Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson Received: from holmes.andrew.cmu.edu via trymail for +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr1/ota/space/space.dl@andrew.cmu.edu (->+dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr1/ota/space/space.dl) (->ota+space.digests) ID ; Mon, 20 Feb 89 08:51:51 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Mon, 20 Feb 89 08:51:42 -0500 (EST) Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #250 SPACE Digest Volume 9 : Issue 250 Today's Topics: private spaceplane Re: 1992 moon base Re: the un/manned debate Re: Manned vs unmanned space exploration Energia questions Cosmos mission results and future U.S./USSR missions announced (Forwarded) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Feb 89 17:36:11 GMT From: asuvax!enuxha!kluksdah@noao.edu (Norman C. Kluksdahl) Subject: private spaceplane A while ago, I asked for a showing of interest in a privately-run project to investigate the feasibility of a small-scale spaceplane. Lots of you (i.e. 40+) responded in some way or another. This was just before Christmas, and I tried to e-mail a followup letter to everyone. Unfortunately, at that juncture, we were having massive problems with our mailer, and I'm not certain what did or didn't make it through. Soooo........ Here goes again. (For all interested parties, I have compiled a preliminary mailing list. Ask for copies.) What I propose is a 4 part project. The first two phases can be accomplished without vast sums of capital, and will, at the very least, be a great learning experience for all involved. The phases are: 1) Definition of the goal. What is the design supposed to accomplish? 2) Selection of a design. Things get quite involved here, but it's still relatively cheap and fun. 3) Securing funding and construction. Here is where the headaches start. But several possible solutions have been proposed for funding, and if the project goes anywhere, the EAA has *lots* of construction expertise. 4) Operation. Paydirt. Even if the thing never gets past phase 2, I think we could collectively have lots of interesting experiences with such a project. If this sounds interesting, e-mail an answer, resume, whatever. If you would like to know who responded initially, or if you didn't get my followup message and would like it, you have but to ask. (Special thanks to Dani Eder, Dale Amon, Henry Spencer, and Charles Brunow for their helpful discussions and suggestions--even when they didn't know that's what they were doing!) Norman Kluksdahl Arizona State University ..ncar!noao!asuvax!enuxha!kluksdah standard disclaimer implied ------------------------------ Date: 16 Feb 89 05:37:40 GMT From: ndcheg!uceng!dmocsny@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (daniel mocsny) Subject: Re: 1992 moon base In article <1989Feb15.235800.20880@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: > In article <698@uceng.UC.EDU> dmocsny@uceng.UC.EDU (daniel mocsny) writes: > >...To the extent the Antarctic winter is similar to life on the moon... > There is one obvious dissimilarity: the winter staff in Antarctica know > that they're in "maintenance mode", with all the real activity waiting > for the summer. This will affect motivation. Correct, and that is why I included the disclaimer "To the extent..." I think we can safely count on at least the early lunar staffs to display exceptional motivation and self-sacrifice, perhaps even heroism. Living conditions that would amount to banishment in Antarctica would probably appear as an unequaled opportunity to the early lunar colonists. I have enough experience in several fields to have some idea of what highly motivated people can do. However, I also know how conditions that require tremendous motivation have a way of eventually leading to burnout. An athlete will gladly suffer deprivations in training to attain a goal, and will suffer intense pain in competition, but will (s)he be able to sustain heroic efforts indefinitely? Sports psychologists know the answer: no. The athlete must schedule her/his training and competition around the goal of hitting between one to three performance peaks per season. The lunar staffs will enjoy the attention and sympathies of most of humanity, at least initially. Ultimately, however, the moon base will be yesterday's news, things will get a little slow at Luna 1, and the staffs will be left with the reality of their situation. If it's inherently a bad situation, they aren't going to be able to ignore that forever. Then when we blow another shuttle and they're looking at a few years until the next re-supply, they'll need motivation in spades. This is the reason for my interest in the information-handling problems associated with space colonization. Productivity requires three ingredients: materials, energy, and intangibles relating to information: know-how, intelligence, judgement, data-gathering and processing, control, organization, adaptation, learning. Notice that I have no single word to sum up the vital third leg of the triad. That implies how little we (OK, I) understand what we have historically taken largely for granted. A little reflection shows that the three legs of the triad can partially substitute for each other. This is important for space colonization, because the third ingredient can have arbitrarily close to zero mass, depending on our skill at packaging it. And the third ingredient is the primary factor that determines our psychological well-being. We are information-processing organisms much more than we are materials-processing organisms. Humans need a satisfying and relatively benign information (i.e., sensory and thought) environment. We need a variety of challenging (but not impossible) problems to solve. We need to interact regularly with other intelligences. We need to have our visual and auditory systems massively and favorably stimulated. We need opportunities to exercise power and control over our surroundings. We need variety. And that is why we need robots, AI, pocket supercomputers, teleop, virtual reality, global hypertext, gigabit networks, machine learning, Von Neumann replicators, nanotech, the whole nine yards (did I miss any buzzwords?). The material costs of sustaining, not to mention expanding, human life on the moon will be well beyond what we can satisfy with human labor. We can't just dump people in cans and expect them to huddle heroically while we try to build a reliable launcher to get them back home. We have to give them the tools to not simply survive on the moon, but to take it. Cheers, Dan Mocsny dmocsny@uceng.uc.edu ------------------------------ Date: 16 Feb 89 05:29:09 GMT From: rochester!rit!ritcv!mpksla@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu Subject: Re: the un/manned debate Ugggg! I have just about enough of this manned/unmanned thing. I think we all understand fairly well that both are needed. Both the manned and unmanned programs provide results (both tangible and intangible). Most of the ideas that people propose seem to be thoughtless comments about what the ideal space program would be. Perhaps a little more thought could go into possible solutions to our current situation--not fantsy solutions grabbed from pulp science fiction. for example. The scientific probe activists... while your telling us the great virtues of 30 billion dollars worth have you ever considered what we would do with all this information? Where we would store it? Already we are on the verge of saturating nasa's NASCOM network. with the HST and the other great observatory programs going into service, we will rapidly climb into the terabytes a year worth of information being transmitted from space to earth. We need to be continously thinking about new technologies to retreive, store, and process this information. I don't mean this to be a flame, (although there are doubtless those who will take it as such.), But I bet there are those out there who feel as I do, and would much rather see debate of issues a little more pertinent to our present world. Also, what about areas in applicable space research? Not space based manufacturing, or colonization. Both of these ideas are decades into the future (unless we are visited by aliens who grant us wild technologies). But areas where space help to discover new processes that may be duplicated on earth. Advances in crystalography, metalurgy, pharmacuticles(sp?), and other long unspellable sciences. We know that we need to take a two pronged approach. Challanger has told us that much. But what specific areas of research are we looking forward to in the near years. How can nasa work against a tightening budget to keep it's programs active? Big ticket items are always much easier to get public support for then smaller less noticable scientific missions. What does congress want out of a space program? Does anyone really know? And is there really a tangible market for private industry research and developement of space? I tend to doubt it. I believe that space will remain a government controlled and operated thing until the government can start to prove that it will be worthwhile for private industry to make the investement necessary. Although we tend to think in great leaps and bounds, unfortunately, the best research is that which is done slowly, and one step at a time. Michael Kirby mpk9172@ritvax.bitnet mpk9172@cs.rit.edu rochester!ritcv!mpk9172 *** "The intelligence of the masses is inversely proportional to it's size" "Ray Tracing done here....Cheap!" ------------------------------ Date: 16 Feb 89 10:54:05 GMT From: cs.utexas.edu!sm.unisys.com!csun!polyslo!jmckerna@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (THE VIKING) Subject: Re: Manned vs unmanned space exploration In article <120@beaver.cs.washington.edu> szabonj@fin.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes: >In article <8902100153.AA02978@cmr.icst.nbs.gov> roberts@CMR.ICST.NBS.GOV (John Roberts) writes: >>From: cs.utexas.edu!sm.unisys.com!csun!polyslo!jmckerna@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu [John Roberts and I state a postition defending manned space as R&D] >!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!????????????????????????????????????????? >Two posters now have advocated putting money in *unproductive* ventures, >for the very reason that they are unproductive, and skimping on productive >ventures! This sort of thinking scares the bejeebers out of folks who are >considering investing their money in space. Nick's posting attacks Robert's and my postings by simplifying their content to a single, obviously contradictory sentence. Not a very ethical way of discussing things Nick. The basic premise in my posting is that manned space research is basic R&D. That means that economic return on investment does not apply. It is also wrong to try to catagorize some types of basic R&D as more important than others. It might be possible to make some sort of a case that physics is more important than chemistry which is more important astronomy, that unmanned space R&D is more important than manned, etc. (pick your own peculiar R&D ordering). The fundamental point is that they are all important. We need many and more types of basic R&D, not less. The US spends less than 1% of its GNP on basic R&D, so if you think unmanned space R&D is underfunded, fight to get its funding increased. Fighting to get the funding for other types of R&D (for example manned space R&D) decreased is only negative. Most people in this discussion do seem to agree that manned space R&D is important in general, including Nick Szabo and Paul Dietz. I believe it's important because the event of man's expansion into the solar system is of great importance. Nick and Paul do state that it is unimportant now. This is wrong because knowledge gained from basic R&D is valuble regardless (within reason) of when it is learned. Afterall when is the right time to learn about the nature of subatomic particles, or the structure of DNA, or how to build a transister? There are times when research is not feasible, but there've been men in space for 30 years now, the Soviet Union has a permanently manned station, etc. Paul says that manned space won't be important for 40 years. I don't think it's possible to predict technological advance with any accuracy beyond 25 years, if that. When the time to move into space does come we will need a large body of technical and general knowledge inorder to do so. Manned space R&D is clearly both feasable and worthwhile NOW. Some things in Paul's postings suggest that he does support manned space R&D now in general, just not NASA's current program. At least to the extent of developing manned booster technology. Paul Dietz writes: >>Did I suggest we not do research on better boosters? Nick Szabo also supports research into tele-operation, from the perspective of eventual use by men in space. I personally believe that manned space R&D should focus on reducing manned launch costs before doing anything else. I believe in this sense that virtually everybody in this group supports somekind of manned space R&D, with the exception of fanatics like Chip Olsen who don't support any R&D unless it is in their area of concern (ecology in Chip's case). I do believe that the space station is a mistake at this time. In fact I agree with Henry Spencer that it would be best if we simply disbanded NASA (with the exception of JPL) and turned it over to private industry with a policy of payment on orbital delivery only. This is difficult because it requires cutting the careers of tens of thousands of talented and dedicated employees off at the knees. I do have a few words in NASA's defense. They do agree that less expensive launchers are important before building a station, that's why the shuttle was built in the first place. It is perhaps too difficult politically for NASA to declare the shuttle a failure and start over. And that means they have to use it for something, so they're moving on to the station despite the inflated cost. John L. McKernan. Student, Computer Science, Cal Poly S.L.O. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .signature currently under government sponsored basic research. Results guaranteed to advance science, satisfy every special interest group, generate 2000 times the wealth expended, and show up the Russians expected REAL SOON NOW. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Feb 89 09:57:51 PDT From: Peter Scott Subject: Energia questions X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"space@andrew.cmu.edu" Those four boosters on Energia are liquid fuel, not solid, right? What altitude do they separate at? Are they recovered and reused? What about the main rocket? How close does it come to being able to go into LEO? Could it do so if it jettisoned the engines and just send the shell into orbit? If so, how come the Russkies haven't built an orbiting facility this way? Peter Scott (pjs@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov) ------------------------------ Date: 16 Feb 89 22:08:12 GMT From: yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: Cosmos mission results and future U.S./USSR missions announced (Forwarded) Paula Cleggett Headquarters, Washington, D.C. February 16, 1989 C. J. Fenrick Ames Research Center, Mountain View, Calif. RELEASE: 89-18 COSMOS MISSION RESULTS AND FUTURE U.S./USSR MISSIONS ANNOUNCED The science results of the collaborative U.S./USSR biosatellite mission from Cosmos 1887 have confirmed the adverse physiological and biomedical effects of prolonged space flight. The analyzed mammalian biospecimens suggest that adolescent vertebrate animals will experience significant alterations in calcium metabolism, immune functions and musculoskeletal mass and structure. The Soviet Union launched Cosmos 1887 on Sept. 29, 1987, for a 12-plus-day mission. Cosmos 1887 was the sixth in a series of unmanned Soviet satellites that flew U.S. and USSR life sciences experiments. This cooperative activity is being carried out under the l987 U.S./USSR agreement concerning Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes. The U.S. experiments on Cosmos 1887 investigated the effects of space flight on the major body systems, including skeletal bones and muscles, nervous system, heart, liver and several glands and blood. Special tissue culture studies, using pituitary cells, studied the growth hormone. Spleen and bone marrow cells were used to investigate the effects of microgravity on the immune system. The U.S. also had a radiation measurement experiment on the spacecraft. The Soviet experiments were developed and managed by the Institute for Biomedical Problems, Moscow. The USSR provided the U.S. tissue samples from 5 of 10 rats that were flown aboard the spacecraft. The majority of the scientific specimens were returned to the U.S. in late October 1987 and distributed to the scientific teams around the country. The remainder of the biosamples arrived at NASA's Ames Research Center, Mountian View, Calif., for analysis in early November. The science results of Cosmos 1887 bone studies indicated structural changes occurred without significant changes in the mineral content. For example, the bending strength of the rat humerus bone was decreased by 40 percent and the compression strength of the lumbar vertebra was decreased by 27 percent. Muscle studies on the rats showed that, while individual muscle weights were similar for both flight and ground control animal groups, the fast muscle types showed significant decrease in cross-sectional area, atrophy and extracellular edema, while at the same time showing increased necrotic fibers and motor end plate degradation. Slow muscle types showed little evidence of atrophy but some biochemical changes. The mitochondria in the heart muscle also showed degeneration and fiber changes. Observations on other body organs and physiological systems confirmed what was learned on previous flight research experiments, such as a decreased mass and spermatogenesis in the testes, decreased growth hormone release by the anterior pituitary cells, increased cholesterol, triglycerides and organ weight in the liver and a reduced immune response suggested by several types of measures involving the spleen, bone marrow and blood. The U.S. Space Biology and Medicine Program has received many benefits from scientific cooperation with the USSR, including the opportunity to conduct experiments on the physiological effects of 12-plus-days of space flight on rats and rhesus monkeys. This length of the Cosmos missions is approximately twice the exposure time in microgravity that is presently experienced in U.S. Spacelab flights on the Shuttle. While a comparable 8-day U.S. mission with rats is expected to fly in mid-1990, a U.S. mission with rhesus monkeys is not expected until late 1992 or 1993. These early Cosmos flights serve as a testbed for the development of U.S. scientific experiments, technology and flight hardware. In addition, both sides benefit from the sharing of research data in all areas of space biology and medicine. The U.S. has three opportunities to fly experiments with the Soviets in the next few years. The USSR has invited the U.S. to participate on the USSR 1989 and 1991 biosatellite missions. The science focus will be in biomedical research with the following payload specimens: Rhesus monkeys, male wistar rats, fish, fish eggs, newts, drosophila, beetles, seeds, unicellular organism and planaria. In reciprocal fashion, Soviet scientists have been invited to participate in analysis of specimens from the U.S. Shuttle Spacelab life sciences mission to be launched in June 1990. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V9 #250 *******************