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 ; Tue, 15 May 90 02:33:44 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Tue, 15 May 90 02:33:11 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #402 SPACE Digest Volume 11 : Issue 402 Today's Topics: Hubble Space Telescope Update - 05/14/90 (Forwarded) Re: The Vatican Connection Query on Shuttle Aborts Re: why there are no ETs Re: Niven's Inertialess Drive Re: Mirrors in space terraforming Venus XB70 - again Re: The Vatican Connection Re: Hubble Space Telescope Update - 05/10/90 (Forwarded) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 May 90 15:47:48 GMT From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov!baalke@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Ron Baalke) Subject: Hubble Space Telescope Update - 05/14/90 (Forwarded) ASSOCIATED PRESS -- MAY 12 "The Hubble Space Telescope sees about 15 sunrises and sunsets every day, and it wobbles each time. Scientists are puzzled." AP says NASA telescope officials are trying to figure out why the telescope wobbles for 10 to 30 minutes after it emerges from the Earth's shadow on each orbit. The wire story says engineers are considering whether the problem is related to a slight twist noticed in one of the solar panels by the STS-31 crew when the telescope was deployed. * * * * * * * * UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL -- MAY 12 "Hubble Space Telescope Focusing Set" By Rob Stein "NASA engineers began focusing the Hubble Space Telescope Saturday in preparation for taking the $1.5 billion orbiting observatory's historic first picture of the heavens this week." UPI says that if all goes well, the telescope's Wide Field/Planetary Camera will snap the "first light" picture between Wednesday and Friday (this week) depending on how much of a 38-hour focusing task needs to be repeated. The wire says engineers also completed an important set of tests on the spacecraft's guidance system, tested several of the instruments and turned on high power to one of them. Stein says most of the problems encountered have been resolved except for two -- each pertaining to unusual spacecraft motion. UPI then quotes from program scientist Dr. Edward Weiler, who is confident all of the problems would be fixed. _ _____ _ | | | __ \ | | Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov | | | |__) | | | Jet Propulsion Lab | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov ___| | | ___/ | |___ M/S 301-355 | |_____| |_| |_____| Pasadena, CA 91109 | ------------------------------ Date: 14 May 90 18:39:21 GMT From: usc!jarthur!nntp-server.caltech.edu!gap!palmer@ucsd.edu (David Palmer) Subject: Re: The Vatican Connection brown@mrsvr.UUCP (Russ Brown) writes: > Actually, the Catholic church has always been a great supporter of >astonomy. They funded many early astronomers in order to improve the >calendar. They supported Tycho Brahe and even worked closely with Galileo >in his studies (partially funding him too, I beleive). It seems that >church officials realized Galileo was right, but they wanted to break the >news slowly (to limit damage to church credibility perhaps). Galileo >would not cooperate, so the church turned on him. I don't have figures >handy, but I would bet MOST of the renaissance observatories were funded >by the church. Actually, recent evidence indicates that Galileo was an Atomist (he believed that there was a smallest quantity of any given substance, and so God could not produce 10^-100 grams of water) Such a restriction placed on God was a Heresy punishable by burning at the stake (I think it was Giordiani Bruno (sp) who learned this the hard way). Galileo, having friends in the Vatican, managed to plea bargain this down to house arrest for heliocentrism. My source is someone who has read a book called 'Galileo Heretico', now available in English as 'Galileo The Heretic'. The papers that the author discovered seem to have vanished from the Vatican library though. -- David Palmer palmer@gap.cco.caltech.edu ...rutgers!cit-vax!gap.cco.caltech.edu!palmer I have the power to cloud men's minds -- or at least my own. ------------------------------ Date: 14 May 90 06:06:32 GMT From: swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!munnari.oz.au!metro!cluster!nuts!cc!c8919865@ucsd.edu Subject: Query on Shuttle Aborts I have an interesting question. I have seen and heard of ATO and RTLS, but there is a section of the ascent I am not sure about. If there was ever a situation like 51-L (God forbid) and the new sensors picked up the warning - what could the astronauts do? Would the new crew escape system help them out under power, or would the shuttle just be blown off the stack? I know for sure that the SRB's cannot be ejected until they have burnt out, so logically the shuttle must do something for itself. If the shuttle is ejected, though, is this just an extreme example of RTLS (Return to Launch Site..) I ain't a wingeing, just a little curious.... I know I should have read this somewhere else, but up to the minute information is not so easy to come by down here unless you want to invest money in overseas subscriptions......Oh well. Luke Plaizier... ------------------------------ Date: 14 May 90 16:58:44 GMT From: cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!rpi!scholar@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Scott E. Wright) Subject: Re: why there are no ETs In article <939@sixhub.UUCP> davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (bill davidsen) writes: > > What are the odds of two civilizations existing at the same time? >Earth is at least 3 billion years old, and we have been using radio for >maybe 100 years. Assuming no change in the world population trends we >will no longer have resources for space exploration in another 100 >years. That leaves a very small window for an intelligent race to >discover us. Salutations all, In Cosmos, pages 299-301, Sagan gives an estimate of the probability of a technological civilization arising in the universe. It's a long string of values all multiplied together, including fraction of planets capable of supporting life, fraction of those which give rise to intelligent life, fraction of those which don't destroy themselves, etc. Then Sagan gives an approximation of each of these values and multiplies them out. The upshot of Sagan's commentary is that he estimates civilizations in the universe to be in the order of millions, and that a random distribution of them through the galaxy outs neighboring civilizations about 200 light years apart. Which means, from this standpoint, a 400 year wait before we ever hear a response to our messages beamed into space. And I think most people would agree that even this estimate is optimistic, for any ET civilizations have got to be at least as advanced (haha) as us. Ciao...Scott ------------------------------ Date: 14 May 90 18:10:58 GMT From: bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante) Subject: Re: Niven's Inertialess Drive - In reply to Fred Mccall: - - The Kzinti, in Larry Niven's series, had developed a 'gravity gradient' -drive of some sort. The Inertialess drive was a human (or at least -human-used) device. In one of his short stories Louis Wu (a recurring -character) speculates that some new aliens he's met are using either a -reactionless drive or a 'kzinti-style gravity gradient drive'. Th' memory cells a randomizing, but... I think the Outsiders had a true Inertialess drive for sale, price 1 trillion stars. Beowulf Shaeffer ruminated on the unlikelihood of anybody actually buying one. Reference: the "Cueball" story about the antimatter planetoid. When humans first met Kzinti, they were riding on laser-reaction drives. (And too naive to recognize these as weapons...) I really think that I remember a throwaway line to the effect that what saved the humans in the Kzinti wars was their meeting of the Puppeteers, who sold them the (Hyperspace I?) drive. If I'm right, Louis Wu was disturbed by this very early evidence of the Puppeteers' manipulating the humans for their own (anti-Kzinti) purposes. Probably either Ringworld or Ringworld Engineers. I wouldn't think it was inertialess, not only because the Outsiders' drive *was* inertialess, but also because that would be inconsistent with getting splashed into the nose of the GP hull that orbited that neutron star (okay, maybe Niven was inconsistent). Hyperspace II, or whatever it was called, was the thing Beowulf Shaeffer was testing when he traveled to the galactic core. Never saw human use because his findings caused the Puppeteers to promptly start running away. Reference: "At the Core" or a similar title. ------------------------------ Date: 15 May 90 03:19:24 GMT From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!ogicse!blake!wiml@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (William Lewis) Subject: Re: Mirrors in space In article <3903@munnari.oz.au> danielce@uluru5.ecr.mu.oz (Daniel Ake CAROSONE) writes: |Consider: | There was mention made of some satellites being simultaneously in the |beam from the mirror and from the sun. What about powering satellites |in shadow for a while, or at least keeping it warm, if such a thing should |become necessary. Or shine it on the greenhouse in a space-station? Or shine it on a batch of photovoltaics and beam the power to useful places. | It is a mirror, but it does not have to reflec only sunlight. Lasers for |telemetry or comms or whatever could be bounced off it to provide a |long baseline for triangulation, without having to wait for the |Earth to move far enough in it's orbit. Or maybe radar. | Then, what about using it to shine light on the night-side of Earth? |"Coke is it" in morse code from the heavens? Would it have to be in Morse? Quick and inaccurate calculation gives an apparent size of about 13 arc-minutes. Equivalent to a one-inch disc twenty feet away. A bit small, but with good eyesight a simple design should be visible. See Heinlein's _The_Man_Who_Sold_The_Moon_. |Club Med hiring time for the extra sun-tans? |Just how big would this mirror appear to an earth-bound observer? Could |it put out enough light to be used for search and rescue, or something |requiring diffuse but noticeable light? Bet that would really piss the |astronomers off! Might even inspire a new religion, remember one that |seems to have been sparked off by bright lights in the sky? Scale it up a few times (or use a several separate sails, which would present no new engineering problems), make them parabolic, read lots of Larry Niven and the world is your oyster, ready to cook =8) (Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I'm sure you could greatly disrupt climates in small areas by focusing on them all night and all day, especially the sidereal rhythms of the plants and such. The sun is about 32 minutes across as seen from Earth; a sun-sized object 80,000 km away would have to be 372 km in radius, or a bit over twice the size (four times the area) of this sail. As you can tell the sun has a significant effect on the Earth's climate; a small area that suddenly had two suns would change drastically. I'm no ecologist but I'd guess that you could easily desertify areas. If you put this mirror over the pole (you already have active stabilization, and this would make the moon's effects smaller) you could threaten to melt the ice caps. Or just open a resort in Antarctica and ship an icecap off planet for sale =8) )) |The mind boggles... It certainly does... -- JESUS SAVES | wiml@blake.acs.washington.edu Seattle, Washington but Clones 'R' Us makes backups! | 47 41' 15" N 122 42' 58" W ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 May 90 08:28:00 EDT From: Paul Shawcross Subject: terraforming Venus >To terraform Venus you have to get rid of that gas, either by >removing it to space or by reacting it with something to form solids. >I suspect the first option is easiest, using many extremely large >fusion bombs, containing, collectively, billions of tons of >fusionable material. > > Paul F. Dietz > dietz@cs.rochester.edu How about diverting a good sized asteroid into Venus? It should blow some of the atmosphere off, and might raise a dust cloud as well. Find an icy asteroid (or a comet), and you get water too. Most importantly, it would be fun to watch. Paul Shawcross pshawcro@nas ------------------------------ Date: 14 May 90 17:53:21 GMT From: noose.ecn.purdue.edu!news@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Duane P Mantick) Subject: XB70 - again Regarding recent comments/queries about the XB70 in discussions of Concorde replacements, y'all might find this interesting. Way back in the 60's, when North American knew that the XB70 Valkyrie was a dead duck as a bomber (at least until Robert McNamara could be gotten rid of as Sec. of Defense), they tried *everything* to get funding to keep the basic production line open. One dodge was to call it the RS-70 (Reconnaisance-Strike) and maintain a latent bombing capacity. Unfortuantely, Lockheed's Skunk works had pretty well beaten them to the punch with the Blackbird Family, which could outperform the Valkryie substantially in the RS role. The next attempt was to design an SST version to compete with Boeing's SST designs. The stuff actually was proposed in the "we want the limited funds" competition, but Boeing got the nod. Fans of the Valkyrie might recall that when it was known as WS110, Boeing was the chief competitor - and that time, North American got the contract. Duane ------------------------------ Date: 15 May 90 01:59:48 GMT From: bfmny0!tneff@uunet.uu.net (Tom Neff) Subject: Re: The Vatican Connection In article <1905@cod.NOSC.MIL> scallon@cod.nosc.mil.UUCP (Matthew C. Scallon) writes: >In article palmer@gap.caltech.edu (David Palmer) writes: >>Actually, recent evidence indicates that Galileo was an Atomist ... >I don't know, but I find it interesting that this has been the second series >of Catholic-bashing in this otherwise cerebral group. ... and three more paragraphs of utter drivel. Get a life, get a sense of humor, buy a history book, take a stress pill, and take it to a flame group. David's article was a serious note of history and mine was just whimsy about silly uses for the VATT. Neither one was "Catholic-bashing," and neither merited the maudlin implosion of defensive bathos referenced above. >Still, could we please, PLEASE, get on with the discussion of space science? Post a space article then. That's how space science discussions happen... not by waiting for the other fellow to oblige. Grrr, I HATE whining! This is our NAVY? -- "We walked on the moon -- (( Tom Neff you be polite" )) tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET ------------------------------ Date: 14 May 90 20:35:35 GMT From: usc!samsung!emory!mephisto!prism!fsu!gw.scri.fsu.edu!pepke@ucsd.edu (Eric Pepke) Subject: Re: Hubble Space Telescope Update - 05/10/90 (Forwarded) In article <3644@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke) writes: > Wilford says engineers found that a pointing error of half a > degree caused by use of an outdated star chart had been > programmed into the telescope computer. Just how outdated was this chart, anyway? Even Tycho Brahe managed to do an order of magnitude better than this. Eric Pepke INTERNET: pepke@gw.scri.fsu.edu Supercomputer Computations Research Institute MFENET: pepke@fsu Florida State University SPAN: scri::pepke Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052 BITNET: pepke@fsu Disclaimer: My employers seldom even LISTEN to my opinions. Meta-disclaimer: Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V11 #402 *******************