Date: Sun, 6 Jun 93 05:05:19 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V16 #688 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Sun, 6 Jun 93 Volume 16 : Issue 688 Today's Topics: 1992 NASA Authorization Budget- shuttle Big Rock Can Hit Earth in Yr 2000 Case for Mars (Was: Re: Moon Base) DC-X neighbor Fortran Compiler Recommendation(s) for DOS/Windows 3.1 Hey Sherz! (For real!) Cost of LEO Hey Sherz! (For real!) Cost of LEO (Long) mass drivers Moon Base (6 msgs) reducing launch costs Refs, please (was: Moon Base) Self-replicating gadgets (was Re: Moon vs. asteroids, Mars, comets) Why are SSTO up-front costs rising? (2 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: 5 Jun 1993 15:28:03 -0400 From: Pat Subject: 1992 NASA Authorization Budget- shuttle Newsgroups: sci.space Matt asks if i am in the pay of a foreign government. No. I am merely pointing out, that Autos, energy, textiles.... all have clamored for Government funding, help, protection,import taxes,.... Aero-space is heavily US govt influenced. and as such is subject to other sectors making equivalent demands for those dollars. I personally wish we were pre-eminent in all these technologies, and I blame the Harvard Business SChool and the Reagan administration for a lot of the problems. But in the Now, there are huge budget Deficits, and economic recession. Many mouths at a small trough. Aero-space needs to fight among the crowd, or start increasing value returned, Politically, Economically or Technically. pat ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 18:43:18 GMT From: "Julian V. Noble" Subject: Big Rock Can Hit Earth in Yr 2000 Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.environment,sci.physics,sci.astro pgf@srl03.cacs.usl.edu writes: > zcapk43@ucl.ac.uk (Peter Newman) writes: > > >Is it true that the name of this object, Toutatis, is a pun based on > >it being a contact binary, i.e. "two taties" (potatoes)...? :-) > > Altogether now: > > Toutatis was a god worshipped by many Gaulic tribes as some > sort of protector. > > -- > > +-----------------------+---------------------------------------+ > |Phil Fraering | "...drag them, kicking and screaming, | > |pgf@srl03.cacs.usl.edu | into the Century of the Fruitbat." | > +-----------------------+-Terry Pratchett, _Reaper Man_---------+ > Re: Toutatis -- see Asterix, they are always swearing in the name of this (ahem!) Toutelary deity. --jvn ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 22:30:15 GMT From: "Phil G. Fraering" Subject: Case for Mars (Was: Re: Moon Base) Newsgroups: sci.space prb@access.digex.net (Pat) writes: >Well Dennis Newkirk is pretty good when he's producing one of his >famous russian history articles. And Coffman is quite good on >Radio electronics and materials. maybe we should get these >3 to moderate sci.space. I only see two names there. Obviously I can't count. Please help me. -- +-----------------------+---------------------------------------+ |Phil Fraering | "...drag them, kicking and screaming, | |pgf@srl03.cacs.usl.edu | into the Century of the Fruitbat." | +-----------------------+-Terry Pratchett, _Reaper Man_---------+ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 21:22:20 GMT From: _Floor_ Subject: DC-X neighbor Newsgroups: sci.space Three of my neighbors here in St. Louis work at McDonnell Douglas. I asked two of them several months ago if they knew about the Delta Clipper project, and they didn't. Today I'm talking to the third and he says he has to go in to work today - so I ask him what he does. He works on software for the DC-X!!! Anyone have any questions they'd like to ask a software engineer for the program. He was telling me how he has to do some stuff today with increasing the fuel pressure in the tanks, and also is working on improving the speed of abort processes. Anyhow, another MD neighbor was there at the time and said they now knew about it and would be glad to give me their video from MD on it. Every 90 days MD puts out a video giving an update on major projects to its employees. The June 93 one has the DC-X rollout. My friend who works on the project was also telling me that software simulations he did in that 8 hour period between the recent firing tests permitted the team to go ahead so quickly with the second test. Cool! _____ "But you can't really call that a dance. It's a walk." - Tony Banks / ___\ ___ __ ___ ___ _____________ gene@cs.wustl.edu | / __ / _ \ | / \ / _ \ | physics | gene@lechter.wustl.edu | \_\ \ | __/ | /\ | | __/ |racquetball| gev1@cec2.wustl.edu \_____/ \___/ |_| |_| \___/ | volleyball| gene@camps.phy.vanderbilt.edu Gene Van Buren, Kzoo Crew(Floor), Washington U. in St. Lou - #1 in Volleyball ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 20:01:01 GMT From: Jon Noring Subject: Fortran Compiler Recommendation(s) for DOS/Windows 3.1 Newsgroups: sci.math.num-analysis,sci.math.stat,sci.math,sci.misc,sci.optics,sci.physics,sci.space,sci.systems Hello, I'd like to get recommendations and experiences of those who routinely write and compile number crunching Fortran programs on DOS platforms, that is, engineers and scientists! So, if you have some knowledge in this area, and would be willing to share it with me, I'd appreciate the feedback. I'm most interested in recommendations for the better Fortran compilers available for DOS systems. Are there any Fortran 90 compilers yet for DOS? And, are there any good and relatively inexpensive mathematical subroutine libraries? Windows 3.1 compatibility? 32 bit operation? Freeware or shareware compilers, even if not the best? Etc., etc. Inquiring minds want to KNOW. Much thanks for your feedback. *************************************************************** PLEASE E-MAIL YOUR REPLIES TO ME IF YOU CAN. noring@netcom.com *************************************************************** Jon Noring -- Charter Member --->>> INFJ Club. If you're dying to know what INFJ means, be brave, e-mail me, I'll send info. ============================================================================= | Jon Noring | noring@netcom.com | | | JKN International | IP : 192.100.81.100 | FRED'S GOURMET CHOCOLATE | | 1312 Carlton Place | Phone : (510) 294-8153 | CHIPS - World's Best! | | Livermore, CA 94550 | V-Mail: (510) 417-4101 | | ============================================================================= Who are you? Read alt.psychology.personality! That's where the action is. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 22:33:11 GMT From: "Phil G. Fraering" Subject: Hey Sherz! (For real!) Cost of LEO Newsgroups: sci.space wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov writes: ... >>I'm sorry Dennis, I think your a very smart person but you don't even have >>your BS degree yet. To call yourself an expert satellite systems engineer >>is pushing it a bit. I fully expect that someday you will be an expert, >>but not yet. >> >What the heck does a BS degree in Physics have to do with building satellites? Although I think Dennis's figures about shuttle costs are wrong, I'd have to say I agree with him here. He seems to know about building satellites. Of course, you and I may know more about costing, but that's a different field; you get your qualifications there by selling your soul to Cthulhu... ;-) -- +-----------------------+---------------------------------------+ |Phil Fraering | "...drag them, kicking and screaming, | |pgf@srl03.cacs.usl.edu | into the Century of the Fruitbat." | +-----------------------+-Terry Pratchett, _Reaper Man_---------+ ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jun 1993 15:23:33 -0400 From: Pat Subject: Hey Sherz! (For real!) Cost of LEO (Long) Newsgroups: sci.space I am somewhat pleased to realize that Dennis and Allen can go Longer then fred and I even in our longest dialog. Right fred? Dennis says : GM Saturn... Dennis, I will read the article, but I think you may be reading too much into the "Write- OFF" of the SATURN R&D dollars, and Capital investment dollars. Saturn is at this point over 10 years old. GM has probably depreciated this Investment against other Profits, and now are merely conducting the final writedown. Trust Me dennis. IF companies had to conduct enormous loss leading R&D,without a TRUE profit at the end of the road, they'd be out of business. ATT Bell labs were the only organization that could just write off R&D dollars like a federal facility. The Japanese ran for years without real profits, and now their companies are barefoot economically, and ready to totally unwind. Despite all that wonderful capital gear they have, they are on the bare ragged edge, because they lack financial depth. I think GM has merely conducted a final writedown of saturn because it is now over 10 years old. and if you notice, their breakeven point is 300,000 units. Shuttle tile queries. I never read the Playboy article, on the shuttle, but i remmeber AvWeek letters to the editor where people were complaining about the total lack of margins in the STS. STS was the first booster, to fly without an unmanned test. and I remember the mission where they lost some tiles off the top. There were many a sweaty brow around Johnson that week. It might have been interesting on the STS if they had built an expendable flight test vehicle, that flew on a delta, and produced thermal data and tile engineering data. DC-N engine scaling. I guess we'll have to wait and see. fortunately they do have some fall back positions. Allen. Any idea if they will use the X vehicle after finishing flight test to test Plug nozzles? pat ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 22:19:55 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: mass drivers Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993Jun4.071206.2521@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes: >... The hundreds of billions would not be for >the construction of the mass driver anyway, they'd be for the massive >infrastructure that would have to be developed on the Moon to achieve >the capability to *build* a lunar mass driver. The thing would need to >be on the scale of the SSC stretched out in a straight line... Gary, have you *totally* ignored everything that has been learned about mass-driver design since Gerry O'Neill and his people started looking into it? The idea that it would have to be many kilometers long is simply obsolete, a relic of the days when 10 Gs was considered a very high acceleration for such a thing. At 10G, a mass driver capable of lunar escape velocity is 28km long (14km to lunar escape, another 14km to declerate the buckets to rest again). But 10G is a ridiculously *low* acceleration, which nobody would use for a practical system. SSI's first prototype mass driver, built out of the MIT EE junkbox, demonstrated 30G. A practical lunar system would almost certainly run at 1000G or more, making it only a few hundred meters long. -- Altruism is a fine motive, but if you | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology want results, greed works much better. | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 16:24:48 GMT From: Gary Coffman Subject: Moon Base Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993Jun4.192338.1521@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes: >In article <25051@mindlink.bc.ca> Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca (Nick Janow) writes: > > So, any arguments against the "cheap launcher, small LEO industrial modules" > > gradual scenario? Politics is, of course, the wild card. :) > >Politics is among the least of the problems. The significant problem >is lack of market. The heartfelt hope seems to be that materials >processing/etc. types will spring out of the woodwork if launch costs >are reduced, but skepticism is in order given past hype. Of course, >ET materials mostly suffer from the same viewgraph marketing. Yes, this is a strong argument for starting small with minimal investment and scaling as a market develops, or cutting your losses if one does not. This is one of the major drawbacks of lunar bases. The necessary *minimum* scale to approach economical production is too large for the nascent market to absorb. Gary -- Gary Coffman KE4ZV | You make it, | gatech!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary Destructive Testing Systems | we break it. | uunet!rsiatl!ke4zv!gary 534 Shannon Way | Guaranteed! | emory!kd4nc!ke4zv!gary Lawrenceville, GA 30244 | | ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 17:03:51 GMT From: Gary Coffman Subject: Moon Base Newsgroups: sci.space In article <25089@mindlink.bc.ca> Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca (Nick Janow) writes: >gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman) writes: > >> Being early, but a continuing money loser, is not an advantage. Only if >> Luna can be made to pay off should we go with bases and colonies. > >What if the lunar base loses money, but the value-added industries that it >supports provide great returns for the governments that supported the lunar >base? Then it wouldn't lose money. It just gets part of it's cost per pound roundabout through taxes. What I meant, and Paul touched on this, is that if the base delivers product at below cost, someone has to be paying the subsidy. In normal business, you can't sell below cost for long. As long as the government is allowed to print money, they can, but even then everyone pays via the debasement of the currency and increased taxes. The lowest true cost producer sets the price floor. If someone decides to start building and launching Sea Dragons, you'll have no market for raw materials that cost over $10 a pound. If Allen's hype is right, even DC will set the price floor at $400 a pound. A lunar base that covers it's actual costs can't approach these prices. If the government funds it anyway, the costs are still there, they're just recouped by reaching in another's pocket. That isn't equitable, and it would be illegal if done by private companies. >> Volume only works when it pushes past a cost barrier and begins to reap the >> benefits of economies of scale. In that case you don't lose money on every >> sale. >That's for one specific business. The situation is different when that one >business is part of a larger business with many products and services. It's >okay to lose ten billion a year on a lunar base if you get twenty billion a >year in taxes and economic activity driven by the space industry. Normal accounting rules require that internal costs be passed through to the ultimate product. Your example is artificial. All costs are always charged against profit. >> Lunar bases are like mass transit, an unwelcome, unwanted, money sink that >> never goes away. > >Hey, mass transit is extremely welcome and appreciated in Vancouver. The >resistance to the "cars first" policies of other cities is part of what make >it a desirable city to live in. Expanding and improving mass transit is >popular among the taxpayers. It's not here, and if the producers were the majority of voters, it wouldn't be popular anywhere. Subsidies distort markets, and they always ultimately cost more than unsubsidized operations while inequitably distributing the costs. Only 30% of working Americans are in jobs that produce wealth, the rest are on the government dole either through government jobs or direct handouts. I hear it's worse in Canada. >> If we really want a healthy space economy, we've got to develop it on a >> sound financial basis. > >In that case, we may as well ignore the moon/asteroid argument, because that >will be decided by business people a long time from now. A healthy space >economy probably requires that the governments stay completely out of it. :) I basically agree with that. And I don't see private financing of lunar bases as even a remote possibility. I do see ways that cometary water recovery could be done by incremental investments suitable for private ventures. Gary -- Gary Coffman KE4ZV | You make it, | gatech!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary Destructive Testing Systems | we break it. | uunet!rsiatl!ke4zv!gary 534 Shannon Way | Guaranteed! | emory!kd4nc!ke4zv!gary Lawrenceville, GA 30244 | | ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jun 93 22:27:55 GMT From: Paul Dietz Subject: Moon Base Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993Jun5.150253.7742@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes: > That's why water from comets is so attractive. Extraction is simple, > and can scale from small to large by bootstrapping. So the investment > is never extreme at any given point in the development of the market. > Water is the Holy Grail in space. It can be used as reaction mass > in nuclear/steam, or even solar/steam, rockets. It can be electrolyzed > with solar electricity to hydrogen and oxygen for more energetic > rockets, or for breathing needs. ... Let's not exaggerate here. Yes, extracting water from a senile comet is likely to be easier than extracting oxygen from lunar regolith. But it is still nontrivial. And the volatiles must be filtered and purified before use in rockets. Another point. Water is nice, but it is hardly ideal as reaction mass. If you had your choice of a propellant for nuclear or solar thermal rockets, hydrogen, methane, ammonia, hydrazine or methanol would be superior -- ammonia would deliver an Isp more than twice as high, for example, as the molecular weight of the exhaust is much lower (it decomposes to nitrogen + hydrogen) and, being reducing, is compatible with higher temperature materials. If you are shipping stuff up from earth, you can afford to ship up a better, if harder to make, material, since making things down on earth is so easy. This same argument applies to other potential ET resources. Crude lunar aluminum, say, is going to be competing against highly optimized terrestrial alloys and composites. Ditto for manufactured products -- turning those materials into useable forms is easier on earth. The ET materials are going to have to be not just a little cheaper, but considerably cheaper to overcome this disadvantage. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 22:22:13 GMT From: "Phil G. Fraering" Subject: Moon Base Newsgroups: sci.space gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman) writes: >In article <1993Jun3.201520.60939@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu> tfv0@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (Theodore F. Vaida ][) writes: >>To throw in my own two cents worth in support of a lunar base... >>... exactly how much delta-V would be needed to bring even the closest >>approaching asteroids into earth orbit for those "cheap teleoperated >>factories" that would be built in LEO? >You don't bring the asteroid to LEO. You refine in situ and only ship >the refined materials back to the factories. For comets, you boil off >and capture the water, methane, carbon monoxide, and other volatiles >in situ and return only the refined and separated materials, nominally >as thermally shielded frozen pigs, a "tankless" method of transport. >Simple foil sunshades are sufficient for thermal shielding against >solar energy, and glass fibre between the pigs and the guidance >thrusters. >Best identified targets require <= 5 km/s delta-v. This can be achieved >by low thrust long duration small engines, however, such as ion engines >or small solar thermal engines. Large powerful rockets are not required >since the gradient is gentle, and some of the volatiles can be used as >reaction mass if desired. Understatement of hte year. The preprints I saw a while back showed water being used as reaction mass and as tank walls (ice). With pessemistic assumptions about the delta-v needed, the design ended up using >50% of the extracted volatiles (assumed to be water) as reaction mass to enter an eccentric Earth orbit. >Gary >-- >Gary Coffman KE4ZV | You make it, | gatech!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary >Destructive Testing Systems | we break it. | uunet!rsiatl!ke4zv!gary >534 Shannon Way | Guaranteed! | emory!kd4nc!ke4zv!gary >Lawrenceville, GA 30244 | | -- +-----------------------+---------------------------------------+ |Phil Fraering | "...drag them, kicking and screaming, | |pgf@srl03.cacs.usl.edu | into the Century of the Fruitbat." | +-----------------------+-Terry Pratchett, _Reaper Man_---------+ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 22:25:41 GMT From: "Phil G. Fraering" Subject: Moon Base Newsgroups: sci.space Oops, I forgot something in the last post: About the assumption in the preprint about the "mainly water" bit... part of the reason I wanted a reference was to see if anyone had worked out a good filtration system or pump... or separation system, for that matter. How scalable would _those_ be? -- +-----------------------+---------------------------------------+ |Phil Fraering | "...drag them, kicking and screaming, | |pgf@srl03.cacs.usl.edu | into the Century of the Fruitbat." | +-----------------------+-Terry Pratchett, _Reaper Man_---------+ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 20:19:32 GMT From: Nick Janow Subject: Moon Base Newsgroups: sci.space jhart@agora.rain.com (Jim Hart) writes: > Do you know what the hell you are talking about? No one has built factory > machinery that recycles water and air like that, not to mention all the > gooey crap machines use that is missing from the moon. Not even close. Air > pollution and wastewater are produced in huge volumes by just about any > industry worthy of that title. As Gary did, you are making the mistake of assuming that present "designed for Earth today" processes will be used directly in space. No one has built (that I know of) a factory that recycles volatiles as much as possible, because that would be a bad economic decision. Why spend a million dollars a year extra in recycling water when your competitor spends only ten thousand a year on large volumes of water which is used and dumped? Industries dump huge volumes of fluids and gasses because they haven't been charged for the environmental costs of it. The electronics industry used large quantities of CFCs for cleaning. It was more economical to waste it than to carefully contain and recycle it. Now, many of those companies are reclaiming and recycling most of it. Others have switched to processes which use alternative solvents, and processes which use little or no solvents. No one has developed the technology to refine aluminum with a closed-cycle for volatiles because there's been no economic motivation to do so. That doesn't mean it's not possible. What is "all the gooey crap machines use"? Do you mean lubricants for bearings, which can be replaced by magnetic bearings? Do you mean cutting fluids, which can certainly be recycled nearly 100% if you want to. If you mean plastic feedstocks, those might be replaced in many situations by new designs or by new inorganic materials (foamed metals, ceramics, glasses). > If we're going to delve into this kind of science fiction,... Science fact. Check the decreased use of CFCs in industry. Check the reduction in water consumption by the steel industry over the last few decades. Check the decrease of fluid and gasseous waste in industries where legislation has made pollution expensive. Check the reductions of "black liquor" dumped by pulp mills when new markets turned that waste product into a useful chemical stock. > As I > suggested before, start delving into the industrial literature and learn > what it takes to really do this stuff. I read through Design News and various other publications, so I do have some idea what's required, and what is possible. -- Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 22:05:07 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: reducing launch costs Newsgroups: sci.space In article jhart@agora.rain.com (Jim Hart) writes: >>The reason is that we are pretty sure we can reduce >>the cost of launch mass from earth to on the order of tens of dollars >>per pound, *if the market is large enough*. > >(1) Who is sure about this? This nearly a factor of 1,000; most >rocket engineers scoff at projections of DC-1 reducing costs by >a factor of 10... Which rocket engineers are you referring to? Please be specific. I think the "rocket engineers" you are thinking of are the folks in charge of the systems that DC-1 would render obsolete. These people are hardly unbiased sources on the subject. The most impressive thing about recent events is that *everyone* who studies the matter carefully concludes that SSTO is workable and would do what it claims to do (although there is some dispute about how long it would take to get it flying). Note, for example, the Aerospace Corporation's favorable report on the idea -- said to be the first time Aerospace has ever firmly endorsed a concept they did not originate! Particularly among the younger and less hidebound rocket engineers, there are plenty who think launch costs could be reduced by a factor of ten by much less radical changes than SSTO offers. When the Commercial Space Incentive Act (which proposed essentially that the government would pay $500/lb for *anything* lifted into orbit -- note that current launch costs are 5-10 times that) was being pushed, I know at least two of the "new" launcher companies had firmly concluded that they could make a *bundle* on that market... using straightforward developments of existing hardware. It was the "old guard" firms who assured Congress, and anyone else who would listen, that CSIA was pointless and would accomplish nothing because nobody could lower costs that far. >Can we really get to there from here by continuing to poor >$billions per year into mature technology? Depends on whether "mature technology" means "thirty-year-old launchers" or "new concepts using off-the-shelf hardware". There's nothing "mature" about this technology; it's in a state of arrested infancy, frozen into the state it assumed circa Sputnik 1... because very little new has been tried since then. -- Altruism is a fine motive, but if you | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology want results, greed works much better. | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 22:17:01 GMT From: "Phil G. Fraering" Subject: Refs, please (was: Moon Base) Newsgroups: sci.space gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman) writes: >In article <1993Jun3.212743.21998@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes: >>To avoid this problem, ET resources are either going to have to be >>very simple to get (to minimize development cost) or something that >>is expensive on earth (PGEs, say). >That's why water from comets is so attractive. Extraction is simple, >and can scale from small to large by bootstrapping. This reminds me... I'd like to find a list of references to the extraction technology involved. (I have references on most everything else). NOTE: This is because I'd like to _read_ them; I'm not trying to start an argument... (certian individuals on this list have turned "where are your references, and in BibTeX format, please" into a euphemism for "you're bullsh}iitting"; and this isn't what I'm -- +-----------------------+---------------------------------------+ |Phil Fraering | "...drag them, kicking and screaming, | |pgf@srl03.cacs.usl.edu | into the Century of the Fruitbat." | +-----------------------+-Terry Pratchett, _Reaper Man_---------+ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 22:05:57 GMT From: "Phil G. Fraering" Subject: Self-replicating gadgets (was Re: Moon vs. asteroids, Mars, comets) Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993Jun3.181725.1@fnalf.fnal.gov> higgins@fnalf.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes: In article , steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson) writes: > Actually we do know one way. You use self-replicating ~75kg > automatons, use them to build tools, for self-repair and maintenance > and programming of new units for building new factories. > Overhead is high but the system has been quite thoroughly > debugged and most of the R&D is sunk... Thoroughly debugged? With all due respect, I think you exaggerate. Usenet incorporates quite a few of these and they have proven to be the most unreliable components of the system. Yah, but in about another six years or so they'll be replaced with other components that have been found to be more reliable and less troublesome. Death to vermin! -- +-----------------------+---------------------------------------+ |Phil Fraering | "...drag them, kicking and screaming, | |pgf@srl03.cacs.usl.edu | into the Century of the Fruitbat." | +-----------------------+-Terry Pratchett, _Reaper Man_---------+ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 21:45:36 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: Why are SSTO up-front costs rising? Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1uq0erINNikt@phantom.gatech.edu> matthew@phantom.gatech.edu (Matthew DeLuca) writes: >>Please! What your saying is that since Shuttle failed every project >>will fail... > >...yesterday, Allen, you were telling me that since NASA messed up on the >Shuttle they can't possibly build a cost-effective replacement; how do you >reconcile that with the statement above that there are no automatic >failures? He didn't say there are no automatic failures; what he criticized was the notion that *any* such project is an automatic failure. It is one thing to assert that such projects can never work. It is quite another to assert that the organization which produced the last failure is fairly likely to produce another if it tries again. -- Altruism is a fine motive, but if you | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology want results, greed works much better. | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jun 1993 18:26:11 -0400 From: Matthew DeLuca Subject: Why are SSTO up-front costs rising? Newsgroups: sci.space In article henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >It is one thing to assert that such projects can never work. It is quite >another to assert that the organization which produced the last failure >is fairly likely to produce another if it tries again. Hmmm, I don't think this is true, either; Delta Clipper is being brought to you by the same folks doing parts of the space station. Is Delta Clipper going to be a success, indicating that organizations can change? Or will it be a failure, indicating that once an organization sinks, it stays in the mud forever? Allen likes to assert both sides, depending on whether or not it is one of his 'blessed' projects. -- Matthew DeLuca Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!matthew Internet: matthew@phantom.gatech.edu ------------------------------ End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 688 ------------------------------