Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V09_2/V9_291.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #291

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 9 : Issue 291

Today's Topics:
   Re: USSR's Phobos II probe takes second pictures of Martian Moon
               Re: heavylift launchers
               Re: heavylift launchers
    Civilians in space (Was Re: First concert from space--update)
               Re: SPACE Digest V9 #284
              Re: Babies born in space.
               Re: heavylift launchers
NASA Goddard Center requests commercial launch services proposals (Forwarded)
    Artificial clouds to be visible in Canada and U.S. (Forwarded)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 9 Mar 89 05:36:43 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Michael C. Nolan)
Subject: Re: USSR's Phobos II probe takes second pictures of Martian Moon

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Glenn Chapman) writes:
>
>     The USSR's Phobos II probe has successfully completed its second
>photographic set of the Martian moon Phobos.  However, Radio Moscow has
>announced (Mar. 1 - 3) that the pictures were taken, on Feb. 28 - Mar. 1,
I saw a couple of them yesterday at a seminar given by a Dr. Morov.  They
were nice considering how new they are.  One had the moon against the limb
of mars, and not even a mosaic.
--
[e-mail];   ...!noao!solpl!hiips

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

Date: 8 Mar 89 16:33:00 GMT
From: m.cs.uiuc.edu!s.cs.uiuc.edu![e-mail]
Subject: Re: heavylift launchers


    I'm still missing something - why not start cranking out Saturn V's
again? Would it be as difficult as building a new launcher? I was surprised
when I found out that the Saturn lifts about 40% *more* than Energiya (sp?)
(140 tonne vs. 100 tonne) to LEO. Are the designs for the Saturn available
to space companies?

Alan M. Carroll          "And then you say,
[e-mail]     We have the Moon, so now the Stars..."  - YES
CS Grad / U of Ill @ Urbana    ...{ucbvax,pur-ee,convex}!s.cs.uiuc.edu!carroll

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

Date: 10 Mar 89 19:09:09 GMT
From: vsi1!v7fs1![e-mail]  (Mike Van Pelt)
Subject: Re: heavylift launchers

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>    I'm still missing something - why not start cranking out Saturn V's
>again? Would it be as difficult as building a new launcher? I was surprised
>when I found out that the Saturn lifts about 40% *more* than Energiya (sp?)
>(140 tonne vs. 100 tonne) to LEO. Are the designs for the Saturn available
>to space companies?

The plans for the Saturn V are incomplete; much of it was been tossed
out in the garbage years ago.  The tooling was broken up and sold as
scrap.  All that's left is a couple of the Saturn V's themselves, one
of which is rusting away on the lawn outside the visitors center at the
Johnson Space Center in Houston.  There are also a few of the F-1
engines in storage somewhere, but to build more it would be necessary
to start from scratch.

And today's NASA is not the NASA of the 60's.  The people who built the
Saturn V are dead, retired, or about to retire, and the paper-pushing
bureacrats are in charge.  These are the people who say that it would
be impossible to put a man on the moon again in less than 10 years,
even though it only took us 8 years from a standing start 20 years ago.

Did you read the news item about how NASA is trying to put all the
expertise of the retiring engineers into an expert system so things can
keep going after they've left?  That gives me cold chills ... Very
strongly reminds me of one of the 'racial memory playback' scenes in
_Planet of the Apes_.  (The book, not the movie.)
--
Mike Van Pelt                 Video 7              ...ames!vsi1!v7fs1!mvp
"... Local prohibitions cannot  block advances in military and commercial
technology.... Democratic movements for local restraint can only restrain
the world's democracies, not the world as a whole." -- K. Eric Drexler

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

Date: 9 Mar 89 21:30:03 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!warwick![e-mail]  (A Ruaraidh Gillies)
Subject: Civilians in space (Was Re: First concert from space--update)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ruaraidh Gillies) writes:
>>The fact is that there's a helluva difference between airlines sending up
>>non-airline people and space agencies sending up non-space people...
>
>Please explain:  what *is* the difference?
The difference is that the airlines are set up as passenger movement
companies. NASA is an organisation with the job of implementing the
American Space Program. Space flight is risky stuff, and whilst flying from
Heathrow to JFK is no walk in the park, it's an awful lot easier and common.
NASA does not have the job of giving American schoolchildren lessons from a
few hundred miles up.

>The Soviets have been flying Soyuz missions for a [long time].
>And the "A" booster they use to launch it has flown over 1000 times,
>starting with Sputnik 1 (and that doesn't count its still-earlier history
>as an ICBM).
Yes but they haven't been trading as a flashy airline (who wants to take
off from Baikonur and land in Soviet Central Asia for the sheer hell of it?
:-])

>>... at the moment pure passenger space flights are unfeasible.
>>... NASA, ESA and whoever control Soviet, Chinese, etc
>>space flights are not yet *ready* to start into human commerce...
>
>ESA and the Chinese, true.  NASA, yes with reservations.  The Soviets?
>Nonsense.  *They* have truly operational space systems.  "A" boosters
>have been rising from the pad at least once a week for two decades now.
>They *are* ready to start human commerce -- they're quoting prices and
>flight dates today.
OK, I'll cede to you here - you obviously know your stuff (what do *you* do in
a zoology department? :-])

>>Challenger tragedy put back the US space program by 32 months...
>>... It took *loads* more than 25 flights before
>>airliners were conceived, and now they are so common that although
>>disasters happen, people will still step on a plane the next day.
>
>The latest major Soviet space problem -- the Soyuz reentry foulup -- put
>their program back maybe two or three weeks.
Have to admit defeat here - never heard of it. However, it *sounds* as if
no-one was killed, and so they thanked God [:-)] and got on with tracking down
the problem. When an entire orbital vehicle explodes, killing all aboard, many
people are too shocked to think about getting back to business. I remember
Sally Ride said that no astronaut was going to get in a Shuttle until they
were sure it was safe. It's always a possibility (I agree unlikely) that
the Soviet authorities *told* some astronauts "Get in there now!" if they
didn't like the idea, so soon after a near disaster.

>They know how to manage
>problems, as opposed to running in circles and screaming for a year first.
>(Apollo 1 put the US space program back only 18 months
  ^^^^^^^^
  Was this the launch pad fire that killed Grissom et al?

I still stick by my original thinking that nothing good will come of
sending civilians into space for nothing more than propaganda and adventure
+============================================================================+
Contact me on:     | Ruaraidh Gillies   | "Many men have tried."
 [e-mail] | 2nd year Comp Sci  | "They tried and failed?"
  or               | Warwick University | "They tried and died."
 [e-mail]  | Coventry CV4 7AL   | (Rev Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam &
                   | Great Britain      |  Paul Atreides -- Dune)
+============================================================================+

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

Date: Fri, 10 Mar 1989 13:12-EST
From: [e-mail]
To: phoenix![e-mail]  (Keith P. Mancus)
Cc: space@andrew
Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V9 #284

But wouldn't that mean that an object free falling across the membrane
would be dissociated into elementary particles as it fell through? Or
can we assume that the time duration of the dissociation is so small for
the falling object that the particles have no time to move or change
state before its neighbors pass through and reinstate their forces on
it?

This might mean that inside a black hole an object is not only unable
to move in +r, but it may be impossible for it to stand still without
turning into a cloud of particles. Would their be a critical velocity
at which it must travel in +r? Might this be the free fall velocity?

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

Date: 8 Mar 89 16:37:00 GMT
From: m.cs.uiuc.edu!s.cs.uiuc.edu![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Babies born in space.


    I saw a report recently that had a Get-Away-Special mission that was
sending up half of a set of ``identical'' chicken eggs, the other half staying
on the ground as a control group. While not exactly human development, I'd
say it's certainly a first step in such research.

Alan M. Carroll          "And then you say,
[e-mail]     We have the Moon, so now the Stars..."  - YES
CS Grad / U of Ill @ Urbana    ...{ucbvax,pur-ee,convex}!s.cs.uiuc.edu!carroll

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

Date: 8 Mar 89 15:50:24 GMT
From: hpfcdc!hpldola!hpctdlb!hpctdls![e-mail]  (Richard Katz)
Subject: Re: heavylift launchers

In article <240aa600@ralf> [e-mail] writes:
>... After several years of study, it will now take five years to make
                                                    **********
>an operational system of mostly-existing components.  The Saturn V was
>designed and built from scratch in rather less than five years--*without*
>years of study.

I remember reading a couple of years ago that it would take over 10
years to redevelop the Saturn V - I think this was an AW&ST article.
Anyways, you can't engineer things today nearly as fast as in the 60's
as a result of NASA's beaurocracy (yeah, I can't spell).

rich katz
hewlett packard
p o box 7050
colorado springs, co
80933-7050

email: [e-mail]

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

Date: 11 Mar 89 00:43:11 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Goddard Center requests commercial launch services proposals (Forwarded)


Jim Cast
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                     March 9, 1989

Jim Elliott
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.


RELEASE:  89-29

NASA GODDARD CENTER REQUESTS COMMERCIAL LAUNCH SERVICES PROPOSALS


     NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., has
requested proposals from commercial sources to launch three
identified satellites and options for NASA to order up to 12
additional launches, if exercised, over the next 5 years.

     The three identified satellites for which launch services
would be be procurred under the request for proposals (RFP) are
the Wind, Geotail and Polar satellites of the International Solar
Terrestrial Physics Projects.  Their launches are scheduled in
1992 and 1993.

     The RFP calls for 5 of the 15 launches to be high
inclination (polar) launches and the other 10 to be low
inclination (equatorial).  Polar launches normally are conducted
from the West Coast and equatorial from the East Coast.

     Under the agreement, the contractor would furnish all
supplies, including the launch vehicle, facilities, personnel,
and services necessary to design, produce, test, integrate and
launch the missions into the required orbit.

     The Orbital Launch Systems Project Office at Goddard will
oversee the contractor activities provided under this contract.
Proposals from commercial interests are to be submitted by May 8.

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

Date: 11 Mar 89 00:52:22 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Artificial clouds to be visible in Canada and U.S. (Forwarded)

Charles Redmond
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                     March 10, 1989

Joyce B. Milliner
Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va.


RELEASE:  89-30

ARTIFICIAL CLOUDS TO BE VISIBLE IN CANADA AND U.S.


     Four suborbital rockets, two Black Brant Xs and two Nike-
Orions, are scheduled to be launched from Canada during the next
few weeks as part of a major NASA sounding rocket campaign.

     Two of the rocketborne scientific experiments, programmed to
create artificial clouds at high altitudes over Canada, are
scheduled for launch during late March from Canada's Churchill
Research Range on Hudson Bay.  These colorful barium releases
will be visible, cloud cover permitting, to residents in Central
and Eastern Canada and in North-central United States, according
to the experimenters.

     The other two rockets, carrying upper atmosphere experiments
which will not be visible to residents, are scheduled to be
launched between March 16 and March 24.

     The objective of the barium release payloads is to measure
electric fields aligned with the Earth's magnetic field.  Such
fields are thought to be responsible for accelerating electrons
to create aurora but their locations and strengths have not been
well established by measurements.  Using the barium ions as
optical tracers, the electric fields are measured by observing
how the motion of the barium ions deviates from the predictable
motion that comes from the initial injection velocity and
gravitational and "magnetic mirror" forces.

     The launch window period is March 25 through April 11 with
launch opportunities each day in the late evening and early
morning.  If required, there is a second launch window in late
April through early May.  Clear weather conditions are required
at the ground observing sites.

     Three-stage Black Brant X suborbital rockets will be used to
loft the barium payloads.  The Black Brant XB is a solid-
propellant rocket about 48 feet long and 18 inches in diameter.

     There will be two barium releases from each rocket payload,
one before and one after apogee.  The two explosive releases will
occur from each payload at altitudes of 483 and 555 miles over
the center of Hudson Bay.

     The time of the launches is selected so the releases occur
either in the post-twilight or pre-dawn period when the payloads
are in sunlight but observers on the ground are in darkness.
Project officials expect them to be visible as far away as
Chicago.

     Following each release, the barium is quickly ionized
(becomes electrically charged) by the sunlight.  The ejected
barium first appears greenish-white in color, becomes yellowish
and then turns to a purplish hue.  The newly-created barium ions
spiral around magnetic field lines and rapidly move along the
magnetic field lines away from the Earth.

     Each release will produce two luminous streaks of barium
ions which absorb and re-emit sunlight.  One is a "pencil like"
beam of ions that will travel rapidly to altitudes greater than
12,425 miles above the Earth's surface.  The other streak does
not have the high velocity of the first and will rise to
altitudes of only 1243 to 1864 miles .  The fast, high altitude
streak probably will not be visible to the naked eye after about
5 minutes.  The lower altitude low velocity streak will remain
visible for 20 or more minutes.

     The "pencil-like" beams of barium ions will be tracked by
electronic intensified cameras from sites located at Churchill
and Gillam, Canada, and Los Alamos, N.M,; Houston; Richmond Hill,
Pa.; and Millstone Hill, Mass.  Scanning photometers will observe
from Calgary, Canada, and from Richland, Wash.; Seeley Lake,
Mont.; Boulder, Colo.; and Channing, Mich.

     The U.S. observing teams come from the Goddard Space Flight
Center, Johnson Space Center, Los Alamos National Laboratory,
Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratory, Naval Research Laboratory,
Technology International Corp., University of Alaska, Boston
University, plus a team from University College, London.

     In the other two missions of the 1989 campaign, Nike-Orion
rockets will carry a cryogenic whole-air sampler (CWAS) payload
weighing over 400 pounds into the upper stratosphere to study the
polar ozone problem and the greenhouse effect.

     The CWAS payload was developed by the University of
Pittsburgh for NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Program to
investigate the sources and losses of carbon dioxide, Nitrous
Oxide, Nitric Oxide and Methane and other trace constituents that
play a role in the ozone chemistry of the middle atmosphere over
an altitude range of 19-47 miles.  The payload also will provide
an accurate technique for calibrating UARS, a remote-sensing
satellite scheduled to be launched by NASA from the Shuttle
during September 1991.

     The CWAS experiments are part of a major NASA effort to
study the chemistry of the lower atmosphere at northern
latitudes.  These launches will complement the extensive aircraft
and ground-based observations by NASA's polar expedition to
Norway this winter.

     The CWAS payload measures the density and altitude
distribution of the major and minor chemical species in air.
This objective is accomplished by collecting large whole-air
samples during the upleg portion of the flight, returning them to
the Earth by parachute and ultimately analyzing the samples at
the University of Pittsburgh.  A novel refrigeration technique is
used to freeze the air entering the payload in specially-prepared
collection cells kept at -436 degrees F. during flight.

     W. A. Brence, Wallops Flight Facility (WFF), is the NASA
campaign manager.  Dr. Robert Hoffman, NASA Goddard Space Flight
Center, Greenbelt, Md.,is the principal investigator for the two
Black Brant X launches, and Dave Kotsifakis is the NASA WFF
payload manager.  Dr. Edward C. Zipf, University of Pittsburgh,
is the principal investigator for the two Nike-Orion launches.
Bruce Scott is the NASA WFF payload manger.

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

End of SPACE Digest V9 #291
*******************