Date: Fri, 14 Aug 92 05:01:35 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V15 #107 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Fri, 14 Aug 92 Volume 15 : Issue 107 Today's Topics: Beanstalks in Nevada Energya and Freedom and Soyuz ACRV Gus Grissom and the Mercury 7 He3 Power Source Home made rockets (3 msgs) Interstellar Probes - How Fast Can We Go? Mini Energiya(?) & MIR replacement Parsecs? (4 msgs) RedStone Rockets SPS feasibility (WAS: SPS fouling astronomy) The Federation is still here Watching a Shuttle launch Welcome to the Space Digest!! Please send your messages to "space@isu.isunet.edu", and (un)subscription requests of the form "Subscribe Space " to one of these addresses: listserv@uga (BITNET), rice::boyle (SPAN/NSInet), utadnx::utspan::rice::boyle (THENET), or space-REQUEST@isu.isunet.edu (Internet). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 Aug 92 17:30:32 GMT From: John Roberts Subject: Beanstalks in Nevada Newsgroups: sci.space -From: higgins@fnalb.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) -Subject: Beanstalks in Nevada Sky (was Re: Tethers) -Date: 11 Aug 92 18:41:07 GMT -In article <63811@cup.portal.com>, Eric_S_Klien@cup.portal.com writes: -> Would it be possible to put something in near orbit over Nevada and -> attach tethers to it so that people could reach the object via -> elevators? I know it wouldn't be easy, but is there a way to pull -> this off? -Hmm. Interesting question. To first order: No, it's impossible, for two -reasons. -When you say "orbit," you usually mean "Keplerian orbit," a free body -that stays on its path without applying any thrust. Nothing in a -Keplerian orbit can hover over Nevada, since the plane of its orbit -*must* pass through the center of the Earth. -It *is* possible for an object in orbit to hover over a spot on the -Equator, if it takes exactly 24 hours to make one revolution AND its -orbital plane is the plane of the Equator AND its orbit is a circle. -Then the Earth rotates underneath it as it cirlces and it stays over -one spot. "Geostaionary" communication satellites do this all the -time. It's called "Clarke orbit." A possible workaround is to build an anchor in Nevada, and another one at a corresponding point in the southern hemisphere (same longitude, and same latitude, except S instead of N), then run *two* tethers to a point in equatorial orbit, one from each anchor. This was discussed several months ago, with the anchor points being the poles. Lower latitude ought to work better. I don't see much point in it, though. And why Nevada? Is it some intricate scheme to get around the state and county laws regarding gambling and such? :-) -The second impossibility is that there is no material strong enough to -make the "elevator cable" out of. Crudely speaking, it has to hold up -its own weight as well as the weight of an elevator, or other payload, -and nothing we have now is strong enough. Such a device is often -called a "beanstalk," by the way. Is that still true even of tapered tethers? John Roberts roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 15:06:26 GMT From: "Allen W. Sherzer" Subject: Energya and Freedom and Soyuz ACRV Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1469100008@igc.org> Mark Goodman writes: >>[Freedom has support in Congress] >I am not aware of any huge and lasting support. The House votes have >been about 230-180, far from 2-1, The past two votes where far closer to 2-1. Either way, this is still a sizable majority made even larger when you realize what went into it. The Congress rarely changes an appropriation like this after it is reported out of committee. In addition, a very powerful member did huge amounts of lobbying to make it happen and still failed. To those who say social spending will beat NASA every time, look at these votes. Freedom was carved up and $$ given to every constituency in the house. It still failed. At the level we are talking about allocations tend to be based on clout first and need second. NASA has enough clout to get about $15 billion every year and it will get it regardless of how it is spent. If Mr. Coffman's model was correct, Freedom would have been dead a long time ago. >and then only because the aerospace >industry has already received such a big hit from DoD cuts. So? >There is >tremendous opposition to the space station, which is based on the >essential question: what good is it? That is a technical question, not a political one. It's not nearly as relevant as you think. >>Since these will open the space frontier and produce far more tax income, >>it seems a good idea. >Allen, if you are refering to the Space Station, a Moon Base, or planetary >exploration, my reaction is: Come on, give me a break. If you are >refering to investments in near-term space technology (improved ELVs, >perhaps SSTO, improved automation and remote control, lightsats, etc.) >and R&D on more distant prospects (NASP, etc.), I agree. Which is it? I am refering to the growth which would occure with the development of a spacefaring civilization. Allen -- +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Allen W. Sherzer | "If they can put a man on the Moon, why can't they | | aws@iti.org | put a man on the Moon?" | +----------------------253 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+ ------------------------------ Date: 13 Aug 92 17:22:02 GMT From: Brent Kellmer Subject: Gus Grissom and the Mercury 7 Newsgroups: sci.space Not long ago, I read a passage from Tom Wolfe's _The Right Stuff_ and came across something about a near-accident that Gus Grissom was involved in early in the Mercury Program. The incident involved a test flight of a RedStone rocket that Grissom was flying a chase plane for. Evidently (if I remember things right), the RedStone blew up and nearly brought Grissom's plane down as well. Does anyone out there know anything specific about the incident, or know where I can get more information about it? Any help would be appreciated. Brent Kellmer kellmer@u.washington.edu ------------------------------ Date: 13 Aug 92 19:06:24 GMT From: "thomas.vandoren" Subject: He3 Power Source Newsgroups: sci.space Newsgroups: sci.space Subject: He3 Power Source Summary: Expires: Sender: Followup-To: Distribution: world Organization: AT&T Keywords: About 2 weeks ago I saw a series of 5 minute modern videos of great interest. One of them was about a proposal to use Helium3 mined from the moon as a power source on Earth. One of the claims was that the value of one shuttle load of He3 was a couple billion dollars or something in that order when computed relative to the power output it would provide. Does anyone have more info, opinions on that proposal? If it is true it would seem that there may be some kind of business case for lunar operations. My only concern or potential skepticism is how easy is it to develop an He3 power plant? I mean are we talking something as hypothetical as fusion power, or something that does have a reasonable chance of being developed in the near future. The video mentioned how He3 as exhaust from the sun doesnt make it to the Earth's surface due to the atmosphere or magnetosphere but does get absorbed into the lunar soil. It showed proposed lunar surface strip mining machines that would filter out the He3 and replace the regolith behind it thus having minimal environmental impact. Other items such as oxygen and water could be extracted at that time as well. How hypothetical is this and is it practical? Lee ------------------------------ Date: 13 Aug 92 15:28:26 GMT From: "robert.e.wiersbe" Subject: Home made rockets Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Aug12.211654.23731@nsisrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> xrcjd@resolve.gsfc.nasa.gov (Charles J. Divine) writes: > >I recommend _educating_ the public about the dangers of >rocketry et al. Getting them involved _responsibly_ if they >want to get involved. Isn't there an American Model Rocketry >association that does just that? > > >-- >Chuck Divine There are actually two organizations that deal with safe consumer rocketry, the National Association of Rocketry (NAR) and the Tripoli Rocketry Association. There are motors available today that will outperform anything you could make yourself, not to mention being safer and legal. You can contact these organizations at: National Association of Rocketry P.O. Box 177 Altoona, WI 54270 (715) 834-8074 (800) 262-4872 Email: 71331.2506@compuserve.com Tripoli Rocketry Association P.O. Box 40475 St. Petersburg, FL 33743-0475 Tripoli Rocketry Association, Inc. P.O. Box 339 Kenner, LA 70063-0339 Bob Wiersbe NAR# 44588 hrbob@ihlpb.att.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 16:47:25 GMT From: Jonathan Hardwick Subject: Home made rockets Newsgroups: sci.space richard@csi.on.ca (Richard Martin) writes > Here's a very simple, safe, easy and challenging part of model > rocketry. With a little common sense, nobody can get hurt... > and it's cheap, too. > > Take a match, preferably one out of a match book with a blue head. > Wrap the head tightly in aluminium foil, leaving an exhaust port. > Deform a paper clip to about a 30 degree angle, and place the > match `rocket' on top. It is probably a good idea to do this on > some cardboard that you don't care about, on an asphalt surface. > Make sure that nobody is standing in front of the rocket! > Using a candle, or some other good heat source (*not* a blowtorch), > heat the end of the rocket from underneath until the head ignites > and the rocket launches. After a lot of trial and error, the `art' > will probably become apparent, and it's a pleasantly mindless way > to while away a long summer afternoon. For extra credit, scrape off the chemical mixture from the match head and just use that, thereby saving weight. My most complex (successful) match rocket was a two-stage affair, using the propellant from 5 match heads in the first stage, and 2 match heads in the second. My most stylish was a winged design, which I glide-tested first, and then launched with a 2-match booster. There are several fine points to this art, if I remember correctly: a) uniform consistency of launch fuel. b) making multiple stages work reliably without either premature ignition or no ignition at all. c) making a rocket case with just enough foil to resist burn-through. d) persuading your mother to give you another box of matches. By the end of four boxes I was playing around with venturi designs. Launch precautions? I didn't take any, since like all 11-year-old kids I had an innate belief in my own immortality. You *might* be able to damage an eye if you ignited a multi-match-head bomb a foot from your face and it flew _just so_ into your eyeball, so parents might want to tell little kids to ignite at arms length, keep the box of matches well away from the launch pad, always leave an exhaust port, and DON'T try shooting at the family cat :-) > Richard. > > P.S.: The record distance that I know is 20 m. Beat that! Never even came close. The successful flight of a two-stage rocket only an inch long is a wonder to behold, however... Jonathan H. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 17:13:09 GMT From: Jonathan Hardwick Subject: Home made rockets Newsgroups: sci.space roberts@CMR.NCSL.NIST.GOV (John Roberts) writes > -Here's a very simple, safe, easy and challenging part of model > -rocketry. With a little common sense, nobody can get hurt... > -and it's cheap, too. > > -Take a match, preferably one out of a match book with a blue head. > -Wrap the head tightly in aluminium foil, leaving an exhaust port. > -Deform a paper clip to about a 30 degree angle, and place the > -match `rocket' on top. > > Just so long as nobody tries to "improve" the design by adding more match > heads or strengthening the containment. Match phosphor has a reputation as > a powerful and unstable propellant/explosive. Ooops. I just posted about my multi-match-head designs. > One source I read stated that just three match heads once propelled a > quarter-inch steel bolt so that it flew right through a glass window, > hit a concrete wall, and knocked a big chip out of the wall. This I *seriously* doubt. Theoretical standpoint : Weigh the chemical mixture from three household match heads. Calculate the energy this represents, call it A. Weigh a quarter-inch steel bolt, and estimate the speed it would need to break a glass window and then knock a big chip out of a concrete wall. Calculate the energy this represents, call it B. I will stake my reputation as a match-rocket builder (:->) that A < B. Practical standpoint : around about the third box of matches, I built a couple of multi-match-head bombs to see what would happen. A loud pop and a flying piece of scrunched-up aluminium foil was the best I could come up with. If I *could* have launched lethal quarter-inch steel bolts, you can bet that the neighbourhood cats would have known about it. > Safety goggles are also strongly recommended for any work involving > flammable materials and oxidizers. Yeah, the only danger I can think of is having a still-hot match rocket fly into your eyeball if you don't blink in time. A cheap pair of sunglasses would be plenty strong enough to stop a match rocket, however. > John Roberts > roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov Jonathan H. PS I can think of one possible explanation for the story of the match-launched steel bolt, which is that they were using the humungous matches sold for use at sea/in a rain storm/in a tornado. One of these probably has as much chemical power as a whole box of household matches. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 18:36:37 GMT From: mlindroos@abo.fi Subject: Interstellar Probes - How Fast Can We Go? Newsgroups: sci.space Hi everybody, I was wondering about sending fast space probes to the heliopause. What's the fastest ship we can launch by using current technology? I have seen two proposals so far. The first (ASTRONOMY 2/91) was about sending a probe towards Jupiter. There, it would be deflected towards the Sun and perform a close flyby at a distance of a mere 2 million km from the surface! The velocity at perihelion would be enormous (close to 313km/s if my calculations hold). At that altitude over the flaming inferno below, the escape velocity is only about 0.5 km/s higher so the probe would only need a brief rocket burn to take off towards the stars. It would pass the orbit of Mercury in about two days after closest approach! Neptune, 30AUs away, would be reached two years later. According to ASTRONOMY, it would need about six years to cross the heliopause which presumably is about 140AUs away (apparently travelling at a speed of 120 km/s). --- Another -NASAs "Thousand Astronomical Units" Project- would use a probe equipped with a ion engine that slowly would accelerate it out of the solar system. The engine would work for years and in the end the velocity would be close to 100 km/s. This would travel 1000AUs in about 50 years. My question is, how fast can we go? Wouldn't it make more sense to send a ion-propulsion probe towards the Sun first to obtain a gravitational boost (OK, I know the problems of isolating it from the heat (5000-6000K) and radiation near perihelion must be enormous)? MARCU$ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- . . . Fififinlandssvensk Marcus Lindroos Internet: mlindroos@abo.fi Computer Science Abo Akademi University Finland ------------------------------ Date: 13 Aug 92 16:19:33 GMT From: Gerald Cecil Subject: Mini Energiya(?) & MIR replacement Newsgroups: sci.space Last week's AW&ST had a CAD sketch of the redesigned MIR 2 station on a launch vehicle I can't identify. It *looks* like a cut-down Energiya core, judging by the relative diameters of the strap-ons/core. Has anyone seen this configuration before? I recall that the brief article mentioned that MIR 1 will be operable until 1995. Someone here mentioned last week that the core module will have to be replaced soon. Details on this & MIR 2 anyone? -- Gerald Cecil 919-962-7169 Dept. Physics & Astronomy U of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3255 USA -- Intelligence is believing only half of what you read; brilliance is knowing which half. ** Be terse: each line cost the Net $10 ** ------------------------------ Date: 13 Aug 92 14:01:11 GMT From: Jim Carr Subject: Parsecs? Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.physics In article rone@alcor.usc.edu (Ron Echeverri) writes: >In article <1992Aug13.030630.3919@cco.caltech.edu> keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) writes: >>Hmmm... at the distance of one parsec, one astronomical unit subtends an >>angle of one arc second. > >Coincidence. Remember, one AU is the distance from the Earth to the Sun... NOT! A "parsec" is one (arc) second of parallax -- parallax second -- parsec. The unit is quite convenient for an astronomer measuring the distances to stars with this method. An A.U. enters because this parallax is measured at distant parts of the earth's orbit about the sun. -- J. A. Carr | "The New Frontier of which I jac@gw.scri.fsu.edu | speak is not a set of promises Florida State University B-186 | -- it is a set of challenges." Supercomputer Computations Research Institute | John F. Kennedy (15 July 60) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 14:47:37 GMT From: A Colin Morton Subject: Parsecs? Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.physics In article <1992Aug13.090057.13805@cco.caltech.edu> keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) writes: >rone@alcor.usc.edu (Ron Echeverri) writes: > >>In article <1992Aug13.030630.3919@cco.caltech.edu> keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) writes: >>>Hmmm... at the distance of one parsec, one astronomical unit subtends an >>>angle of one arc second. > >>Coincidence. Remember, one AU is the distance from the Earth to the Sun... > >No, THAT, my friend, is the DEFINITION of a parsec... > As other posts have stated, one parsec is equal to ~3.2616 light years. As we, on Earth, are only ~8 light minutes from the Sun, I don't think the Earth-Sun distance defines a parsec. Colin. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Aug 92 12:24:48 EDT From: Mcirvin Subject: Parsecs? Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.physics In article <1992Aug13.144737.1884@trentu.ca> pyacm@trentu.ca (A Colin Morton) writes: >As other posts have stated, one parsec is equal to ~3.2616 light years. >As we, on Earth, are only ~8 light minutes from the Sun, I don't think >the Earth-Sun distance defines a parsec. > It's not the Earth-Sun distance, it's the distance from which the Earth-Sun distance subtends an angle of one second of arc. That's *not* a coincidence; it follows from the definition. The definition comes from the use of parallax to measure the distances of nearby stars. You can observe parallax easily by holding your thumb in front of your face and looking at it with one eye: if you look at it with your left eye, then your right, the thumb appears to be in different places with respect to more distant objects. The effect is larger if the thumb is closer, and smaller if it is further away. In much the same way, nearby stars appear to move very slightly with respect to more distant ones as the Earth moves. The Earth moves in several ways, but a component that can be isolated easily is its motion around the Sun. This causes the images of nearby stars to describe small yearly ellipses in the sky. The semimajor axis of the ellipse, measured in seconds of arc (one second of arc is 1/3600 of a degree), is the parallax of the star. The word "parsec" stands for "parallax of one second." A star one parsec away would have a parallax of one second of arc. Real stars are all further away, so they have smaller parallaxes. Since with angles this small, sin theta = tan theta = theta (radians) to very high precision, we can say that the distance in parsecs is the reciprocal of the parallax in seconds of arc. The apparent elliptical motion of a star against a very distant background, as seen from the orbiting Earth, is identical in apparent angular size on the sky to the motion of the Earth around the Sun as seen from the star. Therefore it is no coincidence that the distance from the Earth to the Sun subtends an angle of one second of arc when seen from a distance of one parsec. It is an immediate consequence of the definition of a parsec. If I've gotten anything wrong, please correct me... -- Matt McIrvin, professional gradgrind, amateur Usenet drifter ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Aug 92 18:02:08 GMT From: "John C. Baez" Subject: Parsecs? Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.physics In article <1992Aug13.144737.1884@trentu.ca> pyacm@trentu.ca (A Colin Morton) writes: >In article <1992Aug13.090057.13805@cco.caltech.edu> keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) writes: >>>Coincidence. Remember, one AU is the distance from the Earth to the Sun... >> >>No, THAT, my friend, is the DEFINITION of a parsec... >> >As other posts have stated, one parsec is equal to ~3.2616 light years. >As we, on Earth, are only ~8 light minutes from the Sun, I don't think >the Earth-Sun distance defines a parsec. You seem to be deliberately misreading what has been written. Nobody is claiming the Earth-Sun distance IS a parsec. Only that the Earth-Sun distance is involved in the definition of a parsec. (Since others have given the definition of a parsec I won't!) ------------------------------ Date: 13 Aug 92 17:24:14 GMT From: Brent Kellmer Subject: RedStone Rockets Newsgroups: sci.space Almost forgot -- does anyone have more detailed information about the Redstone-class rockets that were used in the early Mercury program? -kellmer@u.washington.edu ------------------------------ Date: 13 Aug 92 17:47:05 GMT From: "R. Cage" Subject: SPS feasibility (WAS: SPS fouling astronomy) Newsgroups: sci.space In <1992Aug13.075037.2707@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes: >Let's look at this a bit closer with some ROM estimates. If we have a 1 TW >laser beam from the Moon impinging Earth, we add an additional TW to the >Earth's heat balance. Normal heat input from the Sun for the Earth is >about 140 TW so the additional 1 TW is less than a 1% change. But due to >efficiency factors discussed below, actual net heat load would be 3 TW. You're assuming things, like: 1.) 25% conversion efficiency. Sorry, but that's too low. Photovoltaic cells tuned for monochromatic radiation can already go considerably higher, and in the IR, there is the possibility of using micro-rectennas. 2.) Laser is the most efficient transmission method. Microwave is probably more efficient. Also, you have the earth's energy budget wrong. The disc area is about pi * (6.4e6 m)^2, or 1.28e14 square meters. The solar constant is about 1360 W/m^2, so we get about 1.75e17 watts, or 175,000 TW of incident sunlight. Not 140 TW. You're off by 3 orders of magnitude! Adding another 4 TW of heat is literally a drop in the bucket. Spread it out and you'll have a very hard time detecting it. >By contrast, for Earth based solar collection, there is no net increase >in heat flux. The energy is striking the planet anyway whether we use it >or not. 3.) You're assuming that the albedo of the earth's surface and a solar collector are the same. In a word, WRONG! Solar collectors are a lot blacker than most things. If you counter that the collectors can be interspersed with light colored areas to reflect light and keep the balance the same, you can do that without solar collectors too. It's not an argument for ground-based. >Now what's happening on the Moon? Gas lasers are very inefficient devices. Free-electron lasers aren't. Neither are amplitrons. >I don't have CO2 numbers at hand, but He-Ne efficiencies are around 0.1%. I believe CO2 lasers have reached 20%; someone please correct me. >Now solar energy striking the top of the Earth's atmosphere, or >the surface of the Moon, is 1 kW/m^2. Close enough. >So our 1 TW delivered to the busbar on >Earth requires a solar collector area of 1E14 square meters on the Moon. This assumes a system efficiency of 1%. That is about 10x too low. Solar cells are over 20%, conversion equipment to microwaves is well over 50%. >requires a square 10,000 km on a side, or about 6,000 miles on a side. Sorry >gentlemen, the Moon isn't that big. More like 3,000 km on a side. Just about the area of Luna. >Now if we discard the laser, the Moonbase >with it's 6000 mile on a side collector, and simply use the same collector >field we were going to use for the laser on Earth, we still gather in 1E10 >watts, or 10 GW, and we haven't spent an improbable fortune on the Moon. You can't use the same collector. It's out of the sun a lot more than half the time, has to be built to deal with WATER and WIND, and a whole lot of other things that limit its life and output. Vacuum and low G has the advantage that it's very friendly to most equipment. >A Lunar collector array would be in darkness 2 weeks out of 4, so storage >for two weeks would be required on Earth. Wrong. You'd put collectors on both sides of the moon. When power is only hitting the far side, it's the far side collectors which feed the transmitters. Transmission lines are easy in 1/6 G and vacuum. >Therefore, at least half of >Earth's capture arrays would be in daylight at any given moment. That's >at least 7 times better than the Loony Laser. Wrong. Receivers not in direct view of Luna could be fed by reflectors (easy for lasers, a little harder for microwaves). If a receiver can take a feed from more than one reflector at a time, then interruptions from the reflector going behind Earth as seen from Luna will be avoidable. >But solar *thermal* is workable *today* in certain cases. Yes, mostly peaking power or fossil displacement. Not replacement, not base-load. The whole point of Lunetta or SPS is base-load power. IMHO, if there is the capability to build that much collector area on the moon, a single catapult can put it into orbit and leave it in sunlight 24 hours per day, all month. Having many feed angles and immunity from lunar eclipses and beam occultation by Earth is another big advantage. This is why I think SPS has a better future than Lunetta. >Gary -- Russ Cage wreck@fmsrl7.srl.ford.com russ%rsi.uucp@destroyer.rs.itd.umich.edu * When Ford pays me for my opinions, THEN they can call them theirs. * _Bad_ cop. No donut. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Aug 92 15:03:11 GMT From: Dillon Pyron Subject: The Federation is still here Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Aug11.155953.1@acad2.alaska.edu>, asljl@acad2.alaska.edu writes: >Path: mksol!tilde.csc.ti.com!csc.ti.com!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!ames!bionet!raven.alaska.edu!acad2.alaska.edu!asljl >From: asljl@acad2.alaska.edu >Newsgroups: sci.space >Subject: The Federation is still here >Message-ID: <1992Aug11.155953.1@acad2.alaska.edu> >Date: 11 Aug 92 19:59:53 GMT >Sender: news@raven.alaska.edu (USENET News System) >Organization: University of Alaska >Lines: 33 >Nntp-Posting-Host: acad2.alaska.edu > >Path: acad2.alaska.edu!asljl >From: asljl@acad2.alaska.edu >Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors >Subject: The Federation is still here >Message-ID: <1992Aug11.155325.1@acad2.alaska.edu> >Date: 11 Aug 92 15:53:25 AST >Organization: University of Alaska >Lines: 25 > >Hello All > >Yes, The Federation is still here, at the moment for those still >interested, it is still here and still reachable. We still want to >hear from people interested in it or new people interested in the >Federation. > For those of you who are new to the Federation ideas, this is >what we are: We are a group of people who feel it is high time we got >off this rock and started exploring the great unknown of space. We have >drawn out in blue print form a drive system that is a a super semi conducting >crystaline structure. It looks good on paper but we haven't been able to >test it yet. As always the problem is money. The Federation has been working >on a personal funds of the few members base at the moment. We do have a >info packet that we will happy to give you. You must have a mac that has >5.0 microsoftword or better. Send us a 3.5 floppy and we will put it >on there for you. send to this adrress I normally delete all of the path crap before I post a followup, but I wanted to save this one. THIS IS A VERY FAST WAY FOR YOUR MACHINE TO GET SICK!!! This sounds like a joke, but you have no idea where your floppy has been or what is on it. And you don't even know who had it! We don't know who this "Lady Rhavyn" is. He/She could be earnest in this effort, could be a dellusional fantisizer, or ... You won't get any respect or support from me as long as you are ashamed of who you are. > >The Federation >C/O Lady Rhavyn >Po box 231772 >Anchorage, Alaska > 99523-1772 > >If you have any questions feel free to send to this account. > As least post a return address. Some people's news software isn't as generous as mine. -- Dillon Pyron | The opinions expressed are those of the TI/DSEG Lewisville VAX Support | sender unless otherwise stated. (214)462-3556 (when I'm here) | (214)492-4656 (when I'm home) | Lawyers are like nuclear warheads, every- pyron@skndiv.dseg.ti.com | body has some, and when you use them, they f*ck everything up. Danny DeVito, _OPM_ ------------------------------ Date: 13 Aug 92 10:41:42 GMT From: "Frederick A. Ringwald" Subject: Watching a Shuttle launch Newsgroups: sci.space The topper of all the toppers is still Apollo 17. The birds came out and sang, because they thought it was morning - at my parents' house, 100 miles away! Then again, what do you expect from something that burns two tons of kerosene per second? Sounds are interesting. I could almost swear that, under the right conditions, you can even hear Deltas and Titans from 100 miles away. Anyone else noticed this? P.S. Never mind the ants, John, watch out for the alligators. P.P.S. A wild dolphin stuck its head above water after the launch? You *did* get a special treat that day: they almost never do this! ------------------------------ End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 107 ------------------------------