Date: Wed, 5 May 93 05:09:33 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V16 #517 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Wed, 5 May 93 Volume 16 : Issue 517 Today's Topics: Boeing TSTO (Was: Words from Chairman of Boeing) COBE image Combo Propulsion System!? Drag-free satellites (2 msgs) HST Servicing Mission HST Servicing Mission Scheduled for 11 Days (2 msgs) Long term Human Missions Mothership for Flybys and cutting costs.. Philosophy Quest. How Boldly? Report on redesign team SARSAT for tracking payload deployed by tether. Space surveillance: what I really meant U.S. Government and Science and Technolgy Investment (2 msgs) Vandalizing the sky. (3 msgs) 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: Mon, 3 May 1993 15:47:54 GMT From: Thomas Clarke Subject: Boeing TSTO (Was: Words from Chairman of Boeing) Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993May2.232230.27545@bcsfse.ca.boeing.com> steve@bcsfse.ca.boeing.com writes: >In article , schumach@convex.com (Richard A. Schumacher) writes: >|> [Description of Boeing study of two-staged spaceplane using >|> supersonic ramjets deleted.] >|> >|> In other words, Boeing is not seriously thinking about >|> reliable, less-expensive access to orbit. They just like >|> to fool around with exotic airplanes. >|> > >No, it means that Boeing has something called foresight and vision... >Boeing became the success it is today by working on what you call "exotic >airplanes". My two cents: THe Boeing idea has a certain charm, but it seems to me it is a lot further from actual flight hardware than the SSTO concept. I we had a Mach 3 transport that could lift C5 type weights already, then I could see where Boeing could soup it up and use it to launch an orbiter. I don't think even the late B70 would qualify as the first state of a HTOL TSTO. On the other hand, as many have pointed out, the Atlas is nearly a SSTO vehicle. Developing a practical SSTO thus doesn't seem so hard or farfetched. -- Thomas Clarke Institute for Simulation and Training, University of Central FL 12424 Research Parkway, Suite 300, Orlando, FL 32826 (407)658-5030, FAX: (407)658-5059, clarke@acme.ucf.edu ------------------------------ Date: 3 May 93 15:11:09 GMT From: Andreas Ortmann Jaunsen Subject: COBE image Newsgroups: sci.space Hi.. I'm looking for the COBE 3-K map of the sky. Anyone know where I might find it? Andreas ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 May 1993 15:24:43 GMT From: Michael Robert Williams Subject: Combo Propulsion System!? Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1s166i$803@access.digex.net> prb@access.digex.net (Pat) writes: > >How difficult would it be to do a solar sail mission to say mercury? > >Not much has been there and there is a 23?KM/s delta v to eat off. > Check out JBIS volume 40, "Solar Sail Missions to Mercury" The author proposes exactly this sort of mission. In Real Life:Mike Williams | Perpetual Grad Student e-mail :mrw9e@virginia.edu| - It's not just a job, it's an indenture --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "If you ever have a world of your own, plan ahead- don't eat it." ST:TNG ------------------------------ Date: 3 May 1993 17:47:20 GMT From: Isaac Kuo Subject: Drag-free satellites Newsgroups: sci.space In article <15829.2be4a28b@cpva.saic.com> thomsonal@cpva.saic.com writes: >isaackuo@jell-o.berkeley.edu (Isaac Kuo), U.C. Berkeley Math. Department. >asks: > >>14:1 resonance with WHAT? It's not like there's any wavelength or frequency >>to the Earth's gravitational field. Now, there' might be some interesting >>interactions with the Moon's tidal effect--is that what you're talking about? >[deletia] >>What are the physics of the situation? The only way I can see gravitational >>effects being useful in adding energy to an object orbiting Earth is some >>sort of interaction with the moon. > The "harmonics" are tesseral harmonics: just a decomposition of the >geopotential in sines and cosines and Legendre polynomials. Resonance >occurs when a satellite's period of rotation allows it to interact repeatedly >with one of the terms of the expansion. See Chapter 5 of Desmond King-Hele's >scientific autobiography "A Tapestry of Orbits" (ISSN 0-521-39323-X) for >more discussion. >[references deleted, but not forgotten] > If you want to get further into the details, you can contact the U.K. >researchers who are most active in the field of orbital analysis by sending >mail to Philip Gibbs, slr@gxvf.ro-greenwich.ac.uk Before I go searching for these references, I have a question. Where does the energy come from? The rotation of the Earth? Is it "free" energy? The difference between the gravitational filed of the Earth and that of a sphere is totally overwhelmed by the gravitational effect of the Moon. Am I right in inferring that the Moon's gravitational effect has nothing to do with these "harmonics"? -- *Isaac Kuo -->isaackuo@math.berkeley.edu<-- * ___ * * _____/_o_\_____ * Who am I? Where am I? What do *(==(/_______\)==) * I do? The address says it all. * \==\/ \/==/ ------------------------------ Date: 3 May 1993 17:12:50 GMT From: Isaac Kuo Subject: Drag-free satellites Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993May3.130939.1@arc.ug.eds.com> steveg@arc.ug.eds.com writes: >isaackuo@jell-o.berkeley.edu (Isaac Kuo) writes: >> In article <15821.2be3e125@cpva.saic.com> thomsonal@cpva.saic.com writes: >>> >>> ... It turns out that clever orbital mechanics can >>>engineer things so that resonant interactions with the higher order >>>harmonics of the Earth's gravitational field can pump energy into a >>>satellite, and keep it from experiencing drag effects for periods of >>>months to years. >> >> A harmonic of the Earth's gravitational field? What IS a harmonic of the >> Earth's gravitational field? > >The earth's mass distribution is not spherically symmetric, so neither >is its gravitational field. The small differences from spherical can >be expressed as a series of generalised harmonic functions (modified >Lagrange polynomials for latitude dependence by sin/cos terms for longitude). Well, you can certainly express any smooth function as the sum of an infinite number of harmonic functions. I wouldn't, and neither would any other mathematician, call such summands "harmonics". In any case, the small difference from spherical that the Earth is is ridiculously small. Even counting all of the mountains, etc. that make the Earth bumpy, the Earth is closer to a sphere than the smoothest billiard ball. Even if the Earth were significantly flattenned, it would be flattenned on the axis of rotation, and thus the gravitational field does not rotate and thus no orbiting satellite can derive energy from the non-changing gravitational field. -- *Isaac Kuo -->isaackuo@math.berkeley.edu<-- * ___ * * _____/_o_\_____ * Who am I? Where am I? What do *(==(/_______\)==) * I do? The address says it all. * \==\/ \/==/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 May 1993 14:23:13 GMT From: "George F. Krumins" Subject: HST Servicing Mission Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle,sci.astro dant@techbook.techbook.com (Dan Tilque) writes: (stuff deleted) >Has anyone looked at the cost of taking the second mirror, building >another Hubble around it (with modifications for things that weren't >right on Hubble I such as the solar panel supports) and launching >that? How would that compare with the cost of the repair mission? I >wouldn't be surprised if it would cost less than bringing the current >one down, fixing it, and relaunching it. >--- >Dan Tilque -- dant@techbook.com This sounds like a good idea to me, because then they could use that superfine Kodak "backup" primary mirror. As I recall, not only is it the right shape, it's 1/40 wave! George -- Pufferfish Observatory |~~~~~\/~~~~~| The Universe had its origin gfk39017@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu ~~~~~\ /~~~~~ in two hockeysticks colliding / \ "Home of the Hockeystick /__/^\___\ Memorial Telescope" ------------------------------ Date: 3 May 1993 11:38:29 -0400 From: Pat Subject: HST Servicing Mission Scheduled for 11 Days Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle,sci.astro |If it has no propulsion system, how does it maneuver itself? I don't think |viewing targets are chosen by it constantly "staring" at a particular azimuth |and waiting for the object to come into view... :-) |Harvey Brydon | Internet: brydon@dsn.SINet.slb.com |Dowell Schlumberger | P.O.T.S.: (918)250-4312 Gyros. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 May 1993 16:08:01 GMT From: Scott Stallcup Subject: HST Servicing Mission Scheduled for 11 Days Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle,sci.astro Pat (prb@access.digex.net) wrote: : |If it has no propulsion system, how does it maneuver itself? I don't think : |viewing targets are chosen by it constantly "staring" at a particular azimuth : |and waiting for the object to come into view... :-) : |Harvey Brydon | Internet: brydon@dsn.SINet.slb.com : |Dowell Schlumberger | P.O.T.S.: (918)250-4312 : : : Gyros. Reaction Wheels ---------------------------------- Scott Stallcup Space Telescope Science Institute ------------------------------ Date: 3 May 1993 11:57:54 -0400 From: Pat Subject: Long term Human Missions Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle,sci.astro Calculators: If you ask James Burke, he'd say, thank French Weavers, or even roman engineers who developed the cam. I don't think NASA really developed much "new" technology, but they did fund projects, which pushed known technologies into whole new scales of operation. THe saturn V was remarkable, not for technical innovation, but for size. It was truly enormous, and thus required solutions to problems not seen at that scale. The VAB is not a revolutionary building, but it tested practical construction at that size. many things are well known in lab environments, but it can often take a "MAJOR" project like the MANHATTAN project, the Apollo project or the Forbin project to really push the ideas off the bench. pat ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 May 1993 17:33:41 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: Mothership for Flybys and cutting costs.. Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993May2.081502.17544@ee.ubc.ca> davem@ee.ubc.ca (Dave Michelson) writes: >>... even so Voyager 2 took a rather indirect >>route to Neptune. > >Indirect compared to what? Did Voyager 2 traverse a substantially greater >distance than, say, a Hohmann orbit? I've never heard Voyager's path >described as "indirect" before... It wasn't long compared to a Hohmann orbit, but *nobody* uses Hohmann orbits in the outer solar system -- they simply take too long. It was long compared to the near-straight line that naive people sometimes envision, though. For example, Voyager 2 made nearly a right-angle turn at Saturn, as I recall. -- SVR4 resembles a high-speed collision | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology between SVR3 and SunOS. - Dick Dunn | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 3 May 93 10:23:12 CDT From: Bob Kierski Subject: Philosophy Quest. How Boldly? Newsgroups: sci.space In article , henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: > > This is, shall we say, an overly-broad statement. In particular, are you > referring to the native American culture that existed in 1400, or the one > that existed in 1800? (Simplify things by assuming we're talking about > the eastern US rather than the whole continent.) Given that those were > *radically* different cultures, which one are you referring to? you're right. i shouldn't have made such a broad statement. however, i wasn't a history major and therefore my understanding of native american history is very limited. since we are picking at nits, you may also wonder if i was refering to the north american, central american, or south american natives, as these cultures were very differnt also. but, my intent was not to discuss native american history, but rather to ask... if we encounter life elsewhere, will we FORCE our culture on them as we have done in the past, or will we tolerate their way of life and maybe even try to learn from it? -- Have a day, @ @ ( ) bobo ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 May 1993 14:45:15 GMT From: "Matthew R. Feulner" Subject: Report on redesign team Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1s14ib$6s7@access.digex.net>, prb@access.digex.net (Pat) writes: |> In article Cohen@ssdgwy.mdc.com (Andy Cohen) writes: |> |> > Option C - Singe Launch Core Station -- Chet Vaughn presented Option C, |> >the Single Launch Core Station concept. A Shuttle external tank and solid |> > |> the core launch station has a lot of positive ideas. You could stick |> in more hatches for experimental concept modules. Like the ET |> derived workshops. Or inflatable modules. All of the three options contain ports for the EC and Japanese modules. The government is treating the agreements with international partners like treaties, so they take them very seriously. A funny thing I head from Prof Crawley on the Blue Ribbon Panel - There's about $2 billion worth of software in these proposals, but no one on the panel has any software experience (at least not of this magnitude) to judge it. Other political stuff being tossed around - We can get 38K lbs into 220 nm orbit at 28.5 degrees with a shuttle. Now, if we want Russian cooperation and go into 51.6 orbit, we can only get 25K lbs at 220 nm. But, if we go for development of the Al-Li tanks, we can get 37K lbs into 175 nm orbit (or 32.5K into 220 nm) at 51.6 degrees. The ASRM brings us to 44.5K lbs at 220 nm and 51.6 degrees. So, it looks like they're thinking about the Al-Li tanks to go for a 175 nm orbit at 51.6 degrees since it still has the same capabilities as 28.5 degrees and 220 nm. But, now, the Russians may have problems with 51.6 degrees because things are now falling into one of the republics, Kazakstan (sp?). Incidentally, the launch site (don't remember the name) is at about 45 degrees lat, but they launch into 51.6 so they don't drop things on China. Apparently, Options A and B are virtually the same, and don't save much money over the existing design. Option C is being looked at by the bean counters, but it essentially is a new launch vehicle, so there will be bucks to be spent on it. They are considering buying three Soyuz for $400 million (a steal compared to designing our own rescue vehicles). Clinton wants steady state costs of $1 billion/year, where now it is projected to be about twice that (neither counts shuttle costs). Matt matthew_feulner@qmlink.draper.com ------------------------------ Date: 3 May 1993 12:09:55 -0400 From: Pat Subject: SARSAT for tracking payload deployed by tether. Newsgroups: sci.space In article fennell@well.sf.ca.us (Michael Daniel Fennell) writes: > | |We are interested in constructing a reentry vehicle to be deployed from a |tether attached to an orbiting platform. This will be a follow on to our |succesful deployment of a 20 kilometer tether on the March 29 flight of |SEDS (Small Expendable Deployment System), which released an instrumented |payload that reentered the earth's atmosphere and burned up over the west |coast of Mexico. This time we want to make a payload that can be recovered. |We want to build it from "off the shelf" technology so as to do this as |quickly and inexpensively as possible. We want to be able to track the |payload after it has deployed its parachute. An idea we have is to put the |same kind of radio beacon on it that is used with SARSATs (Search and Rescue |Satellites). It would turn on with the opening of the parachute and aid in |tracking. These beacons are known in the marine industry as EPIRBs |(Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon). They are rugged (they have to |be to survive a ship wreck!) and cheap. We have several questions: | Aircraft use a device called an ELT emergency location transponder. they squawk at 121.5 MHz. You can get teh survival specs for one from any airplane manufacturer. being air rated, they are equally tough, and light weight. |1. What is the world authority regulating the use of SARSAT beacons. Are |there multiple authorites, i.e. military and civilian? | Well, the world authority on Wireless communications is the ITU.international telecommunications Union. They are located in Paris. they have jurisdiction on all signature countries. They then devolve authority to national/ transnational organizations. Most countries have re-ciprocity pacts for commercial travel/uses. Aviation bands i believe have been ITU compliant for years. The military have assigned bands, governments get assinged bands.The FCC regulates all civilian applications. Given NASA has some assigned bands, i would looka t getting anELT modified for NASA bands. Also the Air Force, make Personnel locator beacons for downed aircrew. these things are tough. maybe you can get one, and given it operates on government frequency, al you need is permission from NASA or the appropriate agency to sue that transmitter. |2. What are the regulations regarding the use of SARSAT signals. Can they |be used for one of a kind situations with a long lead time of warning the |relevant authorities, or are they strictly reserved for life threatening |emergencies? | I would seriously doubt that they would like you using an ELT for a non-emergency application. there is a SARSAT organization. talk to them. the Sarsat's listen on 121/5/231.8???? the military emergency frequency. |3. What is the coverage of SARSATS? Are they in LEO with only intermittant |coverage of a fixed position on the earth, or are they in geosynchronous |orbit? | I think it's some sort of inclined orbit. prety much everything gets covered, you just have to wait for a pass. |4. Is there an industry organization governing the use and manufacture of |these transponders? | Probably. I would look into how the Big Bird capsules were designed, and recovered. That was vintage 60's technology and should be declassifed. You may be able to get air force surplus an entire film recovery capsule, with chutes and radios. These were recovered by an in-air grab by a c-130. Check out if you can get an Air force support sortie. they may be able to do this for you. pat ------------------------------ Date: 3 May 1993 11:52:16 -0400 From: Pat Subject: Space surveillance: what I really meant Newsgroups: sci.space As you mention, any country with an amatuer astronomical community can track stuff. as for radar tracking, real any half way industrial country can do it. of the big 7. the US, Russia, China, France, Britain, Germany. can or do do this. Australia, has dishes, that can. Brazil probably can. Iraq might have. Spotting stealthy satellittes may be beyond these countries, but for bigger birds, most people can spot them. it's essentially a long range radar system, altered for the application. micro sats may be below the resolution of numerous radars, though. pat ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 May 1993 15:11:02 GMT From: Marc Roussel Subject: U.S. Government and Science and Technolgy Investment Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space,sci.research,talk.politics.misc,talk.politics.libertarian,misc.education In article hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes: >Also, the government did a job on private foundations, >making it more difficult for them to act to support research. How did they do that? Marc R. Roussel mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 May 1993 16:18:11 GMT From: Jason Christian Subject: U.S. Government and Science and Technolgy Investment Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space,sci.research,talk.politics.misc,talk.politics.libertarian,misc.education In article hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes: > >Also, the government decided that the "wealth" should be spread. So instead >of having a moderate number of universities which were primarily research >institutions, the idea that more schools should get into the act came into >being. And instead of evaluating scholars, they had to go to evaluating >reseach proposals. As a researcher, I can tell you that any research proposal >has to be mainly wishful thinking, or as now happens, the investigator conceals >already done work to release it as the results of the research. What I am >proposing today I may solve before the funding is granted, I may find >impossible, or I may find that it is too difficult. In addition, tomorrow >I may get unexpected research results. Possibly I may bet a bright idea >which solves yesterday's too difficult problem, or a whole new approach to >something I had not considered can develop. This is the nature of the beast, >and except for really vague statements, if something can be predicted, it >is not major research, but development or routine activity not requiring >more than minimal attention of a good researcher. > I don't this is exactily correct. While it is true that NSF builds its researcher support (let's preserve the distinction between that and facilities support) around the research proposal (except for the Presidential Young Investigators program), it is also true that the proposal review explicitly includes considerations of the researcher's record. In addition, the concept of supporting good *researchers* is well-embedded in the NSF folkways. Program staff is well aware (or was in the mid-80s) that the research proposal may describe work that is now being completed, and that the funds being doled out at the moment may well be spent on some other work. Programs in general would prefer to make longer-term committments, to the researcher, than spend lots of time niggling over the documentary details of one- or two-year grants. Of course the longer-term awards also reduce flexibility... >I believe that at this time less quality research is being done than would >have happened if the government had never gotten into it, and the government >is trying to divert researchers from thinkers to plodders. I think maybe :s/trying to divert/tends to change/ would improve the accuracy of that. >-- >Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399 >Phone: (317)494-6054 >hrubin@snap.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet) >{purdue,pur-ee}!snap.stat!hrubin(UUCP) -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jason Christian Agricultural Economics jason@primal.ucdavis.edu University of California, Davis Office:(916)752-1357 FAX:(916)752-5614 Davis, CA 95616 ------------------------------ Date: 3 May 93 10:26:31 GMT From: Mark Sproul Subject: Vandalizing the sky. Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space Over the weekend I turned on the TV to "The Discovery Channel" and caught the tail end of a segment about SKY PROJECTION BILL BOARDS. Seems somebody has come up with a way to project a company logo or similar type image up into the sky large enough to be seen by millions of people. The program stated that they had to convince the buisnesses that it was big enough to be noticed while at the same time convince environmental agencies that it was small enough not to cause any harm. I dont think this should be allowed at all. ----------------------------------------------------- Mark Sproul - KB2ICI New Jersey sproul@sproul.com (908) 563-5649 (work) ------------------------------ Date: 3 May 1993 12:32:17 -0400 From: Robert Bunge Subject: Vandalizing the sky. Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space In article pgf@srl03.cacs.usl.edu (Phil G. Fraering) writes: > >>That's fine idea, but it only works if the lighting/power company even bothers to supply good light fixtures. For instance, a power company in Virginia >>recently asked a state commission for permission to sell more lights of various >>type. Yet, all of the different fixture that they sold and wanted to sell > >Uh, why do they have to ask a state commision? Unless the state's buying... > It seems that in this part of the country -- Maryland and VA -- power companies have to ask permission to sell outdoor lighting. This, apparently, is the result of small electrical contractors lobbying to keep the power companies from taking all their business. >Such a process will only increace the overhead to the power company >of selling different types of light, and will decreace the likleihood >that they will do so. And any efficient lights they might have been >planning in the future, go down the drain..... As stated above, it most likely already does. Is it too much to ask the companies to at least offer good lighting? >You could order it special. If enough people did so, it would be >low cost. Last I checked, you could use UPS to buy stuff in Arizona >before going there. Sure can. It's one way to do get a good light. But, it's expensive. > >Finally, I'm sure your state has things like small factories and >machine shops. You could go into business making lights that are It's amazing how the industrial base of the US has changed. Small machine shops are pretty hard to find and very expensive. But, the primary point is that good lights already exist. Currently, they are mostly only sold in the West -- because they have lighting laws there. >> There are two ways to achieve this: educate the public so that they demand good lighting or force code >>down the lighting companies backs. History seems to suggest that the latter >>is more likely to work. > >_MY_ *experience* seems to suggest that you're trying too hard >to *educate* them (with the same methods used in American schools >to make any subject whatsoever as relevant and boring as Proto-Ugric) >instead of *selling* them on the idea. Actually, it's extremely effective to walk into a city manager's office and explain to them how they can save thousands, if not millions, of dollars. >Well, wake up. Space is becoming a field of human endeavor >instead of just something we can look at from a long long >way away. Gee, at the rate the space program is going... What, last week there was an article on the front page of the Washington Post about how the Shuttles are too expensive, old, no replacement is in sight, Fred is all dead... Don't get me wrong. My wife thought I was crazy to get up at 1:30 am to watch a shuttle launch (from Maryland) the other week. I think things like LPS are great and are really humkind'ss future. >There are practical space projects that could conceivably >(although probably not) cause lots of light pollution, and >have been argued against on those grounds, even though they >might open up such possibilities, that people could vacation on >Mars if they wanted really dark skies... Gee, and I complain now about the two hour trip to northern VA to find so-so skies. >Phil Fraering |"Seems like every day we find out all sorts of stuff. >pgf@srl02.cacs.usl.edu|Like how the ancient Mayans had televison." Repo Man Bob Bunge rbunge@access.digex.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 03 May 93 11:26:12 EDT From: Robert Coe Subject: Vandalizing the sky. Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space pgf@srl03.cacs.usl.edu (Phil G. Fraering) writes: > rbunge@access.digex.net (Robert Bunge) writes: > > >That's fine idea, but it only works if the lighting/power company even > >bothers to supply good light fixtures. For instance, a power company in > >Virginia recently asked a state commission for permission to sell more > >lights of various type. Yet, all of the different fixture that they sold > >and wanted to sell > > Uh, why do they have to ask a state commision? Unless the state's buying... > > >were bad designs - one that wasted the light. Thus, you couldn't even buy > >a good light from them. In most places, to get a good light, you have to > >either order it special at high cost or call a store in Arizona. In Massachusetts the power companies are encouraged to sell energy-efficient light bulbs and fixtures to their customers at low prices. They lose money on this, but are allowed to recoup it in their rates. The effect is to pun- ish those who don't buy the energy-efficient lights. (Of course it also punishes those who have energy-efficient lights but bought them at higher prices somewhere else.) ___ _ - Bob /__) _ / / ) _ _ (_/__) (_)_(_) (___(_)_(/_______________________________________ bob@1776.COM Robert K. Coe ** 14 Churchill St, Sudbury, Massachusetts 01776 ** 508-443-3265 ------------------------------ End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 517 ------------------------------