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 ; Mon, 16 Apr 90 02:44:05 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <8a-KaMW00VcJ05yE5H@andrew.cmu.edu> Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Mon, 16 Apr 90 02:43:37 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #267 SPACE Digest Volume 11 : Issue 267 Today's Topics: Re: Aurora = Strange Flash of Light? Re: Pegasus launch from Valkyrie (or ... Re: release of images Re: Discovery's Spin in 2010 (Was Re: Artificial gravity) SWERVE - Mach 14 Vehicle Flies From 1975-1985 Payload Summary for 04/13/90 (Forwarded) Re: Drake Equation (was Re: Interstellar travel) Re: releasing data / digitized images ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Apr 90 17:34:42 GMT From: att!mcdchg!illusion!marcus@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Marcus Hall) Subject: Re: Aurora = Strange Flash of Light? In article wmartin@STL-06SIMA.ARMY.MIL (Will Martin) writes: >The news speculation and net responses that stated the reported flash of >light was an aurora have confused me, because I don't know enough about >aurorae (auroras? ... whatever...). I recall seeing it once as a child >on a vacation to the North... Interesting... So, not only does the Aurora make a lot of noise on takeoff, it also occasionally generates bright flashes in the night sky? This is a curious property for a hypersonic spy plane indeed. I guess you must have a VERY high security clearance to tecall seeing one of these as a child! :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) marcus hall marcus@illusion.UUCP ------------------------------ Date: 13 Apr 90 20:19:37 GMT From: att!cbnewsj!johna@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (john.a.welsh) Subject: Re: Pegasus launch from Valkyrie (or ... In article <5270@itivax.iti.org>, aws@vax3.iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) writes: > In article <5671@hplabsb.HP.COM> dsmith@hplabsb.UUCP (David Smith) writes: > >>>I don't really know what current planes could carry 40,000 lbs at such speeds; > > >>I was wondering if a FB-111 would do? > >It's not exactly in the same speed class as B-70 or FB-111, We have seen here that if you want to launch more with a Pegasus, you need more speed in the booster plane. There is only 1 B70 left, and I don't think the Airforce Museum in Dayton will let anybody use it (who would certify it air worthy, too?). So how about the next fastest bomber, the B58? Were they all broken up or are there other museum pieces around (other then Dayton's)? A B58 held the coast to coast record that the SR71 broke (LA - NY in about 2 hours) and they were in regular airforce service, so they were not experimental oddities. They had external pods so they could carry more than their bomb bays could hold, though I am not sure if they could go supersonic with the pods (I think they could). If we are discussing B70s here, why couldn't we have a B58 launch Pegasus? ------------------------------ Date: 13 Apr 90 06:34:32 GMT From: unmvax!nmtsun!nraoaoc@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Daniel Briggs) Subject: Re: release of images In article <261@puma.ge.com> jnixon@andrew.ATL.GE.COM (John F Nixon) writes: #At least we'll get to see HST data after a year. Are their any requirements #on data taken with, say, the Mayall scope to be released to the public after #a fixed period of time?? Greg S. Hennessy (gsh7w@astsun.astro.Virginia.EDU) also writes: >I don't know what is written on paper, but in practice the only copy >of the data is what the astronomer takes with them when they leave the >peak. There is a real problem in archiving the amount of data >generated by a nights observing with a CCD. I can make a few comments on the policy here at NRAO. The raw data is the property of the investigator for a year, and then it becomes public. (Sound familiar?) There is one important point to make here, though. I said "raw" data. Typically it takes a week or so to make a publication quality image from that data. It can take as little as a day or two, and in extreme cases it can take as much as a year or several. The images that are made from the data belong to the investigator. Period. Most investigator like to see their images (with their name attached) spread as far as possible. So if one simply wants an image of object X, it usually easiest to check the observing data base and see if someone has looked at it before. If they have, just ask them for it. Most astronomers will be happy to oblige. As far as archiving is concerned, NRAO archives all data taken by the VLA. (An execption or two for the scientists who bring their own special purpose magic boxes to the site with them.) It only amounts to a mag tape or two a day. We can handle that much. You can't tell me that a CCD will put out a great deal more than that in an evening. Maybe there is more of a problem with the diversity of media that optical types use for data storage. In radio, *all* of the data, including schedule and bookkeeping information is digital. In optical circles, only *some* of the data comes out that way. Also, it may be that the great diversity of instuments used make the archive problem worse. In our case, the VLA is a very flexible instrument, but 95% of the useful data passes through a single machine (the correlator). Of the remainder, 4.8% goes through a different correlator. All we have to do is keep track of the correlator output, and we're done. BTW, there *is* a bit of a problem with regards to tape rotation. We aren't very good about that, I'm afraid. Few sites are, anywhere. We are just starting to study the process of converting the archives to optical disc. A number of people will breathe easier about the archives when that is done. ----- This is a shared guest account, please send replies to dbriggs@nrao.edu (Internet) Dan Briggs / NRAO / P.O. Box O / Socorro, NM / 87801 (U.S. Snail) ------------------------------ Date: 13 Apr 90 17:54:34 GMT From: sco!natei@uunet.uu.net (Nathaniel Ingersoll) Subject: Re: Discovery's Spin in 2010 (Was Re: Artificial gravity) In article <17860011@hpfcdj.HP.COM> myers@hpfcdj.HP.COM (Bob Myers) writes: [2010] :movie ever made, but it was a good deal more accurate than the vast majority :of "space" SF films made to date. I especially liked the coating of sulfur :that _Discovery_ had picked up over the eight years or so it had been a :derelict. : One thing that has always impressed me about 2001 was the lack of sound in the outer-space (ie outside of spacecraft) shots; no Star Wars-like deep, low freq rumble of powerful thrust engines. Any other such movies with silent space? Even Alien, with "in space no one can hear you scream", you could hear the engines from "outside". -- ________________________________________________________________________________ I told the police that I was not injured, but on removing my hat, I found that I had a skull fracture. -- from an insurance accident form ------------------------------ Date: 13 Apr 90 20:25:18 GMT From: bu.edu!orc!inews!iwarp.intel.com!omepd!omews10.intel.com!larry@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Larry Smith) Subject: SWERVE - Mach 14 Vehicle Flies From 1975-1985 "Mach 14 SWERVE Offers Potential of New Cruise Weapon", Philip Finnegan, Defense News, 3/26/90, pg 1. Highlights: SWERVE = Sandia Winged Energetic Re-entry Vehicle Experiment. A "finned, cone shaped", rocket launched, ballistic (unpowered?) re-entry vehicle. Program has been flight testing since 1975. Since 1975 there have been 3 successful Mach 14 tests. The article implied that flight testing stopped in 1985. Sandia started this program since they were already involved in designing high altitude re-entry vehicles for the nations nuclear weapons program. This program gave them additional capability in ballistic trajectories, and controlling vehicles. Purposes of this program: To develop the X-band Radar Intercept Sensor. A radar unit that can guide and stabilize a vehicle operating in the hypersonic flight regime. The article said that this effort was successful, and that it was quite an achievement due to the high temperature environment, and the fast reaction times required. To establish ground to vehicle communication, for control purposes, to a vehicle travelling in excess of Mach 10. The article said that this also has been successful, and represents a first for communicating through the plasma blackout phase. The article also said that no attempt was made to have the vehicle respond. The vehicle used ablative cooling. The program's existence was confirmed by Sandia's (Albuquerque, N.M.) spokesman Nigel Hey, who said that the program is not dead, but struggling for funds. DARPA would not comment on SWERVE or the X-Band Intercept Sensor. The article also said that all hypersonic weapons programs have now been combined into a "single program" under control of DARPA, by an act of Congress in 1987. The article said that SWERVE has also been used as a hypersonic test vehicle. Larry Smith ------------------------------ Date: 13 Apr 90 21:52:45 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: Payload Summary for 04/13/90 (Forwarded) STS-35 PAYLOAD STATUS REPORT FRIDAY, APRIl 13, 1990 -- 1:15 p.m. Patricia E. Phillips NASA Public Affairs, Kennedy Space Center 407/867-2468 ASTRO-1/STS-35 (OPF) Preparations are underway to move the Space Shuttle Columbia and ASTRO-1 to the Vehicle Assembly Building tonight. The actual rollover from the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) takes about half an hour. In preparation for the move to the VAB and next week's move to Launch Pad 39A, the Broad Band X-Ray Telescope (BBXRT) was serviced April 10-11 with solidified argon. That servicing will keep the BBXRT cooled through April 27, thus providing contin- gency time should there be a delay in gaining access to the payload bay. Nominal time between servicing is about 16 days when solidified, versus liquid, argon is used. The liquid argon proce- dure provides 12 days of cooling capability. BBXRT will also be serviced on the launch pad during pre- flight processing operations. #### Note to Editors/News Directors: Both video and still photos of various processing activities are available through KSC News Cen- ter Audio-Video department at 407-867-7819. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Apr 90 06:10:58 GMT From: mentor.cc.purdue.edu!f3w@purdue.edu (Mark Gellis) Subject: Re: Drake Equation (was Re: Interstellar travel) I've been reading the discussion of ETs and interstellar travel. Here are my two cents, for what they are worth: Interstellar travel might be accomplished by our civilization, if we have a large enough industrial base to support it. The various methods I have heard include: Matter-antimatter drives (could reach relativistic speeds, like .6 c) Laser-powered lightsails (if the power is available, the limit here might be something like .99 c) (In a book called INTERSTELLAR MIGRATION AND THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE, an excellent anthology, there is a discussion of boosting entire habitats to very high speed over a long period of time; doubtless they employ fusion or matter-antimatter power rather than solar) Fusion drives might work, but I believe the theoretical limit on nuclear fusion is a specific impulse of about 2.6 million, which means that you could not get a spacecraft moving much faster than about 10%-15% c. This might work if you are using unmanned probes or have perfected suspended animation technology, but otherwise it is a bad idea for manned probes. If there is no way around the lightspeed limit, we might well colonize other solar systems, very slowly, over the next several centuries, but these solar systems would be isolated civilizations. They would receive messages, and be able to send them, but they would be politically autonomous; no one tries to run an empire with a multi-year delay on responses to political situations! There is also, by the way, the possibility of colonizing the cometary halo in our own or other solar systems. Remember, once you have a space-based economy/industry, those 5 km. chunks of ice and rock = lots of raw materials (and hydrogen for fusion power plants!) While playing around with some numbers for an sf story I was working on, I figured that a 10 km. cometary nucleus (larger than average, but not rare) would easily support, even with my conservative figures, a population of 200,000 in raw materials for building a large habitat, water, organics, etc. As for those pesky aliens, we have a few options: 1) There are none. (Oooo...creepy, could that silly book with all the hard-to-pronounce names begetting one another be right?) 2) There are some, but they are a LOT further away than 50 light years, which means they have no idea we are around. How far, by the way, can normal radio transmissions be detected? After all, an advanced technological civilization might be relatively "radio quiet," having moved much of its communications to lasers and other direct channel (cable, etc.) technology. 3) There are some, and they know we are here, but they have decided not to talk to us because... a) They know that if they do, our civilization will self-destruct trying to deal with all the too-advanced technology we will steal even if they don't give it us b) They do not feel we have anything worth buying from us (and they are not going to just give us disinto-ray technology out of the goodness of their seven-valved hearts) c) They are not sure if we are intelligent, yet d) They don't like us (probably becuase they have intercepted some of our radio transmissions and listened to things like Michael Jackson or Barry Manilow or Milli Vanilli or whatever, so they have a good idea of what our culture is like). Enjoy. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Apr 90 20:00:28 GMT From: usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!aristotle!pjs@rutgers.edu (Peter Scott) Subject: Re: releasing data / digitized images This may answer some of the questions on this thread. Note that as one poster previously pointed out, the people to go to are the NSSDC in Greenbelt. Reproduced from the JPL _Universe_, April 13, Vol. 20, #19: DISK DATA TECHNOLOGY ENHANCES CONVENIENCE Scientific data from JPL space exploration on compact disks are available to researchers world-wide, and analysts here are looking at the data closely for anything that might have been missed. JPL's Mike Martin, leading the compact disk effort development [sic], said a search of Viking mission data revealed for the first time the highest resolution image of Mars' giant mountain, Olympus Mons. JPL has gathered data on all its planetary missions, and is processing and making available to researchers more than 150 [gigabytes]. The data will be available to the public through the National Space Science ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Data Center, Greenbelt, Md. [No, I don't have their phone # or net address.] Collected into books, the amount already on [CD-ROMs] would make a library of nearly 200,000 volumes. [...] The first major archive, "Voyagers to the Outer Planets," contains nearly all of Voyager's close-up images of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus (16,000 images representing about 15 gigabytes of data). The cost of producing a master disk is about $1,000, but replicas can be made for only $2 each. [...] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- So there you go. I'll be interested to see which netter is the first to obtain one of these disks and put the information on-line. This is news. This is your | Peter Scott, NASA/JPL/Caltech brain on news. Any questions? | (pjs@aristotle.jpl.nasa.gov) ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V11 #267 *******************