Date: Wed, 10 Mar 93 04:57:58 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V16 #296 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Wed, 10 Mar 93 Volume 16 : Issue 296 Today's Topics: 20 kHz Power Supplies "blowing up"! Acceleration of ice (2 msgs) Aurora Update Fallen Angels Huygens will float.... JPL Fact Sheet Latest on Geminga My DCX .sig and DCX update Planetary Rovers (and intro) (lecture summary) (long) Proposed Jupiter f/c/b mission Query on sun synchronous orbits Soviet Energia: Available for Commercial Use? SSF_REdesign The courage of anonymity (2 msgs) unnecceary violence (was: Nobody cares about Fred?) Weekly reminder for Frequently Asked Questions list Who needs a plan? 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: 9 Mar 1993 15:29:20 -0500 From: Pat Subject: 20 kHz Power Supplies "blowing up"! Newsgroups: sci.space In article <9MAR199308521171@tm0006.lerc.nasa.gov> dbm0000@tm0006.lerc.nasa.gov (David B. Mckissock) writes: >In article <1ng5a0INN1lp@access.digex.com>, prb@access.digex.com (Pat) writes... >> >>Unless you were some sort of demi-god there, don't expect to >>hear every story in the program. >I worked in a System Engineering organization at the time, >and our job was to help pull together the *ENTIRE* story >concerning the SSF power distribution frequency. We >worked closely with the other work packages, the Internationals, >and Level II. It was our job to hear *EVERY* part of the story There were still numerous people in Management whose job was to not hear problems, but to roll the schedule. >relative to the decision. My guess is that your Reston >contact was outside the loop on the 20 kHz decisions, and >heard spurious rumors. ><< Discussion attacking 20 kHz deleted >> Not how you avoid a very resaonable discussion on how STUPID the 20 KHz idea even was in the first place? Can you name any competent Electrical engineers, or Computer engineers or PE's who thought this was a good idea? Given how bad the concept of 20 KHz was, why do you expect me to believe the studies on it's safety. Name 5 advantages to 20 KHz. I dare you. Name 5 disadvantages to 20 KHz. Compare and assess these. Now justify all the money spent on the 20 KHz power project. > >>Sorry, quoting some rag of documentation doesn't impress me. >The 'rag' of documentation I quoted from is the Program >Definition and Requirements Document, referred to as the >PDRD or SSP 30000. For anyone working on SSF, this document >*IS* the Holy Bible. > BIG DEAL. The system requirements document. I've seen requirements documents on lots of projects. ANd if the document is poorly done, it doesn't matter. If the people doing the work don't care about quality it doesn't matter. It's just more paper and vapor. You guys have spent a lot of money, and don't have much product to show. >You obviously don't understand how NASA operates. For the SSF >program, NASA has three Contractors responsible for building >SSF hardware (McDonnell Douglas, Rocketdyne, and Boeing). A And who is responsible for integrating their work? How come that's a major management issue? >key part of our Contracts with these folks are their >requirements documents. Each NASA center tailors the >requirements in the PDRD for their individual contract, and And how many requirements got dropped on the floor between the three tailoring jobs? Who has the contractual obligation to the whole thing? My guess is no-one. I saw the management structure for Freedom, it made the pre challenger STS management chart look clear. There is no single clear line of responsibility or control for any single system or component. each center has a piece. each contractor has a piece, each work package has a piece. when something drags, no-one has the job of really fixing it. >this 'tailored' document is part of the legal contract >between NASA and the Contractor. The requirements documents >are under tight configuration control, as changes to the >requirements lead to changes in the Contract. > Yes. >At each design review, the Contractor must provide evidence >that their design meets each and every requirement. In And how rigorous does that evidence have to be? do any PE's stamp off the designs? >any areas where the design doesn't meet the requirement, a >deviation or a waiver must be processed. > Or a smoke cloud is generated. >This whole area of requirements verification is treated >very seriously. As serious as the budget over-runs? i don't think so. IF the requirements document is such a holy bible, how come Moorehead had to re-establish two-fault tolerance into vital stabilization and propulsion systems? That was a part of the work package 2 cost over-run. I am not impressed with people waving and screaming about the quality of the paper trail. I llok at the work. Down at Kennedy, they have 2-3 inspectors for every task, and yet someone left a work scaffold inside the shuttle and it banged it up real bad when they tipped her up. three people had signed the scaffold was removed. Basic engineering criteria and design decisions were made for SSF on fatally flawed reasoning. all the paper in the world won't make up for those mistakes. I dare you to justify 3 things: 1) 20 KHz power developement. 2) Non Metric (english) component selection with the european modules being Metric. 3) Total failure to practice EVA until this year. pat ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1993 15:43:04 GMT From: John Papp Subject: Acceleration of ice Newsgroups: sci.chem,sci.engr.chem,sci.space,sci.physics Hello, I am currently doing a design project which requires the acceleration of a block of ice to about 1500 m/s in an almost pure vacuum (space). This block of ice will be under about 6.4e6 Pascals of acceleration pressure (m*a/area) in about a 100 K environment. Once this block has reached 1500m/s, the acceleration will be removed. Assumptions. The block will be ice when it begins accelerating. The acceleration will build to a constant value and will then be removed when the ice has reached 1500m/s. My question are: Will the ice liquify or sublime under the acceleration even under the zero pressure of the environment? If the ice liquifies, will it refreeze when the acceleration stops? If the ice liquifies, will it explode when the acceleration stops? If the ice liquifies, will some of it escape when the acceleration stops but most of it refreeze? As of yet, I know of no experiment that was done to answer these questions and phase diagrams of water are somewhat lacking to what happens during transition or just do not go down to the pressure and temperature values stated. Any answers or references to answers to these questions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. -- ------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | John L. Papp | "You sound like a manure salesman | | jpapp@uceng.uc.edu | with a mouth full of samples." | ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1993 19:45:38 GMT From: Charles Pooley Subject: Acceleration of ice Newsgroups: sci.chem,sci.engr.chem,sci.space,sci.physics In article 11412 several questions were asked re a proposal to design some sort of gas gun (my guess) to accelerate ice (prob. from Lunar surface, also my guess), and there was concern about the state of ice during acceleration. You said the ice temp was to be about 100 K. At this temp, ice is very hard, probably somewhat brittle, and with very low volatility--1 kg ought to be ok for a thousand years. Prob. there would be a little loss from transient heating of the base and sides of the ice slug as it is exposed to high temp gas and to friction with the tube wall (I'm assuming a gas gun), but as the transient will be brief and the thermal conductivity of ice is low, only a tiny amount of water would be lost, then the surface temp would return to that of the bulk of the ice. Probably the only tricky thing would be in preventing the ice slugs from breaking... Have you considering squirting water from a nozzle? The H2O could be at -20 C or so, as it would be liquid inside the nozzle, then would freeze as the pressure falls enough. Then there would be a fast moving stream of ice at something below -20 C, and some of that would sublimate til the bulk temp got low enough to stop evaporation in vacuum. Fun part is calculating pressurw you will need... -- Charles Pooley ckp@netcom.com GEnie c.pooley EE consultant, Los Angeles, CA ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1993 01:42:20 GMT From: Craig Keithley Subject: Aurora Update Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1ng61cINN27t@access.digex.com>, prb@access.digex.com (Pat) wrote: > > > if the refuelers operate from nevada, they need refuelers. and the crews > get wore out. > I realize that you're referring to the refuelers, but the reference tickled my memory that Aurora was a drone (tele-operated?). Sorry, I haven't following the Aurora thread closely enough to see the answer to: is Aurora a drone? If so, what does that do for its manueverability and acceleration? And what's the back of envelope estimate for weight savings on a crewless vehicle? Craig Keithley |"I don't remember, I don't recall, Apple Computer, Inc. |I got no memory of anything at all" keithley@apple.com |Peter Gabriel, Third Album (1980) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 18:55:39 GMT From: Dave Jones Subject: Fallen Angels Newsgroups: sci.space Daniel Myers (myers@cs.scarolina.edu) wrote: > roland.dobbins@the-matrix.com (Roland Dobbins) writes: > > [lots of stuff deleted] > > >Phoenix is the brainchild of Gary Hudson, who appeared as himself in the > >book. He can be reaced on BIX as "ghudson". > > I am VERY interested in this topic. How does one on internet reach > anyone on BIX? > Since last month, its just been a matter of e-mailing "userid@bix.com". Don't expect immediate receipt of your mail on BIX. Its a dial-up service and some busy souls may only jump in once a week (hopefully not much more: mail is expired after 15 days). If you want to trawl for more IDs, buy Byte or Windows magazines, or join us on BIX! -- ||Dave Jones (dj@ekcolor.ssd.kodak.com)|Eastman Kodak Co. Rochester, NY | BIX:davejone ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1993 02:39:02 GMT From: Jonathan Stone Subject: Huygens will float.... Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.sci.planetary > [...] the probe >would float deep enough such that the refractive index sensor would >be fully immersed, but high enough so that the Descent Imager/Specral >radiometer is above the waterline. ^^^^^^^^^^ Is there is a generally-accepted planetary-science generic term analogous to ``waterline'', but for liquids that aren't H20. Is ``waterline'' that term, and if not, what is it? And do we already know enough about Titan's atmospheric composition and surface temperature to engineer a probe that will float in all plausible Titanian surface liquids? If not, what *will* Hugyens float in? Liquid ammonia?? In case it isn't clear, these are genuine questions, not sarcasm or pedantic second-guessing of JPL... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1993 18:42:04 GMT From: Jeff Bytof Subject: JPL Fact Sheet Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro In article <1993Mar9.025636.23199@ee.ubc.ca> davem@ee.ubc.ca (Dave Michelson) writes: >From: davem@ee.ubc.ca (Dave Michelson) >>Mars; Mariner 7, launched in 1969 to Mars; Mariner 8 and 9, >>launched in 1971 to orbit Mars. >Interesting summary, but I would hardly classify Mariner 8 as a >"successful Mariner" :-( Was Mariner 8 a launch abort? -rabjab ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1993 19:02:24 GMT From: gawne@stsci.edu Subject: Latest on Geminga Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro Earlier I wrote: >>Italian astronomers at the >>Universities of Milan and Cassino have now reanalyzed optical images >>recorded over the period 1984-92 and have determined that Geminga >>moves across the sky at a rate of 0.17 arcsec/year and that its >>distance from Earth is about 300 light years (G.F. Bignami et al., >>Nature 25 Feb. 1993.) This inspired Richard M. Mathews to ask: > What are the error ranges on these proper motion and distance numbers? So I pulled out the 25 Feb Nature over lunch to check. Bignami et al give proper motion in RA as 0.14" per yr and in dec as 0.10" per year, for a total of 0.17" per year with what they call a "conservative" error estimate of +/- 0.05" per year. It is a very good article, and well worth reading. If you have access to Nature go on and take a look at it. I agree with the authors that their error estimate is *quite* conservative. Their most serious limitation is that they only have three data points to work with. Since each of the three images came from a different telescope/detector with differing plate scales the greatest source of possible error is in matching up the data. The authors spend a fair amount of print explaining how they worked to overcome these problems. Concerning the distance, earlier today Dick Edgar wrote: > I don't know about the proper motion, but the distance estimate I can address. > Quoting from the Holt & Halpern paper (Nature, 357, 306; 28 May 1992): [quotation giving distance between 380 and 38 pc deleted for brevity] > So to paraphrase: *if* only 1% of the spin-down energy comes out in gamma > rays (and where does the rest go? The gamma/x-ray luminosity ratio is > over 1000...), and *if* the radiation is isotropic, then the pulsar is > about 38 parsecs away. [...] Bignami et al discuss the distance in their article too. Purely from proper motion considerations they concede it *could* be a solar system object. But _if_ their identification of the optical source as the optical counterpart of the Geminga pulsar/gamma source is correct then from the well established literature covering distances to pulsars they find a distance of order 100 pc, well within the bounds given by Dick above. -Bill Gawne, Space Telescope Science Institute "Forgive him, he is a barbarian, who thinks the customs of his tribe are the laws of the universe." - G. J. Caesar ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1993 19:56:35 GMT From: "Allen W. Sherzer" Subject: My DCX .sig and DCX update Newsgroups: sci.space Several people have sent email about the change in my .sig file and wondering if something happened to the DCX schedule. DCX is still on schedule, it was a bug in the deamon which updates my .sig. The vehicle is pretty much assembled now and is currently scheduled to be rolled out at the end of this month (they are trying to get Gore to attend the rollout, drop him a line and ask him to do so). There is still a need to write to Gore and ask for full finding of DC-Y. The NRC recently visited the DCX hanger and came away very impressed. Last year they where mildly critical of the effort but seeing actual hardware being built so quickly and efficiently has changed some mines. I was also told that the HL-20 people from NASA Langly saw it late last year. I asked my source what they thought of it. He said they where 'very quiet'. Allen -- +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves | | aws@iti.org | nothing undone" | +----------------------98 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1993 18:04:20 GMT From: Richard Man Subject: Planetary Rovers (and intro) (lecture summary) (long) Newsgroups: sci.space In article <9MAR199300341886@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov>, baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke) writes: > In article , tombaker@world.std.com (Tom A Baker) writes... > >The Viking probes sent back fairly boring pictures because we > >landed them on boring but safe places - we couldn't afford to > >lose them by, for example, landing in high wind area. > > Boring? The Viking Lander images were *spectacular*. > Safe locations were chosen for the Viking landing sites. You normally > want the spacecraft to survive the landing. Actually, Tom didn't write that. I did. I agree the Viking images were *spectacular* - I have some of the posters. The point in the article though is that some micro-rover folks think that if we can afford to send many rovers instead of just one or two, then we can afford to scatter them in many places, possibly in "unsafe" area. > >These uses might be impractical on a large, > >less mobile robot like JPL's Robbie from the 1970's - a big slow > >machine, moving only 1 inch/hour. > > Your facts are a bit off about Robby. > Robby is an autonomous JPL rover of the 1990's. It is about the size of a car, > but much smaller than something like Ambler. A couple of years ago > in a test run in a dry riverbed, it covered over 100 meters in 4 hours > 20 minutes, which comes out to about 1.25 feet/minute. Roxanne wrote this from the note she took. Either she or the speaker could have made the error. I apologize for letting the error through. Richard Man, Boston NSS SpaceViews editor. -- - Richard F. Man (man@labrea.zko.dec.com) "Small Rovers, Big Dreams" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1993 19:47:42 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: Proposed Jupiter f/c/b mission Newsgroups: sci.space In article pgf@srl01.cacs.usl.edu ("Phil G. Fraering") writes: >Earth-moon or earth-sun lagrange point? > >It looks like you're talking about the earth-sun L1 point, but >isn't that a little far? Sounded to me like Earth-Sun, and it's only about 1.5 million km away. A halo orbit around the Earth-Sun L1 is a good place to park something that wants to be well away from Earth and in continuous sunlight. The station-keeping costs are small. -- C++ is the best example of second-system| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology effect since OS/360. | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1993 20:05:43 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: Query on sun synchronous orbits Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993Mar9.074348.20649@bby.com.au> gnb@baby.bby.com.au (Gregory N. Bond) writes: > The Earth is not a perfect sphere, and this means that orbits around it > are not simple Keplerian orbits. > >Is this an artifact of the 'oblate-ness' (i.e. equatorial bulge) or >the non-uniform density (i.e. mascons)? To a first approximation, the Earth is a sphere. This approximation isn't good enough to track orbiting objects for more than, say, a few days. To a second approximation, it's an oblate spheroid, a sphere with an equatorial bulge. This is actually good enough for most purposes, and is what I was referring to. To a third approximation, the north and south hemispheres are not quite the same shape; the Earth is slightly pear-shaped. To a fourth approximation, the equator is slightly elliptical. This means that there are really only two fully stable points in Clarke orbit, for example, and comsats have to do regular station-keeping burns to hold their desired longitudes. The Earth's exact "gravitational shape" is lumpy and complicated, but it doesn't have random mascons that are strong enough to be noticeable for normal missions, unlike the Moon and Mars where they can't be ignored. >I suspect we would need to know a lot about the gravity field around a >body before we could compute a Sun-synch orbit... For this you only need the second-approximation level, and the data for that is probably already in hand for Mars. >Can sun-sychnronous orbits have arbitary periods? ... In principle; you adjust altitude to set period, and adjust inclination to make it sun-synchronous. In practice, by the time you get out to Clarke orbit, you worry much more about perturbations from the Moon and Sun than from minor details of Earth's gravity. Comsats spend most of their stationkeeping fuel fighting lunar/solar effects. Note that a one-day sun-synchronous orbit wouldn't be geostationary, since it wouldn't be above the equator. -- C++ is the best example of second-system| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology effect since OS/360. | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 9 Mar 1993 15:08:44 -0500 From: Pat Subject: Soviet Energia: Available for Commercial Use? Newsgroups: sci.space Problem with energiya, is there is alimited test base for the rocket. it hasn't gone through a full qualification program. Some of the big Com Sat proposals could use a big ELV, and a lot of other programs could use something like it, but it needs to be demonstrated as operational. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Mar 1993 18:45:40 GMT From: Andy Cohen Subject: SSF_REdesign Newsgroups: sci.space In article <14731237@ofa123.fidonet.org>, David.Anderman@ofa123.fidonet.org wrote: > > Anton, > > There are several possible new designs for SSF, ranging from a simple > cut-down of the current design - leaving a man-tended platform, to a station > using Russian components and launchers. The wild card in the speculation is > the US Senate race in Texas, which may result in the most conservative design > possible being selected soon. > > At any rate, we will know within 90 - 180 days. If the process works poorly, > and the Texas Senate race intereferes, we may see a poor design, with Goldin > out the door shortly thereafter... > > --- Maximus 2.01wb We were told through official sources that the redesign effort will be 60-90 days and headed up by an Apollo-world vet named Shea. Goldin's support to all of the current adiminstration's moves will likely keep him in place.....we've heard he's staying. One of the proposals are a wingless shuttle body. Instead of wings there are expanding solar panels and the crew area is replaced by Resource Node-like connections...tying these shuttle bodies together.....guess which contractor came up with that?! Read last weeks Av Week&Space Tech....for more.... My opinion: This is the setup for cancellation. Clinton says he supports it and funds it over $2B....making it a big, fat target and looking like he kept his campaign promise. He then directs a redesign which will make a 1996 FEL virtually impossible and places the program WAY off balance causing serious SS design cost overruns.... The house proposes cancellation (as they have EVERY year) and this time the President doesnt stop the bill. He does not look like the bad guy since the house kills it for the house proposed budget..... Result: no Space Station and.........100,000 out of work(not counting the impact to shuttle). Unless the public says NAY...... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1993 14:48:51 -0500 From: Nicholas Kramer Subject: The courage of anonymity Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,sci.space,alt.privacy Excerpts from netnews.comp.org.eff.talk: 8-Mar-93 Re: The courage of anonymity by chang@guvax.acc.georgeto > Ideas are ideas and who posts them > does not make them stronger or weaker, unless it has to do with an > issue of believability that requires an expert to back up. And I ask you: How many people here give different weight to ideas on Usenet based on the author? Am I truly unique, or do other people also have trouble keeping track of exactly who said what? I for one almost never even READ the name of the author, much less give it much thought. In the end, I think for every instance of "truth by reputation," there is an instance of anonymous mail abuse. Nick ------------------------------ Date: 9 Mar 93 13:48:08 GMT From: Matt Rosenblatt Subject: The courage of anonymity Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,sci.space In article <1993Mar7.004339.4397@fuug.fi> an8785@anon.penet.fi writes: >As far as anonymous postings in general, the threats of >personal violence that the Challenger post unearthed, for me, >more than confirmed my decision to use it. [anon8785] Huh? Threats of personal violence? Like, "You nisht-gutfa! I'm gonna take the next train to Princeton Junction and give you such a khmallyeh, when you wake up, your clothes'll be out of style!"? How can one threaten an anonymous poster with personal violence? -- Matt Rosenblatt (matt@amsaa-cleo.brl.mil) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - MIRACLE MYSTERY AUTHORITY ------------------------------ Date: 9 Mar 1993 17:42:31 GMT From: Doug Mohney Subject: unnecceary violence (was: Nobody cares about Fred?) Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993Mar9.165816.2333@iti.org>, aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) writes: >In article <1n8mbeINNkto@mojo.eng.umd.edu> sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu writes: > >>Oh? Did Mr. Ford talk to you lately? > >No Doug, he's dead. So? Who said that would stop you? >>The United States government is not Henry Ford. >Irrelevant. It is NOT. >I maintain that spending less money for the same services is a good >thing. You seem to disagree but are a little unclear on the exact >reason (prefering to call me a commie or red-neck depending on your >mood). I don't seem to call you either a commie or a redneck. However, rather than creating a market for services, you seem to be hell-bound to force one solution (Soyuz/Atlas) in place of another (Shuttle). I can't see how you say you believe in free market mechanisms when you insist upon a specific solution as the be-all, end-all. >>Every time I mention that you have less lobbying money to lobby against Shuttle >>than Rockwell and Lockheed have to lobby FOR STS, you refuse to address >>the issue. > >Well I have my own lobbiests. At the moment, I'll see your Rockwell lobbiests >and raise you Lockheed, Boeing, Douglas, and Martin Marrietta. They are all >pushing for SSTO which will end the Shuttle program. Sure. STS is destined to terminate around 2005-2010. Your personal agenda appears to be Kill The Shuttle Now/Worry about consequences later. Why don't you post a clear date on when you want to see Shuttle operations stop, so there won't be ANY ambiguity involved. >>>My solution would be to have them work in a larger self sustaining >>>space economy. >>There ain't no such thing. >So long as people insist on supporting expensive program which rob >payloads from cheaper systems you are correct. > >You yourself already admit this. That's is why your bottom line arguement >is that Shuttle must stay because it's a good jobs program. If there were gold in them there hills, there are any number of billionaires and large corporations to "Just do it." However, we don't see Hynduai building launchers, or H. Ross Perot sticking his ears into the conquest of the Final Frontier for fun and profit. The bottom line is that you'd cut the throats of people without a rational transitional plan, and without the consequences. Your urge to freely spit on NASA at any opportunity demonstrates this. My "bottom line arguement" isn't "Keep the SHuttle as a Jobs Program." Shuttle is a unique national asset which is not casually replaced by any of your back-of-the-cocktail-napkin schemes. The political forces involved in terminating a national asset with symbolic value are far beyond your measly efforts, young Skywalker. :-) Especially when you start adding up the amount of money which is already being cut out of DoD and NASA. >>About the only "self-sustaining" part of the space economy are comm sats, with >>future growth in remote imaging. > >Sure, but what would happen if launch costs dropped by a factor of two >overnight? That's what would happen if NASA got out of the operations >buisness. Fine, if it's so brilliant, than OSC or any of the other private bucks will (eventually) come up with a "cheaper" solution. However, OSC and the other new kids on the block are finding that launching UNMANNED hardware isn't the technical or financial cakewalk which you allege. Software engineering? That's like military intelligence, isn't it? -- > SYSMGR@CADLAB.ENG.UMD.EDU < -- ------------------------------ Date: 9 Mar 1993 13:02:39 -0500 From: Jon Leech Subject: Weekly reminder for Frequently Asked Questions list Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,sci.space.shuttle This notice will be posted weekly in sci.space, sci.astro, and sci.space.shuttle. The Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list for sci.space and sci.astro is posted approximately monthly. It also covers many questions that come up on sci.space.shuttle (for shuttle launch dates, see below). The FAQ is posted with a long expiration date, so a copy may be in your news spool directory (look at old articles in sci.space). If not, here are two ways to get a copy without waiting for the next posting: (1) If your machine is on the Internet, it can be obtained by anonymous FTP from the SPACE archive at ames.arc.nasa.gov (128.102.18.3) in directory pub/SPACE/FAQ. (2) Otherwise, send email to 'archive-server@ames.arc.nasa.gov' containing the single line: help The archive server will return directions on how to use it. To get an index of files in the FAQ directory, send email containing the lines: send space FAQ/Index send space FAQ/faq1 Use these files as a guide to which other files to retrieve to answer your questions. Shuttle launch dates are posted by Ken Hollis periodically in sci.space.shuttle. A copy of his manifest is now available in the Ames archive in pub/SPACE/FAQ/manifest and may be requested from the email archive-server with 'send space FAQ/manifest'. Please get this document instead of posting requests for information on launches and landings. Do not post followups to this article; respond to the author. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1993 19:59:12 GMT From: Charles Pooley Subject: Who needs a plan? Newsgroups: sci.space Various people have been wondering what might save NASA and the space program as we know it. The only thing that will is, first, that SETI be successful in discovering a civilization 'out there', and discover that they are Communists... Nothing else will do it. Meanwhile we may have to get back to where DR. Goddard was before he was interrupted by WWII.... -- Charles Pooley ckp@netcom.com GEnie c.pooley EE consultant, Los Angeles, CA ------------------------------ End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 296 ------------------------------