Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V09_2/V9_273.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #273

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 9 : Issue 273

Today's Topics:
          Mondale and (or vs.) space (was Re: Nerva)
     Re: manned vs unmanned, and space commercialization
        Re: An integrated space program for the world
             USSR on manned/unmanned ...
           Re: What ever happened to NERVA?
          Re: Forbes article on manned space program
                  Re: Nerva
             Re: More good news!
              Re: Man tended experiments
                  PS: Nerva
           NASA Prediction Bulletin Format
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 26 Feb 89 20:55:10 GMT
From: silver![e-mail]  (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Subject: Mondale and (or vs.) space (was Re: Nerva)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>The Congressional names to damn for all eternity are William Proxmire
>and Walter Mondale. [. . .]

    I know why you list William Proxmire in this, but what did Walter
Mondale do against space, and when?

--
|  Lucius Chiaraviglio   |  ARPA:  [e-mail]
BITNET:  [e-mail] (IUBACS hoses From: fields; INCLUDE RET ADDR)
ARPA-gatewayed BITNET:      [e-mail]
Alt ARPA-gatewayed BITNET:  [e-mail]

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

Date: 26 Feb 89 22:01:20 GMT
From: phoenix![e-mail]  (Keith P. Mancus)
Subject: Re: manned vs unmanned, and space commercialization

>> >What prevents you from using a tele-operated rig?

>> The complete lack of an adequate, workable "tele-operated rig" available
>> as reliable off-the-shelf hardware, perhaps?

>The time has never been better to develop an orbiting, tele-operated
>materials-processing and biological experimentation laboratory. With
>skillful miniaturization, an unmanned laboratory could be lofted
>by a fairly small, and thus inexpensive, expendable launcher. The
>launcher would be well within the range of a private launch service.

    I'd go even further than that.  Given the current movement away
from central cities, with people living further and further from their
places of work, it seems to me that in the not-too-distant future
many people will be able to live at home and do their work through
teleoperation.  (See _Oath of Fealty_ for the sort of thing I mean.)
The US can probably manage fine without this technology, although
it would be nice.  The more overpopulated a country is, the more
it needs to spread out, creating problems with traffic congestion and
time wasted moving to and from work.

    This all seems reasonable to me.  What do the people actually
working on these rigs think?  Is this too expensive to contemplate?

--
------------------------------------------------------------------
-Keith Mancus <[e-mail]>  <- preferred
              <[e-mail]>

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

Date: 27 Feb 89 01:58:48 GMT
From: att!pegasus![e-mail]  (Paul S. R. Chisholm)
Subject: Re: An integrated space program for the world

<"He seemed like such a nice man . . . and then he turned out to be a writer!">

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Mark William Hopkins) defends his agenda in space.  I apologize for
carrying this debate away from space-related issues.  But while Dr.
Hopkins says that some of these things *should* or *must* happen, I
argue that they *cannot* happen, and that tying our goals in space to
such wishful thinking will damage our more attainable objectives.

> The political climate is subtly changing in such a way that no individual
> nation's power no longer exceeds the combined power of world opinion.

Such as the enormous effect international condemnation has had on
apartheid in South Africa?  Or (to address your specific suggestions)
that some North African nations are destroying food and starving their
own people, because the hungry regions are also centers of dissent?
Raw food production isn't the sole cause or antidote to world hunger;
distribution is also a critical issue.

> Judging by the response, though, I would still tend to think that a lot of
> people are somewhat skeptical towards this assessment of the current and
> future political situation.

Especially when you tie your visions to attitudes such as these:

>                              But the world is getting to be way too
> small for there to be autonomous nations -- especially with what is already
> going on with other climate problems such as the depleting Ozone layer
> or the Greenhouse Effect.
>
> There will be cooperation, or extinction.  That time of reckoning is no
> longer in the future (as so many Sci. Fci. scenarios depict it), but
> today.

I don't disagree with you that nationalism is often counterproductive,
even dangerous.  "Cooperation or extinction, today" has been cried
since the beginning of the Cold War.  Even now, forty years later, the
wrong interpretation of a radar screen could set back civilization by
decades or centuries, or even kill every human being on or above the
Earth.

But the alternative seems to be telling the Powers (super- or
otherwise) that be, "It's time for you to give up all your strength,
to lay aside your ability to 'protect your own interests.'  Sure, you
may end up hungrier, poorer, certainly weaker for it.  But isn't the
bettering of the rest of the human race worth it?"  That question has
been answered, "No!" by every nation that ever prepared for or went to
war.

> The big stumbling block is getting the superpowers together on such a plan.
> That, alone, would turn the tide of opinion.

Sorry; I can't agree even with that.  Removing the polarization between
nations on Earth would of course have a tremendous impact on
international relations.  (How's *that* for the understatement of the
eon.)  But it wouldn't solve regional problems that cause some of the
trouble you're trying to fix.  Unity between the superpowers would
certainly exacerbate mistrust between them and the smaller nations,
who'd no longer even be able to play the big boys off against each
other.

Mark, going into orbit with the Soviets to solve world hunger, or with
them to Mars instead of building nuclear warheads (Dr. Sagan's thesis),
would be wonderful.  Carter's concentration on energy problems as "a
moral equivalent to war" would have been, too.  But our efforts in
space, and our technical solutions, can't resolve problems like that.
At best, they help us to defuse them.  At worst, they can make them
worse.  (ICBMs are one example.  Many people would site ballistic
missile defense systems as another; I'm not going to get into that one
here.)

So we'll send our robots and our men to other worlds.  We'll have them
dig up the soil of other planets, other places.  We'll look through
their eyes as they turn back wonder how the orb they stand on differs
from this fragile blue marble of ours.  Maybe, we'll take a more
global, certainly less narrow view of how we deal with each other.  But
no satellite will bring world peace.  Only men and women can do that.

Paul S. R. Chisholm, AT&T Bell Laboratories, att!pegasus!psrc
[e-mail], AT&T Mail !psrchisholm
I'm not speaking for the company, I'm just speaking my mind.

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

Date: 27 Feb 89 01:40:16 GMT
From: jumbo![e-mail]  (Bob Ayers)
Subject: USSR on manned/unmanned ...


The following exchange begins the USSR/USA television talk/debate
"Together to Mars."  I obtained it from the April 1988 issue of
"Soviet Life," which contains several articles releated to the
USSR space program.

I believe the exchange sums up the current manned/unmanned debate
well -- the "realists" versus the visionaries.


Sagan:  Should we send men to Mars -- or only robots?  And can we
    afford to send manned flights to Mars?

Arkadi Strugatsky, Soviet science-fiction writer:  Well, I'm a
    pessimist in this regard. I think it's too early to seriously
    discuss such a monstrously expensive project. Mankind is not
    yet prepared for this, economically or socially. Moreover,
    technologically, mankind is not yet ready for a comprehensive,
    sustained exploration of Mars or Venus ...

Valeri Kubasov, Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR:  I've always imagined
    that first there was the dream -- the vision -- and only after
    that, the real project. And the visionaries always provided us
    with a direction for thought ... Sure the mission might take
    10 or 15 years, but we've got to get started ...

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

Date: Sun, 26 Feb 89 11:22:39 PDT
From: Peter Scott <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: What ever happened to NERVA?
X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"[e-mail]"

There's a short article on NERVA in the current issue of _Final Frontier_,
an excellent magazine.

Peter Scott ([e-mail])

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

Date: 26 Feb 89 02:22:24 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com![e-mail]  (H Keith Henson)
Subject: Re: Forbes article on manned space program

Someone failed to do their arithmetic.  1 g and one rpm gives you the
Stanford torus of the 1975 space colony study.  It came in at just over
a mile in diameter, not some 10 miles.

A bigger problem is cosmic radiation.  It takes about 6 feet of dirt to
bring them down to the level you could live all your life there.

Keith Henson (a founder of L5)  [e-mail]

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

Date: Sun, 26 Feb 1989 14:52-EST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Nerva

Nerva was dropped primarily because it was an engine without a mission.
The only reasonable mission for it was perceived to be a manned Mars
mission, and although the Agnew Commission came out for this aggressive
space plan, congress and the country were turning anti-tech. It was a
sad time for those of us who grew up with bright dreams of going into
space. I got to grow up watching the hardware being built, and then I
got to see it all INTENTIONALLY discarded and destroyed to insure that
NASA would not be able to revive the dream any time soon.

More simply, NERVA was killed by the political maneuvering over the
space budget. It could only be justified by a healthy active space
program, and congress did not want that. Nixon did not want to put his
political capital on the line because the Moon (and space) was a
Democratic program and he was too busy with the Vietnam War and
millions of long haired hippies (like me at the time) banging on the
White House fence.

The Congressional names to damn for all eternity are William Proxmire
and Walter Mondale. Maybe one day we can erect an anti-monument to them
on the moon. Maybe the "Walter Mondale Memorial Septic Tank". Strikes
me as quite fitting, you know.

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

Date: 24 Feb 89 15:12:00 GMT
From: killer!texbell!merch!cpe!hal6000!trsvax![e-mail]
Subject: Re: More good news!


If Dan Quayle is your most prestigious supporter, you've got a long, long
way to go.

Every time I think of him I pray for the competence of the Secret Service
and hope George keeps his flak jacket on.

However, I do think the Commercial or Industrial or whatever you want to
call it Space Thingy is a logical step towards a manned station.  My
primary beef with Space Station Freedom is its apparent uselessness until
it is fully completed.  I remember from several years back a proposal
to orbit a Solar Array with which shuttles could dock to increase their
on orbit time.  To this structure would be added SpaceLab modules, etc,
eventually leading to a permanently peopled station.  Freedom, on the
other hand, seems to need a large number of flights for construction,
during which time all other American space activities seem to go on hold.

Is my understanding correct, or will the structure be in some way useful
after the first few shuttles deposit their loads?

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

Date: Sun, 26 Feb 1989 15:03-EST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Man tended experiments

> experiments make sense.  But in space, how many of the repairs can be made
> real-time? Shuttle experience suggests not very many.  How many protocol

Quite a lot actually. I know Charlie Walker well enough to sit around
and swap stories over a brew, and he spent much of his three flights
tinkering with the hardware. Charlie was the first real ENGINEER in
space, and he was studying his hardware in it's natural environment and
using the results of real observation to modify things on the spot and
to make later more major corrections on the ground based on the in
space observation and tinkering.

Franklin Chang Diaz did quite a bit of fiddling around with his
experiments in Skylab also. (The Floating Monkey Shit Flight)


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'll buy ANYTHING that gives            Dale Amon
Khomeini a heart attack.            Free Minds and Free Markets
Simon Rushdie for Prime Minister!        Free Speech and a Free Press
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sun, 26 Feb 1989 15:19-EST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: PS: Nerva

In a way I grew up with the project because my brother and law and
sister were living up stairs and he was flying out to Jack Ass Flats
for the Pittsburgh based contractor, Westinghouse Astronuclear. I can
remember sitting around watching Star Trek with him every week (when it
first came out) and thinking that Bill was working on the real thing.
The apartment walls featured some great engine test photos.  Ah, those
wonderful forgotten days of optimism...

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

Date: 26 Feb 89 19:13:41 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (TS Kelso)
Subject: NASA Prediction Bulletin Format


As a service to the satellite user community, the following description
of the NASA Prediction Bulletin's two-line orbital element set format is
uploaded to sci.space on a monthly basis.  The most current orbital elements
from the NASA Prediction Bulletins are carried on the Celestial RCP/M, (513)
427-0674, and are updated several times weekly.  Documentation and tracking
software are also available on this system.  The Celestial RCP/M may be
accessed 24 hours/day at 300, 1200, or 2400 baud using 8 data bits, 1 stop
bit, no parity.

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

Data for each satellite consists of three lines in the following format:

AAAAAAAAAAA
1 NNNNNU NNNNNAAA NNNNN.NNNNNNNN +.NNNNNNNN +NNNNN-N +NNNNN-N N NNNNN
2 NNNNN NNN.NNNN NNN.NNNN NNNNNNN NNN.NNNN NNN.NNNN NN.NNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Line 1 is a eleven-character name.

Lines 2 and 3 are the standard Two-Line Orbital Element Set Format identical
to that used by NASA and NORAD.  The format description is:

Line 2
Column     Description
 01-01     Line Number of Element Data
 03-07     Satellite Number
 10-11     International Designator (Last two digits of launch year)
 12-14     International Designator (Launch number of the year)
 15-17     International Designator (Piece of launch)
 19-20     Epoch Year (Last two digits of year)
 21-32     Epoch (Julian Day and fractional portion of the day)
 34-43     First Time Derivative of the Mean Motion
        or Ballistic Coefficient (Depending on ephemeris type)
 45-52     Second Time Derivative of Mean Motion (decimal point assumed;
           blank if N/A)
 54-61     BSTAR drag term if GP4 general perturbation theory was used.
           Otherwise, radiation pressure coefficient.  (Decimal point assumed)
 63-63     Ephemeris type
 65-68     Element number
 69-69     Check Sum (Modulo 10)
           (Letters, blanks, periods = 0; minus sign = 1)

Line 3
Column     Description
 01-01     Line Number of Element Data
 03-07     Satellite Number
 09-16     Inclination [Degrees]
 18-25     Right Ascension of the Ascending Node [Degrees]
 27-33     Eccentricity (decimal point assumed)
 35-42     Argument of Perigee [Degrees]
 44-51     Mean Anomaly [Degrees]
 53-63     Mean Motion [Revs per day]
 64-68     Revolution number at epoch [Revs]
 69-69     Check Sum (Modulo 10)

All other columns are blank or fixed.

Example:

NOAA 6
1 11416U          86 50.28438588 0.00000140           67960-4 0  5293
2 11416  98.5105  69.3305 0012788  63.2828 296.9658 14.24899292346978

Note that the International Designator fields are usually blank, as issued in
the NASA Prediction Bulletins.

--
Dr TS Kelso                           Asst Professor of Space Operations
[e-mail]          Air Force Institute of Technology

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

End of SPACE Digest V9 #273
*******************