旼컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴커 � THIS FILE WAS PROVIDED BY | � � �袴� �袴� �袴� �袴 �袴� �袴� �袴� �袴� �袴� (tm)| (604) 875-6259 � � 훤敲 勁暠 勁攷 � 勁� 勁攷 勁攷 훤敲 勁� (c) | Vancouver, Canada � � 袴暠 � � � 훤� 훤袴 훤暠 � � 袴暠 훤袴 1991| (1200; 2400 baud) � � The Astronomy and Space Sciences Educational | (FidoNet 1:153/719) � � Information Service | � 읕컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴켸 THE ELECTRONIC JOURNAL OF THE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF THE ATLANTIC Volume 4, Number 12 - July 1993 ########################### TABLE OF CONTENTS ########################### * ASA Membership and Article Submission Information * The Great Moon Race: The Red Moon - Andrew J. LePage * 181st American Astronomical Society (AAS) Meeting - Paul Dickson and Mike Willmoth ########################### ASA MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION The Electronic Journal of the Astronomical Society of the Atlantic (EJASA) is published monthly by the Astronomical Society of the Atlantic, Incorporated. The ASA is a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of amateur and professional astronomy and space exploration, as well as the social and educational needs of its members. ASA membership application is open to all with an interest in astronomy and space exploration. Members receive the Journal of the ASA (hardcopy sent through United States Mail - Not a duplicate of this Electronic Journal) and the Astronomical League's REFLECTOR magazine. Members may also purchase discount subscriptions to ASTRONOMY and SKY & TELESCOPE magazines. For information on membership, you may contact the Society at any of the following addresses: Astronomical Society of the Atlantic (ASA) P. O. Box 15038 Atlanta, Georgia 30333-9998 U.S.A. asa@chara.gsu.edu ASA BBS: (404) 321-5904, 300/1200/2400 Baud or telephone the Society Recording at (404) 264-0451 to leave your address and/or receive the latest Society news. ASA Officers and Council - President - Eric Greene Vice President - Jeff Elledge Secretary - Ingrid Siegert-Tanghe Treasurer - Mike Burkhead Directors - Becky Long, Tano Scigliano, Bob Vickers Council - Bill Bagnuolo, Michele Bagnuolo, Don Barry, Bill Black, Mike Burkhead, Jeff Elledge, Frank Guyton, Larry Klaes, Ken Poshedly, Jim Rouse, Tano Scigliano, John Stauter, Wess Stuckey, Harry Taylor, Gary Thompson, Cindy Weaver, Bob Vickers ARTICLE SUBMISSIONS Article submissions to the EJASA on astronomy and space exploration are most welcome. Please send your on-line articles in ASCII format to Larry Klaes, EJASA Editor, at the following net addresses or the above Society addresses: klaes@verga.enet.dec.com or - ...!decwrl!verga.enet.dec.com!klaes or - klaes%verga.dec@decwrl.enet.dec.com or - klaes%verga.enet.dec.com@uunet.uu.net You may also use the above addresses for EJASA back issue requests, letters to the editor, and ASA membership information. When sending your article submissions, please be certain to include either a network or regular mail address where you can be reached, a telephone number, and a brief biographical sketch. Back issues of the EJASA are also available from the ASA anonymous FTP site at chara.gsu.edu (131.96.5.29). Directory: /ejasa DISCLAIMER Submissions are welcome for consideration. Articles submitted, unless otherwise stated, become the property of the Astronomical Society of the Atlantic, Incorporated. Though the articles will not be used for profit, they are subject to editing, abridgment, and other changes. Copying or reprinting of the EJASA, in part or in whole, is encouraged, provided clear attribution is made to the Astronomical Society of the Atlantic, the Electronic Journal, and the author(s). Opinions expressed in the EJASA are those of the authors' and not necessarily those of the ASA. No responsibility is assumed by the ASA or the EJASA for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use of operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein. This Journal is Copyright (c) 1993 by the Astronomical Society of the Atlantic, Incorporated. THE GREAT MOON RACE: THE RED MOON Copyright (c) 1993 by Andrew J. LePage The author gives permission to any group or individual wishing to distribute this article, so long as proper credit is given and the article is reproduced in its entirety. As the year 1965 was drawing to a close, Soviet lunar probes were being launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome as if from a celestial machine gun. In typical Soviet aerospace engineering style, a lunar spacecraft would be launched, failures were analyzed, modifications would be made, and a new probe would be launched. After a half decade of this cycle, the Soviets were very close to success. LUNA 7 and 8 both performed flawlessly until the ignition of their retrorockets: LUNA 7 fired its engines seconds too early while LUNA 8 fired its engines seconds too late. While the Soviets emphasized in-flight testing of their spacecraft, partly on the off-chance that one of the early flights might actually succeed - thus ensuring another space first - the United States emphasized ground testing. As a result of the adverse American public reaction to the failures of the early lunar PIONEERs and the Block II RANGERs, NASA literally could not afford any more strings of in-flight failures. The American people and Congress would not foot the bill for even more expensive lunar programs without an excellent chance for success. Despite the differing political climates and engineering philosophies, by the beginning of 1966 both the Soviet Union and the United States were very close to landing their first unmanned spacecraft on the Moon. SURVEYOR is Readied As one Soviet lunar lander after another was launched during 1965, the United States continued development of SURVEYOR and its launch vehicle, the ATLAS-CENTAUR. Following the failure of ATLAS-CENTAUR 5 on March 2, 1965, ATLAS-CENTAUR 6 was a success. Launched on August 11, this test flight placed a 2,084-pound (946-kilogram) dynamic model of SURVEYOR directly into a 105 by 509,829-mile (169 by 820,315-kilo- meter) orbit that simulated the direct ascent trajectory the first SURVEYORs would use to reach the Moon. With this successful mission, the first phase of CENTAUR development was completed and the ATLAS- CENTAUR was deemed ready for service. Future test flights would be used to develop CENTAUR's in-orbit restart capability. Development of SURVEYOR itself was nearly completed at the same time. The last balloon-borne drop test to verify the landing sequence was a success. The first flight article, SURVEYOR A, had completed an extensive series of functional and environmental tests. The launch of this first spacecraft was expected in the early spring of 1966. Meanwhile, plans for future SURVEYOR missions were being restructured. After a thorough review, NASA decided to make use of the lighter 2,200-pound (1,000-kilogram) stripped-down "engineering" model of SURVEYOR for all seven scheduled flights, instead of just for the first four missions as previously planned. It was felt that the lightly instrumented (and cheaper) lander was adequate to fulfill its primary objective of gathering information needed to verify the manned APOLLO Lunar Module (LM) design. A decision to launch three follow-on missions using the more heavily instrumented SURVEYOR model was deferred pending further study. In its final form, SURVEYOR was the most advanced lunar spacecraft of its day. The basic eight-foot (2.4-meter) tall structure consisted of a simple 59-pound (27-kilogram) tetrahedral frame made of tubular aluminum alloy members. In each of the three lower corners was a landing leg equipped with an aircraft-style shock absorber and a footpad of crushable honeycomb aluminum. The total span of the legs, once deployed, was 14 feet (4.3 meters). Rising from the apex of the frame was a mast upon which was mounted a gimballed planar high-gain antenna (HGA) and a solar panel supplying an average of sixty watts of power to the lander's silver-zinc batteries. From the footpads to the top of its mast, SURVEYOR stood ten feet (three meters) tall. Buried inside the spacecraft's frame was a Morton Thiokol-built 36-inch (91-centimeter) diameter TE-M-364 solid propellant rocket motor that would provide between 8,000 and 10,000 pounds (36 to 45 kilonewtons) of thrust. This 1,444-pound (656-kilogram) motor would be used to negate most of SURVEYOR's motion towards the Moon as the lander approached the barren surface. SURVEYOR also carried a second propulsion system for midcourse corrections and attitude control during the main retrorocket burn for the final descent. This system consisted of three vernier engines fueled by monoethylhydrazine hydrate with a mixture of ninety percent nitrogen tetraoxide and ten percent nitric acid serving as the oxidizer. These engines were throttable, producing between 30 and 104 pounds (130 and 460 newtons) of thrust each. Yaw, pitch, and descent rate were controlled by selective throttling of the engines. Roll was controlled by a single gimballed vernier. During the trans- lunar coast, SURVEYOR's attitude was controlled by a set of six nitrogen gas jets, each providing one ounce (0.27 newtons) of thrust. All the temperature sensitive electronics were carried in two thermal boxes. These compartments were covered with 75 layers of aluminized mylar insulation and the tops were covered by mirrored glass thermal regulators. Compartment A, which maintained the temperature between 40 and 125 degrees Fahrenheit (4 and 52 degrees Celsius), carried a redundant set of receivers and ten-watt radio transmitters, the batteries, their charge regulators, and some auxiliary equipment. The second box, Compartment B, was designed to maintain the temperature between 0 and 125 degrees Fahrenheit (-15 and 52 degrees Celsius). This compartment carried the computer "brains" of the spacecraft, which controlled all aspects of the lander's operation using a total of 256 commands. Mounted elsewhere on the frame were star sensors, a pair of radar antennae, low-gain antennae (LGA), propellant, and helium pressurization tanks. A total of 65 pounds (30 kilograms) of instrumentation were carried by the first SURVEYORs. Most were engineering sensors such as strain gauges, accelerometers, rate gyros, temperature sensors, and so on to be used to make more than two hundred measurements of the spacecraft's performance and condition. While not specifically designed for investigating the lunar environment, many of these measurements could be used to determine some of its basic properties. The only true scientific instruments were a pair of slow-scan television cameras. One was pointed down to provide a RANGER-style view of the lunar surface and a footpad during landing. These images would be transmitted during SURVEYOR's final approach to allow the landing site to be pinpointed, along with providing information on the surrounding terrain. As it turned out, however, this camera was never used on the first two flights and was deleted altogether afterwards. It was felt that the upcoming LUNAR ORBITER missions would provide the needed detailed images to help interpret the SURVEYOR findings and put them in a geologic context. The second camera was mounted in a 65-inch (1.65-meter) tall mast on the spacecraft's framework. The camera pointed up into a movable mirror that allowed the camera to view 360 degrees of azimuth and from sixty degrees below to fifty degrees above the normal plane of the camera. This device was canted at a sixteen-degree angle to offer a clear view of the surface between two of the footpads out to the lunar horizon 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) away. The camera was fitted with a 25 to 100 millimeter (mm) zoom lens that offered a field of view of between 25.3 and 6.4 degrees. The aperture could be set between f/4 and f/22 and the lens could be focused from four feet (1.2 meters) to infinity. A shutter was also included so that various integration times could be used to obtain the ideal exposure. The nominal exposure time was 150 milliseconds, but exposures as long as about thirty minutes could be accommodated. The typical resolution of the camera was one millimeter at a distance of thirteen feet (four meters). The camera was also fitted with a filter wheel containing clear, colored, and polarizing filters. With the aid of color calibration targets mounted at various points of the spacecraft, pictures taken through red, green, and blue filters could be reconstructed back on Earth to yield full-color views of the lunar surface. Images taken with the polarization filters, when combined with information of the viewing geometry, could be used to determine the scattering characteristics of the lunar surface. The camera could only operate through remote control from Earth using a total of 25 commands. The primary means of transmitting images was through the high-gain antenna. Using this powerful antenna, an image would be broken up into six hundred scan lines and transmitted to the home planet in 3.6 seconds. The less powerful low-gain antennae, which served as a backup, would permit an image to be broken up into only two hundred lines and would require 61.8 seconds to transmit. Like RANGER, SURVEYOR was designed to make a direct descent to the lunar surface. SURVEYOR was much more flexible than the Block II RANGER lander, however, since SURVEYOR could approach the lunar surface at a substantial angle off the local vertical. This made most of the lunar hemisphere facing Earth accessible to this new lander. Early flights, however, would be limited to the equatorial mare regions which, as a result of RANGER photography, appeared to be the safest landing sites for the early APOLLO missions. The typical SURVEYOR mission started with its launch from Cape Kennedy on the east coast of Florida. Once the ATLAS-CENTAUR sent the lander on its way, SURVEYOR would deploy its landing gear and low-gain antennae, lock its solar panel onto the Sun, and then acquire its second celestial reference, the star Canopus. During its over sixty-hour coast to the Moon, the probe would make as many as two mid-course burns of its vernier engines to fine tune its aim towards the Moon. Once within one thousand miles (1,600 kilometers) of the lunar surface, the lander would align its retrorocket along the flight path. The descent camera, if it was used, would start relaying images. At a height of 200 miles (320 kilometers), an altitude-marking radar mounted inside the molybdenum nozzle of the retrorocket would be activated. At a slant range of 60 miles (100 kilometers), the flight programmer would start a predetermined countdown and then ignite the three vernier engines, followed by the main retrorocket. During the forty-second burn, attitude was maintained by the verniers and the speed was cut from over 5,800 miles per hour (2,600 meters per second) to only 250 miles per hour (110 meters per second) at an altitude of 25 miles (40 kilometers). About eleven seconds after burnout, the high-strength steel retrorocket case was jettisoned and the Radar Altimeter and Doppler Velocity Sensor (RADVS) was activated. Using data from RADVS, the onboard computer controlled the thrust of the vernier engines to further reduce the speed of the lander to only three miles per hour (1.3 meters per second) at an altitude of 14 feet (4.3 meters). At this point, the verniers were shutdown and SURVEYOR dropped to the surface at a speed of 15 miles per hour (6.6 meters per second). Once on the lunar surface, the lander's onboard systems would be checked and the first two hundred line image showing the footpad would be taken and relayed back to Earth. Over the course of the lunar day (equivalent to fourteen Earth days), several panoramas made of six hundred line images would be returned and observations of the surroun- ding terrain under various lighting conditions would be made. Shortly after local sunset, the lander would be shut down. Operations would begin following sunrise if the spacecraft survived the bitterly cold lunar night. The First Lunar Landing! Before SURVEYOR ever made it to the launch pad, the Soviets' luck finally turned. After a successful launch into a 104 by 136-mile (167 by 219-kilometer) Earth parking orbit, LUNA 9 headed towards the Moon on January 31, 1966. The 3,387-pound (1,538-kilogram) spacecraft was of a totally different design than the American SURVEYOR. The 8.9-foot (2.7-meter) tall spacecraft consisted of a two-part multi-mission bus and the payload. The bottom half of the main bus consisted of a propulsion module incorporating an Isayev Design Bureau-built KTDU-5A retrorocket. It was topped with a torroidal aluminum alloy tank filled with an amine- based fuel and a 35-inch (90-centimeter) diameter spherical tank filled with the nitric acid oxidizer. The total propellant load for a landing mission was about 1,800 pounds (800 kilograms). Four outrigger vernier thrust chambers provided attitude control and thrust trimming during retrorocket fire as well as perform mid-course corrections. In total, this propulsion system could provide 10,200 pounds (45.5 kilonewtons) of thrust for a single 43-second burn. On top of the propulsion module was a cylindrical equipment module, which was pressurized to 1.2 Earth atmospheres. This section contained communications equipment, power supplies, batteries, and spacecraft control systems. This section also supported the Sun and Moon sensors needed for attitude reference. Strapped to either side of this section were 660 pounds (300 kilograms) of lightly constructed, jettisonable packages containing radar equipment to initiate retrorocket fire and the in-flight attitude control system. This consisted of sets of nitrogen gas jets mounted on three arms and feeding off of three gas bottles. Once the engines ignited, these items were no longer needed and were discarded to save weight for the descent. Mounted on top of this bus was the lander, which would be thrown from the stack upon contact with the lunar surface. The lander was a sphere about 23 inches (58 centimeters) in diameter and weighing 220 pounds (100 kilograms). After the bottom-heavy lander rolled to a stop, four petals would open to stabilize it. Inside were the lander's transmitter, batteries, and other equipment. Like the American Block II RANGER lander, the interior temperature was maintained between 66 and 86 degrees Fahrenheit (19 and 30 degrees Celsius) by a capsule of water. Two instruments were carried by the lander: A simple SBM-10 radiation detector and a facsimile-style panoramic camera similar to the cameras carried by the American VIKING Mars landers one decade later. A mirror mounted in a three-inch (eight-centimeter) turret at the top of the lander some two feet (sixty centimeters) above the surface was used so that the camera could scan through 360 degrees of azimuth and from eighteen degrees below to eleven degrees above the horizon. A full six thousand line panorama could be transmitted back to Earth in one hundred minutes. The camera could focus on objects from as close as five feet (1.5 meters) to infinity with a maximum resolution of 0.06 to 0.08 inches (1.5 to 2 millimeters). Small targets dangled from the four antennae to calibrate the camera and three thin mirrors provided stereoscopic views of small areas near the lander. After LUNA 9 separated from its escape stage, the nitrogen jets were fired to orient the spacecraft and start it rolling at one revolution every 1.5 minutes to even out the heat radiating from the Sun. After being tracked for 31 hours and 47 minutes, the nitrogen jets were fired again to align the probe with the Moon and Sun. A 48-second course correction burn was performed, after which LUNA 9 resumed its slow roll. Unlike the American lunar probes that could be oriented in any direction for their mid-course correction, the second generation LUNAs could only perform course correction burns perpendicular to its flight path, thus greatly simplifying the astro-orientation system. Another simplification incorporated into the design was that the LUNA landers could only approach the lunar surface from near the local vertical, much like the Block II RANGER. Also like the American lander, this constraint limited landings to equatorial sites near 64 degrees west longitude in the eastern part of Oceanus Procellarum. On February 3 - about one hour before landing - at an altitude of 5,200 miles (8,300 kilometers), the nitrogen jets again fired to stop the descending craft's roll and orient it along the local vertical. The on-board radar triggered the terminal descent sequence at an altitude of 47 miles (75 kilometers) as the spacecraft speed increased to 5,800 miles per hour (2,600 meters per second). The four outrigger engines fired, attitude reference was taken over by the onboard gyros, and the now useless side compartments were jettisoned. At that moment the main retrorocket burst to life. Sixteen feet (five meters) above the surface, a deployed sensor made contact with the surface and cast off the lunar lander as the main bus hit the surface at a speed of about fourteen miles per hour (six meters per second). The spherical lander bounced along the ground several times and finally came to rest at 18:45:30 Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) west of the crater Reiner at 7.13 degrees north latitude, 64.37 degrees west longitude. Some 250 seconds after touchdown, the artificial petals opened and the spacecraft started transmitting back to Earth. While this landing was not as elegant as SURVEYOR's, the Soviets did beat the Americans once again in the conquest of space. About seven hours after landing, the long process of returning the first panorama to Earth was begun. The pictures showed that LUNA 9 came to rest on a smooth area inside an 82-foot (25-meter) crater tilted at a 16.5 degree angle. While the images had rather limited resolution, they did put to rest once and for all the notion that the Moon's surface was covered by a deep dust layer that would swallow any visiting spacecraft. Almost thirteen hours after taking its first panorama, LUNA 9 was commanded to take a second one. During the intervening time, the lander's position shifted slightly, allowing stereoscopic study of large portions of the landing site. Three more panoramas were transmitted on February 5 and images of smaller areas were taken the following day. Data from the radiation detector indicated that the radiation level at the surface was about thirty millirads per day. At 22:55 GMT on February 6, the lander's batteries were exhausted and the mission ended. During LUNA 9's 76 hours and 10 minutes on the lunar surface, it transmitted for a total of eight hours and five minutes during six communication sessions, returning nine images from the surface and radiation data. The mission was a resounding success. At best, the Americans would be the second nation to land on the Moon. The First in Orbit Being first to land on the surface of the Moon was not the Soviets' only goal. On March 1, 1966, another lunar spacecraft was launched into a 119 by 140-mile (191 by 226-kilometer) Earth parking orbit. Unfortunately, the escape stage failed to operate, stranding its payload - now designated KOSMOS 111 - in a quickly decaying orbit. On March 31, a second lunar payload was successfully launched towards the Moon and subsequently named LUNA 10. Unlike the previous second generation LUNA missions, this probe was not meant to land. Instead of a lander, the multi-mission bus carried a 539-pound (245-kilogram) lunar orbiter. On April 3, LUNA 10 fired its main propulsion system to cut 1,900 miles per hour (850 meters per second) off of its approach velocity. This act allowed the probe to enter a 218 by 632-mile (350 by 1,017-kilometer) orbit inclined 71.9 degrees and having a period two minutes short of three hours. Twenty minutes into its first orbit, the spacecraft's payload was spun up to two revolutions per minute and ejected from the now useless bus. The LUNA 10 orbiter was similar to many of the small KOSMOS-class Earth orbiting science satellites launched at that time. Basically, the probe was a pressurized 2.5-foot (75-centimeter) wide, 4.9-foot (1.5-meter) long chamfered cylinder, deriving all of its power from internal batteries. Unlike the American LUNAR ORBITER, only field and particle instrumentation were carried to study the near-lunar environ- ment. These included a piezoelectric micrometeoroid detector with a collecting area of 13 square feet (1.2 square meters), capable of detecting particles as light as 2.5 trillionths of an ounce (0.07 micrograms). Two 0.6 by 1.2-inch (15 by 30-millimeter) plates served as infrared detectors to measure the temperature of the lunar surface. Various radiation detectors were carried, including a gamma-ray sensor sensitive to energies between 0.3 and 4 MeV (Mega-electron Volt) that could be used to assess the composition of the lunar surface. A sensitive magnetometer mounted on a 4.9-foot (1.5-meter) boom was used to measure lunar magnetic fields. Changes in radio transmission properties could be used to determine the characteristics of any thin gaseous medium near the surface. Finally, the orbiter could be tracked to determine the mass distribution of the Moon. The mission of LUNA 10 was as much political as it was scientific. One of the probe's first tasks upon reaching orbit was to broadcast the Soviet anthem "Internationale" to the Twenty-Third Congress of the Communist Party then meeting in Russia. The Soviets were first again and wanted the whole world to know it. After 56 days in orbit and 219 communication sessions, LUNA's batteries were exhausted. The first lunar satellite was last known to be in a 235 by 612-mile (378 by 985- kilometer) orbit, perturbed by the highly irregular lunar gravitational field. This would prove to be the high water mark of Soviet lunar exploration in the Nineteen Sixties. The Soviets achieved all the major firsts in the race to the Moon: The first flyby, first impact, first farside photographs, first landing, and now the first lunar satellite. After almost one decade of failures, delays, and, at best, coming in second, the United States was now poised to seize control of the Great Moon Race. Summary of Lunar Probe Launches, First Quarter 1966 _________________________________________________________________ Name Launch Country Weight Launch Date lbs (kg) Vehicle _________________________________________________________________ LUNA 9 Jan 31, 1966 USSR 3387 (1538) MOLNIYA Lunar hard landing KOSMOS 111 Mar 1, 1966 USSR 3480 (1580)? MOLNIYA Possible failed lunar orbiter LUNA 10 Mar 31, 1966 USSR 3484 (1582) MOLNIYA Lunar orbiter ___________________________________________________________________ Notes: Probe names given in () are used if no official name exists. Weights given are the launch weights of the probes and do not include any additional equipment that may have been carried by the escape stage. ___________________________________________________________________ Bibliography - Gatland, Kenneth, THE ILLUSTRATED ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SPACE TECHNOLOGY, 1988 Gatland, Kenneth, ROBOT EXPLORERS, 1972 Johnson, Nicholas, HANDBOOK OF SOVIET LUNAR AND PLANETARY EXPLORATION, 1979 Mirabito, Michael M., THE EXPLORATION OF OUTER SPACE WITH CAMERAS, 1983 Wilson, Andrew (Editor), INTERAVIA SPACE DIRECTORY 1989-90 Wilson, Andrew, (JANE'S) SOLAR SYSTEM LOG, 1987 MAJOR NASA LAUNCHES, Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Historical Report No. 1A, circa 1987 NASA SPACECRAFT PROGRAMS, TRW Space Log, Fall 1965 SPACECRAFT DETAILS, TRW Space Log, Summer 1966 VECTORS, Volume X: SURVEYOR Commemorative Issue, 1968 About the Author - Andrew J. LePage is a scientist at a small R&D company in the Boston, Massachusetts area involved in space science image and data analysis. He has written many articles on the history of spaceflight and astronomy over the past few years that have been published in many magazines throughout North America and Europe. Andrew has been a serious observer of the Soviet/CIS space program for over one dozen years. Andrew's Internet address is: lepage@bur.visidyne.com Andrew is the author of the following EJASA articles: "Mars 1994" - March 1990 "The Great Moon Race: The Soviet Story, Part One" - December 1990 "The Great Moon Race: The Soviet Story, Part Two" - January 1991 "The Mystery of ZOND 2" - April 1991 "The Great Moon Race: New Findings" - May 1991 "The Great Moon Race: In the Beginning..." - May 1992 "The Great Moon Race: The Commitment" - August 1992 "The Great Moon Race: The Long Road to Success" - September 1992 "Recent Soviet Lunar and Planetary Program Revelations" - May 1993 181ST AMERICAN ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY MEETING by Paul Dickson and Mike Willmoth Courtesy of Paul Dickson (Dickson@SYSTEM-M.AZ05.BULL.COM), Editor of the Saguaro Astronomy Club's newsletter, SACNews, in Phoenix, Arizona. This article appeared in the March 1993 issue of SACNews. I began writing this article the night of the January 1993 SAC star party. At that time, it was also the twelfth consecutive day with but a trace of rain for the city of Phoenix. In total, it rained for fifteen days. Arizona Route 85, the road over the Gila River to our Buckeye Hills observing site, was closed that night due to high water. Not only was it raining, but we could not even get to the observing site. These were two very good reasons not to attend the star party. The yearly average rain fall for Phoenix, newly raised after 1992's totals, is 19.15 centimeters (7.66 inches). For January, we received 13.05 centimeters (5.22 inches), the wettest January recorded and breaking a ninety-six year-old record. In fact, if you combine both December and January, the total is 20.75 centimeters (8.3 inches). February was only slightly drier than January, but with yet another storm expected during the last week of the month, there would be even more rain and fewer stars. Fortunately, everything that happens in astronomy does not take place in the sky. On the first week of January, Arizona State University (ASU) hosted the American Astronomical Society (AAS) winter meeting. Aside from having perhaps one day (if that) of Arizona sunshine, the meeting went well. Local amateurs were recruited as volunteers by the Local Organizing Committee to help run the meeting. Basically, we worked room lights, the audio/visual equipment, and signs. All of this is trivial but very important in running a smooth meeting. One ninety-minute session can have six presentations with the possibility of each presenter wanting to put their own slides into a slide tray that quickly becomes full. In return for working the meeting, the volunteers were given free admission. The 181st meeting began on January 3, 1993. Because I was a volunteer, it began one day earlier for me. On that day (Saturday), every volunteer gathered bushy-tailed, if not very bright-eyed (after all, these were amateur astronomers and ten a.m. is early), at the Pointe South Mountain to learn how to operated the A/V equipment, room lights, and what to do if a light bulb burned out (do not touch, call the hotel personnel). We then toured the hotel learning the locations of the conference rooms. Later we began stuffing meeting packets with a pizza lunch interruption. Mike's first day was Sunday, working the registration desk. Many notable astronomers arrived at the registration desk, where he got to hand out badges and registration packets filled with goodies. Mike sold some of their AAS T-shirts. Mike also worked Tuesday evening as a door sitter for the Carl Sagan talk. My first day was Monday, where I ran the A/V equipment for both the morning and afternoon sessions of the Historical Astronomy Division. These sessions covered a large time range. From the ancient Native American observatories in New Mexico and Argentina to the history of NASA's High Resolution Microwave Survey (HRMS) which began operating in October of 1992. HRMS is NASA's new name for SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, so it can get through Congress without causing a discussion about "Little Green Men" (LGM). One presentation of interest was an expansion of Ron Schorn's parallels between Simon Newcomb and Arthur Conan Doyle's Professor Moriarty in the Sherlock Holmes mysteries by B. E. Schaefer. Not only can the exact descriptions of Moriarty be used to describe Newcomb, but also the descriptions of Colonel Moran similarly describe Doyle's friend Colonel Alfred Drayson. The conclusion was that Professor Moriarty and Colonel Moran were both based on prominent members of the astronomical community. On Tuesday morning I worked at the registration desk until lunch time. This did not allow me to attend any sessions. I also had other things to do that afternoon. The most notable occurrence for that morning was made so by its lack of being really noticeable. Carl Sagan came and picked up his registration packet. After he had left, those of us behind the desk wondered if we should have jokingly asked Carl if he wanted a ticket to attend the talk he was giving that night. On my way out at lunch time, I walked in front of a parked milk truck. This was a large truck, just short of being a tractor trailer. As I passed in front of it, the vehicle started to slowly move. I easily got well out of its way without increasing my walk. Glancing back at the truck, I noticed the front door was open and at first thought the driver was just repositioning the truck. However, after the truck had moved further, I could see in the cab that there was no one present. One brave passerby attempted to climb into the truck but quickly abandoned the idea rather than be brushed off by a tree. The truck proceeded to make a good attempt at pushing its way into two stationary automobiles parked less than nine meters (thirty feet) from where the truck started its brief journey. No one was hurt. On Wednesday I was scheduled to work the signs for the Grand Ballroom. Due to the position of the lights, slide projector, and signs, I ended up working the projector, too. This session was long, mainly because it was really three sessions. The first and last session had most of the attendees present. No little pressure here. The worst part was the last session with the invited talk. This session had slides and I ended up advancing them, rather than the speaker doing it. This would have been fine except I had a hard time hearing the speaker over the slide projector. I must have lived through it, though, for I am still here. Wednesday afternoon was even wilder. I arrived in the session room with the microphones disconnected and the smell of smoke. My first nasal impression was one of popcorn and later of burnt sugar. Since I discovered that there was feedback when the microphones were plugged in, I called the hotel's A/V department. After adjusting the volume they said they would investigate the smoke smell. Naturally, they never returned. The High Energy Physics session went off without any problems. There were no slides, but the control panel for the lights was behind the screen used for overheads. Thursday morning I had one short session to work signs. I also worked the lights, since the control panel was between me and the sign, so it was no problem. The person running the projector never got any slides for this session. Due to working only one short session, I attended the session in the Grand Ballroom. It was entitled "The Wonderful World of Supernovae", given by A. V. Filippenko. It covered the history of supernova studies of the Type Ia, Ib, Ic, and Type II. Also covered were peculiarities of the Ia and the use of Type II supernovae as a direct measurement of celestial distance, hereby skipping the many steps of the cosmic distance ladder. Thursday afternoon I worked as a runner. This is generally a backup position to perform whatever needed to be done. I nearly had to run the slide projector when someone arrived late, but after they arrived I went back to just sitting around. It was lucky I has a full packet from all the handouts at the Pavilion; I had read almost everything by the end of the day. The Pavilion was a big tent. It was where the vendors were showing their wares and the papers were posted on bulletin boards. There were a lot of handouts, posters, CDs, and CD-ROMs given away. Book vendors were offering sale prices between ten to thirty percent off. All told, I spent about one hundred dollars on books. I wish I could have afforded to spend more. I overheard some other volunteers talking about one weird session that they covered. It seems that one presenter spent most of his time talking about a still in Beijing, the capital of China. Pete Manly, a SAC member and a moderator on BIX, also attended as a volunteer. Here are some of the comments he sent to me: "At the AAS meeting I saw more business conducted outside the scheduled sessions than in. This is where collaborations are formed, grad students find permanent jobs, and nights on telescopes are traded (one astronomer quipped that they really needed to formalize trades and have open sessions conducted in `trading pits' like pork bellies and corn futures are traded on stock market floors). "The only really `big ticket' item I saw announced was that Geminga, the enigmatic high energy source (and possible black hole) has a detectable proper motion, implying it is close by and within the Milky Way Galaxy. Unfortunately, for that session I was working the light switches from behind the screen so I could only hear the session and did not see the diagrams. "I personally found it entertaining, as I ran into old friends I hadn't observed with for fifteen to twenty years. I also had several kind folks come up to me with copies of my book for signature, a duty I like second only to signing the backs of royalty checks." The next one dozen paragraphs are from Mike describing a session he attended and what was going on in the Pavilion. The most interesting group of sessions going on that I wanted to see was the Education track. I walked into the middle of one of the first presentations but caught the rest. Many dealt with using personal computers in training undergraduate students how to handle data reduction and plan observing sessions. One professor was describing the software he had written over several years to train students to do data reduction. It was similar but different to one already available; the names escape me now that it is almost two months later. He indicated that he had found that the topics covered with the original software failed to teach everything that was needed by an astronomer. The professor's goal was to augment this program with one that would cover some of the same topics, but also include the other missing ones. Over time he pared down the software to be as simple as possible since some of his students had never used a personal computer let alone a mouse driving a graphical user interface. When he took questions from the audience, another professor indicated that he, too, had written a program that did some of the same things, but added some others. They decided to discuss them together afterwards. The next speaker was a professor from the University of Iowa who had taken different CCD cameras and attached them to their smaller telescopes. These ranged from a 35-centimeter (fourteen-inch) Schmidt-Cassegrain to a ten-centimeter (four-inch) telephoto lens. Each CCD camera had its own features and he showed these in table format on an overhead transparency. He then showed photos of the equipment in place in their observatory. The professor went on to describe their arrangement. Students would decide which piece(s) of equipment to use during an observing run, set up a schedule compatible with the other students, and collect the data. They would then reduce the data and possibly use their results to decide whether additional sessions with the same object(s) were warranted. All equipment was controllable from inside, away from the observatory itself. From Minnesota came another professor who had similar success. He had software which his students could use to decide how to set up an observing run and then store the images afterwards. They would view their results in real time and make a decision on whether to continue with the schedule or concentrate more on what they had just done. In the event of a cloudy night they could reanalyze their earlier work and the software would train them in further techniques. Students would work together in pairs. Finally, one professor got up and showed a chart used for the game of Life. He explained that the game of life is such that if you start out with a configuration of disks on a Tic-Tac-Toe board, then using certain rules you can simulate life. For example, three neighboring squares filled creates a fourth. However, four neighboring squares filled creates a death and frees up a square. He then took this one step further by programming software to use concentric circles or rings. Each ring had sectors representing the squares on the board. In addition, each ring held a population of stars which orbits the center of a galaxy in a Keplerian orbit. As the inner rings pass the outer rings, the game of life causes stars to be born and die. Depending on the initial conditions of the stellar distribution, he could determine which parameters would be conducive to continued life and which would die out. With this he populated his rings and began the game. He showed a video of the results where the initial conditions fell into an interval where stellar life was perpetuated. He found that as time went on in the computer the statistical distribution of stars appeared to form into spiral arms. At this point he formed the question of whether spiral arms were really physical or merely statistical. As he took questions from the audience, another professor mentioned that he had also done something like this, but had included parameters to simulate interstellar dust and gas. The speaker had simplified his by not doing so. After the discussion they arranged to speak together about this. Once the education sessions were complete I headed for the Pavilion tent. This is where all the exhibits were located. There were companies promoting their services or equipment. Want an automated small aperture telescope? No problem. Need observation data from NASA? They have got you covered. Hubble Space Telescope (HST) information? Lots. Want to join the AAS? You bet! I found technical book companies offering how to use fractals in astronomy. Several observatories had displays promoting their current research projects. Kitt Peak had a display on their latest telescope construction. The submillimeter array had brochures available for interested attendees. The replacement for the Kuiper Airborne Observatory (KAO) had a cutaway diagram to view. All of these were to be found around the perimeter and down the middle of the tent. As I wandered amidst all this I found research projects being done by astronomers. Several of the undergraduate astronomy students from ASU had their names on some projects, including some of our SAC members. At least one of my old astronomy professors, Dr. Per Aannestad, was manning his display to discuss his project with others on atmospheres around white dwarf stars to explain the strange lines observed in their spectra. These spectra apparently did not fit into the current theories, but they were successful at eliminating this possibility to explain it away. I also ran into a fellow from New York who had developed a way for students to get a real feel for parallax. Using CCD cameras in different locations across the country, say New York and Kansas, simultaneous observations of a planetoid would be arranged for students. They would process their results and mail the images to each other. By noting the different stellar positions in the back- ground and measuring the planetoid's displacement, the parallax and its distance from Earth could be determined. His goal is to make the results available in real time in the near future. He also proposed that students could use polar-orbiting satellites to accomplish the parallax test. By using CCD cameras on 35mm lenses, they could take several minute exposures and observe the same satellites from several kilometers apart. The trails would appear to pass over different stars and a distance could be determined. As we discussed these projects he noticed my badge and mentioned that he had heard of our club. He asked if we put out a database of viewable objects. I confirmed this and we then proceeded to discuss our project in detail. He was impressed by our efforts and suggested that we keep up the good work. So it looks like we are notorious, fellow SAC members. All in all I (Paul) had a good time. If I had a chance to do this again, I would work fewer hours so I could attend random presentations in differing sessions. This meeting is not for the novice. In some cases, the details of what was covered were beyond my understanding, but it exposed me to new directions for further astronomical learning. Related EJASA Article - "The 179th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS): A Volunteer's View", by Ingrid Siegert-Tanghe - April 1992 About the Authors - Paul Dickson has been a member of SAC since 1988 and has been the Editor of SAC's SACNews for more than three years. Paul is currently a student at Arizona State University and works for Bull HN, Inc. Paul has contributed a number of articles from SAC to the EJASA. His net address may be found at the beginning of this article. Mike Willmoth has been a member of the Saguaro Astronomy Club (SAC) since 1978. Currently, Mike is with the Arizona Department of Transportation as a systems engineer, helps put on science fiction conventions to advance the public's education about the future of space travel, and is creating a video history of SAC's meetings so that others may benefit from its educational offerings. THE ELECTRONIC JOURNAL OF THE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF THE ATLANTIC July 1993 - Vol. 4, No. 12 Copyright (c) 1993 - ASA -END OF FILE- -----------