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 ; Thu, 9 May 91 02:23:53 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Precedence: junk Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Thu, 9 May 91 02:23:48 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #513 SPACE Digest Volume 13 : Issue 513 Today's Topics: Re: SPACE Digest V13 #499 Ulysses Status for 05/03/91 (Forwarded) PLEASE REMOVE ME Re: Terraforming Mars? Why not Venus? Re: why _I_ think we need a space station Re: Want info. on SETI project??? Re: SPACE Digest V13 #494 Re: Galileo Update On CNN atmosphere probe question Re: Why the space station? SPACE Digest V13 #499 Re: Why the space station? Re: Why the 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- X-Delivery-Notice: SMTP MAIL FROM does not correspond to sender. Date: Tue, 07 May 91 09:50 CDT From: Bob Rehak Ext. 3-9437 (AIS Central Services - Swen Parson 146) Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V13 #499 The NASA Headline News for 05/02/91 mentioned a school program called MATHCOUNTS. How can I get more information on this program? |--------------------------------------------------------------------| | Bob Rehak, DBA At Large, BITNET: A20RFR1@NIU | |--------------------------------------------------------------------| ------------------------------ Date: 6 May 91 22:34:37 GMT From: usenet@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: Ulysses Status for 05/03/91 (Forwarded) ULYSSES MISSION STATUS May 3, 1991 Routine spacecraft operations and data collection remain the primary activities as Ulysses heads for Jupiter. Today the spacecraft is approximately 456 million kilometers (283 million miles) from Earth, cruising at a heliocentric velocity of 79,200 kilometers per hour (50,500 miles per hour). Standard precession maneuvers to re-point the high-gain antenna toward Earth are being conducted about every five days. One such maneuver was performed today. Real-time operations and recovery of tape recorder data during each daily eight-to-ten hour pass over the Goldstone Deep Space Network facility are being conducted from the mission control center at JPL. A command sequence to return various components of the spacecraft to their normal thermal environment (prior to occurrence of the wobble) was successfully carried out April 17. The sequence involved switching off the spacecraft's thruster heaters and switching on other heaters to maintain specific temperatures for various onboard electronics components. Ulysses is a five-year mission to study the sun's poles and interstellar space beyond the poles. The spacecraft, launched Oct. 6, 1990, is managed jointly by the European Space Agency and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. ------------------------------ X-Ns-Transport-Id: 0000AA00047A34D82BD0 Date: Tue, 7 May 1991 14:47:35 PDT From: Lisa_M._Owen.ES_M2@xerox.com Subject: PLEASE REMOVE ME Reply-To: Lisa_M._Owen.ES_M2@xerox.com TO THE OWNER, I can't seem to be albe to remove myself from this DL. Could you please help me out. Thanx in advance, Lisa ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 91 01:52:31 GMT From: stanford.edu!agate!lightning.Berkeley.EDU!fcrary@decwrl.dec.com (Frank Crary) Subject: Re: Terraforming Mars? Why not Venus? In article <1991May6.200227.27120@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >Exactly the same is true on Mars. The surface of Mars is in vacuum for all >biological purposes. Also all mechanical purposes; a pressure hull for the >Martian surface has to be just as strong as one for space. Mars' atmosphere IS important for some mechanical purposes: Heat Transfer. It is MUCH easier to dump excess heat into the Martian environment than into a deep space. This is especially usefull for a spacesuit, where the cooling systems account for a BIG chunk of the suit mass. Frank Crary UC Berkeley ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 91 06:48:28 GMT From: wuarchive!usc!jarthur!nntp-server.caltech.edu!ptimtc!rdmei!icspub!astemgw!kuis!rins!will@louie.udel.edu (will) Subject: Re: why _I_ think we need a space station In article <21622@crg5.UUCP>, szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes: > >On that subject, here is a step that _would_ contribute significantly >to space colonization -- the development of extraterrestrial resources >and industries. > On this one, I have a question. I read about 15 years ago, in one of those children science mags. Because, at that time I was around 16 yrs. So, I read that there was an astroid about 15KM long orbiting very close to the earth, and in an orbit that perhaps we could get to it and use it as a base or what-ever. Have any of you heard of this astroid. Will.... ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 91 14:59:54 GMT From: infonode!hychejw@uunet.uu.net (Jeff W. Hyche) Subject: Re: Want info. on SETI project??? tlijy@cc.curtin.edu.au writes: >George Gallup Jr says fifty per cent of Americans share the belief that there >are 'people somewhat like ourselves living on other planets in the >universe'. I am currently reading a big fat fuzy(329 pgs) called First Contact, The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. It a hard bound book from Ben Bova and Byron Preiss, Editors that deals with the subject. Also you might check out a rather old book from Pengin Press entitiled On Civilized Stars, by Jospoh Bosher(sp). (Yes I'm a SETI nut, no UFO or little green men, just radio astronomy.) -- // Jeff Hyche There can be only one! \\ // Usenet: hychejw@infonode.ingr.com \X/ Freenet: ap255@po.CWRU.Edu ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 91 16:59:32 GMT From: wuarchive!rex!rouge!dlbres10@decwrl.dec.com (Fraering Philip) Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V13 #494 Keep in mind, Saturn >whatever< may be cheaper today than back then. After all, back then it was a risky research project to beat those darn Russkies to the moon. -- Phil Fraering dlbres10@pc.usl.edu ''It's a Flash Gordon/E.E. Smith war, with superior Tnuctip technology battling tools and weapons worked up on the spot by a billion Dr. Zarkovs.`` - Larry Niven, describing the end to _Down in Flames_. ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 91 01:42:24 GMT From: stanford.edu!agate!lightning.Berkeley.EDU!fcrary@decwrl.dec.com (Frank Crary) Subject: Re: Galileo Update On CNN atmosphere probe question In article <1967@mpirbn.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de> p515dfi@mpirbn.UUCP (Daniel Fischer) writes: >...I bet the designers of the probe have thought very >hard about what it might look like inside or inbetween Jupiter's clouds - and >decided *then* that a camera would be a waste of weight and money. Sure, in I have spoken with some of the NASA/Ames people who designed the atmospheric probe. They didn't have to think about what the camera might see. They had NO choice. They wanted a camera, but it was just not possible. The camera did not fit, since video is so hard to transmit back to the orbiter. To add the camera would not only require more mass and power for the camera, but also LOTS more power and mass to transmit back at the images. The probe, as it was actually built, transmites at only 128 bits/sec. A low resolution, black and white image is, ~16 kilobits. (the probe lacks computers to do data compression). This image would take to probe 2 min. to transmit... Frank Crary UC Berkeley ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 91 12:15:03 GMT From: sdd.hp.com!caen!news@decwrl.dec.com (Ken Sheppardson) Subject: Re: Why the space station? john@newave.UUCP (John A. Weeks III) writes: >You are not going to be building moon ships in orbit (Fred >is not going to be an assembly hanger), and I doubt that you are going to >see Fred used as a gas station.... Actually, we are indeed planning on building (or at least servicing) 'moon ships' in orbit on SSF. (I say 'we' because I work in the office that makes plans for such things.) You may be right about refueling, although we've yet to completed a thorough risk assesment to determine whether or not we can keep _tanked_ LTV's (Lunar Transfer Vehicles) on station. Of course to accommodate LTV processing or any other type of vehicle servicing, you need to grow beyond the not yet funded 'follow on phase' (EMCC) =============================================================================== Ken Sheppardson Email: kcs@sso.larc.nasa.gov Space Station Freedom Advanced Programs Office Phone: (804) 864-7544 NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton VA FAX: (804) 864-1975 =============================================================================== ------------------------------ ReSent-Message-ID: Resent-Date: Tue, 07 May 91 20:18:12 EDT Resent-From: Tommy Mac <18084TM@msu.edu> Resent-To: space+@andrew.cmu.edu Date: Tue, 7 May 91 02:14:11 EDT Reply-To: space+%ANDREW.CMU.EDU@msu.edu From: space-request+%ANDREW.CMU.EDU%CARNEGIE.BITNET@msu.edu Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #499 Comments: To: space+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU To: david polito <15432DJP@MSU.BITNET>, Tom McWilliams <18084TM@MSU.BITNET> Subject: Bone-head play >>The computer that was used on the original Apollo Landings had only 64K of >>core memory. >> >>It's teeny sure, but they did it with tubes back then. >Are you sure about this? The IBM 360 series computers (all solid state) >had existed for several years before the first Apollo landing in 1969. No, not at all. In fact, as many private E-mail messages have pointed out, I was completely wrong. Apollo used ferrite-ring type memory, much smaller and lighter than tubes, a bit larger than IC's. My only defense is this; the point I was trying to share, that I found so amazing, is that we put people on the moon with ONLY 64K ?!? Jeez, Nintendos use more than that. Tommy Mac Acknowledge-To: <18084TM@MSU> ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 91 02:48:11 GMT From: unmvax!uokmax!rwmurphr@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Robert W Murphree) Subject: Re: Why the space station? In a office of technology assessment document entitled "A civilian space station" or something like that dated circa 1986 there is a research article on the history of the space station idea from 1900 to the 80's. In it you can see the progression of the various incarnations the space station idea has gone through. One thing I got out of the article was that basically the idea of a space station has more to do with science fiction than any real need. The plausibility argument goes something like this "we're going on a long trip-we're going to have logistics problems-we need an intermediate stepping stone base to foster longer trips. " Actually my opinion is that this sounds good but doesn't really reflect the reality of space technology. Actually, there are plenty of wonderful scientific missions that haven't been flown for lack of one thing -the political will to pay for a 500 million+ mission and booster for a purely scientific mission. I see no signs that the exploration of the solar system is really limited by the lack of an orbital base. There is an IMMENSE amount of science that can be done with present technology. Anybody who reads the astronomical literature or the NASA solar system exploration documents will know this. In fact, I think there is every evidence that the real reason for the space station is political. A lot of space scientists think its a joke Who really wants it? The aerospace companies that will get paid public money to build it. Who doesn't want it? The space scientists whose missions got canceled or delayed by the space shuttle in the 80's. In summmary, the plausibility of the sequence "first you build reliable space transportation, then you build a orbital space base, then you go to the planets" is seriously in question. All you really need to do important space science is a big booster -a titan IV. The head of the space telescope institute-Giaconni has said that he would much rather launch the space telescope into high eliptical orbit and then replace it with a new copy than low orbit with manned servicing. The real reason for the space station is an ignorant past president who probably consulted his wife's astrologer to determine which day to announce the space station. The space station is pure pork. ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 91 14:02:10 GMT From: wuarchive!usc!sdd.hp.com!caen!news@louie.udel.edu (Ken Sheppardson) Subject: Re: Why the space station? yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu (Brian Yamauchi) writes: > >Is it really less expensive to build an orbital microgravity + life >sciences lab than an orbital assembly platform? Actually, it is -- if you can only build one station. >Perhaps now that the scientists have said, in effect, that they don't >want Freedom, the design could be moved back toward the initial goals >of supporting lunar and planetary exploration. A dedicated assembly platform would probably be less expensive than a dedicated micro-g/life sciences platform. If you don't have both, however, and you're trying to support planetary missions, the price of the assembly platform starts to creep up as you start trying to accommodate the necessary science. Since the chances of congress funding a second station in the next half century are slim we should probably assume we're only going to have one, so what we need to look at is how the station would be different if we 'only' wanted to process vehicles and conduct only the essential science necessary to support exploration. If you look at pictures of the station as conceived in the mid 80's, you see a 'dual keel' design with keels and booms built off the transverse boom. The keels were covered with all sorts of attached payloads, satellite repair facilities, etc. As funding and budget got out of hand, it was decided that the station be built in two phases. Since you have to build the transverse boom before you can add keels, it was decided that the first phase would be to build the transverse boom and that the second would be to add keels. It seemed like a logical division at the time. This had the effect of phasing the operation capability of the station: first science, then vehicle processing (once you had the space). Plans for 'Phase II' have faded from memory over the years, to the point where we have what we have today. A 'dedicated micro-g life sciences platform.' Given the station we have today, there's not a whole lot of extra capability that you could cut if you were to decide that SSF was going to be dedicated to the support of lunar and planetary exploration. You still need to habitation space, the power generation capability, and the limited lab space of the current design. I can't think of any system in the MTC/PMC design that could be eliminated or any system capability which could be reduced if all you planned to do was to support the Space Exploration Initiative (i.e. lunar/mars exploration) PMC is pretty much the minimum viable permanently manned station one can come up with given the constraints imposed by launch vehicle, the current program structure, contracts already awarded, consideration of sunk cost, and politics. To process vehicles, you need to add on. An orbital assembly platform is therefore more expensive than a micro-g life sciences lab, since it must be built (in this case) off of an already existing 'micro-g/life sciences lab'. >It seems like the original truss + Spar's Mobile Servicing System (and >possibly FTS) would have been a good start in the direction of a >platform to facilitate on-orbit assembly of larger spacecraft. Indeed. One of the advantages of the old 'sticks and balls' erectable truss concept was the fact that there was all sorts of open space for the addition of growth structure to support vehicle processing facilities (hangars) and growth systems and utility lines. One big problem we're having right now is that the Pre-Integrated Truss is being designed to allow systems to be packed into the orbiter payload bay as tightly as possible and to be deployed on orbit with a minimum amount of EVA. Addition of growth structure and systems hasn't been a consideration. We're trying to identify locations to which we can attach growth structure and we're trying to come up with concepts for the addition of growth utilities and systems. One problem we're having is that there aren't any growth requirements in the PDRD (the level II requirements document) When there are no requirements for a capability, the level of that capability tends to decrease as the design progresses. At the moment we're working with Lenoir, Kohrs, Moorehead, et al to see what we can do before it's too late. =============================================================================== Ken Sheppardson Email: kcs@sso.larc.nasa.gov Space Station Freedom Advanced Programs Office Phone: (804) 864-7544 NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton VA FAX: (804) 864-1975 =============================================================================== ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V13 #513 *******************