Date: Mon, 8 Feb 93 07:58:45 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V16 #138 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Mon, 8 Feb 93 Volume 16 : Issue 138 Today's Topics: Atlantis... Lurid Space Fantasy USPO stamps So what's happened to Henry Spencer? Toutatis Captured by Radar Images Units and Star Trek [Part 2] Using off-the-shelf-components 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: Fri, 5 Feb 93 00:07:31 EST From: John Roberts Subject: Atlantis... -From: jhan@debra.dgbt.doc.ca (Jerry Han) -Subject: Atlantis... -Date: 29 Jan 93 19:42:11 GMT -Organization: Communications Research Centre, Ottawa -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? [Sorry if the answer has already been posted - our site has been getting incoming mail delayed this week.] To answer your question: #From: mcdowell@head-cfa.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell) #Subject: "Jonathan's Space Report, no. 141" #Organization: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA, USA #Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 15:47:59 GMT #Jonathan's Space Report #No. 141 1993 Jan 26 #...Meanwhile, NASA orbiter OV-104 Atlantis is #at the Rockwell plant in Palmdale, California being reconfigured to #accept a docking module which would allow it to link up with the #Kristall module port in 1995, as part of a mission of an American #astronaut aboard the Mir station. I don't know whether there are any plans to use Atlantis before that mission - I would guess that there aren't. Last August, Atlantis was scheduled to fly Dennis Wingo's payload and retrieve EURECA on STS-57, but by October, Endeavour had been assigned to that flight. I believe that interval was when the MIR rendezvous mission was added. I think some of the other hardware is also being upgraded during this interval (flight control computers, etc.). John Roberts roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov ------------------------------ Date: 4 Feb 93 17:29:15 -0600 From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey Subject: Lurid Space Fantasy USPO stamps Newsgroups: sci.space,rec.arts.sf.fandom X-Date: 4 Feb 93 17:25:00 -0600 X-Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Lines: 34 X-NNTP-Posting-Host: fnalf.fnal.gov X-Xref: fnnews.fnal.gov rec.arts.sf.misc:4322 rec.arts.sf.marketplace:846 Anybody seen the U.S. Post Office's new "Space Fantasy" stamps? I just got mine. They come in a book of 20 stamps for $5.80. They are a block of five 29-centers making up one "mural." Vivid comic-book space-opera colors. Left to right, they show: --Green rocketships blasting, with Saturn's rings behind --Two saucer-shaped vehicles zooming upward; look closely to see they are really domed cities! --Two people in green spacesuits and rocket belts against a white sun --A flying-wing-type vehicle passing periliously close to the glowing green exhaust of a really big spaceship that stretches across three stamps --A fleet of three red and yellow ships against a pair of blue cloudy planets (these look more Art Deco-ish and cucumber-shaped than the ones in the first stamp) Does anybody know who the artist is? Hmm, there's a philately list on Bitnet, maybe I'll check there. I think I'll go back and get myself a ten-year supply of these! -- O~~* /_) ' / / /_/ ' , , ' ,_ _ \|/ - ~ -~~~~~~~~~~~/_) / / / / / / (_) (_) / / / _\~~~~~~~~~~~zap! / \ (_) (_) / | \ | | Bill Higgins Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory \ / Bitnet: HIGGINS@FNAL.BITNET - - Internet: HIGGINS@FNAL.FNAL.GOV ~ SPAN/Hepnet: 43011::HIGGINS ------------------------------ Date: 4 Feb 1993 22:38:54 GMT From: Doug Mohney Subject: So what's happened to Henry Spencer? Newsgroups: sci.space In article , henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >I should say, though, that Mary did one unkind thing: she warned the >Dryden tour guide (Mary seems to know everyone at Dryden) not to let me >try to sneak off with one of the SR-71s. Rats. I was looking forward >to making a run for the border at Mach 3... Good for her! Bad enough that the World Series was taken away from US *mutter*mutter*. I have talked to Ehud, and lived. -- > SYSMGR@CADLAB.ENG.UMD.EDU < -- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1993 23:55:25 GMT From: zellner@stsci.edu Subject: Toutatis Captured by Radar Images Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro In article , henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: > In article <93021.134039K3032E0@ALIJKU11.BITNET> writes: >>Has anyone an idea to which class "Toutatis" belongs? Is it a S-type- >>asteroid like "Gaspra"? ... > > Don't be too quick to declare Gaspra an S-type. The latest word is that > its magnetic field is too strong for it to be anything but nickel-iron > inside, regardless of what the surface looks like. > -- > C++ is the best example of second-system| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology > effect since OS/360. | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry Here now! Clark Chapman, David Morrison, and I introduced the C, S, M, etc. classes in a paper in Icarus in 1975. They are explicitly OPTICAL types, based on reflection spectrum and albedo. The taxonomy involves no decisions about mineralogy, though it has long been thought that the S-types are mostly stony irons. Gaspra is a peculiar S type, and Toutatis is a very typical S. Ben ------------------------------ Date: 4 Feb 1993 22:52:26 GMT From: David Geiser Subject: Units and Star Trek [Part 2] Newsgroups: sci.space momentum, their behavior apes that of neutrinos in that they do almost no damage to the matter they pass thru. Lower power simply streches the molecular bonds without breaking them, their rebounding motions translating into simple heat. In this manner, a hand phaser may be used to heat rocks for warmth, cook food, or even act as a very precise cutting torch. At the lowest useful power, the jolting of molecules is too slight to really impact inanimate matter, but does tend to produce neurological shock as large numbers of synapses have their firing threshold randomly raised or lowered. The vast number of additional versus inhibited synaptic firings causes a biological equivalent of "systems crash" leading to unconsciousness, as the nervous system becomes hopelessly confused and overloaded by spurious signals. As no actual tissue damage is sustained, the nervous system "reboots" itself eventually. Somewhat higher power can do permanent, even lethal damage to the nervous system however, and can cause a seizure-like muscular convulsion. This minimally lethal effect is not unlike electric shock. To residents of the 20th century, the transporter is perhaps a more incredible application of Cochrane's Unified Field Theory than superluminal travel, since the later affords no real Terrestrial gauge for appreciating the effect, whereas the wonder of instantaneously materializing elsewhere has been part and parcel of Earth's mythology/magic belief systems for millenia. Building on the ability of the "looped coil" to project gravitational fields, experimenters eventually learned to handle gravity waves in ways that parallel optical technology's capabilities with light waves. Ultimately, command of these techniques was sufficient to produce a gravitational wave "hologram" in which the system literally captured the continuum profile of an object down to the minutest detail of atomic constituents and molecular bondings in the intersection between its stationary "reference beam" and the rotating "scanning beam". Sophisticated split beam techiniques permitted the "projection" of a second "continuum profile image", which, depending on the operational limits of the equipment, could be located at an arbitrarily large distance and direction from the source. These experiments were originally conceived in pursuit of improved medical technology following the progression of X-rays, ultrasound, nuclear magnetic resonance, and positron emmision tomography, with the result enabling Dr. Crusher to obtain a clear view of the parasite creature embedded in Admiral Quinn during the "Conspiracy" period. The transporter breakthru grew out of experiments attempting to manipulate matter via alterations of the continuum profile associated with an object. If a continuum profile projection were maintained long enough, it began to fill itself in with atoms picked up from the environment. Eventually, it would recreate the original, though in the meantime, if sufficient power was used to intensify the projection, this profile construct could behave like the original, even appearing to be solid matter, as long it remained within range of the projection radius. At the same time, it was shown that changes in the profile of the original were reflected in the original object as well in the projection, establishing the real-time linkage between the two. Early attempts at matter manipulation were usually destructive, not until the early 24th century would the raw computer power be available for such things as the holodeck, where the projection could be based on computer simulations rather than real life / real time models, but in these pioneering efforts, the ability to project a profile back on its own source object, while maintaining an independent second projection elsewhere, was developed. Dr. Janet Hester of the Deneva Research Station first conceived the idea that if one reversed the "topological polarity" of the image projected back upon the source, in effect FLATTENING the impression it made in space/time, while simultaneously boosting the gravitational intensity, and thus the DEPTH of the spatially projected image, one could create a situation in which the probability of finding any given constituent of the source object at the original location could be reduced to zero, even as the probability of finding it at the projection's location went up to unity. Every component of an object, its atoms, the chemical bonds between them, even the ongoing molecular processes, would cascade back and forth between the twin loci of probable locations, finally coming to rest at the one brought to unity. Of all the marvels that have sprung from Zephram Cochrane's insights, none more clearly demonstrate his success at unifying gravitational space/time continuum phenomena with quantum mechanical probability functions. It would take another four decades of dedicated experiment and study before Science Officer Winston of the USS Moscow became the first human to transport across to the USS Tehran. Still more work was required before the ability of the tranporter to project a "virtual" yet functional copy of the active components of the scanning and projection processes to envelope the retrieval site would eliminate the need for physical hardware at both ends of the transport linkage, and theb to learn to bend the projection around the surfaces of planets using the natural gravitational field so that transport could be free of line-of-sight restraints. The depth of dense planetary matter the transporter can penetrate is still limited, but the often life-saving speed and conveinience of transport in general has proved well worth the time, cost, and often sacrifice it took to perfect. The Secondary Warp field effect was originally achieved by winding a second-stage "booster" coil around a specially designed Primary coil. The early versions of this system would energize the Primary coil first to navigate at low percentages of threshold power. Once clear of stellar and planetary gravitational fields, they would engage the booster coil reconfiguring their warp field into the 2nd order type. When this was accomplished, power would be steadily increased until the threshold level was attained and transition to the warp continuum occured. The Primary and the booster together constitute the Secondary coil. Should the booster fail under operational stress, a fairly common occurence in the early days, the Primary alone could be used and could operate above its threshold level to take the ship to superluminal velocities. While later vessels retained the above system layout, experience proved it far more efficient to energize the whole Secondary coil system as a single circuit, and to navigate at very low power and speeds with an independent miniature Primary system. This became known as the Impulse Drive. As it was intended only for low speed operations, this system would not normally be capable of handling the power load it would require to bring the vessel past the threshold point. However, engineers took advantage of this dual propulsion system to split the vessel itself, letting each major sub-division of the hull house one of the systems. It became customary to place the major living quarters in the hull with the smaller Impulse Drive, both to better shield the crew from the higher radiation levels the more powerful Secondary system created, and also with the idea of better accomodating the entire crew should "coil burnout" force the abandonment of the other hull. The terminology of vessel design adopted the convention of referring to the hull housing the Secondary coil system as the Secondary Hull, and the other housing the Primary coil only Impulse Drive as the Primary Hull. Tertiary drive systems simply wound yet another type of booster coil around the Primary and Secondary stages nested inside it, but as there were still only two drive systems and two main hull sections, the one with the large engine system continued to be called the Secondary Hull. In the event of separation, the Primary Hull's Impulse Drive, freed of the weight of the entire Secondary Hull and the even more massive main drive engine nacelles, is usually large enough for superluminal propulsion. This has been shown quite clearly in ST:TNG during the initial encounter with Q, when the Primary Hull found its way to Farpoint after the entire ship spent some 10 minutes pushing itself to its operational limits while going in exactly the opposite direction. It is equally well implied by Geordi's instructions to Engineer Logan to take the Primary Hull to a Starbase if unable to re-establish contact with him after performing the saucer-sep manuevar in the "Arsenal of Freedom" incident. The first three orders of warp field phenomena correspond to the first three "generations" of warp drive technology in the "Spaceflight Chronology". Logically, a "Fourth generation" designation should have waited for the developement of Quarternary warp, the sum of X^4 + (X^5)/5 + (X^6)/30 etc., equivalent formula 24*((e^W)-((W^3)/6 + (W^2)/12 + W + 1)), but the impact of Dilithium on power generation, and thus overall performance, was so great that the "Fourth generation" label took hold for the Constitution class. All orders of warp field phenomena remain subject to the Warp 10 limit on Delivered Power, but higher order warps produce greater velocity for the same Delivered Power than lower orders. (See Appendix for tables of Primary, Secondary, and Quartenary Warp Factor Equivalent Velocities). The term "Fifth generation" is usually applied to the abortive attempt to harness "Trans-Warp", a misbegotten application of the Interphase phenomena first observed by the Enterprise NCC-1701 during the "Tholian Web" incident. The abandonment of this dangerous system was made doubly disappointing by the continued failure of Federation science to perfect a workable Quartenary warp drive. The seemingly insurmountable difficulties encountered in the early attempts at Quarternary drive design were the prime reason for the costly "Trans-Warp" interlude. However, in the intervening decades advanced theoretical studies have led to vastly simpler, more reliable Tertiary drives which can be pushed, and above all held, far closer to the Warp 10 limit of Delivered Power than the original design multi-stage units. These single stage "integrated" units were first used in ship's of the NCC-1701-C's Ambassador class, and marked the arrival of warp technology's "Sixth generation". A highly refined and advanced version of this type of drive serves as the main propulsion for "Galaxy" class starships such as Enterprise NCC-1701-D. Gone are the inefficientcies of the nested, three coil approach, advances in Impulsor Calculus theory and supercomputer simulation techniques having found a single coil equivalent. As the early efforts at Quarternary warp floundered on the complexities of a four level multi-stage approach, the success of the single stage "integrated" approach for Tertiary warp has scientists of SF:TNG's era once more confident of eventual success, and aggressively paced research programs are again under way in the race for the Quartenary drive. It should be noted that the extra heavy warp nacelle mountings and overall structural strength rating of the Galaxy class design should easily permit retrofitting of Quarternary Warp engines when they become available. Montgomery Scott correctly predicted the crippling deficientcies of the Trans-Warp system, but was unable to dissuade StarFleet from investing in it. Rightly convinced that Quartenary warp would have to await improvements in warp theory permitting "integrated" designs, he attempted to convince StarFleet to allow him to challenge the Warp 10 Barrier itself. Alas, Scott was never able to secure StarFleet backing for his proposal, and only a handful of ST:TNG era technical persons who've studied his original notes even know what he had in mind. Realizing that the "SuperWarp" scheme was far too radical for his era, Scott dedicated his leisure time engineering studies to the design of the ship he felt StarFleet should build in place of more "Excelsior" class vessels. Yet this project also offered too many radical advances, as Scott was allowing for upgrades to integrated Tertiary or even Quartenary main drives in his huge dreamship. But while the Galaxy class would ultimately be larger and incorporate advances beyond his wildest imaginings, even a cursory glance at Scott's old plans and drawings reveals the striking similarities that mark the true lineage of these greatest of all StarShips. NCC-1701-D's operational status is the way Scott would most have wanted StarFleet Engineering to acknowledge its continuing debt to its greatest practitioner. As for the mechanics of SuperWarp, the mathematically inclined are invited to contemplate the significance of the other half of the hyperbola relating Generated to Delivered power, which most Federation scientists dismiss as a mere geometric curiousity. Of course, scientists once thought that C itself represented an impassable barrier, yet as Spock would say, "There are always possibilities". Without giving too much away, I can offer the following clue, that the Constitution class USS Enterprise NCC-1701 under James Kirk, once broke through the Warp Barrier by accident, the result of her Captain's famous propensity for taking desperate gambles in otherwise hopeless situations. Students of warp physics correctly identifying the occassion are eligible to win a scholarship to StarFleet academy, which, alas, may not be used until the 23rd century. -Leon Myerson; 72157,3432; 6/23/88 APPENDIX 1 - PRIMARY WARP Generated Delivered Primary Power Power Warp x C 1 1.00000 1.72 2 1.98354 6.27 3 2.96260 18.35 4 3.93509 50.17 5 4.89755 132.96 6 5.84370 344.05 7 6.76140 862.85 8 7.62571 2049.24 9 8.38615 4384.92 10 8.96633 7833.82 Theoretical Limit = 22025.47 x C Threshold Velocity = 0.5814 x C Time Dilation at threshold = 0.813205 APPENDIX 2 - SECONDARY WARP Generated Delivered Secondary Power Power Warp x C 1 1.00000 1.44 2 1.98354 8.57 3 2.96260 30.77 4 3.93509 92.46 5 4.89755 256.13 6 5.84370 676.42 7 6.76140 1712.18 8 7.62571 4083.24 9 8.38615 8753.06 10 8.96633 15649.70 Theoretical Limit = 44030.93 x C Threshold Velocity = 0.6944 x C Time Dilation at threshold = 0.717939 APPENDIX 3 - QUARTERNARY WARP Delivered Generated Quarternary Power Power Warp 1 1.0000000000 1.24 2 2.0167653720 25.34 3 3.0383208502 170.05 4 4.0670614879 742.36 5 5.1072983806 2617.92 6 6.1676537197 8218.29 7 7.2682459514 24167.20 7.5 7.8487197368 40826.52 8 8.4694304149 68510.99 8.2 8.7364919027 84149.66 8.4 9.0203187626 103286.47 8.6 9.3280961537 126697.69 8.8 9.6717993420 155331.49 9 10.0729838055 190346.01 9.1 10.3071067812 210676.62 9.2 10.5747605008 233155.87 9.3 10.8903152831 258009.95 9.4 11.2777216596 285488.88 9.5 11.7800905867 315868.94 9.6 12.4836439773 349455.49 9.7 13.5895662949 386586.00 9.8 15.7014109302 427633.43 9.9 21.8369448362 473009.97 10 INFINITE 523171.18 Theoretical Limit = 523171.18 x C Threshold Velocity = 0.8065 x C Time Dilation at threshold = 0.590200 For comparison, here is a chart of Quarternary Warp Factor equivalent velocities keyed on the older "Generated Power" scale. Generated Delivered Quarternary Power Power Warp x C 1 1.00000 1.24 2 1.98354 24.41 3 2.96260 159.92 4 3.93509 680.00 5 4.89755 2315.80 6 5.84370 6908.99 7 6.76140 18761.08 8 7.62571 46527.25 9 8.38615 101833.70 10 8.96633 183948.24 11 9.33067 266146.24 12 9.53548 327403.32 13 9.65322 368752.42 14 9.72615 396927.10 15 9.77477 416884.29 16 9.80915 431599.84 17 9.83463 442835.76 18 9.85421 451667.92 19 9.86971 458779.77 20 9.88225 464622.34 21 9.89262 469503.75 22 9.94445 494688.02 -- To know recursion, you must first know recursion. -- ------------------------------ Date: 4 Feb 93 23:47:08 GMT From: Ata Etemadi Subject: Using off-the-shelf-components Newsgroups: sci.space |> In the early 1960's the government established a series of Military |> Standard (MIL-STD) specifications for components that were to go into |> NASA and military vehicles/equipment. These specifications require items |> to be tested above and beyond the normal testing that manufacturers |> usually do; this is the main reason why NASA/military-qualified parts |> cost so much. >This cuts both ways. Hasselblad and Rolex haven't done so bad out of the >fact that their off-the-shelf products *are* space qualified. And because I remember being told that ESA and NASA generally lease Hasselblads because of the cost. Ata <(|)>. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1993 23:26:00 GMT From: Todd Pedlar Subject: Well.. Newsgroups: sci.space In article , sscrimge@mcs.dundee.ac.uk ("Stephen Scrimgeour (Jnr Hons)") writes... >To travel 60 light years at Warp 1 would take 60 years to an observer on >Earth but the actual Astronaut involved would only experience a 2 year, 8 >month journey due to Time Dilation. This is traveling at 0.999c not actually. >I'm no physicist so perhaps someone can explain what is actually meant by >Warp One - do you mean 'c' or a speed just pasth the threshold of the speed >of light? > "Warp X" is hardly standard terminology. It's asinine- not even spoken of unless you are talking sci-fi StarTrek kind of stuff - My impression is that warp x is x times the speed of light, though I could very well be wrong - you see, I'm hardly a trekkie, though I do hold a small claim on physics. Todd ______________________________________________________________________________ Todd K. Pedlar ! "I have little patience with scientists who Graduate Student ! take a board of wood, look for its thinnest Department of Physics ! part, and drill a great number of holes where Northwestern University ! drilling is easy." Albert Einstein ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 138 ------------------------------