Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson Received: from corsica.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, 10 Jun 89 05:17:24 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Sat, 10 Jun 89 05:17:17 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #481 SPACE Digest Volume 9 : Issue 481 Today's Topics: I'm getting too old for this Re: Space Station computer system Re: How Hubble will get there Kremlin reveals space budget Re: Private Space Companies Assessment of NASA management Re: Assessment of NASA management Re: asteroid almost hits earth Re: Space Station computer system NASA Select TV to feature Voyager 2 Neptune images (Forwarded) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 6 Jun 89 15:02:44 CDT From: pyron@lvvax1.csc.ti.com (Who remembers 8USER.PAR?) Subject: I'm getting too old for this I recently interviewed a potential summer hire who was very excited about the upcoming 20th anniversary of Apollo 11. Seems it's also her 20th birthday! Arrrrggghhhhh! Dillon Pyron pyron@lvvax1.ti.com ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jun 89 11:39:00 GMT From: xanth!paterra@g.ms.uky.edu (Frank C. Paterra) Subject: Re: Space Station computer system In article <5706@lynx.UUCP>, neal@lynx.uucp (Neal Woodall) writes: > In article rg20+@andrew.cmu.edu (Rick Francis Golembiewski) writes: > > >> highlights: they're talking about thirty to forty IBM PS/2 model 80's > > >EEEK This sounds really frightening MS-DOS in space, > >now I KNOW that the space program is in trouble... > > Who said that the computers had to run MS-DOS? Why not > some other operating system? The operating system will be a derivative of Unix, comforming to POSIX. Frank Paterra Nobody believes or agrees with what I paterra@cs.odu.edu say. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jun 89 21:44:37 GMT From: mcvax!ukc!reading!cf-cm!cybaswan!iiit-sh@uunet.uu.net (Steve Hosgood) Subject: Re: How Hubble will get there In article <583@stsci.edu> sims@stsci.EDU (Jim Sims) writes: >(and yes, I promise to be a good boy and _NOT_ post TLAs without translations > from now on) > Ok, so - er - what's a TLA please? Steve ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jun 89 20:47:01 GMT From: vygr!mae@sun.com (Mike Ekberg, Sun {GPD-LEGO}) Subject: Kremlin reveals space budget From the San Franscisco Examiner, Thursday, June 8, 1989. "More than half goes for military use" By Charles Mitchell United Press International Moscow - The Soviet Union, in its first public disclosure of how much it spends on the space program, revealed Wednesday that more than half of its annual $10.7 billion space budget is devoted to military use. The revelation shattered one of the Kremlin's most effective international propaganda claims, that the bulk of the program is devoted to peaceful civilian uses. Speaking at the first joint session of the Supreme Soviet, Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov also provided the first breakdown of the Soviet defense budget of $119.8 billion, first revealed by President Mikhail Gorbachev on May 30. Both the military and space budgets had been closely guarded Soviet secrets, hampering arms-reduction talks. Ryzhkov said $50.5 billion, or about 42 percent, of the military budget was used for procurement of arms, ammunition, and equipment. By comparison, the United States spends about 28.6 percent of its nearly $300 billion annual military budget on procurement. The prime minister said research, development and testing accounted for $23.7 billion; personnel and maintenance of the army and navy, including food and wages, $31.3 billion; and construction projects, $7.13 billion. Another $3.6 billion went to military pensions and $3.6 billion to miscellaneous expenses. Ryzhkov also said military expenses would be subject to public scrutiny and would be decided just as civilian expenditures are - by debate and necessity. In a startling disclosure, Ryzhkov said $6 billion, or 57 percent of the space budget, was devoted to military uses, dwarfing the $2.6 billion it says it spends on "science and economic" uses. The remainder of the space budget, $2 billion, is devoted to the trouble-plagued Soviet space shuttle, which made an unmanned test flight last year before plans to send it into orbit manned were suspended indefinitly. By comparison, NASA's budget for 1990 is $13 billion, excluding Air Force launches. The Soviet space program has come under increasing pressure from the press and citizen's groups to justify its expense. Compared with the U.S. space program, there have been few technical spinoffs that have benefited the economy. ... # mike (sun!mae), M/S 8-04 "The people are the water, the army are the fish" Mao Tse-tung ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jun 89 15:46:31 GMT From: skipper!shafer@ames.arc.nasa.gov Subject: Re: Private Space Companies In article <1989May27.020905.14088@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: In article shafer@drynix.dfrf.nasa.gov writes: >The 707 was originally the KC-135... As I've said elsewhere, this is a common misconception. The two planes look similar, and share a common ancestor (a Boeing private-venture prototype whose designation I can't remember offhand), but in fact are not very similar at the detailed hardware level. The huge order the USAF placed for KC-135s undoubtedly helped supply the cash to launch the 707, but that's known as "making a profit", and is not normally considered a form of subsidy. :-) >The 747 was initially proposed as an entry in the competition that the >C-5 won. (That's why it has a through deck.) ... True, but note (a) it lost, and (b) it cost Boeing something like a billion dollars to launch it as a transport. It wasn't until over a decade later, at 747 number 400 or so, that it was in the black. Yes, but USAF paid for the design. Competitions like this are two-stage: first USAF lets contracts for detailed design. These are then assessed and _the_ contract for the aircraft is then awarded. For a while in the late 60s-early 70s USAF paid for two competeing aircraft, the YF-16/YF-17, YC-14/YC-15, and A-9/A-10 fly-offs came from this. USAF then went back to the old system of assessing detailed designs. Fly-offs are expensive. >Even Pegasus, which is touted as private enterprise at its best, is >subsidized by NASA providing the B-52 and the test range at a >ridiculously low cost. For government launches, and government launches only. OSC/Hercules will be buying or leasing a widebody transport for commercial flights. The only real subsidy here is DARPA's willingness to buy (at a fixed price) the first launch of a new launcher -- a risky deal, mitigated somewhat by the fact that OSC/H don't get paid if it fails. There is nothing unreasonable about using government facilities for government launches without full cost reimbursement; just who would be reimbursing who? I'm sorry, I was thinking NASA = government, not DARPA. I thought that DARPA was putting money into the developement phase, not just buying a finished product. The NASA subsidy includes all of the initial flight test. The only NASA "flights" that I've heard about is a proposal to add a small instrumentation package to some of the early flights. A lot of my problem with the "scheming conspiring NASA management" explanation of the limited privatization of space is my experience with NASA management. These people can't even manage a simple flight program for a few years, so how can anyone believe that they can manage a sophisticated conspiracy? (I didn't write this and you didn't read it, so there!) Many (perhaps most) other NASA working engineers will agree with me on this. -- M F Shafer NASA Ames-Dryden Flight Research Facility shafer@elxsi.dfrf.nasa.gov or shafer@drynix.dfrf.nasa.gov NASA management doesn't know what I'm doing and I don't know what they're doing, and everybody's happy this way. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jun 89 19:05:35 GMT From: skipper!shafer@ames.arc.nasa.gov Subject: Assessment of NASA management I wrote: : - -A lot of my problem with the "scheming conspiring NASA management" -explanation of the limited privatization of space is my experience -with NASA management. These people can't even manage a simple flight -program for a few years, so how can anyone believe that they can -manage a sophisticated conspiracy? This probably should have been: A lot of my problem with the "scheming conspiring NASA management" explanation of the limited privatization of space is a congruence problem. If you believe, as many apparently do, that these people can't even manage an operational flight program for a few years, how can you believe that they can manage a sophisticated conspiracy? If nothing else, the turnover rate in the higher levels of management is so high that word of this would have eventually gotten out. I don't believe in conspiracies in general. But I phrased my remark poorly. I don't believe that the space side of NASA is run as well as it could be (or as well as I could run it :-)) but I firmly believe that the _real_ problem is Congress and the tendency for non-technical people to try to micromanage technical issues. I took a cheap shot at management and then sent it before I thought about what I'd said. That advice to newusers about thinking before you hit send was forgotten since I was in a hurry to go down to the hangar for the X-15 Symposium hardware display. You should be here at Dryden today! It's the 30th anniversary of the first flight and we're celebrating. Ah, the good old days. There are a lot of people here who still look back with longing for a time when life was simple and Headquarters and Congress just sent money. (No, nobody said anything to me--my .sig's still accurate.) -- M F Shafer NASA Ames-Dryden Flight Research Facility shafer@elxsi.dfrf.nasa.gov or shafer@drynix.dfrf.nasa.gov NASA management doesn't know what I'm doing and I don't know what they're doing, and everybody's happy this way. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Jun 89 02:23:24 GMT From: unmvax!polyslo!jmckerna@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (John McKernan) Subject: Re: Assessment of NASA management In article shafer@drynix.dfrf.nasa.gov writes: >A lot of my problem with the "scheming conspiring NASA management" >explanation of the limited privatization of space is a congruence >problem. If you believe, as many apparently do, that these people >can't even manage an operational flight program for a few years, how >can you believe that they can manage a sophisticated conspiracy? No sophisticated conspiracy is needed for a bureaucracy to suppress its competition. The reflexive use of its power and resources for selfperpetuation is enough. John L. McKernan. Student, Computer Science, Cal Poly S.L.O. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The future is rude and pushy. It won't wait for us to solve today's problems before it butts in with tomorrow's. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jun 89 16:16:25 GMT From: skipper!shafer@ames.arc.nasa.gov Subject: Re: asteroid almost hits earth In article <218100022@s.cs.uiuc.edu> carroll@s.cs.uiuc.edu writes: >>/* Written 12:41 pm May 26, 1989 by pjs@ARISTOTLE-GW.JPL.NASA.GOV in s.cs.uiuc.edu:sci.space */ >>>agate!shelby!Portia!hanauma!joe@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Joe Dellinger) writes: >>>Incidentally, some geophysicists are waiting quite impatiently >>>for another mag 9 mega-quake. >>This is a great source of comfort to all of us in Southern California... > It's about time you wierdos in CaliforniA did something useful. Be sure to > take accurate notes when it hits. At least we've thought about quakes. Just remember that the biggest quake in the US was at New Madrid, near St. Louis, and it was felt in New England. When those brick walls shatter and your house ends up _in_ the basement, you'll know why California houses look like they do. The Midwest isn't even instrumented! -- M F Shafer NASA Ames-Dryden Flight Research Facility shafer@elxsi.dfrf.nasa.gov or shafer@drynix.dfrf.nasa.gov NASA management doesn't know what I'm doing and I don't know what they're doing, and everybody's happy this way. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jun 89 22:23:00 GMT From: m.cs.uiuc.edu!s.cs.uiuc.edu!carroll@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu Subject: Re: Space Station computer system /* Written 12:39 pm Jun 2, 1989 by psrc@pegasus.ATT.COM in s.cs.uiuc.edu:sci.space */ /* ---------- "Space Station computer system" ---------- */ (...) with 4 megabytes of RAM and running X-Windows, /* End of text from s.cs.uiuc.edu:sci.space */ 4M & X-windows? Bahahahahahahahahahaha! They'd better fire 'em up now, if they want to finish by next century. I can't believe this - as was mentioned, these things are behind the times TODAY, much less in 5 or 10 years. Alan M. Carroll "And there you are carroll@s.cs.uiuc.edu Saying 'We have the Moon, so now the Stars...'" CS Grad / U of Ill @ Urbana ...{ucbvax,pur-ee,convex}!s.cs.uiuc.edu!carroll ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jun 89 20:02:33 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: NASA Select TV to feature Voyager 2 Neptune images (Forwarded) Charles Redmond Headquarters, Washington, D.C. Robert MacMillin Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. N89-46 EDITORS NOTE: NASA SELECT TV TO FEATURE VOYAGER 2 NEPTUNE IMAGES Beginning Tuesday, June 13, at noon EDT, a selection from the previous week's images of Neptune from the Voyager 2 spacecraft will be broadcast on the NASA Select TV system, Satcom F2R, transponder 13, every Tuesday through Aug. 8. The broadcast of the images is expected to last about 1 hour and will show a replay of the first-order reconstruction of the Voyager's imaging system views of Neptune. At the time of the first broadcast, Voyager 2 will be nearly 2-2/3 billion miles from Earth and approximately 71 million miles from Neptune. On June 5, the Voyager 2 spacecraft went into the observatory phase mode. In this mode the spacecraft begins a series of near- daily imaging observations of Neptune from afar. Voyager planetary scientists will use these images to help study the Neptune atmos- phere, already seen to be more turbulent than that of Uranus and possessing what appear to be variable "white" spots, covering portions of whole hemispheres. The spots come and go with relative rapidity. Dr. Brad Smith, University of Arizona, said, "Neptune is now more interesting that Uranus was even at close encounter." Smith is the Voyager Imaging Team leader. The observatory phase runs from now through Aug. 6, when the scientific team goes into the "far encounter" phase. Voyager's closest approach to Neptune, the "near encounter" phase, begins near midnight on Aug. 24. At this point, the spacecraft will whisk past Neptune's cloud tops at an altitude of only about 3,000 miles, travelling at a velocity relative to Neptune in excess of 37,000 miles per hour. The Voyager 2 spacecraft, along with its sister Voyager 1, were launched on Titan-Centaur vehicles in 1977 by NASA from the Kennedy Space Center, Fla., to take advantage of a rare (once every 175 years) planetary alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. This alignment allowed NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif., to swing both Voyager 1 and 2 from Jupiter to Saturn and, in the case of Voyager 2, from Saturn to Uranus and on to Neptune. Without the advantage of gravity-assist trajectory maneuvers, neither spacecraft would have been able to encounter more than a single planet. The timetable for NASA Select replay of Voyager 2 images, along with the distance remaining to Neptune and the distance from Earth, is given below. Date Neptune Distance Earth Distance June 13 70.70 million miles 2.65 billion miles June 20 64.40 million miles 2.65 billion miles June 27 59.00 million miles 2.66 billion miles *July 4 53.73 million miles 2.66 billion miles July 11 48.30 million miles 2.664 billion miles July 18 42.88 million miles 2.67 billion miles July 25 37.45 million miles 2.678 billion miles August 1 32.03 million miles 2.686 billion miles August 8 26.60 million miles 2.696 billion miles *(This date may move later in the week due to holiday observance.) The images to be replayed on NASA Select will include both the actual image of Neptune as seen by Voyager and engineering and science information about the conditions of the imaging system and lighting conditions. This data will appear alongside each image of retransmissions but will be removed in later, more processed views. Early transmissions will not show a great amount of detail and the planet will occupy only a small portion of the imaging frame. Detail will improve dramatically as the spacecraft nears Neptune. One-way light and radio transmission times between the Voyager 2 spacecraft and the NASA Deep Space Network receiver facilities at Madrid, Canberra and Goldstone, Calif., range from 3 hours, 57 minutes now to an expected 4 hours, 6 minutes at the closest approach. It takes over 8 hours for commands, sent from JPL's Space Flight Operations Facility, Pasadena, to reach the Voyager 2 spacecraft and be verified and sent back to Earth. Because the JPL facilities associated with the Voyager project are not completely geared up for the close encounter activity, these views will be released in video format via satellite only. There will be no capability to release individual still photos for the complete video series. Current expectations, though, include the capability to release on a periodic basis, a set of hard copy views which have received the benefit of further computer enhancement. JPL's complete computer processing capabilities will be up and running, though, for the encounter period from Aug. 21 through Aug. 29. Post encounter runs from Aug. 29 through Sept. 11, at which time the Voyager 2 will return to interplanetary cruise mode. NASA will operate a full-time Voyager encounter news facility at the JPL Von Karman Auditorium from Aug. 21 through Aug. 29. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V9 #481 *******************