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 ; Thu, 17 Aug 89 05:19:52 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <4YucAh600UkVE2KE5W@andrew.cmu.edu> Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Thu, 17 Aug 89 05:19:41 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #607 SPACE Digest Volume 9 : Issue 607 Today's Topics: New Soviet mission date set for Mir space station SPACE ACTIVIST ALERT Re: What is the Solar Impact Mission? Re: Questions about Apollo 11 Proposed new ELAS newsgroup CNN reports on Voyager Neptune encounter Re: The Russians are coming! Re: Weather newsgroup? Voyager Status for 08/02/89 (Forwarded) Re: The Sociology of Space Inhabitants (Re: Eggs & baskets) Re: Single Source Failures ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 17 Aug 89 00:27:20 EDT From: Glenn Chapman To: XB.N31@forsythe.stanford.edu, space-editors-new@andrew.cmu.edu, yaron@astro.as.utexas.edu Subject: New Soviet mission date set for Mir space station The Soviet Union has announced on short wave (Aug. 15) that the new manned space flight to the Mir/Kvant space complex will occur on Sept. 6th. Mir has been unmanned for the past 110 days since it was placed in the automatic mode after Soyuz TM-7 left on Apr. 27. When the new Soyuz TM-8 crew arrives its first task will be to revive Mir. This will be complicated by the power system failure which contributed to the decision to abandon the station. At that time TV Soviet broadcasts stated the solar cells were continuing to put out the power but the output of the batteries was declining, which suggests a system short. No Russian statement on this problem has appeared in the meantime. Most commentators in the West are focusing on economics as the reason behind this action. Certainly one of the difficulties was the failure to get the expansion modules ready for addition to Mir. These are about 10-20 Tonne cylinders which would first dock to the front or ball axial docking port of Mir. Then they will be transferred to one of the four side ports using a robot arm on the module itself. This inserts a cone into one of two sockets on the side of the ball section. The same broadcast stated that the first module would arrive in October, while the second one would come in February '90. Note that later "star" module contains a docking port to allow their shuttle Buran to dock to Mir. A larger air lock will be added with these modules, along with a Manned Maneuvering Unite (MMU) type system for more extensive space walk work. This announcement of the Mir's remanning has generated surprisingly strong western press coverage this morning, with both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal at covering it. Let us see how much publicity the USSR gives the remanning. That will give a clue to the support the Soviet program is getting. Sorry that I have not been posting my regular reports on the Russian program these past few months but our VAX has been having communications problems with the rest of the world (it is now better). I will post some older info in the next few days to cover that period. Glenn Chapman MIT Lincoln Lab glenn@ll-vlsi.arpa ------------------------------ Date: 3 Aug 89 06:34:12 GMT From: agate!web%garnet.berkeley.edu@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (William Baxter) Subject: SPACE ACTIVIST ALERT Call the offices of Representatives Harold L. Volkmer (D-MO,202/225-2956) and Norman Y. Mineta (D-CA, 202/225-2631). Ask them, as member of the Space Science and Applications Subcommittee, to request hearings on HR2674 a soon as possible. Going to see your own congressman with a copy of HR2674 would help even more. If you need a copy of the bill, send me email. William Baxter ARPA: web@{garnet,brahms,math}.Berkeley.EDU UUCP: {sun,dual,decwrl,decvax,hplabs,...}!ucbvax!garnet!web CALL YOUR CONGRESSMAN NOW AND SCREAM AT HIM UNTIL HE UNDERSTANDS THAT THE CDSF IS NOT A SPACE STATION. ------------------------------ Date: 4 Aug 89 02:45:51 GMT From: jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!henry@rutgers.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: What is the Solar Impact Mission? In article <24.Jul.89.09:32:31.BST.ZZASSGL@UK.AC.MCC.CMS> ZZASSGL@cms.manchester-computing-centre.ac.UK writes: >OK, What is the "Solar Impact Mission" and why is it so hard to >hit the Sun? After all we have already had close ups of Mercury. I don't particularly remember hearing about this one, but almost certainly it's a mission to go straight down into the Sun, doing some observations on the way. The hard part is that to do it, you have to kill *all* Earth's orbital velocity, which is about 50 km/s. A Saturn V could have dropped a couple of hundred kg into the Sun, as I recall. The shuttle, forget it, unless you use in-orbit assembly. A beefed-up Energia with about four upper stages could probably put a modest probe into the Sun. Advanced propulsion technologies would really help. The Mercury flyby was done with a Venus gravity assist. But Mercury is still a long way out from the Sun, and the last few million km are the really hard ones, deep in that monstrous gravitational field. -- 1961-1969: 8 years of Apollo. | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology 1969-1989: 20 years of nothing.| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu ------------------------------ Date: 1 Aug 89 12:35:49 GMT From: b.gp.cs.cmu.edu!Ralf.Brown%B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU@pt.cs.cmu.edu Subject: Re: Questions about Apollo 11 In article <3879@shlump.nac.dec.com>, hughes@gary.dec.com wrote: }it had more than its share of inflight catastrophic self disassemblies. The piece that is ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ You've been listening to NASA too long.... -- UUCP: {ucbvax,harvard}!cs.cmu.edu!ralf -=-=-=-=- Voice: (412) 268-3053 (school) ARPA: ralf@cs.cmu.edu BIT: ralf%cs.cmu.edu@CMUCCVMA FIDO: Ralf Brown 1:129/46 FAX: available on request Disclaimer? I claimed something? "I don't want to sound like I'm avoiding answering your question; I just want to avoid answering your question." -- Alan Demers ------------------------------ Date: 3 Aug 89 14:47:39 GMT From: mailrus!uflorida!beach.cis.ufl.edu!brs@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Ray Seyfarth) Subject: Proposed new ELAS newsgroup I want to know if there are other ELAS users on the net who would like to have a newsgroup devoted to ELAS. If you aren't aware of ELAS, it is a remote sensing software system developed by NASA. I prefer that the ELAS group be unmoderated and would like to get started soon. The ELAS newsgroup could serve a valuable service to the ELAS users on the net. If you would like to start an ELAS newsgroup, please email to me or post to "news.groups". Then you should subscribe to news.groups and watch for a call for a vote. I've never tried to start a newsgroup and I'm not sure of the protocol required, but I think a formal vote is required. I'm sure someone will inform me of the requirements soon. Later. -- In Real Life: UUCP: {gatech|mailrus}!uflorida!beach.cis.ufl.edu!brs Ray Seyfarth Internet: brs@beach.cis.ufl.edu University of Florida "Ninety percent of life is just showing up." Woody Allen ------------------------------ Date: 3 Aug 89 21:43:43 GMT From: cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!poole@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Steve Poole) Subject: CNN reports on Voyager Neptune encounter CNN is running reports on the Voyager 2 Neptune encounter every weeknight. They say the reports run at 8 and 10 pm Eastern time. But they don't actually run the reports on the hour. Sometimes not even close. The first report airs anywhere from 8 to 9, and the second anywhere from 10 to 11. The best thing about these reports is the images. Last night they showed a rotation movie. You could see the storm that looks like Jupiter's Red Spot, and a smaller storm. -- Steve Poole ARPA: poole@emx.utexas.edu UUCP: {ames,angband,exodus,gatech,harvard,mordor,rutgers,utah-cs}!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!poole ------------------------------ Date: 2 Aug 89 13:51:22 GMT From: mcdchg!illusion!marcus@rutgers.edu (Marcus Hall) Subject: Re: The Russians are coming! In article <58.M02d=400q01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> reddy@uts.amdahl.com (T.S. Reddy) writes: > TO NORTH AMERICA AT LEAST! > I saw an ad in this week's "Aviation Week" that the Soviets will be there >with the Mig-29 and other planes at an airshow in British Columbia, Canada. >The AN-225 is also a possibility. > The show will be around August 8th. > Check out the magazine! The Russians are already here!! There was an An-124 on display at the EAA Fly-in in Oshkosh Wisconsin this past weekend. No Russian fighters there, just the cargo plane. It was sitting there with its nose opened up and they were letting people walk up the loading ramp into the plane, relatively unsupervised. It was odd seing switch panels and instuctions written in Russian, it just didn't look ``real''. It really makes one think about how big the An-225 must be! Later on the day I was there, an SR-71 flew in (also REALLY impressive!) and they parked it facing the An-124. Interesting face-off. Probably the closest that a russian plane has ever gotten to a blackbird! marcus hall ------------------------------ Date: 3 Aug 89 12:01:57 GMT From: uvm-gen!cavrak@uunet.uu.net (Steve Cavrak,Waterman 113,656-1483,) Subject: Re: Weather newsgroup? From article <8908010047.AA29929@decwrl.dec.com>, by klaes@wrksys.dec.com (CUP/ASG, MLO5-2/G1 6A, 223-3283): Is there a sci.meteorology newsgroup on USENET? If not, would anyone like to create one? Thanks, Larry Strangely enough, nothing like this show up in the ARPANET or BITNET listing either. Even stranger considering that NCAR is so "close". I guess the professionals don't talk about the weather, they do something about it ! In anycase, a group would be an interesting idea. And daily weather maps would be quite interesting. I recall reading an article several years ago describing how to hook an Amiga/Atari to a satellite receiver and download your own satellite photographs. It seemed pretty straight forward. Could be useful. The usual way to get a group started is to build up a posting level on some "almost appropriate" group to a level where the regular users of that group ask you to take your conversations somewhere else. Then you use that evidence to convince the NetCommanders that you deserve your own group. (I don't think it would be appropriate for the group to be one devoted to letting people know that it is 70 degrees out, looks like another hazy, hot, and humid day outside, but that there might be a chance of showers in the evening. The progress of Hurricane Deane, however, would be appropriate (Deane, by the way, is bearing down on the Virgin Islands according to the local forecast) as would discussion of things like the Santa Ana's, El Nino, and the upper jet stream.) See ya Steve ------------------------------ Date: 3 Aug 89 20:24:43 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: Voyager Status for 08/02/89 (Forwarded) Voyager Status Report August 2, 1989 Images from the Voyager 2 spacecraft have revealed three additional new moons in orbit around Neptune, Voyager imaging team scientists announced today. The discovery brings to six the total of moons known to exist around the blue planet, including one, 1989 N1, discovered by Voyager 2 last month. Finding so many moons when the spacecraft was more than 22 million miles away from Neptune may mean there are many more to be found in coming weeks, according to Voyager scientists. The three newest Neptunian satellites, temporarily designated 1989 N2, 1989 N3 and 1989 N4, were tracked as candidate moons in images returned by the spacecraft over a five)day period. When the objects were found to follow predicted orbits, Voyager imaging scientists yesterday were able to confirm them as moons of Neptune. Their temporary names designate the order in which they were discovered. Preliminary calculations indicate the objects may range from 100 to 200 kilometers (about 60 to 125 miles) in diameter. Like 1989 N1, the three new moons occupy nearly circular and equatorial orbits around the planet. All move in prograde orbits (in the same direction the planet rotates), making the large moon Triton, which occupies a retrograde orbit, even more of an oddity in the Neptune system. The innermost of the new moons is 1989 N3, which orbits at a distance of about 52,000 kilometers (32,300 miles) from the center of the planet, or about 27,300 kilometers (about 17,000 miles) from Neptune's cloud tops. It makes one complete orbit of Neptune every 8 hours, 10 minutes. Next out is 1989 N4, orbiting about 62,000 kilometers from the planet's center, or about 37,300 kilometers (23,300 miles) from the cloud tops. It orbits the planet every 10 hours, 20 minutes. The outermost is 1989 N2, at about 73,000 kilometers (45,400 miles) from Neptune's center, or about 48,300 kilometers (30,000 miles) from the cloud tops. It makes an orbit every 13 hours, 30 minutes. All three new moons exist in the region where partial Neptunian rings, or "ring arcs," are thought to exist. If ring arcs exist, the new moons might play an important role in "shepherding" and maintaining them, Voyager scientists said. DISTANCE TO EARTH: 2,708,706,000 miles DISTANCE TO NEPTUNE: 19,416,000 miles HELIOCENTRIC VELOCITY: 42,187 mph ------------------------------ Date: 4 Aug 89 00:04:52 GMT From: pezely@louie.udel.edu (Dan Pezely) Subject: Re: The Sociology of Space Inhabitants (Re: Eggs & baskets) In article <1989Aug2.035352.24699@cs.rochester.edu> yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu (Brian Yamauchi) writes: >True -- and different types of spacers may be very, very different >from each other. For example: colonists will probably have to be like >you describe -- cooperative, community-oriented, team-players. On the >other hand, interplanetary spaceship crews will probably have to be >the opposite -- highly self-reliant, self-confident individualists who >can stand being away from all but a handful of other people for months >or years at a time and who can deal with emergencies on their own >without consulting with their superiors on Earth (or wherever). This >would be especially true for the pilots of any sort of single-person >spacecraft. Just as an interesting note, stand back for a minute and look at the parallels to the descriptions of what we think the inhabitants of the space station will be and then look back at what history has said about the early American colonists. People went to the New World for various reasons, but they had a drive to succeed. Without that drive, they wouldn't have made it -- as some did not. Who knows what will come of the society which will be created in space. That is something which we cannot predict, just as the early settlers could not predict. Maybe the problems which the world's societies have today will be handled in the future -- then again, maybe not. Getting into space with permanent stations will be a technological challenge and staying there could well be a sociological one. This just goes to show that there is research to be done in EVERY area. Please don't take this as a lame attempt to get people to see things my way, but these thing do need to be done. Just think about it for now, but act on it very soon. - Daniel ------------------------------ Date: 3 Aug 89 05:36:01 GMT From: portal!cup.portal.com!mmm@uunet.uu.net (Mark Robert Thorson) Subject: Re: Single Source Failures It seems the list is nearly infinite, unless you restrict it to items directly purchased by NASA. For example, during WW2, the U.S. faced a crisis when Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, the South African industrialist restricted the availability of industrial diamonds. This material is used for making tools for machining metal. Without diamonds, it would have been impossible to make the machines which make machines. Only British gov't intervention prevented catastrophic impairment of American industry. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V9 #607 *******************