Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson Received: from hogtown.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 ; Wed, 15 May 91 01:38:21 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Precedence: junk Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Wed, 15 May 91 01:38:15 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #549 SPACE Digest Volume 13 : Issue 549 Today's Topics: Re: 14 Astronauts have died for space exploration? Re: Advancing Launch Technology International Civil Space Agency93 USF Re: Saturn V and the ALS Sat Tracking foSource Re: Honking at cyclists... Re: Saturn V and the ALS Re: Saturn V and the ALS Re: Laser launchers (really tethers) NASA Headline News for 05/13/91 (Forwarded) Administrivia: Submissions to the SPACE Digest/sci.space should be mailed to space+@andrew.cmu.edu. Other mail, esp. [un]subscription requests, should be sent to space-request+@andrew.cmu.edu, or, if urgent, to tm2b+@andrew.cmu.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 May 91 02:00:37 GMT From: agate!ucsee.Berkeley.EDU!morrison@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Mike Morrison) Subject: Re: 14 Astronauts have died for space exploration? In article A20RFR1@MVS.CSO.NIU.EDU (Bob Rehak Ext. 3-9437, AIS Central Services - Swen Parson 146) writes: >14 astronauts? Last time I counted there were only 10. >Apollo I: Grissom, White, and Chaffee. >STS-61L Challenger: Scobee, Smith, Resnik, Onizuka, McNair, > Jarvis, and McAuliffe. > >A couple have did flight testing aircraft that was not related to >space exploration and a couple have did in car accidents...I think. The May 13 Newsweek has an article on the memorial. They say that the fourteen are the three Apollo I astronauts, the seven Challenger astrounauts and Charles A. Bassett II, Theodore C. Freeman, Elliot M. See Jr., and Clifton C. Williams Jr. who all died in airplane crashes. Mike -- mmichael@cory.Berkeley.EDU morrison@ocf.Bereley.EDU morrison@ucsee.Bereley.EDU ------------------------------ Date: 14 May 91 03:52:50 GMT From: cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!rex!rouge!dlbres10@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Fraering Philip) Subject: Re: Advancing Launch Technology In article <2815@ke4zv.UUCP> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes: >Note that I don't even believe that an HLV has to >be cheaper per pound to orbit than smaller launchers. I believe that >there will be payloads that will require heavy lift because it will >be cheaper to launch them assembled than to do assembly in space. 1. Assembly in space may be a lot cheaper and easier than you think. Since the Russians can do it with their rather less developed automation, shouldn't it be easier with the more developed technology here? 2. Currently it looks like it is the small booster which can take business away from the larger one in spite of a cost per pound imbalance in favor of the larger booster. My example, again, is Pegasus... -- Phil Fraering || Usenet (?):dlbres10@pc.usl.edu || YellNet: 318/365-5418 ''It hardly mattered now; it was, in fact, a fine and enviable madness, this delusion that all questions have answers, and nothing is beyond the reach of a strong left arm.`` - Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, _The Mote in God's Eye_ ------------------------------ Date: 14 May 91 02:43:52 GMT From: vax5.cit.cornell.edu!usf@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu Subject: International Civil Space Agency93 USF ******************************************************************* * UNITED SPACE FEDERATION, INC. * * UPDATE #4 For the 13th of May, 1991 * ******************************************************************* We have had many requests for our agenda. For those who will be interested in our agenda, please send a self addressed envolope to the following address: UNITED SPACE FEDERATION, INC. International Headquarters P.O. Box 4722 Ithaca, New York 14852-4722 In the United States of America The Next Update will give a basic outline of our planned agenda for those of you who are regular subscibers to Sci. SPACE. Also, a Mr. William Hey recently made a reply in Sci. Space regarding one of our updates. He is from Newcastle University in England. He asks some good questions, but one question in particular needs to be addressed so as not to present any confussion on the matter. Mr. William writes: " into removing enviroment contaminating industrial processes to points beyound Earths eco-system " RE: You mean export our toxic waste ect. and dump it somewhere else obtrusive? This reply is somewhat off the mark! Industrial processes does not mean, or is remotely similar too, toxic waste ect. This simply means that in the future power generation plants and other types of industrial processes can be moved into space and the products or energy produced by these activities can then be either transported or transmitted back to Earth for use. I do not think sending toxic waste into space is ethical or pratical as Mr. Williams has already quite correctly pointed out in his responce. I would like to thank the many poeple who have replied to our postings. The USF will keep you informed as to our future activities. Thank you for your time and support,Gospeed! Sincerely, Rick R. Dobson Executive Director United Space Federation.Inc. ------------------------------ Date: 13 May 91 21:22:02 GMT From: orca!bambam!bpendlet@uunet.uu.net (Bob Pendleton) Subject: Re: Saturn V and the ALS In article <1991May10.160059.6430@en.ecn.purdue.edu>, irvine@en.ecn.purdue.edu (/dev/null) writes: > I know Pegasus was a government sponsored program, Then you know wrong. Pegasus development was 100% paid for by private funds. They did cut the government a pretty good deal on the first launch, but hey, they wanted to sell a launch on an untested booster. > -- > +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ > | Society of Philosophers, Luminaries, | Brent L. Irvine | > | and Other Professional Thinking People..... | Only my own ramblings | > +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ -- Bob Pendleton, speaking only for myself. bpendlet@dsd.es.com or decwrl!esunix!bpendlet or hellgate!esunix!bpendlet Tools, not rules. ------------------------------ Date: 13 May 91 16:56:38 GMT From: wwc1.UUCP!vencgr@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Gregory D. Vence) Subject: Sat Tracking foSource Could I have a name and location for some sattilite tracking source code preferably in c. Thanx, Greg. +---------------------------------------------+--------------------------+ I Greg Vence -- KH2EA/7 (Yeah, Guam is home) I Amiga gets the job done. I I vencgr%wwc1@hpspkla.spk.hp.com I I +---------------------------------------------+--------------------------+ ------------------------------ Date: 13 May 91 19:59:44 GMT From: newton.cs.jhu.edu!callahan@umd5.umd.edu (Paul Callahan) Subject: Re: Honking at cyclists... In article <1991May13.180909.16448@watdragon.waterloo.edu> jdnicoll@watyew.uwaterloo.ca (James Davis Nicoll) writes: > Ignoring C, what do you do when you've 'eaten' the universe? >It only takes millenia of growth at our current rate to convert the >universe into human flesh, and while I think there's a good case our >birth rate will drop, if our industrial growth continues at the current >rate, we'll 'eat' the Universe industrially in a few millenia. This is ridiculous (unless you allow FTL travel). At a certain point, you have to replace the exponential growth approximation with an N^3 growth bound (picture a sphere of humanity propagating like an explosion at the speed of light). Clearly, in a few millenia, we'll have barely made a dent in the galaxy, let alone the universe. On the other hand, right now, we're making quite a large dent in the Earth's biosphere. It's important not to squander all the wealth of this planet before determining how to obtain it elsewhere. Once we figure out how to exploit the vast resources of space, then maybe it will be sensible to argue about using them up too fast. At this point, however, we don't know how, and it would be nice to learn as soon as possible, while the option is still available. -- Paul Callahan callahan@cs.jhu.edu ------------------------------ Date: 13 May 91 16:24:58 GMT From: news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo!henry@rutgers.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: Saturn V and the ALS In article <9105121528.AA27759@iti.org> aws@ITI.ORG ("Allen W. Sherzer") writes: >That's hard to understand. If NASA had learned anything they would have >said to themselves: "Holy shit, this sucker is expensive. We better not >buy any more and put the savings into cheaper approaches". Instead of being >upset at the Augustine recommendation that no more be build they would >have been glad they where pulled from the fire without needing to admit >a mistake. I have to side with NASA on this one, I'm afraid. How long will it take to get "cheaper approaches" into production? What are the odds that all the orbiters will survive until then? Until systems are in place to replace *all* the functionality of the shuttle orbiters -- that includes manned flight, not just unmanned cargo lifting -- it is important to keep the shuttle fleet functioning. And that means maintaining the supply of orbiters. (See the OTA or NRC reports for a detailed explanation of why this follows.) A decision to halt orbiter production is a decision to begin the phasing-out of the shuttle... before any viable replacement is available. NASA made this mistake before. Although their motives probably aren't the same as mine, I agree with their desire not to repeat the error. -- And the bean-counter replied, | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology "beans are more important". | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 10 May 91 22:39:08 GMT From: orca!bambam!bpendlet@uunet.uu.net (Bob Pendleton) Subject: Re: Saturn V and the ALS In article <1991May8.153515.21011@zoo.toronto.edu>, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: > In article <1991May7.222730.1640@dsd.es.com> bpendlet@dsd.es.com writes: > >There is some big general somewhere, along with a few little generals, > >a bunch of colonels, majors, captains, ... Whose next promotion > >depends on ALS being exactly what they say it will be. The Air Force > >works on an "up or out" system... > Ha ha ha. It also works on a "ticket puncher" system. The people who > get things started will be long gone to some other job before the excrement > hits the revolving blades. Ah come on Henry, cut me some slack! I will admit that this is no guarantee. But at the high levels they stick around longer than at the low levels. Also, if they think they will have to ride on it they will do a better job than if they just shoot it. > Unless ALS is being run in a very non-standard > way (like the Navy's long-range missiles), no senior USAF personnel are > committed to stay with it from start to finish. When the time comes to > fix the blame, there will be nobody home. It would be nice if the Navy were involved instead of the Air Force. Having to launch from the ship you are on DOES make you more concerned about quality. The Air Force can accept a certain number of missiles that blow up in their holes. No Air Force People will be lost in that kind of a failure. Then Navy can't accept any failures. If the folks in the boomers thought the missiles might blow up they might not launch. And their the goes the free world :-) > >The U.S Air Force are the people who brought you the Atlas and Titan > >boosters, the Minute Man I, II, and III, and the Peacekeeper missiles. > > Those people are long retired, for the most part; except for the very last, > those programs were 20+ years ago. No quite, Henry. Several of those are a lot older than twenty years old. I know people who are much younger than retirement age who worked on Peacekeeper. Folks much younger than 40 even. They were trained by people who worked on on Polaris and the Minuteman I. > Some of them also had some small problems > with budgets, schedules, performance, and reliability... Yeah, but in the long run they have shown themselves to be pretty reliable. > -- > And the bean-counter replied, | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology > "beans are more important". | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry -- Bob Pendleton, speaking only for myself. bpendlet@dsd.es.com or decwrl!esunix!bpendlet or hellgate!esunix!bpendlet Tools, not rules. ------------------------------ Date: 13 May 91 14:51:48 GMT From: wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!emory!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary@louie.udel.edu (Gary Coffman) Subject: Re: Laser launchers (really tethers) In article <1991May8.195618.25965@aio.jsc.nasa.gov> matthews@asd2.jsc.nasa.gov writes: >In article <2777@ke4zv.UUCP> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes: >> >>A one square inch kelvar tether to geosync orbit would weigh 45.2 million >>pounds. I don't have the handbook here at the terminal, but kelvar doesn't >>approach 45 million pounds per square inch tensile strength by orders of >>magnitude. It couldn't support itself, much less a usable payload. >> > >Please don't confuse "tethers" with "beanstalks": the latter is a >special case of the former and is generally considered to be centuries >(or at least several decades) away from practicality, while tethered >satellite technology is ready to fly next year (assuming the shuttle >schedule holds). There are many applications of tethers in the 1-km >to 1000-km range that provide much promise for momentum scavenging/ >transfer/banking and electrodynamic energy storage applications, which >could be practical in the next decade or two. For these kinds of >tether lengths, Kevlar is quite adequate, and stuff like Spectra is >great for "disposable" tethers. I do have to admit to some doubts >about being able to drastically reduce launch costs with such systems, >due to their operational and dynamic complexity. I imagine that >scheduling for a "rolling skyhook" system would be a nightmare, and >prox ops would be... uh... "dramatic". Yep, I knew that Mike. I was assuming from the context of previous postings that Nick was referring to beanstalks since we were talking about the cost to orbit and most of that cost is in the lowest levels of flight where dynamic tethers seem impractical due to atmospheric drag. Gary ------------------------------ Date: 13 May 91 20:00:07 GMT From: usenet@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: NASA Headline News for 05/13/91 (Forwarded) Headline News Internal Communications Branch (P-2) NASA Headquarters Monday, May 13, 1991 Audio Service: 202 / 755-1788 This is NASA Headline News for Monday, May 13, 1991 . . . The Columbia STS-40 flight readiness review is currently being held at the Kennedy Space Center. The review will conclude tomorrow. Columbia, with the Spacelab Life Sciences habitable module installed inside its payload bay, is sitting on launch pad 39-B and undergoing final closeout preparations. Ordnance was installed on the vehicle this weekend. Mission flight director and astronaut press briefings will be held tomorrow, May 14. On Wednesday, May 15, the mission scientists and program managers will hold the life sciences press briefing. Both the Tuesday and Wednesday briefing series will be covered live on NASA Select TV. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) arrived at the Kennedy Space Center turning basin this morning. It was barged down the coast from the General Electric Company's Astro-Space Division assembly facilities in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, near the Delaware River. From the turning basin, the spacecraft will be moved to the payload hazardous servicing facility later today and remain there about two months. UARS is presently scheduled for deployment aboard Discovery's planned September STS-48 flight. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Launch of the NOAA-D spacecraft is tentatively set for 11:52 am EDT, tomorrow, May 14, aboard an Atlas-E launch vehicle from Vandenberg Air Force Base. The NOAA-D carries five primary instruments, including the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer, and is a cooperative program between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the United Kingdom, Canada and France. NOAA-D will be placed into a 522-mile orbit inclined 98.7 degrees to the equator. The spacecraft, a General Electric TIROS-N class satellite, will provide day and night environmental data to all of the cooperating partners. Prelaunch preparations and launch of NOAA-D will be carried live on NASA Select TV. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Jet Propulsion Laboratory flight controllers report that the Galileo spacecraft is in a stable, quiescent cruise state, transmitting at 1200 bits per second through the low-gain antenna. The high-gain antenna is still partially deployed. Galileo is now about 46.5 million miles from Earth moving at a heliocentric velocity of about 55,600 miles per hour. The flight control team also reports that both "A" and "B" side computer strings are now back on line, restoring full redundancy. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * NASA will hold its second annual Symposium on Industrial Involvement and Success in Commercial Space tomorrow, May 14, at the Hotel Washington in downtown Washington. The all-day, one-day conference is sponsored by the Office of Commercial Programs and provides an overview of the agency's commercial space activities. Here's the broadcast schedule for Public Affairs events on NASA Select TV. Note that all events and times may change without notice, and that all times listed are Eastern. Monday, 5/13/91 3:00 pm 30th Anniversary celebration event of the Freedom 7 flight, taped on 5/3/91. Tuesday, 5/14/91 10:00 am Begin coverage for NOAA-D launch, from Vandenberg Air Force Base. Launch is set for 11:52 am EDT. LIVE 2:30 pm STS-40 mission overview press briefing with lead flight director Al Pennington, from Johnson Space Center. LIVE 3:30 pm STS-40 astronaut crew press briefing, from JSC. LIVE Wednesday, 5/15/91 10:00 am STS-40 mission science and life science experiment press briefings, from Johnson and Kennedy Space Centers. LIVE 1:15 pm Magellan-at-Venus final status report, from Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Magellan will have completed one full mapping cycle of the planet. LIVE This report is filed daily at noon, Monday through Friday. It is a service of NASA's Office of Public Affairs. The contact is Charles Redmond, 202/453- 8425 or CREDMOND on NASAmail. NASA Select TV is carried on GE Satcom F2R, transponder 13, C-Band, 72 degrees West Longitude, transponder frequency is 3960 megaHertz, audio is offset 6.8 MHz, polarization is vertical. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V13 #549 *******************