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, 2 Jun 1990 01:40:41 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Precedence: junk Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Sat, 2 Jun 1990 01:40:13 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #477 SPACE Digest Volume 11 : Issue 477 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Submissions to the SPACE Digest/sci.space should be mailed to space+@andrew.cmu.edu. Other mail, esp. administrivia, should be sent to space-request+@andrew.cmu.edu, or, if urgent, to tm2b+@andrew.cmu.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's Topics: Re: Soviet Missions to Mars Variable star R. Leonis Re: Saturn V: Center S-I Engine shutdown? Re: Galileo entry probe Re: Naming Stars Re: Shuttle centaur CALL FOR VOTES: comp.lang.idl-pvwave Re: Naming Stars Radiation Cosmology texts Re: space news from April 2 AW&ST ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 1 Jun 90 07:39:16 GMT From: mcsun!hp4nl!nikhefh!greg@uunet.uu.net (Greg Retzlaff) Subject: Re: Soviet Missions to Mars In article <1990May31.040347.29182@uunet!unhd> rmk@unhd.unh.edu.UUCP (Robert M. Kenney) writes: > > What ever happened to the idea of a network link to the USSR? Seems > like the scope of this group(and others) could be improved by getting > interaction with our Soviet counterparts. It'd be nice to get launch > schedules and other messages from them like we do from our friends at > JPL. Whatever happened to that slow news link somebody said he was setting > up(~ 3 years ago...)? > I am collaborating with some Russian scientists at this time. They indeed have a way to log into a computer here to get and send computer mail. However, a group of about 5 is limited to about 2 hours of connect time per MONTH out of the USSR. Many other groups cannot send or receive BITNET mail at all. International telephone calls must be booked 1 day in advance. They are not NEARLY as advantaged as us; we have much to be thankful for. The least of their worries is to use their very meagre communications resources for such relatively flippant (though to us very interesting) purposes. Hope this helps, Greg Retzlaff NIKHEF-K Amsterdam -- Greg Retzlaff, NIKHEF-K Netherlands Institute for Nuclear and Particle Physics The most common things in the universe | We are all in the gutter, are hydrogen and stupidity. | but some of us look at the stars. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jun 90 13:10:14 GMT From: philmtl!grant@uunet.uu.net (Grant Bonnell) Subject: Variable star R. Leonis I have been watching the variable star R. Leonis for the past two months from my light polluted backyard in Montreal, just to beef up my skills until I move the the country and dark skys where I can begin a serious program of variable star observing. Recently, however, with R. Leonis getting lower on the horizon each night, and with the variable itself becoming fainter, I am no longer so certain of my magnitude estimates. On June 1 at 2:30 UT I estimated the brightness of R. Leonis at aproximately 8.2. Can any variable star observer out there tell me how accurate this estimate is? I would appreciate some feedback so I can get a feel for what kind of mistakes I am making. Grant Bonnell - Philips Electronics - Montreal ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jun 90 18:01:35 GMT From: shlump.nac.dec.com!star.dec.com@decuac.dec.com (Gary Hughes - VMS Development) Subject: Re: Saturn V: Center S-I Engine shutdown? The center F-1 was shutdown late in the S-1C burn to keep G forces below acceptable limits as the propellant was depleted. For the same reason, the central J-2 on the S-II was shutdown early. I wasn't aware of this until watching the rerun of network coverage of Apollo 11 on A&E. It came up in an interview with one of the astronauts, and was again mentioned in a 4 part documentary on Apollo 11 from NASA. gary hughes @star.dec.com ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 90 23:15:48 GMT From: skipper!shafer@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer) Subject: Re: Galileo entry probe In article bowers@elxsi.dfrf.nasa.gov (Al Bowers) writes: In article <641591003.0.GLASS@PLUTO.ARC.NASA.GOV> GLASS@PLUTO.ARC.NASA.GOV (Jay Glass) writes: >Incidentally, I couldn't find Mary Shafer *anywhere* Sunday morning...when >asked where the Usenet RDV was, her boss looked blank... Mary is out for a few days. Travel or something and she won't have net access until she gets back. Just thought I'd let you know... I was TDY at Langley Research Center last week evaluating cockpit displays and information systems for air combat. We were using the Differential Maneuvering Simulator. Nothing like a little death in the air.... Of course, I got shot down on both runs, but the real pilots did a lot better. Now, about the Shuttle landing and the Usenet RDV--I was there at 0715 (25 minutes after landing) for about an hour. Paul Raveling, Gene Miya, and a host of other Usenet people managed to make the RDV. You couldn't have missed me in my bright red dress, surrounded by the raucous group. Did you get there too early? (BTW, Al wasn't even here--we looked, but couldn't find him.) Too bad you weren't there, I gave away my STS-31 Press Kit, some PR handouts, and some posters. They tell me that the next flight with the ramp ("official guest") operation is STS-40, with a target launch date of 29 August. Maybe Steve Jay can finally make it? Maybe we can all get together? We'll have to work on it! -- Mary Shafer shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov ames!skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov!shafer NASA Ames Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA Of course I don't speak for NASA ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jun 90 18:39:28 GMT From: stsci!levay@noao.edu (Zoltan Levay) Subject: Re: Naming Stars In article <2344.2661aa27@cc.cut.oz.au>, tmarshall01@cc.cut.oz.au writes: > Who cares I mean who want's to call a STAR something,Don't you > know, they call the stars M1,M2 and dumb names like that, why > not anything imaginative e.g. Nostridamis, Abjenon,Causous. Well, sure, you can name anything you want anything you want. You could call New York Harry if you want, but nobody would know what you are talking about. The idea behind "naming" celestial objects is a common point of reference. Most stars referenced by astronomers don't really have names as much as a catalog number: HD, SAO, BD, etc. Many naked eye stars do have nice ancient romantic (mostly Arabic) names such as Aldebaran, Betelgeuse, or Zubenelgenubi. Clusters, Galaxies and other objects are usually named similarly, a numerical entry in some catalog: Messier, NGC, 3C, Abell, etc. Comets usually get named after the discoverer(s). Many astronomical names are decided upon or agreed to by committee, specifically various sections of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Again, this is mostly so everyone knows what everyone else is talking about. -- Zolt "f/8 and be there!" Bill Garrett ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jun 90 21:16:38 GMT From: mojo!SYSMGR%KING.ENG.UMD.EDU@mimsy.umd.edu (Doug Mohney) Subject: Re: Shuttle centaur In article <1990May30.153315.25194@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: >In-space refuelling is officially Too Difficult for some reason. Also, Too dangerous after the post-Challenger reassessment on safety. This kinda screwed DoD, which had planned to refuel KH-12s in orbit. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jun 90 00:37:01 GMT From: caldwr!rfinch@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu (Ralph Finch) Subject: CALL FOR VOTES: comp.lang.idl-pvwave CALL FOR VOTES: creation of comp.lang.idl-pvwave This is to solict votes to create a group for a language called either IDL or PV-Wave (depending on whom you buy it from). Group Name: comp.lang.idl-pvwave Vote period: Through June 22, 1990. To vote: send mail to rfinch@water.ca.gov ---or--- ...ucbvax!ucdavis!caldwr!rfinch Replying to this message should work. Indicate clearly in the subject and/or message whether your vote is YES or NO for creating comp.lang.idl-pvwave. Qualified votes ("I vote yes if...."), votes posted to a group, or unclear votes cannot be counted. I'll reply to each vote individually; a mass acknowledgment will be made at the end. Charter: An unmoderated newsgroup for discussing the programming language known as both Interactive [Data/Display] Language (IDL) and PV-Wave (Precision Visuals Workstation Analysis and Visualization Environment). Topics will be programming tips, techniques, and code exchanges, either full programs or fragments. The proposed group is intended primarily to discuss numerical analysis, imaging, scientific visualization, etc. *as performed using the IDL/Wave language*; it is not intended to support discussions concerning those topics directly, as groups already exist for those purposes (e.g. sci.math.num-analysis). The existing group comp.lang.idl is for the Interface Description Language, something else entirely. This Call For Votes does not constitute an endorsement of any product or company. -- Ralph Finch 916-445-0088 rfinch@water.ca.gov ...ucbvax!ucdavis!caldwr!rfinch Any opinions expressed are my own; they do not represent the DWR ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jun 90 11:06:48 GMT From: mcsun!unido!rwthinf!dieter@uunet.uu.net (Dieter Kreuer) Subject: Re: Naming Stars In article <2344.2661aa27@cc.cut.oz.au>, tmarshall01@cc.cut.oz.au writes: > Who cares I mean who want's to call a STAR something,Don't you > know, they call the stars M1,M2 and dumb names like that, why > not anything imaginative e.g. Nostridamis, Abjenon,Causous. There are quite *some* stars visible and it would be rather difficult to find 20 million imaginative star names. And it is useful, that the identifi- cation of the star contains the position of the object, the way it is done in some star catalogs (don't quote me, I'm just an amateur), so you don't need to look in huge catalogs to find the object. As a matter of fact, the brightest stars do *have* names like 'Capella' or 'Ras Alhague', and so do many planetoids whose names were in the beginning related to ancient Greek or Roman mythology. But later, there were much more planetoids discovered than Greek or Roman gods/godesses available. The astronomical nomenclature sometimes uses strange rules, e.g. for variable stars (the system was first proposed by German astronomer Argelander, I don't have the exact reference now). The first variable discovered in a constellation gets the name R , where is a 3-letter-code indicating one of the 88 (right?) official constellation names. The next variable is called S, then T through Z. The sequence continues with RR, RS, ..., RZ, then SS (SA...SR left out), ST, ... SZ, TT, ..., ZZ. Now we proceed with AA, AB, ..., AZ, then BB (BA left out), ..., QZ (all combi- nations with J left out). This yields 334 combinations. The sequence then proceeds with V334, V335, ... Believe it or not, although only a small per- centage of all stars are variable, there are 'AR CAS'es and 'V426 CYG'es because there are billions and/of billions (greetings to C. Sagan) of stars. Certainly more stars than people on earth and hence more than existing names. |============================================================================== | . . . . _____ . . . * .| Dieter Kreuer | | . * . . / O \ . + . . | Lehrstuhl Informatik IV | | . . +. * |\ O O /| . * . | RWTH Aachen | | ____________ | \___//| . ____________ | Ahornstr. 55 | | /_/_/_/_/_/_/__| |___|/|___/_/_/_/_/_/_/ . | D-5100 Aachen | | /_/_/_/_/_/_/ . | |___|/| /_/_/_/_/_/_/ | F.R.Germany | | . . . \ |___|//. . +. . | | | .* . \|___|/ . * : . | Phone: +49-241-804523 | | . * . /. \ .* =============| Fax: +49-241-806295 | | . +. . . / . \. . / E-Mail: dieter@informatik.rwth-aachen.de | | . . / .+ \. / dieter@rwthinf.uucp | |============================================================================== ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jun 90 16:29:22 GMT From: pmafire!alan@uunet.uu.net (alan herbst) Subject: Radiation H. Peter White@nereid.sal.ists.ca questioned: >How much protection would these rad-hard memories provide against single event >upsets, & latch ups. ie., what sort of tolerance do they have against total >accumulated radiation? and Henry Spencer@utzoo.uucp stated: >It *does* seem to be hard to find solid quantitative data on them: it seems >to appear only in obscure technical reports. I too would be interested in >any good references. Referring to the June, 1987 catalog for Harris Semiconductor entitled "RAD-HARD/HI-REL CICD DATA BOOK", the following data is offered as examples: 4096 x 1 CMOS STATIC RAM (Harris HS-6504RH): Total Dose .... 1 x E5 Rad Data Upset .... >E8 Rad/s Latch-Up Free . >1 x E12 Rad/s 2K x 8 CMOS PROM (Harris HS-6616RH): Total Dose .... 1 x E5 Rad Data Upset .... not given Latch-up Free . >1 x E12 Rad/s 8085 8-bit CMOS Microprocessor (Harris HS-80C85RH): Total Dose .... 1 x E5 Rad Data Upset .... >1 x E8 Rad/s Latch-up Free . >1 x E12 Rad/s 8086 16-bit CMOS Microprocessor (Harris HS-80C86RH): Total Dose .... 1 x E5 Rad Data Upset .... >E8 Rad/s Latch-up Free . not given Chapter 2 of the Harris Rad-Hard catalog titled, "Radiation Effects on CMOS" presents sections on types of radiation, radiation effects, radiation hardening, hardened device data, and appendices. This information along with the general information in Chapter 1 gives a very good overview of radiation hardened electronics. At the end of Chapter 2 there are six references to IEEE papers on radiation effects to electronics. In addition, Chapter 13 contains several article reprints on radiation hardening. To get a copy of the Harris catalog, contact Harris Semiconductor, 2401 Palm Bay Road, Palm Bay, Florida 32905, Telephone 305-724-7418. Also Hamilton/Avnet Corporation is listed as a distributor in the US and Canada. There is also a NASA report CR-1787 on radiation hardened chips. I do not have a copy of this so I can't report further on it. Hope this may help, Alan -- ---------- Alan Herbst - WINCO Computer Engineering Group 208-526-3939, 0800 to 1615 MDT Path: ..!{uunet|bigtex}!pmafire!alan} ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jun 90 10:04:15 GMT From: agate!darkstar!ucscb.UCSC.EDU!dove@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Ray Rischpater) Subject: Cosmology texts I was looking for some good introductory texts on cosmology I could consume this summer. I'm a chemistry major with a reasonable grasp on math and introductory physics. I'd be obliged if those of you with a favorite textbook which is a little more detailed than the Cosmos-style pop science writing would mail me your favorites. If there's interest, I'll compile the results and post a follow-up. Thank you for your time. -- dove@ucscg.ucsc.edu Ray Rischpater -- dove@ucscb.ucsc.edu (408) 426-0716 -- -- dove@ucscg.ucsc.edu Ray Rischpater -- dove@ucscb.ucsc.edu (408) 426-0716 --As usual, all of the opinions contained herein are my own... ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jun 90 19:04:59 GMT From: groucho!steve@handies.ucar.edu (Steve Emmerson) Subject: Re: space news from April 2 AW&ST In <1990Jun1.044802.19753@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: >In fact it is *just barely* possible to climb Mount Everest - 29,000ft -- >without oxygen. It's been done. It's so marginal that it is possible >only because Everest is near the equator: the overall atmospheric >circulation of Earth, warm rising air at the equator moving north and >then falling near the poles, slightly increases atmospheric density >at high altitude near the equator, just enough to make the peak of >Everest reachable. Bear in mind that the individual is _dying_ while doing this. It's only because the stay is temporary that survival is possible. There are no permanent human habitations above 18,000 feet. Steve Emmerson steve@unidata.ucar.edu ...!ncar!unidata!steve ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V11 #477 *******************