Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson Received: from hogtown.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 ; Sun, 31 Mar 91 02:26:13 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: Precedence: junk Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Sun, 31 Mar 91 02:26:08 -0500 (EST) Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #334 SPACE Digest Volume 13 : Issue 334 Today's Topics: Re: More cost/lb. follies MAJOR SOLAR FLARE ALERT - 29 MARCH - PROTON FLARE Request for old lunar ephemeris data (40's and 50's). Re: JPL spacecraft Re: More cost/lb. follies Re: PASCOS Meeting, summary requested Searching for book on Galileo space probe Re: Linear launchers on Earth Re: More cost/lb. follies Administrivia: Submissions to the SPACE Digest/sci.space should be mailed to space+@andrew.cmu.edu. Other mail, esp. [un]subscription requests, should be sent to space-request+@andrew.cmu.edu, or, if urgent, to tm2b+@andrew.cmu.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 Mar 91 22:59:19 GMT From: zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!sequent!crg5!szabo@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Nick Szabo) Subject: Re: More cost/lb. follies In article <9103261806.AA05347@iti.org> aws@ITI.ORG ("Allen W. Sherzer") writes >In article <21410@crg5.UUCP> Nick Szabo writes: >>If we plot cost/lb. vs. rocket size it has a minimum in the midrange: both >>low-end (Pegasus) and high-end (Shuttle, Titan IV) have higher cost/lb. than >>Delta and Atlas. >Not true. I don't have figures for Titan IV but a commercial Titan with the >new solids will put up almost four times what a Delta will put up for about >20% less per pound. First, this configuration has not flown yet. Comparing projected with actual costs is not valid for comparing the prices of different sizes, especially given some of the wild projections floating around the rocket community. Second, due to lack of demand, MM is losing a lot of money on Commercial Titan, so the offered price may be significantly lower than the amortized sunk cost of tooling. For this reason, I believe MM was planning to scrap Commercial Titan (any updates on this?). >If you will comit to buying the launches either company >will sell you a heavy lift version lifting 100K to 150K pounds for a factor >of three below the Delta costs [1]. However, because of the extreme scale, nobody will commit to buying such a large number of launches. Nobody but the DoD is going to fork over $billions for launches (and they are already using Titan IV, which is not cheaper/lb.) There is simply no space industry that will pay for this. Note that the largest single commercial space proposal to date, Iridium, is not willing to pay more than $1 billion to launch 77 satellites. The largest satcoms pay on the order of $100 million per launch (plus insurance). >Another alternative: if you will buy a lot of 58 engines Rocketdyne (sources >say) will sell you F-1 engines rated at 1.8 million pounds of thrust for >$12.7M each. Say we buy five for ~$65M and figure another $85M for the rest >of a rocket (payload fairing, tanks, and avionics). That's a rather incredible "if". A better estimate than $85 million is the cost of building a Saturn V in today's $$$, about $600 million, plus another $1,000 million for new tooling, and $1,000 million to redo a launch pad for the monster. This gives us a cost of $10,400/lb, which is well above the cost of mid-sized rockets. A better idea might be to build 58 mid-sized rockets, with one F-1 each, to launch on existing pads, and use existing tooling and payload fairing for the upper stages (say, Delta). New tooling would then be cut in half to $500 million or $9 million per launch. Throw in $9 million for parts and operations, and we get $30 million per launch, about a 25% cost/lb. savings (not whopping, but good for the rocket industry). Because we use an existing payload fairing, we get an existing customer base. That and $30 million cost/launch would give us a fighting chance at generating demand for 58 launches. You would be lucky to sell even 1 Saturn V launch even at $4,000/lb. -- Nick Szabo szabo@sequent.com "If you want oil, drill lots of wells" -- J. Paul Getty The above opinions are my own and not related to those of any organization I may be affiliated with. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Mar 91 11:57:41 MST From: oler%HG.ULeth.CA@BITNET.CC.CMU.EDU (CARY OLER) Subject: MAJOR SOLAR FLARE ALERT - 29 MARCH - PROTON FLARE X-St-Vmsmail-To: st%"space+@andrew.cmu.edu" -- MAJOR SOLAR FLARE ALERT -- MARCH 29, 1991 Flare Event Summary Potential Impact Assessment -------- MAJOR ENERGETIC EVENT SUMMARY Region 6555 has managed to spawn another large major flare, located at S28W60. The flare was rated a class X2.4/3B which began at 06:41 UT, peaked at 06:51 UT and ended at 07:09 UT on 29 March. This flare was associated with a strong Type II sweep. No Type IV was observed. A slight proton enhancement began several hours after the flare, but has since decayed to below event thresholds. Region 6555 is continuing to decay slowly. The penumbral extent of the region has diminished, although the region has a significant amount of magnetic complexity. By about April 1, this region will rotate behind the west limb. This region probably won't return to the east limb in a threatening configuration. POTENTIAL TERRESTRIAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT This most recent flare could produce some active geomagnetic activity over the middle latitudes, although storming is not expected. The activity, if it occurs, will likely not materialize until sometime on March 31 or 01 April. The majority of activity should take place on 01 April. High latitudes might experience some periods of minor storming, although the intensity of the storming (if it occurs) should be low. The following alerts have been CANCELLED: - SATELLITE PROTON EVENT ALERT - POLAR CAP ABSORPTION EVENT ALERT - POLAR AND HIGH LATITUDE RADIO SIGNAL BLACKOUT ALERT All alerts are now inactive. The following warnings are IN PROGRESS: - POTENTIAL MAJOR SOLAR FLARE WARNING - POTENTIAL PROTON FLARE WARNING - POTENTIAL POLAR CAP ABSORPTION EVENT WARNING - POTENTIAL POLAR LATITUDE RADIO SIGNAL BLACKOUT WARNING ** End of Alert ** ------------------------------ Date: 29 Mar 91 17:27:32 GMT From: tardis.computer-science.edinburgh.ac.uk!jd@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU Subject: Request for old lunar ephemeris data (40's and 50's). Hokey Dokey, I'm working on my final year project, getting pretty close to the deadline (4pm May 3rd) and I have a problem. My project involves calculating the depth of craters on the moon from the shadows cast by the walls, and I cannot for the life of me find anything giving lunar ephemeris data for the period the photos were taken. (I was supposed to take some myself, but what with bad weather, broken dome, broken mounting, broken camera and now a broken digitiser I'm using the photographic atlas of the moon our dept. possess. :-( ) I have managed to obtain data on the libration of the moon for the period in question, but not for the _solar_ colatitude and colongitude in a selinocentric coordinate system (or in any other system for that matter). I have tried mailing the NASA Data centre who said that they did not have that data in machine readable format for this period. . So, I throw myself on the 'nets tender mercies and beg of you; can anyone tell me the data I need for the following days ???? UTC Day Month Year ----- --- -------- ---- 04:02 03 June 1938 04:01 09 August 1940 17:45 30 December 1943 00:43 14 April 1959 They don't even have to be in machine readable format, just as long as it's in human readable format then I'm fine.... Thanks in advance. Chris P.S. To all those folks who responded to my earlier request about the Yale bright star catalogue I have now managed to obtain a copy, thanks ! ------------------+------------------------------------------------------------ Christopher Samuel| CCS7@UK.AC.ABER ccs7@aber.ac.uk *!mcsun!ukc!aber!ccs7 c/o Physics Dept.,| ccs7%uk.ac.aber@ukacrl ccs7%uk.ac.aber@nsfnet-relay UCW Aberystwyth, | jd@uk.ac.ed.cs.tardis jd%uk.ac.ed.cs.tardis%nsfnet-relay Aberystwyth, +------------------------------------------------------------ Dyfed, | Disclaimer: I mean nothing I say, and say nothing I mean. WALES | Comment : The future's so dark I gotta wear Mirrorshades. ------------------+------------------------------------------------------------ N.B. Mail to me at tardis gets forwarded to Aber (tardis is s l o w for mail!) ------------------------------ Date: 28 Mar 91 22:00:41 GMT From: zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!sequent!crg5!szabo@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Nick Szabo) Subject: Re: JPL spacecraft >I hate to disagree with you on this one, but Pioneer 10 made it to >Jupiter first, and Pioneer 11 was first at Saturn, paving the way for >Voyager 1 and 2. Augghhh! I blew it. Thanks for the correction. -- Nick Szabo szabo@sequent.com "If you want oil, drill lots of wells" -- J. Paul Getty The above opinions are my own and not related to those of any organization I may be affiliated with. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Mar 91 01:28:13 GMT From: vsi1!ubvax!pyramid!ctnews!unix386!ward@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Ward Griffiths) Subject: Re: More cost/lb. follies fiddler@concertina.Eng.Sun.COM (Steve Hix) writes: >In article <21410@crg5.UUCP> szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes: >> >>Unfortuneately, the cube/square law refers to volume/surface area, >>not mass (fuel, structure, and payload). Scaling a rocket up or down >>does not signficantly change the fuel/payload or fuel/structure ratios, >>upon which my argument is based. There is little, if any, economy of >>scale based on size. >Huh? >This is like saying that there is no advantage to building larger dirigibles >because scaling them up doesn't change the lifting volume/structural mass >ratios. >Either I missed your point, or (liquid fuel) rockets and zeps follow >different physical laws. Actually, they do follow different physical laws. While Nick is not totally correct, there is not a geometric progression when upscaling a rocket as there is in upscaling an airship or other LTA system. Remember, the idea behind airships is buoyancy, not Newton's Third Law. You double the linear scale of a zeppelin, you (roughly) quadruple the the tare weight, as the structural weight is more or less in proportion to area, but you (less roughly) octuple the lift and therefore payload in proportion to the volume. Rockets don't work that way, and airships don't leave the atmosphere either. Although there have been studies on using large LTA systems as launching platforms above the lowest, thickest part of the atmosphere. I also think they'd make a much more stable way to get shuttles from Edwards to Canaveral than that silly airplane piggyback, which has never looked overly safe to me. Then again, to me, "Heavier than air" means "Gravity does not forgive mistakes". -- Ward Griffiths, Unisys NCG aka Convergent Technologies The people that make Unisys' official opinions get paid more. A LOT more. =========================================================================== To Hell with "Only One Earth"! Try "At Least One Solar System"! "... the device every conqueror, yes every altruistic liberator should be required to wear on his shield ... is a little girl and her kitten, at ground zero." Captain Sir Dominic Flandry ------------------------------ Date: 29 Mar 91 22:55:00 GMT From: agate!bionet!uwm.edu!caen!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!samsung!umich!sharkey!bnlux1.bnl.gov!kyee@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (kenton yee) Subject: Re: PASCOS Meeting, summary requested can someone who attended this week's PASCOS meeting in boston give an account of this meeting, including of all the nonscheduled events? thansk. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1991 17:07 CDT From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey Subject: Searching for book on Galileo space probe Original_To: SPACE There's a book on the Galileo probe I'd like to own. Maybe there's a copy lurking in your local used bookstore. Have you seen it? Galileo: Exploration of Jupiter's System by C.M. Yeates and a bunch of others NASA publication SP-479 1985 It's been out of print for quite a while, and I can't get it from NASA or the U.S. Government Printing Office. (A lot of the information in it became obsolete once *Challenger* disintegrated.) Just let me know where to find a copy. Once I know that, I'll figure out how to get my hands on it. Please reply by e-mail. O~~* /_) ' / / /_/ ' , , ' ,_ _ \|/ - ~ -~~~~~~~~~~~/_) / / / / / / (_) (_) / / / _\~~~~~~~~~~~zap! / \ (_) (_) / | \ | | Bill Higgins Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory \ / Bitnet: HIGGINS@FNALB.BITNET - - Internet: HIGGINS@FNAL.FNAL.GOV ~ SPAN/Hepnet: 43011::HIGGINS ------------------------------ Date: 28 Mar 91 22:50:54 GMT From: snorkelwacker.mit.edu!usc!rpi!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!riverdale.toronto.edu!gabriele@bloom-beacon.mit.edu (Mark Gabriele ) Subject: Re: Linear launchers on Earth henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >...Depends on the size of the payload; the lethal-radius numbers I've heard >have been rather smaller. But yes, 8km/s near sea level is noisy. :-) ...for good reason. That's a very close approximation to the detonation velocity of TNT. You're going to get one hell of shock wave, all right. And every bit of that shock wave is going to consist of energy that you put in to get the projectile moving that fast. Not efficient, but it sure does *sound* impressive. =Mark (gabriele@hub.toronto.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Mar 91 13:18:23 -0500 From: "Allen W. Sherzer" Subject: Re: More cost/lb. follies Newsgroups: sci.space Cc: In article <21437@crg5.UUCP> Nick Szabo writes: >>>...(Shuttle, Titan IV) have higher cost/lb. than Delta and Atlas. >>Not true. I don't have figures for Titan IV but a commercial Titan with the >>new solids will put up almost four times what a Delta will put up for about >>20% less per pound. >First, this configuration has not flown yet. Come now Mr. Szabo, this is a conservative use of a well understood technology. Using those numbers is perfectly valid. But it doesn't matter, on a cost per pound basis a Titan III is still a bit cheaper even if you use the most expensive Titan and the cheapest Delta. Either way, your assertion is incorrect: Titan does not have a higher cost/lb than Delta. >Comparing projected with actual costs is not valid for comparing the prices >of different sizes, Mr. Szabo, you have been predicting factor of ten reductions by using technologies far riskier than the new Titan SRM. It follows from your above statement that we should not consider your projections valid. >Second, due to lack of demand, MM is losing a lot of money on Commercial >Titan, MM claims they can make money on one launch per year (Avation Week Jan 90). My cost figures come from a time when they claimed they where making money. >>If you will comit to buying the launches either company >>will sell you a heavy lift version lifting 100K to 150K pounds for a factor >>of three below the Delta costs [1]. >However, because of the extreme scale, nobody will commit to buying such >a large number of launches. Don't change the subject Mr. Szabo. We where talking about the limits of chemical launch technology. You claimed that the larger launchers cost more per pound and that they where at their limit. The figures given above demonstrate that both claims are wrong. BTW, the large number of launches you refer to is three (source: The congressional Record). Each would lift more and be cheaper than a Shuttle flight. >Nobody but the DoD is going to fork over $billions for launches Actually, the cost for the three launches would be under $1 billion not '$billions'. Allen ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V13 #334 *******************