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 ; Sat, 15 Apr 89 03:16:47 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <0YFilLy00UkZE12k4z@andrew.cmu.edu> Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Sat, 15 Apr 89 03:16:39 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #368 SPACE Digest Volume 9 : Issue 368 Today's Topics: Myers' statement on Truly, Thompson nominations (ForwardeD) long ago and far away Soviets will suspend manned space program Re: Soviets will suspend manned space program Re: Shuttle Centaur Re: Ozone Re: Bored public RE: Hubble Space Telescope Re: RE: Hubble Space Telescope ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 Apr 89 03:13:38 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: Myers' statement on Truly, Thompson nominations (ForwardeD) David W. Garrett April 12, 1989 Headquarters, Washington, D.C. N89-31 NOTE TO EDITORS/PROGRAM DIRECTORS MYERS' STATEMENT ON TRULY, THOMPSON NOMINATIONS Dale D. Myers, acting administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, made the following statement after President Bush's nomination of Radm. Richard H. Truly to be NASA administrator and J.R. Thompson to be deputy administrator. "I am delighted by President Bush's nomination of Dick Truly to be the next Administrator of NASA. During the past three years I have come to know Adm. Truly and his capabilities well. His experience and accomplishments demonstrate that he is well qualified to lead America's civil space program into a period of significant expansion of scientific, commercial and exploratory activities. "The new Administrator will be inheriting an organization of people who demonstrated anew their ability and determination by the way they recovered from the Challenger disaster and returned the nation to space flight. "In nominating J.R. Thompson, who currently heads our Marshall Space Flight Center, to be the agency's deputy administrator, the President has created a superb team to guide NASA into the future. "All of my colleagues at NASA are delighted with these nominations." ------------------------------ Date: 12 Apr 89 17:30:25 GMT From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!henry@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: long ago and far away 28 years ago today, April 12, Yuri Gagarin was the first human in space. His successors are still using most of the hardware that got him there, and very successfully too. -- Welcome to Mars! Your | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology passport and visa, comrade? | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu ------------------------------ Date: 12 Apr 89 19:45:53 GMT From: pasteur!scam.berkeley.edu!yee@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Peter Yee) Subject: Soviets will suspend manned space program [Disclaimer: This represents personal input, and should not be construed as official NASA policy or comment. I'm typing in the following article so that those folks who have been raising questions about the shutdown on Mir can get some info from the regular news service. -PEY] [Reprinted without permission. Typographical errors are my fault -PEY] Kathy Sawyer The Washington Post In an abrupt turnabout on its premier space achievement, the Soviet Union has decided to suspend its manned space program at the end of this month, apparently for economic reasons. The decision was conveyed in an announcemet by the Soviet news agency Tass that the space station Mir, the world's only permanently manned outpost in space, will be left unmanned for the first time in more than two years after the current, three man crew returns to Earth on April 27. Tass made no mention of a space mission scheduled for April 19 that was to have sent two replacement cosmonauts to Mir. That launch has apparently been canceled. American space consultant and author James Oberg, an exper on the Soviet space effot, called the Soviet decision a "stunning turnaround" for space program that "was on such a roll two years ago. They've been smacked in the face with . . . Gobachev's need for short-term economic improvement." The decision, which followed days of rumors, came on the heels of the Soviets' loss of two unmanned probes to Mars' moon Phobos, another high- visibility and scientifically ambitious project, which cost $500 million and involved scientists from 13 nations. It also come in the midst of an unprecedented push by the Soviets to market their space services abroad. Mir's fist commercial payload, an American pharmaceuticals experiment, was to have flown aboard the space station soon. No official reason has been given for the evacuation of Mir, but a science writer for the Soviet Communist Party newspaper Pravda, Vladimir Gubaryev, suggested last week that growing public criticism of the high cost of space activity is a factor. During the recent political campaign to elect a revamped Soviet legislature, political mavericks such as Boris Yeltsin, the ousted Communist Party leader of Moscow, gained strong popular support for advocating the need to divert resources from the space program toward production or more and better quality consumer goods. "If they shut id down, they will some serious adverse press," said Nicholas Johnson of Teledyne Brown Engineering in Colorado, who publishes an annual report on the Soviet space program. But Johnson cautioned against drawing dramatic conclusions. "Even this, combined with the Phobos failure, is no worse than all the problems they had last year. The problem is with the perception. These are their two most visible program. . . .There's noeveidence to suggest the Soviet program is in dire straits." Long-duration human space filght is one of the few areas in which the Soviet Union holds an undisputed lead over the United States. Mir -- the Russian word peace -- has been occupied continously for more than 800 days by a succession of crews, the first such permanently manned space outpost in history. Analysts speculated that the Soviets have reached a "rational decision" based on financial balance sheet that they should evacuate Mir until at least one of two major additions being prepared for the station is ready for launch, possibly late this year. Those two modules, each the size of the core station, would together double the size of Mir, Oberg said. Both have suffered preparation delays. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Apr 89 03:33:19 GMT From: rochester!yamauchi@rutgers.edu (Brian Yamauchi) Subject: Re: Soviets will suspend manned space program If the shuttle was still grounded, this would be disconcertingly reminiscent of Gibson & Sterling's "Red Star, Winter Orbit." _______________________________________________________________________________ Brian Yamauchi University of Rochester yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu Computer Science Department _______________________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: 12 Apr 89 16:10:57 GMT From: roberts@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Timothy Roberts) Subject: Re: Shuttle Centaur In response to the question "what is shuttle centaur and why did it die?" I say this: The shuttle Centaur project was to be a high energy upper stage for the space shuttle allowing deep space probes and *very* heavy clark orbit satellites to be launched from the shuttle payload bay. The vehicle was actually little more than an expanded centaur upper stage from the Atlas ELV with dumping capabilities to ensure safe shuttle landing weights. The fuel was hydrazine and highly caustic. Thus (in the event of aborted take- off) the fuel would have had to be dumped over uninhabited areas at low altitudes to prevent possible serious damage to the environment. Then the Challenger was destroyed and crew safety ruled out the use of the upper stage altogether. This may be one of the decisions that limits the shuttle to use as something very different than its original designs. Deep space probes must now use the Inertial Upper stage and take ridiculous time periods to get where they need to go. ------------------------------ Date: 11 Apr 89 00:33:51 GMT From: tektronix!psueea!parsely!agora!ihf1!hutch@uunet.uu.net (Stephen Hutchison) Subject: Re: Ozone In article <16803@cup.portal.com> James_J_Kowalczyk@cup.portal.com writes: :hutch@ihf1.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison) writes: :>Could some kind person clarify this for me? I've been told by an :>acquaintance who I would expect to have some knowledge of chemistry, :>that the Ozone layer gets rebuilt at night (since catalysts work both :>ways) and that it may actually be rebuilt somewhat in excess of the :>day's losses. Has anyone tested this? : : The ozone layer is produced by the action of ultraviolet light on :oxygen in the upper atmosphere. Thus, it is replenished during daylight, :not at night. That's what I thought the model was. Has it been verified? CAN it be verified? : I don't know what you mean by "since catalysts work both :ways". First of all, not all catalysts work "both ways", and secondly :(if I may assume that you are referring to "catalytic" destruction of :ozone by chloride radicals) the process by which chloride radicals (from :chloroflourocarbons) destroy ozone would definitely not be occur in the :reverse spontaneously. I am quoting my acquaintance; I have no reason to think that catalysts have any universally consistent behaviour. Other than catalyzing. I will remain skeptical of the claims pending more concrete information. :Jim Kowalczyk :Kowalczyk@chemistry.utah.edu : :[What a cross-post! Only group missing was sci.chem :-) I posted as a follow-up to "Greenhouse effect" - see the massive References: line in the header? - anyway, I forgot to trim the Newsgroups: line. Hutch ------------------------------ Date: 13 Apr 89 01:01:15 GMT From: sco!joed@uunet.uu.net (Joe Di Lellio) Subject: Re: Bored public In article SCOTT@GACVAX1.BITNET (Scott Hess) writes: [stuff about people being afraid of technology] I'm afraid I agree completely. There is quickly developing a huge majority of people who not only know little about technical related subjects, but are downright proud of it. I'm still a student at UCSC (well, sort of;>), and I know of several non-science major types (as well as a few soft science types [like ecology or sociology] who should _not_ have this attitude) who brag about it. It's being considered popular, even healthy, attitude to have. Its things like this that really scare me. Seeing Joe Average have an aversion to these things is painful, but acceptable. Having a sociologist know nothing about statistics, or an ecologist who "doesn't DO chemistry and math", spooks the hell out of me. We might as well go back to checking chicken entrails and tea leaves. -Joe Di Lellio, just lacking a .sig for the moment. P.S. The above mentioned eco major is the same one who dislikes (if we ever had the reason for it) dumping nuke waste into the sun, since "it will all come back to us in the solar wind", or in deep space, since "there's only so much space out there". ------------------------------ Date: 12 Apr 89 17:57:05 GMT From: hp-pcd!hpcvlx!gvg@hplabs.hp.com (Greg Goebel) Subject: RE: Hubble Space Telescope There was a posting a few days back concerning the Hubble Space Telescope concerning its possible use as a recon satellite. I posted a response saying a KH-12 was probably better for the purpose, and got some (friendly) mail over it with a few comments. I replied that I was just parroting material from a recent SCIENCE article on spy sats ... and received a suggestion that I post that article. So ... Greg Goebel Hewlett-Packard CWO / 1000 NE Circle Boulevard / Corvallis OR 97330 (503) 752-7717 INTERNET: cwo_online@hp-pcd HP DESK: CWO ONLINE / HP3900 / 20 ------------------------------ Date: 12 Apr 89 17:57:35 GMT From: hp-pcd!hpcvlx!gvg@hplabs.hp.com (Greg Goebel) Subject: Re: RE: Hubble Space Telescope Spy Satellites: Entering a New Era Daniel Charles SCIENCE / VOL 243 / 24 MAR 89 / PP 1541-1543 * After waiting two years for the return of the space shuttle, America's intelligence agencies have begun to launch a constellation of new spy satellites. All three of the shuttle launches since the Challenger accident have added important links to this surveillance network. By the end of 1989, if all goes well, three new reconnaissance spacecraft will be in orbit, collecting unprecedented amounts of information on military "targets" around the world. The first of the new satellites flew into orbit last December aboard the shuttle Atlantis; it is apparently a high-resolution radar-reconnaissance satellite, the first such military satellite that the US has put into orbit. The system's codename is apparently Lacrosse (but was earlier referred to as Indigo). Late this year, the first two KH-12 spy satellites are scheduled to fly into orbit aboard Titan IV rockets. The KH-12 is the latest and most advanced in a long line of photoreconnaissance satellites, which use a powerful telescope to take pictures in the visible and infrared. Equally important in this network are the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) satellites, the third of which was launched by Discovery in March. Although the military capabilities of TDRSS are secret, most observers believe that Lacrosse is using the satellite to relay its data back to Earth. The KH-12's images will probably be relayed through TDRSS as well. TDRSS is where NASA's science missions and the secret world of military reconnaissance come in close contact. Both the military and the shuttle are "priority 1" users of TDRSS's communications channels. The satellite's data flow is scheduled by computer at the TDRSS ground station, located at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Lower priority users of TDRSS, such as the Hubble Space Telescope or the Landsat Earth-Imaging satellites, must submit their requests to use TDRSS without knowing which times are blocked out for military use. The peak rate at which the HST's instruments will send data through TDRSS -- 1 megabit per second (MBPS) -- is a trickle compared with the flood of data generated by the new spy satellites. Synthetic-aperature radars like Lacrosse, in particular, tend to swamp any available data relay, because transmission capacity and available computing power, not the radar itself, generally limit the quality and size of the images that the system can produce. Robert Cooper, former head of DARPA (now president of Atlantic Aerospace Electronics Corporation) noted in an interview that a radar system with a resolution of 1 foot can generate raw data at a rate of many billions of bits per second -- far beyond the capacity of any existing links in space. .PAGE_BREAK Reducing the raw data to images -- a data stream small enough for TDRSS to handle -- would require the world's largest supercomputers on board the spacecraft, said Cooper. A more likely way of getting around the data bottleneck is for Lacrosse only to operate intermittently, storing burst of data on recorders. These devices could then transmit the data at a slower rate through TDRSS to Earth. NASA plans to launch its own imaging radar as part of its Earth Observing System (EOS) sometime in the late 1990s. The instrument will detect objects roughly 30 meters across in a swath 50 kilometers wide, with less detail when the swath is expanded to its maximum width of 700 kilometers. The data rate of its transmissions is limited to 300 MBPS, the maximum capacity of TDRSS' two high-capacity channels. "The data rate limits everything. It limits resolution, gray scale accuracy, and field of view," said one of EOS' designers at JPL. Because Lacrosse's performance is limited by the capacity of TDRSS, the pictures it furnishes are less detailed than those from optical systems like the KH-12, which can detect objects only a few inches across. According to John Pike of the American Federation of Scientists, Lacrosse can probably detect objects as small as 1 meter across, since that level of detail is necessary to identify important items like Soviet mobile missiles. The radar's chief advantage, however, is its ability to see through the clouds that generally hide much of the Soviet Union and Europe. Compared with the novelty of Lacrosse, the KH-12 is practically a known quantity. In fact, it probably bears a strong resemblance to the HST, since both were built to fit inside the shuttle cargo bay. The primary mirror of the KH-12's telescope can be little larger than the HST's. As a comparison, a telescope with the HST's power in an orbit 200 nautical miles above the earth could detect objects on the surface 7 inches across. According to Pike and Jeffrey Richelson of the private National Security Archive, the KH-12 carries a large quantity of fuel so that it can maneuver to a low 100-mile orbit to see details half as large. In order to counter the distortions caused by the atmosphere, spy satellites use computer-controlled "adaptive optics" that vary the surface of the mirror minutely. Detecting ever smaller objects, however, is no longer the key to more effective spying from space, according to reconnaissance experts. The greatest technical challenges now lie in programming high-speed computers to unearth valuable information buried in the mountain of data. Technical experts for the CIA, the Pentagon, and the National Reconnaissance Office now are struggling to harness computers to the task of filtering out data sent down from space. Computers, says former Air Force Secretary Edward Aldridge (now president of McDonnell Douglas Electronics Corporation), eventually may help solve a typical dilemma confronting intelligence analysts: "Somewhere in that data there is a target. Now, how do you find it ... unless you take the population of the United States and make them photo interpreters?" .PAGE_BREAK The sheer volume of data streaming down through TDRSS, threatening to overwhelm even armies of analysts, is one source of pressure to automate the interpretation of photographic intelligence. But skyrocketing demands on the intelligence system are even more important. Rather than simply monitor known sites, such as missile silos and airfields, satellites are now required to find and track Soviet nuclear missiles that move about from day to day. This will be necessary to verify future arms control treaties, but the Air Force also has a less enlightened aim: targeting the missiles for destruction in wartime. "As we see [Soviet] leadership and military forces becoming more mobile, it's putting more demands on us to detect, localize, and hold at risk those forces," said Aldridge. "The biggest difficulty is not searching the target area. Even if the sensor has flown over the target, and it is in the database, it still has to be found." Computers can search the data from a wide area, looking for an electronic signal that matches the known return from a Soviet missile launcher. But while simple in concept, teaching computers to recognize an object -- particularly when the Soviets are hiding the targets under cover and behind trees -- has proved difficult in practice. "We're still 5 years away from the point where some data comes in and rings a bell and says I've got a target X in location Y," said Aldridge. The most valuable contribution of computer analysis, said Thomas Rona, deputy director of the White House Science Office, may be in integrating information from various sensors, so that one instrument can correct the other's blind spots. While the KH-12 might be fooled by a plastic decoy built to look like a tank, for example, the radar of Lacrosse could immediately tell the difference. "All sensors lie a little," said Rona. "The reason that you coalesce information from all sorts of sensors is that you don't trust any of them." Attempts to write software capable of integrating data from many sources, however, have run into major problems, and are not expected to be available for several years. Complicating the job even more is the growing demand for data from satellites. Not only the President, but every major military commander around the world can now request pictures from satellites to help plan military operations. The trend began ten years ago, when the armed forces started a program called TENCAP (Technical Exploitation of National Capabilities) aimed at making information from space reconnaissance available to military commanders. In 1981, the Marines established a TENCAP elective at their staff college; with the knowledge of TENCAP's existence, under the pressure of crises (such as the military operations in Beruit and the Persian Gulf) decisions were made to distribute information that had once been kept under tight control. .PAGE_BREAK Said Donald Latham, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence: "We can move imagery today, worldwide, with our communications systems. We've even got suitcase versions of these systems, where you can look at [an image] and do things with it -- all with soft copy, without film." It now takes only hours for a picture of a particular scene to get from the satellite to the military commander who ordered it. In the future, said Aldridge, field commanders may be able to look at a scene at the very moment that the satellite is photographing it. These technical marvels do not come cheap. The Army is estimated to have spent somewhere between $840 million and $1 billion during the past decade on a single system, called the All Source Signal Analysis System, that is designed to distribute information from various intelligence sources to Army commanders. Primarily because of problems with software, its delivery is estimated as 2 or 3 years and several hundred million dollars away. According to published reports, the White House has agreed to a demand by the Senate Intelligence Committee that it spend $6 billion on improving surveillance systems during the next 5 or 6 years. The FAS' Pike estimates that each KH-12 satellite costs between $1.5 and $2 billion, excluding launch costs. [<>] ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V9 #368 *******************