Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson Received: from holmes.andrew.cmu.edu via trymail for +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr1/ota/space/space.dl@andrew.cmu.edu (->+dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr1/ota/space/space.dl) (->ota+space.digests) ID ; Tue, 4 Apr 89 03:18:01 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <0YC7cky00UkZ43i04v@andrew.cmu.edu> Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Tue, 4 Apr 89 03:17:52 -0500 (EST) Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #336 SPACE Digest Volume 9 : Issue 336 Today's Topics: space news from Feb 6 AW&ST Electrochemically induced nuclear fusion Re: Discovery - UFO Close Encounter? Re: Discovery - UFO Close Encounter? Re: Two questions Re: Civilians in space (Was Re: First concert from space--update) Re: Discovery - UFO Close Encounter? alien contact ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 4 Apr 89 02:42:21 GMT From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!henry@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: space news from Feb 6 AW&ST [A light news week, for no particularly obvious reason.] Japan is considering transferring its comsat programs to commercial hands in a few years. Satellite launch-insurance rates are falling, as successful launches continue. Rockwell proposes building another set of shuttle structural spares for NASA. The original structural-spares set is being used to build the new orbiter. Japan flies another quarter-scale model of the H-2 booster, successfully. NASA's general counsel advises that the legal requirement that NASA's top two officials come from "civilian life" precludes hiring James Abrahamson (ex-head of SDI) as head of NASA, despite frequent mention of his name in that connection. He is a retired military officer, receiving a military pension and subject to the military code of justice. Recent Office of Mismanagement and Beancounting decision requires private funding for several NASA projects, notably the Flight Telerobotic Servicer for space station assembly. NASA plans a May contract to build the servicer and related equipment for shuttle tests, but OMB refused funding for it. General opinion is that this is crazy, since the government is probably the only customer. Worse, this was in the middle of the contract competition, which made no provision for private funding. Industry says it will not pay for the development work without strong guarantees of recovering their investment. This probably will not kill the servicer, but it will delay it, and NASA is caught in between, because Congress ordered that the servicer be tested and deployed before similar Canadian hardware could be ready. [Congress, of course, is also the bunch that is constantly harping on how expensive the space station is getting. Parochial pork-barrel projects like this are a significant reason.] -- Welcome to Mars! Your | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology passport and visa, comrade? | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu ------------------------------ Date: 31 Mar 89 14:17:58 GMT From: mcvax!cernvax!jon@uunet.uu.net (jon) Subject: Electrochemically induced nuclear fusion This is a summary of a talk given by Professor Fleischmann at CERN, Geneva on Friday 31st March. I should point out that I am a computer programmer and not a physicist or a chemist, so therefore not all my understanding of the facts may be 100% correct, but I kept notes so hopfully the following will make some sense. Also this was strictly a scientific seminar, no questions were allowed on the non-scientific aspects of the talk. In fact the camera crews of various TV stations were asked to leave before the talk began. But they were given a chance to interview Professor Fleischmann after the seminar. It has taken Prof. Fleischmann and his collegue 5 years to get this far and they had hoped to keep the experiment secret for about another 18 months so they could be 100% certain of the results. But the results where "leaked" (This was news to me, any confirmation?), and then they had the "awful news conference", as he called it. They also funded the experiment privately because they didn't think anyone would give them money for such a mad idea. The equation in the at the palladium cathode is as follows D2O + e- <=> Dabs + OD- Dabs <=> Dlattice Dabs + D2O + e- <=> D2 + OD- Dabs = Absorbed Deuterium Dlattice = Deuterium in the Palladium lattice The deuterium in the lattice is very mobile. He then said something that I quite didn't understand and gave the figure of 0.8eV. I think this is the potential of the deuterium in the lattice. This 0.8eV is equivalent to a pressure of 10^27 atm for gaseous deuterium. The QM of the s-electron density of the Deuterium is VERY strange and is not understood. In the lattice the following nuclear reactions occur 2D + 2D -> 3T + 1H + 4.03MeV 2D + 2D -> 3He + n + 3.77Mev Their first experiment was with a palladium cube, this finished when the cube ignited, in the nuclear sense. The conclusion of this is that this reaction does not fail safe. When it starts to run hot it runs very hot. The cube almost burnt down their fume cupboard. But at least the effects are not quite as serious as a meltdown of a fission reactor. They then tried sheets before finally trying rods. These rods a 10cm long and have diameters of 1mm ,2mm and 4mm. The best results are with the 4mm rod therefore the reaction is dependent on volume as opposed to surface area, it also seems to be dependant on temperature. After 100 hours the measured output was 5MJ / cm3. They managed to detected neutrons, gamma-rays and 5 fold increase in the tritrium in the heavy water. They didn't manage to get a energy spectrum for the neutrons. They calulated there are 10^4 neutron producing events/sec but to account for the energy released there must be 10^13 events/sec, this means that the prefered reaction path does not produce neutrons. They do not know what this path is but lithium was being mentioned. The efficiency of their cell is "miserable" and their best result was 111% of breakeven (i.e. 100% => power in == power out), but they predicte that with a properly designed cell their efficiency could be over 1200%, i.e. 10 times out what you put in. It takes 3 months to charge a cell before it starts to produce anything. That's the end of my notes, now for some editorial comments. I personally could see nothing wrong with his explanation of the phenomena, there is no known chemical reaction which can produce the amounts of energy involved. It has to be nuclear fusion. Whether or not this is going to have any practical use is still to be seen, as Prof. Fleischmann said a lot of work now has to go into understand why and how this is happening. There were some very worried theoretical physicists leaving the hall after the talk, and there were mumbles about rewriting the theory of quantum mechanics. The are going to be a hell of a lot of papers on cold fusion in the next years!! *---------------------------------------------------------------* | | | Jon Caves {world}!mcvax!cernavx!jon | | Division DD, jon@cernvax.cern.ch | | CERN CH-1211, | | Geneva 23, "Quote? I haven't got time to think | | Switzerland. of a quote!" | | | *---------------------------------------------------------------* ------------------------------ Date: 31 Mar 89 18:55:40 GMT From: rochester!rocksanne!helium!eschbach@rutgers.edu (Reiner Eschbach) Subject: Re: Discovery - UFO Close Encounter? >Well, from orbit, the United States is clearly the most advanced nation on >Earth. More roads, dams, and bridges are in the U.S. than anywhere else on >Earth. Ever been to Europe ? Or ever checked population densities ? Reiner ------------------------------ Date: 1 Apr 89 20:44:11 GMT From: ccoprmd@pyr.gatech.edu (Matthew T. DeLuca) Subject: Re: Discovery - UFO Close Encounter? In article <707@rocksanne.UUCP> eschbach@helium.UUCP (Reiner Eschbach) writes: > >>Well, from orbit, the United States is clearly the most advanced nation on >>Earth. More roads, dams, and bridges are in the U.S. than anywhere else on >>Earth. > >Ever been to Europe ? Or ever checked population densities ? > >Reiner No, I haven't. But the population density of Europe is only slightly greater than that of the U.S., and we do have a greater infrastructure than Europe, however you care to measure it. If you want population density, look to some of the African nations, or perhaps India. Georgia Institute of Technology : Remember, wherever you go, there you are. ARPA: ccoprmd@pyr.gatech.edu : ------------------------------ Date: 30 Mar 89 23:17:44 GMT From: ap10+@andrew.cmu.edu (Anand Patwardan) Subject: Re: Two questions To: Outbound News Subject: Re: Two questions, Radioactive waste disposal The option of disposing radioactive waste into space has been thought of - off and on. The problem seems to be one of volume and weight; there is just an enormous amount of the waste lying around. If you consider that even getting 2000 Kg satellites into geo stationary orbits is a non-trivial task and all our planetary space probes are very light and compact; even getting a small part of the stuff out into space and ensuring that it does get into the sun(which seems the most feasible alt- ernative) will probably be very difficult. Perhaps when(or if) the space station is built, it will be easier to send packets of the "hottest" wastes into the sun ( or into orbits around other planets).... by launching them from space. Anand Patwardhan EPP, CMU ---------------- ------------------------------ Date: 31 Mar 89 19:39:21 GMT From: rochester!uhura.cc.rochester.edu!rlc4_ltd@rutgers.edu (Richard Connell) Subject: Re: Civilians in space (Was Re: First concert from space--update) This is getting lengthy... In article <11002@bcsaic.UUCP> rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik) writes: >...I prefer to limit >manned missions almost exclusively to scientific and professional personnel >who can make the most efficient use of these extremely expensive missions. I >consider media events such as rock concerts to be a frivolous waste of >precious technology. Well, if you want to get the average person interested, and thereby get monies from our government, I think you had better be ready to cater to such a 'frivilous waste of precious technology'. I mean, really, is the average person going to want to support something that they see as a waste of their money, just because it is an advance in technology. What ever happened to the end-user? Who isbenefitting from this technology, and why aren't they seeing the results. I have noticed that there is a question of NASA needing money to perform experiments, and the fact that the media no longer focuses on the launches as much, because there is nothing new, it is some experiment that does not seem to have a real affect down here, where everyone else is. For this reason, just about any use of space that will catch people's attention is, I feel, not a waste of resources, or money. If you want to keep it technical, how about such projects as trying to stay on the moon? Or other places in space? [arguement about soviets and economy deleted] >> Don't you think...knowledge is likely to be expanded by flying a wider >> cross-section of people than athletic professional astronauts? > >How, pray tell? Why would we learn more by sending up poorly-trained people >who are less cost-effective at carrying out the missions? If you are >concerned about the physical fitness of astronauts, I'm sure that we could >find a few flabby scientists to send up. :-) > By exposing more people to space, you get a wider variety of opinions about ways that it could be used. If you send up untrained personnel, then you will get uneducated, and unbiased reactions to the situation. If you send up a load of artists and musicians, then there will be a whole new look at the idea of going into space. Also this would focus more attention on the program itself, and what it could accomplish... And if things went bad, what would a few less artists and singers do to the world, just space em...:-) It is my opinion that the more people we get into space, the more interest there will be in it for the average person. I have no rargument that it should start with techies, people who know all about it, but there comes a time when even these people are not going to have any idea of what in the world is going on. And in this case, your average carpenter might be better equipped to handle the situation, who can really say. Plus, once (or if) there is ever a space station, are we going to want to pay big bucks to a person trained in aerospace technologies to take out the garbage? I don't think so. That person can be put to a much better use working in the science feild. And this will be the same with all the technical fields, so who takes out the trash? Who provides for a little relaxing entertainment every once in a while, etc? Highly trained people in the fields of science are not going to be the people to do this, or at least not on the basis that normal people would need. >>>The idea of getting people to "take over" our space >>>program, operating it as a commercial venture, went out the window because it >>>was impractical. It was dreamed up by people who thought that the free >>>market was the answer to everything... >>Yes, ridiculous uncommercial people like Boeing. And it went out the >>window because NASA wasn't interested in relinquishing control, despite >>a few encouraging noises early on. > >I would be interested in clarification here. Do you mean that Boeing, or some >other aerospace company, wanted to 'take over' our manned space flight >program? I'm not sure that any company, or consortium of companies, has any >such desire. What for? They are working with the government, which is the >only conceivable customer for manned space flight right now. Who was that >stubborn, hidebound NASA supposed to relinquish control to? There ain't >nobody there. That's why I called the idea impractical. Only governments can >afford to fund this kind of scientific research right now. Missed the beginning of this discussion, so please excuse me if I am going off on something that I know nothing about, but why do all the flights into space have to be of a scientific nature. If they all are scientific now, when will the commercial interest get involved? In any serious way that is, for they are already interested. Look at all the communication sattelites that are up there. So when do the normal people get a chance to see space? I thought that the teacher in space program was a good start, and am very saddened by the way that it ended. These are the sorts of programs that are going to get you the money, and the resources that you need to continue the program in a useful way. Have fun, and please do send flames, I will welcome them, it's cold here in Rochester. | Ricky Connell| rlc4_ltd@uhura.cc.rochester.edu |--------------| NOTES_RCON@uordbv.BITNET ------- |Disclaimer : ----------------------------------- / ___ \ Happy | A disclaimer??? Why a disclaimer??? Who really / (O) \ Mutants | cares whose opinion this is I'm borrowing! ( ) For |-------------------------------------------------- \ )---( / Nuclear | "No matter where you go, there you are." -B.Bonzai \ / Energy | "Let's show this prehistoric b***h how we do ------- | things downtown!" -- Ghostbusters ------------------------------ Date: 30 Mar 89 22:52:26 GMT From: vsi1!daver!lynx!neal@apple.com (Neal Woodall) Subject: Re: Discovery - UFO Close Encounter? In article <7767@pyr.gatech.EDU> ccoprmd@pyr.UUCP (Matthew T. DeLuca) writes: >Well, from orbit, the United States is clearly the most advanced nation on >Earth. More roads, dams, and bridges are in the U.S. than anywhere else on >Earth. Compared to the U.S., the Soviet Union is third-rate, at best. And don't forget that the US probably puts out more RF energy than any other nation on the earth, which is a sure sign of a scientifically advanced culture (even if most of it is soap operas and cartoons!). Neal ------------------------------ Date: 1 Apr 89 22:45:41 GMT From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!henry@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: alien contact In article <7787@pyr.gatech.EDU> ccoprmd@pyr.UUCP (Matthew T. DeLuca) writes: >As to who the aliens would contact...well, where would the best place be? I >would vote for the United States, because (1) by almost any standard, we are >the most advanced nation on earth, and (2) the U.N. (for all it's worth) is >located here... Of course, if they consider spaceflight a major sign of civilization, then there's absolutely no doubt about where they will go: Baikonur. Or just possibly Plesetsk, although if they're being attentive to things like the activity around Mir it'll be Baikonur for sure. The other spaceports on Earth are insignificant by comparison to either of those two. Between them they handle 80%+ of Earth's space traffic. -- Welcome to Mars! Your | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology passport and visa, comrade? | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V9 #336 *******************