Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V09_2/V9_288.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #288

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 9 : Issue 288

Today's Topics:
    Re: USSR's Progress 40 performs interesting operations at Mir
           Calling all Irish Space Fans...
       ISECCo Director going on spring break vacation.
         Re: First concert from space--update
              Re: 1992 moon base
               Re: Teleoperated Robots
         Re: SR71 to be retired October 1st.
    Re: USSR's Progress 40 performs interesting operations at Mir
    Re: USSR's Progress 40 performs interesting operations at Mir
         Re: First concert from space--update
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 8 Mar 89 18:20:54 GMT
From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: USSR's Progress 40 performs interesting operations at Mir

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Glenn Chapman) writes:
>... Dr. Valrey Polyakov (Soyuz TM-6)
>has been up there for 189 days.  Take them for what they are worth but there
>are some reports that Polyakov may not come down in April...
> Considering that Polyakov was originally expected
>to land Dec. 21 he may just be getting a bit worried about when he is going
>to come down.

Note that Polyakov, who seems to be staying up on a sort of improvised basis,
has already been up twice as long as the US record.
--
The Earth is our mother;       |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
our nine months are up.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: Wed, 8 Mar 1989 12:49-EST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Calling all Irish Space Fans...

If current plans do not fall into disarray (ie $$$$$ or maybe #####), I
will be moving to Belfast sometime in the month of July.

I've been damn near threatened that I will form an Irish Space Society
or face the wrath of numerous friends in the US space movement. Now,
since I am going there to start a small branch of a small company
(the Belfast branch will be an R&D office of one), I don't really
expect to have much time to do anything but work my tail off. But I
would certainly be interested in TALKING to anyone interested in space
exploration and settlement who wants to get something going AND WANTS
TO RUN IT. (!!!!! Not I !!!!!)

I am also interested in anyone there who might be able to assist in me
getting a network connection. I will have a NeXT machine with me.
(Without a network feed I will turn brown, crinkle up and blow away you
know.)

PS: My mothers side were O'Neills, I spend my evenings drinking
Guinness and playing guitar in Pittsburgh pubs, so what better
qualifications could you ask for now?

PPS: Are there any libertarians in Ireland?

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

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Date:     Wed, 08 Mar 89 18:56:05 -0900
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From: Robert Jessie Hale III           <[e-mail]>
Subject:  ISECCo Director going on spring break vacation.

   I would like to say again thanks to all of you have expressed interest
in ISECCo.   I know I have not sent any messages to space digest for some
time with my full time job and classes encroching upon my donated time to
ISECCo.    An new update will be sent out soon, or after I get back from
my first vacation in a long time.   I will be gone for two weeks and their
may be no one to answer my mail.  Please send all request and other
corespendence to FSRRC@ALASKA and Ray Collins  himself will reply to you.
Thanks again.
                           Robert J. Hale III
                           FNRJH@ALASKA
                           :ISECCo Director.

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

Date: 8 Mar 89 18:16:38 GMT
From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: First concert from space--update

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Rick Wojcik) writes:
>... Given the limited number of
>flights into space, I don't know what price I would fix on it.  When you send
>singers up, you lose priceless opportunities for scientists to acquire more
>knowledge about that environment...

Why "priceless"?  The Soviets have had no hesitation in putting a price
on it.  They seem to feel that they have enough flights available that
they can afford to sell a few.  They're right.

>I don't feel that the price of their ticket
>should be limited to training fees, rocket fuel, insurance, etc.  They should
>also have to pay something for the scientific research that they would
>displace.

The Soviets already have a policy to the effect that the price is negotiable
if the passenger will be doing experiments that are of interest to them, so
in effect any full-fare passenger is paying a premium for displacing science.

>The Senator from Utah got to travel into space at taxpayer expense...

Agreed that this was reprehensible.  However, it's totally irrelevant to
what I was saying.  Senators do not get free rides on airlines.

>... The space program is not, and never was, a profit-making enterprise.
>We all wish that it could be, but it is still a research program.  The viable
>commercial uses of space do not include public transportation and media
>extravaganzas at this time...

Speak for your own country, comrade. :-)  Truly spacefaring nations (there
is currently one on Earth) can afford to use space for many purposes.

>Indeed it is, since neither the US nor the USSR is set up to sell commercial
>flights into space...

Please read the following sentence very carefully.  The USSR is selling
commercial flights into space, today.  This is a verifiable fact; call them
up and ask them.

>...(I doubt that they send anyone up for hard currency alone.)

Practically speaking, probably not... but a rough back-of-the-envelope
estimate suggests that the $10-12 million that they charge (last I heard)
plausibly does cover one person's share of the launch costs completely.
I doubt very much that the Soviets would be seriously losing money on it.

>... The space shuttle fleet is far from being a commercial airline...

At one time, there were people who were interested in taking it over and
operating it as a commercial venture.  It's become a bit less attractive
since, but US government policy has a lot to do with that.  (An airliner
crash does not shut down an airline for 2-3 years.)
--
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 15:29:58 GMT
From: mailrus!wasatch!uplherc!esunix![e-mail]  (Bob Pendleton)
Subject: Re: 1992 moon base

From article <[e-mail]>, by [e-mail] (Paul L Schauble):
> Bob,
>   Then would you please enlighten us with some information on the current
> status of robot hands?

Take a look at some back issues of Scientific American. An afternoon
in the library can save megabytes on the net. And no I'm not going to
do it for you.

>   Let's take a specific case. I want the robot to open a screwed on access
> cover, remove a circuit card from a card case, put it into a test fixture,
> run test points on the traces (let's say .03" design rules), and finally
> remove and replace a soldered chip and reassemble the unit. Can you point
> to any of this being done even in a controlled ground environment?
>
>   ++PLS

Do you want it in a autonomous robot or in a teleoperated hand arm
combo? I've talked about this stuff at length on the net in the last
few months.

Here is one of the messages I posted on the subject:

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

Date: Tue, 8 Nov 88 11:10:22 EST
From: vn
Subject: Re: Teleoperated Robots
Newsgroups: sci.space

A few months ago I attended a presentation by Dr. Steven Jacobsen
(SP?) about the work his group is doing on teleoperated robots and
other things. This is the group that brought you the dextrous hand.

One of the things they are developing under contract to the U.S. Navy
is a teleoperated robot designed to be mounted on the front of a deep
diving submarine. It will have two arms, with hands, and a head, with
eyes, mounted on a torso that is mounted on the end of what looks like
a heavy duty robot arm. It will provide the operator with binocular
vision and tactile feedback from the hands and arms. The operator will
wear the control mechanism and be able to see and feel what the robot
is manipulating. The operator will stay on the surface.

My understanding is that no amount of suit will allow humans to use
their hands to manipulate objects on the ocean floar at the depths
where this robot is intended to be used. LEO isn't so bad by
comparison.

So it would seem that teleoperated robots are under development. I'd
hope they will be (almost) off the shelf items in just a few years.

It would seem to me that you need teleoperated robots before you can
even start trying to develop autonomous robots. You need a body before
you can really know what the brain must do.

            Bob P.


Note that your orignal posting was about the existence of robot hands,
not complete robots. From what I have seen of the actual hardware and
films of it in use the hands and arms that currently exist could do
the job you describe. I don't know if anyone has written the code
needed for an autonomous robot to do the job. But, that is a different
subject isn't it.


            Bob P.
--
-              Bob Pendleton, speaking only for myself.
- UUCP Address:  decwrl!esunix!bpendlet or utah-cs!esunix!bpendlet
-
-             Reality is stranger than most can imagine.

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

Date: 8 Mar 89 19:45:14 GMT
From: mailrus!uflorida!haven!aplcen!jhunix![e-mail]  (Thomas G Edwards)
Subject: Re: SR71 to be retired October 1st.

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (James Symon) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Pat Wimmer) writes:
>> [. . . discussion of SR-71 alternative missions . . .]
>>     Put yourself in the perspective of the Soviet Union.  You know
>>     you cannot knock down the plane with conventional weapons.
>> . . .
>
>Is this true? Why? On television (the show Wings, I think) I saw stuff
>about old ABM type missiles that could take out incoming ICBMs
>(assuming single warhead, no decoys, etc.) Why shouldn't they be able
>to take out something doing a measly Mach 3 or 4?

  The people on sci.military may be able to do better than me,
but the Nike-Zeus ABM system first introduced in the US
consisted of a nuclear weapon abord the interceptor which would
explode, destroying the RV.  Yes, this would still lead to civilian
deaths by radiation, but the idea was to protect "hardened"
targets (i.e. missile silos and the "Crystal Palace").
  Nike-Zeus's were very slow and operated deep in the atmosphere.
Nike-X, the next deveopment, was a faster rocket with phased-array
radar aids, to intercept RV's higher in the atmosphere.  It would
stil result in major civilian losses.
   Later came the Spartan, which had a much larger range than the
Nike-X, and would generate intense X-rays above the atmosphere which
would knock out several RV's (and every electical circuit in the U.S. ;-)
   The Spartans were used in protection of missile silos, called
the Safeguard system.  Their first use was a protection scheme for
cities called Sentinel, but that was dropped.
   During the late '70's and '80's, a program called LoADs was developed
top create a new low-altitude nuclear interceptor device which would
create even more civilian deaths than Spartans.  I believe they were
never installed.
    Basically, we have yet to deploy a "convential" weapon to take
out ICBM's.  There is an SDI experiment dealing with this.

(see _Strategic Defenses_, a look at SDI circa 1984 by Office of
Technology Assesment, for more info on ABM weapons and their
role in policy)
-Thomas Edwards

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

Date: 8 Mar 89 22:30:51 GMT
From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!watmath!watcgl!electro![e-mail]  (Ignac Kolenko)
Subject: Re: USSR's Progress 40 performs interesting operations at Mir

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Paul Dietz) writes:
>Yes.  What, in particular, should we learn from the observation that
>even with a launcher 4 or 5 times cheaper than the shuttle (Proton),
>they have a space station only a fraction the size of Skylab?  Perhaps
                                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>that NASA's priorities are seriously skewed?


what exactly are the dimensions of both Mir and Skylab???
somehow, the term "fraction the size" makes Mir sound like its no bigger
than a washroom, compared to a department store sized Skylab!

oh, btw, whatever happened to the ESA Spacelab. i remember reading
so much about this about 7 or 8 years ago from NASA publications that i
sent away for. if i recall correctly, only one shuttle flight went up with
the Spacelab. was it a successful mission?? was it too costly??

also, why can't the u.s. send up a duplicate of Skylab?? like, if they
did it once, why can't they do it again?? imagine, there would be no need
to re-engineer a new space station, since they already had one design that
appeared to work correctly. and according to the above quoted article,
the u.s. would have the largest space station in orbit again!!! :-)


(somehow, size of space station does not instantly equate to quality
scientific experiments)


--
Ignac A. Kolenko          watmath!watcgl!electro!ignac

"Perhaps if we built this large wooden badger ..."
   - from Monty Python and the Holy Grail

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

Date: 9 Mar 89 16:54:51 GMT
From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: USSR's Progress 40 performs interesting operations at Mir

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ignac Kolenko) writes:
>what exactly are the dimensions of both Mir and Skylab???
>somehow, the term "fraction the size" makes Mir sound like its no bigger
>than a washroom, compared to a department store sized Skylab!

I don't have numbers handy, I'm afraid, but Paul is right:  Mir is much
smaller than Skylab.  (Well, Mir in its current configuration.)  Hardly
a surprise, since they used a much smaller launch vehicle for it.  But
unlike Skylab, they've already expanded Mir once (with Kvant) and more
expansion is coming.

If you look at photos of the inside of Mir, "no bigger than a washroom"
is not that much of an exaggeration.  Amazing that they've actually had
men living in that little thing for over a year.  Their resources may
be limited, but they're not short of determination.

>oh, btw, whatever happened to the ESA Spacelab. i remember reading
>so much about this about 7 or 8 years ago from NASA publications that i
>sent away for. if i recall correctly, only one shuttle flight went up with
>the Spacelab. was it a successful mission?? was it too costly??

Spacelab worked, and there are more Spacelab flights planned.  Not as many
as were originally anticipated, but that's true of most everything in the
US space program these days...  You'll start seeing Spacelab missions as
soon as the "core" of screaming-high-priority missions is dealt with, in
a year or so.

>also, why can't the u.s. send up a duplicate of Skylab?? like, if they
>did it once, why can't they do it again?? imagine, there would be no need
>to re-engineer a new space station, since they already had one design that
>appeared to work correctly...

In fact, we've got a (formerly) flight-ready Skylab:  Skylab II, in the
Smithsonian.  (Please, not "the backup Skylab", it was built to fly.)
What we don't have is a booster that can launch it.  It's much too big
for the shuttle.

Skylab also had one big defect, which would take at least some redesign
to fix:  it was not designed to be resupplied in space.  Most of its
supplies went up with it.  The Soviets have got this licked for Mir,
but the US has no equivalent of the Progress freighter.
--
Welcome to Mars!  Your         |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
passport and visa, comrade?    | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: Thu, 9 Mar 1989 11:18-EST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: First concert from space--update

I disagree with Mr. Gillies. An industry is ready for passenger service
as soon as they can find someone who is willing to buy a full cost
recovery ticket despite the real or percieved risk level.

And if you can take out a life insurance policy on them, so much the
better.

Imagine placing a SpaceHab module a shuttle with an extra 3 passengers
in it at $10M each. It would pay for nearly 10% of the real cost of the
flight (including R&D amortization) even at low flight rates. I'm quite
sure there are enough wealthy oldsters out there to bring in an extra
$100M or so a year.

I would rather see that done by a private company. If the government
had the smarts to do it, they'd probably turn it into a permanent low
volume price gouging (or heavily tax subsidized money loser) monopoly
like they do with everything else.

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

End of SPACE Digest V9 #288
*******************