Date: Sun, 20 Dec 92 05:03:00 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V15 #574 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Sun, 20 Dec 92 Volume 15 : Issue 574 Today's Topics: Breeder reactors (was Re: Justification for the Space Program 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: Sun, 20 Dec 1992 04:48:36 GMT From: "Zack C. Sessions" Subject: Breeder reactors (was Re: Justification for the Space Program Newsgroups: alt.rush-limbaugh,talk.politics.space,sci.space bboerner@novell.com (Brendan B. Boerner) writes: >Speaking of breeder reactors, why doesn't the U.S. have more of >them? Because they're too damn dangerous. -- Zack Sessions sessions@seq.uncwil.edu University of North Carolina at Wilmington (Alumnus) "Good health is merely the slowest form of dying." ------------------------------ From: Henry Spencer Newsgroups: sci.space Subject: funding for Lunar Prospector urgently needed Message-Id: Date: 20 Dec 92 02:21:46 GMT Article-I.D.: zoo.BzJD8B.1p6 Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 104 Sender: news@CRABAPPLE.SRV.CS.CMU.EDU Source-Info: Sender is really isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU The following is an appeal for money. Don't read it if you are easily offended by such things. :-) I have no connection with the organization involved except that I strongly support what they're doing; I will not benefit in any way from money sent to them, except insofar as all mankind will benefit. Twenty years ago today, Apollo 17 splashed down, ending US lunar exploration. The US has sent *nothing* to the Moon since. When NASA or politicians talk about "reviving unmanned planetary exploration", they may be talking about Mars, or Saturn, or Pluto... but not the Moon. A small group of folks in Houston -- Lunar Exploration, Inc -- has been working for several years on a privately-funded lunar polar orbiter mission, dubbed Lunar Prospector. The objective is a geochemical survey of the Moon, with some emphasis on resolving the question of whether there is ice in permanently-shadowed areas at the lunar poles. A mission along these lines has been the top priority of lunar scientists for nearly twenty years, but all attempts to get it funded as a NASA project have failed. The Lunar Prospector mission resembles the small orbiters that Griffin was trying (unsuccessfully) to do as the initial precursor missions for SEI. Prospects of getting such a mission flown as a government project seem slim: Congress does not like SEI and has consistently refused funding for unmanned precursor missions, and the official Clinton/Gore space position says "no serious money for SEI". It looks like it's private funding or nothing. The plan is to fly a small spin-stabilized spacecraft in low lunar orbit for a nominal one-year mission. Experiments are a gamma-ray spectrometer (geochemical mapping), a neutron spectrometer (hydrogen mapping, including mapping of possible ice deposits and solar-wind gases), an alpha-particle spectrometer (mapping of radon releases, indicating ongoing geological activity and possible sources of other volatiles), a magnetometer and electron reflectometer (mapping the lunar magnetic field, using hardware designed for Mars Observer), and precision spacecraft tracking (mapping the poorly-known gravitational field of the Moon). Essentially all the hardware involved is available off the shelf; no development is needed (or wanted!). Data would be released to interested parties via the NASA data archives, subject to the usual one-year delay to let the folks who've invested time and effort publish results first. This is a reputable, professional effort, despite having been (so far) primarily a volunteer project with a minimal budget. The folks running it are mostly engineers from the JSC contractor community. Principal investigators for the six experiments include people from LANL, two universities, and JPL. It has the approval of NASA officials, including Goldin. NPO Energia has offered a low-cost launch. The basic spacecraft design has been done by a professional design firm under contract to Lunar Exploration. What's needed now is money. So far, Lunar Exploration has been funded from small private donations and fundraising methods like T-shirt sales. This won't suffice any more. They need $15-25M to build, launch, and operate Lunar Prospector. It needn't appear all at once. They could get things rolling well with $1-2M as startup funding. Even $100,000 would be immensely helpful, if it showed up soon -- that would permit a start on construction of long-lead equipment, firm negotiations with the Russians for the launch, and organized fundraising for the rest. Fundraising will get a lot easier after the first little bit, because many potential corporate donors would see that first bit as a sign of widespread interest and support. What they really want are leads to companies/organizations which might be interested in donating $1000-10,000 (or more!). However, they'll take whatever they can get, including individual donations. This is worth sending in your pennies, folks. It's a mission that really needs to be flown, and nobody else is going to do it. They say: "Donation checks (at least $10, please) should be sent to the following address. Please do not send any correspondence to this address, since the bank charges for forwarding it. LEI C/O Bank One Texas PO Box 297024 Houston, TX 77297 "Referrals to possible major donors are best sent to oneil@neosoft.com or phoned to 713-480-1216. We are tax-exempt, IRS approved, type 501(C)3. Please note this caveat: In the event that sufficient funds are not collected in this round, the money will be expended to develop further funding resources. "If you must contact us, please use Internet mail to oneil@neosoft.com or mail to LEI PO Box 590722 Houston, TX 77259 "Please send only researched correspondence to LEI. We regret our system is not responsive to mail deluge, so only referrals will be treated with priority. We'll make everything we can, including current news and an FAQ writeup when it's ready, available for FTP at ames.arc.nasa.gov, in directory pub/lei". -- "God willing... we shall return." | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 574 ------------------------------