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, 1 Jun 1990 02:07:13 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Precedence: junk Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Fri, 1 Jun 1990 02:06:44 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #475 SPACE Digest Volume 11 : Issue 475 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Submissions to the Digest/sci.space should be mailed to space+@andrew.cmu.edu while all other mail, such as subscription requests and general question, should be sent to space-request+@andrew.cmu.edu or, if pressing, to tm2b+@andrew.cmu.edu. Thanks. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's Topics: Re: Jupiter and Sodium Cloud...... Re: HAWAII AND STAR WARS Precious metal prices (was Re: The Magellan analogy) Bruce Murray's Journey to Space ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 31 May 90 12:55 EDT From: "CURATOR, B.U. DEPARTMENT OF ASTRONOMY" Subject: Re: Jupiter and Sodium Cloud...... In response to: *Date: 30 May 90 21:15:43 GMT *From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!jarthur!jokim@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (John * H. Kim) *Subject: Sodium Cloud around Jupiter (?) * *What's this I heard on CNN yesterday about a couple astronomers *using ground based scopes finding a very large Sodium cloud around *Jupiter? I think the report said the Na was from Io. *-- *John H. Kim | (This space to be filled when I *jokim@jarthur.claremont.edu | think of something very clever *uunet!jarthur!jokim | to use as a disclaimer) Astronomers have know for quite a few years that the Jovian moon Io is the source of Na in the region about Jupiter, but we have only seen this cloud within several Jovian radii. The Voyagers in particular revealed that Io is a very active satellite geologically which spews out many gases and elements (including sodium) into this region. Dr. Michael Mendillo, (an astronomer specializing in ionospheric and magnetospheric studies), research associate Jeffrey Baumgardner and graduate student Brian Flynn undertook the task to see how extensive this sodium cloud is about Jupiter. Last November, a team of astronomers from Boston University went to McDonald Observatory in Texas to image this cloud in "sodium light", which is easier to image than sulfur or some of the other elements Io spews out. With a telescope specifically designed to observe large, faint structures, they were able to observe the cloud out to 40 Jupiter radii on either side of the planet from their initial results. Surprisingly, the cloud also appeared to extend far past these initial distances so they planned another visit to McDonald around the beginning of the year. After collecting more observations and reducing the data, the sodium cloud appeared to extend a full 6 degrees across the sky, about 12 full moons in diameter, or 400 Jovian radii!!! The structure lies along the planet's equatorial plane and flares outs at the ends, sort of like a "bow tie". Dr. Mendillo says the elongated shape of the structure is due to the planet's large magnetic field. They have named the structure a "magneto-nebula" and is probably the largest permanent structure in the solar system. The discovery was announced this past week at the American Geophysical Union conference held in Baltimore and a more detailed account will appear in a future article of the British scientific journal Nature. Frank F. Sienkiewicz, Curator Boston University Department of Astronomy ------------------------------ Date: 31 May 90 16:57:22 GMT From: clyde.concordia.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: HAWAII AND STAR WARS In article <269@atncpc.UUCP> bruce@atncpc.UUCP (Bruce Henderson) writes: >All this huffing and belowing about launch facilities in Hawaii is really >nonsense. I don't know why anyone owuld go to the trouble of building >a launch site in a place where you have to put all you rockets on a >ship of some sort and sail them arround when we have a perfectly good desert >here in California to play with! Unfortunately, the California desert doesn't have several thousand miles of ocean downrange. ------------------------------ Date: 31 May 90 21:55:00 GMT From: thorin!homer!leech@mcnc.org (Jonathan Leech) Subject: Precious metal prices (was Re: The Magellan analogy) In article <1990May31.185637.26263@watdragon.waterloo.edu> jdnicoll@watyew.uwaterloo.ca (Brian or James) writes: > Problem is that gold and the other 'precious' metals don't >have an intrinsically high value. Drop a megatonne of gold on the >market, and you'll be hearing the crunch of sidewalk diving aurophiles >soon after. > I always wondered how the nations who specialise in raw material >export would survive a hypothetical 'third industrial revolution'. Here's an early view on space (sort of) resources: "I suppose your men are loading the platinum, Dunark." "Yes. They're filling Number Three storeroom full." "Good work, Seaton," DuQuesne said. "I've often wished there was some way of getting platinum out of jewelry and into laboratories and production, and your scheme will do it. I don't think much of your judgement in passing up the chance to make a million bucks or so, but I'll be glad to see the jewelers drop platinum. I wonder how they'll put it across that platinum isn't the thing for jewelry any more?" "Oh, they can keep on using it, all they want of it," Seaton said, innocently, "at exactly the same price as stainless steel." "Who do you think you're kidding?" DuQuesne's reply was not a question, but a sneer. - E. E. Smith, _The Skylark of Space_ -- Jon Leech (leech@cs.unc.edu) __@/ ``One never knows... Deacon now wants to conduct population explosion tests *underground*.'' - Molester Mole ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jun 90 03:12:42 GMT From: uokmax!rwmurphr@apple.com (Robert W Murphree) Subject: Bruce Murray's Journey to Space I thought I'd start a rucus by describing Bruce Murray's New Book. To begin with, I'm more of unmanned enthusiast than most so if that offend you then stop here. It was the best book on space politics I had read since McDougall's " The Heavens and the Earth". It had amusing incidents on within JPL politics, Booster politics within NASA, and national politics of Space One amusing incident he relates concerned the communications capacity of Mariner 10. The imaging team wanted very much to get real time data. This would allow them to transmit tens of thousands of pictures rather than the usual several hundred from their target, Mercury. The bit rate before Mariner 10 was 256 bits/second. The communications group at JPL was rather tight knit and claimed there was no way to increase it to real time (100kbits/sec). But Murray suspected they were holding out on him so they'd make no mistakes, take no risks, etc. But he didn't have anything to prove it. Finnally, some poor unsuspecting engineer on the communications team sent him a memo mentioning some hithertoo unmenmtioned safety margins. At the next meeting with the communications section Murray pulls out the memo and says "put out", which they did and went on to get real time imaging data from the 1975 Mercury encounter. There were several reviews of it in the various technical magazines. Sky and Telescope panned it. Walter McDougal pointed out that Murray's obsession with working on world peace with manned missions to mars rested on a misreading of the Apollo-Soyuz (75) flight. McDougal said murray got the arrow of causality wrong. Detente caused the Apollo-Soyuz not the other way around. This article was in Technology Review.. Norman Horowitz pointed out that by backing THE MISSION TO MARS (in a review in The Sciences) he made himself a sort of Ahab pointed towards the White Whale. In Bruce Murray's 70's book, "Navigating the Future" which was another great book, he makes it plain that in the Chapter "A Future Elswhere?" that he doesn't think a manifest destiny colonization of the solar system is very reasonable. He said it was easier to live on the antarctic ice cap than on mars and so the right time to think about colonizing mars was when the human population density of Antarctica reached that of iowa. Needless to say in Journey to Space (and as leader of the Planetary Society) he changed his tune. I have very mixed feeling about Dr. Murray. When I was an undergraduate at Caltech (70-75) I met him and was very impressed. He pointed out then that many people go into the Sciences and technology to avoid the complexities of human life. He seemed wise and he was almost a hero of mine when heros were hard to find. After collecting all the reviews of his book and reading it throughj h carefully twice, I decided that he had some tough decisions to make in his life and maybe he hadn't done so bad. It seems to me that most of us have only one or two careers in our lifetime. Murray has had 3 or 4. Petroleum geologist, Caltech Professor, Instrument Team Head, Chief of JPL, Politician with the Planetary Society. My experience with Military retreads has been that its really tough to make the transition from the service to science and technolgy. I think Murray went from geology to Global politics and got garbled somewhere along the way. But I won't damn him by labeling him a technocrat, which was my first impulse. Hope my book review is worth the Bandwidth. ne . wher ' s ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V11 #475 *******************