Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson Received: from beak.andrew.cmu.edu via trymail for +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl@andrew.cmu.edu (->+dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl) (->ota+space.digests) ID ; Fri, 20 Apr 90 02:40:59 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Fri, 20 Apr 90 02:40:28 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #291 SPACE Digest Volume 11 : Issue 291 Today's Topics: Re: Pegasus launch from Valkyrie (or ... Re: B70/B58 - Pegasus launch Re: Last year's BIG asteroid... [HELP] Insult Re: Pegasus launch techniques Re: voyager images on cd Re: space tomatoes Re: Needles Re: Questions about the Voyagers Re: Apollo 13, STS-1, Vostok 1 anniversaries Re: Winch Launch as first stage. Re: Abundance of stars Very long wavelength antenna (was Re: Drake Equation ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 Apr 90 16:57:41 GMT From: convex!ewright@uunet.uu.net (Edward V. Wright) Subject: Re: Pegasus launch from Valkyrie (or ... dlbres10@pc.usl.edu (Fraering Philip) writes: >Third Millenium Corp., also abbreviated as MMI, had been (and may still be) >seeking development money for a design for a mini-shuttle called the >"space van." The design was never frozen; one of the early ones involved a >vehicle that launched from a 747 which could either go into orbit itself on >the last gasp of fuel, with enough weight for one pilot and retrorocket fuel, >or could carry a space stage up to Mach 5 or so. This version of the Space Van was for passenger, including tourist, flights. The payload was actually one pilot and five passengers, if memory serves me right. >The space stage could carry >3000 kg into orbit. The Space Van itself was recoverable; it had 6-8 RL-10 >engines. The space stage had one, but it was not recoverable, except maybe >if the Space Van went up and recovered it. There were, in fact, plans to do this. Only the engine module would have been recovered, the Space Stage propellent tanks and payload fairing, being cheap, would be expended. One Space Van mission could recover several Space Stage propulsion packages. >It should be noted that the RL-10 cryogenic engine is the oldest liquid >hydrogen engine ever used; it may have even been the first. It is also one of the most reliable engines ever built. It has been used on the Centaur upper stage for more than 20 years without a single inflight failure. Although not designed as a reuseable engine, its ability to sustain multiple restarts and long firing life -- the qualities you need in a reuseable engine -- have been demonstrated in static firings under simulated space conditions. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Apr 90 03:34:47 GMT From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: B70/B58 - Pegasus launch In article <1990Apr18.174732.6560@ecn.purdue.edu> wb9omc@ea.ecn.purdue.edu (Duane P Mantick) writes: >All of this may be a moot point, however, in the case of the Valkyrie. >There is no such thing as a wing "hard-point" on this bird. In addition >the constuction of the main fuselage bottom is such that it might >not be possible to put in separation equipment ... The folks looking at using a Valkyrie to launch an X-15 successor concluded that the best place to put it was on top, well aft. They were serious about it, so it's presumably possible. As Duane points out, though, #2 was a much better aircraft than #1, and the X-15-plus folks needed #2. >How would a 1990's technology Valkyrie perform? ... How much would it cost? The two XB-70s cost their weight in gold, and they were the heaviest things in the sky... >... I suspect that better engines are available >now off-the-shelf than the J93 ever was... Not ones cleared for Mach 3 cruise, I'm afraid. Probably the best you could do right now would be Mach 2.2-rated Olympus engines meant for Concorde; I *think* they are still in production, at some miniscule rate. The Blackbirds' J-58 has been out of production for a long time, and the modified Gyron Juniors for the Bristol T.188 probably weren't ever *in* production. And that is basically it for supersonic-cruise aircraft outside the USSR. >Ah well, such is the stuff dreams are made of. Alas. -- With features like this, | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology who needs bugs? | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 23:52 MDT From: Subject: Re: Last year's BIG asteroid... Regarding the posting asking about a *large* meteor that "nearly" hit the Earth last year: 03/21/1989 A 1-mile diameter asteroid came within 1/2 million miles of Earth. I remember hearing on the *radio* that the object in question was not detected until it was already heading away from earth. Take this for what its worth: I remember some "scientist" type saying that the effect of an object this size striking land would be 100 times greater than detonating all nuclear weapons on the planet at the same time & in the same place. Further, he said that if the object had struck an ocean, the resulting tidal wave would be a mile high, & would slosh over the Sierra Nevadas. They also talked about nuclear winter, dinosaurs, & mentioned that on the outside that all life on earth might be extinguished (*sigh*). Robert "Don't Flame Me" Murdock University of Colorado at Colorado Springs *------------------------------------------* | BITnet: rbmurdock@colospgs | | INTERnet: rbmurdoc@colospgs.bitnet | | ARPAnet: rbmurdock@colospgs.EDU | | UUnet: uunet!colospgs.bitnet!RBMURDOC | | DECnet: UCCS::RBMURDOCK | | AOL: RBMurdock | | GEnie: R.MURDOCK | | FIDOnet: 1:128/16.0 Robert Murdock | | NCIC: CO0210001, TO: MURDOCK x6365 | | CCIC: ELP, TO: MURDOCK x6365 | | PLATO: bob murdock/dialup/cerl | | MAbell: 719/637-1820 | *------------------------------------------* ------------------------------ Date: 19 Apr 90 14:51:39 GMT From: mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (John Ho) Subject: [HELP] Insult Well, this was posted on one of the newsgroups.. I consider this a great insult to us JPL/Caltech.. Your help is needed... Please email to me.. Sorry, but I am not an astronomy major.. I only know computer... Thank you very much... >1. Name the inner planets and outer planets. >2. List the planets in the order of distance from the Sun > (not Sun in California, I know it's hot there, too). >3. Name the farthest planet that was visited by one of NASA spacecrafts. >4. Name that spacecraft >5. Give the date of that visit >6. Name the sister planet of Earth >I think one of Cowsteak students will get this because they live in >the same town with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (the one that >manages the spacecraf). ~John John@elroy.jpl.nasa ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 19:49:00 EDT From: capnal@aqua.whoi.edu (Alan Duester) Subject: Re: Pegasus launch techniques I recall seeing an article about a year or two ago about how OSC/Hercules was going to switch launch airplanes after the first dozen or so test flights. At that time, the plan was for a dedicated, modified MD-11 or DC-10, with longer landing gear, and a slot cut in the plane's belly to accept the tail fin. Obviously, this is not a supersonic launch technique. I don't know what the performance differential between it and the B-52 would be either. However, those things carry a lot of typically overweight people, so it might be able to move fast and high, 'specially if you're not worried about fuel economies like the airlines supposedly are. Does anyone know anything concrete on this? Sorry if I missed an earlier note on this, I lost a week of Digest. ========================================================================= "The farther it gets from the bench it was built on, the more real the real world gets." - Todd Johnson Al Duester, Ocean Engineer, MS S201 # SPAN: 6308::capnal Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution # INTERNET: capnal@aqua.whoi.edu Woods Hole, MA 02543 # GEnie: A.DUESTER (508) 548-1400 x2474 (ans. Machine, voice messages) (508) 457-2000 auto-receptionist for touch tone phones ========================================================================= ------------------------------ Date: 19 Apr 90 17:39:02 GMT From: mailrus!umich!terminator!um.cc.umich.edu!Gavin_Eadie@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Gavin Eadie) Subject: Re: voyager images on cd >> In article <8057.2621d410@stsusa.com>, pcarew@stsusa.com writes: >> >> I am interrested in obtaining the images from the Voyager Neptune > In article <5770.262c97b3@uwovax.uwo.ca> 35007_321@uwovax.uwo.ca writes: > the images are available on CD and the IMDISP software works with VGA, In fact the Neptune images are not yet released. Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus are available from NSSDC on CD-ROM. Mine are at home but I think there are about 9 of them to date and the Neptune encounter will provide the final 1 or 2 in this excellent collection. --- Gavin Eadie, Associate Director The University of Michigan Computing Center Ann Arbor, Michigan 48103-4943 ------------------------------ Date: 19 Apr 90 19:01:40 GMT From: fernwood!portal!cup.portal.com!mmm@apple.com (Mark Robert Thorson) Subject: Re: space tomatoes I don't know about tomatoes, specifically, but in most members of Solanum the leaves and other green parts of the plant are poisonous. Even a green potato can be poisonous, which is why you're supposed to keep potatos in the dark. I can easily imagine a morphological mutation which could leave a plant confused as to whether it was making a fruit or a leaf. A leafy tomato fruit might indeed be a poisonous thing. It might educational for NASA to explain this to the students. They could pass out pictures which show tomatoes which are safe to eat (pictures of normal tomatoes) and tomatoes which should not be eaten (pictures of artist's conceptions of mutant tomatoes). ------------------------------ Date: 18 Apr 90 18:51:12 GMT From: att!cbnewsh!lmg@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (lawrence.m.geary) Subject: Re: Needles In article <814@geovision.UUCP> gd@geovision.UUCP (Gord Deinstadt) writes: >visual astronomers) and doomsayers. The launch took place, the "needles" >were invisible from the ground except at resonant microwave frequencies, >and within a month or two they had all re-entered. No so. The needles were visible from the ground. Shortly after the experiment Sky & Telescope published a photograph showing several of the needles in orbit. -- --Larry: 74017.3065@compuserve.com ------------------------------ Date: 19 Apr 90 03:55:42 GMT From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: Questions about the Voyagers In article <1990Apr18.205337.3482@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> davies@uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu writes: >One of the Voyager mission planners gave a talk here recently. He said >that Voyager 1 could have gone on to Pluto after Saturn (and some of the >ground crew wanted it to, including the speaker), but to do so would >have meant omitting the close fly-by of Saturn's moon Titan. True; I should have said "fixed by the use of gravity-assist maneuvers, and by high-priority science objectives, at the planets closer in". Remember that the original name for Voyager was Mariner Jupiter-Saturn. The birds were basically designed entirely for Jupiter and Saturn, with the reservation that nothing in their design *preclude* going further. And major science objectives at Jupiter and Saturn took priority over later encounters. In particular, a close encounter with Titan was the number-one priority at Saturn. If Voyager 1 had failed before Titan encounter, Voyager 2 would have flown it and the Uranus-Neptune trajectory would have been abandoned. We got lucky! -- With features like this, | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology who needs bugs? | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu ------------------------------ Date: 19 Apr 90 04:30:51 GMT From: bfmny0!tneff@uunet.uu.net (Tom Neff) Subject: Re: Apollo 13, STS-1, Vostok 1 anniversaries Thanks to Roger Noe for posting a clear summary of the truth about the AS-204 test fire and (versus!) the Apollo 13 mission. It's astonishing how garbled "history" gets! Personally I would think people would buy a book -- ANY book -- about the space program before posting here, but hey! they don't ask my opinion on these things. In article <1227@urbana.mcd.mot.com> rnoe@urbana.mcd.mot.com (Roger Noe) writes: >Trivia time: The nickname of the Apollo 13 command module was Odyssey, >after the ship in the movie "2001". The lunar module, which served as >the astronauts' "lifeboat", was nicknamed Aquarius. Keep this in mind when and if you see FOR ALL MANKIND. There is a scene midway through with a tape recorder twirling in microgravity, playing "Also Sprach Zarathustra." When you see it, get ready! -- "We must never forget that if the war in Vietnam \ $ Tom Neff is lost... the right of free speech will be X tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET extinguished throughout the world." -- RN 10/27/65 $ \ uunet!bfmny0!tneff ------------------------------ Date: 19 Apr 90 00:24:58 GMT From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!lavaca.uh.edu!jetson.uh.edu!ucc1q@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (A JETSON News User) Subject: Re: Winch Launch as first stage. You want a winch to do the job. Take a helicopter rotor hub, gearbox and turbine engine. add a cable drum. should make one fast winch. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Apr 90 22:50:27 GMT From: zephyr.ens.tek.com!wrgate!mrloog!dant@uunet.uu.net (Dan Tilque) Subject: Re: Abundance of stars neufeld@physics.utoronto.ca (Christopher Neufeld) writes: >In article <2294@wrgate.WR.TEK.COM> dant@mrloog.WR.TEK.COM (Dan Tilque) writes: >> >>There are about 50 star systems containing about 70 stars within 16 ly >>of Earth. If this is a representative sample (a reasonable assumption) >>that gives about 1500 star systems in that 50 ly radius. >> > Well, by an odd coincidence I was at the planetarium yesterday. There >is a very interesting scale model of the stars within 50 light years. >The recorded voice claims that "all 787 stars within 50 ly are present" >in the spherical model. Beacuse many stars are doubled or tripled up, >this gives considerably fewer than 1500 star systems. No, estimate was based on the known number of star systems, not stars. A star system may include one or more stars gravitationaly bound plus other riff-raff like planets and such. The reason they had only 787 is that they probably had only the *known* stars within 50 ly. There are many low luminosity M type dwarfs within 50 ly whose parallax has not been measured yet. Actually, there are probably a few with 16 ly which haven't been measured yet. Here's how I got my number: All the lists of nearby stars that I've seen have about 45 star systems going out to 16 ly in them. Figuring that we've missed a few I rounded up to 50. Then I noted that 50 ~= 3 * 16 which meant that the volume of a 50 ly spere is about 27 times that of the 16 ly sphere (I just figured it out on a calculator and it's really about 30 time larger). 50 * 27 = 1350 so I rounded up to 1500 (which actually comes out about right with 30x). Of course, this is all dependant on our having discovered most of the stars out to 16 ly. --- Dan Tilque -- dant@mrloog.WR.TEK.COM ------------------------------ Date: 19 Apr 90 22:18:55 GMT From: zephyr.ens.tek.com!wrgate!mrloog!dant@uunet.uu.net (Dan Tilque) Subject: Very long wavelength antenna (was Re: Drake Equation dbriggs@nrao.edu (Daniel Briggs) writes: >I >remember reading a science fiction story at one point that involved an ultra >low frequency antenna, but can't for the life of me remember what it was. You're probably thinking of a proposal for one in IMPERIAL EARTH by Arthur C. Clarke (amazing how often his name comes up in this group, isn't it?). That proposal was for one of fairly modest wavelength -- a few kilometers, if I remember correctly. --- Dan Tilque -- dant@mrloog.WR.TEK.COM ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V11 #291 *******************