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, 26 May 90 02:02:50 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <0aLVjhe00VcJ81Y05Y@andrew.cmu.edu> Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Sat, 26 May 90 02:02:22 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #454 SPACE Digest Volume 11 : Issue 454 Today's Topics: NASA Headline News for 05/25/90 (Forwarded) Payload Status for 05/25/90 (Forwarded) Re: Ulysses propulsion Re: nuclear policies (space probes) Splitting "SPACE" New Advanced Life Support Division established at NASA Ames (Forwarded) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 May 90 18:43:09 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: NASA Headline News for 05/25/90 (Forwarded) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, May 25, 1990 Audio Service: 202/755-1788 ----------------------------------------------------------------- This is NASA Headline News for Friday, May 25........ The Kennedy Space Center mission managers have confirmed the launch date for the Space Shuttle Columbia for May 30. The early morning launch time for STS-35 to carry the Astro-1 into orbit is 12:38 A.M. Technicians last week replaced a valve on the orbiter and the coolant system is in order. The Astro observatory will examine the ultraviolet and X-ray wavelengths. The landing is set for 4:24 P.M. on June 8. ******** Also at Kennedy Space Center, a two-day flight test to check the Atlas Centaur vehicle concludes today. The payload on this vehicle is the Combined Release and Radiation Effects Satellite. A countdown dress rehearsal is scheduled for around June 30. ******** Meanwhile, the Ulysses spacecraft was removed from its shipping container. Receiving inspections are underway at KSC and final assembly, along with testing operations, will begin next week. ******** The Hughes Aircraft Company is developing a project to provide educational programming to public elementary schools via satellite. A pilot version of the project for kindergarten through 5th grade is scheduled to start in the fall of 1991. It is targeted at 30 schools from diverse demographic areas around the country. ******** Additional telecommunications services will be available to Pacific Rim customers from Hawaii by the Columbia Communications Corporation. The company has the rights to provide high-power voice, data video and VSAT applications. Users will be able to access the system by using a 1.2 meter parabolic satellite dish. ******** Dr. Kathryn Sullivan has been assigned her third space flight. She will serve as Payload Commander for Mission STS-45/Atlas-1 projected for April 1991. The mission is dedicated to study atmospheric phenomena. Dr. Sullivan is the first U.S. woman to perform an EVA and recently returned from Mission STS-31 that deployed the Hubble Space Telescope. ******** ---------------------------------------------------------------- Here's the broadcast schedule for Public Affairs events on NASA Select TV. All times are Eastern. Friday, May 25........ 9:00 A.M. - 8:00 P.M. 5201 Validation Testing Tuesday, May 29....... 9:00 A.M. Countdown status 9:15 A.M. Astro-1 Introduction 9:45 A.M. Astro-1 Science 10:15 A.M. Astro-1 Observatory status 10:45 A.M. Space Classrooms Coverage of all Astro-1 activities will begin with the prelaunch briefings on Tuesday and will continue through the end of the mission. ----------------------------------------------------------------- All events and times are subject to change without notice. These reports are filed daily, Monday through Friday, at 12:00 Noon, EDT. This is a service of the Internal Communications Branch, NASA HQ. Contact: JSTANHOPE on NASAmail or at 202/453-8425. ----------------------------------------------------------------- NASA Select TV: Satcom F2R, Transponder 13, C-Band 72 Degrees West Longitude, Audio 6.8, Frequency 3960 MHz. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: 25 May 90 16:06:12 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: Payload Status for 05/25/90 (Forwarded) Daily Status/KSC Payload Management and Operations 05-25-90. - STS-31R HST (at VPF) - Post launch GSE removal continues. - STS-35 ASTRO-1/BBXRT (at Pad-A) - Working final payload launch pre-ops to support 30 May launch. - STS-40 SLS-1 (at O&C) - CITE MUE and S/W verifications continue to support CITE testing. MVAK VAS training continues. Closeouts of level III/II and preps are in work to support move to CITE on 1 June. - STS-41 Ulysses (at ESA 60) - PAM-S spin balance operations will continue today at ESA 60. CITE MUE installation continues to support CITE testing. - STS-42 IML-1 (at O&C) - Module pyrell foam replacement, floor staging, and rack staging continues. - STS-45 Atlas-1 (at O&C) - No major activities scheduled. - STS-46 TSS-1 (at O&C) - MLI repairs in work. - STS-47 Spacelab-J (at O&C) - No work is scheduled for today. - STS-55 SL-D2 (at O&C) - Rack 12 staging will continue today. - STS-LON-3 HST M&R (at O&C) - ORUC interface testing continues today. ------------------------------ Date: 25 May 90 17:24:59 GMT From: hplabsb!dsmith@hplabs.hp.com (David Smith) Subject: Re: Ulysses propulsion In article <1990May24.152211.25140@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: >In article <265AC2CE.9E0@tct.uucp> chip@tct.uucp (Chip Salzenberg) writes: >>On a related note, would any of the Soviet boosters be powerful enough >>to send Ulysses up out of the ecliptic without help from Jupiter? > >An Energia might do it, if you stack on a few more upper stages. It's >a really ugly propulsion problem, though, the sort of thing where you'd >really like to use solar sails or ion rockets. (A severely out-of- >ecliptic orbit is one reason why Halley-rendezvous proposals specified >exotic propulsion.) Well, Ulysses is supposed to go over the Sun's poles, an orbit which is pretty severely out of ecliptic. Suppose you want to blast out from Earth into a circular solar polar orbit. That means you must cancel Earth's 66,000 mph eastward velocity, and add 66,000 mph poleward. The vector difference is 93,000 mph. If you blast out instantaneously from Earth's surface, ignoring atmosphere, so that you have 93,000 mph after exiting Earth's gravitational well, you must start out with 96,600 mph. The fastest space probes launched to date (Pioneer 10&11, Voyager 1&2) were sent on their ways with an initial 37,000 mph. As vehicle mass ratio goes up exponentially with burnout velocity, I doubt that any chemical upper stages stacked on an Energia could do it. Mumble here a little about Sun's axis not being quite perpendicular to the ecliptic. -- David R. Smith, HP Labs dsmith@hplabs.hp.com (415) 857-7898 ------------------------------ Date: 25 May 90 12:40:51 GMT From: dd2f+@andrew.cmu.edu (Daniel Alexander Davis) Subject: Re: nuclear policies (space probes) >There's a similar situation in the US - the community of Takoma Park, Md >(adjacent to DC) has declared itself "nuclear-free". I'm not sure of the >details, but I think basically they don't permit any businesses that deal >in nuclear armaments, and their local government is not allowed to deal with >such businesses. Yes, I'm from MD. just a couple of blocks from Takoma Park. Most of the kids growing up there take it pretty seriously, even if they practice underage drinking, (wink wink) and stay out later than both our parents wanted, they aren't very flippant about their 'nuclear free sone.' As an experiment I wore a digital watch in to see whether I was stopped, and they don't take it that seriously. The community is mostly residential and small retail anyway, possibly because of this. Anyway, I know of several fathers who live there whose work is funded by the military. (i.e. contactors) Dan Davis (is), the Repunzel of the Mathematics Department. Carnegie Mellon student Disclaimer - don't look at me, I'm also a music major, I don't have to know what I'm doing. dd2f+@andrew.cmu.edu(arpanet). "Life sucks, but sometimes that feels good." ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 May 90 10:05:03 CDT From: Will Martin Subject: Splitting "SPACE" The other thing to remember about "sci.space" is that it is not an entity in and of itself; it is also part of the Internet SPACE Digest mailing list. These are currently two-way gatewayed together. (I think "sci.space.shuttle" is also fed into the SPACE Digest, one-way only.) If sci.space is subdivided into several more subgroups, the effects include: - these subgroups will also have to be fed into the SPACE Digest mailing list, so as to continue to provide the same level of information to the participants on that side of things. This is more work for the moderator and supporting (volunteer) personnel, and more places for things to go wrong. - submissions FROM the SPACE Digest side of things (like this message) will have to be placed automatically into one group -- they can't be sorted by topic and placed into appropriate subgroup(s); we'd need an AI with real smarts to do that and they don't exist yet. This means that discussions that may start out in one subgroup will inevitably spread into at least two subgroups -- the original one and the one where the SPACE Digest responses go (unless they just happen to be the same group). This destroys the isolate-into-specific-subgroups rationale for creating the subgroups in the first place. USENETters seem enamored of topic-splitting and ever-more-specific newsgroups, and invariably ignore the larger Internet context in which many of these groups exist. It is really better to have fewer and larger more-general-topic groups which fully two-way gateway to mailing lists, to keep the participation open to the maximum number possible. News readers have lots of tools with which to sort and select individual postings by topic and references; they should use those instead of subdividing groups to reduce the range of postings they are exposed to. Will Martin ------------------------------ Date: 25 May 90 18:51:32 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: New Advanced Life Support Division established at NASA Ames (Forwarded) Paula Cleggett-Haleim Headquarters, Washington, D.C. May 25, 1990 (Phone: 202/453-1547) Jane Hutchison Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. (Phone: 415/604-4968) RELEASE: 90-73 NEW ADVANCED LIFE SUPPORT DIVISION ESTABLISHED AT NASA AMES How can astronauts grow their own food, live and work on the moon and safely explore the harsh environment of Mars? Research into these and similar questions will be the prime focus of the newly created Advanced Life Support Division at NASA's Ames Research Center, Mountain View, Calif. William E. Berry, who heads the new organization, said the goal is to support President Bush's plan for a permanent lunar settlement and an astronaut mission to Mars. Berry said the new division, which consolidates such research efforts at Ames under a single organization, will focus its efforts on developing new technologies that will allow humans to live and work productively in space for long periods of time. As missions become longer and crews larger, storing or resupplying food, water, oxygen and other consumables becomes prohibitively expensive and difficult. The life support system necessary to meet crew members' daily needs without resupply consists of several elements: thermal control, air revitalization and food, water and solid waste management. Berry's division has responsibility for developing several new life support technologies, including: -- "Closed-loop" life-support systems, using physical or chemical means to generate nutrients, gases and liquids from waste products. Ames is the lead center for development of physical-chemical systems, which use chemical processes to convert carbon dioxide, waste water and solid wastes to breathable air, potable water and food. -- A "bioregenerative, closed-loop" system, called Controlled Ecological Life Support System (CELSS), using plants to produce food and recycle water vapor, oxygen and carbon dioxide. Work at Ames emphasizes developing a crop growth research chamber and space flight investigations to study the performance of CELSS technology in space and to maximize the growth of edible plants under controlled conditions. -- Creation of new space suits and portable life support systems. These technologies could be used in the exploration of Mars or the lunar surface. Included is the AX-5 space suit, an all-metal high-pressure suit which for the first time will allow astronauts to exit the shuttle or space station without first breathing pure oxygen for several hours. This "pre-breathe" phase is currently necessary to prevent the "bends," a life-threatening condition resulting from the formation of nitrogen bubbles in the blood stream. Berry is conducting a nationwide search for scientists and engineers to join his research and development team. "We are looking for talented, creative people who want to help develop the space technology of the future," he said. "The unique human habitats we will build in space may provide technologies useful in solving some of the critical environmental issues which we face on Earth today." - end - NASA news releases and other NASA information is available electronically on CompuServe and GEnie, the General Electric Network for Information Exchange. For information on CompuServe, call 1-800-848-8199 and ask for representative 176. For information on GEnie, call 1-800-638-9636. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V11 #454 *******************