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, 4 Jun 91 02:36:54 -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, 4 Jun 91 02:36:48 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #594 SPACE Digest Volume 13 : Issue 594 Today's Topics: SUB SCI.SPACE Thomas Nelson Re: Should Galileo be rerouted? Re: Saturn V vs ALS Re: Gravity! What is Gravity? Try This! Re: Saturn V and the ALS Re: SPACE STATION FREEDOM WOUNDED Re: NASA discovers impact likely tied to dinosaurs' demise (Forwarded) Re: Saturn V and the ALS A bit more on Freedom funding NASA Headline News for 05/16/91 (Forwarded) 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: 17 May 91 18:05:23 GMT From: xyplex.com!tan@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Tom Nelson) Subject: SUB SCI.SPACE Thomas Nelson SUBSCRIBE SCI.SPACE Thomas Nelson ------------------------------ Date: 18 May 91 04:25:12 GMT From: swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo!henry@ucsd.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: Should Galileo be rerouted? In article <13095@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> tholen@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (David Tholen) writes: >> Like I've said, Galileo is already going to visit two asteroids ... >1991 October 29, to be exact. If the High Gain Antenna does not deploy, >the data will be recorded and played back during the next Earth encounter... There is, however, a small problem in that the probability of good results from the asteroid encounter(s) is much higher if optical navigation is available during the approach. The asteroids' positions simply are not known all that accurately. Without the main antenna to send approach images back to Earth quickly, the cameras will have to be pointed by guesswork. My recollection is that the imaging people were worried enough about pointing *before* the antenna problem appeared... -- And the bean-counter replied, | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology "beans are more important". | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 16 May 91 15:35:48 GMT From: mcsun!ukc!strath-cs!nott-cs!cam-cl!news@uunet.uu.net (Steve Linton) Subject: Re: Saturn V vs ALS In article <1991May8.184755.19754@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Doug McDonald) writes: |> |> The thing I have always wondered is why the bottom stage would not be, |> rather than a rocket, an air-breather. This is of course some |> sort of half-way from launching from an airplane and adding an |> extra ordinary rocket stage. The only problem I see is the extra |> development cost. |> |> Doug McDonald An air-breathing bottom stage suddenly makes a supersonic or hypersonic launch plane much more interesting, since building an air-breathing motor that can run sub-sonic supersonic AND hypersonic is rather hard (= expensive and/or heavy and/or unreliable). A catapult could also help here. ------------------------------ Date: 17 May 91 12:51:58 GMT From: infonode!hychejw@uunet.uu.net (Jeff W. Hyche) Subject: Re: Gravity! What is Gravity? Try This! usf@vax5.cit.cornell.edu writes: >Has any one ever taken a ballon and rubed it in your hair and placed it >next to lots of little cut up pieces of paper. What happens to all the >little pieces of paper?, they stick to the ballon. If Earth was like a >big balloon in space, and was charged when it was formed it would have >no way to discharge in the vaccume of space. Assume now that the Earth >has a constent charge of massive proportions and that the heavy metals >at the Earths core would pull all the lighter materials, dirt, sand, water, >and me and you towards the center of the Earth. Much like the little >pieces of paper, these lighter materials are drawm torwds the heavy core >of the Earth, But the charge of Earth is many millions of times more >powerful than the charge of the balloon. If you were to say take and >reverse the charge of one of these particals, it would then repel away >from the surface of the object it was previously attracted to! Charged >particals also have established magnetic fields, and so does the Earth. >For all you research buffs out there, have fun with this experiment! >I think you might find its resaults very interesting!?! >Newton was close when he said gravity was a constent force, but he never >told what that force was. Maybe if had only known Ben Franklin! I'm going to assume this is leading up to saying that gravity is just a static charge right? Wrong. Gravity and electricity are two compleatly different forces. Althought they are both basic components of the universe, gravity is a byproduct of mass and electricity is the movement of electrons trought a conductor. In your reference to established magnetic fields and the Earth, I assume you mean to use it lift objects into orbit. This has been discussed in sci.skepitc alot. This will not work, the Earths field is to week to be used of lift. Any charge build up will arc to ground before lifting. -- // Jeff Hyche There can be only one! \\ // Usenet: hychejw@infonode.ingr.com \X/ Freenet: ap255@po.CWRU.Edu ------------------------------ Date: 17 May 91 16:18:00 GMT From: sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo!henry@ucsd.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: Saturn V and the ALS In article <1991May17.023200.13944@agate.berkeley.edu> fcrary@lightning.Berkeley.EDU (Frank Crary) writes: >"man-rated" has a special and technical meaning to NASA. It involves not >only a safe design, but also crew escape modes, demonstrated redundency >on all mission critical failure modes, etc... However, as Allen has pointed out before, in practice it seems to do nothing to improve reliability and it is quite expensive. -- And the bean-counter replied, | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology "beans are more important". | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 18 May 91 00:21:31 GMT From: hub.ucsb.edu!ucsbuxa!3001crad@ucsd.edu (Charles Frank Radley) Subject: Re: SPACE STATION FREEDOM WOUNDED The money from Freedom does not go to science, it goes to HUD for housing projects. ------------------------------ Date: 16 May 91 16:05:45 GMT From: dev8b.mdcbbs.com!rivero@uunet.uu.net Subject: Re: NASA discovers impact likely tied to dinosaurs' demise (Forwarded) In article , dlbres10@pc.usl.edu (Fraering Philip) writes: > I've heard that seismic imagery of the crater is now at least underway if > not done. Has anyone heard anything else more definate about this? > > -- > 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_. -- Years ago, there were claims that Taktites were actually small pieces of the Moon blaster free by meteoric impact and scooped up by Earths gravity. The scientific evidence is that they indeed came from outer space, but not from very far away. I personally won a science scholarship with a project that established critical differences between the Tektites and what was then known about the Lunar surface. Does anyone know if the "Glassy Nodules" associated with this crater are one and the same with the Tektites? Mike ========================================================================== \\\\ Michael Rivero | "I drank WHAT!" | "THIS PORTION OF SIG | \ (. rivero@dev8a.mdcbbs | Socrates ------------------- UNDER | )> DISCLAIMER::: |-----------| | CONSTRUCTION | == "Hey man, I wasn't | | | (pardon our | ---/ even here then!" | | | white-out) | ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-------------------+++++++++++++++ ------------------------------ Date: 17 May 91 11:13:54 GMT From: coplex!disk!joefish@uunet.uu.net (joefish) Subject: Re: Saturn V and the ALS In article <1991May15.213452.26571@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >which rates rather low with a lot of NASA's bureaucrats today. >tenaciously clinging to new-booster designs using shuttle SRBs and SSMEs? >-- >And the bean-counter replied, | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology >"beans are more important". | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry NASA clings to the SRBs and SSMEs because they are in production, and it would cost twice as much to put anything in production to replace them. Is there something with everything associated with the shuttle according to you? The SSME has about half the thrust of the Saturn V F1 engine, but it has a much higher impulse. But it is not a rational argument to compare SSMEs to F1 engines, because it is the SRB that replaces the F1 engines. The SRBs have at least twice the thrust of the F1. If four were used instead of two, the total thrust would exceed that of a Saturn V. Even if an antique kerosene-oxygen engine were used in the first stage, there is no better engine than the SSME to use for the second stage. The SRBs are much less complicated than the F1 assembly, and are probably more reliable in both failure to be ready to launch and failure during flight. As only a hand full of Saturn Vs were launched, the reliability with todays organization and personnel might be much worse than the shuttle. The cost of shuttle launches is not in what an SSME costs, but in the gigantic organization which operates the shuttle program. It is just like the aircraft companies being forced to charge 3,000 dollars an hour for special parts that require all the different departments (sales, engineering, prototyping, tooling, production, inspection, testing, billing, accounting, and all levels of management) in addition to a fixed cost per hour for the facility expenses which can be enormous for JSC and KSC and all the support fscilities. NASA is on the right track, but they are not even using the shuttle components to full advantage. The best design for a space station at this point in time would be to use the main tank as the keel or supporting truss, and build the main bulk of the station right on the side of the main tank, permanently attached, with the standard SSMEs and computers installed, no wings, no tiles, no landing gear, no rudder, no payload bay, just everything that is needed as the one piece core of the station. Then the smaller components can be taken up by the shuttle. With this approach, the space station could weigh around 300,000 pounds with the main tank, or about 200,000 pounds for the station core, and 4 shuttle flights could add another 100,000 pounds, making a total of five launches. I think constant biased anti-shuttle discussions may be keeping NASA people from proposing what they would really like to do, because the congress hears too much shuttle bashing. Surely a 200,000 pound main core, attached to a 100,000 pound main tank, would be large enough, and the main tank would make a much stronger and more rigid support for the station than a truss. The 200,000 pound station built right on the side of the main tank should not cost substantially more than building a shuttle and payload, because it would be the same weight and nearly the same shape, minus the wings, tiles, rudder, and landing gear. Joe Fischer joefish@disk.UUCP ------------------------------ Date: 17 May 91 16:58:47 GMT From: hela!aws@uunet.uu.net (Allen W. Sherzer) Subject: A bit more on Freedom funding I just spoke with a couple of sources in Congress. They tell me that the Senate allocations where even less than the House allocations which means NASA will take a bigger hit in the Senate than the House. This makes it almost assured that the Senate subcommittee will follow the House lead and kill Freedom. Also, the House appropriation includes $100M for NASA to study replacements to Freedom. This means we will likely see a new station next year. This will likely involve two stations: one human tended for microgravity and another for life sciences which may be permanently crewed or tended. The Industrial Space Facility would be a good idea for the first station and the LLNL inflatable would be good for the second. Both are near term, cheap, and expandable. Now is the time to start educating your congresscritters on these and other options. Allen -- +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Allen W. Sherzer | Allen's tactics are too tricky to deal with | | aws@iti.org | -- Harel Barzilai | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ------------------------------ Date: 18 May 91 06:50:52 GMT From: usenet@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: NASA Headline News for 05/16/91 (Forwarded) Headline News Internal Communications Branch (P-2) NASA Headquarters Thursday, May 16, 1991 Audio Service: 202 / 755-1788 This is NASA Headline News for Thursday, May 16, 1991 . . . The STS-40 mission preparations are nearing completion at the Kennedy Space Center. Closeout activities are underway in Columbia's aft compartment and should be finished tomorrow. The launch countdown begins Saturday evening. The flight crew is set to arrive at Kennedy from Houston on Sunday afternoon. Launch of Columbia for the STS-40 Spacelab Life Sciences is scheduled for 8:00 am EDT next Wednesday, MayJ22. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Jet Propulsion Laboratory flight controllers report that both Galileo and Ulysses are in good condition and performing nominally in their respective trajectories. Ulysses is presently 309 million miles from Earth, moving outward toward Jupiter at a velocity of 49,300 miles per hour. JPL, under recent guidelines established by the science working group, is taking steps to create longer, 10-hour, Deep Space Network acquisition passes to allow the Ulysses telemetry stream to use a higher bit rate, 1024 bps, for playback of data. The new strategy will be used for the remainder of Ulysses' trip to Jupiter, and will involve more frequent pointing maneuvers to keep the high-gain antenna directed precisely at Earth. The Galileo project team this week began a series of spacecraft tests designed to better characterize the partly-open condition of the spacecraft's high gain antenna. On Tuesday, JPL commanded Galileo to change from all-spin to dual-spin and back to all-spin. Data from celestial navigation and spacecraft inertial measurements indicate a very slight wobble, verifying that the antenna opened off-center. JPL expects to perform a radio test today which will provide more information on the antenna's shape. Otherwise, Galileo is performing nominally and is presently 50 million miles from Earth. It has travelled nearly 40 percent of its six-year, 2.4- billion-mile-long, looping trajectory to Jupiter. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * NASA yesterday announced the selection of IBM Federal Sector Division of Houston for negotiation of a 13-year contract to provide as many as 48 ground-based mission operations mainframe computer systems. The systems will be used for the development of both the Space Station Mission Control Center and the Space Station Training Facility. NASA will negotiate an indefinite quantity under the contract, but anticipates the value of the contract to be about $191 million during the 13-year contract period. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The 8th National MATHCOUNTS competition was held last week here in Washington. In the year-long series of activities leading up to the finals, more than 350,000 mathletes participated. These students worked with more than 17,000 volunteer teachers, engineers and others who served as mathematics coaches. Helping make this program work were engineers and scientists from NASA and NASA- contractor facilities throughout the country. This year's national champion is an eighth-grader from Lexington, Mass. His name is Jonathan Weinstein, and for his efforts he received an $8,000 scholarship from General Motors, a personal computer from Tandy Corp., and will spend a week at Space Camp, compliments of NASA. Among the top ten teams was the one from Alabama. NASA will host all four Alabama team members at Space Camp, along with the national winner. NASA will also treat the coaches of the top three individual winners, and the top seven teams, to a four- day mathematics workshop at the Langley Research Center. MATHCOUNTS is a national cooperative program funded and supported by the National Society of Professional Engineers, the CNA Insurance Companies, the Cray Research Foundation, the General Motors Foundation, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the Department of Education, and NASA. Here's the broadcast schedule for Public Affairs events on NASA Select TV. Note that all events and times may change without notice, and that all times listed are Eastern. Thursday, 5/16/91 12:00 pm NASA productions, through 2:00 pm. 6:00 pm Repeat of NASA productions. Friday, 5/17/91 2:30 pm STS-39 crew post-flight press briefing, from Johnson Space Center. This report is filed daily at noon, Monday through Friday. It is a service of NASA's Office of Public Affairs. The contact is Charles Redmond, 202/453- 8425 or CREDMOND on NASAmail. NASA Select TV is carried on GE Satcom F2R, transponder 13, C-Band, 72 degrees West Longitude, transponder frequency is 3960 megaHertz, audio is offset 6.8 MHz, polarization is vertical. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V13 #594 *******************