Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson Received: from hogtown.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 ; Wed, 16 Jan 91 21:37:59 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: Precedence: junk Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Wed, 16 Jan 91 21:37:55 -0500 (EST) Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #056 SPACE Digest Volume 13 : Issue 56 Today's Topics: Re: space news from Dec 17 AW&ST Man's Second Colony in the Solar System Re: Gas Releases Re: Information on highest skydive needed Hubble Studies Massive Star (Forwarded) Thanx for answers! Barium/Lithium release coordinates? Re: OSC stock price Swivels (rotating connectors) with power/data paths available? some questions Re: Fwd: NASA Plans To Redesign Space Station Administrivia: Submissions to the SPACE Digest/sci.space should be mailed to space+@andrew.cmu.edu. Other mail, esp. [un]subscription requests, should be sent to space-request+@andrew.cmu.edu, or, if urgent, to tm2b+@andrew.cmu.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 16 Jan 91 16:27:53 -0500 From: "Allen W. Sherzer" Subject: Re: space news from Dec 17 AW&ST Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle Cc: In article <1991Jan16.043500.14220@zoo.toronto.edu> Henry writes: >NASA has no quarrel with most of the [Augustine] report, but is concerned >about the committee's recommendation to terminate orbiter production. Which is now part of the '92 budget. NASA requested funding for another Shuttle but was turned down. >[And rightly so -- it's a thoroughly dumb idea, if the shuttle fleet is to >continue to be a significant part of NASA planning.] I think it is clear that the Shuttle will no longer be a significant part of NASA planning. But then, with a man-rated HLV costing far less than the Shuttle and a space station, there is little need for the Shuttle. >Another hot spot is that the committee recommended putting a single NASA >center in charge of each major project, and taken literally this would >mean scrapping the station's paperwork HQ in Reston. Actually, no. The Augustine recommendation is that if a single NASA center cannot run the entire program, then a separate program office should run it. This office should be near the largest center involved but report directly to HQ. The office should have its own systems engineering and budget group. Since the station is run from several centers, this would mean a separate program office. Shutting down Reston (which IS being contemplated) would be a very bad idea. They are the only people who know what is going on [1] with the station and will be key to cleaning the mess up (if that is possible). Allen [1] An acquaintance of mine works at Reston on Freedom. When people ask him how Freedom is going he replies: "it used to be that not only do I not know, I don't know anybody who does know. Now, I don't know how it is going but I think there IS somebody who does know." -- +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Allen W. Sherzer | America does best when it accepts a challenging mission. | | aws@iti.org | We invent well under pressure. Conversely, we stagnate | | | when caution prevails. -- Buzz Aldrin | ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jan 91 15:13:03 GMT From: munnari.oz.au!mel.dit.csiro.au!latcs1!burns@THEORY.TN.CORNELL.EDU (Jonathan Burns) Subject: Man's Second Colony in the Solar System In article <3511@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> f3w@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Mark Gellis) writes: > My own guess (please correct me if I'm wrong) is that if you >can radiate the heat over a large area, the ice will melt slowly >enough that it will refreeze before melting becomes a problem. If >this is true, by the way, it could be a useful plot device--yes, the >terrorists have taken control of the heat dispersal computers...we >have to give in to their demands, or beat them, or it's THE BIG >SINK for all of us! (This idea is copyright 1991 Mark Gellis.) You should maybe consider the Chloran seige in _Skylark of Valeron_, E.E.Smith, ~ 195?, before rushing in to copyright. Good try though. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jonathan Burns | It's a bonanza when Veronica plays piannica burns@latcs1.oz | On my granda-momma's oldio piazzica Computer Science Dept | With the whistle of the B and O La Trobe University | Booting out a obligatti-gattigo! - LaFemme et Owl, '51 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jan 91 18:25:03 GMT From: timbuk!cs.umn.edu!sialis!orbit!pnet51!schaper@uunet.uu.net (S Schaper) Subject: Re: Gas Releases I have had the same problem with clouds. It is my theory :-) that the barium releases seed clouds. Therefore it cannt be that we can observe them. Unles you are flying in the Keck. ************************************************************************** Zeitgeist Busters! UUCP: {amdahl!bungia, uunet!rosevax, chinet, killer}!orbit!pnet51!schaper ARPA: crash!orbit!pnet51!schaper@nosc.mil INET: schaper@pnet51.cts.com ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jan 91 13:10:03 GMT From: hpcc05!col!hpldola!hp-lsd!oldcolo!burger@hplabs.hpl.hp.com (Keith Hamburger) Subject: Re: Information on highest skydive needed We just had someone talk to our L5 group about trying to break that record. Don't recall all of the details (and arrived at the meeting late anyway) but will look into it. Seems they are looking at several minutes of freefall with an automated chute system. Keith Hamburger burger@oldcolo.UUCP ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jan 91 22:29:25 GMT From: usc!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov!baalke@apple.com (Ron Baalke) Subject: Hubble Studies Massive Star (Forwarded) HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE STUDIES MASSIVE STAR IN NEIGHBORING GALAXY Astronomers working with the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph, an advanced instrument on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST), reported today on what they call the best spectrograms ever obtained of Melnick 42, a very massive star in a galaxy 170,000 light-years from Earth. The report was presented to the meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Philadelphia by a team led by Dr. Sally Heap of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Dr. Heap said that preliminary analysis of the spectrograms shows that Melnick 42 is between 80 and 100 times more massive than the sun, making it one of the most massive known stars. Further, the analysis reveals that Melnick 42 is shedding its hot gases at a furious rate in a so-called "stellar wind" that strips the star of an amount of gas equal in mass to the sun every 100,000 years. She explained that Melnick 42 is a hot young supergiant star in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a galaxy neighboring the Milky Way. The star may be only 2 million years old, compared with the 4.6-billion-year age of the Earth. Melnick 42 has a surface temperature of about 86,000 degrees Fahrenheit, or eight times hotter than the sun. According to present theory, Melnick 42 will explode as a supernova within the next few million years, while the sun will continue to shine for several billion years. Dr. Heap added that Melnick 42 is more than a million times brighter than the sun. She said her observations were made possible because Hubble's orbit is above the Earth's atmosphere which blocks the far ultraviolet light from reaching ground observatories. Also crucial to making the observations was the spectrograph's tiny entrance hole, only about 3/75th of an inch on a side, into which HST focussed the bright core of the star's image. "This excluded interfering light from stars near Melnick 42, which usually hampers observations," Dr. Heap explained. The purpose of the research, which involves astronomers in the United States and Europe, is to study how the chemical makeup of hot stars (stars hotter than the sun) influences the way in which the stars change with time on their inexorable road to stellar explosion. Some astronomers had thought that the low abundance of elements heavier than helium in stars of the LMC (such as Melnick 42) compared to stars in the Milky Way galaxy would result in the LMC stars having rather weak stellar winds. "Our findings on Melnick 42, if confirmed by additional study, seem to contradict this assumption," Dr. Heap said. ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| | | | | __ \ /| | | | Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |___ Jet Propulsion Lab | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| M/S 301-355 | |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ Pasadena, CA 91109 | ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jan 91 23:21:23 GMT From: usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu!ephillip%magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu@apple.com (Earl W Phillips) Subject: Thanx for answers! Thank all of you who felt kind enough to answer the questions I had, dumb as they were. For those who chose to be snide, pthpthpthpthpthpthpthpthpth! Ya gotta start somewhere! ***************************************************************** * | ====@==== ///////// * * ephillip@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu| ``________// * * | `------' * * -JR- | Space;........the final * * | frontier............... * ***************************************************************** ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jan 91 21:12:02 GMT From: usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!warper.jhuapl.edu!sterner@apple.com (Ray Sterner) Subject: Barium/Lithium release coordinates? As of 4:09 pm EST the CRRES hot line did not have the numbers needed to compute the altazimuth tables I have been posting. The possible release times were given but not the satellite lat, long, and altitude at release. If anyone has access to those numbers or can compute them please email or post them so I can post the altazimuth tables. I can also make world maps showing where the releases are visible. The maps have a scale plotted on them which can be used to estimate the apparent altitudes to a few degrees. Azimuths may be directly measured on the maps. They are in PostScript and are about 85K bytes, so would need to be placed in an anonymous ftp site. If anyone is willing to provide such a site let me know and I'll mail you the maps. Looking beyond CRRES, I thought it might be of interest to post altazimuth tables for events such as upper stage ignitions. I have never seen one, but it should be easy if the times and look directions are known. If somebody has access to the information needed let me know. Ray Sterner sterner%str.decnet@warper.jhuapl.edu Johns Hopkins University North latitude 39.16 degrees. Applied Physics Laboratory West longitude 76.90 degrees. Laurel, MD 20723-6099 ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jan 91 05:07:12 GMT From: snorkelwacker.mit.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!zardoz.cpd.com!dhw68k!ofa123!Wales.Larrison@bloom-beacon.mit.edu (Wales Larrison) Subject: Re: OSC stock price Vincent Cate writes: >OSC's stock has dropped $2 3/4 today to $11 1/2. Is it just the >market and gulf or something more immediately relevant to OSC? My suspicion would be OSC has lost one or more of the several small ELV bids it was planning on capturing through its Space Vector small rocket division. I know they recently lost the launch services part of the COMET proposal to SII, and several of their planned launches as part of SDI and other DoD test programs were under fire from a budgetary basis (looked like the programs which required these launches for suborbital tests were being canceled). Since Space Vector provides about 70% of the black ink in OSC, any changes in their cashflow would be immediately reflected in their stock price. [Digression, one way of modeling stock price is to treat stock price as PRICE = EPS/(interest rate) + PVGO. Where EPS is earning per shre, interest rate is the corprate cost of capital, and PVGO is the present value of future growth opportunities. If you lose some expected big business in the future, your EPS goes down. If you are a firm like OSC investing lots of current money in risky future programs, any change to reduce your EPS would significantly reduce your share price. >Would people be interested in a "space-investor" mailing list? The >idea would be to get faster access to information concerning >investment in space development. I would, definitely. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Wales Larrison Space Technology Investor -- Wales Larrison Internet: Wales.Larrison@ofa123.fidonet.org Compuserve: >internet:Wales.Larrison@ofa123.fidonet.org -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jan 91 00:52:22 GMT From: well!hank@apple.com (Hank Roberts) Subject: Swivels (rotating connectors) with power/data paths available? Has anyone got a source for swivel connectors/supports that can also transfer one or more electrical circuits past the rotating joint? ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jan 91 04:58:54 GMT From: agate!bionet!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu!ephillip%magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Earl W Phillips) Subject: some questions I've got some questions I've been meaning to ask the netters. I apologize if they've been asked before, I haven't had time to read the history of these nets! 1) Once I know the lat, long location of my site, how do I translate these figures to decimal? *******the rest are for Mr.Baalke or Mr.Yee, or whoeverelse may know the answers!********* 2) What is the meaning of the terms DESATS, SITURNS, STARCALS, etc on the satellite reports, and what do they do (why are they necessary)? 3) Which are the Pioneers/Voyagers that have left the Solar Syatem? Thanx all! ***************************************************************** * | ====@==== ///////// * * ephillip@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu| ``________// * * | `------' * * -JR- | Space;........the final * * | frontier............... * ***************************************************************** ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jan 91 13:26:31 GMT From: bu.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!engine.engin.umich.edu!sheppard@bloom-beacon.mit.edu (Ken Sheppardson) Subject: Re: Fwd: NASA Plans To Redesign Space Station In article yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu (Brian Yamauchi) writes: >In article <9101151502.AA07365@iti.org> aws@ITI.ORG (Allen W. Sherzer) writes: > > >2) The Truss: In particular, building it in orbit. Someone mentioned > >that the truss was cut in the latest redesign -- did this refer to > >just the dual keel design (which was cut earlier) or the *entire* > >truss? > > One of the designs proposed when Congress mandated the design be evaluated > eliminated most of the truss. A small part would be left to hang experiments > on and the rest removed. This approach also used smaller modules for building > the station. Each module would be self contained and could go up on a single > Shuttle flight. A module would be flown up, docked, and ready to go. > >Hmmm... So where would this design place the solar panels? > I believe the design in question is the one put forth by JSC and described in AW&ST some weeks ago. In their design the existing raft module pattern is retained, while the transverse boom has been deleted and replaced by a short 'stinger' which sticks out behind the modules (in the -x direction, i.e. anti-'v-bar'). The PV arrarys are then attached to this 'stinger' along the y axis (i.e. perpendicular to the orbital plane). The entire stinger is articulated, as are the individual PV arrays, to provide two degrees of freedom for sun tracking. In regards to the earlier question about dual keels : Dual keels were indeed deleted from the baseline program some time ago, but they are *STILL* part of the evolution plan for station. The top level preliminary requirements document, the level I PRD, still refers to dual keels perpendicular to the transverse boom as the prefered method for providing real estate for additional attached payloads and lunar/mars vehicle assembly/processing facilities. References to 'deletion of the truss' fall into two categories: 1) References to the adoption of a design similar to that presented by JSC which totally eliminates the transverse boom 2) References to the adoption of pre-integrated truss to replace the erectable 5m bay truss tube and node truss. DISCLAIMER: These are my opinions, not my employers. -- =============================================================================== Ken Sheppardson Email: kcs@sso.larc.nasa.gov Space Station Freedom Advanced Programs Office Phone: (804) 864-7544 NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton VA FAX: (804) 864-1975 =============================================================================== ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V13 #056 *******************