Date: Tue, 25 Aug 92 05:03:54 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V15 #141 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Tue, 25 Aug 92 Volume 15 : Issue 141 Today's Topics: BuckyStalks (was Re: Beanstalks in Nevada Sky) Gates, Jobs, Wozniak of space? (Re: Private space ventures) GOP space platform text (2 msgs) Higgins's Fusion Bomb (was Re: What about Saturn?/Future not Past) (2 msgs) Lunar Society Private space ventures Size,Mass,and velocity.... Space Economics SPS & faith What happened to Viking? With telepresence, who needs people in Earth orbit? (5 msgs) 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: Mon, 24 Aug 1992 23:38:44 GMT From: Tom Nugent Subject: BuckyStalks (was Re: Beanstalks in Nevada Sky) Newsgroups: sci.space Eric_S_Klien@cup.portal.com writes: > >What is a Lofstrom loop? > If memory serves, a Lofstrom loop is also called a launch loop. Imagine a real big loop of rope stretched so that it looks like a really stretched out race track. (rectangle with curved corners?) Now by whatever means, you electromagnetically accelerate this rope so that it circulates, staying in its original form. See below: A -------------------------------- / \ | | \ / ------------------------------- B You accelerate it at points 'A' and 'B'. Now raise the 'nozzle' of the 'gun' you are using to accelerate this so that it points upward at a decent angle, oh I don't know, 30 to 60 degrees. Now the long stretches of the rope describe approximately a parabola, hopefully landing right where it is supposed to be. In reality, this would be something like a huge steel ribbon, or a series of magnetic pellets. By properly enclosing this in a small shell which is repulsed by the 'rope', you now have a stable, stationary platform extending from Earth up to some useful height, and back down to Earth. Using the energy supplied to these particles etc etc., you can ride this up to orbit. Neat, huh? "I believe that there are moments in history when challenges occur of such a compelling nature that to miss them is to miss the whole meaning of an epoch. Space is such a challenge." - James A. Michener -- Tom Nugent voice:(217)328-0994 e-mail:tjn32113@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu "To be average scares the hell out of me." -- Anonymous ------------------------------ Date: 24 Aug 92 21:45:36 GMT From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey Subject: Gates, Jobs, Wozniak of space? (Re: Private space ventures) Newsgroups: sci.space In article , jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Josh 'K' Hopkins) writes: > Unfortunately, analogies only go so far. If space is an analogous > field, we don't have a young Bill Gates that I can see. Sure we do. Josh Hopkins, Tom Nugent, George Herbert, Dennis Wingo, Tommy Mac... The Older Generation is counting on you, guys. > games@max.u.washington.edu writes: >>In fact, there are others that might even be better candidates, like the >>prince of that little island who has 29B and is the worlds richest man. > > He's a sultan, the place is Brunei and it doesn't actually cover the > whole island, but you still get extra credit. As my dad used to say: "Are you shah?" "Sultanly!" O~~* /_) ' / / /_/ ' , , ' ,_ _ \|/ - ~ -~~~~~~~~~~~/_) / / / / / / (_) (_) / / / _\~~~~~~~~~~~zap! / \ (_) (_) / | \ | | Bill Higgins Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory \ / Bitnet: HIGGINS@FNAL.BITNET - - Internet: HIGGINS@FNAL.FNAL.GOV ~ SPAN/Hepnet: 43011::HIGGINS ------------------------------ Date: 24 Aug 92 23:19:03 GMT From: Tom Nugent Subject: GOP space platform text Newsgroups: sci.space Does anybody have the Democratic platform on space? -- Tom Nugent voice:(217)328-0994 e-mail:tjn32113@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu "To be average scares the hell out of me." -- Anonymous ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 01:00:00 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: GOP space platform text Newsgroups: sci.space In article tjn32113@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Tom Nugent ) writes: >Does anybody have the Democratic platform on space? Take the Republican space platform, water down some of the more ambitious stuff, add a few paragraphs that basically amount to saying "the Republicans are botching it all", and you have the Democrat space platform. -- There is nothing wrong with making | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology mistakes, but... make *new* ones. -D.Sim| henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 24 Aug 92 23:10:23 GMT From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey Subject: Higgins's Fusion Bomb (was Re: What about Saturn?/Future not Past) Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Aug20.173536.21955@dartvax.dartmouth.edu>, Frederick.A.Ringwald@dartmouth.edu (Frederick A. Ringwald) writes: [Fred, you've wiped out the attribution to Dani Eder's article. I'll put it back in:] > In article <1992Aug20.014256.1@fnalo.fnal.gov> > higgins@fnalo.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes: > >In article <1549@hsvaic.boeing.com>, eder@hsvaic.boeing.com (Dani Eder) writes: >> > This may seem futuristic to some, but no more so than cryogenic >> > rocket engines would have seemed in the 40's, and they were >> > actually built for the first time in the 50's. >> >> This may seem futuristic to some, but no more so than magnetic >> confinment fusion devices would have seemed in the 40's, and they were >> actually built for the first time in the 50's. > > Surely you're joking, Mr. Higgins. Right the first time, Mr. Ringwald. > Magnetic confinement fusion devices > don't work so great, in the early '90s! *Sigh* Pitfalls of using irony on the Net. Dani describes a complicated fusion gadget. Then he points out that cryogenic rockets seemed equally exotic in the Forties, implying that the fusion gadget might also succeed with a decade of hard engineering work. I express skepticism *explicitly*, in a part of my response you failed to quote: >>Sounds neat, but my physics intuition tells me that there may be lots >>of subtle effects to make this harder than it looks. Then after Dani's analogy to cryogenic rocket engines, I parrot his analogy, changing a few words, comparing the new fusion gadget to *another* class of devices which were conceived in the Forties and constructed in the Fifties, but which failed to bear fruit and which are still being tinkered with after forty years. The exactly parallel wording of my sentence was intended to undermine Dani's point in a gently humorous way. To some readers, it misfired. Does this mean that I'm going to stop trying to be funny, or surround every humorous remark with smileys? Heck, no! When they blow up, you go back to the pad and launch another one! It's the only way to make progress. What Fermi did under a stadium Bill "Danger Is My Business" Higgins Da deuteron, ron, ron, da deuteron ron Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory She did with heavy water and palladium Bitnet: HIGGINS@FNAL.BITNET Da deuteron, ron, ron, da deuteron ron SPAN/Hepnet: 43011::HIGGINS --W. Skeffington Higgins, Internet: HIGGINS@FNAL.FNAL.GOV "Fusion Girl," 1989 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1992 23:56:18 GMT From: Tom Nugent Subject: Higgins's Fusion Bomb (was Re: What about Saturn?/Future not Past) Newsgroups: sci.space higgins@fnalf.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes: >Heck, no! When they blow up, you go back to the pad and launch >another one! It's the only way to make progress. Or, get something that doesn't blow up, like the rubber rocket of AmRoc (it just fizzles - it can't blow up), or something more advanced, like tethers etc etc. But the attitude is right! "[The space program] can help counter the head-on collision with the environmental chaos we now face; spearhead technological, competitive, and political leadership; stimulate young minds to excellence; and forge cultural bonds between nations for the benefit of all humanity." - Leonard David -- Tom Nugent voice:(217)328-0994 e-mail:tjn32113@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu "To be average scares the hell out of me." -- Anonymous ------------------------------ Date: 24 Aug 92 20:14:01 GMT From: "Jean Y. Kim" Subject: Lunar Society Newsgroups: sci.space Hi netters, I am forwarding this for a friend. *--------------------------------------------------------------------* It's less than ten years to 2001... ... do you know where YOUR space program is? THE LUNAR SOCIETY was founded because of a single profound and distrubing insight: politicians, bureaucrats, and aerospace corporate managers are not going to get US into space. We can't afford the price of a ticket, let alone the space-equivalent of the covered wagon. The only way WE are going is if we build the machines, vehicles, tools, habitats, factories, encampments and homesteads -- OURSELVES. Think about the early visions of von Braun and Ley, Clarke and Heinlein, Goddard and Oberth and Tsiolkovski, and ask youself why we haven't come farther in the last fifty years? A big part of the answer is -- the national space program doesn't exist to fulfill those visions. It does exist to create jobs in certain congressional districts and to advance national prestige. That approach won't open the high frontier of space. The Lunar Society was created because of the deeply held belief that if real progres is to be made towards the goal of settling the high frontier, private groups and individuals must lead the way. Governments will not be the agents of progress, nor is it desirable that centralized, monolithic, bureaucratic organizations dictate the future of free people on the frontier of space. TOO MUCH IS AT RISK TO DENY OUR PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY TO ACT TO CREATE OUR OWN FUTURE. _What are the Society's Goal?_ To provide the individuals the means to homestead the space frontier. To fund the infrastructure that will permit human settlement of near-Earth space and Earth's Moon. To conduct research into advanced technologies which will lower the cost of access to space. And to educate everyone about the challenges of the age of space, so that we all have the opportunity to play a role in this great adventure. In Herman Oberth's words: "This is the goal: to make available for Life every place where life is possible; to make inhabitable all worlds as yet uninhabitable and all Life purposeful." _Why now?_ In the past decade there have been rapid advances in materials, small computers, software, propulsion systems and life support. These technologies have enabled an assault on the barriers of access and cost which blocked small, non-governmental space efforts in the past. Taking inspiration from the experimental aviation community, and employing the experiences of entrepreneurs and scientists, engineers and enthusiasts, the time is right for a non-governmental program which will create a space civilization. _Why Another Organization?_ Because we have a unique role to play. The Lunar Society will not lobby Congress for more money for the U.S. space program, or publish glossy magazines for members. Others can play those parts. The Society is raising money to fund needed technology development which will make settling the high frontier feasible as well as economical. And then, we'll step aside and let private businesses pick up the effort. Let's not forget author Larry Niven's words: "After all, we're capitalists, right?" We're starting small, working on components such as engines, software, space suits, and design studies, but we're advancing quickly to flying vehicles, space platform design and planning lunar missions. REAL HARDWARE FOR REAL MISSIONS. No other organization today has the comprehensive space settlement program of the Lunar Society. _Join Us!_ The Lunar Society is leading the way on the return to the Moon, and the creation of the first human home on another world. We need your support in order to jump-start the future. For if not you, then who? "To accomplish this goal we have committed our lives, fortunes and honor. If you share this vision, join us." Jerry Pournelle, Ph.D., Chairman James Ransom, President ENROLLMENT The Lunar Society is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization founded in 1986 by Dr. Jerry Pournelle, present Chairman, along with Dr. Philip Chapman (former Apollo astronaut) and Mr. James Ransom (Society President). The Society has established an Associates Program to permit individuals to participate directly in the greatest adventure ever undertaken by the human race. Associates receive the Society quarterly newsletter _Cisluna_ plus discounted admission to the annual Society conference. Cost is $100/year. The Society is not a menbership organization, and the contributions of the Associates are principally used to support hardware development programs, not to provide menber services. Contributions are tax-deductible. Any amount of contribution is welcome; any donor of $25/year or more will receive _Cisluna_. Enroll by mailing a check to the Society at the address below, or by calling our voicemail/fax system and using your VISA or MasterCard. CISLUNA 93 Lunar Society Associates may attend the CISLUNA 93 conference and exposition (January 15-17, 1993, San Francisco Bay Area) at a discount. Attendance is $35 per person for the Associate and one guest before Nov. 30, 1992, or $50 after. Non-Associates $50 before Nov. 30, 1992, $65 after. Send a check to the Society at the address below, or call our voicemail/fax system and use your VISA or MasterCard. P.O. Box 2500, Menlo Park, CA 94025 Voicemail/Fax : (415) 593-5575 Email : cisluna@teracons.com "There is no way back into the past: the choice, as Wells once said, is the Universe, or nothing" - Arthur C. Clarke "The Earth is too fragile a basket in which to keep all your eggs" - Robert A. Heinlein "Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot live in the cradle forever." - Konstantin E. Tsiolkovski "Is the surface of the Earth really the right place for an expanding technological civilization?" - Prof. Gerard K. O'Neill "We desire to open the planetary worlds to mankind." - Dr. Wernher von Braun "The meek shall inherit the earth. The rest of us are going to the stars." -Anon. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Aug 92 23:24:21 GMT From: Tom Nugent Subject: Private space ventures Newsgroups: sci.space jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Josh 'K' Hopkins) writes: [stuff deleted] > I think we're missing the point. What space needs more than a rich >investor is a temporarily poor one. When we have the space equivalent of a >Bill Gates or Ross Perot, who starts of small but makes a big fortune fairly >quickly in a new field, then we'll have the space revolution we're looking for. >Other people would jump on the bandwagon, competition develops and boom - you >get your 486DX 33 booster for less than the price of a present day Apple II >launch vehicle. > Unfortunately, analogies only go so far. If space is an analogous >field, we don't have a young Bill Gates that I can see. Last week's Space News mentioned this a bit. In a round table discussion regarind commercial space, it was agreed that OSC (Orbital Science Corporation, the makers of the Pegasus laucnh vehicle) is about as close as you can come to the 'little guy goes big' in space, and they agreed that it was at best a mediocre success, and definitely not a bonanza of money. "The future is a race between education and catastrophe." - H.G. Wells -- Tom Nugent voice:(217)328-0994 e-mail:tjn32113@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu "To be average scares the hell out of me." -- Anonymous ------------------------------ Date: 24 Aug 92 23:47:47 GMT From: Tom Nugent Subject: Size,Mass,and velocity.... Newsgroups: sci.space jhsegal@wiscon.weizmann.ac.il (Livy) writes: >Hi. >Can anybody please email me the Mass(in kg),the Size (r in meters),and >the x and y velocity (m/s) of all the planets in the Solar System? >Thank you very much, >Livy {Flame on!} I don't mean to flame, but this seems to be a big waste of bandwidth. You can find things like this just about anywhere. Surely in an encyclopedia, if not a good dictionary. Call up your local library (you don't even have to leave home) and they may be willing to give it to you over the phone. Otherwise, go to the library, and look it up along with ten zillion other neat things about space you can find there. {Flame off!} "[The space program] can help counter the head-on collision with the environmental chaos we now face; spearhead technological, competitive, and political leadership; stimulate young minds to excellence; and forge cultural bonds between nations for the benefit of all humanity." - Leonard David -- Tom Nugent voice:(217)328-0994 e-mail:tjn32113@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu "To be average scares the hell out of me." -- Anonymous ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1992 23:43:26 GMT From: Tom Nugent Subject: Space Economics Newsgroups: sci.space gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman) writes: >In article <1469100013@igc.apc.org> mwgoodman@igc.apc.org (Mark Goodman) writes: >Yes there is a market niche for microsats in store and forward >communications and Earth resources sensing. Motorola's Iridum >seems to have gained enough mass in development that Pegasus >may no longer be a viable launcher for it. Iridum's market niche Perhaps Some good news for private launch companies: I've heard that AmRoc is planning on bidding for the launch of the Iridium satellites with their (new) Aquila rocket, which seems to be going along very well in tests. "A mind is a terrible thing to waste." - United Negro College Fund "What a terrible thing to have lost one's mind, or not to have a mind at all. How true that is." - Dan Quayle "See what we mean?!?" - United Negro College Fund -- Tom Nugent voice:(217)328-0994 e-mail:tjn32113@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu "To be average scares the hell out of me." -- Anonymous ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Aug 92 17:26:31 EDT From: Tom <18084TM@msu.edu> Subject: SPS & faith [description of how SPS may come about after other space industries] >[The argument] seems more along the lines of "SPS will never be worth it." >My argument is that there are many other kinds of space industries that >will be economical long before SPS, and they can provide us the money >and industrial capability to build SPS and habitats in space. SPS may or >may not ever be competitive for Earthside power. We should >concentrate on those intermediate industries, and start by working to >expand the industries we have now. And a darn good one, too. Even if SPS could be shown to be economical now, I'd agree we should concentrate on the foundation industries, especially as they would provide most of an SPS market. Not to mention the ability to answer the most pressing questions in the SPS equation. The arguments I referred to above were provided by others, and were a bit more fundamentalist in their pessimism. And, as an aside... >Faith alone is poor basis for any scientific endeavor. If the answers >come out differently from what how you want them to come out, you must >have the integrity to admit it, or else it won't be science for long. ... >I'm an >experimental scientist: uncritical, unquestioning acceptance of ideas, >no matter how appealing, is as bad for experimenting as it is for >theory. Ah, but there is an idea that you must accept on faith: That there is a reality outside of your senses that corresponds to your senses. Seems like a nit, but it is this faith (as well as the faith in the scientific method) that is an absolute necessity for science. If you don't have that faith, you aren't doing science. And the link between your senses and the outside world, though it may be supported by your ability to survive and predict phenomena, will never be proven in any scientific way, for the 'observer' is a non-objective thing, and can never be sensed! Galileo had this faith, when Aristotle taught that the Universe was perfect and unchanging, but Galileo saw that 'Still, it moves!' See Pirsig's Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintainence for more details. P.s. - The link between the two is the heart of 'Zen'. -Tommy Mac . " + .------------------------ + * + | Tom McWilliams; scrub , . " + | astronomy undergrad, at * +;. . ' There is | Michigan State University ' . " no Gosh! | 18084tm@ibm.cl.msu.edu ' , * | (517) 355-2178 ; + ' * '----------------------- ------------------------------ Date: 25 Aug 92 04:27:03 GMT From: Ron Baalke Subject: What happened to Viking? Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Aug24.191254.8813@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov>, leem@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov (Lee Mellinger) writes... >BTW, there is some hallway talk of trying to image the landers by the >Mars Observer s/c, maybe we will see which direction the antenna is >pointing ;-) I also heard that there was a dust storm in the vicinity that may have contributed to the demise of the Viking 1 lander. The narrow-angle mode of the Mars Observer Camera can sample at 1.4 meters/pixel. The Viking lander sites will be imaged at this high resolution, though it will be a real challenge with the camera pointing. ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| Ron Baalke | baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov | | | | __ \ /| | | | Jet Propulsion Lab | ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |__ M/S 525-3684 Telos | Optimists live longer /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | than pessimists. |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ | ------------------------------ Date: 24 Aug 92 22:26:51 GMT From: Steve Jenkins Subject: With telepresence, who needs people in Earth orbit? Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Aug24.043114.23137@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes: >Not the same thing at all. Except for the Viking landers, *none* of the >spacecraft that ventured beyond the Moon have been able to manipulate >their environment. Why except Viking? It *was* able to manipulate its environment. I'd argue that Voyager has no environment to manipulate. What did you have in mind? >This is in contrast to teleoperated devices that require distant super- >vision at the detail level in near real time. Current planetary spacecraft are not operated that way. The one-way light time to Voyager 2 at Neptune encounter was on the order of four hours. That's stretching my notion of "near real time" a bit. Even nearby Magellan does its thing mostly on its own; the routine commanding is mostly housekeeping stuff of a noncritical nature. Sometimes we give 'em the whole weekend off. :-) >There have been no robots in space with the autonomy of a fruit fly or >the manipulative ability of a mouse as yet. Nothing approaching the >capability of a man has even been designed, let alone successfully >tested, on Earth as yet. Earthlings have sent out glorified box brownies >to snap pictures, but nothing designed to turn over a rock. Except Surveyor 7, Luna 16, Luna 17, Luna 20, and Vikings 1 and 2, depending on what counts as a rock. No one claims that highly autonomous, highly intelligent robots have been sent to explore space. That doesn't make all exaggerated statements to the contrary true. -- Steve Jenkins jenkins@devvax.jpl.nasa.gov Caltech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (818) 306-6438 ------------------------------ Date: 24 Aug 92 23:37:54 GMT From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey Subject: With telepresence, who needs people in Earth orbit? Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Aug24.154833.20029@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov>, baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke) writes: > In article <1992Aug24.043114.23137@ke4zv.uucp>, gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman) writes... >>Not the same thing at all. Except for the Viking landers, *none* of the >>spacecraft that ventured beyond the Moon have been able to manipulate >>their environment. > > One other exception is Venera 13 and 14. They collected some soil samples > on Venus and performed some onboard analysis. Yeah, and what about the laser and/or particle-beam zappers aboard Phobos 2, intended to vaporize soil so instruments could record its spectra? It's not clear what Gary means by "manipulate their environment." The Vega balloons were passive, but probably sampled Venus's atmosphere (I'm not familiar with their instrument load). Phobos 2 and one of the Soviet Mars landers carried tiny rovers, too. Or do we only count spacecraft that succeeded? Moira Higgins on astronomy: Bill Higgins "I can always find Orion. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Besides that the Moon Internet: HIGGINS@FNAL.FNAL.GOV is my only other specialty." Bitnet: HIGGINS@FNAL.BITNET ------------------------------ Date: 24 Aug 92 23:57:59 GMT From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey Subject: With telepresence, who needs people in Earth orbit? Newsgroups: sci.space In article <66655@hydra.gatech.EDU>, ccoprmd@prism.gatech.EDU (Matthew DeLuca) writes: > In article <1992Aug23.093003.5591@techbook.com> szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) writes: >>In article <174ns5INNqom@agate.berkeley.edu> gwh@soda.berkeley.edu (George William Herbert) writes: > >>>We can't get away (now) with just using robots in space. > >>Funny. All commercial space projects, the vast majority of military >>space projects, and all exploration projects that have gone farther than >>Moon, have gotten away with using fully automated spacecraft. > > And, if we want to remain at our current level of space capability, we can > keep on using what we've got. If we actually want to go places and do > things, though, we're going to have to open things up for *real* robots > (despite what you have claimed in the past, things like Voyager are *not* > robots) and real manned space travel. Cecil may want to hear a discussion of this, but I think I've heard it often enough before. I'd like to see Nick respond to Matthew's point. I'd guess that he too would like to develop the capabilities of "real" robots, telepresence, and even Real Astronauts. He simply is not willing to pay the price of Space Station Fred to get this. He's not even willing to pay for Shuttle operations. Meanwhile, there is lots and lots of useful stuff we could accomplish (and are accomplishing) at existing levels of technology. Henry Spencer, I expect, would agree fully with Matthew's statement, but insist that to engineer all this stuff, you've got to fly it, try it, take it home and fix mistakes, then fly again-- as he recently advocated during the Tethered Satellite System discussion. Frequent and simple access to orbit is the key. What NASA has now is "We're only gonna get one chance this decade to fly our gadget, and if it doesn't work our careers are shot, so it must be super-reliable and gold-plated." How about it, guys? During the first and second stage Bill Higgins flights of the vehicle, if a serious Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory irretrievable fault should occur and HIGGINS@FNALB.BITNET the deviation of the flight attitude of HIGGINS@FNAL.FNAL.GOV the vehicle exceeds a predetermined SPAN/Hepnet: 43011::HIGGINS value, the attitude self-destruction system will make the vehicle self-destroyed. --Long March 3 User's Manual Ministry of Astronautics, People's Republic of China (1985) ------------------------------ Date: 25 Aug 92 00:11:07 GMT From: Tom Nugent Subject: With telepresence, who needs people in Earth orbit? Newsgroups: sci.space szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) writes: [in answer to 'who needs people in Earth orbit?'] >Those in search of government pork. They consider astronauts a good >money-raising technique, much like Greenpeace & their whales. >(But at least donations to Greenpeace are voluntary). >Save the astronauts! Write your Congressman & join NSS now! :-) I realize this isn't exactly an attack, but get real Nick. (This is, I guess, also a response to previous articles by Nick where he cuts down NSS and NASA.) NSS may support SSF, but they see the big picture. Yes, Freedom is probably not the best possible space station we could build. However, cancelling it would be a tragedy, because don't think for a second that we would start building another one. Congress just wouldn't go for it. And whether you believe it or not, it is hard as hell to work in space. The engineers of various recent projects aren't (all) incompetent; they just don't know everything about how space affects things. To learn this, we _need_ a space station. NASA is not some evil entity trying to keep humanity from developing space; they're trying to help in their own way, but they have their own problems. The world isn't a perfect place; in fact, it is very often a crappy place. Without the promise of near-term profit, you won't get industry to do what's necessary, so the government does things like SSF, and perhaps more importantly, SSTO and NASP. Well, that's enough. {Flame off.} This may not be an extremely cogent, well thought out defense of various organizations, but hopefully everyone knows what I mean, and I at least got it out of my system. "The future is a race between education and catastrophe." - H.G. Wells -- Tom Nugent voice:(217)328-0994 e-mail:tjn32113@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu "To be average scares the hell out of me." -- Anonymous ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 01:08:26 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: With telepresence, who needs people in Earth orbit? Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1992Aug24.175759.1@fnalf.fnal.gov> higgins@fnalf.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes: >Henry Spencer, I expect, would agree fully with Matthew's statement, but >insist that to engineer all this stuff, you've got to fly it, try it, >take it home and fix mistakes, then fly again-- as he recently >advocated during the Tethered Satellite System discussion. Frequent >and simple access to orbit is the key. What NASA has now is "We're >only gonna get one chance this decade to fly our gadget, and if it >doesn't work our careers are shot, so it must be super-reliable and >gold-plated." Precisely. Plus, of course, maximizing reliability runs up the cost astronomically, so you can't start very many such projects, so they don't get to fly very often, and the situation just gets worse and worse... -- There is nothing wrong with making | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology mistakes, but... make *new* ones. -D.Sim| henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Newsgroups: sci.space Path: crabapple.srv.cs.cmu.edu!cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!news.bbn.com!usc!cs.utexas.edu!torn!newshost.uwo.ca!vaxr.sscl.uwo.ca!stooke From: stooke@vaxr.sscl.uwo.ca Subject: re: what happened to Viking Organization: Social Science Computing Laboratory Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1992 19:35:25 GMT Message-Id: <1992Aug24.153525.1@vaxr.sscl.uwo.ca> Sender: USENET News System Nntp-Posting-Host: vaxr.sscl.uwo.ca Lines: 5 Source-Info: Sender is really news@CRABAPPLE.SRV.CS.CMU.EDU Source-Info: Sender is really isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU the 'bad command caused antenna to turn away from Earth' confusion may be a fuzzy memory of what happened to Phobos 1. Phil Stooke ------------------------------ End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 141 ------------------------------