Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V09_2/V9_297.TXT

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Date: Fri, 17 Mar 89 03:16:36 -0500 (EST)
Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #297

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 9 : Issue 297

Today's Topics:
         Re: First concert from space--update
         Re: space news from Dec 19/26 AW&ST
        Re: National Space Council (from: What's New )
               Moronic TV news coverage
             Re: Moronic TV news coverage
               Re: Babies born in space
            Re: Fusion ---  a Second Look
            Re: NASA Prediction Bulletins
          Re: E'Prime Aerospace Corporation
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 14 Mar 89 00:58:45 GMT
From: ssc-vax!bcsaic![e-mail]  (Rick Wojcik)
Subject: Re: First concert from space--update

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Greg Lee) writes:
>... But arguing for more funds on the grounds that it will
>increase the chance we will have colonies before we make our planet
>unlivable, which we surely will sooner or later, is just not
>going to work.  I would favor a strategy that works over one that
>sounds high-minded.

We disagree (as usual, my friend :-) over tactics.  I, too, favor policies
that work.  Unlike you, I believe that such policies are not inconsistent with
ones that sound high-minded.  You and I both remember an era--under John
Kennedy--when high-mindedness got things done.  I consider your tactics to be
pandering, and ultimately self-defeating.  The public can always be fed bread
and circuses.  But if it is treated as capable of making responsible and
intelligent decisions, it might begin to behave as if it could.  Treat the
public like a child that needs to be coddled, and it will behave like one.

--
Rick Wojcik   csnet:  [e-mail]
              uucp:   uw-beaver!ssc-vax!bcsaic!rwojcik

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

Date: 14 Mar 89 10:28:34 GMT
From: silver![e-mail]  (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Subject: Re: space news from Dec 19/26 AW&ST

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry
Spencer) writes:
>Art Dula, US rep for Soviet space products, reports that some US
>government agencies are buying Soviet space photos from Soyuzkarta via
>him.  He won't say who; "if I did that, they wouldn't be customers
>any more".  [. . .]

    I can see it now:  "_The New York Times_, September 7, 1990:
Intelligence Scam Exposed:  Heads Will Roll.  Associated Press, Washington,
D. C. -- Today White House Officials confirmed that an investigation of the
use of illegally-purchased Soviet satellite photographs by the Central
Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense is in progress.  In the
second of two hastily-arranged press conferences, President Bush promised to
'carry the investigation to the fullest extent,' and blamed the situation on
the Carter Administration. . . ."

:-) -- We hope. . .

--
|  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: 14 Mar 89 16:13:34 GMT
From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: National Space Council (from: What's New )

In article <241920f4@ralf> [e-mail] writes:
>}... it incorporates too many high-level bureaucrats who
>}will be unable to meet frequently, meaning that it will have a hard time
>}getting anything done.
>
>Should we count that as a blessing?

I doubt it.  Their underlings will not wait for direction from up above,
but will press on regardless.  As we've seen in the last few years, that
doesn't work too well.  Whether it would work better with direction from
on high is a good question, but it could hardly be much worse.
--
Welcome to Mars!  Your         |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
passport and visa, comrade?    | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 14 Mar 89 14:35:48 GMT
From: mfci![e-mail]  (Paul Rodman)
Subject: Moronic TV news coverage



After watching another shuttle launch and flipping desperately between
channel 4 and CNN, I very much wish for a channel that would tell
the commentator to SHUT-UP during the launch.

CNN loves to play video games and share the NASA video feed (shrunk to
a tiny box) with a mugshot of some moron telling me useless crud.

Channel 4 had some bimbo saying things like: "Their waiting for the
visibility to get better than 7 miles per hour". Or gems like "The
Challenger successfully underwhent SRB seperation". Arrrrgggghhh.

Can't I PLEASE hear and see the NASA feeds? Do we have to have the
lowest common denominator?

I fondly remember the days when good 'ol Walter Cronkite would
cut over to the NASA feed at t- 1 minute and STAY there until near
orbit was acheived.

Please, please folks write your major networks and tell them to
shut the f**k up!  NASA folks, help!


    Paul K. Rodman
    [e-mail]
    __... ...__    _.. .   _._ ._ .____ __.. ._

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

Date: 15 Mar 89 02:25:05 GMT
From: ogccse!littlei!opoxsrv.i.intel.com![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Moronic TV news coverage

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Paul Rodman) writes:
>
>
>After watching another shuttle launch and flipping desperately between
>channel 4 and CNN, I very much wish for a channel that would tell
>the commentator to SHUT-UP during the launch.

In Portland, OR (Rogers Cable TV) there were two channels that had pure
NASA feeds (NASA Select?).  These were a local cable access channel and
(more importantly) CSPAN-II, one of the congressional channels.  I know
that the local channel was set to start the NASA feeds at 12:30 am pacific
time.  I don't know when CSPAN-II started their coverage, but there was NO
ancher person overdubbing, other than the official NASA lady (which you
would get even if you had a direct downlink from NASA Select.  Check to see
if your local cable has CSPAN-II (I watched it over the local channel because
the local had a jumpy picture).

Tim Forsyth
Intel Corporation
OEM Platforms Operation
Hillsboro, Oregon
[e-mail]

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

Date: 14 Mar 89 23:57:07 EDT
From: Colin Hunter <[e-mail]>
To: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Babies born in space

From:

m.cs.uiuc.edu!s.cs.uiuc.edu![e-mail] writes

> 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.

This sounds like an almost useless experiment if the intention is to
extrapolate the results they will obtain to human foetal development. Earlier
postings suggesting sending up pregnant rats were bad enough. There are just
so many differences between human and rat embryology (gestational period,
placental structure and brain development, to name but a few) that proposing
to use rats as a suitable model for human pregnancy would give results that
would be next to meaningless as far as humans are concerned. Pregnancy is such
a species specific phenomenon that the only model I would lend any credence to
as far as humans are concerned would be the chimpanzee.

The egg experiment could be of use in investigating avian (and maybe eve
reptillian) embryogenesis and would obviously be of interest if a colony
wanted to maintain chickens as livestock for food. Beyond that, this idea is
strictly for the birds.

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

Date: 15 Mar 89 11:38:38 GMT
From: prometheus![e-mail]  (Paul M Koloc)
Subject: Re: Fusion ---  a Second Look

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Mike Van Pelt) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Paul M Koloc) writes:
>>We have proposed an advanced form of the Spheromak, the PLASMAK
>>plasmoid, ...
>> ... consequently pressures great enough to burn deuterium +
>>helium-3 or hydrogen + boron-11 appear feasible.  ... That means that
>>operating "aneutronically" (no radiation), efficiently, and with

>... Do you have any more information?  I'd like to take
>a look at it.    ... . .  (whatever happened to Migma?)

The reference noted in my previous article appears in a supplement
to "FUSION TECHNOLOGY" which covers reviewed papers from The
American Nuclear Society's Salt Lake Meeting on "The Technology
of Fusion Energy".  The proceedings are just now being shipped
by the printer to libraries and participants, although I have
not yet received my copy.  The article title is: 'PLASMAK(tm)
Star Power for Energy Intensive Space Applications'.

The article also briefly discusses MIGMA.  Basically, progress on
Migma has been quite steady to date.  However, it must reach several
orders of magnitude higher plasma density before it will be commercially
successful.  Each order of magnitude increase in density represents
a new development or research challenge and an evolved MIGMA device.
Each level requires millions of dollars and at least one or two years
time.  Also, there is a chorus of theorists chanting "instability"
at each level of density, but so far so good.  It would be great
if Migma and the PLASMAK(tm) concept both worked.  The former
would be a sort of thermonuclear birthday candle, while the
latter, with its deca-gigawatt output, would be more like an
electric cutting torch by comparison.


>I think, though, that pushing "no radiation" in an attempt to placate
>those who run screaming in horror at the word "radiation" is futile.

Not Quite so!!  That is not the engineering reason for greatly minimizing
or zeroing the "radiation problem."  Let me explain and put aside the
biological/environmental effects which can be discussed elsewhere.

Certain applications need very high power density with little
cooling. To fly from the earth's surface to Mars surface and turn
around and fly back again within four to six weeks, requires an
extremely low mass but exceptionally powerful energy device that
can heat planetary atmospheric gases for reaction mass during
boost phase and then "transform" to closed cycle electric power
generation, which in turn drives a small reaction mass to great
velocities, i. e. a plasmoid accelerator interplanetary rocket
engine.

The very energetic (fast) neutron flux from a D-T reaction carries
most of the reaction energy and would penetrate a dense gas blanket
and deposit that energy in the inertial compression driven walls.
The walls would not be insulated from the fusion energy as they would
be by a dense blanket gas in an aneutronic burner.  Consequently,
they would change state (i. e. melt to liquid or sublimate to gas
or plasma).  Therefore, NEUTRONIC burners (as with D-T) can NOT burn
at much power density. Tokamaks face the "wall power limit" and that
results in a few watts per cubic centimeter from the fuel plasma.
Consequently, tokamaks are colossal in size.  By comparison the volume
of the compressed thermonuclear plasma in a 60 hertz three phase (180
pulse burns/second) 10 gigawatt PLASMAK burner is about that of a
small plum.

It is only natural that if the aneutronic fuel contains millions of
times the energy per unit mass as common chemical fuels, then the burn
power density should also be substantially higher, and with a developed
PLASMAK device it will be.   Yet there is no risk that it will
become unstable and ignite or explode outside of a controlled burn
that takes place in the normally functioning engine.  The fuel
itself is not dangerous.  On the other hand NEUTRONIC fuels such
as tritium or certain plutonium/uranium isotopes are hazardous.

>radioactivity of fission plants can be dealt with, too, as the French
>are so ably demonstrating.

Hmmmm?  I understand they handle their alcohol a diluted sip at a
time so well, that, it is now impossible to find an imbibing French
continental who can remember the details of his/her own experiences
in the second world war.  Handling is relative.

>.. .   If we don't figure out some way to ignore the technophobes, in

Probably a form of xenophobe.  I worry more about the investor
that a few years ago considered IBM clones a "really high risk," and
the tons of people apparently hooked on credit instead of piling up
stock in companies on the cutting edge of technology.

+---------------------------------------------------------+--------+
| Paul M. Koloc, President: [phone]                | FUSION |
| Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222        |  this  |
| mimsy!prometheus!pmk; [e-mail]               | decade |
+---------------------------------------------------------+--------+

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

Date: 15 Mar 89 15:08:04 GMT
From: m2c!wpi![e-mail]  (George Regnery)
Subject: Re: NASA Prediction Bulletins

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Dan Charrois) writes:
> Hello there.  I have called your board a few times and have noticed these
> NASA prediction bulletins up there.  I thank you greatly for making these
> available to us via this network (to save the monumental costs of calling
> long-distance all the time...)  However, I am stuck with a somewhat
> non-standard computer (read not IBM-compatible).  Therefore, the software
> which you have available on your BBS won't work with my system (a Coco)
> and I'm at a loss on what to make of those bulletins.  It does appear
> though as if it comes from a simple database of orbital elements for the
> satellites...  I'm a programmer and thus could create my own version of
> those programs which determine the positioning of these satellites.
>
  I have a CoCo 2 and converted a Basic program from IBM PCs to do what you
want.  It isnt too hard to make the conversions, because they both use
MicroSoft Basic.  The program will display all of the data, but takes two
screens due to the strange screen size of the CoCo...  If you have a CoCo 3,
the program from the IBM should run directly after width80, because the screen
size is the same and CoCo 3 basic is nearly exactly like PC Basic (except
Graphic Commands I think).  I have a lot of CoCo Software for Astronomy.  If
you or anyone else wants any, just send me a message...


--
George M. Regnery       ! Worcester     ! Albedo 0.39    ! Going on means
[e-mail]  OR ! Polytechnic   !  --Vangelis    ! going far. Going
[e-mail]      ! Institute     ! (a good album) ! far means returning.
CompuServe: 73300,3655  ! (Worc, Mass.) ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=!     --Tao Te Ching

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

Date: 15 Mar 89 17:08:34 GMT
From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: E'Prime Aerospace Corporation

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (stephen) writes:
>  Does anybody have any opinions about which of the small launch companies
>(E'Prime, OSC/Hercules, Space Services, Amroc, etc.) have any chance of
>commercial success? ...

OSC/Hercules seems to be going great guns; I'd bet on them.  E'Prime I
don't know about.  Space Services has a sounding-rocket launch coming up,
but they've been shopping for orbital-launch customers for a long time
without success; there doesn't seem to be anything *wrong* with them, but
nothing ever seems to happen.  Amroc is financially tight but making
progress; I question the need for their new rocket technology, but they
are making it work.
--
Welcome to Mars!  Your         |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
passport and visa, comrade?    | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

End of SPACE Digest V9 #297
*******************