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 ; Sat, 17 Feb 90 01:47:40 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Sat, 17 Feb 90 01:47:08 -0500 (EST) Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #54 SPACE Digest Volume 11 : Issue 54 Today's Topics: Re: Galileo Update - 02/12/90 Re: inter stellar travel Re: Interstellar travel Re: inter stellar travel Re: Space Station Costs Re^2: metric vs. imperial units Re: Galileo Update - 02/12/90 Re: Base 12 NSS STATEMENT Re: Recreation in Space Re: Fun Space Fact #1: Launcher Development Costs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 Feb 90 20:08:01 GMT From: philmtl!philabs!briar.philips.com!rfc@uunet.uu.net (Robert Casey) Subject: Re: Galileo Update - 02/12/90 In article <1990Feb15.001749.1516@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: >In any case, we don't get to see the Galileo Venus images for quite a >while yet, since they'd take too long to transmit through the low-gain >antenna. How come that they don"t transmit the Venus images thru the slow low gain antenna? Even if it took a day per picture, you would still have the info in hand long before you get it from the high speed transmission that is only available near Earth. Maybe the path for the data to the low gain antenna doesn't exist? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Did you know: That when you buy something "made in China", something like half the money you pay goes to the Chinese government. The same government that did Tiananmen Square last June. I don't want to give them any money, not after that. Don't worry about putting people over there out of work, they get paid even if there's no work to do. Or so I've heard. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ (usual disclaimers) ------------------------------ Date: 16 Feb 90 06:04:33 GMT From: cs.utexas.edu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!henry@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: inter stellar travel In article <4941@itivax.iti.org> aws@vax3.UUCP (Allen W. Sherzer) writes: >>... Current >>theory is that planets are normal around Sun-like stars. The chances for >>habitable planets are harder to figure. > >I read an article in Astronomy on this a few years back. They thought Tau >Cetti would be the closest posibility. Anything closer was eihter not a >sun like star or was part of a binary system (and thus considered unlikely >to form planets). Binaries are no longer considered as poor a bet as they once were. In particular, planets around either or both of the main stars of Alpha Centauri are a possibility. Recent assessments of the stability of planets in multi-star systems are less pessimistic than the old ones. -- "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: 16 Feb 90 08:43:06 GMT From: pasteur!scam!scott@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Scott Silvey) Subject: Re: Interstellar travel In article <9002160046.AA08817@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov>, roberts@CMR.NCSL.NIST.GOV (John Roberts) writes: > It has been pointed out that a ship capable of accelerating continuously > at 1G can get anywhere in the observable universe in a few years' ship time, > and it wouldn't take much more fuel to get to another galaxy than to the other > side of this one. There are two main problems doing this: much more time > passes for those not on the ship, and unless the ship is able to extract > its drive power from its surroundings, nearly all the mass of the ship must > be the mass-equivalent of the energy required to power the drive. There is yet another major problem ... with the relativistic time dialation, piloting a vessel safely at such speeds will become quite a pain. Not only will the computer become enormously slow at reacting to potential dangers, but these objects will be very difficult to detect due to high speed, large blueshift, and relativistic "tunnel vision". Who knows what would be considered a "dangerous" object when the ship is travelling so fast. Maybe even a thin interstellar gas/dust cloud would wear on the hull over years of travel (millions of years if you're talking other galaxies here)! Not everything out there is ionized or has a magnetic field, so you can't just put up an electro-magnetic shield. Maybe someone will develop some sort of gravitic shock front emitter or something. I don't know ... it's a long way off. Scott (scott@xcf.berkeley.edu) ------------------------------ Date: 16 Feb 90 06:20:27 GMT From: cs.utexas.edu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!henry@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: inter stellar travel In article <1355@yarra.oz.au> jlw@yarra.oz.au (John Webb) writes: >> .... (the notion that the >> habitable zone around a star is very narrow seems to have been largely >> disproven), .... > >I have not heard of this and would like to know more please (humbly) Basically, the notion was fairly short-lived. More detailed studies in recent times conclude that habitability is not that sensitive to precise conditions. For example, even if Earth had as much CO2 in its atmosphere as Venus, it would not get a runaway greenhouse effect even with today's brighter Sun, according to a paper in Science a while ago. There are a variety of feedback effects that tend to stabilize things. -- "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: 16 Feb 90 05:31:21 GMT From: elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!turnkey!orchard.la.locus.com!prodnet.la.locus.com!todd@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Todd Johnson) Subject: Re: Space Station Costs >> >>What about LLNL's idea? Is it plausible? Cost effective? > >The jury is still out on it. NASA claims the technology is decidedly >optimistic; LLNL counterclaims that virtually all the technology is from >NASA's own past efforts. (The figures on inflatable structures come from >the folks who make NASA spacesuits, for example.) The cost figures are >probably over-optimistic -- cost estimates at this stage always are -- but >it does seem like it would be worth a try. It's not likely that it will >get a chance unless it is rammed down NASA's throat by higher management. >Just going ahead and *doing the job*, forgetting all the crap about new >technology and advanced robotics and 57 unmanned preliminary missions, >may sound attractive to space enthusiasts, but the reaction from the NASA >facilities and contractors -- who together have a lot of political clout -- >will be basically "sounds like less money for us -- we're against it". My problem with the idea is that it appears to be a very short-lived approach (not that that's necessarily bad but it certainly has to be factored in). The reason I say short-lived is because of the amount of small debris we have in orbit. I'm sure that LDEF will give us more data but I suspect that even a rigid structure in orbit for long periods of time (say 5+ years) at that altitude is going to take a fair bit of debris damage (and remember that a paint speck on the order of 0.1mm made a 5 cm splatter of a Shuttle's windshield, costing us a new winshield). So what's going to happen to an inflatable structure with five years of accumulated space debris damage? I'm also not wild about LLNL's credentials as a space research organization. I think that's pretty far out of their area of expertise. -- lcc!todd@seas.ucla.edu {randvax,sdcrdcf,ucbvax}!ucla-se!lcc!todd {gryphon,turnkey,attunix,oblio}!lcc!todd ------------------------------ Date: 11 Feb 90 14:37:48 GMT From: swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!mcdphx!mcdchg!ddsw1!corpane!disk!wells@ucsd.edu (Lee) Subject: Re^2: metric vs. imperial units and while we are at it lets ditch this losers keyboard and switch to Devorak i mean do we still have teletype users on here? you people moan about something you don't live and breathe but when it comes to switching which keys you hit (and people with PCs can do it fairly easily) the line for conversion is pretty short. I think the only proper way for any type of conversion of this sort is fairly simple. Start in the schools and work your way out, when textbooks don't even use feet anymore, and touch typers have the most often used keys under their fingers, the world will be a saner place. -- Lee Wells (pick one address) wells@disk.UUCP DISK Inc. [a Nixpub machine] att!chinet!mcdchg!ddsw1!corpane!disk!wells 502 968 5401 to 5406 [modems] uunet!ukma!corpane!disk!wells Louisville, Kentucky U.S.A. arpa!e.ms.uky.edu!corpane!disk!wells ------------------------------ Date: 16 Feb 90 06:05:49 GMT From: cs.utexas.edu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!henry@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: Galileo Update - 02/12/90 In article <8521@xenna.Xylogics.COM> barnes@Xylogics.COM (Jim Barnes) writes: >A local radio station news bit stated that several images of Venus had >been successfully returned by Galileo. This is contrary to all that I >had read here and in other sources. Can anyone confirm/deny... Confirm. Previous statements by myself and others are now inoperative. :-) They've found a roundabout way to get some of the data back quickly. -- "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: 16 Feb 90 11:58:56 GMT From: mentor.cc.purdue.edu!l.cc.purdue.edu!cik@ee.ecn.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) Subject: Re: Base 12 In article <9002160110.AA08876@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov>, roberts@CMR.NCSL.NIST.GOV (John Roberts) writes: > | >From: helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ic.Berkeley.EDU!eta@ucsd.edu (Eric T. Anderson) | >Subject: Re: measurement standards (aerospace) > | >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? > > Actually, I believe at least one ancient civilization used base 60. I suspect > that civilization may have collapsed because the children were dying of > old age before they could memorize their multiplication tables. :-) The Mesopotamian civilization used base 60, and lasted quite some time. I do not believe that they had the idea of infinite sexagesimals, but the Ptolemaic school certainly did, and the idea of minutes (small parts), seconds (second order small parts), thirds (third order small parts), etc. comes from the use of base 60. There were tables of trigonometric functions in this base. -- Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907 Phone: (317)494-6054 hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet, UUCP) ------------------------------ Date: 16 Feb 90 19:22:02 GMT From: ox.com!itivax!vax3!aws@CS.YALE.EDU (Allen W. Sherzer) Subject: NSS STATEMENT I have been asked to post the follwoing by Bev Freed who runs the NSS BBS. I do so as a favor so flames should be directed elsewhere. Official Notice from the National Space Society, February 14. The so-called "space activist alert" in regards to Mr. Scott Pace which has appeared on this bulletin board (as well as others) is not a National Space Society action. Individuals who have initiated this alert are acting in their own right and not on the behalf of the National Space Society. Furthermore, NSS considers this action to be completely unjustified and detrimental to the creation of a spacefaring civilization. Scott Pace served as the Executive Vice President of NSS and Chairman of the NSS Legislative Committee for the past two years. In this capacity Scott was responsible for championing support for space in Congress including commercial space programs. HR 2674, the Commercial Space Transportation Act was reviewed by the committee during this time and was supported by NSS through written testimony to the House subcommittee on Space Science and Applications. Mr. Pace has recently resigned from his posts within the National Space Society because he has taken a position within the federal government. In his new position, Scott is working to promote space commerce. It is counter-productive to the National Space Society's efforts to support commercial space to pursue Mr. Pace's transfer or detachment from this position or to otherwise harass him. -- FidoNet : 1:129/65.1 Insight BBS UUCP/SEAdog/Kitten (412) 487-3701 UUCP : ..!pitt!darth!insight!bhh : ..{psuvax1|decvax|cadre|}!idis!insight!bhh : bhh@Insight.fidonet.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Allen W. Sherzer | Cthulhu for President - | | aws@iti.org | If you're tired of choosing the LESSER of 2 evils | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: 16 Feb 90 17:19:54 GMT From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!soleast!turner@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (James Turner) Subject: Re: Recreation in Space izahi@portia.Stanford.EDU (Raul Izahi Lopez Hernandez) writes: >In article <9@soleast.Solbourne.COM> turner@soleast.Solbourne.COM (James Turner) writes: >>Actually, I suspect that if the additional 60kg had represented the entire >>weight of a Recreational Coupling Mate/Demate Facility (RCMDF), they would >>have given the OK. Unfortunately, you have to factor in N times the RCMDF's >>weight in O2, food, water, and other life-support trivia. > Sorry guys, I don't like to joke if there is one. > I'm aware that this is a mostly male community but I don't agree with >even the smallest hint of sexism here or anywhere else. > I was talking with some friends about the origin of thiking and if >it happened to one individual long ago in a primitive community, I want >to believe it happened to a woman who had a dominant genetics and then >"smart" people were born afterwards. > I'm really happy to see that everyday more women are involved in >space science both as astronauts and as scientists. > So everybody keep up the good work. > RAUL IZAHI Umm, excuse me, but: A) I was mostly poking fun at NASA's habit of sanitizing terminology by using acronyms. B) I never specified any sexual orientations. C) The Skylab crews were all male. Blame NASA, not me. D) If Sally or Tammy or one of the other female shuttle crew wants to requisition a RCMDF, more power to them. I'll volunteer... Come on folks, if we can't poke a little fun at it, why bother. If space is going to be the domain of dry scientific commentary, it's going to be boring as hell, and no fun to live in. -- ******************************************************************************* * James M. Turner * Great moments in Aviation #4: * * System Engineer, Northeast Region * Controller Ray Darr breaks the all time * * Solbourne Computer, Inc. * record when he simultaneously vectors * * turner@Soleast.Solbourne.COM * 94 targets through the New York TCA. * * (617) 273-3313 * He is relieved from his shift when he * * GEnie: SF * orders a seagull to squawk 1200 * ******************************************************************************* ------------------------------ Date: 16 Feb 90 14:17:58 GMT From: ox.com!itivax!vax3!aws@CS.YALE.EDU (Allen W. Sherzer) Subject: Re: Fun Space Fact #1: Launcher Development Costs In article <1015@manta.NOSC.MIL> simpkins@manta.nosc.mil.UUCP (Michael A. Simpkins) writes: >>No $30 million organization could even dream of accomplishing such things! >>All it could do would be to orbit stuff. Jeez, how boring. :-) > > How about sitting on the launch pad and burning like a stack of old > Roadhandlers, I'll bet that would make the news every night!!! Check out some NASA footage of some of their early launches. There is no reason to think private comanies who also start from scrach (like AMROC) will do better. Now I'm not flaming NASA (dispite the fact that they often deserve it). They are an outstanding research organization which has produces spectacular results in what they do well (research). What they don't do well is operaitons and they are dragging down the whole US launch industry with them. Conservative estimates indicate that launch costs would be about cut in half if they were all bought from private companies. Clearely we must get NASA out of the operations buisness. Allen ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Allen W. Sherzer | Cthulhu for President - | | aws@iti.org | If you're tired of choosing the LESSER of 2 evils | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V11 #54 *******************