Date: Sat, 24 Oct 92 05:00:14 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V15 #336 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Sat, 24 Oct 92 Volume 15 : Issue 336 Today's Topics: Dan Quayle on Mars DCX Status? Federation gives a decent explantion Federation gives a decent explantion t Federation gives a decent explantion to you (4 msgs) GEORGE BUSH: RELEASE THE APRIL GLASPIE CABLES (2 msgs) HEALTH COSTS KILLING WORKERS' WAGES HRMS/SETI Rumor? (2 msgs) HRMS/SETI Rumor is FALSE! Info on Nasa X-20 project Mars Direct to be Briefed at NASA Johnson. Minerals from space (was Re: Bootstrap hardware for LunaBase) NASA Shake Up Rumor? planetary motion (2 msgs) prueba dia 22 Quayle Quote sub Juan Carlos Vazquez TheSouth rose (was Re: Weather satellites & preventing property damage) White Welfare vs Incentives 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: 21 Oct 92 16:31:57 GMT From: Craig Lake Subject: Dan Quayle on Mars Newsgroups: sci.space Does anyone know the famous Dan Quayle life on Mars quote from a couple of years ago, or at least where I could look this up? Thanks Craig Lake ------------------------------ Date: 22 Oct 92 05:28:48 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: DCX Status? Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Oct21.202137.4441@seq.uncwil.edu> bgoffe@seq.uncwil.edu (Bill Goffe) writes: >>hydrogen has two serious problems. First, it is extremely bulky... >How about using slush hydrogen, as developed from the NASP? While from >my reading it doesn't appear ready for use yet, it would seem to offer >benefits down the road (perhaps for the DC-1?). Slush hydrogen helps hydrogen's density problems some, at the cost of adding a large assortment of technical hassles (for example, it's not at all simple to build a fuel gauge for a slush-hydrogen tank, because the depth does not tell the whole story). I'm not really convinced that it will ever be worth the trouble. But then, I'll admit to some bias, because I belong to the faction that says that liquid hydrogen isn't really worth the trouble either... -- MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s. | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)| henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1992 15:08:37 GMT From: gawne@stsci.edu Subject: Federation gives a decent explantion Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.skeptic In article <1992Oct21.174321.5670@lsil.com>, gascan@dcst16.dc (Bill Gascoyne) writes: > In article 8987@ee.ubc.ca, walter@ee.ubc.ca (Walter Wohlmuth) writes: > [in response to the "Federation Research Proposal" having to do with laser propultion] > [much stuff deleted] > >> Excuse me, a crystal 51 cm long! Silicon wafers are currently about >> 24 to 30 cm in diameter. GaAs wafers are about 15 to 20 cm in diameter. >> > [much more stuff deleted] > > I believe that the diameter of a silicon wafer is irrelevant, since the > wafer was one of many cut from an ingot about three feet long (I have seen > them, I know they exist, I work in the industry). The whole thing is, > I believe, a single crystal. > > The objection is valid only if the silicon crystal structure is useful > along one axis of the ingot and not the other. I'm not a physicist but > I don't think this is likely. 1. Silicon wafers are normally cut across the crystal diameter because we want the [100] lattice orientation. You could cut a section along the length of the crystal but it would likely have a non-standard orientation. (I am a physicist, and I've worked with these things.) 2. The whole discussion about the available sizes of bulk crystals is pretty meaningless in terms of the "Federation" proposal. Their idea is to grow a heterostructure device by Molecular Beam Epitaxy. The only part of their proposed device that depends on bulk silicon is the substrate. Since they want 51 cm length, they'll have to go to Mitsubishi for a [100] slice since they were the only ones growing Si in that diameter last time I looked (apologies to anybody out there if I missed you). But obtaining the Si substrate is the least of their problem, compared to what they hope to fabricate on it in terms of GaAs/AlGaAs superlattices. 3. For those who may be confused by 2, any crystal grown by any sort of epitaxy is *not* considered a bulk crystal. The large Si crystals grown by the semiconductor industry for general electronics applications are bulk crystals. To reiterate my position from my last posting, I don't think that the device proposed by the "Federation" will work, even if they can fabricate it. I think they have ignored some very serious problems related to boundary layer and surface effects. But it's no loonier than some other things I've seen in sci.space. -Bill Gawne, Space Telescope Science Institute ------------------------------ Date: 21 Oct 92 17:43:21 GMT From: Bill Gascoyne Subject: Federation gives a decent explantion t Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.skeptic,alt.alien.visitors In article 8987@ee.ubc.ca, walter@ee.ubc.ca (Walter Wohlmuth) writes: [in response to the "Federation Research Proposal" having to do with laser propultion] [much stuff deleted] > > Excuse me, a crystal 51 cm long! Silicon wafers are currently about > 24 to 30 cm in diameter. GaAs wafers are about 15 to 20 cm in diameter. > [much more stuff deleted] I believe that the diameter of a silicon wafer is irrelevant, since the wafer was one of many cut from an ingot about three feet long (I have seen them, I know they exist, I work in the industry). The whole thing is, I believe, a single crystal. The objection is valid only if the silicon crystal structure is useful along one axis of the ingot and not the other. I'm not a physicist but I don't think this is likely. --- 1. Bill Gascoyne ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1992 00:45:08 GMT From: Steve Taylor Subject: Federation gives a decent explantion to you Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.skeptic,alt.alien.visitors mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu (Robert McGrath) writes: >In article <1992Oct19.130157.1@acad2.alaska.edu>, asljl@acad2.alaska.edu writes: >|> For all of you who have been waiting for a decent explanation of the >|> drive/laser system, from the Federation, Here you are: >|> Lady Rhavyn Asljl@acad2.alaska.edu, questions, ideas comments ? >|> 1 Federation Science Academy; >|> Engineering Research Text >Perhaps I missed something. Just what the heck is this all about? >Who is "The Federation"? What is "the drive/laser system" and what >is it for? Sounds like a demented Trekkie to me. Certainly was an impressive waste of bandwidth. Steve Taylor steve@fulcrum.oz.au ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1992 07:38:10 GMT From: Nick Janow Subject: Federation gives a decent explantion to you Newsgroups: sci.space asljl@acad2.alaska.edu writes: > A FEDERATION RESEARCH PROPOSAL: > > [Inventive, but badly flawed scientific concept] At first I thought: "Oh well, some NASA worker will open the letter and get a smile out of it, and send a polite letter in return." Of course, NASA won't take it seriously. I just had a frightening thought. What if the Federation sends it to Dan Quayle instead? 8^) -- Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca ------------------------------ Date: 22 Oct 92 13:51:35 GMT From: Ed McCreary Subject: Federation gives a decent explantion to you Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.skeptic,alt.alien.visitors In article guru-a0@access.digex.com (Guru Aleph-Null) writes: >chris@kbsw1 (Chris Kostanick 806 1044) writes: > >>I bet if you do the math, you find out a couple of things: > >> (1) The wattage to get photon pressure that actually lifts >> something is much too high to generate. > >I remember seeing something about this on CNN (Sci-Tech Week) but they >we're talking about actually lifting things with lasers, they were >thinking about using lasers to super-heat air to lift the payload. But >then, I saw this like 2 years ago and my memory may be fuzzy. > This idea has been around for years actually. I know that Jerry Pournelle has written several articles on it, but I'm not sure if the original idea was his. -- 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: 22 Oct 92 15:18:10 GMT From: Greg Moore Subject: Federation gives a decent explantion to you Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.skeptic,alt.alien.visitors In article guru-a0@access.digex.com (Guru Aleph-Null) writes: >chris@kbsw1 (Chris Kostanick 806 1044) writes: > >> (1) The wattage to get photon pressure that actually lifts >> something is much too high to generate. > >I remember seeing something about this on CNN (Sci-Tech Week) but they >we're talking about actually lifting things with lasers, they were >thinking about using lasers to super-heat air to lift the payload. But >then, I saw this like 2 years ago and my memory may be fuzzy. > This is work being done my Leik Myrabo (among others) here at RPI. The CNN Sci-Tech Week special was specifically about Prof. Myrabo. His project is called "Apollo Lightcraft Project". The manned capsule is based on the Apollo CM. Work is progressing, but don't expect anything for several years. >>Chris Kostanick >-- >Guru Aleph-Null ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1992 03:54:10 GMT From: Josh 'K' Hopkins Subject: GEORGE BUSH: RELEASE THE APRIL GLASPIE CABLES Newsgroups: sci.space tombaker@world.std.com (Tom A Baker) writes: [Responding to clinton position papers that don't belong here] >You are in violation of network etiquette, and will give Clinton >supporters a bad name. I smell a "dirty tricks" squad? >If alt.politics.clinton is still around, post this dreck there. >This group is for space discussions. In such cases, a polite note is far more effective than a post. They politely responded and informed me that they had a temporary mix-up. No evil was involved from Clinton or Bush supporters. As HAL so delightfully put it, "I'm afraid it can only be atributed to human error." -- Josh Hopkins jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu The views expresed above do not necessarily reflect those of ISDS, UIUC, NSS, IBM FSC, NCSA, NMSU, AIAA or the American Association for the Advancement of Acronymphomaniacs ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1992 11:42:50 GMT From: Tom A Baker Subject: GEORGE BUSH: RELEASE THE APRIL GLASPIE CABLES Newsgroups: sci.space In article jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Josh 'K' Hopkins) writes: >tombaker@world.std.com (Tom A Baker) writes: > >[Responding to clinton position papers that don't belong here] > >>You are in violation of network etiquette, and will give Clinton >>supporters a bad name. I smell a "dirty tricks" squad? > >In such cases, a polite note is far more effective than a post. No, sir. An inappropriate post that effectively states that "Clinton supporters are jackasses" requires an immediate post negating that image. I think it helped that a Clinton supporter immediately jumped up and yelled 'Stop'. You would be correct if the sole purpose was to stop the messages; part of my post's purpose was to respond, in a post, to what had been done, in a post. >They politely >responded and informed me that they had a temporary mix-up. No evil was I did also email them and got their response. They had a 'list error'. I hope they will post an apologetic explanation, since they are acting publicly as public relations experts for a public person. If they were just another net user, their responses would be more appropriate. I would be delighted to take this offline into email, but haven't received such a note from you. In view of your statement ">In such cases, a polite note is far more effective than a post." I would look forward to anything you'd care to say. tombaker ------------------------------ Date: 22 Oct 92 16:29:10 GMT From: Clinton for President <75300.3115@compuserve.com> Subject: HEALTH COSTS KILLING WORKERS' WAGES Newsgroups: sci.space FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Clinton/Gore Email Campaign October 22, 1992 [Statement of George Stephanopoulos, Communications Director] HEALTH COSTS KILLING WORKERS' WAGES A new study released by business and labor leaders today revealed the devastating economic impact of twelve years of Republican failure to control health care costs. According to the study, workers' wages fell between 1980 and 1992 because of skyrocketing health care costs. It found that Republican unwillingness to control costs has forced American working families to take the equivalent of a five percent cut in take-home pay just this year. This is George Bush's hidden tax on families. The study's findings demonstrate that if the Clinton plan to hold health costs down had been in place, workers would have seen no decline in personal wages. In 1992 alone, they would have received close to $900 more in wages. Businesses would have benefited, too. With Clinton's tough cost containment plan, business costs for health benefits would have been $1,000 lower per employee in 1992, and American health costs would have been in line with that of our major competitors. A panel of health experts from Republican and Democratic administrations recently concluded that the Clinton/Gore plan would cover all Americans and save $750 billion by the year 2000. By contrast, it found that the Bush plan would save just $150 billion and still leave 27 million uninsured. The study was unveiled by the Service Employees International Union and Safeway Stores -- representing 55 major companies and numerous labor unions, health care and consumer organizations in the National Leadership Coalition. It was based on data analysis by Lewin-ICF, a nonpartisan health care economics firm. -30- ------------------------------ Date: 22 Oct 92 16:13:01 GMT From: Rod Beckwith Subject: HRMS/SETI Rumor? Newsgroups: sci.space Hello Anybody, I have heard from a person that yesterday the SETI program picked up some odd signals from an undisclosed source . I did not get any details from this person, for all I know he was pulling my leg or misunderstood what was said on the radio. I figured this would be the best place to find out if there was anything to it. Well? Rod -- Rod Beckwith |$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Datacom I/S |"The great obstacle of progress is not ignorance, rodb@corp.sgi.com|but the illusion of knowledge." |$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ ------------------------------ Date: 22 Oct 92 21:48:17 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: HRMS/SETI Rumor? Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Oct22.161301.13563@odin.corp.sgi.com> rodb@slugo.corp.sgi.com (Rod Beckwith) writes: >I have heard from a person that yesterday the SETI program picked up some >odd signals from an undisclosed source ... Even if it were true -- and apparently this time it's not -- false alarms are common in SETI efforts. If a signal can't immediately be identified with a known source, I believe the standard procedure is to ask observers at another site to confirm it. Almost invariably they see no signs of it, which means it is virtually certain to be interference (probably man-made) local to the first observing site. -- MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s. | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)| henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 22 Oct 92 20:04:33 GMT From: "Edward T. Olsen" Subject: HRMS/SETI Rumor is FALSE! Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro I wish it were that easy... we have only been operating since 10/12/92! No, there has been no detection of an odd signal by HRMS. Also, the Internet is NOT the place where a detection would be announced. The only thing I can think of which might spawn this rumor is the detection of strong 3 kHz radio emissions (origins not yet known) by the Voyager spacecraft a couple of times almost a decade apart. Back in 1983-1984 the Plasma Wave Subsystem (PWS) detected these emissions, and now both Voyager 1 and the Ulysses spacecraft have detected these 3 kHz emissions again. The suspicion is that they are originating from Jupiter's magnetosphere (a very strong emitter of low and high frequency electromagnetic radiation). Some of the Voyager and Ulysses command uploads have been tweaked to allow increased PWS data collection in an attempt to nail the source of emissions. Edward Olsen -- Edward T. Olsen Mail Stop 169-506, Jet Propulsion Laboratory 4800 Oak Grove Dr, Pasadena, CA 91109 Phone: (818)-354-7604 INTERNET: eto@seti.jpl.nasa.gov (Node: 128.149.82.1) ------------------------------ Date: 21 Oct 92 17:48:11 GMT From: John Mire Subject: Info on Nasa X-20 project Newsgroups: sci.space Would like some info on X-20 project of late sixties if it is the basis for some of the developing projects in France, Japan and Germany for a winged spaceplane? ---- INET: jmire@pro-cajun.cts.com GEnie & America-Online: jmire ------------------------------ Date: 21 Oct 92 20:47:53 GMT From: Charles Frank Radley <3001crad@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu> Subject: Mars Direct to be Briefed at NASA Johnson. Newsgroups: sci.space In article prb@access.digex.com (Pat) writes: o The meeting was a great success, so I hear. >I saw something in the local trade rrag that Zubrin was >invited down to Johnson to brief on Mars Direct. some Associate >director had heard him brief on Lunar direct at WSC and wanted more. >Anyone know if the meeting went off and how the impressions went? ------------------------------ Date: 22 Oct 92 12:31:30 GMT From: Paul Dietz Subject: Minerals from space (was Re: Bootstrap hardware for LunaBase) Newsgroups: sci.space The claim that there are no processes that concentrate minerals in space is not at all obvious. One process that should work on the moon is the fractional crystallization of melts. Large impacts produce pools of melted rock; the maria are also impact-related floods of basalt. As magma cools, it separates according into different components by melting point and density. On earth, this process has produced nickel, chromium and platinum-group element ores. Incompatible elements are also segregated during crystallization. For example, copper and sulfur get expelled. Copper deposits in the Palisades of New Jersey were produced by this process. It should be noted that the reason we have stony and iron asteroids is that these bodies have been differentiated by just this kind of process. I would not be at all surprised if we found that asteroids have veins of incompatible minerals, or cumulate layers enriched in chromite or PGEs. Having said that, the general notion of importing iron to earth from the asteroids remains ridiculous. Iron is just too cheap (perhaps $.05/lb for scrap iron) and abundant here, and has to be recycled anyway in the long run just for tidiness, if for no other reason. Even nickel is a hard sell -- it's only about $4/pound -- and mediocre grades ores are not scarce. PGEs are more arguably worthwhile, *if* the extraction cost is not too high. Markets in space remain mythical. If any such large market does develop, it would also provide incentive to reduce launch costs from earth. So a plan that counts on selling volatiles for thousands of dollars a pound is being shortsighted. The terrestrial producers have the advantages of cheap labor, low cost access to equipment and maintenance, and low transportation costs (to terrestrial markets, and of materials to the mine site.) Energy on earth remains much cheaper than energy in space for these reasons. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 11:18:47 PDT From: Jim Bowery Subject: NASA Shake Up Rumor? Newsgroups: sci.space David "Fuzzy" Wells writes: >Add this to the rumor mill. With Goldin getting rid of top Truly people and >sending them over to Freedom, and with Goldin's opinion of Freedom fairly >well known (at least at the high levels), our beloved Space Station can >start counting its days to the end. The fact that he is "firing" these >guys and moving them over to an area that he doesn't particularly cares >for sends a big message to me and my associates that Freedom is toast. Goldin is NASA's Gorbachev. Goldin will have a problem Gorby didn't, however: Goldin is only the administrator of a government bureacracy -- he will have to operate under the weight of the bureauphillic administration of Clinton/Gore. -- INTERNET: jim@netlink.cts.com (Jim Bowery) UUCP: ...!ryptyde!netlink!jim NetLink Online Communications * Public Access in San Diego, CA (619) 453-1115 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1992 18:45:20 GMT From: Jordin Kare Subject: planetary motion Newsgroups: sci.space In article <92295.215904RXC119@psuvm.psu.edu> RXC119@psuvm.psu.edu writes: >hi i'm an aerosapce engineer at Penn State (not a good field to be in now) and >in my senior year design class we are sending a pair of probes to the Phobos >and Deimos ... Obviously a message from the distant future. Or perhaps an alternate timeline.... Now if it were MIT, I wouldn't be so surprised :-) Jordin Kare -- Jordin Kare jtk@s1.gov 510-426-0363 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1992 22:53:22 GMT From: Allen Halsell Subject: planetary motion Newsgroups: sci.space In article writes: > hi i'm an aerosapce engineer at Penn State (not a good field to be in now) and > in my senior year design class we are sending a pair of probes to the Phobos > and Deimos and I was wondering if anyone could suggest and direct me to > obtaining via ftp or otherwise a pc program or FORTRAN program that shows a > graphical picture of the positions of the planets from now to say 30 years in t > he future and in addition a program that could assist in optimizing the Mars > transfer either direct or via a Venus swingby. I have read some literature > about a program from Lockheed (?) that is called SWISTO - swingby and stopover > that uses the patched conic approach. Any info that would assist in this > regard would be greatly appreciated. This kind of stuff shows up all the time; is this honest or what? Back in the olden times when I was in school we just worked it out. No wonder our engineering profession is going down the tubes. Everyone KNOWS you don't get open-book exams until you graduate :-). #FLAME OFF ********************************************************************* the only thing that speaks the truth is the eloquence of passing time the spoken word is a jacket too tight ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1992 16:15:14 GMT From: Leopoldo Gonzalez Subject: prueba dia 22 Newsgroups: sci.space veamos que pasaaaa... ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1992 18:31:19 GMT From: frisbee Subject: Quayle Quote Newsgroups: sci.space Mars is essentially in the same orbit... somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe. -- Vice President Dan Quayle frisbee@devvax.jpl.nasa.gov ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 18:01:47 CST From: Juan Carlos Vazquez Perez Subject: sub Juan Carlos Vazquez sub Juan Carlos Vazquez ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1992 15:21:27 GMT From: Greg Moore Subject: TheSouth rose (was Re: Weather satellites & preventing property damage) Newsgroups: sci.space In article henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >In article <1992Oct21.201944.4526@eng.umd.edu> sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu writes: >>Obviously, they didn't have THAT much of an impact. If they did, the Marines >>would have gotten the Maple leaf right side up... > >No, no, Doug, you misunderstand. An upside-down flag is a distress signal... >and rumor hath it that some of you rebel types (I speak, of course, of your >rebellion against legitimate royal authority, not of any internal tiffs >you've had more recently) are getting a wee bit distressed about the >possibility that your soi-disant "World Series" might actually be won by >a foreign team... :-) >-- Hey, if the timing were different, who knows, your vote in late Oct could fail and we'd be one big happy country and it wouln't be a foreign team! (btw, notice I didn't say who would merge with who! Don't assume that I mean Canada would join the US. Maybe we'd be smart enough to do it the other way. And let Quebec join France. :-) (BTW, this is ALL sarcasm before anyone decides to flame me.) >MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s. | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology > -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)| henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 11:17:33 PDT From: Jim Bowery Subject: White Welfare vs Incentives Newsgroups: sci.space Just as there are many in the black and La Raza communities who believe the welfare system is substitute for slavery which serves to keep their communities in a state of demoralized dependency -- so I believe the technically competent pioneers who spread western civilization across the new world, predominantly "white", now find themselves absorbed in a state of demoralized dependency maintained by government programs originated to help them pioneer the next frontier. The problem with all such "helpful" programs can be described in one word: INCENTIVES Create the right incentives and everything else will fall into place. Fail to create those incentives and failure is assured. What sort of INCENTIVES do you believe are created by our government space programs? -- INTERNET: jim@netlink.cts.com (Jim Bowery) UUCP: ...!ryptyde!netlink!jim NetLink Online Communications * Public Access in San Diego, CA (619) 453-1115 ------------------------------ End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 336 ------------------------------