Date: Wed, 3 Feb 93 05:06:43 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V16 #112 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Wed, 3 Feb 93 Volume 16 : Issue 112 Today's Topics: Atlantis... Challenger Tragedy Clinton's Promises (space) in Charlotte Observer Goals for year 2000. Bread and Circuses Meteor Riding/Netting (lets go fishing) Mir/SSF(Fred) Combo Mission.. Non-Profit Space Exp: What would you do with $125M/year? (2 msgs) Precursors to Fred Solar sail Nits Space Education/News/Adds Space Guns, Iraq/Priorities.. Space Station Freedom Media Handbook - 2/18 Units and Star Trek Well.. 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: 2 Feb 93 16:01:18 GMT From: Mary Shafer Subject: Atlantis... Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle On Sun, 31 Jan 93 15:44:17 PST, BrianT@cup.portal.com (Brian Stuart Thorn) said: >One question here- Where is the shuttle Atlantis at the moment? (Most of >the schedules and such I've seen talk of Discovery, Columbia and Endeavour.) > >Is Atlantis in refit at the moment? Brian> Yep, Atlantis is at Palmdale (Downey? I've heard both and don't know Brian> which is correct...) There has never been a Shuttle in Downey and there probably will never be. Downey doesn't even have a runway long enough to get the SCA/Shuttle combination into the airport. Shuttles are built and refit at USAF Plant 42 in Palmdale. The facility is on the north side, on Ave M, fairly close to Sierra Highway. It was obviously used for something else originally, as you can see where they added a high bay for the vertical stabilizer. I've forgotten, if I ever actually knew, any more of the building's history. -- Mary Shafer DoD #0362 KotFR NASA Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA shafer@rigel.dfrf.nasa.gov Of course I don't speak for NASA "A MiG at your six is better than no MiG at all." Unknown US fighter pilot ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1993 18:12:31 GMT From: Nick Haines Subject: Challenger Tragedy Newsgroups: sci.space I think my attitude to the Challenger accident, and the gulf between myself and many of the others who have posted here, can be explained by the fact that I am English. I did not have any nationalistic pride riding on NASA and the shuttle then, and I don't now. Americans had (more-or-less) recovered from the perceived blow to their dignity in Vietnam, and the Challenger thing punctured them again. So it was a national tragedy, I guess, connected more with the self-perception of Americans than with the objective facts of the case. It was not a `great tragedy' in British eyes, because we had no enormous media involvement with the Shuttle (launches were still shown on live TV then, but not every one, and there was no great shakes about Teacher in Space, etc.etc., such as has been mentioned by others here). I am a space enthusiast, and I realized it would be a blow to the American space program, but I didn't know how large and prolonged a blow. The magnitude of the reaction was, of course, a result of the injury to American self-image. Witness Pournelle's comments about astronauts/test pilots, and the suggestions (here and elsewhere) that humanity's position in space was threatened (dismissing the Soviet and other programs). (I would go on to defend my description of, say, the Azerbaijan earthquake as a `tragedy', but all this is rather off sci.space). Nick Haines nickh@cmu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Feb 93 12:11:21 GMT From: Jerry Szopinski Mfg 4-6983 Subject: Clinton's Promises (space) in Charlotte Observer Newsgroups: sci.space Bruce F. Webster (bwebster@pages.com) wrote: : In article <21JAN199320444611@judy.uh.edu> : wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov writes: : > In article , ewright@convex.com (Edward : V. Wright) writes... : > >In rabjab@golem.ucsd.edu (rabjab) : writes: : > > : > >>> B. Support completion of the space station Freedom. : > > : > >>Looks like Clinton is going to make some rather severe cuts in space : > >>projects. And "supporting completion" doesn't mean actual completion. : > > : > >You don't understand. NASA doesn't *want* Space Station Freedom : > >completed. : > > : > : > No you don't understand and your statement is a prime reason people like : > you are not listened to at NASA. Even looking at the proposition from a : > pragmatical political perspective, this statment of yours is false. Why? : > : > If NASA drags their feet and does not finish the station costs soar and : > nothing gets done. : : Space Station Freedom was originally proposed in what? 1982?, was supposed to : be on orbit and operational in 1992, and was supposed to cost a total of $8B. : It is now 1993, not a single actual piece of Fred has been built (much less : placed on orbit), and the estimated total cost is $40B and rising. Q.E.D. : : I used to work for NASA (as an employee of Singer/Link, the former contractor : on the Space Shuttle Flight Simulator at JSC) and also worked at the Lunar and : Planetary Institute next door. I have friends who are still heavily involved in : the space industry at various levels. I happen to think that the best thing : Clinton could do would be to kill SS Fred and offer $10B, tax-free, to the : first US corporation or consortium to put a station on orbit and keep it : staffed by at least X people for a year and day. He should also offer $5B to : the second corporation/consortium to do the same thing. The government would : spend less, create more jobs, and built an 21st century industrial base. : ..bruce.. : : ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- : Bruce F. Webster | We hackers linger by our leading edge : CTO, Pages Software Inc | Forgetting what is pending in the cache : bwebster@pages.com | Till practice hurtles past us, and we crash. : #import | -- Jeff Duntemann : ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- : : -- I agree, to some extent, with Bruce. Major industries/consortiums should be the prime movers behind development of a space station, but I don't think NASA should be excluded, not with its experience and database. If it's going to be an open competition, with the government awarding a cash prize to the first space station up and running, then everyone with an interest should have a shot. With the R&D possibilities that a space station (or bases on the moon, asteroids, Mars, etc.) can produce, the benefits to industry and this country are worthwhile. The actual jobs in space may not be that many but the support needed from down here would be great. Has anyone read any of Allen Steele's books? He deals with events in the near future and pretty well describes what it would be like to be out there in space working on space stations, powersats and moon bases. He advocates industries and consortiums developing, operating and maintaining these facil- ities. If anyone's interested the titles that I can remember righrt now are "Orbital Decay" and "Clark County, Space". Very interesting sci-fi, IMHO. ======================================================================= Jerry Szopinski I have an agreement with my employers: I won't speak for them, and they won't cut-off my cookie supply. "It riles them to believe that you perceive the web they weave and keep on thinking free!" -- Moody Blues ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1993 03:43:50 GMT From: nsmca@acad3.alaska.edu Subject: Goals for year 2000. Bread and Circuses Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993Feb1.160803.29634@ke4zv.uucp>, gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman) writes: > In article <1993Jan30.060212.1@acad3.alaska.edu> nsmca@acad3.alaska.edu writes: >>How about this for a Goal. SSTO, SSF, Mars Mission to Mars and Solar Sail >>Race to the Moon or ? By the year 2000, its not that far off.. >> >>So far what I have seen of NASA and the discussions here, no one has a combined >>plan of what is going on and what our goal is.. I think we need to maybe have >>the dream of Kennedy to have all the above and maybe more by the end of the >>millenia... > > What we don't have is the funding a Cold War space race could command. > There's no way Clinton/Gore are going to get Congress to fund those > ambitious goals in a climate of deficits and debt where *social* programs > are being neglected (in the liberal view). For that matter, the *voters* > aren't going to stand for it. Aside from us fanatics, the average voter > thinks we're "throwing away" money in space that should be kept down here > on Earth to meet more pressing problems. (They don't grasp that we don't > ship money into space, it stays right here in worker's pockets.) > > 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 | | Basically what is going on is "Bread and Circuses". Anyone who know about Roman Imperial history might understand that reference.. I love to read H. Beam Pipers books... Basically the barbarians are makeing policy without knowing what they are making policy about.. Read "Space Viking" by H. Beam Piper to understand what I am refering to.. == Michael Adams, nsmca@acad3.alaska.edu Im not high, just jacked ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1993 04:54:11 GMT From: Josh Hopkins Subject: Meteor Riding/Netting (lets go fishing) Newsgroups: sci.space nsmca@acad3.alaska.edu writes: >Here is an idea, maybe made more clear.. >You don't have to cut [catch?] up with the meteor, you just have to put a >net in its way. Namely the net would be attached to a probe >using some form of shock absorber attached to the line between the net >and the Probe. Take a look at your favorite video of high performance fighters going fast. Pick one that shows them going as fast as possible at low altitude so you get the full effect. Now imagine they're battleships going that fast. Now imagine you're in a jet heading straight at them at full speed. Now speed up everybody by about 100 times. Now picture yourself throwing a net in front of one of the hypersonic battleships. That's what you're talking about. I hesitiate to say it's impossible to lasso a moving asteroid but it sure makes chemical propulstion look safe and comfortable. Given the number of easier methods of propulsion I think we can safely assume asteroids won't be used for delta V in such a direct manner. -- Josh Hopkins jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu Q: How do you tell a novice from an expert. A: A novice hesitates before doing something stupid. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1993 03:53:25 GMT From: Dave Michelson Subject: Mir/SSF(Fred) Combo Mission.. Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993Feb1.220943.22641@samba.oit.unc.edu> cecil@physics.unc.edu writes: > >This myth keeps coming up & it's not correct. You take only an order 15% >payload hit to launch to Mir's inclination from the Cape. More significant, >SSF modules would need much heavier radiation shielding at high inclination >because of passage through the South Atlantic Anomaly and generally higher >rad fluxes, especially during solar *minimum*. The shielding would add about >5 metric tons to each module, if I correctly recall our net discussion on >this topic last summer. On a related topic... Recently, there has been much talk about launching satellites into polar orbit from near the poles (Poker Flats, Alaska or Ft. Churchill, Manitoba) in order to maximize the payload to orbit. I checked out my usual sources (Introduction to Space Dynamics and Fundamentals of Astrodynamics) but couldn't find anything concerning the effect of launch site latitude and desired orbit inclination on the maximum payload... How big is the "payload hit" if one were to launch into polar orbit from the equator rather than from, say, the North Pole or perhaps the Arctic Circle? I wouldn't have thought it was that big but some people give the impression that it is. Can someone refer me to a text that deals with this matter? Surprisingly, I couldn't find one in the library here at UBC :-( Thanks, in advance! --- Dave Michelson University of British Columbia davem@ee.ubc.ca Antenna Laboratory ------------------------------ From: Herman Rubin Subject: Non-Profit Space Exp: What would you do with $125M/year? Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space Message-Id: Sender: USENET News Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department References: <1kjp87INNal0@borg.cs.unc.edu> Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1993 14:47:15 GMT Lines: 27 Source-Info: Sender is really news@CRABAPPLE.SRV.CS.CMU.EDU Source-Info: Sender is really isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU In article <1kjp87INNal0@borg.cs.unc.edu> leech@cs.unc.edu (Jon Leech) writes: >In article , yamauchi@ces.cwru.edu (Brian Yamauchi) writes: >|> Suppose >|> that 1 out of every 200 Americans is sufficiently interested in space >|> exploration to be willing to donate $100/year to a non-profit space >|> exploration organization -- 0.5% x 250 million x $100 = $125 million. > Not to come down too hard, but obviously such numbers of people do >not exist. Readers of this group undoubtedly have a disproportionate >percentage of contributors relative to the population as a whole, and >I haven't seen any evidence over a decade of reading that as much as >.5% of the sci.space readership contributes anything signficant to >any non-profit. SSI has perhaps a few thousand senior associates, and >it probably has a greater funding base than any similar group. I disagree on both counts. The number of those willing to contribute is probably much greater, and the amount much greater. But at this time I see no appropriate place to contribute. Biospheres, launching small experiments, etc., look to me like a waste of effort. This is one place where thinking big enough to actually get far more than tiny stations up even in the medium range is necessary. The corner mechanic is not going to produce transportation. -- Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399 Phone: (317)494-6054 hrubin@snap.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet) {purdue,pur-ee}!snap.stat!hrubin(UUCP) ------------------------------ Date: 2 Feb 1993 04:54:31 GMT From: Jeff Foust Subject: Non-Profit Space Exp: What would you do with $125M/year? Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space Unfortunately, the $125M/yr figure seems unrealistic. I doubt the combined membership of NSS, TPS, SSI, USSF, etc. comes to 1.25 million, and most members of these organizations contribute little beyond membership dues (plus a lot of people are members of > 1 organization). Convincing 1,250,000 people to part of $100 a year would be a daunting task, to say the least. However, what if, through donations from the public, corporations and foundations, you were able to raise $12.5M a year (10% as much)? What could you do with that? Over serevarl years, could you put together a lunar resources mapper? A near-Earth asteroid flyby mission? Other missions? And, how do you afford the potentially steep launch costs? -- Jeff Foust Senior, Geophysics/Planetary Science, Caltech jafoust@cco.caltech.edu jeff@scn1.jpl.nasa.gov Final score of the Interstellar Space Deep Space 9 Station Championship Softball Game: Babylon 5 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1993 15:35:06 GMT From: "Allen W. Sherzer" Subject: Precursors to Fred Newsgroups: sci.space In article MUNIZB%RWTMS2.decnet@beach.rockwell.com ("RWTMS2::MUNIZB") writes: >Trying to do too much with SSF has been one of its problems, IMHO... >However, it was probably done since NASA felt they couldn't get enough >people to support the program if it had more restricted objectives. The ends justifies the means? It's OK for NASA to lie to get what it wants? >I guess I'll also have to respond to your earlier post of 'One Small Step >for a Space Activist... (vol 3 no 12)' when you said: > ***************** >SAY WHAT??? The program has undergone numerous re- and re-designs and >has never received the full NASA request for funding. This overrun happened during a time when there where no redesigns and NASA got at least 80% of its request. Explaining an overrun of this magnitude because you didn't get 20% of the funding just doesn't cut it. >WHAT ABOUT ALL THE OTHER TIMES?? I don't think there are any times where Congress gets more than half the blame. >(Sorry, but this is a pet peeve of >mine). Every year the people working on the program go through the >"rites of spring" as we watch the news about the congressional budget >hearings to see if we'll still have a job, or if the requirements >dictated by that well-spring of engineering experience, the U.S. >Congress, will mandate another redesign. Those redesigns where the direct result of NASA either overselling Freedom or genuine problems in the design. In internal NASA report for example, said that ther need for logistics flights was "growing out of control" before the last redesign. Of all the designs we have seen, the current one is the only one done which could possible be built. >When McDonnell-Douglas and >Rocketdyne had to go to the Pre-Integrated Truss concept, the structural >design had to start from scratch. They had to go to the pre-integrated truss because the old design *COULDN'T BE BUILT*. The question here isn't why Congress forced a redesign. The question is why McD wasted years of time and billions of $$ on a truss which couldn't be built. The answer to the question is obvious BTW. NASA pays more for desings that don't work than for ones which do. Allen -- +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves | | aws@iti.org | nothing undone" | +----------------------133 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1993 05:03:44 GMT From: Josh Hopkins Subject: Solar sail Nits Newsgroups: sci.space 18084TM@msu.edu (Tom) writes: >>>Yep ... you simply turn it around and use it to capture the *outward* solar >>>wind of your destination star to slow you down. >>Solar sails do NOT use the solar wind. They run on light pressure. >Further nit: If light has momentum and protons have a wavelength, >how do you classify one as wind and not the other? They are both >"stuff emitted from the sun at supersonic velocities" after all. >(Yes, I know the light gives greater momentum, and that the def. of >solar wind is "Protons from the sun". But it is a rather arbitrary >def., isn't it?) Contrary to what Vanna White may think, photons and protons differ by substantially more than one letter. If your breed of physics is more soplistic than mine I'll settle for pointing out that in my universe the solar wind produces 3 or 4 orders of magnitude less momentum then photons. Calling the two the same is a little like spraying gamma rays around when you want a flashlight. "Hey, it's all light, right?" -- Josh Hopkins jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu Q: How do you tell a novice from an expert. A: A novice hesitates before doing something stupid. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Feb 93 11:36:40 GMT From: Jerry Szopinski Mfg 4-6983 Subject: Space Education/News/Adds Newsgroups: sci.space nsmca@acad3.alaska.edu wrote: : Sounds liek what is needed is to convince the US population that Space is where : we need to go.. Sounds like NASA needs to spend more on Public Relations. : : Maybe get a news network involved. maybe have them do some mnor sponsorship of : some space related high profile TV programs/Cable to. Such as Star Trek : (TNG/DS9). I am finding that if a major news netowrk is on your side, you can : do alot of things.. REF: Clinton.. and somewhat Perot.. I know of other third : party candidates who can't get to square one, but Perot comes out of obscurity : to where people want to know what he ate for breakfast.. : : Maybe also try to have some space/science programs on mainlien TV.. : Also start or help local quality TV organizations, namely cause of what I have : seen the basic bent for modern TV is a prime help for the lack of science in : the current crop of students.. : Im not talking violence, Im talking about who is cool and who is not.. : Scientists many times are not cool, they are egghead, nerds, geeks and such.. : Bumbling social idiots.. (I might be wrong).. : : == : Michael Adams alias Ghost Wheel/Morgoth NSMCA@acad2.alaska.edu : What we really need is something to light peole's imaginations again. Mercury lit the flame that burned all the way through Apollo and the moon landings. It almost flickered-out after that, but the Space Shuttle brought it back to life. Then the Challenger snuffed it out. Today Shuttle missions go up barely noticed. The government is funding the programs but there is no public excitement. There's no feeling of challenge, no brave young men daring catastrophy in the face, risking their lives to explore the great unknown. The Shuttle goes up and comes back down with everyone onboard safe and sound (yawn!). What the Space Program has to do is start reaching beyond the limits of the Earth and Moon. It has to fire the imagination of the public for exploration of this solar system and beyond. Sure, there are projects for Mars exploration, but does the public know about them? Not unless they watch PBS or catch an article in a magazine or newspaper. The Space Program suffers from a very negative image right now. The public knows all about the Challenger disaster and the Hubble space tele- scope; are they aware of all the successful experiments that have been done on the Shuttle? Hardly. My cable company gets the NASA channel and I saw an amusing and very interesting experiment done with magnetic marbles. But not every cable company broadcasts the NASA channel, not everybody has access to a newsnet computer. The Space Program has to re-light that fire of imagination, get people interested again in WHAT'S OUT THERE. They have to get the people to push their imaginations, push their realms of existance past our tiny little world and into the vast unknown of space. Our future is out there; we have to want to go get it. ======================================================================= Jerry Szopinski I have an agreement with my employers: I won't speak for them, and they won't cut-off my cookie supply. "It riles them to believe that you perceive the web they weave and keep on thinking free!" -- Moody Blues ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1993 03:57:03 GMT From: nsmca@acad3.alaska.edu Subject: Space Guns, Iraq/Priorities.. Newsgroups: sci.space Space Gun. Its interesting to note that the Super Gun the Iraqis were building was actually designed to be a launch platform for "small" orbit/sub-orbital devices.. Anyone seen/read "King Davids Spaceship" (I think this was the title). What is the possibility of using a space gun to send payloads into space? How about a pulse rocket? Just thinking of more than the standard ways to get payloads into space.. We need a priority and set some form of ideas on what payloads can be best sent into orbit and by what mean.. A device into orbit the size of the old Sputnik might be better put up by a "space Gun" or a missle from a F15 or like airplane.. versus sending it up by a shuttle.. == Michael Adams, nsmca@acad3.alaska.edu Im not high, just jacked ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1993 15:07:11 GMT From: Bruce Dunn Subject: Space Station Freedom Media Handbook - 2/18 Newsgroups: sci.space From NASA SPACELINK: "6_10_2_3.TXT" (7318 bytes) was created on 10-06-92 The Case for Space Station Freedom: A Statement of Purpose Why a Space Station? All seven space stations in history--one American, six Soviet--have been built and lofted to orbit for one basic purpose: to enable exploration. The space station NASA is building for the 1990s is first and foremost a means to that end. Space Station Freedom embodies ideas first cast into the 20th century, on three different continents, by the founding fathers of modern rocketry: Oberth, Tsiolkovsky and Goddard. It fulfills the guiding principles written into the preamble of the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, the law which created NASA and charged it to expand human knowledge, improve airplanes and spacecraft, and learn how to fly equipment, supplies and, most importantly, life from the planet Earth, in space. NASA's charter was to learn what technical and scientific benefits could be gained on the new ocean of space, to cooperate with other nations, and to marshal America's technical, industrial and scientific talents to explore the space frontier. NASA's space station is, as President George Bush said, a "critical next step in all our space endeavors." Skimming along 250 miles above the cloudtops of Earth, Space Station Freedom is essential for advancing the human exploration of space. Continued progress in the human exploration of space requires the development of a permanently manned space station for multi-year studies of human adaptation, testing of life support systems and experience in building, maintaining and operating a large manned space system. Freedom also will serve as a permanent Earth-orbiting laboratory. It will allow humans the time and capability to routinely study, develop and employ the resources and potential of space. Aboard Freedom, scientists and engineers will do work and research in the microgravity environment of space for prolonged periods of time. Freedom's mission is three-fold. First, it will provide a permanent outpost where we will learn to live and work productively in space. Freedom will be an orbiting research base with essential resources of volume, power, data handling, and communications to accommodate experiments for long-duration studies of human physiology and well-being in space, research that is required before the nation can embark on achievable, long-range human exploration goals. We need years of experience in space, not just days or weeks or even months. Second, Freedom will provide an advanced research laboratory to explore space and employ its resources for the benefit of humanity. Space Station Freedom will be a permanent, multi-purpose research laboratory and outpost in space unsurpassed in equipment and capabilities with the constant presence of a hands-on crew for learning how to use the unique microgravity environment of space, enabling the study of new materials, new medicines and new technologies. And finally, Freedom will provide the opportunity to learn to build, operate and maintain systems in space. Space Station Freedom will be an engineering testbed, located in low Earth orbit where we will perfect our ability to live and function, to allow development of the systems, the logistics, the knowledge and the talents required for the full-scale utilization and exploration of space. The Next Logical Step Of all the challenges inherent in space flight, perhaps the most difficult is rising up out of our planet's gravity well. And one of the earliest precepts in NASA's philosophy of space operations was the realization that most of the risk and much of the cost associated with space flight is tied to climbing out of this well and reaching Earth orbit. That is why a space station has been seen--for decades--as a logical development in the enterprise of space travel. A space station will allow the U.S. and its international partners to end what the 1986 report of the National Commission on Space called "our visitor status in space." No longer limited to brief sorties, the U.S. will be able to capitalize on the expense and risk of leaving the Earth and maximize the four absolutely critical spacefaring resources: time in orbit, power, volume and crew. The Waypoints of Exploration During the Age of Discovery, explorers capitalized on past experience and built upon the voyages of those who went before them. In American history, the frontiers moved steadily westward as explorers crossed each of the natural barriers in turn, and the waypoints of exploration moved westward with them. On the space frontier, the first natural waypoint is low Earth orbit, the modern equivalent to the river junction, the oasis, the island or the railhead of old. Earth orbit is a natural center of activity for space travelers, a resting place before moving on across the deep ocean of space. Earth orbit is the logical place to build a permanent outpost, to try new things, to learn about space after an arduous trip across the gravity barrier. Still within the sheltering arms of Earth's magnetic field, which offers protection from the harsh radiation of deep space, it is close to the home planet, a relatively easy vantage point from which to depart in the event of an emergency. There is no better location in all of the Solar System than low Earth orbit to perfect our ability to live and function in this new environment, to allow development of the systems, the logistics, the knowledge and the talents required for the full-scale utilization and exploration of space. An orbital station is the natural extension of America's spacefaring enterprise, a fertile and accessible waypoint along an outbound trail, a logical next step in our travels above the skies of Earth. Why Now? Space Station Freedom is a sound design, the product of years of planning and preparation. It builds upon the momentum and experience of 30 years of U.S. manned space flight experience. To stop now would be to lose that momentum, to steer U.S. manned space flight to a technological dead end just as the conditions are ripe for a fundamental next step in space travel. That next step represents an investment in the future. The investment NASA is proposing is one which stretches well into the next century, and one which will only become more difficult to realize in practical terms, and more costly the longer we wait. Leadership abandoned is leadership lost, in other words, and that would be a high price to pay over the long-term for the short-term gain of less than one-tenth of one-percent of the U.S. government's annual budget. The issue, however, goes even deeper than that. It goes to the heart of how a great nation chooses to invest in its own future, of the kind of legacy the present generation plans to leave for those who will follow. It goes to the heart of accepting a challenge and acknowledging risk versus gain. If we are to achieve anything of lasting significance in space, we must be willing to experiment, to learn from our mistakes and our successes, and to move on to the next challenge. Space Station Freedom is about expanding the human presence in space. If we wish to achieve that goal, now or in the future, then we should proceed. Richard H. Kohrs Director, Space Station Freedom The material above is one of many files from SPACELINK A Space-Related Informational Database Provided by the NASA Educational Affairs Division Operated by the Marshall Space Flight Center On a Data General ECLIPSE MV7800 Minicomputer SPACELINK may be contacted in three ways: 1) Using a modem, by phone at 205-895-0028 2) Using Telnet, at spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov 3) Using FTP capability. Username is anonymous and Password is guest. Address is 192.149.89.61. -- Bruce Dunn Vancouver, Canada Bruce_Dunn@mindlink.bc.ca ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 02 Feb 93 13:40:56 EST From: Tom <18084TM@msu.edu> Subject: Units and Star Trek From: Otto Maddox > How long would it take a ship traveling at Warp 1 to get to a >planet that is 60 light years away? I'm afraid I can only work in MKS or CGS. Can I get some units on 'warp'? -Tommy Mac ------------------------------=========================================== Tom McWilliams |Is Faith a short ' ` ' *.; +% 18084tm@ibm.cl.msu.edu |cut for attaining + . ' (517) 355-2178 -or- 353-2986 | . knowledge? ;"' ,' . ' . a scrub Astronomy undergrad | * , or is it just . . at Michigan State University | '; ' * a short-circuit? , ------------------------------=========================================== ------------------------------ Date: 2 Feb 1993 00:29:09 -0500 From: Michael Y Ko Subject: Well.. Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.misc,rec.arts.startrek.tech Well, since Warp 1 is c, the speed of light, it should take a ship traveling to a planet 60 light years away 60 years. Pretty basic... ------------------------------ End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 112 ------------------------------