Space Digest                Wed, 11 Aug 93       Volume 17 : Issue 012

Today's Topics:

                   Auction of Soviet space goodies
                  Do astronauts use sleeping pills?
                   man-made meteor storm? (2 msgs)
                   Mission to Mars. Plan and Ideas!
             Perseids...Orbiting ojects worst nightmare?
                         Simple Space Plane!
                     Survive Challenger disaster?

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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 11 Aug 1993 08:33:35 GMT
From: George William Herbert <gwh@soda.berkeley.edu>
Subject:
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.bizarre,alt.religion.kibology,alt.fan.mike-jittlov

Phil G. Fraering <pgf@srl02.cacs.usl.edu> wrote:
>> S.H. wrote:
>>> The reason I questioned him ( forgot his name) was because few weeks ago,
>>> some people from outside was sent to the ucsd Sun_lab, and
>>> math_computer lab, on a special mession while the system
>>> managers at ucsd were not notified.
>
>>OhMiGhod!  A *SPECIAL MESSION*!!!!!  Quick!  It must be the lemurs in
>>disguise!
>
>>> Good or bad, this was a fact. It may be silly to post these things
>>> to sci.space. Everything has taken place internally, under some
>>> sort of secrecy. It is very difficult for outsider to understand,
>>> unless somebody is going to write up a long fictions.
>
>>Pretty much everything you've posted has been silly to post to
>>sci.space.  Try alt.conspiracy.
>
>Are you sure it isn't too late to try to get Kibo's help?
>
>Maybe Mike Jittlov?

Mike Jittlov is (finally) on his well-deserved Norway expedition,
or so the last phone missive indicated.  He will be of little help,
as he has ancestral roots to enjoy or something like that, when not
staying out overnight when he thought it was a day hike...

Kibo, of course, would be happy to take over.  HappyNet is always Happy
to take over, and Leader Kibo will gladly do something about this
problem for us.  So would Richard Depew, if he could be coaxed
out of retirement.  Though I doubt that S.H. has done enough `ARMM
to deserve that...

I have, and have implimented, a much better non-local solution.
One that is appropriate.  I won't post it; email for details
if you're dying to know.

[and now back to SCI.space ... maybe]

-george william herbert
Retro Aerospace

------------------------------

Date: 10 Aug 93 18:00:58 GMT
From: Bruce Watson <wats@scicom.AlphaCDC.COM>
Subject: Auction of Soviet space goodies
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <1993Aug9.160722.1@fnala.fnal.gov| higgins@fnala.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes:
|
|I would *really* like to have Sergei Korolyov's slide rule.  Do you
|suppose 100 bucks would take it?  (-:  I don't have much money...
|Anybody care to bid on other items?
|
Will there be a full color catalogue of the items to be auctioned
for us with little money?

--
Bruce Watson (wats@scicom.alphacdc.com)

------------------------------

Date: 10 Aug 93 17:53:14 GMT
From: Bruce Watson <wats@scicom.AlphaCDC.COM>
Subject: Do astronauts use sleeping pills?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <246hnp$qie@agate.berkeley.edu| gwh@soda.berkeley.edu (George William Herbert) writes:

|some more work on that problem, the conclusion was that
|his having gotten the "downward" facing bunk was
|a serious contributor to his lack of sleep.  He slept

Could the "down" bunk be closer to noisy machinery or some
other disturbance unrelated to "downness".

--
Bruce Watson (wats@scicom.alphacdc.com)

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 07:24:15 GMT
From: Jostein Lodve Trones <trones@dxcern.cern.ch>
Subject: man-made meteor storm?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <249485$512@agate.berkeley.edu>, gwh@soda.berkeley.edu (George William Herbert) writes:
|>
|> I won't address the question of wether you'll be able to see the
|> re-entering pellets.  I suspect not, from a first-order feeling.
|> Things that size re-enter all the time (meteors) and I think you
|> can only see multi-kg initial mass ones from the ground.
|>
|> -george william herbert
|> Retro Aerospace
|>

Some info I've got states that the typical Perseid meteoroid that
produces a visible meteor of magnitude 2.5 has a mass of around
2.5 micrograms(!) and a velocity in the order of 60 kilometres per second.

-Jostein


------------------------------

Date: 11 Aug 1993 08:04:13 GMT
From: George William Herbert <gwh@soda.berkeley.edu>
Subject: man-made meteor storm?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <1993Aug11.072415.19383@dxcern.cern.ch>,
Jostein Lodve Trones <trones@dxcern.cern.ch> wrote:
>|> I won't address the question of wether you'll be able to see the
>|> re-entering pellets.  I suspect not, from a first-order feeling.
>|> Things that size re-enter all the time (meteors) and I think you
>|> can only see multi-kg initial mass ones from the ground.
>
>Some info I've got states that the typical Perseid meteoroid that
>produces a visible meteor of magnitude 2.5 has a mass of around
>2.5 micrograms(!) and a velocity in the order of 60 kilometres per second.

Ok, we're talking (order magnitude) 10 gram objects at 7 km/sec,
assuming shotgun pellets re-entering following a retrofire (literally)
from low orbit... that's about 1/8 the velocity, or 1/8^2 the
energy per unit mass (or about 1.5%); so... hmm.  Ok.  You may
have a point anyway 8-)  That's still lots more KE in the shotgun
pellet.

Someone who's familiar with meteroid size spectrum information should
probably now take over.  I can find this data, but I don't know it.

-george william herbert
Retro Aerospace

------------------------------

Date: 11 Aug 1993 08:24:57 GMT
From: George William Herbert <gwh@soda.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Mission to Mars. Plan and Ideas!
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <1993Aug10.203105.1@aurora.alaska.edu>,
 <nsmca@aurora.alaska.edu> wrote:
>Here is a short plan to get to Mars, and soem ideas, feel free to correct me,
>or suggest better and easier ways and methods.. (as in cost, payload, and
>availabiltiy)..

These ideas aren't new; lots of people have proposed them individually
and several proposed them together in one fashion or another.  You're
on a basically right track, but it's not simple...

>Stage 1: To Orbit, basically trying to get the material and support material
>to get to Mars, basically into oearth orbit..
>  a. Heavy G payloads, namely stuff that can stand the heavy Gs from a space
>gun, or other device that can get cargo into space, and you don't have to worry
>about it being crushed, and stuff that alot of is needed..
>  b. Heavy Lift: Basically stuff that is large, bulky, and needs to be lifted
>in one piece.
>  c. Low G, Low Lift Stuff (humans, delicate equipment that can't be built in
>space).

This usually ends up being a), b), and People, not a)b)c) ... there is
little hardware that won't survive (with proper engineering) even the
hardest rocket launch that's at all probable.

The "fly an empty stage on a HLLV and fuel it in orbit" idea has been
proposed a lot.  There are numerous problems with the system concepts
for flying heavy G payloads to a useful rendezvous with an orbiting
assembly point; guns, even EM cannon, aren't that precise, and you're
talking about doing a soft to medium hard rendezvous with your orbital
platform at minimum ranges approaching a thousand KM away.  You have
to put a brain and rockets on the payload, so it's not so cheap to
launch any more.  It may well be cheaper than launching on a rocket,
but it's not totally simple.

>Stage 2: In Orbit.
>Space station or atleast a place to get all the gear and equaipment together..
>To change from earth vehicles to a to mars vehicle..

Even NASA got this one ;-)

>Stage 3: To Mars.
>  a. Slow Heavy Cargo (via soalr sail, or other means that can be used to send
>heavy cargo that does not need to be send quickly, namely supplies for Mars,
>and equipment for Mars).
>  b. Fast Cargo: Basically the humans, there for the voyage habitate and
>instruments for the journey, everything that is needed for the journey out.

Also a very good idea; if it's not all going in one salvo, there's no reason
not to use the most effecient means of delivering the cargo items, i.e.
a solar sail, ion drive, or other personal favorite high-Isp type vehicle
which takes way too long to get there for people to fly out on it.

>Stage 4: On Mars/From Orbit to Mars Surface/Surface to Orbit.
>  a. Orbit to Surface.
>  b. Station of Mars.
> b2. Resupply via solar soil or slow boat.
>  c. Rovers/Information Gathering.
> c2. Returning of information (rocks and such) to earth, via soalr sail or
>other means/slow boat.
>  d. Surface to Orbit.

Straightforwards...

>Stage 5: Return to Earth.
>  a. Out of Orbit.
>  b. Heavy Returns (soalr sil or slow boat, see 4-c2 above).
>  c. Light Return (humans and delicate stuff, and sensors for retuirn voyage).
>  d. Orbit Earth/dock with station and transfer to lander.
>  e. Lander on earth..

Again, straightforwards split of return speed vs. priority...

>I know soem of the systems I have mentioend or used are not currently being
>used..
>Such as Super Gun (needs to be a larger diameter or something to get bigger
>payload..Mayeb a 16 Inch Magnum Round (basically a old 16 Inch gun, bored out
>for a longer shell, or have the shell be in the gun,
>and the projectile be outside, much liek the old original guns of old)..
>Also Solar Sail, small prototypes are in the works at the last time I heard..

The Gun isn't the hard part; cheap rendezvous and guidance hardware for
docking your fuel payloads is hard.  Solar sails may be hard; we don't
know yet.  Fuelling a vehicle on-orbit (not little transfers) has never
been done and is therefore an unknown risk.  Unless we use Energia,
there is no HLV to launch the unfueled vehicle.

This all helps a lot reduce the IMLEO and ICLEO (Initial Mass and Cost
to Low Earth Orbit, respectively), but doesn't solve the life support
problems associated with a 2-3 year mission, systems design for that
sort of mission (harder than stations, because reliability has to be
a whole lot higher....).  It doesn't get you your mars-surface EVA
suits.  There are literally more unanswered questions about how to
do a Mars mission than I know of, and I've been working on Mars missions
and specific hardware related to them for years.  A successful mission
design is going to have to seamlessly integrate nearly-optimal solutions
to problems of crew health from zero-G, radiation, and psychological
factors; long-duration life support; efficient mars orbit / mars surface
transfers; mars surface operations; low systems cost; ...

[authors' note: See how much fun manned mission overall design can be?
Don't you want to design manned space missions too?  Why am I still
doing this instead of taking the easy way out and promoting unmanned
missions exclusively?  I dunno.  My wife likes it, I guess. ;-) ]

Apollo was not Easy.  We've learned enough from Apollo that Mars will be
a whole lot cheaper than Apollo was, but it's a technical problem of
the same magnitude.

-george william herbert
Retro Aerospace

------------------------------

Date: 11 Aug 1993 08:40:10 GMT
From: George William Herbert <gwh@soda.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Perseids...Orbiting ojects worst nightmare?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <CBKEoy.9nw@odin.corp.sgi.com>,
Rod Beckwith <rodb@slugo.corp.sgi.com> wrote:
>Since meteor storms are so rare, the odds must increase 10fold for an
>orbiting satellite, HST, or MIR to be hit by one or many of these buggers.
>What do you all think the chances of this occuring are? Can serious damage
>occur? What is the relative speed & size of these meteors?

Relative chance for a large (shuttle, mir, Hubble) sized object is
apparently about 0.1% that something will hit it.  This isn't very
high.  Odds are that nothing at all in orbit will get hit.  If anything
does, it'll probably be one of the dozens and dozens of communications
satellites in geosynchronous orbit, not Mir or Hubble.  Though you
never know (my fingers are, as always, crossed... we don't need more
statistical flukes).

Someone else posted that the typical Perseid that you can see is
a 2.5 microgram dust grain moving at 60 km/sec, though I have
no way of knowing if that's accurate or not.

-george william herbert
Retro Aerospace

------------------------------

Date: 11 Aug 93 08:41:35 GMT
From: richard steven walz <rstevew@gorn.echo.com>
Subject: Simple Space Plane!
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <23scnc$13f@agate.berkeley.edu> gwh@soda.berkeley.edu (George William Herbert) writes:
>In article <1993Aug4.205054.1@aurora.alaska.edu> nsmca@aurora.alaska.edu writes:
>>Okay wierd idea time again:
>>Ideas for a space plane, or atleast how to power it..
>>Useing Kerosene (I think this will work, nicely if it does since Kerosense is
>1/Mr(overall) = 0.0927
>-george william herbert
------------------------
Right on the money, George, but there's no harm in slinging second stages
onto existing jets that have extra LOX to go higher with commercial jet
fuel and then launching either piggybacked or underslung or bombayed
vehicles. Then again, I haven't figured why they haven't used huge helium
balloons to lift launch vehicles to a decent fraction of the way out of the
largest part of air mass. They could even be reuseable! We DID actually get
the X-15 to virtually the same altitude as the first suborbitals, and that
was then with hydrazine and either ammonia or hydrogen peroxide
concentrated. I see no reason we could put a lot of pieces of the space
station up there cheaply using this stuff! I think we are a bit too shuttle
focussed for good cargo delivery to orbit. And we DO have a missle slung
under the F-15 now to shoot down satellites!
-Steve Walz   rstevew@armory.com

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 07:20:30 GMT
From: Carlos da Costa <cdacosta@cs.uct.ac.za>
Subject: Survive Challenger disaster?
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle

I was wondering if any new survival methods were added to the Shuttle fleet,
following the Challenger disaster. My belief that some of the crew could
have survived the disaster is based on a passage from a book which briefly
described the disaster. It was said, that

   "Examination of the wreckage revealed that some of the crew's
Personal Egress Air Packs (PEAPs) had been activated, indicating that members
of the crew had remained conscious for at least some seconds following the
explosion..........The fact that Pilot Smith's PEAP was found to have been
activated suggests that Judith Resnik managed to lean forward and activate it,
as well as her own PEAP.
   "Consumption of air from packs was, in at least one case, consistent with
breathing being maintained throughout the time of the fall to the ocean.....
it is LIKELY that at least one crew member was alive at the moment
of impact with the water, [though] it is very unlikely that anyone aboard
remained conscious for more than 15 seconds following the explosion....due to
hypoxia."

An obvious question is how would they have survived the impact with the ocean.
Parachutes?

Thanks.

 "Do you really want to live forever ?"
                                   --- Carlos da Costa ------------------------
                                   --- Mail address : cdacosta@cs.uct.ac.za ---

------------------------------


From: Matthew DeLuca <matthew@oit.gatech.edu>
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Orbital Information
Date: 11 Aug 1993 02:59:47 -0400
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In article <2493q9$4u0@agate.berkeley.edu> gwh@soda.berkeley.edu (George William Herbert) writes:

>Err, there are no 45 minute orbits.  90 is about as low as it gets,
>you'd be underground if you were orbiting every 45 minutes 8-)

Well, there's always the powered orbit...if the technology of the time is
advanced enough, he could use that.  Although why anyone would want to power
a 45-minute orbit I have no idea. :-)
--
Matthew DeLuca
Georgia Institute of Technology        "Never fight a land war in Asia."
Office of Information Technology
matthew@prism.gatech.edu                                   - MacArthur

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End of Space Digest Volume 17 : Issue 012
------------------------------