Message-ID: <UZWS-Ke00VcJI3sU4y@andrew.cmu.edu>
Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU
From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU
To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 89 01:37:11 -0500 (EST)
Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #352

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 10 : Issue 352

Today's Topics:
     Re: Space industry projects: dismantling moons and asteroids
		      Re: shuttle as Great Satan
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Date: 15 Dec 89 13:27:16 GMT
From: spdcc!xylogics!barnes@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jim Barnes)
Subject: Re: Space industry projects: dismantling moons and asteroids

In article <17442@nuchat.UUCP> steve@nuchat.UUCP (Steve Nuchia) writes:
> Start feeding chunks of asteroid
>into the nice vacuum furnace at the focus.  Form the nice stainless
>steel (Ni & Fe, right?) Into structural shapes, and spit the slag
    	    	    	    	    	    	     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>out in whatever direction will get you home fastest without bumping
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>into home when you get there.  

Sheesh!!  We've barely gotten off the planet and some people are
already talking about polluting space.  

(Do I really need a smiley here?)

----
  Jim Barnes (barnes@Xylogics.COM)

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Date: 15 Dec 89 18:51:09 GMT
From: frooz!cfa.HARVARD.EDU@husc6.harvard.edu  (Doug Mink, OIR)
Subject: Re: shuttle as Great Satan

From article <1989Dec12.192059.28216@utzoo.uucp>, by henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer):
> In article <8912101740.AA29180@trout.nosc.mil> jim@pnet01.cts.COM (Jim Bowery) writes:
>>>The real problem is that the planetary-science people got caught in
>>>a vicious circle of bigger and more complicated and less frequent missions.
>>
>>And why did they get caught in such a cycle?
>>The lack of lauch slots forced design of missions around launch slots 
>>rather than launch slots around missions...
> 
> The vicious cycle was well advanced long before the lack of launch slots
> became evident.  One sophisticated project after another died in the 70s
> and early 80s, when plentiful launch slots were still considered imminent.
> I recommend reading the SSEC report on the subject.  It makes it very
> plain that those projects died, pure and simple, because they were too
> ambitious and too expensive.

It's really more of a chicken and egg problem.  Bruce Murray's book
(which is at home on my nightstand because I'm only halfway through it)
gives a good description of some of the politics of the planetary
exploration program in the 70's and 80's.  The shuttle started eating
money in the late 70's.  I agree that some of the proposed plans may
have been to big for funding; remember though that these were either
first looks at distant planets or returns to already-visited ones where
deeper knowledge was sought.  There were less expensive plans floating
around; there WAS a limit on how many probes could be funded at one
time so those that were funded tended to get overloaded.  And they still
do--Mars Observer originally wasn't going to have a camera on board, but
it was decided that without pictures, there would be no public support
for the project.  How many of you would really get enthusiastic about
a simple probe which studied, for example, just Jupiter's magnetic field,
producing only tables of numbers, graphs, and eerie audio recordings?

The American Astronomical Society Division on Planetary Science meeting
in the fall of 1981, when the shuttle was about to start flying, was the
deepest point of despair in the planetary community.  That was when the
Deep Space Network was almost turned off and Galileo almost cancelled
for one of the first times.  Myriad less expensive projects were
proposed--even JPL was figuring out ways to save money--but we only
barely kept what we already had.  Rockwell gave us a grant to cover part
of the cost of the meeting and provided us with a large shuttle model
to be prominently displayed in the front of the meeting room.  Its
wings were kidnapped in a minor act of frustration-caused terrorism.

Things are better now for science within NASA, but not so good that
a real deficit reduction plan or a Space Station couldn't push Cassini
CRAF or even Mars Observer 5 years further into the future.

The shuttle does do science; one project paid my salary for four years.
It just isn't a good way to launch planetary probes, and the shuttle
environment is not a good one from which to observe planets.

Doug Mink
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Internet:  mink@cfa.harvard.edu
UUCP:      {husc6,cmc12,mit-eddie}!harvard!cfa!mink
BITNET:    mink@cfa
SPAN:      cfa::mink

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End of SPACE Digest V10 #352
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