs, or even black holes in the galactic halo |> that might account for some of the missing mass). [......] Sexism in research strikes again. Obviously, a modern, non-sexist name for this phenomenon would be McHalos... -- Brenda Kalt sasbck@unx.sas.com ------------------------------ Date: 27 May 93 00:07:11 GMT From: dempsey@stsci.edu Subject: Detecting planets in other system Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993May25.223554.8207@Princeton.EDU>, richmond@spiff.Princeton.EDU (Stupendous Man) writes: > Robert Dempsey says (on the subject of detecting planets orbiting > other stars) > >> There is currently a project at Ames working on this using a spaced based >> photometer. The idea is that they will look for millimagnitude variations >> over time for 10's of thousands of stars. They are concentrating >> on late-type cool stars and they have already modeled the anticipated >> results and it is doable. They hope to detect jupiter size dark objects >> around G-K stars. If the funding goes well the hope to be up by >> the end of the decade. > > > 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. > Actually, many solar-type stars vary in the 0.01 - 0.5 magnitude range due to starpsots alone. I think they plan to distinguish the two from the fact that the spots producing the large amplitude are not black but are warm compared to planets. Not sure. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert Dempsey (410) 338-1334 STScI/PODPS "He which hath no stomach for this fight, Let him depart; his passport shall be made, and crowns for convoy put into his purse: We would not die in this man's company that fears his fellowship to die with us." -Shakespeare ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: 26 May 93 22:37:26 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: Galileo's HGA? Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1u0fi3INN613@lynx.unm.edu> lyons@us17501.mdc.com writes: >What's the status of the high gain antenna? They've given up on it as hopeless. -- 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: 27 May 1993 03:13 UT From: Ron Baalke Subject: Galileo's HGA? Newsgroups: sci.space In article , henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes... >In article <1u0fi3INN613@lynx.unm.edu> lyons@us17501.mdc.com writes: >>What's the status of the high gain antenna? > >They've given up on it as hopeless. At the present time, the Galileo mission is being planned using the Low Gain Antenna. Attempts to open the High Gain Antenna (HGA) have not been abandoned, and will continue though not as aggressively as in the past. The HGA is partially open, and a High Gain uplink test was performed a couple of months ago to characterize the HGA. The results of this test were, shall we say, very interesting. A downlink test to follow up on this is scheduled for next month. The project is commited to using the Low Gain for the Ida encounter, which is only three months away. ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| 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: 27 May 93 00:36:00 GMT From: David Ward Subject: Hey Sherz! (For real!) Cost of LEO Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1u0p1g$7nk@access.digex.net>, prb@access.digex.net (Pat) writes... >If i wanted to be very narrow in my estimate i could have said >128? LDEF trays, 50 Some SPaceLab Racks, and appx 100 GAS Cans. > >No matter what, it's ascathing condemnation of the SHuttles mass return >capacity. > >pat > Just to add my .02, you might want to add the MACS module that failed on SMM. I only add it because several useful components were refurbished and are flying on UARS -- probably a $5M recovery. No, it wasn't worth the flight, but I suspect the main mission for the flight was as someone else posted: to learn how to do satellite recoveries. After all (and I know I'm going to upset an SMM scientist somewhere), the repair mission was in '84. The two most recent maximums of the solar cycle were in '80 and '91. SMM deorbited in '89 despite requests by the GSFC community to do a reboost. Need I say more? (For the confused, SMM stands for Solar Maximum Mission.) David W. @ GSFC PS--(Disclaimer mode on) The opinions above are my own, so don't blame NASA if you think I'm a bozo. (Disclaimer mode off) ------------------------------ Date: 26 May 93 22:49:56 GMT From: john baez 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. Yes. This was in his "open letter," the Dissertatio cum Nuncio Siderio, to Galileo, in response to the latter's "Message from the Stars" or Siderius Nuncius of 1610. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 02:09:04 GMT From: apryan@vax1.tcd.ie Subject: Magellan Aerobraking Underway Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary In article <26MAY199317045880@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov>, baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke) writes: > MAGELLAN AEROBRAKING, GRAVITY STUDIES UNDERWAY [interesting press notice deleted] I am interested in any electronic articles on Venus Magellan articles. Does anyone know where I could find them? Anyone else care to comment in brief on what Magellan has told us and what questions it poses? -Tony Ryan, "Astronomy & Space", new International magazine, available from: Astronomy Ireland, P.O.Box 2888, Dublin 1, Ireland. 6 issues (one year sub.): UK 10.00 pounds, US$20 surface (add US$8 airmail). ACCESS/VISA/MASTERCARD accepted (give number, expiration date, name&address). Tel: 0891-88-1950 (UK/N.Ireland) 1550-111-442 (Eire). Cost up to 48p per min (WORLD'S LARGEST ASTRO. SOC. per capita - unless you know better? 0.036%) growing fast! up another notch by late May 1993!-----^ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 02:11:57 GMT From: apryan@vax1.tcd.ie Subject: Magellan Aerobraking Underway Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary In article <26MAY199317045880@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov>, baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke) writes: > MAGELLAN AEROBRAKING, GRAVITY STUDIES UNDERWAY Any images by magellan available as GIF/TIFF? Especially interested in the hemispherical view I've seen in magazines - that must be a pure computer image with zillions of perfect pixels just asking to be zoomed in upon?! -Tony Ryan, "Astronomy & Space", new International magazine, available from: Astronomy Ireland, P.O.Box 2888, Dublin 1, Ireland. 6 issues (one year sub.): UK 10.00 pounds, US$20 surface (add US$8 airmail). ACCESS/VISA/MASTERCARD accepted (give number, expiration date, name&address). Tel: 0891-88-1950 (UK/N.Ireland) 1550-111-442 (Eire). Cost up to 48p per min (WORLD'S LARGEST ASTRO. SOC. per capita - unless you know better? 0.036%) growing fast! up another notch by late May 1993!-----^ ------------------------------ Date: 26 May 93 22:58:50 GMT From: Ron Baalke Subject: Magellan Update - 05/26/93 Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary Forwarded from Doug Griffith, Magellan Project Manager MAGELLAN STATUS REPORT May 26, 1993 3:30 PM PDT 1. The Magellan spacecraft continued its Transition Experiment this morning at 5:46 AM PDT with another Orbit Trim Maneuver (OTM) which further lowered its periapsis (closest approach to Venus) to 146.2 km. 2. The spacecraft has now made nine atmospheric drag passes and all subsystems were reported to be nominal. Temperatures of the solar panels increased by about 12 to 15 degrees C as a result of atmospheric friction. They reach a peak of 39 degrees C. (compared to a design max of about 160 degrees C.) 3. The attitude control system continues to control the position of the spacecraft during the drag pass by generating thruster pulses as the control shifted from reaction wheel control to thrusters and back during the pass. Much of this activity is caused by the residual momentum from the wheels being transferred to the body of the craft. 4. Power reports that the solar panels generate some small amount of electricity during the last part of each drag pass. 5. Based on the present navigation and spacecraft data, the next OTM will be the "double down" magnitude. The second of the corridor-adjustment OTMs is scheduled for 2:07 PM PDT tomorrow. ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| 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: Thu, 27 May 1993 00:47:34 GMT From: Jon Ciliberto Subject: Meade 2045 4" Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope For Sale Newsgroups: sci.space Meade 2045 4" Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope For Sale Compact, excellent optics, perfect for the beginner or as a second scope for the experienced astronomer. Excellent for astrophotography, and for use as a 1000mm telephoto lens. A beautiful, professional scope. * 102 mm (4") Clear Aperture * 1000mm (40") Focal Length * f/10 Focal Ratio * 1.1 arc second resolution * Limiting visual magnitude: 12 * Limiting photographic magnitude: 14.5 * Motor Drive * 15 ft. near focus The foam-lined case makes shipping a fairly simple operation. Also, Heavy Duty tripod, which I will sell, but which would be more difficult to ship. Fork-type mounting; Setting Circles; Eyepieces (1.25" O.D.): MA 9mm (111x) and MA 25mm (40x); 2x barlow; filters; Eyepiece holder/diagonal prism assembly; 5 x 24 mm Viewfinder; AC power cord; super tough carry case; table tripod legs; camera piggy-back mount and T-Adapter; many other features. Light use, excellent condition. Asking $475 plus shipping (negotiable). -- .......................................................................... Jon Ciliberto . jciliber@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.edu Graduate Assistant . (808) 956-9704 SHAPS Publications Office . Moore 223 ------------------------------ Date: 27 May 1993 03:00 UT From: Ron Baalke Subject: NASA CD-ROM add/price Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1u0kbo$j7k@iris.mbvlab.wpafb.af.mil>, carol@edfua0.ctis.af.mil (Andy Carol) writes... >Does anyone have the price list and where to write for the NASA >CD-ROMs which are available? I'm looking for the Voyager and >Viking CD-ROMs which I've heard about. All of NASA's CD-ROMs can be obtained from the National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC) at the Goddard Space Flight Center. The charge for the CD-ROMs is $20 for the first CD-ROM, and $6 for any additional CD-ROM in a set. For example, the 12 volume Voyager set costs $86. NSSDC's address is: National Space Science Data Center Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, Maryland 20771 Phone: (301) 286-6695 Email address: request@nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov You can also reach NSSDC by logging on to their computer. To log onto the NSSDC computer, telnet to NSSDC.GSFC.NASA.GOV and give the username "NODIS". You will then be connected to a menu system which allows you to use the "Master Directory". You can also leave questions and orders for the NSSDC staff. If this is the first time you have used the NSSDC "NODIS" system, it will ask you for information (name, address, ...) to keep a database of NSSDC users. The CD-ROMs are also online at explorer.arc.nasa.gov. You can access them by using anonymous ftp. >I also understand the Voyager CD-ROMs are compressed, does anyone >know what method was used? Is it lossy or lossless? A Huffman compression was used (lossless). Source code to do the deocompression is included on the CD-ROM - look in the SOFTWARE directory. ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| 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: 27 May 93 00:07:08 GMT From: Dan Williams Subject: Seeding Mars with "Mars box" life Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.bio Robert Casey (wa2ise@netcom.com) wrote: : Before you seed life on Mars or elsewhere, be sure there is no natural : living or fossil life there. Or else you'll trash an opportunity to : study it and expand biological science. And that probably requires a : I think the original poster proposed to seed a "Mars box" as an experiment in exploring the possibility of seeding Mars, or any other planet. The main idea is to explore possibilities. Accidently seeding a planet is not what we want to do anyway. We will want to taylor organisms for specific results. Then we can get this terraforming science time lag down to a few centuries, rather than the current time lag in the millions of years. :-) : through inspection of Mars, by robot or man. In all sorts of different : enviroments there. Probably take a century of work. By the time you : get done, you will probably contaminate Mars accidently with Earth life : anyway. : This is an admirable goal, but in the current climate for space expenditure it will not happen. On the other hand if someone could prove life was possible in a Mars box here on Earth, it might drive intrest for new inspection flights to run more tests or return samples. But any experiments on Mars will always have the possibility to contaminate the Mars biosphere. Since Viking at least, there is the chance we have already seeded the planet despite our efforts not to. -- -------------------/\/\__/\/\------------------------------------- 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. ------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: 27 May 93 00:17:33 GMT From: bill nelson Subject: Space Marketing would be wonderfull. Newsgroups: sci.environment,misc.consumers,sci.astro,talk.environment,talk.politics.space,sci.space ellert@nu1.uh.cwru.edu () writes: : : logically cool one at that. Initially, I think space advertising will : appeal to a lot of people simply due to its novelty. Maybe it will : proliferate, but I think it will go the way of Burma-Shave signs and : highway billboards. Who really reads billboards anyways? Unfortunately, the only place highway billboards have gone away is where they have been legislated out of existance. Even then, the advertisers try to find ways around the bans. Bill ------------------------------ Date: 26 May 93 22:48:32 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: The crew is toast Newsgroups: sci.space In article DOCOTTLE@ukcc.uky.edu ("Darryl O. Cottle") writes: >... one of the objects he pointed to he identified as the crew cabin >with its wiring harness trailing behind it... >I looked at that and visualized a crude parachute of some sort that >could be attached to the various parts of the wiring harness to >slow the fall... It's been thought about (well, in a refined form -- you might just as well attach it to the cabin directly), both early in shuttle design and after Challenger. The trouble is, that cabin is *heavy*, and it's normally very firmly mounted inside a lot of structure. You need a big parachute to have much of a useful effect, and in an accident of that sort, it's difficult to ensure that the parachute stays attached to the cabin, stays intact, and doesn't get snagged on something. The bottom line is that you add quite a bit of weight to the orbiter for a relatively small chance that it will be useful in an accident. They've taken a different tack on this one, sort of. The crew now has partial-pressure suits, oxygen, and personal parachutes. They'd have a fighting chance of successfully bailing out of the cabin after a Challenger-class accident. -- 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 22:52:49 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: The crew is toast Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1u0pnn$8gp@access.digex.net> prb@access.digex.net (Pat) writes: >THe F-111, and the B-1A? had a crew ejection capsule that was >designed for such a similiar escape. THe problem is, at least on STS, >a probable ejection occurs over water, thus the crew compartment >must have a bouyant capcity. A tough problem... Actually, both the F-111 and B-1A capsules were/are buoyant. The real problem (and the reason why the production B-1 designs switched to ejection seats) is that those escape capsules simply don't work very well. They land too hard, and tend to cause spinal injuries. -- 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 22:41:56 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: Von Braun and Hg (was Re: About the mercury program) Newsgroups: sci.space In article nastasi@cbnewsk.cb.att.com (joseph.l.nastasi) writes: >> Did Wernher von Braun actually have anything to do with the Mercury >> program, or did pat just see *The Right Stuff* too many times? ... > >Van Braun had very little to do with Mercury... Indeed, I happened to be browsing through Aldrin's "Men From Earth" a couple of days ago, looking for something else, and ran across a bit I'd forgotten: he absolutely tears strips off the movie for the ridiculous astronauts-vs-Germans confrontation scene. He says flat out that von Braun had nothing to do with Mercury -- Max Faget and his crew were the ones making the decisions -- and adds that although the expansion of the astronauts' role was partly due to astronaut input, there was never any head-on clash over it. -- 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, 27 May 93 17:31:26 EST From: MAILRP%ESA.BITNET@vm.gmd.de Press Release Nr.26-93 Paris, 19 May 1993 FIRST ESA/ECSL WORKSHOP ON INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS IN OUTER SPACE - MADRID, 26 MAY 1993 The European Centre for Space Law (ECSL), created by ESA in 1989, after having studied the legal protection of remote sensing satellite data, initiated in 1992 a second research on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR's) in Outer Space. This study will be presented at a Workshop jointly organised by ECSL and the Spanish Centre for Space Law, in Madrid on 26 May 1993. Intellectual Property Rights in Outer Space is a legal area which will gather importance in the near future due to the expected increase of experimenting in the microgravity environment, especially on board space stations and space platforms. When ECSL initiated this project it was felt that the legal framework for microgravity activities in outer space, and particularly on board Columbus - the ESA contribution to the International Space Station Freedom - may not be clear enough to protect the interests of the European industry. This should therefore emphasize the need for harmonized European, or even international, provisions in this area. A questionnaire was sent to European industry as well as to public and private entities involved, technically or legally, in activities in outer space. This was to ascertain what, in their opinion, are the legal issues when inventions, patented or not, are used in outer space and whether the existing patent laws cover these activities in a sufficient manner. The invited speakers at this workshop will address the major issues regarding Intellectual Property Rights in Outer Space from technical, political and legal points of view. Since most of the participants are experts in patent law, this event will also be an opportunity for them to share their views and express their opinion on the next steps which should be pursued in order to reach a clear legal structure for the future investors in microgravity activities. For further information on this Workshop, please contact ECSL Secretariat, at ESA Paris, (tel. 33-1-42.73.76.05.; fax 33-1- 42.73.75.60).   ------------------------------ End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 636 ------------------------------