Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V08/V8_259.TXT

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From ota Tue Jun 21 03:07:19 1988
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Date: Tue, 21 Jun 88 03:07:04 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <ota>
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #259

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 259

Today's Topics:
              Re: A New Holiday?
               Re: dialing for dollars
               that Canadian guy again
        Re: A New Holiday? (awkward question)
         Anonymous quotes and NASA corruption
               NASA apologist rantings
                NSS...
               Re: More on anti-matter
         Re: Ruskies find Heaven to the left of Pluto
      Re: Shroud of Turin (Re: Ruskies find Heaven ...)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 27 May 88 05:03:15 GMT
From: okstate![e-mail]  (Richard Brown)
Subject: Re: A New Holiday?

>From article <[e-mail]>, by [e-mail] (Steve):
> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] () writes:
>>Does anybody else out there think that July 20 (the day of the first moon
>>landing) should be a recognized holiday?
>
> I think it's a marvelous idea.  It could be called moon-day and it would
> remind everyone how important space exploration is.  It would also be a
> yearly event during which media would undoubtedly seize on to demonstrate
> how far we've come in the last year.  ( let's not start until 1989, OK? )

All RiGGGGGHHHTTTTTTT!!!!!!
This makes much better sense than manny of the holidays now celebrated!
BTW, I have maintained for many years that event made a united
civilization at least conceptually possible, if not necessarily
immanent(sp)(i'm a computist, not a writer).
Alas, it appears that anyone interested in being a part of such a
civilization in the near term at least, had better be very familier
with the cryllic alphabet.........
Someone has pointed out that 'Mir'means 'peace' like "the war is over,
    -- We won"
We lost a tiny handfull of much-celebrated explorers following the
dream to the moon and beyond - and we stopped 'dead in the water'.
In more robust days, we launched a great many expeditions westward
and celebrated those who happened to return alive.  Where has all
our spirit gone?
        enough blather -    richard

--
Richard Brown, Oklahoma State University, Computer Science
UUCP:  {cbosgd, ihnp4, rutgers}!okstate!richard
ARPA:  [e-mail]
BITNET:  ....CISXRVB

------------------------------

Date: 29 May 88 16:17:51 GMT
From: actnyc![e-mail]  (The Invisible Man)
Subject: Re: dialing for dollars

I would like to propose that future I.Q. tests include the following
question:
"Is it appropriate to post articles asking for money on the net?"
I suspect a 'No' answer to this question would correlate highly with intelegence
thus adding to the reliability of I.Q. measurement.  However:

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Grady Ward) writes:
)Recently on the net I've seen a few messages asking for money.  The
)senders supply such worthy reasons as education, feeding a starving
)sister, and so on.
)
)Taking advantage of this trend, I would like to ask you all for money,
)too.
)
    [ discriptions of the good fortune of the Grady Bunch deleted. ]

)Less than a year ago, I founded a Hi-IQ club which now has over 130
)members around the world,

I got a recent copy of the society's newsletter (Grady will send you one
if you ask) and, aside from an interesting short piece by weemba, I find
talk.bizarre better written and more informative.  Well, maybe I mean
more written and better informative?  One article that particularly
bothered me in this journal, a discussion of possible gender bias in I.Q.
measurement, ends by saying that "only time and extensive research will prove"
whether or not, if a cognative "difference exists" beteween men and women,
"... it [can] truly be used as a marker of superiority in the hierarchical
ranking of peoples".  Sounds bizarre to me.  If one rates high enough in
the hierarchical ranking of peoples, one is entitled to disrupt newsfroups
at will asking for spare change.  Since I rate really high in the h.r. of p.
too, I am continuing the disruption by not removing any of the froups of the
original posting.  Any of you folks who also rate high in the h. r. are invited
to join me.  And bring your lawn darts.

--
        "Notitiae gratia notitiarum"
                jim (uunet!actnyc!jsb)

------------------------------

Date: 29 May 88 17:33:59 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (RAMontante)
Subject: that Canadian guy again

>"For perfect safety... sit on a fence|  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
>and watch the birds." --Wilbur Wright| {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

Not content to flame our all-American Post Office, now Henry The Foriegner is
abusing his position in Zoology to slur our bicycle makers!

And in sci.SPACE!

I bet he's a Space Alien -- does anybody know if his socks match?


(sorry, Henry; I'm feelin' my wierds today.)

------------------------------

Date: 30 May 88 16:15:11 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250![e-mail]  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Re: A New Holiday? (awkward question)

>From article <[e-mail]>, by [e-mail] (Richard Brown):
> Is my memory playing tricks on me?  I had always thought the actual
> _landing_ took place on 19 July (Oklahoma time).  The EVA was
> postponed until the crew had rested, &c.  The "...giant leap for
> mankind" occurred after midnight.

Yes, your memory is a day out - the landing was on 20 July at 2017:45 UT
which is 20 July at 1517:45 Oklahoma time (I think?); the EVA was something
like 0200-0300 UT on 21 July, or late evening 20 July US time.

Jonathan McDowell

------------------------------

Reply-To: pnet01![e-mail]
Date: Mon, 30 May 88 12:49:08 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Jim Bowery)
To: crash![e-mail]
Subject: Anonymous quotes and NASA corruption

I have, on several occasions, quoted or paraphrased individuals
in the aerospace industry without providing their exact positions
or other identifying information on a variety of issues.  This is
necessary because NASA has demonstrated repeatedly that it does not
hesitate to engage in corrupt practices to suppress dissent.  Since
I am totally independent of aerospace funding, I can act as a
mouthpiece for some of these people.  The Justice Department is
not interested in pursuing these issues and neither is the FBI.

Agents in both organizations express regret at being unauthorized
to pursue anonymous complaints and I cannot divulge the names of
the individuals involved due to their sensitive positions.  I've
seen some of the best and brightest of this country broken by NASA
corruption and am powerless to do anything about it.  Maybe this
bitterness has come through in my messages more than it should if
I were a perfect statesman, but I'm not. I'm a citizen concerned at
the tens of thousands of lives being wasted by malfeasance and
corruption in NASA.

If you had a wife and kids and mortgage to protect, you might
understand the hesitance to come forth publically and risk
everything for an ideal.

If you want identification of my sources, you'll have to earn my
and their trust.

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01![e-mail]
INET: [e-mail]

------------------------------

Reply-To: pnet01![e-mail]
Date: Mon, 30 May 88 13:20:57 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Jim Bowery)
To: crash![e-mail]
Subject: NASA apologist rantings

There has been a lot of disinformation thrown around about my
statements and positions in an attempt to make it appear that I
am engaging in slander, libel, idiocy and attacks on the general
public or something.  This is a tactic I've run into before -- if
you want a group of naive people to go after someone who you don't
like, make the group think the person you don't like is a danger to
them all.  Unfortunately, there is a high correlation between being
naive and liking NASA so this is a particularly effective tactic on
computer networks and in space enthusiast groups when you want the
naive among them to go after someone critical of NASA or your position
as a NASA apologist.

Just for the record here are a few things I am NOT saying:

I am NOT saying Scott Pace or any other NSS board member is breaking
the law (violating the Hatch Act or anything else).  I AM saying that
some individuals in positions of influence over POLITICAL ACTION in
NSS are too closely tied to aerospace funding to be considered ethical
and that this ethical violation is also a violation of the INTENT of
the Hatch Act.

I am NOT saying that we should terminate or even reduce government
spending on space or that by so doing we would end up with lots of
companies automatically rushing into space businesses.  I AM saying
that we can create a space MARKETPLACE (as opposed to just a spoon-
fed aerospace industry) by associating full funding directly with
each space objective independently so that those pursuing these
objectives can purchase launch services and facility use from any
source they choose.  This is exactly the intent of Reagan's space
policy wherein he supports launch vouchers for space scientists to
let them launch on any service they like.  As in any other marketplace,
if foreign competition is government subsidized, appropriate tariffs
and other actions are necessary.  Since all systems developments have
supposedly been in service of space research objectives, and since
development is more appropriately pursued by the private sector, I've
concentrated on space research objectives.

I am NOT saying that research programs are partisan -- I am saying that
large development programs are partisan (due to porkbarrel) and that
civil servants who lobby for such ARE violating the Hatch Act (not
just the INTENT).

There has been a lot more disinformation spread around but these are
the main, and most damaging, items.

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01![e-mail]
INET: [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date:         Mon, 30 May 88 14:43:54 CST
From: Kamal Mehta <[e-mail]>
Subject:      NSS...
To: "SPACE Digest..." <[e-mail]>

  I'm pretty new to this list, and also a lot of other space related
activiies. Recently i saw a posting about the name change for National
Space Society. I would appreciate if someone could enlighten me on
what it is and what it does. Thanks...

Kamal Mehta                                  Bitnet: EAKMM@TTUVM1
Texas Tech University

------------------------------

Date: 30 May 88 21:41:20 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Paul F. Dietz)
Subject: Re: More on anti-matter

In article <[e-mail]> you write:
>Paul Dietz writes the following on anti-matter:
>
>>Antimatter might be effective in a beam weapon.
>
>In a word, HAH!  Such a beam weapon would not work in the atmosphere, as
>an interaction with matter will cause a minimum 1900 MeV explosion per
>anti-proton annihilated (about 1 MeV if positrons are used instead).
>Such a huge amount of isotropic energy added to the beam will disperse
>it real quick, setting off more explosions.  This will all occur in or
>just outside the nozzle!  If one attempts to vacate a small volume of
>space for an anti-matter pulse to travel through, say with a high power
>laser, the same problem arises, though with many orders of magnitude
>(like about 25) lower integrated cross-section.  The same is true for
>space based weapons, as the gas density is at least 1/cc and likelier to
>be over 1000/cc.  Current matter particle beam research is arguably
>feasible in that one has only collisions rather than the very high
>energy annihilations leading to beam dispersion.

Of course I didn't mean a weapon to be used in the atmosphere.  Jeez!
And I suppose the disruption of antimatter beams by 1 atom/cc gas explains
why CERN has not been able to store antiprotons in a storage ring,
and therefore why they didn't detect the W and Z bosons.

Care to explain how the annihilation of one of the antihydrogen
atoms in a beam will "disperse [the beam] real quick"?  I would think
the annihilation products, which are penetrating, would
not deposit any energy at all in something as nebulous as a
particle beam.

>
>>An antimatter explosion would produce radiations not found in a
>>conventional nuclear device.
>
>All that will be produced is a different energy spectrum of photons,
>electrons, and neutrinos, as all of the other particles will decay or
>annihilate on the order of a millionth of a second.  One MAY be able to
>produce neutrons, but that would require anti-proton - proton collisions
>of very high energy (and luck).  Such a branching is of very low
>probability.

Muons would travel up to a kilometer before decaying.  Neutrons would
be "produced" by liberating them from nuclei with which the antimatter
interacts.  I read, for example, that an antiproton annihilating in
a uranium nucleus causes the emission of an average of 5+ neutrons.

>This bomb will be as fallout-free as any nuclear device is.  The fallout
>of any nuclear explosion is due to the irradiated matter around the bomb
>being blown up into the atmosphere (this includes the containment
>mechanism of the bomb itself).  It may be small, who knows the state of
>current vaccum magnetic bottle experiments (extrapolated to room
>temperature particle entrapment rather than solar core temperatures)?

Fallout in current weapons is overwhelmingly fission products (condensed
onto vaporized soil, etc.)  Even in a large thermonuclear bomb, 50% of the
energy comes from fission, I believe (mostly fission of U-238 by fusion
neutrons).  And who mentioned magnetic containment?

>The big problem with anti-matter is in the production.  As someone
>stated earlier (and as was written up in a recent Science review),
>anti-matter costs of order $10 million per milligram.  The problem is
>getting it in a usable form.  SLAC, for example, has a 2 mile
>accelerator to produce anti-particles.  Then one needs another 2 mile
>accelerator to slow them down again so that they can be handled and
>contained, provided they were travelling in the correct direction to
>begin with!.  This all has to be done in a perfect vaccuum, otherwise
>more 1900 MeV annihilations occur.  Fun stuff, this anti-matter!
>
>Arnold Gill
>Queen's University at Kingston
>gill @ qucdnast.bitnet

The SLC makes, cools and uses positrons, not antiprotons.  "Perfect" vacuum
is need? If I get just one gas atom anywhere in my system the whole thing
blows up?  Get serious.

I note that if antimatter costs $10 million/millgram (it is currently
far more expensive), a tactical radiation weapon containing 10 nanograms
of antimatter would contain $100 worth of antimatter.  Not much, although
it would be lethal only out to maybe ten meters or less.

    Paul F. Dietz
    [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: 30 May 88 05:09:42 GMT
From: phri!dasys1![e-mail]  (Mike Johnston)
Subject: Re: Ruskies find Heaven to the left of Pluto

After reading this posting I am reminded of a book by the late
Clifford D. Simak called "Project Pope" which has a storyline similar
to the "Heaven found" thesis.... Interesting book though.... I shouldn't
compare it with THIS though.....<grin>
m.r.j
--
Michael R. Johnston                                             / cpmain!mrj
Franchise Data Specialist                 ....cmcl2!phri!dasys1!
Career Employment Services Inc.                                 \ mikej

------------------------------

Date: 30 May 88 23:59:50 GMT
From: valeria![e-mail]  (Rich Wales)
Subject: Re: Shroud of Turin (Re: Ruskies find Heaven ...)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Steve Willner) writes:

    In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
    (Mr Jack Campin) writes:

    The amazing pictures have been dubbed "the most fantastic
    Christian find since the Turin shroud."

    This part of the story may well be true.  (Recall that the earliest
    written reference to the Shroud declares it to be a fake.)

In the earliest written reference to the Shroud of Turin (a letter from
Pierre d'Arcis, the bishop of the French diocese of Troyes), the bishop
said the Shroud had been declared a fake by "the artist who painted it".

The 1978 analysis of the Shroud of Turin showed conclusively that, what-
ever the Shroud of Turin may be, it is not a painting.  Hence, if some
artist in the late 1300's claimed to have painted the Shroud, he was
presumably lying.

Actually, though, some Latin scholars have pointed out that the medieval
verb meaning "to paint" (depignere) could also mean "to paint a copy".
Additionally, Latin lacks the definite article (a word for "the").  The
passage in question, therefore, could be translated either as "the art-
ist who painted it" or "an artist who copied it".

Ian Wilson discusses the Pierre d'Arcis correspondence at some length in
his book, _The Shroud of Turin_.

-- Rich Wales // UCLA CS Dept // [e-mail] // [phone]
   3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, California 90024-1596 // USA
   ...!(ucbvax,rutgers)!ucla-cs!wales       ...!uunet!cs.ucla.edu!wales
   "Zounds!  A Gorkon death station appears!  Evasive action!"

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V8 #259
*******************