Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 05:00:06 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V15 #261 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Wed, 30 Sep 92 Volume 15 : Issue 261 Today's Topics: Atlas E and F questions (Actually Pershing missile) Clinton and Space Funding (3 msgs) Controversy over V-2 anniversary Disney's Man in Space (2 msgs) Nick Szabo Disinformation debunking (Re: Clinton and Space Funding) (3 msgs) PLANETLIKE OBJECT SPOTTED BEYOND PLUTO pollution of space around MIR station ?? Re: Lunar landing in 2002 Space and Presidential Politics (2 msgs) Space platforms (political, not physical :-) Wealth in Space (Was Re: Clinton and Space Funding) (2 msgs) What is this ? Welcome to the Space Digest!! Please send your messages to "space@isu.isunet.edu", and (un)subscription requests of the form "Subscribe Space " to one of these addresses: listserv@uga (BITNET), rice::boyle (SPAN/NSInet), utadnx::utspan::rice::boyle (THENET), or space-REQUEST@isu.isunet.edu (Internet). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 02:05 MST From: Paul Dickson Subject: Atlas E and F questions (Actually Pershing missile) From: Henry Spencer In article <1992Sep22.123319.27134@access.digex.com> prb@access.digex.com (Pat) writes: >That makes me wonder. when the US started retiring all those old >Titan II's and Pershing missiles, were any considerations >made to try using them for science? The Titan IIs are in storage, earmarked for refurbishing as (military) launchers. I believe the combination of treaty limits on methods of disposal and treaty deadlines made it impractical to do much with the Pershing 2s, which were in any case a bit small for use as launchers. I know that the Space Data division of OSC has Pershing 2 hardware that wasn't destroyed. They will be using some of it in a launch at White Sands on Oct 27. I'm not sure what I remember exactly what was said, but the engines (and possibly guidance?) were destroyed. I toured the Space Data facility in Chandler, Az last Friday. Some how, the hardware doesn't look as impressive when its spread about a room in functional pieces. :-) ------------------------------ Date: 28 Sep 92 19:53:24 GMT From: Richard Treitel Subject: Clinton and Space Funding Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1004@dgaust.dg.oz>, young@wattle.dg.oz (Philip Young) writes: |> Government involvement, at least initially, is crucial because of the high |> infrastructure costs. No private outfit is going to ante up the billions Private outfits often spend billions on building an office complex or developing a new jetliner. These efforts don't even have a guaranteed payoff (look at Canary Wharf!) but the companies broadly understand the (i) technological (ii) legal/regulatory conditions under which such projects will make/lose money. WRT most space development the technology is more difficult to predict and laws/regulations/treaties practically impossible. Note that comsat development was covered by a treaty long ago. - Richard ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 92 14:25:23 GMT From: Herman Rubin Subject: Clinton and Space Funding Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Sep28.232522.20772@Princeton.EDU> phoenix.Princeton.EDU!carlosn (Carlos G. Niederstrasser) writes: >In article <1992Sep27.141056.13@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman) >writes: >> Spanish "colonies" were fundamentally different from the Plymouth colony >> which is why I didn't include them. >The Spanish possesions were colonies, just like any other. The main difference >was that they actually prospered because of the large mineral wealth found in >New Spain. Plymouth on the other hand took years to fully develope because >there was no wealth to speak of. So in this case I would rather compare a >Spanish colony with our future moon colonies. We are not going to seriously >colonize the moon with people seeking religious freedoms, the only way to do >it, and what most of us probably would like to see, is getting all the >resources that the moon, asteroids, etc can offer. This is by no means clear. Lest one draw false conclusions from the current populations, England was a not-very-populous country in the 16th century, and was not that much of a power until they built up their navy with piracy. Before essentially the end of the 16th century, only Portugal, Spain, and France had the stability (England had just emerged from a quite chaotic period with Henry VII), the population, and the military to settle. With the weakening of Spain in the 16th century, England and Holland jumped into the settlement business. Plymouth was not that successful, but the not too much later settlement of Boston, founded also on religion, was quite successful, with the leadership of the Puritan church moving to this colony, even with massive membership still in England, in the early 1630's. So within a span of 10 years, a colony founded on religion "made it." In 1634, Rhode Island was established by those who found the Puritan suppression of religious freedom oppressive, and this also was successful. Also, the Dutch colonies, founded more as commercial enterprises, were successful. So, except for the first English colony, founded in the 16th century, which disappeared, we have a high success rate of colonies in the Atlantic seaboard established with the attitude of becoming homes for people, rather than MERELY commercial exploitation. -- Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399 Phone: (317)494-6054 hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet) {purdue,pur-ee}!pop.stat!hrubin(UUCP) ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 92 11:42:11 GMT From: Gary Coffman Subject: Clinton and Space Funding Newsgroups: sci.space In article <6797@transfer.stratus.com> jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com writes: >In article <1992Sep27.115950.29032@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary >Coffman) writes: >> >> Well, we haven't visited Mercury or Pluto *yet*. > >Didn't one of the Mariner probes flyby Mercury? Yes, Mariner 10 did three flybys which is as good or better than anything we've done in the outer solar system. We haven't orbited or landed any probes however. Gary ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 92 15:57:34 GMT From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey Subject: Controversy over V-2 anniversary Newsgroups: sci.space Remember a week or so ago, when somebody on this newsgroup reminded us that the first flight of a V-2 (A-4, if you prefer) into "space" had taken place fifty years ago, in October 1942? Monday I heard a news account that ceremonies to celebrate this event have become a matter of controversy. A local FM station carries the BBC World Service, and they reported that the German government had withdrawn its support, or approval, or something, from a commemoration sponsored by private aerospace groups. Ceremonies were supposed to take place at Peenemuende, the military base on the Baltic where the A-4 was developed. Has anybody heard more detail? Has the story appeared in print? Apparently the fact that the A-4 was a nasty weapon that killed lots of people overshadows the importance of the anniversary. In this country, the Confederate Air Force is allowed to tell us what a great plane the B-17 was without visible interference... Bill Higgins, Beam Jockey | Here Lies Bill Higgins: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory | He Never Ever Learned Bitnet: HIGGINS@FNAL.BITNET | To Play Guitar So Well Internet: HIGGINS@FNAL.FNAL.GOV | But He Could Read and Write SPAN/Hepnet: 43011::HIGGINS | Just Like Ringing A Bell ------------------------------ Date: 28 Sep 92 20:54:55 GMT From: Bruce Watson Subject: Disney's Man in Space Newsgroups: sci.space Paraphrased from: Blueprint for Space: Science Fiction to Science Fact, Edited by Frederic I. Ordway III and Randy Liebermann, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington and London, 1992. IBSN 1-56098-072-9, pp. 144-146. In the spring of 1954, Disney started to organize programming for his "Disneyland" television to premier the following fall on the American Broadcasting Company--a sort of '50's "info-mercial". Each show was to feature the four themes of the park. All but "Tomorrowland" had existing films to draw from. Ward Kimball, a key animator who worked for the company since 1934, was given uncharacteristic free rein to produce a television film dealing with the subject of space travel. Kimball enlisted the efforts of Willy Ley, Heinz Haber, and Werhner Von Braun. Sometime in the Spring of 1954, as ideas developed, it was decided to produce three films whose final titles were: _Man in Space_, _Man and the Moon_, and _Mars and Beyond_. _Man in Space_ [Shown on the Disney cable channel last Sunday, September 27, 1992 at 2:00 pm MDT] begins with the history of rocketry and explores how humans might react in space. It ends with brilliant animation of a manned orbital mission using a derivitive of Von Brauns multi-staged rocket. The film aired on 9 March 1955 [a Wednesday evening--my Boy Scout troop meeting night--I caught hell from my father for not attending.] and viewed by nearly 100 million. Among the viewers was President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was so impressed that he called Disney and asked to borrow a copy which he showed to officals at the Pentagon over the next couple of weeks. On 29 July 1955, Ike announced that as part of the upcoming International Geophysical Year (IGY, 1957-58), the US would launch an earth satellite. -- Bruce Watson (wats@scicom) Tumbra, Zorkovick; Sparkula zoom krackadomando. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 15:48:42 GMT From: Ed McCreary Subject: Disney's Man in Space Newsgroups: sci.space ...article deleted for brevity.... I went down to Johnson a few weeks ago. In one of the exhibit rooms, several monitors were showing the Disney film. Surrounding it was an exhibit of sketches and artwork done for the film. Wonderful stuff. -- In the midst of the word he was trying to say,|McCreary@sword.eng.hou.compaq.com In the midst of his laughter and glee, |Me, speak for Compaq? He had softly and suddenly vanished away--- |Yeah, right. For the Snark *was* a Boojum, you see. |#include ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 92 15:07:46 GMT From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey Subject: Nick Szabo Disinformation debunking (Re: Clinton and Space Funding) Newsgroups: sci.space In article <28SEP199219525224@judy.uh.edu>, wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov writes: >Fission drive has been fully tested and flight qualified. It was abandoned >shortly thereafter. NERVA was to supplant the S III stage on the saturn V >for Apollo twenty, upping the delivered payload to the moon to 98 tons, >from the baseline Saturn V's 48 tons. Not bad, not bad. I'm sure you've talked to the nuke guys. It would take a *lot* to re-create a Nineties NERVA, especially with more stringent requirements for safety and environment-- assuming Admiral Watkins were willing to take on this set of headaches and assuming political opposition didn't make it plain impossible. The nuclear-rocket people are plowing forward undaunted, God love 'em. And they are far from hitting their first show-stopper. But it will be a steep uphill fight. >There were >movies of the test of the Nerva at the World Space Congress. It was a >completely successful full power 265 minute or hour I forget which test. Do >you remember Bill? No, Dennis, did you sit through the whole thing? (-: I saw some brief tapes at the Lewis booth and these may be what you refer to. For my money, the best video was at the Sandia booth, where they showed tests of reactor containment walls. They put a fully fueled F-4 on a rocket sled and sent it into a concrete test wall. First there's a Phantom, then there's a Phantom with no nose, then there's a Phantom with no cockpit... all in a growing ball of flame. It's like watching the salami get shorter in the butcher shop's slicer. Appeals to the destructive small boy in all of us. I haven't had this kind of fun since Gomez Addams blew up the model trains... I suppose I have done worse damage myself, pound for pound, colliding 900 GeV protons and antiprotons together. But the collisions are too small to see, I don't have any videotapes, and there is no satisfying ball of flame. "Read my lips, Hal: Bill Higgins Open the Pod Bay doors!" Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Bitnet: HIGGINS@FNALB.BITNET SPAN/Hepnet: 43011::HIGGINS Internet: HIGGINS@FNAL.FNAL.GOV ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 92 12:59:37 GMT From: "Paul M. Koloc" Subject: Nick Szabo Disinformation debunking (Re: Clinton and Space Funding) Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,talk.politics.space,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton In article <26SEP199222073863@judy.uh.edu> wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov writes: >In article <1992Sep27.001600.22606@techbook.com>, szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) writes... >>In article <1992Sep23.184518.25122@medtron.medtronic.com> rn11195@sage (Robert Nehls) writes: >> >>>Like it or not, the two main technology drivers for the >>>last 5 decades have been first the military and then the space program. >> >>Whether we like it or not, it's probably not true. Most of the patents, >>and most of the important inventions like transistors and genetic >>engineering, have come outside the sphere of these programs. >4. Fusion. Still the best long term solution to both terrestrial energy >needs and intra-solar system propulsion systems. No failures in the technology >just failure of will in Congress to fund this needed technology. The government has spent many times the amount that is required to develop fusion energy. The problem is NOT the amount of money spent. It is that the work takes place in National Labs, is run by DoE Headquarters, and it is not funded to the private sector on a cost sharing basis. The tokamak (inverts pressure leverage) for example, was invented in the 1963 and isn't promised by most before 2040 .. and that's not for a "working commercial plant". Imagine the tremendous boost a machine like that would give the space program. (The SPACE is needed for buildings to house the support equipment to bring a tokamak into operation). +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | Paul M. Koloc, President, Prometheus II, Ltd. +Commercial* | Bx 222, College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***FUSION*** | mimsy!promethe!pmk pmk%prometheus@mimsy.umd.edu ***in the*** | (301) 445-1075 promethe=prometheus **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 18:00:30 BST From: amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk Subject: Nick Szabo Disinformation debunking (Re: Clinton and Space Funding) > Fission drive has been fully tested and flight qualified. It was abandoned > shortly thereafter. NERVA was to supplant the S III stage on the saturn V > for Apollo twenty, upping the delivered payload to the moon to 98 tons, > from the baseline Saturn V's 48 tons. Not bad, not bad. There were > movies of the test of the Nerva at the World Space Congress. It was a > completely successful full power 265 minute or hour I forget which test. Do > you remember Bill? > I can't speak for Bill, but I had a BROTHER-INLAW named Bill who worked on the project for Westinghouse Astronuclear in Large, Pennsylvania (just outside Pittsburgh). He travelled out to Jackass Flats for the tests. I saw *LOTS* of pictures and info on those tests. I wish I had some of that stuff myself... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 10:36:36 MET From: PHARABOD@FRCPN11.IN2P3.FR Subject: PLANETLIKE OBJECT SPOTTED BEYOND PLUTO From "New Scientist", 26 September 1992: ICY OBJECT FOUND ORBITING BEYOND PLUTO A long search for objects on the outer fringes of the Solar System has finally yielded results. American astronomers have found an object about 200 kilometres across beyond the most distant part of Pluto's orbit. It is the best evidence yet that many small, icy bodies may orbit in the farthest bounds of the Solar System. The discovery may help astronomers understand the evolution and origins of the planetary system, says Brian Marsden of the Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Astronomers have long thought that comets come from the outer reaches of the Solar System. Recent models suggest that short-period comets, including Comet Halley, come from a zone called the Kuiper Belt, just beyond the orbit of Pluto. However no one had found anything there until David Jewitt of the University of Hawaii and Jane Luu of the University of California at Berkeley looked at images taken by the University of Hawaii's 2.2-metre telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii on the nights of 30 and 31 August and 1 September. They found a slow- moving, extremely faint object and calculated its distance and size from its motion and brightness. Jewitt and Luu began searching for faint bodies in the outer Solar System in 1987. "The fact that they found one fairly easily suggests that there are a lot of these things," says Marsden. Jewitt believes the objects may be half ice. Pluto and its moon Charon may be larger objects of the same type; comets may be smaller members of the family. Astronomers have discovered two other objects of similar size to the new body, but which come closer to the sun. Chiron, a comet-like body between Saturn and Uranus, was found in 1977. In January of this year, an object now called Pholus was discovered to orbit between Saturn and Neptun. The new object is still in a semistable orbit in the Kuiper belt where it formed. Gravitational interactions, probably with Neptune, perturbed Chiron inwards, towards the Sun, a few million years ago. Pholus, with an orbit that goes farther from the Sun, apparently was perturbated inwards more recently. "Presumably Chiron and Pholus are the largest members of a class of objects diffusing inwards from the Kuiper Belt," says Jewitt. Jeff Hecht, Boston ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 92 14:18:59 GMT From: Susanne Huettemeister Subject: pollution of space around MIR station ?? Newsgroups: sci.space A short time ago, the German cosmonaut who went up to the CIS space station MIR this year gave a talk in Bonn. During this event, he stated that small particles are piling up all around the station *due to its gravity*, forming a cloud dense enough to interfere with astronomical observations. Does anybody on the net know if this is possible? Isn't it more likely that the cosmonauts just throw their garbage overboard and that it stays around for a while? Or might electrostatic effect be involved? Is this really a problem that has to be taken into account by the builders of FRED, too? Any ideas out there? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 17:44:10 BST From: amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk Subject: Re: Lunar landing in 2002 > Venture firms are different. They tend to bet the farm on one high > risk idea. If it doesn't pan out, they fold. Therefore venture capitalists > tend to only fund companies working in a "hot" area, and place demands on > the company to generate a large return in a short time. Since most > space exploitation projects don't have short timeframes on their returns, > venture capitalists tend to avoid them. > Well, yes and no. Most venture limited funds have a group of investors who pool their money. They then pick a number of ventures on the expectation that they can have 10 dry holes and make it up with one high tech gusher... And as to venture capital for space ventures: everyone complains about the "lack" of it. And yet... how do you think Amroc (and it's predecessor companies), PALS (and its' predecessors), OSC ($50M on Wall Street), SpaceHab, and on and on have gotten startup capital? I think the issue is that the $10^9 range of dollars is not yet available for space ventures because the risk does not yet warrant it. But space capital is increasing year by year. There is another effect that was seen in the electronics, computer and software industries. The first generation winners took their winnings and created limited venture funds to back 2nd generation winners, etc. That set of first generation winners is just barely getting off the ground in the launch business. In satellites (communications in particular) it is going quite nicely. Look at the amount of risk capital going into Iridium. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 15:12:53 BST From: amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk Subject: Space and Presidential Politics > Allen Sherzer has also complained that Clinton and Gore are > relying on the advice of space pundit John Pike, whom he accuses > of being skeptical (heaven forbid) about the prospects for SSTO > technology. Consorting with a known agnostic! I know John Pike, > and if he has a fault it is that he is too much of a space > enthusiast. > I've met him as well. He is nice enough as a person but is not technological aggressive enough for my tastes. He was on a panel at the end of the DC conference and came off looking like a victorian era spacer. I think he went pale when the president of the NSS suggested that nanotechnology might well be a shortcut to space. I am not at all surprised he doesn't support DCX. I do however. If you think HE is too much of an enthusiast, then I am afraid I will have to take anything you say about pro-space attitudes of Clinton with 3 grains of salt. Or less. I also think Dan Goldin is possibly NASA's last hope. It would be the act of a low grade moron with the mental cabilities of an amoeba to replace him. > I can only conclude that if you care about space so much that you > would base your vote on the issue you have 1) little to go on and As has been said before, the sum total of everyone's special interests is the public interest, NOT what the political pundits claim is the public interest. For some on this news group space (read: the future) IS the defining issue. That is their right and perogative. Who gives a damn what the Washington Post says anyway? > 2) loose marbles. Get real! Space is not and should not be a big > issue in this Presidential election. The issues are how to > strengthen the economy and give people real opportunities to > improve their lot while reducing the deficit and the burden of the > national debt and healing the divisions in our society. Without > that, NASA is going nowhere. Only a prosperous and united society > will support space exploration. > > So don't lose the forest for the trees. Vote on the big issues. > Vote for Bush and Quayle if you really believe that they are > better for the country as a whole (I certainly don't), but don't > vote on the basis of dimly defined space policies. > Which is why my (absentee) vote is for Marrou/Lord. Live Free or (let the other guy) Die, Dale Amon ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 92 13:48:18 GMT From: Gary Coffman Subject: Space and Presidential Politics Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1469100016@igc.apc.org> mwgoodman@igc.apc.org (Mark Goodman) writes: > >I can only conclude that if you care about space so much that you >would base your vote on the issue you have 1) little to go on and >2) loose marbles. Get real! Space is not and should not be a big >issue in this Presidential election. The issues are how to >strengthen the economy and give people real opportunities to >improve their lot while reducing the deficit and the burden of the >national debt and healing the divisions in our society. Without >that, NASA is going nowhere. Only a prosperous and united society >will support space exploration. > >So don't lose the forest for the trees. Vote on the big issues. >Vote for Bush and Quayle if you really believe that they are >better for the country as a whole (I certainly don't), but don't >vote on the basis of dimly defined space policies. The first rule of politics is that all politics is local. In this group, the local issue is space policy and space funding. Maintaining the poor in thrall to Big Brother government is not a local issue here. Healing political divisions is not a local issue. Getting a handle on fiscal policy *is* a side issue that we must consider since sharp cuts in space funding would be damaging to our local interests. Your contention that only a prosperous and united society can support exploration is clearly false. Looking at the history of exploration, and even looking at our world competitors in exploration today show that it is precisely contention and competition that drives exploration. A nation of contented sheep doesn't look up. Gary ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 92 14:27:18 GMT From: Jim Mann Subject: Space platforms (political, not physical :-) Newsgroups: sci.space In article 18084TM@msu.edu (Tom) writes: > Sure it is. I see a lot of people talking about letting private funding do > what it can in space, wihtout gov interference. That's what the LP > platform is all about. All references to gov. 'helping' people, 'creating' > jobs, 'reforming' education, etc. are a side-issue to the LP, as all > these goals would be fulfilled by letting the citizens keep their $$, and > getting gov back to it's job: Catching crooks, cleaning the environment, > or making the jerks who [explitive] it up fix it, and generally protecting > our rights; something 150 years of Rebublicrats have destroyed. Intersting. Our society is now freer than at any time in our history. Books that could not have been published 50 years ago are published. People can say or do things in public that would have had them arrested in many places 100 years ago. But, as usual, people look at the few places where we aren't as free as they'd like and bemoan the long lost days. (To be fair, we have lost a few freedoms. Like, 150 years ago, people would chew tobacco in public buildings and simply spit it on the walls or in the corners. They'd probably be arrested if they did that today. Ah, for the long lost days of being able to spit chewing tobacco freely, before the Rebublicrats [sic] stopped us from doing so.) -- Jim Mann Stratus Computer jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 92 08:07:40 GMT From: Nick Szabo Subject: Wealth in Space (Was Re: Clinton and Space Funding) Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space Dennis Wingo writes: >>[in type-M Apollo-Amor asteroid]...approximately 90 billion dollars worth >>of gold and 1 trillion dollars worth of Platinum, give or take a few million. In article <1992Sep28.175027.25554@eng.umd.edu> sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu writes: >That's before you bring it home. Actual price of gold and platinum on earth >would drop, ASSUMING you can bring home the metals for a price less than or >equal to the price of extracting them using current and near-term methods. If we can produce more cheaply than most earthside mines, we can assume revenues >50% of the current worldwide mining markets. These are roughly $4 billion/yr for platinum-group elements, and $20 billion/yr for gold. Volume typically goes up faster than price drops, as the metal is substituted for other materials and recycling decreases. If space mining brings the cost down considerably the market may expand, especially for the industrially important platinum-group. For example, a factor of ten drop in platinum prices might increase volume by a factor of twenty, giving a market of $8 billion per year. For comparison, the worldwide comsat market is about $5 billion/year, and total worldwide space spending about $40 billion/year. Historically the minerals have declined as a fraction of GNP as humanity gets wealthier, until now mining is only about 1% of GNP for developed countries. Communications and other information services, in contrast, have as far as we can speculate an infinite potential for growth. More native materials mining will go to support these industries than for direct export to earth. For example to build very manueverable spysats with big tanks full of native propellants, huge antenna farms in Clarke orbit made from native metal regolith, etc. In addition, native materials will enable large microgravity and vacuum manufacturing processes where it is prohibitively expensive to launch raw materials from earth. Earthside manufacturing is in the $1,000s of billions per year, so this also has much more growth potential than export of raw minerals from space. -- szabo@techbook.COM Tuesday, November third ## Libertarian $$ vote Tuesday ^^ Libertarian -- change ** choice && November 3rd @@Libertarian ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 17:35:20 BST From: amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk Subject: Wealth in Space (Was Re: Clinton and Space Funding) > That's before you bring it home. Actual price of gold and platinum on earth > would drop, ASSUMING you can bring home the metals for a price less than or > equal to the price of extracting them using current and near-term methods. > > Basic laws of supply and demand. More goods, prices drop. > Actually it's a bit more complex than that. Prices have elasticity, ie, there are ranges over which there are somewhat linear changes. For example, the price of a good may fall with supply until some threshold is reached at which it becomes feasible to use if for a new purpose, say your gold plated urinals. The demand curve then goes up, and the price will fall more slowly. If the new use becomes the "in" thing to do, demand might even push the price above the original point at which the new use became feasible. There is a hysteresis involved, ie it may have to go considerably higher than the initial point before demand slackens again. If many new uses open up, the curve might be almost flat for a considerable change in supply. Rising prices can show the aforementioned effect on prior uses, and they can also be affected by the economics of substitution. And once the substitution has occured, the old material price may have to fall very considerably before users will switch back to it. A lot also depends on the capital investment involved in switching from once material to another, and in changing uses of that material. The higher the capital investment involved, the more elastic the price. Of course some materials, such as Heroin, have a price elasticity for very different reasons. I am not implying that your statement is necessarily wrong. Just indicating that the situation could be a bit less straightforward. Just another friendly minilecture in economics.... Dale ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 14:54:56 MET From: PHARABOD@FRCPN11.IN2P3.FR Subject: What is this ? Have the U.S. some kind of RPV with such performances ? Seconds after Heading Speed Altitude lock-on (degrees) (knots) (feet) 00 200 150 7000 01 200 150 7000 02 200 150 7000 03 200 150 7000 04 sharp 200 acceleration 150 6000 05 turn 270 = 22 g 560 6000 06 270 560 6000 07 270 570 6000 08 270 560 7000 09 270 550 7000 10 210 560 9000 11 210 570 10000 12 210 560 11000 13 210 570 10000 14 270 770 7000 15 270 770 6000 16 270 780 6000 17 270 790 5000 18 290 1010 4000 19 290 1000 3000 20 290 990 2000 21 290 990 1000 22 300 990 0000 22.5 300 980 0000 Break lock Don't ask me how I got this one. There are others, but I have not those. J. Pharabod ------------------------------ End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 261 ------------------------------