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/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl@andrew.cmu.edu (->+dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl) (->ota+space.digests) ID ; Fri, 16 Feb 90 01:28:24 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <8Zqtpgm00VcJA0x04t@andrew.cmu.edu> Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Fri, 16 Feb 90 01:27:57 -0500 (EST) Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #47 SPACE Digest Volume 11 : Issue 47 Today's Topics: space news from Jan 15 AW&ST Payload Status for 02/14/90 (Forwarded) Re: measurement standards (aerospace) Re: Why we would need a planet. REMINDER: SCV IEEE Geoscience and Remote-Sensing Society Meeting Why we would need a planet. Re: inter stellar travel Re: Why we would need a planet. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Feb 90 05:50:39 GMT From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!henry@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: space news from Jan 15 AW&ST Quayle warns NASA that it will be expected to "challenge the accepted ways of doing business" and that "we've got to figure out how to reduce the time from idea to realization from decades to a few years". The voice is Quayle's, but the message is reported to be straight from Bush, who is dissatisfied with NASA management. Columbia launch runs smoothly Jan 9 after abort on Jan 8. Weather on the 8th was known to be marginal, but the countdown was run to T-5min anyway, partly in hopes of a break and partly to check out systems on pad 39A. Syncom 4F5 deployed successfully on Jan 11, LDEF pursuit underway. Launch of Spot 2 slips again; one of Spot's tape recorders is acting up and the bird will have to be pulled off the Ariane for a changeout. The original Jan 10 target had already slipped a bit due to inertial-system problems on the Ariane. Picture of the payload section with the shroud off, pointing out several of the little amateur-radio satellites that are going up as secondary payloads. NASA Goddard will fly a Raytheon VAX-derived computer and a Sundstrand optical disk on a shuttle mission late this year, in an attempt to space-qualify a modern computer for space use. [From Flight International, 3 Jan:] McDonnell Douglas reports imminent cost overruns on its USAF contract to launch Navstars on Deltas. They're blaming it on half a dozen different things, which boil down to minor technical problems plus seriously optimistic cost estimates. [Ah, those cheap expendables with their well-known, predictable costs.] [From Flight International, 24 Jan:] Meteosat 4, launched last March to be the first operational European Clarke-orbit weather satellite, has been temporarily (?) retired due to imaging problems. Its primary imaging system is now useless, and the backup is showing signs of similar problems. The older Meteosat 3 is being moved from standby position to the operational orbital slot. Meteosat 3 is itself not in the best of health, with intermittent antenna problems. Meteosat 2 is being held on standby in case of trouble, although it has just 2kg of station-keeping fuel left; its planned end-of-life boost out of Clarke orbit has been postponed. [From Science, 19 Jan issue:] Bad news -- just when planetary launches are finally starting to get going again, planetary-mission data analysis has taken yet another budget cut, the second big one in a row. Funding for US investigators working on data from the Soviet Phobos missions has ended early. Data analysis aimed at Mars-rover planning has been shelved. Even analysis work preparing for Magellan has been cut. There is real concern about the long-term effect on the availability of skilled manpower. The cuts come from a combination of problems. About one-third came from the combination of Gramm-Rudman deficit reduction and the tax on all federal programs to pay for the anti-drug jihad. Another third came because Mars Observer doesn't have enough money to pay for the radio unit added to relay data from the Soviet 1994 balloon mission, so it's started eating other programs' money. [Oddly, there are people who claim that only manned programs eat their unmanned neighbors like this, when in fact it happens any time a big program gets caught short.] The remainder was general reshuffling to pay for minor overruns elsewhere. [And a quickie book review. "Where No Man Has Gone Before" is the latest in the NASA History series, NASA SP-4214. It is the long-overdue overall history of Project Apollo, emphasizing the missions instead of the technological preliminaries (which are well covered in the earlier NASA History books, "Stages to Saturn", "Chariots for Apollo", and "Moonport", all well worth reading). I haven't yet had a chance to read it properly, but even dipping into it here and there reveals all kinds of interesting stuff. (Sample: the crews for Apollo 11 and 12 -- one of which was almost certain to make the first landing -- were both theoretically training to land at any of three sites, but in fact each was training for only one, because there simply wasn't time to train for three.) You should be able to mail-order it from Superintendent of Documents, US Government Printing Office, Washington DC 20402. Don't know what the mail-order price is; I got mine at the USGPO store in Washington, where it cost $19.] -- "The N in NFS stands for Not, | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology or Need, or perhaps Nightmare"| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu ------------------------------ Date: 15 Feb 90 17:18:32 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: Payload Status for 02/14/90 (Forwarded) Daily Status/KSC Payload Management and Operations 02-14-90 - STS-31R HST (at VPF) - The HST/CITE confidence test was completed yesterday. GIPCU functional testing will occur today. - STS-32R SYNCOM/LDEF (at SAEF-2) LDEF deintegration continues. - STS-35 ASTRO-1/BBXRT (at O&C) - Cite decable and closeout activities were performed yesterday and will continue today. - STS-40 SLS-1 (at O&C) - Preps for systems test were worked yesterday. This activity included ECS preps, rack 10 bellows installation, luminary installation and EU mods. Today, AEC viewport preps and electrical cable mods will be worked, and ECS preps will continue. - STS-42 IML (at O&C) - Racks 5 and 11 structural mods were worked yesterday and will continue today. - STS-45 Atlas-1 (at O&C) - Pallet keel installation and orthogrid hardpoint installation will be worked today. - STS-46 TSS-1 (at O&C) - PPCU checkout will continue today. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Feb 90 13:12:25 GMT From: jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!attcan!telly!druid!darcy@rutgers.edu (D'Arcy J.M. Cain) Subject: Re: measurement standards (aerospace) In article <22094@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> eta@ic.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP writes: > >Hey, let's just use base 12! or so! Then we can divide by lots of >numbers... We just need a lot more fingers. =-) How about it? Or base 2 and the problem never comes up in the first place and we can count on our fists instead of our fingers. :-) Besides, 12! is a *LOT* more fingers. 479,001,600 to be exact. -- D'Arcy J.M. Cain (darcy@druid) | Thank goodness we don't get all D'Arcy Cain Consulting | the government we pay for. West Hill, Ontario, Canada | (416) 281-6094 | ------------------------------ Date: 15 Feb 90 23:23:45 GMT From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com (Steve Hix) Subject: Re: Why we would need a planet. > In article <1990Feb15.195633.27342@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> noble@shumv1.ncsu.edu (Patrick Brewer) writes: > > The point that I wanted to make is that during the exploration > >of space we must be careful about how much raw materials we steal from > >planet Earth. Why use it? It'll be a lot cheaper to get your mass from asteroids, comets, and the like. (At least, after some "minor" engineering ramp up...) > >While > >at the present time we are not able to remove enough resources from > >mother Earth to do very serious damage. But if we speak of "generation > >ships" then we are talking of huge amounts of raw material. Mass from earth would be too expensive. Again. > > Where do we expect to get the water needed for a venture of > >such size? Here (Earth) we have always considered water a limitless > >resource because there is so much of it. But with the event of space > >travel based on self supporting ships the water here could go very > >quickly! Farther out-system there's lots of volatiles to use. Like comets, eventually out-system moons, certain gas giant planets. > > We need planets just to get the resources for existence. Why? (As someone has said, "it's raining soup out there...where's my bowl?) ------------ "...Then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise anyone who receives it, in the belief that such writing will be clear and certain, must be exceedingly simple-minded..." Plato, _Phaedrus_ ------------------------------ Date: 15 Feb 90 00:12:16 GMT From: pioneer.arc.nasa.gov!paluzzi@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter Paluzzi- ZeroOne) Subject: REMINDER: SCV IEEE Geoscience and Remote-Sensing Society Meeting REMINDER IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society Santa Clara Valley Section Coastal Ecology, Oceanography and Ocean Current Mapping Radar Prof. John Vesecky STAR Laboratory, Electrical Engineering Dept. Stanford University Thursday, February 15, 1990 at 7:30 pm A high frequency ground based radar has been installed on the Big Sur coast south of Monterey to measure surface currents offshore. These measurements are used to investi- gate the relationship between winds and coastal upwelling and the effect of current transport on ocean biology. Coa- stal ecology is often thought of as survival of the fittest in terms of overgrowing and mating competition. Prof. Jon Roughgarden at Stanford has introduced consideration of other factors, such as the ocean currents where larvae exist for weeks before attaching to rocks at the shoreline. Direct measurement of the relevant currents by radar allows quantitative investigation of the interaction between physi- cal oceanography and marine biology. Further, the radar data can be used to investigate the interaction of the offshore wind field and coastal upwelling or downwelling. Principles of radar operation and results from August and September, 1989 will be presented. The meeting will be held in room 450 of the Durand Building at Stanford University and will be preceded by a diner as noted below. For the meeting please enter through the doors at the ground floor level and take the elevator to the 4th floor. From the elevator, room 450 is directly across the has with restrooms around the corner to your left. Dinner: 5:30 pm Cocktails with Dinner at 6:00 PM Sundance Mine Company 1921 El Camino Real, Palo Alto (across from Stanford Campus) Reservations: SIeglinde Barsch (415) 723-3614 _______________________________________________________________________________ Peter Paluzzi, Sr. Graphics Analyst, Sterling Software, ZeroOne Group Advanced Computing Facility, NASA/Ames Research Center, Mail Stop 233-3 Moffett Field, CA 94035 paluzzi@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (415) 604-4589 ------------------------------ Date: 15 Feb 90 19:56:33 GMT From: news@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu (Patrick Brewer) Subject: Why we would need a planet. In answer to some comments I find disturbing. Several people have made comments asking why we would need planets for colonization. Well there is one damn good reason I can think of. Here goes: A while back I toyed with the idea of writing a sci-fi book to introduce the "laws of space exploration" in the same way that Isaac Asimov introduced the 3 laws of robotics (+ the zeroth law if you read "Robots and Empire"). I am a bad fictional writer so I never did get past the first page. The point that I wanted to make is that during the exploration of space we must be careful about how much raw materials we steal from planet Earth. We can not just keep sending out large space ships that are self supporting because of materials they take from Earth. While at the present time we are not able to remove enough resources from mother Earth to do very serious damage. But if we speak of "generation ships" then we are talking of huge amounts of raw material. Where do we expect to get the water needed for a venture of such size? Here (Earth) we have always considered water a limitless resource because there is so much of it. But with the event of space travel based on self supporting ships the water here could go very quickly! Look at the damage done by cutting down forests to make farm land, or the paving of farm land to build cities. Then think of what would happen if the land were remove from the planet and put on a ship never to return again. Cutting down forests is bad, but imagine removing all that organic matter from here permanently. Up until now the Earth has been a closed system (to the practical degree anyway), but if it becomes an open system with things going only one way, out, then we would have *very serious* problems. We need planets just to get the resources for existence. We can't consider Earth as a disposable item. We need to always have Earth as something to fall back on if some disaster destroys colonies. Space Stations are now and will always be rather fragile things. You can not depend on them the way you can a planet. One person who has a mental disorder and is crazy could wipe out the entire vessel! To bring down the life support systems would require little effort. An explosion allowing all of the air to escape into the void of space would not be hard for a terrorist type person to do. One jerk could hold a city (or real an entire civilization) hostage. YES, we need planets so long as we are carbon based, oxygen breathing organisms. If all humans were in ships and the ships began malfunction then the race would most likely die! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The NOBLE One Patrick W. Brewer noble@shumv1.ncsu.edu An experienced politician is a dangerous thing! ------------------------------ Date: 15 Feb 90 21:28:06 GMT From: hpfcso!hpcndaw!jar@hplabs.hp.com (Jon Rodin) Subject: Re: inter stellar travel >Think of what happens when you visit Mexico for a few days. Many > people are quickly overcome by local germs and parasites because > their body has not had a chance to develop natural immunities to > these things. The converse problem has occurred in cases where > explorers in history have introduced "common" diseases to > civilizations in which the people have never developed the proper > resistances. The resultant plagues in these cases were devastating > to the natives. > stuff deleted... > >So now, imagine what happens when a human being, laden with all sorts > of "harmless" living parasites unheedingly drops in on a new > life-bearing planet. Not only will he contaminate the native life > system with new "unnatural" creatures, but he himself will presumably > become immediately susceptible to myriads of native parasites > himself. (Of course, a parasite is only a "parasite" when it invades > some living host and lives there). This is somewhat misleading. The reason you can go to another area of the world and become infected with diseases to which you have no defenses, is because there are humans there. For the most part, diseases don't infect different hosts. Like other organisms, viruses, bacteria, etc. have environmental niches which they thrive in. In the case of human infections those environmental niches are humans. There are human infective organisms which inhabit other animals (like malaria and mosquitos or lime disease and ticks), but most human infections are contained to humans. It is even unusual to find infective organisms which are shared by humans and close relatives - say other mammals. There are remarkably few organisms which can infect, as an example, dogs cats and humans. The likelihood of finding organisms developed in an entirely alien biosystem which could infect humans would (IMHO) be very small. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Feb 90 22:17:55 GMT From: voder!dtg.nsc.com!alan@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Alan Hepburn) Subject: Re: Why we would need a planet. This reminds me of the argument that man is polluting space. How can put more mass into space than is available to us on Earth? All we can do is redistribute the total mass of Earth, which is already in space. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alan Hepburn Omne ignotum pro magnifico mail: alan@blenheim.nsc.com My opinions are just that: opinions ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V11 #47 *******************