Date: Sun, 8 Nov 92 05:10:45 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V15 #397 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Sun, 8 Nov 92 Volume 15 : Issue 397 Today's Topics: A solution to "NASA Coverup"? (long) (2 msgs) Automated space station construction (2 msgs) Comet Collision Drop nuc waste into Dyson Spheres Man in space ... ) Mars Observer Update - 11/06/92 More on the lunar questions NASA Coverup Need Specific NASA Image Ten embarrassed questions about the moon (very long) (3 msgs) Uranium abundance on Earth 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: Sat, 7 Nov 92 22:39:59 EST From: John Roberts Subject: A solution to "NASA Coverup"? (long) -From: snarfy@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us -Subject: NASA Coverup -Keywords: More sources for 43,000 mile figure -Date: 6 Nov 92 01:18:00 GMT - Generally the objections fall into seven categories: -...7. I ,snarfy , have an impolite, beligerent, obnoxious and generally - bad attitude, and my error in transposing terms in the equation 180/6 = - 30 indicates that I am also stupid and unqualified to address this - newsgroup. I think the attitude is part of it. Unfortunately, it's fashionable these days to seek glory by claiming that some revered scientist is guilty of fraud - often these claims have little or no foundation. When you accuse the tens of thousands of people who worked on Apollo of fraud, it's natural that many people will tend to put you in that category, whether that's accurate or not. It's not necessary to be belligerent about a discrepancy in calculations. I occasionally come up with results in my calculations that are different from the accepted values, and when that happens, I post a question on it and try to get independent verification. Usually it turns out that I made a mistake or left out some important factor, but once in a while it appears that the results are confirmed - for instance, I have not yet found any problems with my calculations showing that a 1AU Dyson sphere would be too hot to live on, and that for a comfortable temperature, radius must be increased to at least 1.75 AU. (I wish someone would check that - I've found an error in the unrelated calculation of internal photon pressure of a reflective sphere, which still needs to be fixed.) The other problem is the degree to which a claim varies from the accepted state of affairs, and the degree to which people would have to change their world view to accommodate the claim. The greater the degree of change required, the stiffer the standards for validation. You might post an argument that aluminum alloy would have been a better choice than titanium for the legs of the lunar lander (or vice versa), and you might get some replies arguing to the contrary, but you wouldn't expect a heated exchange over it (except perhaps for a few crazed metallurgists), and if it turned out that your opinion was the result of reading an article in Popular Science rather than years of research on metal alloys, nobody would be particularly angry about it. On the other hand, when you make the spectacular claim that the moon's surface gravity is nearly four times the accepted value, and extrapolate that to claims of fraud, then people are going to be very insistent on knowing your sources and your calculations. When it turns out that your sources are more or less popular accounts (with nary a differential equation among them), then they will justifiably "request" that you seek out better sources. (I occasionally make spectacular claims based on popular accounts, but I try to make it clear that the popular accounts are the source, and that I'm ready to accept correction from those who know more on the subject.) - Ok, back to work: OK, let's look at the source of your dilemma: - Let me here define "Neutral Point" : - The neutral point is that point in a lunar spacecraft's trajectory, - measured by the straight line distance from the moon's center in miles, - where the force of gravitational influence in the direction of the moon , - measured in pounds of "pull" on the spacecraft,is equal to the force of - influence toward the direction of the earth, also measured in pounds of - "pull". By the way, I think you'll be much happier in the long run if you do your calculations in SI (metric) units. I often do simple calculations in standard units, but the tough problems are much more easily handled using SI. - I believe that the direct quotation from the July 25,1969 Time magazine - article would be helpful here: - "At a point 43,495 from the moon, lunar gravity exerted a force [on the - spacecraft] equal to the gravity of the Earth , then some 200,000 miles - distant." - In "Project Apollo: Man to the Moon" by Thomas J. Alexander (Harper and - Row , 1964 ) ,the author states: - "At a point some 40,000 miles from the Moon ,when the craft is poking - along at about 2000 mph, it crosses THE LINE where the moon's gravity - exceeds that of the earth . That's the second part of the trjectory." - (caps mine). It appears that you're assuming that the spacecraft spends its journey moving along a straight line between the center of the Earth and the center of the moon. Orbital maneuvers are a very complex field of study, and I don't know most of the details (I can only do the very simple calculations), but it seems to me that that's a very unlikely course for the spacecraft to take. After firing to escape low earth orbit, the spacecraft is moving in nearly a parabolic or hyperbolic (probably parabolic, but I'm not sure - it depends on velocity) trajectory, which gradually changes to a (probably) hyperbolic trajectory about the moon, as the moon's gravitation becomes predominant. Remember that the moon is orbiting about the Earth at a velocity of around 1023 meters per second (avg) - if it takes the spacecraft several days to get from Earth orbit to the moon, the moon will have traveled a tremendous distance "sideways" during that time. So it makes sense to "lead" your shot - aim the spacecraft toward where the moon will be when the spacecraft gets to the moon's orbit. (Actually, since the objective is not a lunar impact but a lunar orbit, you want the spacecraft to be where the moon's gravity will whip it around the moon, thus minimizing the amount of fuel you have to burn to get into lunar orbit. The calculations for that are extremely complex, but I think this is a pretty fair simplification for the layman.) The net result is that as the spacecraft approaches the moon, it does so at a very large angle with respect to the line between the Earth and the moon, so you can't just subtract the spacecraft-moon distance from the earth-moon distance and use that as the spacecraft-Earth distance. Note that your sources don't say that the two forces *cancel* (which they would do if the spacecraft were exactly on the line between the Earth and the moon), just that the two forces are *equal*. I think this is the main source of your discrepancy. (If this analysis is correct, I think you owe those poor Apollo scientists an apology.) (There are many points in space where the gravitational influence of the Earth and the moon are *equal*, but they don't form a line or a plane - I believe it's a complex curve surrounding the moon. Another pitfall that is especially important to recognize in weighing the influence of phenomena that tend to cancel one another out is the sensitivity of the results to errors in the initial assumptions. For instance, suppose you're using a value of 238000 miles for the distance from the center of the Earth to the center of the moon. Suppose the actual distance on that day was 236000 miles or 240000 (the distance varies from about 225700 miles to 252000 miles) - what effect would that have on the results of your calculations? For calculations where you just multiply this in as a factor, the effect would be fairly insignificant - less than a percent. when you square the value to work out the inverse square, the effect is greater - nearly two percent. When you subtract one inverse square from another inverse square, the error can be tremendously magnified. Remember in your earlier post when the neutral point was said to have been stated as 22100-25200 miles from the moon? Perhaps that doesn't mean they couldn't make a more accurate guess - perhaps that means the value actually changes over that range as the moon moves between perigee and apogee. So it would appear that neutral point calculations are fairly sensitive to errors in Earth-moon distance. Other factors may be similarly sensitive. You can write a computer program to check the sensitivity of your initial assumptions - vary each one up and down slightly, and record the effect that each variation has on the outcome. (That's a little bit simplistic - in some cases you may have to try variations in *combinations* of factors, but at least it's a start.) I worked out some calculations of my own, that seem to be fairly consistent with the stated neutral point range, but which are quite different for the posted distance of the Lagrangian point. This post is already long enough, so I'll try to put them in a followup post. John Roberts roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 05:03:27 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: A solution to "NASA Coverup"? (long) Newsgroups: sci.space In article roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov (John Roberts) writes: >... After firing to escape low earth orbit, the spacecraft is moving >in nearly a parabolic or hyperbolic (probably parabolic, but I'm not sure - >it depends on velocity) trajectory, which gradually changes to a (probably) >hyperbolic trajectory about the moon... A lunar trajectory actually starts out as an ellipse with a very high apogee; reaching parabolic velocity is not (quite) necessary. It does look like a hyperbola around the Moon once you get close enough, although you really have to be pretty close for the Earth's effects to be negligible. >...Remember that the moon is orbiting about the Earth at a >velocity of around 1023 meters per second (avg) - if it takes the spacecraft >several days to get from Earth orbit to the moon, the moon will have traveled >a tremendous distance "sideways" during that time... Whence my comment about it being better to ignore the Moon entirely than to assume it is motionless. There *is* an exact solution for the three-body problem if you assume two primary bodies motionless with respect to each other and a negligibly small third body -- it's called Euler's Problem Of Fixed Centers -- but it's pretty useless in practice. -- 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: 8 Nov 92 06:42:56 GMT From: Frank Crary Subject: Automated space station construction Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Nov6.160447.12613@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes: >>But wouldn't the robots been discussed here be operated remotely by >>ground based people. This way, there is no need to program much AI >>into the system. >That isn't robotics, it's teleoperation. That's available now. The >Shuttle has the Canadarm and so will Freedom. They're operated on >site because the maximum 7 second communications delay through the >relay satellites is too much for real time assembly from the ground. >Robots have autonomy, at least of a limited kind. Is anyone looking into robots with very limited autonomy? That is, under direction from a human, but able to execute instructions on their own for periods of, say, ten seconds? Frank Crary CU Boulder ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 07:17:01 GMT From: Steve Linton Subject: Automated space station construction Newsgroups: sci.space |> I expect that improvements in routing statellite communications could |> get the average control lag down to under 1.5 seconds. That would help |> a lot. However, the lag is constantly changing due to the low Earth |> orbit so I'd expect it to be a nightmare for the operator to compensate. If we really wanted to we could get the lag down to almost zero, using large numbers of ground stations connected by optical fibre (there are already commercial optical fibre cables under the Atlantic and Pacific). We could come pretty close using relay satellites in a low-ish orbit and a smart rerouting program (Iridium, in essence) or we could get down to 1/2 s using three ground stations, three geostationary relays and optical cables (cable to the right ground station, satellite to target). ------------------------------ Date: 8 Nov 92 03:27:59 GMT From: Mr N E Plum Subject: Comet Collision Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.sci.planetary In article <1992Nov5.034552.8819@infodev.cam.ac.uk>, sl25@cus.cam.ac.uk (Steve Linton) writes: [ much discussion on changing the path of comets deleted ] There is a well-written example of this is the book 'To the Heart of the Comet' by Gregory Benford and David Brin which (although fiction) shows this kind of thing is at least thinkable. The idea in the book is to colonise Comet Halley, but the many techiniques relevant to changing any cometary path are mentioned. Nicolai -- No-one has opinions like mine - I hope : maufr@warwick.ac.uk -- ------------------------------ Date: 7 Nov 92 09:36:55 GMT From: Cameron Newham Subject: Drop nuc waste into Newsgroups: sci.space In article <581.2AF8ED3B@mechanic.Fidonet.org> Lauren.Podolak@mechanic.Fidonet.org writes: > Why not simply dump the stuff on Luna? Less energy involved yet and > frankly it makes sense since at some date we will probably come up with > a need for the stuff. > Oh, why not just dump the stuff on Swift-Tuttle as it flies by in 130 years time. :) -cameron. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Nov 92 05:54:36 GMT From: David Goldschmidt Subject: Dyson Spheres Newsgroups: sci.space One of the recurring problems in the Dyson-sphere debate is how to hold up the poles, which won't be orbiting in any helpful way. This problem doesn't come up with Niven's ringworlds, even very wide ones (significantly wider than the diameter of the sun) What would a very wide ringworld look like? If seen from the same plane as the ring, it could look very much like a Dyson Sphere (It would completely block the star). One can assume that any civilization would build such a thing in it's ecliptic plane. The question then is: Does our sun lie in the ecliptic of nearby stars. It seems feasible to me that most solar systems have parallel ecliptic planes (lined up with the plane of the Milky Way), which would mean that all but the closest stars are essentially coplanar. Does anybody know the relationship between the ecliptic of our solar system and the Milky Way? Another possibility to avoid collapsing poles: have two or more ringworlds, inside each other, at various angles. Each spot on the outer world would periodically go into the shadow of the inner one, but this shouldn't be a prohibitive problem. The mass of ringworlds would look very much like a Dyson Sphere from a distance. Dave Patterson, guest on this account. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Nov 92 15:30:32 GMT From: atmtjkv@vax.ox.ac.uk Subject: Man in space ... ) Newsgroups: sci.space In article <720944603snx@osea.demon.co.uk>, andy@osea.demon.co.uk (Andrew Haveland-Robinson) writes: > > In article <1992Nov4.093438.1@fnalo.fnal.gov> you write: > >>In article <720796989snx@osea.demon.co.uk>, andy@osea.demon.co.uk (Andrew> Haveland-Robinson) writes: >>> >>> In article <13335@ecs.soton.ac.uk> nf@ecs.soton.ac.uk writes: >>>> What will happen if the space suite of an austronaut gets ripped in space> ? >>> >> >>Ever put your hand up against the nozzle of vacuum cleaner? Your skin >>will hold about 1 atmosphere pressure nicely. >> >>The reason I'm writing, instead of just allowing the discussion to >>peter out, is to mention that a suggestion of Hermann Oberth's: >>Astronauts might wear spacesuits without gloves for delicate work! > > !! > > Ah well... I stand corrected... Thanks for the explanation, it still > sounds like a horrible way to go... > > I suppose after further thought, if one doesn't notice the 7psi or so at > 35,000ft in an aircraft, 0 psi isn't going to make that much difference. > > The key is the uniformity of pressure - a vacuum cleaner could cause a > slight bruise in time, but that's because of the 15 psi air pressure trying > to squeeze you into the tube! Reduce the outside pressure, and reduce the > apparent suction. > -- Anyone who thinks you get 15psi of `suck' from a vacuum cleaner is seriously in error. A typical reduction in pressure (nozzle to atmosphere) is about 2--4 inches of water: remember that one atmosphere is 32 feet of water approximately. You need a much larger diameter, and a much larger rotation speed, to get a bigger pressure difference from a centrifugal pump for air, as the density is so low. To get a decent vacuum from something of a similar size you need a displacement-type pump (i.e. one with valves, such as a diaphragm or rotary vane pump). You can certainly plug up a hole about 1/4" diameter with your finger for at least a minute -- I've done it (got a leak rate of about 10^-8 mb l/s) , but I wouldn't advise trying a larger area for a long time as the skin isn't sufficiently rigid. I do remember a story of someone trying -- he was in hospital for a long time. Tim Kingsmill-Vellacott Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics University of Oxford, UK. tjkv@atm.ox.ac.uk preferred ------------------------------ Date: 8 Nov 92 12:03:50 GMT From: Ron Baalke Subject: Mars Observer Update - 11/06/92 Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary Forwarded from: PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE JET PROPULSION LABORATORY CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011 MARS OBSERVER MISSION STATUS November 6, 1992 The Mars Observer spacecraft team reports that all spacecraft subsystems continue to perform well. Instrument payload and payload data checkouts are continuing as planned. The instrument calibration flight sequence currently under way will continue through Nov. 17, 1992. The Magnetometer and Gamma Ray Spectrometer instrument teams are receiving early cruise calibration data. The Mars Observer Camera "bakeout" to prepare the camera for operation will continue through Dec. 26, 1992. New spacecraft activities are expected to be minimal over the next several days. Today the spacecraft is about 12 million kilometers (7.5 million miles) from Earth, traveling at a speed of about 11,800 kilometers per hour (7,500 miles per hour) relative to Earth. The spacecraft is traveling at a heliocentric velocity of about 111,000 kilometers per hour (72,000 miles per hour). ##### ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| Ron Baalke | baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov | | | | __ \ /| | | | Jet Propulsion Lab | ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |__ M/S 525-3684 Telos | Give people a second /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | chance, but not a third. |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ | ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 8 Nov 92 00:15:10 EST From: John Roberts Subject: More on the lunar questions -From: jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Josh 'K' Hopkins) -Subject: Re: NASA Coverup -Keywords: Ten Embarrassing Questions about the Moon -Date: 7 Nov 92 23:42:20 GMT -Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana A few quotes from the text I mentioned before (Lunar Science: A Post-Apollo View) relevant to two of the items you list: -snarfy@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us writes: -> 6 . Is the core of the moon hot or cold ? -"Scarfy" makes some strange comments here and a few logic leaps that lost me. -The core of the Moon is solid. This explains its weak and disorganized magnetic -field and the lack of siesmic activity. This also makes sense given the small -size of the Moon - it would have cooled faster than earth. [Structure of the lunar interior] "1000-1738 km (The 'Asthenosphere') "The announcement in November, 1972, that a portion of the interior of the moon was partially molten ranks high among the many exciting discoveries about the moon. The evidence came from the impact of a large meteorite (weighing about 1 ton) on the far side of the moon in July, 1972. P waves were transmitted, with slightly lower velocities through the moon, but S (shear) waves, which are not transmitted through liquids, were missing, indicating a central zone of 600-800 km radius at a depth of about 1000 km. Either the shear waves did not propagate at all or were so highly attenuated as not to be recorded. "The transition to the melting zone is gradual, not sharp. The P-wave velocities decrease by 0.3 km/s, a slight drop compared with the mantle core interface in the earth, where the P-wave velocity drops by about 5 km/s. Thus this zone in the moon is neither completely molten nor a phase change. The analogy is much closer to that of the "low velocity zone" in the earth's upper mantle than with the core. This has led to the rather general use of the term 'lunar asthenosphere'. The limits for an iron core, as noted earlier, set by the density and moment of inertia are about 400km radius, much deeper than the partial melting zone discussed here. An Fe-FeS core radius of 700 km is permitted by the data." (pp. 291-292) [Note that this is a 1972 finding, published in a book in 1975. It may not be fully up to date on such a recent item. Also, this *doesn't* say that the zone of partial melting necessarily extends all the way to the center.] -> 9. What are "mascons" and how did they get there? -The mascons (mass concentrations) are -the remains of large meteorites buried under the lunar maria. "It is now clear that the mascons are near-surface features rather than deep seated. They are most closely simulated by surface disk-shaped bodies rather than deep-buried spherical bodies and show a good correlation between surface area of the mare basalt fill and the size of the mascon." (p.279) [In other words, it seems to be the lava rather than the material of the impacting body that's the main contributor to the mascon.] John Roberts roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 03:34:51 +0000 From: Andrew Haveland-Robinson Subject: NASA Coverup Newsgroups: sci.space In article <4600@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us> snarfy@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us writes: > "At a point 43,495 from the moon, lunar gravity exerted a force [on the > spacecraft] equal to the gravity of the Earth , then some 200,000 miles > distant." > > I would conclude from the inclusion of the distance remaining to go to > the moon (200,000 miles) that the author knew exactly which units he was > talking about . > > I did a search for other sources which would help us analyse just what is > meant by " neutral point" , and where it might be located along the > flight path of the Apollo . > > In "Project Apollo: Man to the Moon" by Thomas J. Alexander (Harper and > Row , 1964 ) ,the author states: > > "At a point some 40,000 miles from the Moon ,when the craft is poking > along at about 2000 mph, it crosses THE LINE where the moon's gravity > exceeds that of the earth . That's the second part of the trjectory." > (caps mine). > > In Buzz Aldrin's book, "Men From Earth" (1989) , the author states on > page 231: > > "After two full days into the mission we were 150,000 miles from earth > and our speed was less than 3000 miles an hour. The moon was > approximately 30 hours and 90,000 miles distant." > > Here we have a "horse's mouth" space jockey's description of his ship's > situation well before reaching either of two postulated neutral points. > > If we rule out the possibility that Apollo 11 was undergoing some kind > of continuous thrusting which would keep this 3000 mph velocity > constant,we are then left with the conclusion that the neutral point was > approximately 1/2 way between his position at that time and the moon > which was 90,000 miles away. Here again we arrive at a Neutral point > figure close to the 43,595 miles AS SPECIFIED BY TIME , VON BRAUN , and > ALEXANDER. > > I repeat again this is data from direct experimental evidence (the > actual moon flights) that the moon's gravity cannot be 1/6 if one > calculates the relative pulls of the earth and moon based on the proven > accurate inverse square law . In pre - Apollo Astronomy , it is admitted > that the exact determination of the moon's mass , therefore the position > of the neutral point could not be determined unless one was able to > observe the actual trajectories of lunar spacecraft. > As one working in the media as a typesetter typos are a statistical fact, following the same lines as bugs in code - they are never eradicated, just get less significant. It is therefore reasonable to expect that out of the 1000s of articles on the subject and the complexity of editorial processes errors will occur. Some information will be inaccurate or completely wrong. You cannot base a radical cover-up accusation based on a small anomaly, all you can do is re-check the facts with other sources to corroborate. Write to the authors concerned - we'd be very interested in their replies. I appreciate your desire to question authority - that is healthy, and it forces other netters to rethink their universes... You've shown that you've listened to the postings, but have you accepted them, and reconsidered your hypothesis? Cheers Andy. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Haveland-Robinson Associates | Email: andy@osea.demon.co.uk | | 54 Greenfield Road, London | ahaveland@cix.compulink.co.uk | | N15 5EP England. 081-800 1708 | Also: 0621-88756 081-802 4502 | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ > Some dream of doing great things, while others stay awake and do them < ------------------------------ Date: 8 Nov 92 05:44:00 GMT From: wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov Subject: Need Specific NASA Image Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Nov07.185538.13279@rvgs.vak12ed.edu>, cfifer@rvgs.vak12ed.edu (Craig Fifer) writes... I have the image in question on microfilm. Unfortunately my time quotient is zero right now. If you can wait two weeks, I can scan it in at 600 dpi and arrainge for you to ftp it from my computer. Please reply to me by direct email if you are interested. Hey Mr Bill. Can you send me the rest of the Lunar stuff that you started a few months ago? Right now would be a really good time. BTW remember the drawing I showed you in DC? Well things are go again on the project. I just love making people try to figure out what we are talking about! :) Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 03:34:44 +0000 From: Andrew Haveland-Robinson Subject: Ten embarrassed questions about the moon (very long) Newsgroups: sci.space In article roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov writes: > > >-From: snarfy@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us >-Subject: NASA Coverup >-Keywords: Ten Embarrassing Questions about the Moon >-Date: 6 Nov 92 23:37:31 GMT > >- As promised ,here come the ... > >- TEN EMBARRASSING QUESTIONS ABOUT THE MOON > >I expect you'll get a tremendous number of replies - I'll try to answer some >of the easier questions. An excellent article! I have a couple of questions... What is the ratio of density of the mascons to the "masdeps" (depletions)? Are the mascons responsible for the locked orbit? If so, then that would explain why the Marias are dense and are only found facing the Earth. References I've seen indicate that Earth's tides are responsible for locking the moon's rotation to the orbit. Andy. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Haveland-Robinson Associates | Email: andy@osea.demon.co.uk | | 54 Greenfield Road, London | ahaveland@cix.compulink.co.uk | | N15 5EP England. 081-800 1708 | Also: 0621-88756 081-802 4502 | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ >>>> Those that can, use applications. Those that can't, write them! <<<< > Some dream of doing great things, while others stay awake and do them < ------------------------------ Date: 8 Nov 92 05:58:00 GMT From: wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov Subject: Ten embarrassed questions about the moon (very long) Newsgroups: sci.space In article , henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes... >In article roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov (John Roberts) writes: >>Henry will probably sneer..... >Finally, there is a well-known and well-understood >human tendency to remember the unusual and forget the mundane. Yes, odd >things sometimes happen at the full moon... but to draw any meaningful >conclusions from this, you have to figure in the times when odd things >happened without a full moon, or the times when nothing noteworthy happened >during a full moon. Coincidences do happen; to establish correlation, you >have to look at the non-coincidences too. >-- >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 Poor Henry, a romantic you are not. :) Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville ------------------------------ Date: 8 Nov 92 06:11:00 GMT From: wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov Subject: Ten embarrassed questions about the moon (very long) Newsgroups: sci.space In article <721206789snx@osea.demon.co.uk>, andy@osea.demon.co.uk (Andrew Haveland-Robinson) writes... > >In article roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov writes: > >> >> >>-From: snarfy@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us >>-Subject: NASA Coverup >>-Keywords: Ten Embarrassing Questions about the Moon >>-Date: 6 Nov 92 23:37:31 GMT >> >>- As promised ,here come the ... >> >>- TEN EMBARRASSING QUESTIONS ABOUT THE MOON >> >>I expect you'll get a tremendous number of replies - I'll try to answer some >>of the easier questions. > >An excellent article! I have a couple of questions... > >What is the ratio of density of the mascons to the "masdeps" (depletions)? > >Are the mascons responsible for the locked orbit? If so, then that would >explain why the Marias are dense and are only found facing the Earth. > >References I've seen indicate that Earth's tides are responsible for >locking the moon's rotation to the orbit. > >Andy. > >+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ >| Haveland-Robinson Associates | Email: andy@osea.demon.co.uk | >| 54 Greenfield Road, London | ahaveland@cix.compulink.co.uk | >| N15 5EP England. 081-800 1708 | Also: 0621-88756 081-802 4502 | >+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ >>>>> Those that can, use applications. Those that can't, write them! <<<< >> Some dream of doing great things, while others stay awake and do them < Here are a couple of references that may help people on this subject. It isn't as cut and dry as my friend John suggests. Mascons: Lunar Mass Concentrations P. M. Muller and W. L. Sjogren SCIENCE 16, August 1968, Volume 161. pp 680-684 Lunar Gravity Via the Apollo 15 and 16 Subsatellites W.L. Sjogren and R. N. Wimberly Paper presented at the Lunar Science Institute conference on Geophysical and Geochemical Exploration of the Moon and Planets, January 10-12, 1973 Reprinted in "The Moon 9 (1974) pp. 155-128 This is all for now, good luck on your research, the Moon is a wonderful place and we WILL live there one day. Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 8 Nov 92 00:36:15 EST From: John Roberts Subject: Uranium abundance on Earth -From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) -Subject: Re: Ten embarrassed questions about the moon (very long) -Date: 7 Nov 92 23:02:31 GMT -Organization: Computer Science Department University of Rochester -In article roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov (John Roberts) writes: ... -> The total lunar abundance of uranium is thought to be about 60 ppb, -> and thorium about 230 ppb. The only figure I could find for the Earth -> was 2.7 ppb in the crust. -The figure you have for terrestrial uranium is wrong: uranium is -about 1000x more abundant than that in the earth's crust. "About" understates the case - I read the number right from a table in the CRC Handbook, where it was listed as "2.7 x 10^0 mg/kg". In the heat of the moment, I stuck in an extra factor of 1000. Oops! There seems to be a lot of this going around lately. So make that 2.7 ppm. Thanks for the correction. (And boos and hisses to the editor who thought that was a good way to set up an abundance table. :-) John Roberts roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov ------------------------------ End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 397 ------------------------------