Date: Mon, 15 Mar 93 05:08:44 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V16 #314 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Mon, 15 Mar 93 Volume 16 : Issue 314 Today's Topics: aA scite for orbital elements? Auto-cancel would be legit with a distribution (2 msgs) Blimps Building WF/PC-2 cancel wars accountability (2 msgs) Charon: Planet or moon? Huygens will float.... Planet X (2 msgs) Retraining at NASA Russians ICBMs -> SLVs Sisters of Mars Observer (was Re: Refueling in orbit) (2 msgs) Tech-Life in the Galaxy The courage of anonymity Venus and Mars, was Re: TIME HAS INERTIA 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: 13 Mar 93 15:53:39 PST From: thomsonal@cpva.saic.com Subject: aA scite for orbital elements? Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro Can anyone here suggest a site that would be interested in maintaining an ftp-able archive of artificial satellite orbital elements? The amateur community has accumulated probably a few tens of megabytes of elements over the past several years, mostly through the heroic efforts of a few individuals. The elements are currently maintained on PCs and workstations where they are not particularly accessible and are subject to local disasters. More recently, the NASA RAID BBS makes it practical for a single user to update elements for all objects in the NORAD catalog on about a twenty day cycle. Major objects (payloads and boosters) can be updated on a cycle of five to ten days. When supplemented with amateur-derived elements for LEO satellites not officially listed, these data should give a pretty complete picture of the larger orbiting objects out to GEO. Estimated data volume is < 150 kB (ZIPed) per week. Unfortunately, the RAID board maintains only the last five element sets for each object, hence the present query. The utility of such an archive is TBD, but geopotential studies, debris modeling, upper atmosphere research, scheduling astronomical photography, mission planning and analysis, and amateur/educational satellite observing come to mind. Please mail me if you have a candidate site. Disclaimer: The content of this message is my responsibility, not SAIC's. ,-------------------------------------------------------------------------, | Allen Thomson | | | SAIC, Inc. | Tishe yedesh', dal'she budesh'. | | McLean, VA, USA | | | thomsonal@cpva.saic.com | | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------' ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1993 21:13:25 GMT From: Brad Templeton Subject: Auto-cancel would be legit with a distribution Newsgroups: news.admin.policy,news.admin,comp.org.eff.talk,sci.space,alt.privacy One comment I will add. The use of the auto canceller would be legit if every article posted included a line like: Distribution: autocancel-anon People could then be welcome to join that distribution and get a feed of it. Of course, due to the design error in C news, this distribution would leak and the cancel messages would still make it out to much of the net. But that's not a bad thing, because it would get people off their duffs and have them fix their sys lines to remove "all" from distribution lists. (Actually, people would probably just keep all,!autocancel-anon, which would not solve the problem. I think for proper vigilante action to fix the "all" problem one should write a flooder that just keeps posting random text to random newsgroups with *random* distributions, random distribution meaning "oidnmzce" and other meaningless strings of random letters.) This would force people not to say "all" in distribution lines fast. -- Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Sunnyvale, CA 408/296-0366 ------------------------------ Date: 15 Mar 1993 00:35:30 GMT From: Steve Pope Subject: Auto-cancel would be legit with a distribution Newsgroups: news.admin.policy,news.admin,comp.org.eff.talk,sci.space,alt.privacy brad@clarinet.com (Brad Templeton) writes: > One comment I will add. The use of the auto canceller would be legit > if every article posted included a line like: > > Distribution: autocancel-anon > > People could then be welcome to join that distribution and get a feed > of it. I disagree that this is "legit". By arbitrarily deleting one category of user from each usenet thread, you end up with a "punctured" discussion in which different people have read different subsets of the thread, and are trying to carry on a coherent discussion despite this. Sort of a step 10 years backwards in usenet functionality. Further, there is the problem of determining fairly what is an "anon" posting. Anything from penet? What about pseudonymous users from access services, or bogus accounts at .edu or .com sites? Recall that the only reason people have to post through penet is they don't have the $20 or so per month it takes to buy a pseudonymous account. It would seem that an "autocancel-anon" scheme is biased against those with limited financial resources. Steve ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1993 09:45:00 From: Ron Lee Subject: Blimps Newsgroups: sci.space This subject is one I would like some info on if possible.. What sort of lifting capacity is possible with a blimp (say the size of the Goodyear blimp)? How long can they go without a lifting gas top-up? What gases are used these days? Hope you can enlighten me regards Ron * Origin: N A R N I A .. Proudly Australian.. Bittern Victoria (3:635/578) ------------------------------ Date: 15 Mar 1993 00:03:26 GMT From: Francis Vaughan Subject: Building WF/PC-2 Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro In article <12MAR199316125486@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov>, baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke) writes: |> " Fanson said. "We are |> talking about very small motions -- the total stroke of the |> actuators is equal to the length your hair grows in 15 minutes." Arrggghhhh! this gets worse. This is actually rather interesting, anyone got any real numbers? Perhaps I could work it out, but it doesn't say whose hair, where on the body or whether it is is summer or winter, or indeed whether it is an African or European swallow :-) Francis Vaughan. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1993 02:04:34 GMT From: Dave Hayes Subject: cancel wars accountability Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,alt.privacy,sci.space,sci.astro,news.admin.policy jmaynard@nyx.cs.du.edu (Jay Maynard) writes: >>>I'll say it again: YOU, SIR, ARE A COWARD! >>The real cowards hide behind the popular sentiment. >That would make me a coward if and only if my view was the popular sentiment. I didn't say you were a coward. Are we being...Defensive? >In this case, since I fully support Dick Depew's approach, that's definitely >not the case. So you support auto cancel daemons, eh? Figures. -- Dave Hayes - Network & Communications Engineering - JPL / NASA - Pasadena CA dave@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov ...usc!elroy!dxh Counterfeiters exist because there is such a thing as real money. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1993 02:08:41 GMT From: Dave Hayes Subject: cancel wars accountability Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,alt.privacy,sci.space,sci.astro,news.admin.policy jan@bagend.atl.ga.us (Jan Isley) writes: >>NO! Reveal his identity now and many knee jerks will forever condemn him/her. >>I think the person has sucessfully demonstrated a few foibles in people and >>now these people want to crucify. Why not learn from the mistakes and leave >>the issue alone? >It is not a foible to expect one to be accountable for one's actions, it >is reasonable, adult behavior. But it is. Why should you expect _anything_ from anyone else? Why should you expect that is always right or is always wrong? >One would think that Dave would have some >personal insight about getting crucified for grossly irresponsible news >admin behavior. It appears that Dave has learned nothing from his mistakes. The insight was valuable indeed. Crucifixion has (obviously) not changed my point of view to "comply" with "established and proper modes of thought". I _have_ learned many things about human behavior...such as the obvious personal attack when one is wanting to win a debate. -- Dave Hayes - Network & Communications Engineering - JPL / NASA - Pasadena CA dave@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov ...usc!elroy!dxh Intellectual (n.) - 1. One who knows no craft ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1993 21:20:55 GMT From: "John S. Neff" Subject: Charon: Planet or moon? Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993Mar14.002654.7038@csus.edu> arthurc@sfsuvax1.sfsu.edu (Arthur Chandler) writes: >From: arthurc@sfsuvax1.sfsu.edu (Arthur Chandler) >Subject: Charon: Planet or moon? >Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1993 00:26:54 GMT >> Is Charon a moon or a coplanet of Pluto? And what, if any, are the >formal distinctions between the two categories? And finally, is there >any minimum size for a body to be considered a moon, and not just >orbiting debris? In other words, would you call a 2-centimenter rock >revolving around a planet a moon of that planet? There is no agreement among astronomers as to the formal definition of a planet. In particular Pluto is called a minor planet by some astronomers and a major planet by others. If Pluto is a minor planet it is the largest minor planet, and so far the only one that we know for certain is a binary. Although there is credible evidence that other binary minor planets exist. If Pluto is a major planet it is the smallest in radius and mass. From these properties we can infer the internal structure of Pluto which turns out to be similar to the moons of the outer planets. If Pluto is a binary satellite it would be the only known example in the solar system. It is likely that this argument will last a long time. I think most people would agree that a 2 cm diameter object would not be called a moon. The smallest satellite listed in Astrophysical Data: Planets and Stars. by K.R. Lang, Springer-Verlag is J13 Leda at ~5 km. M2 Deimos is 8 x 6 km a moon Mars is the next smallest. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1993 02:39:02 GMT From: Jonathan Stone Subject: Huygens will float.... Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.sci.planetary > [...] the probe >would float deep enough such that the refractive index sensor would >be fully immersed, but high enough so that the Descent Imager/Specral >radiometer is above the waterline. ^^^^^^^^^^ Is there is a generally-accepted planetary-science generic term analogous to ``waterline'', but for liquids that aren't H20. Is ``waterline'' that term, and if not, what is it? And do we already know enough about Titan's atmospheric composition and surface temperature to engineer a probe that will float in all plausible Titanian surface liquids? If not, what *will* Hugyens float in? Liquid ammonia?? In case it isn't clear, these are genuine questions, not sarcasm or pedantic second-guessing of JPL... ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1993 20:35:56 GMT From: Dave Tholen Subject: Planet X Newsgroups: sci.space Claudio Egalon writes: > I do not know if it is right place to post an article like that but let us > give a try... > > Sometime ago I read an article in Sky and Telescopy about the discoverer of > Pluto, Clyde W. Tombaugh (may be I have mispelled his name). He contended > that, based in his earlier work and from gravitational data from the Pioneers > and Voyagers spacecraft, there was NO planet beyond Pluto however he did nt > came forward with an explanation for the perturbation in the orbits of Uranus > and Neptune! So here you are, certain astronomers, in order to explain > deviations in the orbits of these two planets, postulate the existence of a > 10th, yet undetectable, planet in the solar System and comes Pluto's > discoverer and say that there is no 10th planet but does not offer any > explanation of the orbit deviation of the other planets. How > come??? Is there anyone in the NET who can explain Tombaugh's position??? Two comments are in order. First of all, during his search for Pluto, Tombaugh examined a huge amount of the sky. He maintains that if a tenth planet was out there, he would have seen it. Of course, that would be true only if the planet were bright enough to have been picked up on his plates, so that does constrain things. Also, Tombaugh looked primarily along the ecliptic, so any objects substantially off the ecliptic could have been missed. Second, a lot of astronomers simply don't trust the veracity of the observations of Uranus and Neptune from the 19th century, which are the ones showing the systematic residuals. Throw them out, and their is no unexplained deviation any more. Other astronomers believe those old observations. Who's to say? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1993 01:37:23 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: Planet X Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1nvt90INNdml@rave.larc.nasa.gov> C.O.EGALON@LARC.NASA.GOV (CLAUDIO OLIVEIRA EGALON) writes: >Clyde W. Tombaugh ... contended that, based in >his earlier work and from gravitational data from the Pioneers and Voyagers >spacecraft, there was NO planet beyond Pluto howeverJhe did not came forward >with an explanation for the perturbation in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune! >...Is there anyone in the NET who can explain Tombaugh's position??? The problem is that the best evaluation of the orbits of Uranus and Neptune, based on the best observations (the 20th-century ones), says that there is *no* unexplained error in their positions. Unfortunately, if you use earlier data, problems do crop up. There is enough historical data of reasonable quality to raise a good possibility of a perturbing force in the past. But then why has it gone away? Any proposal for a tenth planet also has to explain some other major bits of negative evidence. There is no unexplained perturbation in the trajectories of Pioneers 10 and 11 and the Voyagers, and their positions can be measured far more accurately than those of the planets. Tombaugh's sky search, which was good enough to find an insignificant little speck like Pluto, should have spotted any major planet unless it was a long way out or far away from the ecliptic. IRAS didn't find anything either, looking in wavelengths where a gas giant ought to be much more prominent than in visible light. None of these things rules out a tenth planet, but it's difficult to make it consistent with all the evidence unless it's in a really strange orbit, which would itself require considerable explaining. -- All work is one man's work. | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology - Kipling | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 14 Mar 93 10:21:39 GMT From: Pat Subject: Retraining at NASA Newsgroups: sci.space In article brian@galileo.jsc.nasa.gov (Brian Donnell) writes: >Major sigh...I think most of us within NASA who read these >threads look at them with a sense of resignation. People >like Nick Szabo and Tom McWilliams are so misinformed, >it's depressing to even attempt to correct them. > Nothing like postnews to try and clear the air. We really would welcome some honest input from the folks at NASA and the contractor community on what is going on. >But let me be absolutely clear from the beginning. >I think it *is* NASA's fault that they are misinformed. >NASA's PR in general has been pathetic (until very >recently). JPL, for example, has great PR, and that's That is the Problem, too much PR, and not enough news. It's interesting to read the Press releases and mission statements, but what is more interesting is the debate, the weighing of priorities, the merits and meanings of particular events. Press releases have a way of blurring the impact of events until a certain spin has been placed upon it. What would be nice is to see people posting on what they think certain things mean. When JPL approves a mission, with N intruments aboard, it owuld be nice to know what was left out, and what that impact was or why devices a,b and c were chosen in the architecture. When what we get from NASA is mostly a snow job of press releases, and a continous stream of it's all okay and we are all one happy family, then why should we believe what we hear? >why people like Tom realize they do great work (and they >*do* in fact do great work). However, the other elements >of NASA are also just as productive and capable. And the >counter-example is true - there are several major flubs >on JPL's record too. > We all make mistakes. the trick is to have more wins then losses. >I do not pretend to claim that there haven't been any >mistakes in the design and implementation of NASA >programs, for there have been many. But that is the But all we hear is the covering and obfuscation leading up to these. >nature of things when you are doing things for the >first time - and I sometimes think people forget that's Everything is a first time for someone, it's aquestion of how much new engineering versus old engineering will be done. >what we're doing. I would further argue that no >collection of private consortiums could have done *any* >better with the given resources. I know this is a Possible. especially, if they bought into the same number of institutional sacred cows. >badly bruised and beaten horse, but the fact of the >matter is that the lack of vision in Congress has been >a major contributing factor to many of NASA's difficulties. Lack ov vision of every president since johnson, you mean. It has been republican presidents who have not gone to task to get the levels of fundings. When DOD can get 1 trillion dollar 5 year budgets, it is not hard to get NASA a 60 billion dollar 5 year budget allocation. The fact is the president has not wanted to spend the energy to do so. Nor has any president had a strategic vision for NASA. Of course it's hard to have a strategic vision when 50% of all effort is devoted to maintaining a center and it's contractor community. >Most (if not all) of the frustrating shortcomings in Shuttle >and Station are due to inadequate, unrealistic and >fickle funding. The technological know-how within NASA Sorta " there is never enough 'TIME/MONEY' to do things right, but there is always 'TIME/MONEY' to do things over" It is a aspect of honest engineering to say that something cannot be achieved with the resources. >is there. The bureaucracy of government procurement >forced on NASA is another stumbling block. If Congress No more difficult then that of other agencies. SDI has to cope with this. DOE has to cope, DOD has to cope. NIH has to cope. >could find the wherewithal to commit to a multi-year >project, we might have had Station years ago. > Ignoring the fact that the initial SSF designs couldn't have been flown on shuttle, and couldn't hav ebeen maintained once they got there. And it looks like the EVA might have meant they never got built. >Brian Donnell >NASA/Johnson Space Center > >on temporary assignment to: > >NASA/Ames Research Center If you don't like what you see, join the debate, otherwise get out of the kitchen. pat ------------------------------ Date: 11 Mar 93 11:39:38 PST From: thomsonal@cpva.saic.com Subject: Russians ICBMs -> SLVs Newsgroups: sci.space Moscow to Launch Start I Missile Carriers Moscow INTERFAX in [approximate] English 1822 GMT 2 March 1993 via KYODO Reported in FBIS-SOV-93-040, pp.34&35 Russia will conduct the first launch March 25 of new "Start-1" missile carriers, created on the basis of the CC-20 and CC-25 [should be SS-20 and SS-25, but somebody forgot to transliterate the Cyrillic "C" into the Latin "S"] ballistic missile mobile complex, and able to launch 550 kg of payload into orbit to altitudes of 700 km. The missile, which Motorola, one of the largest American communications companies has expressed interest in, is designed to launch satellites into low orbits for government organizations and commercial structures to establish satellite communications systems, distance probing [i.e. remote sensing], and ecological control [monitoring]. The "Start-1" missile carrier, to be launched from the Plesetsk (northern Russia) aerospace field will carry an experimental communications satellite developed by the Russian stock company IBK and the Kompleks scientific center. Russian military aerospace forces, which launch all rockets in Russia, will put 5 satellites into orbit in March from the Plesetsk and Baykonur (Kazakhstan) aerospace fields. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Mar 1993 14:56:58 -0500 From: Pat Subject: Sisters of Mars Observer (was Re: Refueling in orbit) Newsgroups: sci.space In article collins@well.sf.ca.us (Steve Collins) writes: | |i] |The MO spares are already being rummaged through for use on other missions. |MESUR is looking hard at the possibility of using some of our AACS hardware |and I believe that some components are already assigned to other projects. |I understand that Magellen used a fair number of Galileo spares in this way. |Steve Collins MO SCT (AACS) I thought MO was supposed to be one in a whole series of spacecraft? pat ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1993 01:39:59 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: Sisters of Mars Observer (was Re: Refueling in orbit) Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1o02maINNppt@access.digex.com> prb@access.digex.com (Pat) writes: >|The MO spares are already being rummaged through for use on other missions. > >I thought MO was supposed to be one in a whole series of spacecraft? The key word is "was". The Observer series is dead, a victim of overenthusiasm and overoptimisation on the very first mission, which overran the original budget and schedule ideas so badly that nobody is going to try again. -- All work is one man's work. | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology - Kipling | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1993 21:54:11 GMT From: Jeff Bytof Subject: Tech-Life in the Galaxy Newsgroups: sci.space >From: jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Josh Hopkins): >Care to tell us where the number came from? It would seem to require an >understanding of the industrial capacity and population of the galaxy. Just a rough guess, like everything else in the SETI business. >N in the Drake equation is the number of civilizations in the galaxy. This >concept does not increase N, it just increases the probability that two of >those civilizations will be aware of each other. It shouldn't matter to our SETI what the source of the intelligent transmission is, and N by any other definition is the number of SITES that eminate evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence, regardless if it happens to be currently "occupied" or not! -rabjab ------------------------------ Date: 14 Mar 93 17:36:46 GMT From: Lucio de Re Subject: The courage of anonymity Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,sci.space,alt.privacy dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (Dave Hayes) writes: >shore@dinah.tc.cornell.edu (Melinda Shore) writes: >>example, from experience I know that I can pretty much >>throw out anything that Masataka Ohta has to say about >>shared libraries, that Clayton Cramer has to say about >>gay men, or that Robert Sheaffer has to say about feminism. >Who are these people, anyway? Why do you need to ask? >>That doesn't mean that they don't have anything valid to >>say on other topics. >And, of course, that means that they cannot change...in terms >of your conception of their viewpoint. This is because you >"know that you can pretty much throw out anything" that they say. I think I'll have to find a copy of Ted Kaldis (blessed be his name)'s collected writings, to justify his residence in innumerable kill files. Sure, he can change his leopard's spots, but is that so important? Or are you of the religious view that a repented sinner is more significant than a permanently good person? >You have touched on one of the most telling problems of netters. >They encorage people to hold to unworkable ideas by establishing >reputations. You lose yours by contradicting yourself or providing Not at all, unless you're by nature the type of rebel that insists on swimming against the stream and thus can be readily manipulated by ostensibly pushing you in the inverse direction... >fallacious arguments, even if those are as the result of something >new that you learned. This is how people get stuck in their own desire to >be perceived as "right" by the net (in order to maintain their >'reputation')...instead of learning from their own mistakes or by >intelligent discourse. Why should anybody get so caught? Ever seen an apology on the net, or just a word of thanks for having had an opinion corrected? >>stand behind it. I'm all for allowing people to continue >>to post things like "ALL FAGS GET AIDS AND DIE," but I'd >>really like to see a name associated with those posts. >But _why_? If this sentiment is something you disagree with (I'm >assuming), then why do you care who said it? What could you possibly >do with that information that would benefit anybody? Nothing to do with _me_ (or Melinda) knowing who it was. It's just that it is far too easy to voice such an opinion when nobody has a clue as to who you are. In practice, we all exercise good manners (as opposed to obeying laws) because we care for our reputation, knowing that a bad reputation has social repercussions. Anonimity removes this constraint (not entirely, of course) and allows a boorishness to be displayed that would not normally be countenanced. The Net is already pretty burdened, it does not need friction to be generated purely on the strength of being able to dodge any consequences. Hope I have not been too obscure... -- Lucio de Re (lucio@proxima.Alt.ZA) - tab stops at four. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1993 22:10:40 GMT From: "Eric H. Taylor" Subject: Venus and Mars, was Re: TIME HAS INERTIA Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.space In article abian@iastate.edu (Alexander Abian) writes: >[...] >VENUS should be given an near Earth like orbit to become a Born Again Earth Many have been going on about his time has inertia thing, but this statement seems much more likely a candidate for dumb idea. I don't have a reference (maybe SciAm), but I heard a while back that analysis of Venus' atmosphere estimated that Venus has 1/8000 the water that Earth has. *IF* Venus was moved to a near Earth orbit, its runaway greenhouse would still have ridiculously high temperatures. Better, would be to swap Venus with Mars. Photos of Mars clearly show evidence for liquid water in the past. Speculation has it that there may be large amounts of water locked into permafrost. If Venus and Mars were exchanged, Then, Venus might cool off, and Mars could warm up. Possibly, Mars would then become quickly habitable, but Venus would have a permanent shortage of water, and thereby could never be a born again earth without massive importation of water, possibly from asteroids, jovian moons, or commets. This thread really is a question of terraforming, and so I set followups to sci.space. If that is not appropriate, I apologize. ---- ET "A Force of Nature" ---- ------------------------------ End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 314 ------------------------------