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 ; Tue, 9 Oct 1990 01:32:57 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Precedence: junk Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Tue, 9 Oct 1990 01:32:25 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V12 #433 SPACE Digest Volume 12 : Issue 433 Today's Topics: Re: Junk the shuttle Magellan Update - 10/05/90 Re: Launch cost per pound Re: Beta Testers Needed Re: Mars Rover Update - 10/03/90 deep space comm. protocols Magellan Update - 10/08/90 Re: Mars Rover Update - 10/03/90 Re: NASA Satellite TV Coverage Lifeless interplanetary travellers - where are they now? Re: HST Re: Cost comparison: Apollo/Saturn vs. Shuttle Re: disposal of N-waste into sun Administrivia: Submissions to the SPACE Digest/sci.space should be mailed to space+@andrew.cmu.edu. Other mail, esp. [un]subscription notices, should be sent to space-request+@andrew.cmu.edu, or, if urgent, to tm2b+@andrew.cmu.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Oct 90 13:17:15 GMT From: rex!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!crdgw1!gecrdvm1!gipp@ames.arc.nasa.gov Subject: Re: Junk the shuttle In article <1990Oct7.220559.22035@zoo.toronto.edu>, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) says: > >In article <143239@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> fiddler@concertina.Eng.Sun.COM (Steve Hix) >writes: >>> Actually, we already invaded Washington (successfully!) some years >>> ago. We decided to let you keep it, so we gave it back and returned to >>> the True North, Strong and Free. (Well, maybe not free, but we can >>> offer you a good deal :-)) >> >>Assuming the price is right, can we move it to another location farther >>south? :} > >Any time you want to swap ends of the continent, just let us know. We'll >be happy to trade you Quebec for California. :-) :-) OH, gee, like, I dunno. Fer shur I guess we could do that. That would be, like, so fantastic. Tripendicular. NO, wait. maybe that would be like, so grody, I mean, like, You guys tawk soo weird. But then, sayy do you guys have narly hairdressers up there? >-- >Imagine life with OS/360 the standard | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology >operating system. Now think about X. | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 8 Oct 90 17:17:46 GMT From: elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov!baalke@decwrl.dec.com (Ron Baalke) Subject: Magellan Update - 10/05/90 Magellan Status Report October 5, 1990 The Magellan spacecraft has now completed 147 mapping orbits, with good data from at least 143 orbits. The spacecraft and radar telemetry continue to be nominal. The solar array output of the spacecraft is at 1240 watts. Seven star calibrations, two desaturations and fourteen periods of DSN (Deep Space Network) coverage were successful in the past 24 hours. One star crossing was rejected by the foreground filter because it magnitude was greater than expected. This will be corrected along with updates of the radar parameters. The SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) Data Processing System has been going through engineering tests and upgrades the past week in preparation for normal operations on October 8. Three new F-BIDRs (Full-Resolution Basic Image Data Record) were produced to verify the system. The Image Data Processing Team completed production of 29 full-resolution mosaics covering the full length of the first 24 mapping orbits and 25 special image products in the past week. ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| | | | | __ \ /| | | | Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |___ Jet Propulsion Lab | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| M/S 301-355 | |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ Pasadena, CA 91109 | ------------------------------ Date: 6 Oct 90 19:55:34 GMT From: swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!unix.cis.pitt.edu!dsinc!netnews.upenn.edu!msuinfo!sharkey!teemc!fmeed1!cage@ucsd.edu (Russ Cage) Subject: Re: Launch cost per pound In article <9010060050.AA01380@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov> roberts@CMR.NCSL.NIST.GOV (John Roberts) writes: |>Not at all. It isn't a question of how much you are paid, it is a question of |>how productive you are. If you are twice as productive, you are worth twice |>as much. Western industry is far far more productive than Soviet industry so |>it should be reachable. | |OK, so the Soviets are able to provide launch services for much less than |the US, because they're less productive... I'm confused - I'll have to think |about that for a while. Look, John. Despite Soviet workers being paid much less, our productivity lets us make much more cost-effective airliners and road vehicles. Possibly, our superior manufacturing capabilities could make Soviet-style boosters even cheaper than the Soviets can sell them to us. -- Russ Cage Ford Powertrain Engineering Development Department Work: itivax.iti.org!cfctech!fmeed1!cage (Business only, NO CHATTY MAIL PLS) Home: russ@m-net.ann-arbor.mi.us (Everything else) I speak for the companies I own, not for the ones I don't. ------------------------------ X400-Trace: US*UMASSMAIL*UMASS; arrival Mon, 8 Oct 90 14:11:07 -0400 action Relayed Date: Mon, 8 Oct 90 14:11:07 -0400 P1-Message-Id: US*UMASSMAIL*UMASS; 5A0A080E09090128-MTASATURN Ua-Content-Id: 5A0A080E09090128 From: Chip.Olson@UCS.umass.edu Subject: Re: Beta Testers Needed > From: Leonard Abbey > Wanted.....beta testers for sun/moon rise/set program. It's been running just fine for 4.5 billion years; why bother beta-testing it now? :-) o Chip Olson bitnet: ceo@umass.bitnet _ /-_ UMass-Amherst internet: ceo@ucs.umass.edu (_)>(_)........................... uucp: pick a path, any path. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Oct 90 17:00:14 GMT From: elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!forsight!jato!mars!baalke@decwrl.dec.com (Ron Baalke) Subject: Re: Mars Rover Update - 10/03/90 In article <1990Oct4.201131.4109@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke) writes: > Mars Rover Update > October 3, 1990 > >The rover took four hours and twenty minutes to >navigate a 109-foot-long course in Pasadena's Arroyo Seco, a dry >riverbed adjacent to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Correction: The course the rover navigated was 109 METERS, not 109 feet. ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| | | | | __ \ /| | | | Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |___ Jet Propulsion Lab | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| M/S 301-355 | |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ Pasadena, CA 91109 | ------------------------------ Date: 8 Oct 90 17:26:07 GMT From: swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!cs.utexas.edu!sean@ucsd.edu (Sean William O Malley) Subject: deep space comm. protocols I would like to present a deep space communcations protocol to my networks class. Does anyone have a good reference for such a protocol. I would like to cover the error correction and retransmission strategy used. Sean O'Malley sean@cs.utexas.edu ------------------------------ Date: 8 Oct 90 17:58:09 GMT From: snorkelwacker!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov!baalke@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Ron Baalke) Subject: Magellan Update - 10/08/90 Magellan Status Report October 8, 1990 The Magellan spacecraft has now completed 170 mapping orbits of Venus, with good radar data from at least 165 orbits. Last Saturday, October 6, Gyroscope B-2 again exhibited erratic behavior with increases in temperature and motor current. The gyroscope was initially marked as unusable and then turned off to allow it to cool to 25 degress C. It was turned on again, but quickly heated to over 60 degrees C, so it was turned off and left off. This gyro was in backup status, so the spacecraft's attitude continued to be controlled by the other gyroscopes. The high power transmitter, TWTB, experienced a spurious shutdown on October 7. On board fault protections switched to TWTA, but 37 minutes of radar playback data was lost due to the delay in reacquiring the signal after reconfiguring for the change in signal polarization. Magellan has experienced prior spurious shutdowns in the TWTA, 4 in pre-launch tests and 5 in flight. The investigation is being reopened of the TWTA shutdown model, and contigency plans are being reviewed for quick responses to future occurrences. All star calibrations since October 5 have been successful except for orbit 544 (orbit since Venus Orbit Insertion) this morning, when one star was missed. All desaturations of the reaction wheels were nominal. ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| | | | | __ \ /| | | | Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |___ Jet Propulsion Lab | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| M/S 301-355 | |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ Pasadena, CA 91109 | ------------------------------ Date: 8 Oct 90 18:04:37 GMT From: sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!rex!rouge!dlbres10@ucsd.edu (Fraering Philip) Subject: Re: Mars Rover Update - 10/03/90 Was this Arryo one of those 'debris flows' they have out in the San Gabriel Mountains? Something similar? Phil Fraering dlbres10@pc.usl.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Oct 90 13:21:56 EDT From: John Roberts Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are those of the sender and do not reflect NIST policy or agreement. Subject: Re: NASA Satellite TV Coverage >From: sam.cs.cmu.edu!vac@pt.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) >Subject: NASA Satellite TV Coverage >I have been a bit disappointed in the coverage so far. Most of the >time when I have checked they have been showing mission control >without any audio (talk about boring). The second most common >thing seems to be computer graphics. Only once out of about 10 >times that I have looked have I actually caught them showing the >output of a camera that was in orbit and it did not last very long. >It amazes me that with cameras in orbit they are showing what they >are (mostly boring ground based stuff). Are they only able to send >video from the shuttle during very limited portions of the orbit? >Assuming this is the problem, does anyone know how limited this is >and what portions (seems that near Florida might be good). There have been many, many hours of orbital broadcast from NASA Select thus far. At night, while the astronauts are asleep, the ground control people have been playing with ("exercising") the payload bay cameras, focusing and zooming in and out, adjusting the gain, and moving them around. Some of the shots are of the inside of the bay, but mostly the cameras are pointed at Earth. A spokesman comes on occasionally, and explains what's being broadcast. The video is lost when the Shuttle is out of range of a TDRS satellite. There are cameras at both ends of the payload bay. On the day side, they tend to show color pictures of Earth. On the night side, a black and white camera is used, with the gain turned way up, so surface features can be seen. One can frequently see flashes of lightning in the clouds. (!) I think these pictures are very interesting, since they provide a better impression than I have seen before of what it looks like in orbit (including the apparent motion of the Earth). There was one view which may have shown some star clusters (gain turned way up). I also think the mission control coverage is somewhat interesting, at least when there is audio. John Roberts roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov ------------------------------ Date: 8 Oct 90 14:38:34 GMT From: mcsun!unido!mpirbn!p515dfi@uunet.uu.net (Daniel Fischer) Subject: Lifeless interplanetary travellers - where are they now? Who can tell what has become of all those Upper Stages that were used in the past 1.5 years to launch Magellan, Galileo and Ulysses? They were separated from the spaceprobes after those had reached their escape velocity, so they should be on similar orbits - what steps have been taken to increase their distance from the S/C so that accidental collisions or electrical interference are excluded? Galileo has made a swing-by at Venus that'll bring it to earth two months from now - what has happend to the Galileo-IUS which should have been on a rather similar trajectory? Will it also come close to earth again? Or have Galileo's orbital correction maneouvres been so extensive to reach Venus at all that the IUS is now somewhere completely else? Magellan's IUS presumably didn't achieve an orbital insertion on Venus, so it should also be on a heliocentric orbit: where will it go? And what will become of Ulysses' PAM - not even to speak of the IUS that was separated after only part of the 11.4 km/s were achieved [another question, BTW: the official ESA paper in the ESA BULLETIN #63 speaks of 11.4km/s relative to earth, while several U.S. media repeatedly talked of 15.2km/s - any explanations welcome]. And finally: where will Phobos-1 end up? It couldn't orbit-insert at Mars, so will it return to earth on its Hohmann-style trajectory? When? (Might we catch it and learn what we can do better next time? (-:) Phobos-2 as well as the Viking-Orbiters should be in stable Martian orbits (though Phobos had come rather close to the destination-moon - could it collide?), but I'm really wondering whether somebody takes care of the whereabouts of the interplanetary space debris. The pollution of earth's LEO and GEO is well-known by now, and steps to protection are being taken (er, planned (er, talked about)) - but who protects interplanetary space? p515dfi@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de / Daniel Fischer, Bonn, FRG ------------------------------ Date: 8 Oct 90 13:14:32 GMT From: usc!samsung!umich!csd4330a!osl380a!ellis@ucsd.edu (Ken Ellis) Subject: Re: HST I am interested in interferometric imaging at short wavelengths and would like to find out more. I am familiar with the interferometric imaging work at UC, Berkeley and at the University of Illinois, but not at Georgia. Could you point me to some references or tell me who is doing the work? Thanks. Ken Ellis ellis@osl380a.erim.org ------------------------------ Date: 8 Oct 90 16:20:29 GMT From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ub!ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu!v071pzp4@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Craig L Cole) Subject: Re: Cost comparison: Apollo/Saturn vs. Shuttle In article <8292@fmeed1.UUCP>, cage@fmeed1.UUCP (Russ Cage) writes... >The Soviets launch on expendables, and they return payloads and people >from space all the time. Apollo was an expendable, and it returned >payloads from the moon. Most any payload can be returned if it is >designed for it (for instance, an integral aeroshell and recovery 'chutes). What I meant to say was that the shuttle can return MUCH larger and heavier payloads from orbit than expendables. Really, the expendable itself doesn't return anything from orbit - the payload itself does. >Even Solar Max and Syncom did not require Shuttle. Man-on-the-scene >is all they needed to get them fixed; a particular vehicle is not >implicit in making them functional again. Skylab's thermal control >system was refurbished on-orbit by workers in an Apollo (expendable). Granted, Solar Max and Syncom didn't require the shuttle, only a "man-on-the-scene," but other satellites did. (I can't remember their names.) Nothing other than the shuttle could return those payloads. Launching from the shuttle is no bargain, but I bet recovery is. Designing an aeroshell and recovery chutes for a payload already in space would cost quite a bit of time and money. Craig Cole V071PZP4@UBVMS.BITNET V071PZP4@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU ------------------------------ Date: 26 Sep 90 21:43:58 GMT From: convex!convex.COM@uunet.uu.net (Dave Dodson) Subject: Re: disposal of N-waste into sun In article <1990Sep26.155912.4515@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >In article <1990Sep25.184737.15418@unicorn.wwu.edu> n9020351@unicorn.wwu.edu (james d. Del Vecchio) writes: >>>Launching things into the Sun is enormously expensive... >> >>Why would it be harder to send something to the sun than away from the sun? > >The direction is unimportant; what matters is the velocity change needed. >To get something into the Sun, you have to kill *all* of Earth's orbital >velocity (well, just about), and that's 30 km/s, a horrendous amount for >chemical rockets. Time for a little arithmetic here. Let's use the following approximate values for these constants: Earth's Surface Escape Velocity 11 km/sec Earth's Orbital Velocity around Sun 30 km/sec A launch into the sun requires sqrt (11^2 + 30^2) km/sec =~ 32 km/sec. This is so the payload, after having climbed out of the Earth's gravity well, is travelling away from the Earth at 30 km/sec. If the velocity vector is in the opposite direction from the Earth's velocity vector around the sun, the payload would fall into the sun. A launch to solar escape requires sqrt (11^2 + (30^2)/2) km/sec =~ 24 km/sec. This is so the payload, after climbing out of the Earth's gravity well, is travelling away from the Earth at 30(sqrt(2)-1) km/sec =~ 12.5 km/sec. If the velocity vector is in the same direction as the Earth's, the payload would have solar escape velocity and depart the solar system. Thus solar impact requires 32/24 = 4/3 as much energy as solar escape. All of these energy requirements could be reduced by using gravity assist flybys of various planets, but would you want to jeopardize contaminating a planet with radioactive debris in case of a navigation error or onboard failure? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Dave Dodson dodson@convex.COM Convex Computer Corporation Richardson, Texas (214) 497-4234 ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V12 #433 *******************