Date: Tue, 17 Nov 92 05:08:10 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V15 #431 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Tue, 17 Nov 92 Volume 15 : Issue 431 Today's Topics: Automated space station construction Free Middle/High School Broadcasts Lunar "colony" reality check (2 msgs) Minority Kids into Techies (was Re: Free Middle/High School Broadcasts) OS in the shuttle (was Re: What kind of computers are in the shuttle?) Putting telescopes on the moon Shuttle computers Shuttle replacement, STS-52 half-full Space suit research? 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: 14 Nov 92 14:34:54 GMT From: Gary Coffman Subject: Automated space station construction Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Nov12.152633.13688@hal.com> bobp@hal.com (Bob Pendleton) writes: >From article <1992Nov12.044348.827@ke4zv.uucp>, by gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman): >> Military COBOL and Intel processors, FRED IS DOOMED. :-) :-) > >Get your history straight. COBOL was a US Navy project. The Air Force >also had it's own programming language. ADA is the result of >inter-service rivalry :-) I called Ada military COBOL because it's almost as wordy. Actually I like Ada and have coded some serious applications in it. It's C++ with an attitude. :-) Gary ------------------------------ Date: 16 Nov 92 22:35:18 GMT From: "Patrick S. Golden" Subject: Free Middle/High School Broadcasts Newsgroups: sci.space REACHING FOR THE STARS A free, nationwide distance-learning program designed to encourage young minority and female middle and high-school students to pursue careers in science and engineering 2:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. (ET) December 16, 1992 February 10, 1993 March 17, 1993 April 7, 1993 May 12, 1993 Program Description: Each of the 30-minute programs in the five-part interactive series will profile a different recipient of a Virginia Space Grant scholarship or fellowship. These young minority and female researchers will describe what motivated them to pursue careers in the sciences and engineering, what their lives are like at the college or university where they study, and what their career aspirations are. Each researcher will also teach a basic science lesson and briefly discuss the relationship of that science lesson to their university research project. Viewers will have the opportunity to ask questions of the young researchers via telephone during an interactive segment of the program. Pre- and post- broadcast material will be mailed to those registering for the series. Target Audience: Middle school and high school students and other interested viewers Program Objectives: The series is designed to provide viewers with: - An awareness of the career possibilities and rewards that exist for students -- particularly minorities and women -- in engineering and the sciences. - A knowledge of the scholastic paths students must travel to become engineers and scientists. - An understanding of the nature of five young minority and female researchers' college experiences and what viewers will encounter if they attend college and major in the sciences. - Knowledge of five basic science lessons and how those lessons are related to more sophisticated research. Reaching for the Stars is a cooperative educational project of the Virginia Space Grant Consortium, Old Dominion University and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. For Registration Information: Old Dominion University's Academic Television Services at (800) 548-4807 VIRGINIA SPACE GRANT CONSORTIUM 2713-D Magruder Blvd. Hampton, VA 23666 (804) 865-0726 E-mail: pgolden@nhgs.vak12ed.edu -- |-------------------------------| |++Patrick Golden++ | |Virginia Space Grant Consortium| |pgolden@nhgs.vak12ed.edu | ------------------------------ Date: 16 Nov 92 22:54:48 GMT From: Jared Dahl Subject: Lunar "colony" reality check Newsgroups: sci.space In article <14NOV199214270653@judy.uh.edu>, wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov writes: |> |> I like it. I like it. Yea we have looked at Lava tubes. I have some great |> pictures of lava tubes from Lunar Orbiter IV. This is a prime area for the |> Artemis rover missions to the moon. No one knows what is down there and in |> them. One of the Apollo missions visited a collapsed lave tube(Hadley Rille) |> |> Lave Tubes have been presented as a solution to the problem of a lunar habitat. |> We could just go into the tubes and block of the ends however far apart we |> wanted and seal em and set up shop. Would be kinda boring after a while but |> would be a good save haven from Solar flares. Lotsa possiblities on the moon |> what is lacking is will power to accomplish the task. Would'nt this be a lot |> more fun than war? Not cheaper though... What really needs to be done is more research. You don't just buy a house after you drive by it a few times. You go inside, look in the basement and attic, check it out for termites. We need to do the same thing on the moon. We need to start sending surveying missions to located mineral deposits and volatiles. Apollo taught us a lot about the moon, but it was hardly enough. -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= | Jared Dahl | "My heart is human, my blood is boiling, | | Systems Programmer | my brain IBM" | | IBM - Rochester, MN | -- STYX, "Mr. Roboto" | =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Opinions expressed are mine, not IBM's. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Nov 92 18:33:54 GMT From: Gary Coffman Subject: Lunar "colony" reality check Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.sci.planetary In article <1992Nov12.161158.1725@eng.umd.edu> sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu writes: >In article <1992Nov12.045803.1096@ke4zv.uucp>, gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman) writes: > >>The inverse square law is a hard master. A microwave array on the Moon >>needs a gain 1,000,000 times that of an array at LEO to produce the same >>beam on Earth's surface. A Lunar array needs to be 100 times larger than >>an array at GEO and is available only 12 hours a day to any given site on >>Earth, and receives solar power only 2 weeks a month. > >Wellllll, yes and no. > >You build more than one array. Build a bunch of them, since some are going to >get wiped out by incoming garbage at some point in time :) Real estate is >cheap. Real estate may be cheap, I've got some swamp land..., but the labor and site preparation are not. >There's also some tricks you can do with the beam which you can't do with an >SPS, but I don't have the references or the SEI guy here to remember exactly >what you can do. You can get *ground gain* from mounting the antenna closely over the Lunar surface. But at best that only buys you 3 db. The array still needs to be 50 times as large as one at GEO. >> It would take decades >>of concentrated work to build a Lunar array after permanent manned presence >>is established on the Moon, if the array is to be constructed from native >>materials. > >Decades? You've been sipping from Szabo's cup, I see. :) The metals for >rectennas (?) are easy enough to cook up and stamp/mold/whatever. But first you have to mine them, build the processing plants, build the machine shops, do site preparation, and actually install the equipment. A Lunar base is unlikely to have more than a dozen workers at first, and they will have other tasks, like staying alive, that will consume much of their time. The infrastructure needed to do large scale mining, refining, fabrication, and civil engineering needed to build a power system from scratch is rather staggering. Let me drop you and a dozen of your friends in the vastly more friendly environment of the Sahara desert and see how long it takes you to build a multi-gigawatt power array and then transport yourselves to the Gobi desert and build another and interconnect them. I don't think Bechtel, with all their resources, could do it here in less than decades. Gary ------------------------------ Date: 17 Nov 92 05:47:11 GMT From: "Michael V. Kent" Subject: Minority Kids into Techies (was Re: Free Middle/High School Broadcasts) Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Nov16.184820.1@fnalo.fnal.gov> higgins@fnalo.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes: >Would it be simpler to ask white males, politely, *not* to become >engineers? This is already being done, on a large scale, in the aerospace industry, though hardly politely. Bottom left corner of sig says it all. Mike -- Michael Kent kentm@rpi.edu McDonnell Douglas Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Tute Screwed Aero Class of '92 Apple II Forever !! ------------------------------ Date: 16 Nov 92 23:36:28 GMT From: Marc Fournier - Admin Subject: OS in the shuttle (was Re: What kind of computers are in the shuttle?) Newsgroups: sci.space In article henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >dead; the specs are stringent for a reason. MSDOS doesn't qualify. :-) > Speaking of MSDOS...NAWT!...what do they use? An in-house developed OS? Some derived from existing OS's? Marc -- Marc G. Fournier | R-node Public Access Unix running UnixBBS 1.10 Etobicoke, Ontario | 416-249-5366 24hrs 7 days/week network email voice: 249-4230 | shell accounts available 2500+ newsgroups FREE marc@r-node.pci.on.ca | Telebit WorldBlazer/SupraModem2400/Cardinal 2400 ------------------------------ Date: 17 Nov 92 03:26:58 GMT From: Andrew Haveland-Robinson Subject: Putting telescopes on the moon Newsgroups: sci.space In article roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov writes: >-But, you ask, so what? Won't mixing the signals from the combined >-telescopes in the array isolate the light from the planet? Well, yes >-and no. You can boost the signal-to-noise ratio by an amount that's >-proportional to the number of telescopes in the array. That might >-allow you to detect the presence of the planet, where you couldn't >-otherwise. But unless you start with a pretty clean signal in the >-first place, there will be far too much noise to allow anything like >-imaging of continents. > >Would speckle interferometry, or integration of the incoming signals over >very long periods of time (hours to weeks) help with reception? (Other than >the fact that planets move over such time intervals.) > >I think you've made your point that the resolution formula can't be extended >out to infinity. I'd be interested in how far it *can* be extended with, say, >100 high-precision 10-meter optical telescopes. > >John Roberts >roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov Be good for SETI too - I expect the moon would act as an effective shield against the electromagnetic crap emanating from our orbiting toilet... :-) Just a matter of time I guess (<1,000 years?) 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: 17 Nov 92 04:58:22 GMT From: Pat Subject: Shuttle computers Newsgroups: sci.space In article roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov (John Roberts) writes: > >-From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) >-Subject: Re: What kind of computers are in the shuttle? >-Date: 14 Nov 92 23:58:37 GMT > >-There are also some other little problems, like the fact that the orbiter >-computers aren't independent systems -- those five main computers operate >-in very close lockstep for fault tolerance. This isn't just a tougher >-version of a commercial computer system. > >Do you recall how tight the lockstep is? I don't believe I've seen anything >written on that since before STS-1. > >John Roberts >roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov I think it was 1/2 a clock. i believe every instruction is run at the same time on each processor and when a computation is ready they go to the master for comparison and validation. one of the first shuttle flights was screwed up because IBM tested the software ona ground test bed which had different cable lengths then the shuttle and the propagation delay was putting the clock edges enough out that they kept locking out the slave in each pair. i think it was something like this. there are two control channels, each has a primary and backup computer. the backups kept going off-line and the mission got scrubbed. i am sure henry knows the true details but thats how a guyt from IBM explained it to me. ------------------------------ Date: 17 Nov 92 05:40:26 GMT From: "Michael V. Kent" Subject: Shuttle replacement, STS-52 half-full Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle,sci.space In article <69647@cup.portal.com> BrianT@cup.portal.com (Brian Stuart Thorn) writes: >P.S., I consider myself more than mildly supportive of the Space Shuttle, >but when NASA starts flying half-empty Space Shuttles and saying "the mission >was full", I get worried. I was just trying to explain, not defend, NASA's position as I see it. Both ground control and the astronauts claimed that they were very busy and work- ing 12 - 16 hour days. They may not have had the crew time to support an additional payload, I don't know. I do know that payload volume is not the only constraint. I can think of several ways to work around the problem: 1) Launch the LAGEOS on a Delta. This could have been done rather easily, in my opinion. 2) Launch IRIS on another or the same Delta. This would have required a significant development that NASA may have had to pay for. IRIS was developed as an upper stage for Shuttle commercial payloads. After commercial satellites were removed from the manifest, NASA agreed to launch LAGEOS as its first and only IRIS payload. This was probably important for international relations as I suspect, but don't know, that Italy wanted data on what is for it a substantial rocket develop- ment program. Thus IRIS, not just LAGEOS, needed to be flown. 3) Add another astronaut to the crew. If crew time was indeed the constraint as I suspect, that fact should have been obvious early enough to add a- nother astronaut to run the additional payload in the payload bay. 4) Make it an EDO flight. Again, if crew time were the constraint, adding the EDO pallet would add another two man-weeks to the flight. For reasons not obvious to me, NASA is only flying one EDO flight per year. The incremental cost of making a regular Columbia flight an EDO flight is rather low. If it were up to me, Columbia would be flying EDO every flight, even if half of it were nothing but astronauts floating around in LBNPs. Mike -- Michael Kent kentm@rpi.edu McDonnell Douglas Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Tute Screwed Aero Class of '92 Apple II Forever !! ------------------------------ Date: 17 Nov 92 03:39:54 GMT From: Frank Crary Subject: Space suit research? Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Nov16.180102.20839@eos.arc.nasa.gov> brody@eos.arc.nasa.gov (Adam R. Brody ) writes: >Actually, the latest I have heard is that cold plates will be used >for cooling and the sole reason for high pressure is health. Air cooling is also relied on, at least on the Shuttle: There is a 10-psi mode, used during EVA missions to reduce pre-breathing requirements. Rockwell, however, was sufficiently concerned about cooling at low cabin pressure, to have a clause written into the contract: Rockwell has no responisbility what so ever for any electronics failures related to low cabin pressure... >The fact >that people live in high elevations like Denver and Mexico City, where >the atmospheric pressure is lower than sea level does not hold much weight. Actually, Vail or Aspen at ~10 psi average, would be a better example than Denver (~12 psi...) I have never understood why NASA doesn't consider this fact relevant. I know the reason the Case for Mars IV conference endorsed 14.5psi for Mars missions: NASA apparently likes it and will probably be using that pressure in many existing systems by the time a Mars mission is launched. Having two different pressures is a _major_ pain, so the general consensus was to stick to 14.5psi... Frank Crary CU Boulder ------------------------------ From: Pat Newsgroups: sci.space Subject: Re: Space suit research? Message-Id: Date: 17 Nov 92 04:13:22 GMT Article-I.D.: access.BxuEEB.1ow References: Sender: usenet@access.digex.com Organization: UDSI Lines: 32 Nntp-Posting-Host: access.digex.com Source-Info: Sender is really news@CRABAPPLE.SRV.CS.CMU.EDU Source-Info: Sender is really isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU In article henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >In article prb@access.digex.com (Pat) writes: >>What's the big push for a earth normal type atmosphere? >>apollo, etc, ran fine on low pressure pure O2, does better pressure >>greatly improve cooling. or are there long term bio effects???? > >The cooling issue is a serious one. Apollo didn't have that concern -- >since doing an EVA required depressurizing the entire cabin, air-cooled >equipment could not be used at all. This was okay, more or less, for >Apollo, but simply isn't appropriate for a laboratory environment: >air cooling is by *far* the easiest way to cool electronics, and the >cost of the hardware goes way up without it. > >And yes, there is some concern about possible long-term biological >effects, although there is little firm knowledge. >-- I still dont understand? Are there any times the shuttle would undergo a planned cabin depress? What i was wondering is why have the shuttle run at 14PSI earth normal atmosphere? if the shuttle ran on a mostly O2 atmosphere at 3-4 PSI wouldnt all the pre breathe stuff become irrelevant? Couldnt the equipment in the shuttle handle a low pressure atmosphere? sure, it wouldnt cool as efficiently as 14 pSI, but larger fans should cover the gap?????? cant you air cool even if the air is a little thin? i know jet aircraf seem to manage wven with a crappy thin atmosphere at 100,000 ft. ALSO in apollo were EVA's part of the planned mission? sure on lunar landing, but what about in flight for the command and service module. were they recovering sample panels or was this just emergency plans? pat ------------------------------ End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 431 ------------------------------