Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 10:45:58 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V16 #151 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Fri, 12 Feb 93 Volume 16 : Issue 151 Today's Topics: Active Space Research/Home Sewage Recycling+ Ceramic tiles on Space Shuttle Cooling re-entry vehicles. extreme responses to Challenger transcript Getting people into Space Program! hilarious Just Hit 'N' ??? (2 msgs) leading-edge anonymity Sabatier Reactors. Satellite Imagery Shuttle tiles Soyuz I re-entry Supporting private space activities Tethers for electricity generation (was Re: Beanstalk?) (2 msgs) The search for Znamya 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: 7 Feb 93 18:06:24 GMT From: Gary Coffman Subject: Active Space Research/Home Sewage Recycling+ Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1l13a8INNbq7@digex.digex.com> prb@access.digex.com (Pat) writes: > > >The big thing as I see it, is that Advanced technologies may be able >to handle sewage reprocessing in a much more compact and efficeint >manner then septic fields. More efficient? I doubt it. Certainly not more energy efficient or cost efficient. Gravity and natural bacteria do all the work. Maybe smaller, but septic tanks and fields are underground and even improve the yard above them. >The trick with septic fields is that they use Large sand beds to allow the >bacteria to consume everything. Wrong. The bacteria work in the settling tank. The drain field is for liquids only and does not require sand. The drain field is buried in ordinary soil. Your soil type determines the size of the drain field for a given effluent flow. >The idea I have been mulling around is small sewage treatment facilities >that may integrate with producing biomass. > >One thing to remember, is this country faces a crisis in water >resources. Water consumption is at an rising trend, while sewage >treatment is not keeping up with population. If we could develope >small treatment facilities to supplement the central facilities >we may end up producing cleaner water.. If for some reason you can't let nature do the bulk of the work, then the economies of scale favor the large central plants. They can economically do tertiary treatment that leaves the discharge with higher purity than normal municipal water plant output. The southern part of the left coast seems to have water supply problems, as do a few other overbuilt locations, but the bulk of the country has no shortage of water. >Also developemnt of efficient small wate management systems may allow >developement of land currently unusable due to failure to perc >and non-availability of sewer. A failure of perk testing should mean that the land is unsuitable for development because it closely approaches being a wetland. It would be better to *not* make this land developable by bringing in sewage treatment IMHO. Wetlands are fragile, but highly biologically productive areas. Current federal law limits wetlands development regardless of sewer availability. 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 | | ------------------------------ Date: 7 Feb 93 13:11:02 GMT From: Angus Hay Subject: Ceramic tiles on Space Shuttle Newsgroups: sci.materials,sci.space,sci.space.shuttle In <1993Feb5.205743.1@stsci.edu> gawne@stsci.edu writes: >In article , jgrape@coos.dartmouth.edu >(Johan A. Grape) asks in sci.materials: >> I was just wondering if anyone could tell me what material >> the infamous ceramic tiles on the space shuttle are made of? >> >> Anyone know who manufactures them too? >Since I've seen this discussed at length in the space newsgroups >recently I've included them in the followup. They're some pretty >interesting composites. Someone I know plans to do a school science project on the materials used in the space shuttle. I guess there's enough info on that subject for plenty of theses, but where is it? Can anyone suggest any sources? Alternatively, where can I find archives of appropriate newsgroups? Please reply via e-mail (hay@nyquist.ee.wits.ac.za) because I don't read these groups regularly. -- * * Angus Hay, Dept of Electrical Engineering, ** * University of the Witwatersrand, ******* Private Bag 3, WITS, 2050, New South Africa * * * Internet: hay@nyquist.ee.wits.ac.za Tel:(27)(11)716-5423 * * * NeXTmail: hay@turing.ee.wits.ac.za Fax:(27)(11)403-1929 ------------------------------ Date: 7 Feb 93 14:29:25 GMT From: Del Cotter Subject: Cooling re-entry vehicles. Newsgroups: sci.space <75011@cup.portal.com> BrianT@cup.portal.com (Brian Stuart Thorn) writes: > Armed Forces Network TV runs a little spot about "American Military > Heritage", and they have a spot about Picrete (sp?) which was a > mixture of ice and sawdust for use in the construction of aircraft > carriers. Supposedly would have made carriers impervious to torpedo > attack. The Navy didn't buy it, though. :-) Pykrete was named after its inventor Geoffrey Pyke, the British engineer who invented it for proposed mid-Atlantic floating airbases during the Second World War. The Royal Navy carried out a few tests, and the results were fairly positive, but as aircraft acheived greater ranges and shorter take- off distances, the idea was dropped in favour of conventional carriers. -- ',' ' ',',' | | ',' ' ',',' ', ,',' | Del Cotter mt90dac@brunel.ac.uk | ', ,',' ',' | | ',' ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 06 Feb 93 20:22:17 PST From: Jason Cooper Subject: extreme responses to Challenger transcript Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.privacy,comp.org.eff.talk > >My posting was not libelous, obscene, or otherwise criminal. Error and bad > >are protected freedoms in this country. If you don't like my or any other > >postings, hit N. > > If you don't have the principles to stand by what you post (as other > than an anonymous loudmouth), hit 'the road'. And if you really need > 'attention' this bad, hit 'the couch' -- perhaps the good doctor can > help you. Though I never read the original posting, I have heard about it a LOT. I'm going to have to stand by the poster here and say that, though (in my humble opinion) his posting was done in bad taste, that's nothing that he should necessarily be flamed for. As he said, if you don't like it, hit N. Jason Cooper ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1993 14:00:43 GMT From: Gary Coffman Subject: Getting people into Space Program! Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993Feb3.152851.1@acad3.alaska.edu> nsmca@acad3.alaska.edu writes: >It seems that we are putting more in to our Space Program more than is >necesary.. > >Why can't we put some "common people" into orbit.. Why must it be PHds and >such. It sure would get more voters involved, after all why must I as a voter >spend money on a project for the direct benefit for some technocrat? Why not >have a national lottery for a one time position on the Shuttle or some other >mission into space.. Common people do not get excited about abstract things, >but get excited about tangible things.. If I was working for a NASA contractor, >I might get excited more about space. But if Im a autoworker, what does space >benefit me/and my job, none directly... No, but offering it as an expensive Disneyworld ride to some lottery winner doesn't benefit society either. And attempting to do so will only make space exploration seem more of a bad joke to the lay public than it does now. The big complaint now is that we are "throwing away all that money in space." Making it a sideshow ride would just emphasize the apparant lack of merit of the program in the common mind. >We need to get the space program down to the common person so that they can >understand where it is going and what benefits there is to it.. *We* don't understand where it's going or what benefits it may ultimately have. We have ideas, but we are at the stage of the mapmaker who draws "Here there be dragons" on empty spaces in his maps. What you're asking is similar to asking Lewis and Clark to take some tourists along to take a look at America. Space is not even at the point of Seward's Folly right now. It's fodder for explorers and researchers, but not yet for settlers or tourists. Any large scale benefits for society at large, aside from some remote sensing and communications, is decades away at best, centuries is probably a more likely time scale. Much as I'd like it to be true, I don't expect to see Japanese tourist hotels in space in my lifetime. Or colonies on the Moon or Mars, or large scale industrial activity for that matter. I *believe* all of that will happen eventually, but it's going to be a slow step by step process for which we are just now beginning to lay the faintest hint of infrastructure. We're floating coracles in a pond, ocean liners are a long way off. 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 | | ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1993 14:20:23 GMT From: Gary Coffman Subject: hilarious Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.privacy In article <6FEB199317111584@pavo.concordia.ca> jt_rask@pavo.concordia.ca (RASKU, JASON T.) writes: >In article <1993Feb6.183234.7579@fuug.fi>, an8785@anon.penet.fi (Tesuji) writes... >>X-Anon-To:sci.space,sci.astro,alt.privacy >> >>The response the Challenger transcript has gotten >>has been hilarious. >> >>If you guys can't joke about bone cancer, >>childhood leukemia, and facing certain >>horrifying death, then you guys don't have >>the perspective to call yourself adults. >> >>Get a life. Get *seven*. Ha ha. > >Is there anything that can be done to prevent anon postings in groups that >there is no reason to post anonomously? I CAN see some people who don't >have access to a group posting anonomously but I'm sure that consideration >can be made for them. Is there ANY way that a UNIVERSAL kill file can be >created in order to keep people from posting GARBAGE anonomusly? There is >NO reason to not post publicly if you are posting something you feel is of >worth unless you CAN'T post any other way. What does the rest of the net >think of this? The recent re-post of the Weekly World News pseudo-transcript was mildly annoying, but less so than when it was originally posted here weeks after the Challenger crash. What *has* been annoying is all the whining about anonymous posting. That has no business here. Anonymous posting is here to stay. Like other junk mail, the proper response is to ignore it. A kill file with 'anon' in it will strip such posts out of your sight, but unfortunately doesn't get rid of all the whines that follow. 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 | | ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1993 18:27:30 GMT From: hathaway@stsci.edu Subject: Just Hit 'N' ??? Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,comp.org.eff.talk > ... if you don't like it, hit N. > I must have seen this advice dozens of times on the net. Unfortunately it doesn't work. At least on my machine. When I hit "N", all I get is: %CLI-W-ABVERB, ambiguous command verb - supply more characters "NE" gets the same thing. However, "NEX" or "NEXT" goes to the following message. Is this what all this free advice (worth every penny) on 'just hit "n"' means? If so, be advised (for Free) that it ain't necessarily so. Try again. Wm. Hathaway ------------------------------ Date: 7 Feb 93 14:40:22 EST From: jason 'Think!' steiner Subject: Just Hit 'N' ??? Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,comp.org.eff.talk hathaway@stsci.edu writes: > > ... if you don't like it, hit N. > > I must have seen this advice dozens of times on the net. > Unfortunately it doesn't work. At least on my machine. When I hit > "N", all I get is: > > %CLI-W-ABVERB, ambiguous command verb - supply more characters > > "NE" gets the same thing. However, "NEX" or "NEXT" goes to the > following message. Is this what all this free advice (worth every > penny) on 'just hit "n"' means? If so, be advised (for Free) that > it ain't necessarily so. Try again. you're using a VMS newsreader (i believe it's just called 'news'). you're right, 'n' doesn't work. it -does- work on most (all?) unix newsreaders. another reason to hate VMS. jason -- me ------------------------------ Date: 7 Feb 93 14:54:22 GMT From: Steve Gardner Subject: leading-edge anonymity Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.privacy In article <1993Feb6.175932.14670@bsu-ucs> 00acearl@leo.bsuvc.bsu.edu writes: >That "trekkie monkey?" >What an ass... Aha! Trekkie-monkey denial! Get thee to a substance abuse center to be de-trekked ASAP. ;-) >What an ass... Right. ;-) These trekkies are sooo touchy about their religion. ;-) >The Ultimate "Trekkie," I doubt that. The really devout ones are all confined in rubber rooms for the good of society. ;-) smg ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1993 20:01:08 GMT From: Frank Crary Subject: Sabatier Reactors. Newsgroups: sci.space In article henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >>... they will be using hydrazine thrusters. BTW, these thrusters are the >>single heviest items to be returned to Earth. They must be returned intact >>since it would be too dangerous to re-fuel them in orbit. >The Soviets/Russians have only been doing such refuelling for ten years, >after all... And the Soviets have had an unmanned resupply craft, launched on a cheap, Atlas-class launcher, available for such refullings. As far as I know, NASA has no plans to develop such a craft, and as a cargo/fuel transport the Shuttle isn't exactly cost-effective... By the way, how do they plan to get around the no-liquid-fuel-payload requirement imposed on the Shuttle after the Challenger accident? Frank Crary CU Boulder ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1993 18:50:04 GMT From: Ed Clarke/10240000 Subject: Satellite Imagery Newsgroups: sci.image.processing,sci.aeronautics,sci.astro,sci.geo.geology,sci.geo.meteorology,sci.misc,sci.space,alt.sci.image-facility In article <1kvoboINNml2@news.cerf.net>, fraserjo@nic.cerf.net (Jody Fraser) writes: |> |> platforms for synthetic aperture radar imagery that is in the |> public domain. As an example, SEASAT which I believe was orbited |> in the mid 80's and managed by NOAA. If anyone out there on the I bought a laser-disk of various images; SEASAT provided some of them. It was said that SEASAT was very very good - showed submarine wakes in fact. It went dead shortly after this fact was noticed. Followup is set to alt.conspiracy ... ------------------------------ Date: 7 Feb 1993 21:05:08 GMT From: John F Carr Subject: Shuttle tiles Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993Feb3.054618.19369@netcom.com> nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) writes: > After the first shuttle flights, it turned out, as I recall, that >the thermal protection requirements had been somewhat overestimated, and >that titanium-based thermal protection would have worked. I heard the opposite: the thermal load, at least in places, was greater than anticipated. The shuttle survived because it was intentionally overdesigned. -- John Carr (jfc@athena.mit.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1993 15:51:28 GMT From: Tesuji Subject: Soyuz I re-entry Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.privacy X-Anon-To:sci.space,sci.astro,alt.privacy And the horror that occurred aboard the Challenger was not limited to the U. S. space program. On April 23, 1967 while Soyuz I and comsmonaut Vladimir Komarov were being monitored, one of the intercept operators reported the following conversation as problems developed during re-entry: ...They coudn't get the chute that slowed his craft down in re-entry to work. They knew what the problem was for about two hours... and were fighting to correct it. It was all in Russian of course, but we taped it and listened to it a couple of times afterwards. Kosygin called him personally. They had a video-phone conversation. Kosygin was crying. He told him he was a hero and that he had made the greatest achivement in Russian history, that they were proud, and that he'd be remebered. The guy's wife got on too. They talked for a while. He told her how to handle their affairs and what to do with the kids. It was pretty awful. Toward the last few minutes he began falling apart, saying "I don't want to die, you've got to do something." Then there was just a scream as he died. I guess he was incinerated... source: U.S. Electronic Espionage: A Memoir, Ramparts (August 1972), pp 42-43 quoted by James Bamford in "The Puzzle Palace," Penguin 1983, p 215 I'm sorry all you NASA engineering 'droids don't like the human side of space exploration -- probably reminds you of your cowardice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help@anon.penet.fi. Due to the double-blind system, any replies to this message will be anonymized, and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin@anon.penet.fi. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Feb 1993 21:01:06 GMT From: John F Carr Subject: Supporting private space activities Newsgroups: sci.space In article henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >(By contrast, the first Saturn V >rolled out to the pad in weather so bad that they had to stop for 20 >minutes or so because the visibility was too poor for safe driving.) That must be pretty severe weather, to stop a several-thousand-ton vehicle that travels about 1 mph along a smooth, well known road with no obstacles. -- John Carr (jfc@athena.mit.edu) ------------------------------ Date: 7 Feb 93 14:46:40 GMT From: Gary Coffman Subject: Tethers for electricity generation (was Re: Beanstalk?) Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1l26t0INNlqu@news.cerf.net> davsmith@nic.cerf.net (David Smith) writes: >In article <1993Feb3.154718.14078@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes: >>In article <1993Feb1.201605.1@acad3.alaska.edu> nsmca@acad3.alaska.edu writes: > >as well. Shuttle had an experiment to try it out. Remember the stuck > >reel? The main problem is the return circuit. It takes two wires to > >make a light as we say in the electrical contracting business. A tether > >moving through a magnetic field has a current induced into it, but a > >return wire would have an equal and opposing current induced into it, > >so no net current would flow. To get around that, you use brush discharge > >contactors to use the global circuit as your return path. One of the > >things our stuck reel satellite was supposed to test was how well that > >would work. > > > What about a coaxial cable? I should think a current would be generated in >the sheath but the center conductor would be shielded? Or am I forgetting >my physics here? Coaxial cables generally aren't magnetic shields. If you could magnetically shield the inner, say by using an outer that's superconductive and operating below critical field strength, then that approach should work. (A super- conductor in a magnetic field below a certain critical strength doesn't let the magnetic field penetrate it's surface. At critical strength, the magnetic field penetrates, and the superconductor is no longer superconductive. That's a catastropic failure mode.) 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 | | ------------------------------ Date: 7 Feb 93 17:41:15 GMT From: Zach K Subject: Tethers for electricity generation (was Re: Beanstalk?) Newsgroups: sci.space gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman) writes: >In article <1l26t0INNlqu@news.cerf.net> davsmith@nic.cerf.net (David Smith) writes: >>In article <1993Feb3.154718.14078@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes: >>>In article <1993Feb1.201605.1@acad3.alaska.edu> nsmca@acad3.alaska.edu writes: >> > [...] >> What about a coaxial cable? I should think a current would be generated in >>the sheath but the center conductor would be shielded? Or am I forgetting >>my physics here? >Coaxial cables generally aren't magnetic shields. If you could magnetically >shield the inner, say by using an outer that's superconductive and operating >below critical field strength, then that approach should work. (A super- >conductor in a magnetic field below a certain critical strength doesn't >let the magnetic field penetrate it's surface. At critical strength, the >magnetic field penetrates, and the superconductor is no longer superconductive. >That's a catastropic failure mode.) This sounds good, you could use the inner conductor could be used to complete the circut. Thus you have an applied voltage. However I think using this as a power source is kinda stupid. Solar is the way to go in space in my mind, this would be better for holding an orbit. (ps this was used in David Brin's story _Tank Farm Dynamo_) --Zach Zachary Kessin / Define the Universe, Give 3 ZKessin@cs.brandeis.edu / examples. (617)736-5848 / Repeal Ohm's Law ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1993 18:00:51 GMT From: Leigh Palmer Subject: The search for Znamya Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space I'd like to report my observations this morning. In brief, I did not see Znamya between 1445 and 1505 7 January 1993 UT (0645-0705 PST) and I believe I was searching the correct part of the sky. During that time I did see two bright satellites in highly inclined orbits, and I saw Mir. What follows is a description of a pleasant twenty minutes I spent in the park this morning. I arose to my alarm this morning at 0630 to the pleasant surprise of a nearly full moon streaming in through my window. I dressed warmly, grabbed my lawn chair and flashlight, and headed out into the rapidly brightening -1 C morning. My casette recorder is not working, and I decided to use my watch and flashlight instead of dragging WWV along. The big dipper (except delta) and other expected stars and Jupiter were all there, so I set up my lawn chair in a spot which put Polaris on a deciduous treetop and also shielded my eyes with shrubbery from two bright lights the unthinking Burnaby Parks people have placed without regard to where they shine. (Alas, no one values the night any more.) There were clouds in the west, and the moon hid behind them soon after I settled myself. During the entire time I was out the cloud (haze, really) slowly intruded from that direction, making the sky less transparent with time. That's a price I pay for the privilege of living beside a lake. Deer Lake has been frozen over all year, but the daytime temperatures are now so high that breakup must come very soon. At 06:48:48 a bright satellite zipped past Alkaid heading SSE, followed at 06:50:50 by another headed the same direction as it transited about fifteen degrees above Polaris. It was clear that I would be able to see Znamya (which I saw on Thursday morning) if it showed up in the same orbital plane as Mir, and it was comparably bright. I lost Polaris in the haze and growing skylight at 0655, but my treetop kept me oriented. Mir transited at 07:03:38 about 5 degrees above Polaris, within seconds of reaching the most northerly point in its orbit, and about six or seven seconds late by my calculation. (Mir's orbit is somewhat less easily predicatable than those of other satellites.) I saw lots of waterfowl, probably migratories, mostly heading SSW, but no Znamya. I conclude that it probably wasn't there, or I would have seen it. Waterfowl are commonly observed objects here at night (all hours, as near as I can figure) and I always worry about falsely recording an occultation due to one of the ghostly bogies. I can usually hear the lower ones, but at higher altitudes their whistling wings are several dB down from the sounds of the city. At 0705, with the sun less than 6 degrees below the horizon, I return to reality. Back at my computer I tried without success to identify the two bright satellites I had seen before Mir. One was somewhat like "Nadeshda 2", but the time and track were both too far off to be credible. I wished I had had my recorder to measure them better. It was a lovely way to start my day (during which I must do a lot of work). I'll have to try that again sometime soon. Have a pleasant Sunday. Leigh ------------------------------ End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 151 ------------------------------