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 ; Tue, 23 Apr 91 01:51:27 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Precedence: junk Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Tue, 23 Apr 91 01:51:22 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #443 SPACE Digest Volume 13 : Issue 443 Today's Topics: Re: Why the space station? Re: Atlas Centaur bites the big one, 4/18 Re: Servicing Faulty Satellites Re: Mars media alert Loral awarded atmospheric sounder contract (Forwarded) Re: Cape York launch facility Re: SPACE Digest V13 #437 why _I_ think we need a space station 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: 22 Apr 91 14:10:20 GMT From: news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!kcarroll@rutgers.edu (Kieran A. Carroll) Subject: Re: Why the space station? Just to put some historical perspective on the current question of the scientific justification of the space station, here are some (somewhat rusty, perhaps) recollections from the last 20 years): As I remember, the original justification for the Space Station was as as transportation node. Earth-to-orbit shuttles would bring people up to the station, from which they could transfer to lunar shuttles (in the intermediate future), and Mars ships (in the somewhat farther future). In addition, in-orbit check-out and assembly of \spacecraft would be carried out there. This concept only makes sense if an ambitious, long-term space program is being carried out. Obviously, the United States hasn't had a space >program< for a couple of decades now (just a series of relatively disconnected projects). The people at NASA thought in the '70's that they'd convinced the government to start up a space program again, and so pushed for the first piece of ultimatley-cost-saving-infrastructure (the space shuttle) to be built. For a number of reasons (I think mostly due to lack of leadership by the Administration, and bickering and budegetary politicking in Congress and the Senate) a space program failed to transpire in the '80's. NASA addressed the first of these problems, getting >some< support for a space program from the President in the mid-80's, when Reagan announced the space station for them. Unfortunately, that's all that he announced -- the station, not the program that the station was supposed to be a part of. At this point, Bush has announced a real program, the Space Exploration Initiative. As with Reagan, however, the Congress and the Senate are politically opposed to his party, and so tend to oppose Administration initiatives wherever they can, pretty well irrespective of their merits; SEI got zeroed out in this year's budget, probably for that reason. Maybe the rash of commissions over the last few years are a symptom of Congress trying to decide whether or not to start considering a commitment to a space program (I don't think that they've actually >opposed< it in the past, so much as ignored it). The space station is not an end in itself, any more than the shuttle system was self-justifying. Both are expensive projects, whose main benefit is to reduce the long-term costs of manned spaceflight. Unless and until an ambitious manned spaceflight program is adopted by the United States, both of these systems will continue to appear to be expensive toys. The space station was >not< conceived as a platform for scientific experimentation! In its original conception, it was undoubtedly felt that "since we'll have a station up there anyway, we may as well allow some scientists to mount some experiments on it, since that won't cost us anything to do". In the early '80's, this stance changed somewhat; NASA started to consider scientists somewhat more seriously as users of the station, largely because NASA was trying to build a consortium of supporters for the concept in order to help build their case for the station, for presentation to the Administration. I believe that at this point, the principal justification for the station was still as a transportation/ assembly node; science's importance had been promoted from maybe 1% of the justification, to 10%. In the annual budgetary blood-letting that has followed the space station announcement, the original justification seems to have lost a lot of ground. I believe that this happened mostly because there was no clear space program announced -- there was no clear >need< for the transportation node facility aspect of the station, at least not in terms of a goal that had been agreed to by the nation's leaders. So, in order to keep money flowing for the project, NASA has been courting the marginal space-station users -- scientists. These are people with very short-term goals; most scientists don't want to think further ahead than 5 or 10 years, so it's not surprising that NASA has had a hard time recently, justifying a long-term investment solely in terms of short-term scientific projects. In the recent re-design, the station has shed a lot of its scientific users. For good reason: the space station would have been an extremely expensive way to accomplish their scientific goals. It has been re-focused on its original purpose, that of supporting manned spaceflight programs. There's even a program on the table now, SEI, to help focus station requirements. Is this a good justification for the space station? Re-phrase the question: should the SSF partner nations support a program of exploration and development of the solar system for human use? I believe that they should, and that even at the current high cost of spaceflight, the nations involved can afford a small, initial capability in this direction. Adopting the goal, and following up with hardwre in orbit will give us something to learn from, to allow the next generation of space hardware to cost less. As for the current objections to the space station being voiced by some scientist groups, let's not forget that there are a number of people out there who >oppose< manned spaceflight -- mainly because they want to absorb the manned-spaceflight budget into their favorite project. Van Allen is one of these, indeed the prototypical scientist-against-manned-spaceflight. Campaigning by these people has led a lot of scientists to question the idea of supporting manned spaceflight, mainly by convincing them that NASA's manned space projects have been the reason that congress has not been supporting >their< projects (why can't we have >both mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Doug McDonald) writes: The folks who lost one to the Atlas had just finished losing one to Arianespace. Sounds like they need to use Commercial Titans! :-) Doug McDonald -- --Glenn Serre gaserre@nyx.cs.du.edu -- --Glenn Serre gaserre@nyx.cs.du.edu ------------------------------ Date: 22 Apr 91 20:05:07 GMT From: dog.ee.lbl.gov!hellgate.utah.edu!cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: Servicing Faulty Satellites In article <1991Apr19.082216.27623@kcbbs.gen.nz> Chicken_George@kcbbs.gen.nz (George Muzyka) writes: >Are there any specific major technical (or political) barriers stopping >a robot spacecraft of this sort be commissioned in the very near future? The major problem is that off-the-shelf robotics/teleoperation technology is not up to the job. It would make a good research project, with a fair chance that the result would be useful, but it's too speculative an investment for commercial funding right now, I'd say. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Apr 91 22:13:03 GMT From: agate!bionet!uwm.edu!spool.mu.edu!cs.umn.edu!vergis@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Anastasios Vergis) Subject: Re: Mars media alert In article <1991Apr19.124944.12413@pbs.org> pstinson@pbs.org writes: >In the May issue of Life magazine, the cover story outlines a six stage >approach to changing Mars into an Earth-like planet by the middle of the 22nd >Century. Perhaps recent remarks by the Vice-President were about this future >Mars. If you want to know what he knows, read the May issue of Life. :-) I am wondering how they solve the problem of atmoshere density, i.e. to get a breathable atmosphere we need to have enough planetary mass so that it doesn't escape into space. A. Vergis ------------------------------ Date: 22 Apr 91 23:54:55 GMT From: usenet@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: Loral awarded atmospheric sounder contract (Forwarded) Paula Cleggett-Haleim Headquarters, Washington, D.C. April 22, 1991 (Phone: 202/453-1547) Diane Ainsworth Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. (Phone: 818/354-5011) RELEASE: 91-61 LORAL AWARDED ATMOSPHERIC SOUNDER CONTRACT NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif., has awarded Loral Infrared & Imaging Systems, Lexington, Mass., a unit of the Loral Corp., a $145 million contract to design and build the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument to be flown on the first of the Earth Observing System (EOS) satellites. Under terms of the contract, Loral will design, develop and produce the first atmospheric sounder for delivery to JPL in 1996. AIRS will be a global thermometer in space and will be one of the world's premier monitors to study the effects of increased "greenhouse" gases in the Earth's atmosphere when the EOS-A series is launched. The EOS-A satellite is scheduled for flight beginning in 1998. "The primary goal of the EOS-A satellites is to study the effects of potential global warming by conducting long-term research into the key parameters of the Earth's surface and atmosphere," said Dr. Charles Elachi, director of JPL's Office of Space Science and Instruments. "Global changes are very complicated and require long-term monitoring," he said. "The EOS-A series will help determine the causes and extent of global climate changes through a program of long-term observations." AIRS will be flown on the first EOS-A series of Earth-observing platforms, which will make global measurements of the Earth's oceans, land surface and lower and upper atmospheres from a polar Earth orbit. The space-borne instrument will measure atmospheric temperature profiles with an accuracy of 1 degree Centigrade and provide data on atmospheric water vapor, cloud cover and sea- and land-surface temperatures. The AIRS investigation will be led by JPL Chief Scientist Dr. Moustafa Chahine. The AIRS sounder will operate continuously for 5 years, providing new and more accurate data about the Earth's atmosphere, surface and oceans for climate studies and weather predictions. Among the most important discoveries to be gleaned from infrared observations are humidity profiles and the temperature of land, oceans and the atmosphere. The sounders are based on Loral's advanced mercury cadmium telluride focal plane technology. The sounders measure temperatures by observing 3,600 wavelengths in the infrared spectrum via spectral dispersion -- such as in a prism -- across high-density linear sensors. Ground-processing computer algorithms convert this data into global profiles of air and surface temperature. EOS is the centerpiece of NASA's "Mission to Planet Earth," a global-scale research program that will study the Earth as an integrated environmental system, focusing on the interactions of the atmosphere, oceans, land surfaces and biosphere. "Mission to Planet Earth" is NASA's contribution to the U.S. Global Change Research Program, a multi-agency federal program to observe the Earth, improve understanding of natural and human-induced global change and develop better models and predictive capabilities for interpreting environmental changes. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Apr 91 14:20:05 GMT From: agate!bionet!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!rex!rouge!dlbres10@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Fraering Philip) Subject: Re: Cape York launch facility In article c8921212@jupiter.newcastle.edu.au (Luke Plaizier) writes: >...yeah, tell that to the crocodiles at Cape Canaveral. Not crocodiles. Alligators. And I have this irking suspicion that alligators are a less than ideal "indicator species" for the health of a wildlife habitat. In the absense of widespread predation by man, and sometimes in its presence, alligators are close to the top of the food chain. Remove half the species, make them extinct or whatever, and the alligator will happily munch away at whatever else it can get, as long as it isn't a plant. It's basic hunting strategy is to wait for something to swim too close to an apparent floating log, kill it, stick it under a deadfall until ...well, you get the idea. Well, from the land where water skiing is called "trolling for alligator," -- Phil Fraering dlbres10@pc.usl.edu "See ya later alligator" ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Apr 91 09:55:37 CDT From: The Wizard <@BITNET.CC.CMU.EDU:MSKELLEY@SAMFORD.BITNET> Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V13 #437 To: mskelley@SAMFORD.BITNET Ro: space+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU >Date: 20 Apr 91 09:30:31 GMT >From: >sample.eng.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!uwm.edu!ogic > se!intelhf!agora!carlf@purdue.edu (Carl Fago) >Subject: Re: Uploading to alpha Centauri > >In article <249@hsvaic.boeing.com> eder@hsvaic.boeing.com (Dani Eder) writes: >> >>The ultimate in apparent time dilation would occur if you travel to another >>star at the speed of light. Now, how does one do this? Imagine an improved >>scanning tunneling microscope that can tell you what atoms it is seeing. >>Freeze the crew solid, and scan their entire bodies atom by atom. Then >>send a radio message reading "carbon,oxygen,hydrogen,hydrogen..." to a >>receiving station at the destination. There a set of drexler-style >>nano-machines build a copy of the crew atom by atom. Finally, you unfreeze >>the crew. >> >If one could pull this off over any distance (one in, one mile or whatever) >it would have profound philosphical effects. Namely that all we are is the >individual arrangement of atoms. From that one could study the arrangement >to determine what makes for a person to be "alive". Quite interesting! > If one is to do this, the error correcting routines had better be very close to being watertight. I would hate to have a transposition erase my memory. Also, how would you deal with interference along the broadcast? And correcting errors could be a real pain (round-trip time considerations). Would you compress the data (thereby making a condensed person)? Could you call it a biography? It is a very appealing idea, and could be used here on Earth. Just compress all the people, saving space, and let them out every few weeks (in rotation). World hunger problems solved. Moonbase? Just upload them. No more shuttle trips. Base on Mars? Just ship some compressed people out there. There is a whole world of possibilities here! But the fun of space travel would be completely lost. Alas, every good idea has its drawbacks. Also, how much data are we talking about here? How many atoms make a person, anyway? You want to ship the whole person? Why not just the DNA? That's a whole person, encoded. Just have a cloning machine at the other end to grow the new people. Shipping a whole person could take a long while. The DNA wouldn't be so bad. Just some food for thought. Or for the compost heap. Scott Kelley ----- MOD 1.01 Where there's a will, there's usually an heir. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Apr 91 19:04:56 GMT From: taco!SEWARD%CCVAX1.NCSU.EDU@gatech.edu (Bill Seward) Subject: why _I_ think we need a space station My .02 worth on the space station... We need a space station as a first step to getting a group (preferably a rather large group) off this planet permanently. I know this sounds far- fetched, but it would only take one large-ish asteroid or comet or what-have- you to do massive and possibly fatal damage to Grande Dame Earth, wiping us out in the process. And we have had asteroid come cosmically very close in the recent past. Of course, I would like to see a better designed one put up. I heard the other day that NASA has 9 years of R&D in FREEDOM, with the implication that they really couldn't start over--it'd take too long. Horse-phucky. When they started, they were probably designing on paper and without the help of computer modeling. Using advanced design technology plus the lessons they (should) have learned, they ought to be able to do a complete rethink/redesign in 2-5 years, depending on $$ and political/bureaucratic BS. IMHO. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | Bill Seward -- Analyst, Programmer, System Manager, User Training, | | Operations and whatever else needs doing. | | Cutaneous Pharmacology & Toxicology Center, NC State University | | SEWARD@NCSUVAX.BITNET SEWARD@CCVAX1.CC.NCSU.EDU | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V13 #443 *******************