Date: Sat, 9 Jan 93 05:06:30 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V16 #026 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Sat, 9 Jan 93 Volume 16 : Issue 026 Today's Topics: *** BUSSARD RAMSCOOP *** (3 msgs) *** METEOSAT weather images, SORRY *** averting doom Bussard Ramscoop: Some FAQ? Justification for the Space Program Let's be more specific (was: Stupid Shut Cost arguements) Making Antimatter (was: *** BUSSARD RAMSCOOP ***) RTG's on the Lunar Module russian solar sail?+ Should NASA operate shuttles (was Re: Shuttle a research tool) (2 msgs) Subjective Safety Measure(Re: man-rating) Who can launch antisats? (was Re: DoD launcher use) (2 msgs) 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: 8 Jan 93 17:26:42 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: *** BUSSARD RAMSCOOP *** Newsgroups: sci.space In article ganderson@nebula.decnet.lockheed.com writes: >How can >we talk about the performance of antimatter propulsion without knowing >the mass fuel ratio? How much hardware does it take to contain a "tank" of >antimatter (magnetic fields, etc.)? ... Open question; the detailed engineering has not been done. As usual, you could make a wide variety of assumptions, from cautious-first-generation to ambitious-long-term-possibilities. >How do they contain the antimatter before injection into the collider? If >I remember correctly they have it going around in a racetrack in a holding >facility, no??? That's right. They work with antiprotons, not neutral antimatter atoms, and they never do slow them all the way down to zero. -- "God willing... we shall return." | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jan 93 17:31:32 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: *** BUSSARD RAMSCOOP *** Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993Jan8.144819.1031@pixel.kodak.com> dj@ekcolor.ssd.kodak.com (Dave Jones) writes: >You're just using the antimatter to heat hydrogen, so the rocket's >efficiency is of the same order as the Nerva nuclear design: Isp = 850-1500 >or so, depending on how well it can be engineered. Right premise, WRONG conclusion. Nerva's exhaust velocity (aka Isp) was limited by the maximum temperature of its core materials. That is utterly irrelevant to an antimatter rocket. Gaseous-core fission rockets, which are a more realistic comparison, appear to be capable of exhaust velocities of hundreds or thousands of km/s (i.e., Isp in the 10000s or 100000s). -- "God willing... we shall return." | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jan 93 18:33:56 GMT From: Jon J Thaler Subject: *** BUSSARD RAMSCOOP *** Newsgroups: sci.space gnb@baby.bby.com.au (Gregory N. Bond) says: > Current antiproton production is geared towards physics, not > rocketry. It is probably possible to create antimatter more > efficiently if that is the primary goal. This is probably incorrect, for two reasons: * Antiproton production and capture efficiency limits the rate at which antiproton storage rings can be filled. If easily obtainable improvements were available, I expect that they would have been used already. * A rocket fuel needs to be cheaply contained. Storage rings are expensive. Unfortuantely, antiprotons are created moving, so they will need to be brought to rest to simplify the containment problem. This is an additional manipulation that the physicists don't need to perform. > However the energy cost is > huge because conservation tells you that you only create antimatter > with at least E=mc^2 input energy. > It will release twice this amount when mixed with ordinary matter. > Now if we could generate antiprotons with better than 50% efficiency, > we have an inexhaustible energy supply...... There is no free lunch. Baryon number is conserved. This means it costs the same 2mc^2 (at least) to make an antiproton that one gets back when it annihilates. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jan 93 17:14:47 GMT From: Franck Roussel Subject: *** METEOSAT weather images, SORRY *** Newsgroups: sci.space Hello everybody! I am interested in METEOSAT weather images. I know there are many anonymous FTP sites, such: - cumulus.met.ed.ac.uk in directory /images - nic.funet.fi '' /pub/sci/meteosat where satellite images of World,Atlantic,Europe are displayed. Does anybody knows about other anonymous FTP sites like those ? Especially, is there a server at the Meteorological Space Center of Lannion (Brittany) ? I tried the FTP site "lannion.cnet.fr", but after typing the command 'ftp lannion.cnet.fr' it answered me: 'Connected to lannion.cnet.fr' '421 Service not available, remote server has closed connection' Thanks for all answers to my questions Roussel ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Firstname: Frank E-mail: roussel@univ-rennes1.fr Lastname : ROUSSEL Telephone: + 33 99 83 26 10 Address1 : 175, rue Belle Epine CityStateZip: 35510 Address2 : CESSON SEVIGNE Country: FRANCE ----------- Science without conscience is only soul's ruin ------------ ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jan 93 18:30:19 GMT From: "Richard A. Schumacher" Subject: averting doom Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space,sci.physics,sci.environment,talk.bizarre >Do you seriously believe that a species capable of creating >and enjoying The Love Boat is capable also of learning >galactic engineering? Of course. Our ancestors of only a few thousand years ago would have been amazed at the technology of the Love Boat. If humans ever build Dyson spheres or whatnot, at least one of them will be a theme park. (Disneyplanet? Six Flags Over Alpha Centauri?) ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jan 93 18:56:17 GMT From: Scott A Koester Subject: Bussard Ramscoop: Some FAQ? Newsgroups: sci.space I've read many articles on the Bussard Ramscoop and antiprotons (effectively anti-matter) and I am intensly facinated and interested by this. I would like to see if anyone would like to write up an FAQ on this as I would like to have some concrete condensed (meaning all in one place) information on this. I would do it..but I'm only a sophomore on college and am trying to bone up on stuff....even though I might not understand some of it..I am ever daring to try, plus I'm sure some others would like to see this also. If there already is one...someone just hit me and send it to me in email? Thanks.... Scott Koester ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 17:47:55 GMT From: "James L. Felder" Subject: Justification for the Space Program Newsgroups: sci.space Thank you for the considered and considerate reply. I would like to follow up on a few of the points you made. In article <1993Jan7.205156.13655@cs.rochester.edu>, dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) wrote: > > There are a number of problems with this argument... > > "We live on a planet with finite resources" > > Finite does not mean limited. First, the amount present may be so > large as to be effectively unlimited. Fertile nuclear materials > (U-238 and Th-232) fall into this class. Second, aside from > nuclear uses, elements are not consumed in use, they merely become > less concentrated. The free energy required to extract materials > goes as the log of the dilution (higher in practice, but practice > changes). I see societal problems even bigger than those facing the space program in siting breeder reactors and the attendent fuel reprocessing facilities and waste disposal sites. The Japanese government is already beginning to face severe pressure to slow or halt their breeder program. A further problem I see is that all the energy conversion to useable form (electricity) occurs within the biosphere. I do not have a feel for how much thermal energy can be released into the biosphere before it contributes a significant amount directly to global warming (as opposed to CO2's indirect contribution through increased solar absorbtion). Maybe you have some information on this. I would love to see it (seriously, no flame). Conversion in orbit with an efficient microwave downlink reduces the amount of thermal energy released into the biosphere for an equal amount of useable energy. Assuming that a nuke plant is 40% efficient and the microwave link is 95%, the reduction is substantial. I agree that elements are not consumed, only distributed. However, it will in the future require more time, money and effort to collect a given amount of a material than it does now. More raw material will have to be mined to extract what we need, with attendent damage to the environment. In general it will become an increasing strain to gather the raw materials that are need to keep us going. Space originating materials will never come close to supplying all that raw goods and energy that we need. I'm not that naive. But it might fill the gap not covered by recycling. > > "Resources are being used up faster than they are being replaced" > > That a resource is limited and not renewable matters only if its > is very hard to replace with some substitute. Fossil fuels are > an example -- there is no reason why we should not be able > to survive indefinitely without them, if some other source of > energy is available. And no matter what we will have to learn to do without them. And will probably be cursed by future generations for burning such a useful commodity simply to heat our homes. But the source that replaces it must be socially as well as technically and economically feasable. Unless the world politic has a very great change of heart, I don't see nuclear energy being a fundimental part of the replacement strategy > > [paraphrased] "Growth is necessary to avoid social calamity" > > Then we are in big trouble, since growth in resource use cannot > continue forever. For example, if energy use grows 1%/year, > then in 10,000 years we are consuming the entire power output > of the observable universe. We are in big trouble. And there is no technical cure. The societies of the world including the western industrial ones, must undergo radical change. But it won't happen overnight. In the interum, some effort must be made to supply world economies that are continuing to grow. This is independent, though, of how we do it. I make no claim that this is justification for a space program, just that something must be done to supply a growing demand. > > In the short term, however, there is no reason why resource use > on earth cannot be increased. There is no reason why we could > not supply several times the current population with several times > the current US per capita energy consumption indefinitely. Yes, but at what cost to the environment? > > "No inexhaustible energy source on earth" > > At least two are already in the engineering stages (solar and fission > breeder). > > "Too Expensive!" you may say. Well, now, yes, but manufacturing > productivity increases about 3%/year. It gets cheaper to make things. > Moreover, if we had to make a lot of solar collectors or nuclear > reactors, economies of scale would drive costs down still further. > And it's a lot easier to start down a learning curve when you can > build smallish things on the ground rather than enormous things in space. > Realize that the current world output of PV modules would take > more than a century to make enough to cover one 10 GW powersat. > Space colonization schemes are implicitly assuming big productivity > increases. No, to unreliable. Terrestrial solar energy has a problem because of intermittent illumination. Either a large storage capacity must be included in the system, or another source must come on-line at night and during periods of cloud cover. The large required land area makes solar problematic for large portion of the world. Plus places like Cleveland goes days or weeks with hardly a glimpse of the sun. It might be a misconception on my part based on media coverage, but it seems that nuclear plants have frequent shut downs for one reason or another, often times for days or weeks. A system that relied on a majority of its energy from nuclear power would have to have a significant extra capacity included, or a more reliable source ready to come on line at a moments notice. Without a track record, though, nothing can be said for powersats, so this again probably isn't a compeling argument. It at least doesn't share the intermittent illumination problem of land based solar, plus the power source never goes off-line :-). I don't think that powersats of any size or number could be built using terrestrial solar cells. Launch costs and energy investment alone would eat your lunch. On orbit manufacture using in-situ non-terrestrial materials would seem the only feesible method. That brings its own set of problems, but hey, TANSTAAFL. > > "If we don't go now, resources will be too expensive" > > This "window of opportunity" argument falls apart under close > examination. Resource prices have typically fallen over time, even as > richer deposits have been exhausted. Moreover, a space program uses > relatively little in the way of natural resources. What it does use a > lot of is labor, talent and knowledge. > > Look at the price of a shuttle orbiter. It costs more than its own > weight in gold. The cost of the elements and energy that do go into > its manufacture is a piddling small fraction of its total cost. The > same is true of an airliner. The raw aluminum in a 747, for example, > would cost perhaps a quarter of a million dollars. > > Increased raw material prices would only make a space program *more* > feasible, by increasing the potential profit. The price of raw materials in the space program is trivial, but that isn't my point. It is the price of raw materials and energy to the entire economy that is the problem. I think that an increasing drag on the ecomomy will be felt as these prices go up. Either the prices of finished goods must escalate, or the compensation for human effort must decrease. Both will result in a reduced standard of living, no facts just gut feel. In addition, we will have to expend more and more of our total effort in simply producing the raw materials. I don't think it will be very long before the public has enough trouble keeping their heads above water that they will not spend any money on something as speculative as the space program. That is the window of opportunity I was speaking about. All this would of couse be obviated if we could just fundimentally alter human behavior. Persuade the world's population that the world has enough people, so please don't have anymore, or at most only a few of you. And that they must learn to recycle EVERTHING, not just soda bottles and newspapers. This must occur at some point in time, but it won't be easy and it won't happen soon, IMHO. But in the mean time, do we let a social window of opportunity to expand beyond the surface of our world slip by. I hope I am wrong about the window of opportunity to have a significant space program, and that we can find ways to live within the means of this planet to provide. But for what we spend on it, the space program seems like cheap insurance to me. I say lets continue to learn how to live in work in space. Lets explore our solar system to see if their are things out there that we could feasibly use (both on the surface and in orbit). Lets at least get ready to be able to live and work in space. Then take another look and see if we really do need to, or even can, build powersats, colonies, moon bases and all the rest. Hey, what is this soap box doing here! Sorry, let me just climb down off of here and I'll be on my way :-}. James L. Felder (216)891-4019 -My opinions are MINE- Sverdrup Technology, Inc. jfelder@lerc.nasa.gov I think that should NASA Lewis Research Center Cleveland 44135 cover all bases, don't you. "Some people drink from the fountain of knowledge - other people gargle" ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 17:53:30 GMT From: "Edward V. Wright" Subject: Let's be more specific (was: Stupid Shut Cost arguements) Newsgroups: sci.space In <1993Jan7.034841.19216@ptdcs2.intel.com> greason@ptdcs2.intel.com (Jeff Greason ~) writes: >While your arguments about availability are sound in principle, they >ignore the element of risk. Shuttle availability has a long time window >to availability, in months, but it is reasonably likely to be available >when predicted to be, with some error margin schedule is ill-controlled, only "reasonably likely" because of the >possiblity of another crippling accident shutting the STS down> It wouldn't take a crippling accident to ground the Shuttle fleet for several months. History has shown that. It could be something as simple as a crane running into the side of the orbiter stack or a problem with the APUs. If an orbiter hits one of the wild pigs, which live just yards from the Shuttle runway, it could put the vehicle out of action for more than a year, resulting in delays or cancellations of many payloads. And when (not if -- given enough Shuttle missions, it will happen) there is another fatal accident, Congress and the White House will shut the program down for at least another two years *if not permanently*. If assured access to space was a concern, NASA would being buying Soyuz spacecraft/launchers right now, just to hedge its bet. >One point that gets lost is that while DC-X is "bent metal" and will >solidly demonstrate the "quick turn" aspects of a launch vehicle (or >not), it will NOT demonstrate the key SSTO capability of a vehicle with >the extremely small "dry mass" necessary to make SSTO work The "extreme mass ratio" is an aerospace legend. We've been building vehicles with similar mass ratios for the last 30 years. The Shuttle external tank has the right mass. So did the Saturn S-IVB stage. >This is a fairly long-winded lead in to say that no matter how great DC >may be, you cannot stop shuttle flights before an operational DC capability >exists, But we will, the first time someone whose nameplate says "astronaut" gets killed. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 16:45:55 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: Making Antimatter (was: *** BUSSARD RAMSCOOP ***) Newsgroups: sci.space In article flb@flb.optiplan.fi ("F.Baube x554") writes: >> Kilogram quantities are probably going to have to be made in space, >> not so much for handling reasons (although those aren't trivial) >> as because of the sheer amounts of *energy* needed. > >I hope this means DEEP space, as opposed to Earth orbit. Relax; we're talking giant powersats in Mercury's orbit, or something of that scale. Earth orbit is too cramped and doesn't get enough sun. -- "God willing... we shall return." | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jan 93 18:08:45 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: RTG's on the Lunar Module Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993Jan8.165057.3965@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov> pjs@euclid.jpl.nasa.gov writes: >> The radiation hazard from plutonium 238 is insignificant; it's pretty much >> a pure alpha emitter, and human skin stops alpha particles completely. (A >> sheet of paper will do likewise.) You don't want to eat the stuff... > >Somewhere in the recesses of my mind lies a memory of a scientist >who offered to eat some plutonium if the journalist covering the >event would eat the same amount of caffeine. No takers, obviously, >but does this mean that it would be safe to eat plutonium? Plutonium 239 would not be very toxic if eaten as the metal, I would think. (Whereas caffeine in bite-and-chew quantities would be lethal.) I don't know as I'd call it "safe", but it might not be certain death. Inhaling it into the lungs as fine dust is the quick way to die from plutonium. The metal probably wouldn't be absorbed very efficiently when eaten. Eating any heavy metal isn't exactly recommended, mind you. >...it should be passed in due course with only the mucus coating >the alimentary canal getting irradiated. Most of the body isn't radiation-sensitive enough to be hurt much by a relatively long-lived isotope like Pu239. As I recall, what kills you is getting it into your bone marrow. Eating Pu238 wouldn't be any worse in terms of radiation, but it would be extremely painful and possibly fatal because the stuff is *hot*. Thermally, not radioactively. -- "God willing... we shall return." | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 16:43:47 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: russian solar sail?+ Newsgroups: sci.space In article ida@atomic (David Goldschmidt) writes: >>The stability produced by that spin is actively undesirable if you have >>a maneuverability requirement... > >Heliogyros would actually be quite good at this. You wouldn't have to >turn the plane of rotation; you could just "feather" the blades >when moving towards the sun. Thrust modulation schemes are indeed an alternative to turning the sail. (You should have seen the first Canadian Solar Sail Project design... thrust modulation up the wazoo. It would also have had the most moving parts ever launched in a single spacecraft, and deployment would have been a mechanical nightmare. That's where pushing for maneuverability leads...) Unfortunately, in the case of the heliogyro, there is a design constraint: having to feather the blades adds awkward complications at the hub, since now the hub ends of the blades must remain clear of each other through a 90-degree pitch change. If you limit required pitch changes, the packaging problems at the hub are simplified, because you can stack the blades in multiple layers. Since you want a large number of wide blades to compensate for the heliogyro's fundamental scaling disadvantage (area scales linearly, rather than quadratically, with diameter), packaging is a real problem at a modest-sized hub. With 90-degree pitch changes, layers have to be separated by a full blade width. -- "God willing... we shall return." | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jan 93 18:17:01 GMT From: "Allen W. Sherzer" Subject: Should NASA operate shuttles (was Re: Shuttle a research tool) Newsgroups: sci.space Source-Info: Sender is really isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU In article <1993Jan8.165353.17917@cerberus.ulaval.ca> yergeau@phy.ulaval.ca (Francois Yergeau) writes: >This idea is based on the assumption that _large_ cost reductions could >be achieved by the private sector, which I'm not ready to buy. The >shuttle is intrinsically expensive, with its maintenance-intensive... So then maybe it isn't Shuttle. By opening up a market you encourage competition. Let's say your correct and Shuttle can't be cost reduced. But with a commercial market we would have a private contractor collecting $6+ billion for eight flights. Presto chango we suddenly have a commercial manned space market which is several times the size of the existing launch market. This would be more than enough to get several companies working on SSTO and numerous other alternatives. Soon, Shuttle could no longer survive the new cheap competition and it would be replaced. But this can't happen now since NASA will use Shuttle no matter what. >Note that I'm not denying that savings are possible, but I'm still not >convinced that they would materialize, were NASA to try. NASA's budget for luanch services is more than enough to justify development of lots of cheap alternatives *IF* NASA used the market instead of fighting it. >Besides, who would need Delta Clipper if the shuttle could be made >cheap? Hey, if Shuttle becomes cheap I won't care about DC. I want to see low cost reliable access to space. At this time, I think DC is our best shot. My goal is a spacefaring civilization, not a vehicle. Allen -- +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves | | aws@iti.org | nothing undone" | +----------------------106 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+ ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jan 93 16:53:53 GMT From: Francois Yergeau Subject: Should NASA operate shuttles (was Re: Shuttle a research tool) Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993Jan8.134508.15155@iti.org> aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) writes: >In article <1993Jan7.220739.9367@cerberus.ulaval.ca> yergeau@phy.ulaval.ca (Francois Yergeau) writes: >>The market, for one thing. Spin off shuttle to the private sector, and >>you're likely to get at most one provider, and one buyer (NASA). > >Nonsense. Run KSC like an airport and Shuttle like an airliner. There is >no reason that several companies couldn't buy Shuttles and lease the >hanger facilities like any other airport. This idea is based on the assumption that _large_ cost reductions could be achieved by the private sector, which I'm not ready to buy. The shuttle is intrinsically expensive, with its maintenance-intensive SSMEs, tiles, etc, and the standing army needed to operate it. The shuttle is no airliner, sorry. This, IMHO, precludes important market expansion, and you end up with a situation not unlike military procurement, where $80 screwdrivers are not unheard of. Talk about cost reductions. Note that I'm not denying that savings are possible, but I'm still not convinced that they would materialize, were NASA to try. Besides, who would need Delta Clipper if the shuttle could be made cheap? -- Francois Yergeau (yergeau@phy.ulaval.ca) | De gustibus et coloribus Centre d'Optique, Photonique et Laser | non disputandum Departement de Physique | -proverbe scolastique Universite Laval, Ste-Foy, QC, Canada | ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 17:39:33 GMT From: Gary Coffman Subject: Subjective Safety Measure(Re: man-rating) Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.aeronautics In article <1993Jan7.181829.13714@cs.ucf.edu> clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke) writes: >In article <1993Jan7.152456.25477@mksol.dseg.ti.com> pyron@skndiv.dseg.ti.com >(Dillon Pyron) writes: >> BTW, the STS [Space Transporation System/the Shuttle] >> is the safest transportation system we have, based on fatalities >> per passenger mile. But who would pay $1 billion apiece for a 747? (Please >> attach a smiley to the safety record). > >The rating of transportation system safety by fatalities per >passenger mile always struck me as bogus. Subjectively, what >matters is the probability of exit. That is if I climb in and >close the door, what are my chances of opening the door and >climbing out. By this measure the STS is only about 1 in 50, >although it probably isn't as dangerous as, say, a fighter in combat. > >Does anyone have any idea how various means of transport rate >according to probability of exit. Is the private car better than >a commerical airliner? {Lots of safe little trips would up the >exit probability.} Hmmm. Interesting way to look at transport safety. There are about 140 million auto trips a day in the US. About 110 people a day die in crashes. So you have about 1.3 million trips per fatality. I don't know how many aircraft flights occur in the US per day, nor how to account for multiple passengers, or how many fatalities occur each year on average, but let's make some reasonable guesses. Atlanta's Hartsfield handles one takeoff or landing per minute at peak times and vacilates between being the busiest airport in the US with O'Hare. Call that 720 flights a day. Multiply by the top 20 airports and assume they're equally busy. That's 14,400 flights a day. Assuming an average of 200 passengers per flight, that's 2.8 million exits per day. Fatalities are certainly less than 1,000 per year average in the US from air crashes, or about 2.8 per day. So we have about 1 million exits per fatality on aircraft, probably quite a bit better. Using your measure, aircraft and autos are about equally safe, a non-intuitive result. Gary -- Gary Coffman KE4ZV | You make it, | gatech!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary Destructive Testing Systems | we break it. | uunet!rsiatl!ke4zv!gary 534 Shannon Way | Guaranteed! | emory!kd4nc!ke4zv!gary Lawrenceville, GA 30244 | | emory!ke4zv!gary@gatech.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 17:40:32 GMT From: "Edward V. Wright" Subject: Who can launch antisats? (was Re: DoD launcher use) Newsgroups: sci.space In <1993Jan07.203533.10511@eng.umd.edu> sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu (Doug Mohney) writes: >You're being silly. If you're going to treat the nuke as "just another >weapon" you don't need the Clancyesque plot. Just nuke the friggin' carrier >and be done with it. It's only full-scale war, after all, right Ed? Well, Tom Clancy at least understands the technology and how it works. Just finding a carrier at sea, let alone hitting it, is not easy. Don't believe everything Dan Rather tells you. It's a moving target, which will probably move out of the target area between the time you launch your ballistic missile and the time the warhead lands. Hitting a satellite is almost trivial by comparison. >It is not for nothing DARPA has a love with microsats and ways to get them >quickly into orbit. And what DARPA is doing is in the sunshine. Microsats are incapable of replacing photorecon satellites. The laws of physics prevent it. To get adequate resolution, you need a large mirror (or large radar). Black programs use the same laws of physics as everybody else. >Of course. So why did we get the UN to rubber stamp it first? C'mon Ed, >stop helping me out here. We really didn't NEED to get the UN's blessing, >did we? Of course we didn't. The United States has gone to war numerous times in the past. It has never needed permission of the United Nations before. It was George Bush who set that (dangerous) precendent. >>Besides, your claim was that "international public opinion" would >>*prevent* nations like Iraq from making hostile acts. >Prevent a degree of hostile acts. Why didn't the Iraqis use chemical weapons >against allied forces in Desert Storm? Not because he was afraid someone would say something bad about him at a UN cocktail party. Hint: the people who planned the initial airstrikes were not complete idiots. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jan 93 18:20:05 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: Who can launch antisats? (was Re: DoD launcher use) Newsgroups: sci.space In article ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes: >>It is not for nothing DARPA has a love with microsats and ways to get them >>quickly into orbit. And what DARPA is doing is in the sunshine. > >Microsats are incapable of replacing photorecon satellites. The >laws of physics prevent it. To get adequate resolution, you need >a large mirror (or large radar)... Define "adequate". Microsat levels of resolution should be adequate for many military requirements. Tactical commanders don't care about the license-plate numbers on the tanks... >>... We really didn't NEED to get the UN's blessing, did we? > >Of course we didn't. The United States has gone to war numerous >times in the past. It has never needed permission of the United >Nations before. It was George Bush who set that (dangerous) precendent. Careful here... I don't know exactly what legal maneuvers took place when the US formally joined the UN, but if the UN Charter has the status of a Senate-ratified treaty, that means it has the force of law in the US... and one of the clauses in there is a renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy. Of course, that just means everybody calls it a "police action" instead... -- "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 16 : Issue 026 ------------------------------