Date: Sun, 14 Mar 93 05:22:08 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V16 #312 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Sun, 14 Mar 93 Volume 16 : Issue 312 Today's Topics: Charon: Planet or moon? (3 msgs) Clementine, SDIO, ABM Treaty DC-X (2 msgs) Life in the Galaxy Mars exploration (2 msgs) Mars Observer Orbital Elements Pluto Fast Flyby post-flyby fate (2 msgs) Query on sun synchronous orbits Road & Track road tests 1996 JPL Rocky IV Microrover See if this gets cancelled by Pepe Depew shuttle-derived vehicles Sisters of Mars Observer (was Re: Refueling in orbit) Threat of mass cancellings was Re: Anonymity is NOT the issue (3 msgs) Timberwind on Beyond 2000 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: 14 Mar 93 00:26:54 GMT From: Arthur Chandler Subject: Charon: Planet or moon? Newsgroups: sci.space I apologize if this question seems to elementary for this group; but how else are the uninformed masses going to learn? :<) Is Charon a moon or a coplanet of Pluto? And what, if any, are the formal distinctions between the two categories? And finally, is there any minimum size for a body to be considered a moon, and not just orbiting debris? In other words, would you call a 2-centimenter rock revolving around a planet a moon of that planet? Thanks for the clarification. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1993 01:39:10 GMT From: Michael Moroney Subject: Charon: Planet or moon? Newsgroups: sci.space arthurc@sfsuvax1.sfsu.edu (Arthur Chandler) writes: > I apologize if this question seems to elementary for this group; but >how else are the uninformed masses going to learn? :<) > Is Charon a moon or a coplanet of Pluto? And what, if any, are the >formal distinctions between the two categories? And finally, is there Well, since Pluto itself is hardly large enough to qualify for "planet", much less Charon, perhaps it's just best to consider them both moons without a planet, orbiting each other instead. many :-) -Mike ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1993 06:31:15 GMT From: zellner@stsci.edu Subject: Charon: Planet or moon? Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993Mar14.002654.7038@csus.edu>, arthurc@sfsuvax1.sfsu.edu (Arthur Chandler) writes: > > I apologize if this question seems to elementary for this group; but > how else are the uninformed masses going to learn? :<) > Is Charon a moon or a coplanet of Pluto? And what, if any, are the > formal distinctions between the two categories? And finally, is there > any minimum size for a body to be considered a moon, and not just > orbiting debris? In other words, would you call a 2-centimenter rock > revolving around a planet a moon of that planet? > Thanks for the clarification. > There is no basis for any formal distinction. Call it what you like. Ben ------------------------------ Date: 14 Mar 1993 00:31:14 -0500 From: Pat Subject: Clementine, SDIO, ABM Treaty Newsgroups: sci.space For Brian who Asked: THe ABM treaty, like all other treaties we signed with the SOviet union is still in effect. Our requirement for Recognizing the CIS government and the Russian Federal Republic was they blanket accept the treaties in force in whole. THey had the choice of an up or down acceptance. If they rejected any one treaty, then they were going to have to re-negotiate all of them. The prospect of facing jesse helms over 150 times, was so scary, they signed. Even worse, rush limbaugh might have started ranting, and then where would we be *gak*. pat PS THe CIS and russians had to take joint responsibilty for all foreign debts. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Mar 1993 22:22:30 GMT From: Jeffrey David Hagen Subject: DC-X Newsgroups: sci.space This may be a question that has already been answered in this group, but I'll ask anyway. Do you know what portion of its payload the DCY will be able to RETURN from orbit? Jeff Hagen Rice University ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Mar 1993 23:58:12 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: DC-X Newsgroups: sci.space In article hagen@owlnet.rice.edu (Jeffrey David Hagen) writes: >... what portion of its payload the DCY will be able to RETURN from orbit? All of it. It can't do intact aborts otherwise. -- 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: Sat, 13 Mar 1993 21:57:54 GMT From: Josh Hopkins Subject: Life in the Galaxy Newsgroups: sci.space rabjab@golem.ucsd.edu (Jeff Bytof) writes: > Some Thoughts on Technological Life in the Galaxy > ------------------------------------------------- >If technological life were abundant in the galaxy (and I don't think it >is) then we might have to face annihilation or assimilation with a fair >degree of certainty, in my opinion. If new technological life forms commonly face annihilation and the galaxy still manages to teem with life then new civilizations must be popping up all over the place. Assimilation poses other interesting questions. One might examine the interactions between western visitors and various native cultures. What determines their fate? >Not that they would travel here >directly, but that when the "galactic conversation" got around to biology >they (and we) might want to trade DNA sequences. Whatever the importance >to our science of such an exchange, it might give them the knowledge to >effectively introduce something nasty into our biosphere, and do it by >either unwitting cooperation on our part or by swift dispatch of a >small ampule to our Solar System and Earth. Dispatching data seems much more likely than hardware. It is, after all, a few trillion times cheaper and selectively destroys only those planets which develop intelligence enough to be threatening. However, I tend to go along with the hope that any civilization that contacts us will have "outgrown" violence or at least not feel threatend. Whether my belief is based in reality or simply stems from optimistic naivite is open to question. The possibility for disease is an interesting one, but it seems more likely to be accidental than deliberate. If you take a look at the population of native Americans before and after Columbus you'll see tha huge numbers of people did die, but that most of them were killed by European diseases. Even if saints had discovered the "New World" the problem would still have occured. However, we can hope that anyone who wants to assemble alien designs, be they hardware or biological, will use caution. >This is what I would call >the "Galactic Jungle" model. Oh come on! You have to call it the Andromeda Strain model :-) >On the other hand, I believe that technological life is very sparse in >the Galaxy, and so favor the "Desert" model. A possible activity in such a >model would be the placement in counter-revolving galactic orbits of a >series of automated stations that would be designed to relay general >astronomical information back to the home planet. >I estimate as the most probable scenerio that any systematized >transmission we receive from another technological civilization will be >from an automated probe within 1000 light years. Care to tell us where the number came from? It would seem to require an understanding of the industrial capacity and population of the galaxy. >Thus we have quite a >while to wait before such a station detects the earth. And while you're at it, explain why this follows. >The placement >of automated probes effectively increases N in the Drake equation, and >perhaps we should add factors to the equation that estimates the number of >working probes that technological civilizations deploy and how long >they might last. N in the Drake equation is the number of civilizations in the galaxy. This concept does not increase N, it just increases the probability that two of those civilizations will be aware of each other. -- Josh Hopkins jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu "Tout ce qu'un homme est capable d'imaginer, d'autres hommes seront capable de la realiser" -Jules Verne ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1993 02:51:44 GMT From: Steve Collins Subject: Mars exploration Newsgroups: sci.space I know some folks working on MESUR at JPL and I think you would be hard pressed to keep them from using VR at some level, especially if the full MESUR network is flown. I think that you should expect VR access to the Mars Observer data as well. As the technology becomes available comercially, it my become hard to get the old flat displays we are used to now. When was the last time you saw a card reader or a current loop tty?... ? Steve Collins MO Spacecraft Team (AACS) ------------------------------ Date: 14 Mar 1993 00:24:29 -0500 From: Pat Subject: Mars exploration Newsgroups: sci.space In article collins@well.sf.ca.us (Steve Collins) writes: >When was the last time you saw a card reader or a current loop tty?... Walk into any army Data processing center. Better wear safety boots in case a wire board is lying on the floor. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1993 03:08:05 GMT From: Steve Collins Subject: Mars Observer Orbital Elements Newsgroups: sci.space For the cruise trajectory, the inclination is referenced to the mean orbit of the Earth about the sun at the J2000 epoch. For the Mars orbits, it is WRT the Mars mean Equator {at J2000.zVLP} That is: the inclination is the angle between the normal to the MO orbit and the normal to the Earth's orbit ( or the mars equator) respectively. Steve Collins MO spacecraft team (AACS) ------------------------------ Date: 13 Mar 93 23:28:55 GMT From: Kenneth Ng Subject: Pluto Fast Flyby post-flyby fate Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1ngfkuINNfev@gap.caltech.edu: jafoust@cco.caltech.edu (Jeff Foust) writes: :In a recent article dubois@oxford.ac.uk (Gregory P Dubois) writes: :>Leaving aside all the questions :>which can be asked about the past efforts, given that the Pluto Fast :>Flyby mission currently under consideration will presumably be on an :>escape trajectory, does anyone know if there has been any serious :>consideration of affixing some form of message to the two spacecraft? :In the working draft of the Pluto Project plan, there is a provision for :carrying on the spacecraft a "commemorative plaque and/or encoded historical :cultural information", provided that it has a mass of less than 0.3 kg and :little or no cost that the project would have to incur. Hm, how about this: sell space to write your own message on a strip of microfilm? 1/2 :-) Proceeds will go toward the funding of the probe. -- Kenneth Ng Please reply to ken@eies2.njit.edu for now. "All this might be an elaborate simulation running in a little device sitting on someone's table" -- J.L. Picard: ST:TNG ------------------------------ Date: 14 Mar 1993 09:46:46 GMT From: George William Herbert Subject: Pluto Fast Flyby post-flyby fate Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993Mar13.232855.9186@sugra.uucp> ken@sugra.uucp (Kenneth Ng) writes: >:In the working draft of the Pluto Project plan, there is a provision for >:carrying on the spacecraft a "commemorative plaque and/or encoded historical >:cultural information", provided that it has a mass of less than 0.3 kg and >:little or no cost that the project would have to incur. > >Hm, how about this: sell space to write your own message on a strip of >microfilm? 1/2 :-) Proceeds will go toward the funding of the probe. Better Yet, a CD-ROM with archives of sci.space... [little green man lands UFO on White House lawn, gets out, walks up to confused President and asks "Take us to Henry Spencer!..." ;-) ] -george ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1993 03:20:36 GMT From: Steve Collins Subject: Query on sun synchronous orbits Newsgroups: sci.space Mars Observer is in fact using a sun syncronous orbit for mapping.{ I belive it is also a "frozen" orbit in that the eccentricity is chosen to prevent the v:w3argument of periapsis from changing Steve Collins MO Spacecraft Team AACS ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Mar 1993 07:41:28 GMT From: Daniel Burstein Subject: Road & Track road tests 1996 JPL Rocky IV Microrover Newsgroups: sci.space the review I'd like to see is for the Saturn V's tractor trailer... weight of umpity umpity tons, top speed 0.something miles per hour, acceleration of near zero and with a pretty looooonnnng stopping distance. dannyb@panix.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1993 17:35:27 GMT From: an4312@anon.penet.fi Subject: See if this gets cancelled by Pepe Depew Newsgroups: sci.space Meaningless test message with no controversial content, though perhaps irritating by its very presence and worthy of automatic cancellation by the new self-appointed net god Pepe Depew. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. *IMPORTANT server security update*, mail to update@anon.penet.fi for details. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Mar 1993 09:50:26 GMT From: George William Herbert Subject: shuttle-derived vehicles Newsgroups: sci.space In article henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >Actually, Zubrin's Ares, as of his presentation at the last Worldcon, has >its SSMEs in a little pod where the orbiter's tail section is now, although >it puts its payload (and upper stage) on top of the ET rather than >immediately above the SSMEs. Ah, was wondering when they were going to get around to trying that one. >However, Ares is only the latest of a long line of such shuttle-derived >launchers; Zubrin didn't invent the idea. I think the man responsible for the Ares concepts is Dave Baker at Martin Marietta. He and Zubrin were working closely together for obvious reasons; Zubrin has the mission (40 ton chunks of a manned Mars program) and Baker has the potential vehicle. -george william herbert ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1993 03:01:39 GMT From: Steve Collins Subject: Sisters of Mars Observer (was Re: Refueling in orbit) Newsgroups: sci.space i] The MO spares are already being rummaged through for use on other missions. MESUR is looking hard at the possibility of using some of our AACS hardware and I believe that some components are already assigned to other projects. I understand that Magellen used a fair number of Galileo spares in this way. Steve Collins MO SCT (AACS) ------------------------------ Date: 14 Mar 93 00:08:34 GMT From: Jonathan Eifrig Subject: Threat of mass cancellings was Re: Anonymity is NOT the issue Newsgroups: news.admin.policy,comp.org.eff.talk,sci.space,alt.privacy,news.admin In article nk24+@andrew.cmu.edu (Nicholas Kramer) writes: >We seem to agree on >the basics: Sending cancel messages isn't a great solution. I'm surprized that no one has brought up the _real_ reason that vigilante cancel messages aren't a good idea: Suppose someone on the Net (like me, for instance! :-)) decides that cancelling other people's articles really just Isn't The Thing. Thus, he programs his news software so that, when it receives a cancel message, REPOSTS the article instead of cancelling it. Can you say "Bandwidth Overload," boys and girls? :-) The really sad thing is that this is just the same sort of knee-jerk, paternalistic crap we see from the Fundamentalists who spend their lives looking for smut to stamp out. Let's face it: if somebody doesn't want to see anonymous postings, there are readily available technical solutions: the killfile, for one. What this clown wants to do is to dictate content for _everyone_ based on his preferences. What a moron; he probably thought the Meese commission was to lenient. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= "If you start throwing hedgehogs under me, I shall thow two porcupines under you." - Nikita Kruschev Jack Eifrig (eifrig@cs.jhu.edu) The Johns Hopkins University, C.S. Dept. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Mar 93 14:38:01 EST From: "George W. Pogue (Bill " Subject: Threat of mass cancellings was Re: Anonymity is NOT the issue Newsgroups: news.admin,comp.org.eff.talk,sci.space,alt.privacy,news.admin.policy "William C. Hulley" writes: > > we can assume that three things will happen if rick enacts his > delightfully sensitive censorship scheme: > > - his site will be cut off from the rest of the net, > > - another anonymous site with a different naming scheme will be started > within hours, > > - someone will try to post anonymously and when that post is > "moderatedly moderated" he or she will contact the EFF and the ACLU > and begin, probably through the courts, an action to protect our > first amendment rights. > > gee rick, i dunno, this ARMM thingy doesn't sound like such a good > idea, maybe you should think about it just a wee bit more before you > implement it. I think that you are right on this... first, if I posted anon and it suddenly disappeared then I'd sure start wondering what happened. Let's think now, the only way rick can stop a post if it his site is the first to receive it. Otherwise, the anon will get into the group and passed on endlessly. The only sites that will have this major kludge is his and any he feeds. Second, the ACLU and the EFF would be highly interested in this act. They of course love to fight for first amendment rights and have more than enough deep pockets to drag this out. Does rick? Moderation in an otherwise unmoderated group is censorship. Better watch it! bill ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Buy & Sell American When Possible! <-> All Standard Disclaimers Do Apply! gwp@dithots.blackwlf.mese.com (George W. Pogue (Bill )) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: 14 Mar 1993 06:33:35 GMT From: Peter Honeyman Subject: Threat of mass cancellings was Re: Anonymity is NOT the issue Newsgroups: news.admin.policy,news.admin,comp.org.eff.talk,sci.space,alt.privacy Karl_Kleinpaste writes: |> nk24+@andrew.cmu.edu writes: |> "Two wrongs does not make a right." |> |> Quite so -- I'm not recommending it. But in order to have applied that |> aphorism, you must have acknowledged that what Johan is doing is wrong. oh come on, karl! (why am i picking on karl tonight?) so one wrong doesn't make a right either. peter ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1993 04:52:31 GMT From: Hugh Emberson Subject: Timberwind on Beyond 2000 Newsgroups: sci.space Last weeks Beyond 2000 carried a short piece on Nuclear Rockets, including Timberwind and an interview with Dr Zubrin. They also mentioned a test facility for nuclear rockets that (has been proposed)/(is awaiting funding)/(is under construction). Since we (NZ) seem to get Beyond 2000 before the US this program will probably appear in the US sometime in the next couple of months/years. Happy viewing. Hugh -- Hugh Emberson -- CS Postgrad hugh@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz ------------------------------ End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 312 ------------------------------