Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson Received: from beak.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, 3 Oct 89 01:50:00 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Tue, 3 Oct 89 01:49:27 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #101 SPACE Digest Volume 10 : Issue 101 Today's Topics: Soviet activities with MIR for 1989-1990. Re: What's Wrong With HR2674. (long) Call for discussion for the creation of "rec.models.rocket" Re: Risk of NOT launching Galileo Re: Alternative Space Goals, Anyone? (was Re: SpaceCause) Re: ...hospital radiation machine... NIMF proposal from Martin Marietta ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 Sep 89 16:10:22 GMT From: wrksys.dec.com!klaes@decwrl.dec.com (CUP/ASG, MLO5-2/G1 6A, 223-3283 26-Sep-1989 1139) Subject: Soviet activities with MIR for 1989-1990. The following is the 1989-1990 timetable for the expansion of the Mir space station based on a recent Aviation Week & Space Technology interview with Soviet space program managers: September Changeout of Mir's computer memory with new unit brought up by Progress M-1. October 16 Launch of Module D (aka Service Module). Between October 16 and October 23 Progress M-1 undocks from Mir's forward docking port and will be sent into a destructive reentry (the Progress M spacecraft does have the ability to fly with a recoverable reentry module similar to the one used on the Soyuz but Progress M-1 and probably M-2 will not have such a module). October 23 Module D will dock with Mir at the forward axial port and will shortly thereafter transfer to one of the axial ports automatically using its manipulator arm. October 25 Soyuz TM-8 will be moved from the rear docking port to Mir's forward facing axial port. October 27 Progress M-2 will be launched. October 29 Progress M-2 will dock at Mir's rear docking port and unloading will begin. January 28 Soyuz TM-8 will be moved from the forward axial docking port to the rear docking port which will be left vacant after Progress M-2 leaves. January 30 Launch of Module T (aka Technology Module). February 6 Module T will dock at Mir's forward facing axial docking port and will then be moved to the radial port opposite Module M. February 11 Soyuz TM-9 with cosmonauts Col. Anatoly Solovyov and A. Balandin will be launched to Mir. February 13 Soyuz TM-9 docks at Mir's forward axial port. February 19 The Soyuz TM-8 crew of Viktorenko and Serebrov will leave Mir for home. February 21 Soyuz TM-8 lands on Earth. The present EVA schedule for the Soyuz TM-8 crew follows: Between September and December: The crew will perform three EVAs: > #1 Shift the female docking device to another of Mir's forward docking ports. > #2 Remove the French Echantillons experiment. > #3 Install two star trackers on the Kvant module. December The crew will perform two EVAs using the new MMU with the MMU at the end of a 60 meter long tether: > #4 Basic checkout of MMU lasting 5 hours. > #5 Evaluate MMU's ability to perform work outside. The next module to be launched to Mir will be Module O (aka Optical Module). Module T will have its solar panels removed and mounted on Kvant and then it will be moved to another radial port. Module O will then occupy that port. The last module will be a ecological platform with an international payload and will be placed opposite Module T. No launch date for the next pair of modules has been announced. Larry Klaes klaes@wrksys.dec.com or - ...!decwrl!wrksys.dec.com!klaes or - klaes%wrksys.dec@decwrl.dec.com or - klaes@wrksys.enet.dec.com EJASA Editor, Astronomical Society of the Atlantic N = R*fgfpneflfifaL ------------------------------ Date: 26 Sep 89 17:20:13 GMT From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!henry@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: What's Wrong With HR2674. (long) In article <8909252316.AA27022@trout.nosc.mil> jim@pnet01.cts.COM (Jim Bowery) writes: >> Despite Kieran's modest lingering connection with U of T, he is employed >> full-time by a small, struggling Canadian aerospace company these days. >That explains why he is so upset about the trade-restriction section of >HR2674 that he wants to reduce its chances for passage... My, we are just full of nasty suspicions about ulterior motives, aren't we? The company Kieran works for is on the payload end, not the launcher end, so he's not affected by the trade-restriction stuff. >> Did you notice that HR2674's distant ancestor, the Commercial Space >> Incentives Act, had a clause in it specifically limiting OCST authority >> to safety considerations? There was a reason for that.) >Yes, and the reason for it isn't sufficient. While regulatory powers can, >are and will be abused, it isn't reasonable to simply eliminate regulation. The call is not for elimination of regulation, but for restricting it to its proper function: safety. Not to suppressing any payload or launcher that the current Administration doesn't approve of, which OCST is perfectly legally capable of doing now. >The first time one of Jerry Pournelle's buddies builds a bomb thinly disguised >as a rocket and insists that the government blow it up on a government owned >launch pad, you can bet any anti-regulatory clauses in any legislation would >be removed... This is a total non sequitur; can you explain how you got from what I said to this? For one thing, safety is precisely the area where regulation was to *remain* in effect. For another, unless I'm grossly misremembering it, nothing in the proposal said that the government had to provide launch facilities to anybody ever. Did you ever *read* the Commercial Space Incentive Act? Quite aside from all that, I think it is high time we started blowing up a few experimental rockets again. Progress requires setbacks; if you insist on everything being successful, the result is stagnation. Which is precisely what we see in NASA and the traditional launcher companies: all the technology is 20-30 years old and very little effort is being made to improve on it. >> Don't kid yourself; the *really* >> private launch industry in the US is very young and small and fragile, and >> the government could easily step on it "in the national interest". >I agree, and therefore it is critical that HR2674 be passed as soon as >possible. HR2674 seems likely to benefit, primarily, General Dynamics, Martin Marietta, and McDonnell Douglas. None of whom bear any resemblance to the people I was talking about. I support HR2674, as an eminently sensible first step, but it's not going to do much to support the new companies -- which is where the real hope of US spaceflight lies. -- "Where is D.D. Harriman now, | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology when we really *need* him?" | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu ------------------------------ Date: 26 Sep 89 14:54:31 GMT From: announce-newgroups@handies.ucar.edu (R. M. Jungclas) Subject: Call for discussion for the creation of "rec.models.rocket" CALL FOR DISCUSSION For the creation of rec.models.rocket (unmoderated). It is proposed that a newsgroup "rec.models.rocket" be created for the discussion of any aspect relating to model rockets OR high power rockets. The purpose of the this newsgroup would be for exchange of information to anyone wanting TO BUILD, FLY OR USE model rockets or high power rockets. The term "model rocket" is defined based on non-metallic structural components, weight, propellant and total impulse restrictions, electrical ignition, recovery devices and FACTORY-MADE, solid propellant engines. The term "High Power rocket" refers to any rocket using model rocket technology (as described above) except without the weight, propellant and total impulse restrictions of model rocketry. High power rockets have been arround for 10 years, but only popular within the past few years. Both of these forms of rocketry use a "Safety Code" which permits their LEGAL use in all of the states. Model rocketry is also available in Canada, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and other countries. The term "amateur rocketry" refers to all other non-professional rocket activities. Included in the last class, are "basement bombers," any attempts to make homemade engines, and anything using metallic structural parts. Model rockets have been arround for 31 years. Many of you may be aware of Estes and MRC model rockets currently available in most hobby and toy stores or of manufacturers that are now out of business: Centuri, Cox, MPC, etc.. Manufacturers of High Power kits/engines include Lots of Crafts/Precision, North Coast Rocketry, U.S. Rockets, AeroTech and Vulcan. As you may be aware the first commercial launch vehicle launched from Cape Canveral was the LOFT-1. (see Jan or Feb. issue of Science) This was a "high power rocket" as defined above. In addition, off-the-shelf video recorders and custom built video cameras/transmitters have been sucessfully flown. One such flight resulted in a video transmission that was broadcast on live television. Your comments and/or suggestions relating to this newsgroup are welcome. The call for discussion will end on October 14th unless issues and concerns need to be resolved. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Sep 89 16:15:10 GMT From: frooz!cfa.HARVARD.EDU@husc6.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Subject: Re: Risk of NOT launching Galileo From article <14737@bfmny0.UU.NET>, by tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff): > It's a nice point that scratching Galileo could cost us weather > knowledge, but Mission To Earth will do it better. Are you sure? Presumably the same basic physics govern the weather systems on the two planets, but the conditions are utterly different. The way to verify models - which is all we have - is to test them on systems that are as different as possible. Thus I expect that we will learn things by studying Jupiter's weather that we would never learn by studying only Earth's. Certainly there is considerable _risk_ that this is true. Of course I agree that we need to do Mission to Earth as well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Willner Phone 617-495-7123 Bitnet: willner@cfa 60 Garden St. FTS: 830-7123 UUCP: willner@cfa Cambridge, MA 02138 USA Internet: willner@cfa.harvard.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Sep 89 11:18:24 PDT From: Peter Scott Subject: Re: Alternative Space Goals, Anyone? (was Re: SpaceCause) bfmny0!tneff@uunet.uu.net (Tom Neff) writes: >In article <1989Sep13.065015.20455@cs.rochester.edu> yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu.UUCP (Brian Yamauchi) writes: >>Still, your multinational corporation, entrepreneurial startup, or >>non-profit organization still needs to *some* plan of action. I'm >>talking about goals as plans, not (necessarily) policy. > >Yes, but that should be up to them, not us. People with no profit >motive, sitting around and theorizing what *should* be done in space, is >what got us in the mess we're in today. Oh... you mean like what we do on the net...? Peter Scott (pjs@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov) ------------------------------ Date: 27 Sep 89 17:03:21 GMT From: jon@june.cs.washington.edu (Jon Jacky) Subject: Re: ...hospital radiation machine... This incident is written up in the booklet, THE RADIOLOGICAL ACCIDENT IN GOIANIA, Interanational Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Vienna 1988. In the University of Washington (Seattle) Engineering Library it has call number TK/9152/R36/1988. If your library doesn't have it, you can probably get it from us via interlibrary loan. (Goiania is the town in Brazil where this occured). Briefly, here's what happened: A private radiation therapy clinic moved, taking along its cobalt 60 machine but leaving behind a Cesium-137 machine in a totally unsecured building. Some people entered the building and took the Cesium unit for scrap, not knowing what it was. The salvagers opened the source capsule; Cesium 137 was present as the cesium chloride salt, which is highly soluble and readily dispersable. People were fascinated by the glowing substance, carried it around in their pockets, got it on their hands and faces before eating, etc. After a few days several of them got sick. One of the people made the connection with the source and took the fragments to the public health officials. Eventually, four people died. 28 people suffered radiation burns. 14 people were hospitalized and decontaminated. 112,000 (!) people were examined. Residences and public places were contaminated. Seven residences and several other buildings had to be demolished. About 3500 cubic meters of dirt and rubble were hauled away to a radioactive waste dump site. (The cover of the report has a photo of a guy in a moon suit next to a bulldozer). The IAEA report also reviews similar incidents that happened in Mexico City (1962), Algeria (1978), Morocco (1983) and Ciudad Juarez in Mexico (1983). You may have read about this latter incident, in which Cobalt from a salvaged machine found its way into steel table legs that were imported into the USA. What's this doing in sci.space anyway? Jon Jacky Department of Radiation Oncology RC-08 University of Washington Seattle, Washington 98195 jon@gaffer.rad.washington.edu ...!uw-beaver!uw-june!jon ------------------------------ Date: 27 Sep 89 04:55:09 GMT From: att!chinet!price@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Doug Price) Subject: NIMF proposal from Martin Marietta I have a copy of "The NIMF - Nuclear Rocket Using Indigenous Martian Fuel," by Robert M. Zubrin of Martin Marietta. As has been noted earlier, this is a fascinating paper on the use of NERVA-style nuclear rockets for missions to Mars and beyond. The most striking thing about this paper is that it completely turns the economics of interplanetary travel upside down. Of course, the word "nuclear" strikes terror into the hearts of all those neo-Luddites out there, so let's deal with the negatives before the positive components, and take a look at some of the salient comments in the paper: "... set against all these advantages (sic) for the NIMF is the fact that the NIMF carries a nuclear reactor. However the NIMF reactor carries a radioactive inventory about 6 orders of magnitude less than a power reactor, which will not only be a relief to the Martian Environmental Protection Agency, but eliminates the central engineering headache of nuclear reactors, to wit the possibility of meltdown caused by radioactive decay heat if cooling is lost. This small radioactive inventory represents a small hazard compared to that presented by the chemical alternative to the NIMF (a chemically powered lander, - DHP) which will be virtually a flying bomb, a lightly built structure filled to the gills with toxic gas and chemical high explosive." I talked to Zubrin at the Space Development Conference about the level of radioactivly that could be expected in the NIMF reactor at its return to earth orbit, and he said basically that the reactor operates for such a short period over its entire life that its total residual radioactivity amounts to the tens of curies. The worst case scenario of an uncontrolled burn-up in earth's atmosphere after one or more Martian missions would be trivial (though, of course, there are plenty of people out there that would find this concept horrific as well.) So, now that the "nuclear" debate has hopefully evaporated in a puff of logic, lets get on to the good stuff; what can this technology do for us? First, the basic parameters of the NIMF. Here is a table of ideal specific impulses for the variously available Martian propellants: Temperature CO2 H2O Methane CO or N2 Argon 2800K 283 370 606 253 165 3000K 310 393 625 264 172 3200K 337 418 644 274 178 3500K 381 458 671 289 187 2800K temperature output was demonstrated with NERVA. 3000K appears to be attainable with appropriate modernization of the NERVA technology. 3200K is possible with the use of modern ceramic fuel elements. 3500K can be considered the theoretical upper limit with a solid core nuclear rocket. CO2 is the easiest propellant to use, as it constitutes 95% of the Martian atmosphere. The specific impulse is on the same order as Oxy/Hydrogen chemical rockets, BUT, the point is that this reaction mass is easily available at the destination, rather that having to drag it all the way from earth. The electrical cost of liquifying the CO2 from the atmosphere is 84 kilowatt/hours per metric ton. The thermal output of the reactor would be on the order of 1000 Megawatts, so putting a relatively modest electical generation capability aboard the spacecraft would permit the NIMF to reload its reaction mass in extremely short order (Zubrin sights a figure of 14 hours for a 40 metric ton spacecraft with 1 Megawatt of electrical generating capacity.) Using indigenous propellants, the NIMF can hop all over the planet, as many times as it wants, while a chemically powered lander would only be able to land in one place, and be electically impoverished as well. Just think of what a rover vehicle could do if it had virtually unlimited electrical power from the lander. And here is one of the most interesting points. If water is used as the reaction mass, the NIMF can launch from Mars directly back into an earth return trajectory! While we could not depend on the availability of water on the first missions, later ones might be able to take advantage of this increase in specific impulse. NERVA style rockets used as interplanetary tugs could achieve specific impulses of 950 with hydrogen as the propellant. There are lots of other details in the paper related to the relative tradeoffs of specific mission profiles, propellant provisioning, spacecraft configurations, and possible multiple visits and sample returns from the outer planets (and a profile for a sample return from the surface of Venus!) Anyway, recommend that you send to Zubrin himself to get a full copy of the paper. Unfortunately, I believe the politics of the "N" word may easily put the kabosh on the whole thing. -- Douglas H. Price price@chinet.chi.il.us price@vfrot.chi.il.us ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V10 #101 *******************