Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson Received: from beak.andrew.cmu.edu via trymail for +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl@andrew.cmu.edu (->+dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl) (->ota+space.digests) ID ; Fri, 23 Nov 1990 02:21:17 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: Precedence: junk Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Fri, 23 Nov 1990 02:20:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: SPACE Digest V12 #587 SPACE Digest Volume 12 : Issue 587 Today's Topics: Re: Magellan Update - 11/16/90 Star gazer..maybe Re: Photon engine Re: Photon Engine Re: Congrats to Ted Molczan Pioneer Venus Update - 11/16/90 Re: Big bang discovered 1400 years ago ? space news from Oct 1 AW&ST Re: The Space Plane Re: New Shuttle Engines Re: HST/Saturn article Re: The Space Plane Administrivia: Submissions to the SPACE Digest/sci.space should be mailed to space+@andrew.cmu.edu. Other mail, esp. [un]subscription notices, should be sent to space-request+@andrew.cmu.edu, or, if urgent, to tm2b+@andrew.cmu.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 Nov 90 17:01:41 GMT From: att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!uflorida!rex!rouge!dlbres10@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Fraering Philip) Subject: Re: Magellan Update - 11/16/90 In article <179@abode.UUCP> eric@abode.UUCP (Eric C. Bennett) writes: ecb>I guess this may be considered a 'dumb' question, but, what is the mission ecb>objective (other than the obvious, i.e. mapping Venus) of the Magellan ecb>spacecraft. In other words, what does the science community hope to learn ecb>by mapping Venus? Comparative geology between Earth, Venus and Mars. And, hopefully, possibly answering questions where climate and geology are interrelated, like the 'goldilocks effect' where Venus is too hot, Mars is too cold, and the Earth is just right. This is probrably the most important question in solar system geology today. I better stop now before I say anymore broad generalizations. Phil Fraering dlbres10@pc.usl.edu "The huns were imposing on horseback, but who isn't?" - Will Cuppy, _The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody_. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Nov 90 06:34:40 GMT From: bacchus.pa.dec.com!shodha.enet.dec.com!levers.enet.dec.com!b_egan@decuac.dec.com (Bob Egan) Subject: Star gazer..maybe MY 8 year old daughter has really been after to me to help her "look at the stars and the moon and "pluto" ..etc.. I am sure you get the picture. Please help a fellow Engineer/Daddy ! I know virtually nothing about finding constellations/planets etc... I looking for a program for my pc..or of course a vax :)..that will with some projections of the sky..which outlines the constellations/ planet locations which "we" can use with a telescope I plan to get her xmas... This seems to be a real "interest" for her as she as mentioned it many times since last spring...and now with her library card, she brings a star book for her and Daddy to read.... Any info on a reasonable telescope/with clock ...so we can at least see some detail on the moon would be appreciated...GREATLY. Thanks all and have a nice thanksgiving, Bob ------------------------------------------- Bob Egan b_egan@levers.enet.dec.com --or-- ...!decwrl!levers.enet.dec.com!b_egan --or-- b_egan%levers.dec@decwrl.dec.com ------------------------------ Date: 21 Nov 90 10:55:03 GMT From: att!linac!tellab5!laidbak!obdient!vpnet!akcs.gregc@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (*Greg*) Subject: Re: Photon engine Just think! You can even heat up the chicken soup for dinner! :-) I like the Photon engine. Somehow, some shmoe will figger a way to make a photonic engine faster than the mass engine. And leave one in his wake. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Nov 90 19:09:12 GMT From: vsi1!hsv3!mvp@apple.com (Mike Van Pelt) Subject: Re: Photon Engine In article <1990Nov18.183631.13004@watdragon.waterloo.edu> jdnicoll@watyew.uwaterloo.ca (Brian or James) writes: >I may be misremembering, but I don't think the lasers are intended >for use in a 'pure' photon engine. Photon engines have to have very impressive >power supplies to generate large values of thrust (Power = C x Force, or >something? My mind is going...). My impression was that they use the land >based laser to evaporate reaction mass, with the benefits of not having to >carry the powerplant to orbit, and being able to achieve higher exhaust >velocities. That's close to how the laser-launcher Dr. Arthur Kantrowitz (sp?) designed would work. Actually (trying to remember the details of a talk Dr. Kantrowitz gave to the Silicon Valley L-5 Society several years ago) the principal that gives the laser launcher its thrust is that when a laser beam with a power density of greater than 2 megawatts per square centimeter hits a surface -- ANY surface, even the best possible mirror -- in the presence of an gas, you get a laser- propogated detonation wave from the surface back down the path of the laser beam. At this point, you should turn the laser off, or it would be bad. :-) In the version Dr. Kantrowitz described to us, you'd have a pulsed CO2 laser focused on a sintered metal plate wetted with liquid argon. The main function of the argon is to provide an atmosphere in the engine to support the detonation wave. The cute feature of the laser is that it would send out dual pulses -- a low-power "leader" pulse would excite the water vapor and CO2 in the atmosphere to a higher energy state where they're transparent to infrared, then the full power pulse would travel down this column of "bleached" air. -- Mike Van Pelt Headland Technology/Video 7 ...ames!vsi1!v7fs1!mvp The electronic networks, of course, have always been the terrorist's most reliable ally, for they have never failed to bend over backwards to give him what he craves: extravagant publicity. -- Petr Beckmann ------------------------------ Date: 20 Nov 90 21:02:32 GMT From: sdd.hp.com!usc!isi.edu!wlf.isi.edu!rogers@ucsd.edu (Craig Milo Rogers) Subject: Re: Congrats to Ted Molczan In article <4213@otis.oakhill.UUCP> charlie@oakhill.UUCP (Charlie Thompson) writes: >I picked up a copy of the Washington Post today and noticed >that fellow satellite chaser Ted Molczan made the 'Around the Nation' ... I noticed a similar article in the Los Angeles Times. It was attributed to United Press International. Do you suppose UPI treats the Usenet as an incoming newsfeed? Craig Milo Rogers ------------------------------ Date: 21 Nov 90 00:57:46 GMT From: snorkelwacker.mit.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov!baalke@bloom-beacon.mit.edu (Ron Baalke) Subject: Pioneer Venus Update - 11/16/90 PIONEER VENUS STATUS REPORT November 16, 1990 Superior Conjunction concluded on November 15. The science complement for power sharing plan T1 will be commanded on, the bit rate will be returned to 256 bps, and the spacecraft will be commanded to coherent mode. A precession maneuver and HGA (High Gain Antenna) adjustment has been scheduled for November 19, to be executed as close to Apoapsis as possible. ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| | | | | __ \ /| | | | Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |___ Jet Propulsion Lab | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| M/S 301-355 | |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ Pasadena, CA 91109 | ------------------------------ Date: 19 Nov 90 13:02:51 GMT From: rayssd!plw@sun.com (Paul L. White) Subject: Re: Big bang discovered 1400 years ago ? Your article on the koran and the Big Bang was extremely enlightening. Tell me more about the koran, please...especially the enlightening part about clitorectomies in the Moslem culture. Did Cat Stevens really get one? =========================================================================== Paul White plw@rayssdb Safety in numbness =========================================================================== ------------------------------ Date: 22 Nov 90 05:22:19 GMT From: van-bc!ubc-cs!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Henry Spencer) Subject: space news from Oct 1 AW&ST An orbiter lifting facility is being set up at the shuttle-orbiter production and maintenance facility in Palmdale so that orbiters can be flown directly there by 747, rather than being unloaded at Edwards and moved to Palmdale by road. The lifting hardware is the set that used to be at Vandenberg. Radarsat International Inc signs with Spot Image to do Canadian distribution of Spot images. The company is also distributing Landsat data and plans to market radar images once Radarsat is finally aloft in 1994. Columbia to roll out to pad 39B for a tanking test after Ulysses goes up. The source of the latest hydrogen leak has not yet been pinned down, but it should be possible to find, fix, and test it in time for a December launch. NASA will consider redesigning the Incredible Shrinking Space Station yet again if Congress cuts the $2.45G request, which is almost certain. [Yup.] Large set of articles on what little is known and speculated about secret US experimental aircraft, some of them possibly hypersonic. SEP gears up for the first full-thrust tests of the Vulcain oxyhydrogen engine for Ariane 5, scheduled to start late this year. So far, things are on track. The only design change so far is reinforcing rings on the lower half of the nozzle, after a nozzle collapsed (due to flow separation of the exhaust jet from the nozzle wall during startup) during early tests. Vulcain is described as a simple engine using a classic design, aimed at low cost rather than maximum performance. Pioneer 10 reaches a distance of 50AU from the Sun, still reporting useful data on the Sun's atmosphere. It was Pioneer 10 that first established that said atmosphere extends far out beyond the edges of the solar system, rather than ending around the orbit of Jupiter as once suspected. P10 will be in communication with Earth until about the year 2000 (and about 75AU) if all goes well. Feature article on Ulysses. The IUS/PAM combination of upper stages is the heftiest yet used, and will push Ulysses to an Earth-relative velocity of 15.4 km/s, the highest ever attained. In early 1992, Ulysses will do a Jupiter flyby throwing it southward out of the ecliptic. It will then fly over the south pole of the Sun June 1994, continuing around to pass over the north pole a year later. Work started in 1978, and was repeatedly delayed by eight launch-vehicle changes and by the US withdrawal in 1984 from what was originally a two-spacecraft mission. ESA named it Ulysses in 1988, for more than one reason. Despite the heavy launcher, Ulysses is actually one of the smaller spacecraft launched by the shuttle. One of the losses when the US dumped the original mission was imaging capability, so this is strictly a fields- and-particles mission. Discovery will run several other experiments after sending Ulysses on its way, including exposure tests of materials like those on the stranded Intelsat (to determine whether it will be worth rescuing) and a set of burns of opposing nose thrusters during reentry (to determine whether it is practical to burn off unused fuel from the nose thruster system at that time, for improved safety and better center-of-gravity control). NASA's "Comet" program, which calls for a new medium booster with a recoverable unmanned spacecraft, has produced some interesting bidders. Orbital Sciences will propose a version of Taurus (which is a wingless Pegasus on top of an MX first stage). Space Services Inc, risen from the dead :-), will propose one of its innumerable Conestoga variants. E-Prime will bid "a version of an existing US ballistic missile". The most interesting bids are from Amroc and... Israel. Amroc will bid the Aurora, built by a team of US companies with Amroc supplying only the engines, since Amroc withdrew from trying to supply complete launchers after its pad fire last year. (The other companies involved have not been identified.) Finally, Israel Aircraft Industries, teamed with Delta Research of Huntsville, is offering its Shavit booster. IAI faces some problems, like a requirement for 51% US ownership of the bid, and like US bureaucratic stupidity about the Missile Technology Control Act, which bans transfer of US technology that might improve foreign missile systems. (IAI says it is "ridiculous" to apply the MTCA to Shavit, when the US is openly and officially assisting Israeli missile development, namely the Arrow anti-tactical-ballistic-missile project.) The Comet program calls for carrying a 300lb payload up and bringing it back down, plus providing it with another 150lb of support hardware that remains in orbit. First launch could be as early as 1992, with the initial contract calling for one launch a year for three years and an option for two more. Third Titan IV launch slips, it's not clear how much, due to a leak in the SRB thrust-vectoring system. Discovery/Ulysses now gets range priority at the Cape. The USAF claims that the Titan IV schedule will not be significantly affected. -- "I don't *want* to be normal!" | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology "Not to worry." | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 20 Nov 90 19:49:05 GMT From: ndsuvm1!ud135831@cunyvm.cuny.edu Subject: Re: The Space Plane Just read the NASP conversation that's been brewing, and have my own 2: worth.. X-30 = NASP (That much is clear); DARPA project, not NASA X-29 = Forward-swept test platform built by Grumman (NORTHROP built the F-5; sorry, guys) as a technology demonstrator (2 are currently flying) Commercial Variant? I doubt it. Establishing speeds around M20 just to go to Tokyo? Big time waste. There may eventually be a commercial version of the NASP, once Freedom starts allowing tourists. Otherwise, there's really no justifying the cost involved. Purpose? To show we can do it. As the X-series designation shows, this is purely a test vehicle. After that, it is envisioned (idea stage only, as far as I know) that the NASP could be used to supplement STS or Shuttle-C or other heavy lift/dumb lifters that may be in place. To the best of my knoweledge, it is not meant to be a Shuttle replacement. Back in September of 1988, the University of North Dakota Department of Space Studies held an international conference on Hypersonic Flight. If anyone is interested in information about that (there are rumors that another will be upcoming, although probably not in ND) or was in attendance, please contact me through e-mail. Topics included overviews of foreign projects (HOTOL, HERMES, SANGER, etc), propulsion considerations, environmental impacts, legal concerns, etc. Any other questions/comments are welcome. Mark Olson UD135831@NDSUVM1 (University of North Dakota) 1007 22nd Ave S. Grand Forks, ND 58201 (701) 772-1364 ------------------------------ Date: 19 Nov 90 22:41:03 GMT From: usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!src.honeywell.com!msi.umn.edu!cs.umn.edu!kksys!wd0gol!newave!john@apple.com (John A. Weeks III) Subject: Re: New Shuttle Engines In <1990Nov16.175907.18177@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov> tohall@mars.lerc.nasa.gov: > In <1990Nov14.071003.24567@cimage.com>, gregc@cimage.com (Greg Cronau): > > I can understand why reviving the Saturn program would be damn near > > impossible, but what problems were encountered with reviving just the > > F-1 engine program? > 2) F-1 production test facilities were located in the San Fernando valley > (turbopumps at Rocketdyne/Santa Susana) and Edwards AFB (full-up engine > tests). These facilities are way past the inactive stage - they have been > either torn down or become completely derelict. On a related note, I recently toured the NASA Stines Center in Mississippi where NASA tests & certifies the shuttle engines. The buildings that housed the test facilities for the Saturn engines are still there, but they have long since been converted for other uses. The second stage test building now houses a rather deep water tank that is used to test sensors used in ocean research. The only thing that appears to be left from Saturn and Apollo are some blast staines on the concrete. -john- -- =============================================================================== John A. Weeks III (612) 942-6969 john@newave.mn.org NeWave Communications ...uunet!rosevax!bungia!wd0gol!newave!john =============================================================================== ------------------------------ Date: 21 Nov 90 22:15:56 GMT From: uflorida!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!jarthur!dwilliam@g.ms.uky.edu (Stat Mech Loves Me) Subject: Re: HST/Saturn article In article <1990Nov21.213414.10403@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke) writes: .>Photos of Saturn show huge storm .> .>"The Hubble Space Telescope has returned pictures of a .>remarkable event on Saturn, a storm that has grown from an .>Earth-sized white dot to a girdle around the planet with .>ammonia clouds billowing 150 miles high." Great! Now thw next question is when and where will these images be made available by FTP?? Anyone know? -David L. Williamson Harvey Mudd College ------------------------------ Date: 19 Nov 90 23:54:31 GMT From: solo!cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!henry@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: The Space Plane In article <46985@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> v071pzp4@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu writes: >I'm fairly certain NASP is a commercial venture. What I'm not sure of >is, is NASP the same as the X-29? Maybe the X-29 is the military vehicle >you're talking about. NASP is the X-30. The X-29 is a (pair of) forward-swept-wing research aircraft unrelated to this discussion. NASP is "commercial" in about the same sense that the SR-71 was commercial, i.e. commercial contractors are slurping up lots of government money working on how to build it. -- "I don't *want* to be normal!" | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology "Not to worry." | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V12 #587 *******************