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, 30 Apr 91 01:49:27 -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, 30 Apr 91 01:49:22 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #481 SPACE Digest Volume 13 : Issue 481 Today's Topics: Re: FACE on MARS -- Request for info... Re: Saturn V and the ALS Re: Saturn V vs. ALS Re: Uploading to alpha Centauri markets and risky ventures Re: Energia (was Re: Saturn V blueprints) 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: 30 Apr 91 00:09:54 GMT From: rex!rouge!dlbres10@g.ms.uky.edu (Fraering Philip) Subject: Re: FACE on MARS -- Request for info... In article <1991Apr29.203357.3434@cs.cornell.edu> rapo@cs.cornell.edu (Andy Rapo) writes: >Don't look for answers in OMNI if you are interested in anything more >than amusement. I'd trust the national enquirer before puting any >stock in the sensational science fiction that OMNI offers. Well, they have had occasional _good_ articles on the Space Studies Institute, unlike some supposedly more reuptable magazines like _Time_ and _Newspeak_... -- Phil Fraering dlbres10@pc.usl.edu Joke going around: "How many country music singers does it take to change a light bulb? Four. One to change the bulb, and three to sing about the old one." ------------------------------ Date: 29 Apr 91 12:53:12 GMT From: mnemosyne.cs.du.edu!isis!gaserre@uunet.uu.net (Glenn A. Serre) Subject: Re: Saturn V and the ALS GIPP writes (sorry, no .sig): >the Apollo days, they would now be somewhat improved, but we scrapped the >tried and true Saturn for the complex, high-performance Shuttle and its >SSMEs. Ah, the wisdom of hindsight. It's about as useful as ifsight. Like, IF Me: Not hindsight, but learning from past mistakes. The Shuttle has proven to be a poor choice for drastically reducing launch costs (because of the way it got funded, design philosophy, or whatever). I propose that we now try something closer to Big Dumb Boosters. If we want a truck, lets make a truck, not a Porsche. -- --Glenn Serre |Soon-to-be former Payload Integration Engineer for gaserre@nyx.cs.du.edu |Martin Marietta Astronautics Group, Space Launch Systems |Company. |Next job: Script writer for Cayenne Systems, Inc. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Apr 91 13:01:22 GMT From: mnemosyne.cs.du.edu!isis!gaserre@uunet.uu.net (Glenn A. Serre) Subject: Re: Saturn V vs. ALS In article <1991Apr26.215820.1647@fxgrp.fx.com> mikew@fx.com (Mike Wexler) writes: Why couldn't we just build a small heavy lift vehicle (SHLV) that can launch about the same as the shuttle (same payload fairings?). We could use engines from the Saturn (just not as many). We could use electronics from the Shuttle, etc. It would be a major project, but if we kept it on a relatively small scale. Use existing, reliable components and didn't try to push any technology we could probably get something pretty useful. -- Mike Wexler (mikew@fx.com) You mean, something with about the size and payload capacity of a Titan IV? :-) -- --Glenn Serre |Soon-to-be former Payload Integration Engineer for gaserre@nyx.cs.du.edu |Martin Marietta Astronautics Group, Space Launch Systems |Company. |Next job: Script writer for Cayenne Systems, Inc. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Apr 91 10:54:26 GMT From: mcsun!ukc!newcastle.ac.uk!turing!n02ll@uunet.uu.net (William Hey) Subject: Re: Uploading to alpha Centauri rosen@cs.utexas.edu (Eric Carl Rosen) writes: >In article <249@hsvaic.boeing.com> eder@hsvaic.boeing.com (Dani Eder) writes: >>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. >In his book "The Emperor's New Mind", Robert Penrose (a famous math/physics >type at Oxford) gives various arguments (which I don't pretend to understand >completely) based on quantum theory that suggest that although this might >be possible, you would necessarily destroy the crew in the process of "scanning" >them. Also, if I read Penrose correctly, he's not convinced that what you >reassemble would control the same "consciousness" as what you scanned. >Anyway, it's a fascinating book. I've got the book, but haven't made time to read it yet. However, scanning the entire body would have to be completed in a shorter time than it takes damaged protein molecules to denature. Otherwise all you'd end up doing would be transmitting damaged bio-material information. I read in nature recently that some protein molecules can change shape in the region of nano-seconds. Secondly, I think the scanning idea is too 'classical'. For accurate positioning of each particle, a high frequency radiation/something would be required, which results in a massive uncertainty as to the momentum of that particle (ie what the particle was 'doing'/'going' at that instant). This would be destructive testing. Indeed also the uncertainty of the time 'instant' may be significant. Recall that particles are not best described as particles but waves, described by probablility wave functions; hence scanning and re-construction would be nothing like building Lego. (Excuse all the implicit assumptions above.) Sorry it's all rather vague, but there are too many unknowns (the nature of the scan...Laser/Mass Spectroscopy/etc..) and I'm too ignorant. However anyone can swot-up on the following :- RE Heisenbergs Uncertainty Prinicple. DeBroglie wave expression, Bohrs Theory of the Atom, Schroedingers Wave Equations/Theory, Anything on proteins. In short, Nature probably 'forbids' it. I'll leave the question of 'conscience' to Neurologists and AI-Computer Scientists , any questions of 'souls' to Poets, and to the Philosophers out there, my appologies. ;-) Any comments please mail direct, as this is leaving sci.space at a tangent. Cheers, Bill -----------------------+-----------------------------+ | William Hey M.W.Hey@newcastle.uk.ac | | Astrophysics : Newcastle University, England. | -----------------------+-----------------------------+ ------------------------------ Date: 29 Apr 91 17:07:40 GMT From: agate!bionet!uwm.edu!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Henry Spencer) Subject: markets and risky ventures In article dlbres10@pc.usl.edu (Fraering Philip) writes: >Space related: How about the decision by General Dynamics to go ahead >with building the new Atlas-Centaur production line without enough >orders in place already to pay for it? Uh, what about it? While this does represent a bit of financial risk, it's hardly a big one, given an established position in the launch market and a considerable number of customers obviously interested. (Not to mention at least one captive audience -- the government -- which isn't willing to buy from the foreign competition when they want to launch an Atlas-sized payload [i.e. too heavy for Delta, too small for Titan].) >The proposed Iridium system? Last I heard, nobody was proposing to invest big bucks in Iridium until the paperwork is all in place, the demand is clear, and the customer consortium is formed and ready to operate it. Both of these qualify as about as risky as betting that when you drop a pencil, it will hit the floor. >Aerospace related: the decision by Northrup to develop the F-20? Northrop, two Os. That *was* a considerable gamble, although remember that (a) the government was supposed to keep the market large by refusing to export the high-end competition, and (b) the project was originally the F-5G, a more-or-less routine addition to the highly successful F-5 series. Every indication was that this would be a very successful product; it was not a gamble on developing a radically new market. Renaming it to F-20 was a disastrous mistake, and the icing on the cake was when the government allowed customer after potential customer to buy F-16s and F-18s instead. >777? The recent flight-test program for the 747-400, which (or so I >gather) went above and beyond the call of duty in testing overloaded >planes taking off and landing, among other things? Overload tests are a routine part of airliner certification these days, although Boeing may possibly have been more zealous than required. And the 777 didn't leave the preliminary-studies department until customers had signed up for it. A gamble, yes, but a relatively safe one, considering Boeing's long track record, colossal order backlog, and enviable financial position. -- And the bean-counter replied, | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology "beans are more important". | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 30 Apr 91 01:44:43 GMT From: lib!thesis1.med.uth.tmc.edu@tmc.edu (Jay Maynard) Subject: Re: Energia (was Re: Saturn V blueprints) In article <920@idacrd.UUCP> mac@idacrd.UUCP (Robert McGwier) writes: >From article <10797@hub.ucsb.edu>, by 3001crad@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (Charles Frank Radley): >> Federal law prohibits The Us Government ( including NASA ) ------------- >> from purchasing launches on foreign launch vehicles. >You are incorrect. There will be US built satellites launched on Long March's ------------------- >sometime in the near future and there are now DOZENS of launches on >Arianes. I have PERSONALLY built satellites in the US that were launched >on Ariane. >How's about checking your facts before making false flat statements. How's about reading before lighting the flamethrower, Bob? You're as far off base with this one as you were about the "convenient" EVA. He said the US Government...that law doesn't apply to outfits like AMSAT, as you (correctly) point out. The two statements are not incompatible. -- Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can jmaynard@thesis1.med.uth.tmc.edu | adequately be explained by stupidity. "X.400 is the mail system of the future, and I hope it stays that way." -- Erik E. Fair ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V13 #481 *******************