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, 4 Jul 91 03:06:52 -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, 4 Jul 91 03:06:47 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #775 SPACE Digest Volume 13 : Issue 775 Today's Topics: NASA Headline News for 06/20/91 (Forwarded) Re: Excavating (minig) gold in the space by NASA. Re: Launch failure today National Aerospace Plane Astronauts Memorial Foundation Information Kit Re: HST vs Ground based telescopes Re: Excavating (minig) gold in the space by NASA. 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 Jun 91 02:04:22 GMT From: news.arc.nasa.gov!usenet@lll-winken.llnl.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: NASA Headline News for 06/20/91 (Forwarded) Headline News Internal Communications Branch (P-2) NASA Headquarters Thursday, June 20, 1991 Audio Service: 202 / 755-1788 This is NASA Headline News for Thursday, June 20, 1991 . . . Preparations for the next shuttle mission are nearing completion at Kennedy Space Center as Atlantis was mated to its stack in the Vehicle Assembly Building last night. Routine state-of-health checks are being performed today on Atlantis' payload, the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite-E, in the payload changeout room out at launch pad 39- A. Rollout of Atlantis to the launch pad is expected to occur by Monday, June 24. The flight readiness review for Atlantis' STS-43 mission is set to occur at KSC on Thursday and Friday, July 11 and 12. The mission is currently set for launch in late July. Columbia, riding atop the 747 shuttle carrier aircraft, left Dryden Flight Research Facility yesterday, laid over at Biggs Army Air Field in El Paso, and left for Kelly Air Force Base, San Antonio, this morning. Once down at Kelly, the 747 crew will assess weather conditions and either remain at Kelly, or head for one of three enroute refueling stops: Eglin AFB, Fla.; Columbus AFB, Miss.; or Barksdale AFB, La. Irrespective, Columbia is expected to arrive at Kennedy's shuttle landing facility either tomorrow or Saturday. Once back home, Columbia will undergo post-mission processing to remove the Spacelab module P which will then be separately processed in the Operations and Checkout Building P and safing. Columbia will then be prepared for the flight back to California for refurbishment and upgrading at Rockwell's Space Division Palmdale facility sometime in August. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Goddard Space Flight Center yesterday selected TRW, Inc., Redondo Beach, for negotiation of a contract to design, develop, assemble and launch a Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer/Earth Probe Spacecraft. The contract also has an option for an additional spacecraft. The spacecraft will carry one ozone mapping instrument. The total proposed cost for the project is $29.3 million with the basic spacecraft cost estimated at $21.7,m and the additional spacecraft estimated at $7.6 The only ozone mapping instrument currently on orbit is on the aging Nimbus 7 spacecraft. An additional TOMS instrument is scheduled to be flown on the Soviet Meteor 3 spacecraft, scheduled for launch this August. Goddard had issued a contract last July to develop and produce four TOMS instruments. Two of them will be used on the TRW spacecraft, one on the Meteor, and the other will fly on the Advanced Earth Observing Satellite, a Japanese earth science satellite which is also scheduled to carry the NASA Scatterometer, and which is presently set for launch in the mid-90s. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The STS-39 crew visited President Bush at the White House yesterday, played horseshoes with the President and were escorted by Mrs. Bush on a private tour of the White House. Jet Propulsion Laboratory project engineers report that Magellan and its radar system are performing well and that all recent star calibrations and momentum wheel desaturations have been successful. The current weekly command sequence being executed by the spacecraft calls for a continuing use of the high gain antenna dish as a shield from the Sun for thermal control. The mapping sequence is presently covering the area south of 45 degrees latitude to Venus' south pole. Beginning next week, Magellan will shift again to the left- looking radar mapping mode and will begin to cover those areas on the planet which were missed during the superior conjunction earlier this year. JPL also reports that activities intended to restore the Ulysses spacecraft to nominal following the loss of X-band telemetry last week are proceeding on schedule. The spacecraft is now in a normal cruise mode and onboard thermal conditions have restabilized. All of the science instruments have been turned back on, though the S- band transmitter remains off until further analysis of the telemetry loss. The S-band is used for the radio science investigations and consequently the Solar Corona Experiment is presently being interrupted. JPL has not identified a cause for the loss of telemetry and ground controllers are continuing their observations of Ulysses' spacecraft subsystems to determine the behavior of the spacecraft's power supply and conditioning system. Ulysses is presently 378 million miles from Earth, making the round-trip communications time between it and JPL nearly 67 minutes. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Marshall Space Flight Center reports they have initiated a special education program designed to give teachers practical experience in the world of space. The center has hired 12 teachers from their six-state area who will be working in Marshall laboratories this summer. The program not only prepares the teachers for their classroom duties by giving them practical, hands-on experience, but also provides graduate credit for their efforts. Also, Marshall's LASER project van is the site of a workshop being held this week through next week for middle school science teachers. The program is being conducted cooperatively with Alabama A&M University. 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. indicates a program is transmitted live. Wednesday, 6/26/91 1:00 pm STS-43 flight crew briefing, from JSC. Thursday, 6/27/91 9:00 am STS-43 flight director mission briefing, from JSC. 10:00 am Tracking and Data Relay Satellite briefing, from JSC. 11:00 am Inertial Upper Stage briefing, from JSC. 11:30 am STS-43 SHARE payload experiment briefing, from JSC. 12:00 pm STS-43 BIMDA payload experiment briefing, from JSC. 12:30 pm STS-43 Protein Crystal Growth experiment briefing, from JSC. 1:00 pm Total Quality Management Colloquium,, from NASA HQ. Friday, 6/28/91 2:00 pm TS-40 post mission flight crew briefing, from JSC. 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. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Jun 91 15:10:12 GMT From: cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!rex!rouge!dlbres10@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Fraering Philip) Subject: Re: Excavating (minig) gold in the space by NASA. In article <15390@hydra.Helsinki.FI> wikla@cs.Helsinki.FI (Arto Wikla) writes: \Remember what happened to the economy of Spain after /they had found the gold of America! \(There was a gold-inflation, which ruined the economy and finally /was the end of super-power Spain.) Actually, I've heard that the gold let Spain build a really big Scandinavian-style welfare state, which was good for a while until the gold ran out... Also, then how come Mexico's economy didn't get better with all that deflation? Phil Fraering dlbrs10@pc.usl.edu P.S: What I really mean is, there are probably external factors besides the gold in the decline of Spain's economy. Phil ------------------------------ Date: 20 Jun 91 16:03:44 GMT From: agate!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!hp-col!hpldola!hp-lsd!paulc@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Paul Carroll) Subject: Re: Launch failure today Watching the Joust launch, it looked to me like the problems started around the nozzle. The rocket, of course, turned sideways and the nosecone was torn off, which is what the newscaster focused on. Does it look like a failure in the nozzle? I tried to get some video later in the day, but CNN only showed the rocket before and after the failure, not during. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + Paul Carroll "I don't believe there is a single + + HP Colorado Springs Division man, woman, or child alive in + + paulc%hp-lsd@hplabs.hp.com America today that doesn't enjoy a + + lovely beverage!" - David Letterman + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ------------------------------ Date: 19 Jun 91 13:01:25 GMT From: van-bc!rsoft!mindlink!a114@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Mark Gray) Subject: National Aerospace Plane I'd like to find out about the National Aerospace Plane. Could you give me a thumbnail sketch of where development now stands on it and also tell me where I can turn for further information. I'm just generally interested. As I don't read this message area on a regular basis, I'd be grateful if you would reply directly to me and if appropriate I'll post a message summarizing the results. Thanks. Regards -- Mark Gray -- -- ____________________________________________________________ Mark Gray InterNet: Mark@mindlink.bc.ca Vancouver B.C. Canada Tel: (604) 266-0500 Fax: (604) 266-0510 ____________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: 20 Jun 91 17:39:30 GMT From: pa.dec.com!hollie.rdg.dec.com!decuk.uvo.dec.com!nntpd.lkg.dec.com!rburns.enet.dec.com!klaes@decwrl.dec.com (Larry Klaes) Subject: Astronauts Memorial Foundation Information Kit To receive an information package on the Astronauts Memorial: The Astronauts Memorial Foundation, Inc. 2121 Camden Road Orlando, Florida 32803 U.S.A. Telephone: 407-898-3737 FAX: 407-896-7626 The Astronauts Memorial Spaceport USA Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida 32899 U.S.A. Larry Klaes klaes@rburns.enet.dec.com or ...!decwrl!rburns.enet.dec.com!klaes or klaes%rburns.dec@decwrl.enet.dec.com or klaes%rburns.enet.dec.com@uunet.uu.net "All the Universe, or nothing!" - H. G. Wells EJASA Editor, Astronomical Society of the Atlantic ------------------------------ Date: 20 Jun 91 03:32:59 GMT From: wolves!deepthot!Jay@mcnc.org (Jay Denebeim) Subject: Re: HST vs Ground based telescopes In article <869@newave.UUCP> john@newave.UUCP (John A. Weeks III) writes: >In <1991Jun9.152756.638@vax.oxford.ac.uk> clements@vax.oxford.ac.uk: >> [...] then its time to do something *serious* to NASA management. Like >> breaking up the organisation and starting from scratch again. > >I have given this some thought. I don't think that it will accomplish. >The risk is in creating a number of smaller NASAites that act much the >same way. An additional risk is that congress might be tempted to kill >some of them wholesale. And each smaller NASA might duplicate the required >organizational bearucrats. Like the Bell System breakup, we might have >fixed a few problems, but in the process, we created problems that we didn't >even know we had. > >Is there really anything wrong with NASA that isn't wrong with almost every >other US government agency? Funny you should mention this, I too have been giving it some thought lately. I was in Florida last week. Amoung other things I visited KSC and Disney World, so I guess that's where this idea came from. KSC is very depressing to me, my SO (who is a big space advocate) says she'll never go there with me again. I always see lost potential, and I think about where we should be by now as opposed to where we are. Disney on the other hand is very impressive. It too does not live up to its potential IMHO, however what they set out to do they do quite well. Its very efficient, and the technology blends in seemlessly in the places its not supposed to show. It struck me that we would be better off hiring Disney to run the space program. I say this with 1/2 :-), but think about it. -- |_o_o|\\ |. o.| || The Jay Denebeim | . | || Software | o | || Distillery | |// Address: UUCP: mcnc.org!deepthot.uucp!jay ====== Internet: jay@deepthot.cary.nc.us BBS:(919)-460-7430 VOICE:(919)-460-6934 ------------------------------ Date: 20 Jun 91 14:52:26 GMT From: agate!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!clyde.concordia.ca!altitude!elevia! (W.A.Simon) Subject: Re: Excavating (minig) gold in the space by NASA. In <194f3c3e.ARN0106@core.north.de> peic@core.north.de (Peter Eichler) writes: >In article , Sehari Babak writes: >>In <1991Jun11.055227.2611@nas.nasa.gov> crayfe@nas.nasa.gov (Cray Hardware Support) writes: >>>In article <7Fs532w164w@spocom.guild.org> >>>luns@spocom.guild.org (Luns Tee) writes: >>>> [ ... ] >>>>apparently contains 10000 tons of gold and 100000 tons of platinum, as well >>>>as 10 billion tons of iron and 1 billion tons of nickel. Its estimated >>>>worth was put at around 1 trillion dollars. This kind of figures becomes meaningless. Tell me how many Porsche's per household in the US this would amount to... |8-) >>This might be one of the first real applications of Space technology. I say >>NASA should issue stocks to built a space craft to go and bring that thing Why NASA? Say I start this venture, privately, from Canada, with stock holder money ONLY. Actually, I have little else to do these days, let me look at this... I'll keep the net posted as I progress. Ideas (e-mail) welcome. Money? It would be unethical at this point... but put it in a savings account! I would like international participation. >>down. This could open up another very lucrative investment, a side from >>satellites. The technology we gain could help us mine other things in the >>space too. Then, boldly going were no man has gone before makes business >>sense to. Asteroid mining was always recognized as the first tangible industrial benefit of space exploration. And we would have a great application for the Solar Power Satelite technology that we wisely turned down in another context. >>I assume this could be possible if the price of gold goes much higher. Let us >>forget about mars and concentrate on this, for now. After all, who needs cheap >>marsian dart. Martian dirt? Who knows, it may be superconducting at 200Kelvin. Or maybe it is great for psychedelic pottery... or it contains enough energy per cubic centimeter to power a cruise ship for 10 years! Don't knock it yet... >Please explain to me how YOU would manage it to bring down an 11 billion tons >asteroid to earth. THIS is impossible, since it will end in a catastrophy >(whee, what an impact!!!). I have an idea: let's make this huge plastic net and stretch it between the moon and the sun. Then... Oh, sorry, wrong newsgroup. I would see some kind of preprocessing done in space (thank you SPS), and the ingots would be placed in a very high orbit around the earth, for pick up by a fleet of shuttles. The irony of this is that the bottleneck today, would be shuttle technology; it is too costly, and ground maintenance and prep takes too long. Carefully planned orbits could be devised for splash down of the ingots in a large body of water, away from populations and air routes... a lot of planning. >And the other way: To shoot up space guys for mining is MUCH too expensive. >One launch of a shuttle costs several 10th millions of dollars and the cargo >bay of it isn't able to hold enough gold to pay a) the launch and b) the >mining and c) working in space. And please don't forget the mass of dollars >to start this kind of application, just for invention, research, etc. First, I see no reason to man these operations. We have the technology to make it remote sensing remote control, with a good dose of robotics. Second, yes, we need better and cheaper shuttle technology. In any cases. Third, there is very little research to be done. >Well, the gold price must go *MUCH* *MUCH* higher until someone (well, no >nation alone, just several nations together, e.g. USA+USSR+Europe) could >affort starting such an operation. Think not of the gold, but of the platinum. I have a question on the economic level: if we bring that much precious metal down to earth, it is not that precious anymore, is it? The payoff of such a venture becomes a long drawn out process (the way diamonds are handled), or a fast exercise in diminushing returns. >Peter -- William "Alain" Simon UUCP: alain@elevia.UUCP ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V13 #775 *******************