Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V09_2/V9_285.TXT

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Date: Fri, 10 Mar 89 05:16:49 -0500 (EST)
Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #285

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 9 : Issue 285

Today's Topics:
           Re: Manned vs. Unmanned (again)
                   Re: arf!
             Black hole trolling
          Re: 1992 moon base - Teleoperation
           Re: Manned vs. Unmanned (again)
         Re: arf! (Paul Dietz barking... :-))
              Re: Babies born in space.
            NASA Bulletins request
         Solar Eclipses -- any effect on Satellites?
              Re: Photo identification?
                Re: arguments
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 6 Mar 89 22:26:04 GMT
From: asuvax!enuxha![e-mail]  (Norman C. Kluksdahl)
Subject: Re: Manned vs. Unmanned (again)


 minke![e-mail]  (Nick Szabo) writes:
>
>Polls show that the public prefers unmanned planetary probes
>over manned missions.
>
The subject line says it all.  A good poll is at best a poor random sample
taken by a group usually advocating or opposing the subject of the poll.

A good PR man can write a poll which has leading questions which make the
result inevitably what he/she wants it to be.  Psychology in action.
You could probably commission a poll and have the results come out in
favor of banning all forms of civilization and crawling back into the
trees!  All it takes is the right pollster.

So I repeat an earlier call.
What is the source of this poll?  Unless I see the poll, and the questions
put forth, I remain skeptical.  (Of course, I'm skeptical about most
things :-) :-) :-) :-) ).

**********************************************************************
Norman Kluksdahl              Arizona State University
            ..ncar!noao!asuvax!enuxha!kluksdah

standard disclaimer implied

Useful criticism always appreciated.  Senseless flames always discarded.

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

Date: 6 Mar 89 13:49:11 GMT
From: rochester![e-mail]  (Paul Dietz)
Subject: Re: arf!


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Mike Van Pelt) writes:

>This [experiments in fetal development in zero gee] is one of the many
>things that can't be done with robot probes.  The only way we are ever
>going to find out is to put up a permanent space station, raise some
>animals in it (you don't want to try this with humans first!), and see what
>happens.

Why is it not possible to launch pregnant rats (for example) in an
unmanned returnable capsule?

>Of course, the robots-can-do-everything people don't seem to think
>there's a bit of value in this kind of research.  After all, I can hear
>them say, living in zero-g is utterly pointless; we should wait until
>we've got gravity generators.  (arf!)  Or, nobody in the entire future
>history of the human race is ever going to want to live in space, so
>it's an irrelevant question.  (arf! arf!)

One need not believe that "robots can do everything" to think that
sending men into space now is a waste of money.  Nor is anyone, as far
as I know, proposing building "gravity generators", unless Mike means
spinning structures.

The parodic statement that no one in the history of the human race is
ever going to want to live in space is especially interesting.  Mike,
are you proposing that if research is going to be useful anytime in
the future, no matter how distant the application, then we must spend
as much as possible *right now* on that research?  I'll suppose you'll
next be pushing for NASA to start a crash research program on FTL
starships (arf!).

    Paul F. Dietz
    [e-mail]

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

Date: Mon, 6 Mar 1989 13:39-EST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Black hole trolling

What would happen if someone dropped a sensor on a tether through the event
horizon of a black hole while in orbit just above the event horizon?

Would the tensile strength be guaranteed to be exceeded for an arbitrarily
small distance across the membrane? Would reeling it in require
"infinite energy"?

My intuition says it won't work, but won't tell me why...

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

Date: 7 Mar 89 06:30:27 GMT
From: ube.CS.ORST.EDU![e-mail]  (Don Willits)
Subject: Re: 1992 moon base - Teleoperation

At the last Lunar Base & Space Activities symposium in Houston (April 88), there
was some discussion about teleoperation.  One gentlemen (I don't remember his
name) described an experiment in which a  TV camera and remote driving set-up
was installed on a Go-Kart.  A five second time delay was then created between
the camera's transmission and the video display where the driver was seated.
The driver then had to negotiate an obstacle course of moderate difficulty.

And in every case, nobody was able to successfully negotiate the course.

This is strictly second hand - it might be interesting for someone out there
with more electronic equipment than I (and a go-kart - or something equally
useful) to experiment with this - and give a little bit better results than
my memory.

Don Willits
[e-mail]

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

Date: 7 Mar 89 03:05:31 GMT
From: thorin!zeta![e-mail]  (Jonathan Leech)
Subject: Re: Manned vs. Unmanned (again)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Norman C. Kluksdahl) writes:
> minke![e-mail]  (Nick Szabo) writes:
>>Polls show that the public prefers unmanned planetary probes
>>over manned missions.
>The subject line says it all.    A good poll is at best a poor random sample
>taken by a group usually advocating or opposing the subject of the poll.

    Furthermore, the answers may seem to say what you want until
examined carefully. An example that comes to mind is a poll I saw in
the NY Times a few years ago asking whether people thought more money
should be spent on various types of gov't activities. NASA got ~65% in
favor. Wonderful, right? More than half the population wants an
expanded space program.

    - - -

    Well, no. NASA was next to *bottom* of the list. The usual social
programs were at the top. Guess who wins in a time of massive
deficits, if only this poll were considered.

    Simply put, the public doesn't give a damn about space compared to
day-to-day quality of life issues, and neither do the politicians. The
poll Nick quotes may be honest and perfectly correct, and also be
meaningless.
--
    Jon Leech ([e-mail])    __@/
    ``Those what cannot remedy the past can pretend to repeal it."
    - Attributed to Santa Ana by Owl

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

Date: 7 Mar 89 03:07:56 GMT
From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: arf! (Paul Dietz barking... :-))

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Paul Dietz) writes:
>Why is it not possible to launch pregnant rats (for example) in an
>unmanned returnable capsule?

If all you're interested in is birth and the period immediately before
and after, this should work.  I don't think anybody's built an automatic
life-support system that can keep rats alive and healthy for long periods
in space, which is what you'd really like.  (To judge by the Spacelab
experience, we don't know how to keep *anything* alive and healthy up
there if it isn't smart enough to use the Shuttle toilet...)
--
The Earth is our mother;       |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
our nine months are up.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 7 Mar 89 00:02:38 GMT
From: hpda!hpcuhb!hpscdc![e-mail]  (Chris Schiller)
Subject: Re: Babies born in space.

>/ hpscdc:sci.space / [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) /  5:11 pm  Mar  4, 1989
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jean-Marc Debaud) writes:
>>What would be the reactions of an child conceived in space,
>>who spend its featal time in space, is born in space, live a few
>>years in space ?
>
>Nobody knows.  For a guess, development before birth would probably be
>nearly normal, since the fetus is pretty much weightless (floating in
>fluid).  Details might differ, perhaps important ones.  Afterwards, it's
>impossible to say.


I think I once heard that cell differentiation may be in part affected
by gravity.  I'm a little suprised that noone has performed any of these
experiments...

Chris Schiller
hplabs!hpscdc!hpsctcd!chris
[e-mail]

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

Date: 6 Mar 89 16:45:39 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!oakhill![e-mail]  (Charlie Thompson)
Subject: NASA Bulletins request

This is to TS Kelso:

I enjoy the NASA prediction bulletins and use them for NOAA tracking
MIR, AO-13, etc.  There are however some satellites in your list that
I know nothing about.  Could you possibly post  one or two sentences
describing each one?  I'm sure most people in rec.ham-radio and sci.space
would find it interesting reading.   I use QT 3.2 for NOAA tracking. I receive
images using an R-7000 and hombrew IBM board along with MF 3.3 for
display software.


Regards,
 Charlie Thompson WB4HVD
 Motorola DSP Operation
 Austin, TX

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

Date: 7 Mar 89 11:54:38 GMT
From: shelby!Portia!hanauma.stanford.edu![e-mail]  (Joe Dellinger)
Subject: Solar Eclipses -- any effect on Satellites?


    The eclipse today got me to thinking; does anything
special happen when a satellite sails through the umbra of
the moon? Is there any special precaution that has to be
taken against the "unexpected" heat/cold shock? Has a satellite
ever taken a picture of the moon in front of the sun? Etc?
\    /\    /\    /\/\/\/\/\/\/\.-.-.-.-.......___________
 \  /  \  /  \  /Dept of Geophysics, Stanford University \/\/\.-.-....___
  \/    \/    \/Joe Dellinger [e-mail] decvax!hanauma!joe\/\.-._

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

Sender: [e-mail]
Date: 7 Mar 89 09:33:25 PST (Tuesday)
Subject: Re: Photo identification?
From: [e-mail]
Cc: [e-mail]


It appears that the 1615 is a time (probably GMT) and 26FE79 is the date.
Since the times are 30 minutes apart, one has to assume that these were
taken by a geosynchronous satellite (low orbit satellites can't see the
same place a half hour later), so probably a weather satellite.

The interesting thing about the date and time is that at about 1630 GMT on
that date, a total eclipse of the sun was passing through the area of
Yakima Washington (I was there observing the eclipse).  I have seen weather
satellite shots taken at this time to show the movement of the moon's
shadow passing over the earth during an eclipse, but the shots should be of
Washington, not the Sacramento California area, which is where the probable
latitude and longitude lie (39N, 121W).  If the pictures cover an extremely
wide area (like several states), then perhaps this is the famous pair to
show the shadow moving.

But I must end this message now, as I have to go outside to observe a solar
eclipse (only partial though) going on as I write this message.

/Don Lynn

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

Date: 3 Mar 89 17:54:12 GMT
From: asuvax!mcdphx!mcdchg!ddsw1!corpane![e-mail]  (John Sparks)
Subject: Re: arguments

To Nick Szabo:
I apologize for my rude response the other day. I was feeling irritated
and I didn't realize how bad my first letter (the one you quoted) sounded.
I got irritated thinking that you irresponsibly cut and pasted my
message to suit your own meanings. What I didn't realize was what my
message actually sounded like. I am not the most eloquent  writer.

I was not implying that anyone was completly closed to the view
points of the other side. It's just that I see it as each group
feels very strongly about their particular viewpoints and it would
take an absolute irrefutable arguement to convince either of them
to take the side of the other. Now, this is just my opinion. I
don't think anyone can come up with an no-holes irrefutable arguement.
It's too easy to find some piece of information somewhere that will
support the other sides viewpoint and refuting the first sides arguement.

But, also, like Paul recently said:


>Actually, our positions are not all *that* far apart.  Mostly, the
>difference is in how fast we expect launch costs to drop.  I expect
>they will come down slowly.  Henry (and many others, I hazard) are
>counting on private firms to do orders of magnitude better than NASA,
>and to do it soon.  My mind would be changed if someone could
>demonstrate that launch costs would be (picking numbers out the air)
>$200/lb to LEO in fifteen years, from the current $4K/lb or so (would
>anything change *your* mind?).  Past history is not reassuring.  I
>don't see costs coming down if NASA continues to spend so little money
>on developing new launcher technologies.  Ah well, maybe ALS or NASP
>will save us (:->).

>    Paul F. Dietz
>    [e-mail]



I agree! (wonders upon wonders!)
Even though I support manned space flight right now, I think NASA is failing
at it miserably. The Shuttle program has become nothing more than a space
freight service for satelite launching/repair, a space taxi, and lab for
DOD experiments for SDI. That's wrong and a waste of money. NASA should be
a scientific organization dedicated to expanding man's knowledge in space.
Here is where the manned/unmanned group disagrees:  I think that we need
both men and machines in space *now*; the unmanned group thinks that men
should wait because it's too expensive.

I think that if NASA would allow/help private  industry to do what they
do with the shuttle now, and started working on some other innovative
ventures, we would be better off. NASA should put effort into the
space plane project, unmanned and manned exploration of the planets,
and yes the space station (although I would like to see a lunar base too)

And once NASA has the space plane worked out, they could pass that technology
down to the private industry also. Scaled down a bit in performance,
it would make a terrific sub-orbital passenger plane, eh?
NASA should stick to R & D and leave the routine to
industry. In my opinion, that would justify the money spent. If NASA spent
$XXX billion on developing a space plane, then did with it what they do
with the shuttle (ACME Satelite repair) then the money would be wasted.
However, If they let private industry take the space plane and use the
technology to start our own space satelite repair service, and improve
our jet liners, It would be a tremendous return on investment. And NASA
would be free to go on and explore/discover new frontiers.




--
John Sparks      // Amiga  |  {rutgers|uunet}!ukma!corpane!sparks
               \X/  UUCP   |  >> call D.I.S.K. @ 502/968-5401 thru 5406 <<

Beware of quantum ducks: Quark, Quark.

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

End of SPACE Digest V9 #285
*******************