Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V08/V8_274.TXT

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Date: Fri, 15 Jul 88 01:06:42 PDT
From: Ted Anderson <[e-mail]>
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #274

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 274

Today's Topics:
               Re: Christine McAuliffe
        Re: Coming to the National Air & Space Museum
             Re: Recycling Pershing-II's
           NASA news - Small explorers, Pioneer 10
               Mir EVA planned
                   Pegasus
             Re: Launch Sequence Details
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 14 Jun 88 19:37:52 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Christine McAuliffe


   Try "I touched the Future"...written by a reporter assigned to cover
the "Teacher in Space" angle of the mission.  He bacame friends of the
family and really put together a great book/biography!

                        Enjoy it when you find it!
      David K Z Harris  (aka KB6FVA, aka Zonker)

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

Date: 13 Jun 88 11:40:47 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b![e-mail]  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Coming to the National Air & Space Museum

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (J. Collymore) writes:
>I am cross-posting this netnews article from comp.sys.mac.

>-----------------------------------------------------------
>Students Give Museum Visitors A Chance To Launch Rockets
[...]
>The software will allow museum visitors to see how changing variables such as
>thrust, weight and fuel type affect a rocket's ability to overcome gravity and
>leave the earth's atmosphere.   Once a visitor arrives at a workable design,
>the program "launches" the rocket, calculates the maximum altitude it will
>reach and compares these results with attempts by other visitors.

Exactly this type of system has been running in the
Spaceflight gallery in the Science Museum in London for
the last two and a half years.

You are asked to select number of stages; thrust and fuel
type for each stage; and the payload weight.

The computer then launches the rocket, and draws the trajectory
it would follow.

For ease of calculation the Earth is assumed to be flat, but
some designs still make it into orbit. :->
    Bob.

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

Date: 13 Jun 88 14:50:39 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!its63b![e-mail]  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: Recycling Pershing-II's

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Bob Pendleton) writes:
>From article <[e-mail]>, by [e-mail] (Fred Baube):
>All Hercules employees are undergoing INF treaty training. Being
>taught how to recognize an approach by a spy, where not to talk about
>work while eating lunch, that sort of thing. One of the things they

But suppose the spies have also been on the course, they
would then know not to keep refering to people as "comrade".
They would be drinking coke instead of vodka, their party
armbands would have been left at home, and they would have
been carefully trained not to quote the sayings Lennin or Marx.

Of course, if the soviets were really clever, they could
always get a sleeping agent elected as a Senator.
Information could then be passed as slips of the tongue.

>mentioned was that one of the brain damaged Senators from the Pretty,
>Great State of Utah, gave a list of all the companies doing classified
>work in a thirthy mile radius of the Hercules inspection office to the
>local papers, who published it. Thus saving the KGB 1 to 2 years of
>effort. If he wasn't a Senator, he'd be doing time.

See what I mean...


Large numbers of :-> s should be added to the above where
appropriate.

Most of the Soviet spies who have been discovered are notable
only in just how unlikely they were to have been spies.

I don't see that the presence of a few carefully monitored
Soviet personnel is going to be much of an extra security risk.
    Bob.

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

Date: 16 Jun 88 09:05:39 GMT
From: sonia![e-mail]  (Eric Behr)
Subject: NASA news - Small explorers, Pioneer 10

==================================================================

NASA ANNOUNCES CONFERENCE FOR SMALL-CLASS EXPLORERS

June 14, 1988

RELEASE: 88-79


     NASA will conduct a conference to discuss space science
research opportunities in the Explorer Program at NASA's Goddard
Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, Md., June 21, 1988.

     The Explorer Program is a long-standing NASA program for
launching small and moderate-sized space science mission
payloads.  Dozens of Explorers have been launched, including the
Solar Mesospheric Explorer, the Infrared Astronomical Satellite,
the Dynamics Explorer, the Active Magnetospheric Particle Tracer
Experiment and the International Ultraviolet Explorer, which has
produced scientific data for more than 1,400 articles in
scientific journals.

     The new Small-class Explorer Program, to be managed by
GSFC's Special Payloads Division, will conduct scientific
research in the space science disciplines: astrophysics; space
physics; and upper atmosphere science.

     The Small-class Explorer Program will consist only of the
smaller missions characterized by the scope and capability of
investigations conducted on spacecraft launched by Scout-class
launch vehicles.

     Because one purpose of the Small-class Explorer Program is
to provide a rapid execution of scientific investigations, the
proposed missions should take no more than 3 years from
initiation to launch.  NASA will launch up to two missions per
year allocating an average of $30 million in developmental costs
for each mission.

     The development phase of the initial mission is planned to
commence in the second half of fiscal year (FY) 1989, with
tentative plans to launch in early FY 1992.

     The selected investigators will have exclusive use of the
scientific data from the mission for a period of 12 months after
receipt of the data.  After this period, guest observer programs
and data analysis and interpretation will be supported through
other programs.

==================================================================

PIONEER 10 CONTINUES SOLAR SYSTEM EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERIES

June 13, 1988



      Pioneer 10, the first spacecraft to leave the solar system,
is the most distant human-made object in existence.  The Pioneer  explorer
continues to make discoveries about the Sun's influence  in the local
interstellar medium, called the heliosphere, and to  seek the boundary between
this and the true interstellar gas.   Pioneer 10 continues its search for
gravity waves and a possible  10th solar system planet.

     Today, Pioneer 10 has spent 5 years beyond the orbit of the  outermost
solar system planet Pluto, some 4 billion, 175 million  miles from the Sun.
Radio signals, moving with the speed of  light at 186,000 miles per second, now
take 12 hours and 26  minutes to travel from Earth to the explorer spacecraft
and back.

     Launched in 1972, Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to  cross the
Asteroid Belt, fly by Jupiter and return pictures,  chart Jupiter's intense
radiation belts, measure the mass of its  four planet-sized moons, locate the
giant planet's magnetic field  and discover that Jupiter is predominantly a
liquid planet.

     Its primary mission, originally scheduled for 21 months, was  accomplished
by December 1973.  At that point, scientists  reprogrammed Pioneer for an
indefinite mission to explore the  outer solar system and beyond.

     Perhaps the most important finding about the outer solar  system concerns
the extent and characteristics of the  heliosphere.  Pioneer 10 continues to
measure the "solar wind,"  the million-mile-per-hour flow of charged atomic
particles  boiling off the sun's surface, forming the sun's tenuous
atmosphere.

     Scientists had predicted in 1956 the modulation (alteration)  of galactic
cosmic rays out past the orbit of Jupiter, indicating  a heliosphere presence
out that far.  The probe is now almost  nine times that distance and has not
yet reached the boundary of  the solar heliosphere.  And, the sun's direct
influence continues  to be strong.  A number of scientists believe that this
boundary  may be as far away as 9.3 billion miles.

     Several scientists, including Dr. James Van Allen, one of  Pioneer's
principal investigators and discoverer of the Earth's  radiation belts, and Dr.
Darrell Judge, University of Southern  California, also a Pioneer investigator,
suggest that the  heliosphere varies in size with solar activity and is nearly
spherical in shape.  Because of this, they think Pioneer 10 may  break through
the boundary of the solar atmosphere and pass into  interstellar space in the
next 1 to 3 years.  There the  spacecraft could directly measure the
interstellar gas, which so  far has not been possible.

     Pioneer 10 has found that the sun strongly influences the  heliosphere
characteristics as far away as 4 billion miles.   Scientists are finding major
variations keyed to its cycle, such  as outward traveling shocks that
accelerate charged particles.

     The sun changes a great deal during this cycle.  The number  of sunspots
-- the enormous and violent magnetic storms on the  solar surface -- varies
radically, as does the shape of the sun's  magnetic field and movements in the
hot gases surrounding the  corona, the outer portion of the sun.  The coronal
material has  sparse areas called "coronal holes" located around the sun's two
magnetic poles.  When the sun approaches its most active phase,  solar maximum,
these coronal holes creep toward the solar equator  by extending "tongues" 10
or 20 degrees wide in longitude.   During the solar minimum, the holes retreat
back to the poles.

     Pioneer 10 and other closer-in spacecraft are measuring the  "high speed
streams" in the solar wind whose source is the  movement of the coronal holes.
Pioneer 10 found that other  changes are triggered by movements of a vast
electromagnetic  structure called the current sheet, which bisects the sun's
field.  Particles slow down as this sheet "flaps" toward them.

     Pioneer also has made new findings on cosmic rays entering  our portion of
the Milky Way.  Cosmic rays are high velocity sub- atomic particles from our
galaxy.  Normally, the number of these  particles inside the heliosphere varies
with the solar cycle, and  large amounts of low energy cosmic rays were found
to flow in  from the galaxy during the recent low point of activity on the
sun.  This may suggest that Pioneer is approaching the  heliosphere boundary
where the solar influence stops.

     The possible existence of a 10th planet at the outer fringes  of the solar
system may be determined by measuring minute changes  in Pioneer 10's flight
path.  In 1978, astronomers have suggested  the presence of a new planetary
body since Pluto was found to be  too small to explain past irregularities in
the orbits of planets  Uranus and Neptune.

     Pioneer 10 and its twin, Pioneer 11, are excellent  indicators of the
gravitational pull of celestial objects.   Because the spacecraft are spin
stabilized, they generate almost  no forces of their own that would affect
their straight-line  flight path.  Thus, large, nearby masses, exerting
gravitational  forces, should easily be observed by changes in Pioneer 10's
flight trajectory.

     Thus far, NASA scientist John Anderson has found no evidence  of any
uncharted planetary bodies.  Despite this lack of  evidence, Anderson and
others strongly believe that the huge  volume of past measurements, made by
many eminent observers,  showing irregularities in the orbits of Uranus and
Neptune are  too widespread and consistent to be discarded.

     They suggest that whatever perturbed the outer planets  between 1800 and
1900 has now "gone away."  It could well be an  object whose orbit is tilted at
a high angle to the plane of the  solar system.  These gravitational anomalies
are no longer  observed because the object is currently too far away or too
high  above the planets to affect either Pioneer or the outer  planets.
Anderson and other researchers have suggested places to  look for this
planet-sized body, and a number of groups are  searching these regions of
space.

     Tracking the Pioneer 10 also provides scientists with an  opportunity to
detect "gravity waves," predicted by Einstein's  General Theory of Relativity.
In theory, infrequent and  enormously powerful cataclysmic events, such as
collisions  between entire galaxies or two massive black holes, would  "rattle"
the entire universe, producing gravity waves.  A number  of university research
groups around the world have been using  elaborate equipment to search for
gravity waves for well over a  decade.  None so far has been found.

     Gravity waves may be especially easy to detect in the  extremely long
wavelengths (one to four billion miles) that both  Pioneers are in position to
measure, but neither Pioneer has yet  found such waves.  Gravity waves would
dwarf the longest radio  waves, the largest waves commonly measured on Earth,
which span  only hundreds or thousands of feet.

     Recent improvements in the NASA ground stations are expected  to allow
communications with Pioneer 10 to continue until the  range approaches 6
billion miles, more than twice the prelaunch  estimates.

     Project manager Richard O. Fimmel expects that NASA will be  able to track
Pioneer 10 until the craft's power source limits  communications toward the end
of the 1990's.

     Scientists believe that both Pioneers 10 and 11 will travel  among the
stars virtually forever because the vacuum of  interstellar space is so empty.
Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 have  long since passed the region of greatest
potential danger, which  occurred at the Jupiter and Saturn encounters.

     Both Pioneers 10 and 11 carry an easily-interpreted graphic  message in
the event an intelligent life form may capture either  spacecraft on its
journey.  Engraved on a gold-anodized aluminum  plaque, the message features a
drawing of a man and a woman, a  diagram of our solar system and a map
depicting our solar system  with reference to galactic "lighthouses," known as
pulsars.

==================================================================
                                                       Eric

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

Date: 16 Jun 88 13:33:15 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250![e-mail]  (Keith Arnaud x57400)
Subject: Mir EVA planned

A colleague in England tells me that an EVA is planned for the end
of the month to repair the Utrecht/Birmingham X-ray telescope on
Kvant. The replacement detector was sent up on a Progress a few weeks
ago and the rest of the parts for the operation went up in the
luggage of the cosmonauts on the recent Soyuz.

                     Happy Bloomsday,
                                 Keith

--
Keith Arnaud              |  uucp : noao!cfa!cfa200!kaa
Center for Astrophysics   |bitnet : kaa@cfa2
60 Garden Street          |  arpa : [e-mail]
Cambridge  MA 02138       |  span : 6676::kaa

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

Date: 16 Jun 88 20:50:57 GMT
From: hplabsb![e-mail]  (David Smith)
Subject: Pegasus

Since no one else has, I thought I'd point out the article on p.10 of
US News & World Report for June 13.  It said that Orbital Sciences Corp.
and Hercules Aerospace announced a plan to develop Pegasus, a 50-foot
stub-winged rocket.  Air launched from a B-52 or converted airliner at
40,000 ft., it would put an 850-pound payload into a 250 mile high orbit.
Expected to fly in mid-1989, at $6 million per launch.

Some years ago, the Air Force tested air launch of a Minuteman from a
C-5.  Anyone know how that went (like, how did the C-5 respond to the
c.g. change as the rocket rolled out the back)? *

            David Smith
            HP Labs
            [e-mail]

* To forestall flamage, I suppose I must add that this is not intended
as a criticism of Pegasus, which could be launched like an X-15.
--

            David Smith
            HP Labs
            [e-mail]

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

Date: 16 Jun 88 22:54:31 GMT
From: aplcen![e-mail]  (5915)
Subject: Re: Launch Sequence Details

A pretty good sequence is in the report of the Challenger Commission
(I think in the first volume...don't have it handy).

Another useful document would be an ascent checklist from any
flight...If you ask Houston real nice, they'll probably give
you one.

++rich

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

End of SPACE Digest V8 #274
*******************