Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson Received: from corsica.andrew.cmu.edu via trymail for +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr1/ota/space/space.dl@andrew.cmu.edu (->+dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr1/ota/space/space.dl) (->ota+space.digests) ID ; Thu, 29 Jun 89 05:16:58 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Thu, 29 Jun 89 05:16:50 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #521 SPACE Digest Volume 9 : Issue 521 Today's Topics: Re: ADA and space station [Russians] Lost in Space Re: Fuel for lunar trip Phobos pictures Un-subscription Re: Magellan Status for 06/26/89 (Forwarded) Re: Space station computers Re: Space station computers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 Jun 89 02:09:33 GMT From: att!mtuxo!tee@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (54317-T.EBERSOLE) Subject: Re: ADA and space station References: <614884210.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU> In article <614884210.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU>, Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes: > > I have talked with several people who have studied Ada, and they claim that > > object oriented programming is one of the major points of emphasis in the > > design of the language. > > I was unaware that ADA had classes, objects and methods. True, I can > see how to fake many of these with the visibility rules, but I'm not > sure it's quite the same. > ------fascinating verbiage deleted-------- Since the use of Ada in the space station makes this topic marginally spacey, I thought some of you folks might be interested in a course being broadcast over satellite by NTU (a sort of electronic university available to companies and universities by satellite). It is being given by Peter O'Neill, a manager at Raytheon Company and faculty member with Norteastern University's State-of-the-Art Program. The course will be broadcast July 11, 20, 21, and 25, 11am to 5pm Eastern Time. "Course Description: Ada is not "just another programming language," but rather was specifically designed to impact software development across the entire software life cycle as no language has ever done before. Participants are shown how SW written in Ada is more understandable and reliable than that written in other languages, and how SW systems are more modifiable and maintainable when developed using Ada. This session begins with an historical perspective on the development of the Ada language, and is followed by a detailed coverage of all of the language's features. A description of APSEs (Ada Programming Support Environments) concludes the seminar. Topics to be covered include * History and development -The Software Crisis -History of Ada's Development -Modern Software Engineering Principles -Responding to the SW Crisis * Ada language overview -High-level discussion of Ada language features -Short example of each feature * Ada in more detail -Detailed discussion of Ada language features Lexical structure Data types I Program structure -- packages Statements Data types II Subprograms Tasking Exception handling Program libraries and compilation Generic program units System-dependent features * Ada in use -Ada programming support environments ... A strong programming background is assumed." A discussion of the pros and cons of using Ada for Space Station SW might be more profitable if carried out in comp.lang.ada. I've added a "Follow-ups To" line to that effect, but I have no idea if that works. An interesting note on the history of Ada appeared in comp.lang.ada last week: ... My buddy said that Ada was designed by somone <> in Europe. Not beeing an Ada proglammer (I've never coded even <> one single line of the stuff, I'm a C hack) I would like to <> know the answer to this nagging question "who actually invented <> Ada" < < In May 1979 Ada became the official name for the high-order < language of the Department of Defense. At this time the DoD < also announced that Honeywell/France was the winning contractor < of the design competition. The principal author of Ada was < Jean Ichbiah from France but other members of the design team ************************ < included citizens from the U.S., the U.K., and West Germany. < < Source : "Software Engineering with Ada", by Grady Booch. One wonders what languages are used for Ariane, Spot, other ESA projects. Do they have a version of Ada? -- Tim Ebersole ...!att!mtuxo!tee or {allegra,ulysses,mtune,...}!mtuxo!tee ------------------------------ Date: 27 Jun 89 16:24:52 GMT From: tramp!khaytsus@boulder.colorado.edu (Max Khaytsus) Subject: [Russians] Lost in Space I spent this weekend, arguing with a friend, quoting to him text books of published fact, but he keeps insisting that they are wrong. Granted, Russia (and the US and other countries) tend to under report at times, but I am not sure that what he said can all be 'missing info'. Can any of you shed any light on the following? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- total names, places and dates 3 Vladimir Komarov, 1967, Soyuz 1. (2 others died with him, but only commander is listed.) 1 day, 3 hour flight. 6 Vladislav Volkov, Viktor Taisayev, Georgi Dobrovolsky, 1971, Soyuz 11. 8 Vostok 5, missing, 2 men, 1962 (see notes) 11 Voskod 3, missing, 3 men, 1966 (see notes) 14 Soyuz 2, missing, 3 men, 1967 (see notes) total in-flight known dead = 14 very likely additional dead = 21 -- 35 highly probable dead 3 Vostok, 2 man flts not reported = 6 possible 2 Voskod, 3 men flts not reported = 6 possible ? = X Soyuz, 3 men flts not reported (numbering changes = 45 flts only 40 can be accounted for) 3 Soyuz T1, 3 man not reported (15 "T" flights flown = T-1 disappeared) notes: Vostok 5 launched - did not reenter - a 2 man "Gemini Type" Very high orbit, still there. No retro ignition Voskhod 3 launched - retro rocket failure - hole in ground landing spy pictures in conclusive (satillite photo) Soyuz 2 launched - retro rocket failure - partial burn on reentry, heat killed crew, capsul recovered Soyuz 11 launched - blew up on reentry, 23 days, 18 hours into mission (had to deny - fireball visible to everyone) Soyuz 1 launched - life support system failure, 1 day 3 hours into mission -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Spelling errors all his - I Xeroxed his 'claim sheet'. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I did my best to convince this fellow he's been reading the Enquirer too long, but no go. Please flame this if you see anything wrong with it and I'll pass it on. Flame me if I'm wrong. He'll see all the messages. Thanks in advance, Max --------------------------------------------------- khaytsus@{boulder|spot|tramp}.UUCP khaytsus@{boulder|spot|tramp}.Colorado.EDU ..!{ncar|nbires}!boulder!{...|spot|tramp}!khaytsus ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jun 89 10:37:17 PDT From: Peter Scott Subject: Re: Fuel for lunar trip mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!henry@husc6.harvard.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >At one point there was a proposal to take up water ballast on shuttle missions >that were volume-limited rather than weight-limited, and offload the ballast >at an orbiting facility that would electrolyze it and liquefy the resulting >hydrogen and oxygen. Water takes up volume too. Where were they proposing to store it? Does the shuttle fly with water tanks that are partially empty on weight-limited missions? Peter Scott (pjs@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov) ------------------------------ Date: 26 Jun 89 16:11:11 GMT From: mcvax!ukc!icdoc!syma!nickw@uunet.uu.net (Nick Watkins) Subject: Phobos pictures In Article 6495 of sci.space bob@etive.ed.ac.uk (Bob Gray) writes: >A space exibition featuring some of the results from Phobos 2 >opened at the Science Museum in London last week. In what >they called an exclusive report, C4 news interviewed some of >the Soviet scientists responsible for the Phobos mission. > >Three very strange details of the mission were revealed. > >First, a number of the images taken of an area near the >equator in the infra-red clearly show an area covered with a >series of regular rectangular features about two miles across. >One of these images was shown in the report, and is in the >exhibition. (Anyone in London reading this who has been to >the exhibition and care to comment?) Julie Cave asked me to post the following response for her. Please reply to the Net or directly to her: JAC@STAR.UCL.AC.UK. -------------------------Message Follows------------------------- PHOBOS 2 IMAGES...COMMENTS FROM LONDON Having heard of the exhibition of these photos at the Science Museum, London (and the interest they were generating) I dashed off to see them... and have to report that they are no longer there. Apparently they were only borrowed for a few days and were then passed on to Jodrell Bank Science Centre. I was informed that 16 (infra-red?) photos were on loan and 4 were displayed. On a more positive note, " The Times " became interested in running a story on them and sent us (at the University of London Planetary Image Centre) a copy of one of the photos for our comments. I located the image as an area covering Latitudes -6DEG S to 4DEG N and Longitudes 48DEG to 25DEG. The image is ~1350 km wide (measured along the equator). For readers with access to MC-lithographs etc., the upper (=Northern) third of the photo is located at the bottom centre of Oxia Palus (MC-11 SW) and the lower parts lie in Margaritifer Sinus (MC-19 NW). The main feature of the photo is a large area of jumbled blocks of high land confined within a divergent channel. We examined the image carefully and did not find any unusual features (i.e nothing that hasn't already been studied from Mariner/Viking data) though the feature did superficially resemble a huge sprawling city to observers not familiar with the types of Chaotic terrain frequently seen on the planet. The "city" is presumably what the paper were hoping we would confirm!! By careful comparison with NASA maps I identified the main central collapse/ channel feature as Hydraotes Chaos which opens southwards into the Northern side of the Valles Marineris. The channel running down the left hand side is Shalbatana Vallis and the faint linear feature between the two is Ravi Vallis. A small portion of Hydaspis Chaos is seen in the top right hand corner,and the large area of fuzzy Chaotic terrain, bottom right is Aureum Chaos. The chaotic crater cut by S.Vallis is Aromatum Chaos. The main features pass Northwards into Simud and Tiu Vallis and thence into Chryse Planitia ( where Viking one landed ). The albedo variations are very different to Viking images, with the channel floor and low land between the remnant blocks of the collapsed terrain showing up significantly darker than the rest of the cratered uplands. The photos, if Infra-red, could be indicative of sub-surface volatiles in these regions. The Planetary research group here are hoping to receive details of this experiment since our leader was one of the 3 British team members. Considering the size of the area shown, the resolution is pretty good . Another 3 images are believed to show other, equally spaced sections of equatorial regions. Such information could greatly improve our knowledge of the distribution of volatiles on Mars and hence our understanding of the planet's history. My supervisor and I are investigating the possibility of seeing these images and I'll report on any developments. ------------------------------ Date: 27-JUN-1989 12:55:48 GMT From: ZDAC131%oak.cc.kcl.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK Subject: Un-subscription Site: Kings College London, England Sender: "Malcolm.Hey" Please would you remove me from the e-mali listing for sci-space. I must be off on my summer vacation now :-) Thankyou malc bitnet zdac131@oak.cc.kcl.ac.uk ------------------------------ Date: 27 Jun 89 18:41:27 GMT From: bfmny0!tneff@uunet.uu.net (Tom Neff) Subject: Re: Magellan Status for 06/26/89 (Forwarded) I have a question about the Rocket Engine Module (REM) and Solid Rocket Motor (SRM) overheating problem on Magellan. Maybe someone can answer it. Is there some specific mishap or event that occurred to cause this overheating? Or did someone just plain *miscalculate*?? I mean, this thing's going to Venus -- the incident sunlight levels aren't going to get any lower. I would think that the thermodynamics of a system like this would be well understood by now. Can anyone explain what's going on? -- "My God, Thiokol, when do you \\ Tom Neff want me to launch -- next April?" \\ uunet!bfmny0!tneff ------------------------------ Date: 27 Jun 89 17:10:00 GMT From: leech@apple.com (Jonathan Patrick Leech) Subject: Re: Space station computers In article <694@biar.UUCP> trebor@biar.UUCP (Robert J Woodhead) writes: > At normal viewing distances, 120dpi (which is only twice what > my Mac delivers) would be more than acceptable. I'm reminded of a story about the design of the Viking lander cameras: supposedly some members of the design team argued for twice the angular resolution, until pictures taken both ways were shown - and they couldn't tell the difference. -- Jon Leech (leech@apple.com) Apple Integrated Systems __@/ ------------------------------ Date: 27 Jun 89 17:24:55 GMT From: eugene@eos.arc.nasa.gov (Eugene Miya) Subject: Re: Space station computers In article <694@biar.UUCP> trebor@biar.UUCP (Robert J Woodhead) writes: > > Cute, but most people will be keybanging and mousing, because > the world runs on shuffling words around. Unless you are doing > 3D work, you don't need fancy datagloves. I'm not reading or posting for very long, but the above caught my eye. The discussion has really gotten away from space and into computers except for the above which is sort of wrong. Mice are difficult to use in 0-G. Even the use of keyboards. You are making too many assumptions. Some one has to write (right) a book about problems with zero G, like the lack of convection. Then some one needs to teach a class on space-qualification of equipment, software, etc. The some people need to take these classes. In my case, I had to learn by picking this up along the way. A dumb way to learn. That's NASA's fault. But the above illustrates we aren't educating people enough and our problems maybe too specialized (marketing influence here, perhaps). Some things from ground will work after shooting it up, many won't. Just hope we kill a minimum number of people along the way. Question is: which one of you future people would be one of those victims? Hope its not you. 8) Another gross generalization from --eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers: "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?" "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology." {ncar,decwrl,hplabs,uunet}!ames!eugene Live free or die. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V9 #521 *******************