Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V09_5/V9_520.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #520

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 9 : Issue 520

Today's Topics:
              Re: Don't mess with NASA?
             Final Frontier Summary N1,V1
           Re: HST update - from the horse's mouth
             Re: Space station computers
             Re: Phobos 2 images
                   Question
              Re: ADA and space station
                Space medicine
     Re: Magellan Status for week of 06/20/89 (Forwarded)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 26 Jun 89 22:31:43 GMT
From: skipper![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Don't mess with NASA?

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:

>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jonathan Patrick Leech) writes:
>>>EMBARASSING!! EMBARASSING!!!  There is such class to crawling into
>>>a DC-3 at an airport that there is not even any word for such mega-
>>>class.  The only thing better than a DC-3 is TWO DC-3s.
>>
>>> Are you sure you're not really Henry "Version 7" Spencer posting
>>under an alias?

>He definitely isn't.  I consider the DC-3 a charming historical relic,
>period.  If you want class when climbing into an aircraft, it has to have
>afterburners.

>(Alas, I haven't had a chance at this yet...)

I have.  Three times, a TF-104G, an F-4E, and Concorde.  The best food
is on Concorde but fighters--AAHH!  Just about better than ... er um ....

--

M F Shafer                                |Ignore the reply-to address
NASA Ames-Dryden Flight Research Facility |Use [e-mail]

NASA management doesn't know what I'm doing and I don't know what they're
doing, and everybody's happy this way.

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

Date: 27 Jun 89 01:11:07 GMT
From: beowulf![e-mail]  (Chris Riley)
Subject: Final Frontier Summary N1,V1

Final Frontier, April 1988, Vol 1, No 1.
Final Frontier is published bi-monthly: Address: FF, P.O. Box 20089,
Minneapolis, MN 55420-9829.  $14.95 per year.
[I have no connection with FF except as a reader.]

"The Observatory: Spacepeople" by Isaac Asimov
Earthpeople should concentrate on the Earth-Moon system for a while
before moving into the solar system.

"The Private Vector: Betting on Space" by Melinda Gipson.
The article talks about several companies in the space business and what
some current projects are. Co's: Space Industries, Wespace and Boeing.

"Spacefarers: Own a Piece of the Rocket" by Maura Mackowski.
The World Space foundation is a volunteer organization trying to
privately finance select research projects.

"The Countdown Begins" by Tony Reichhardt
Two years after Challenger, NASA is preparing for another launch.  Talks
about the next shuttle mission and what it might have been like if the
weather had been better in 1986.

"The Shuttle's Uncertain Future" by Alex Roland
The Shuttle will be the US's primary launch vehicle until the end of the
century, although other expendable launch vehilces are available.  Many
problems with the shuttle are still not fixed and the goals originally
set for STS will never be met.

"Beyond Neptune" by Joel Davis
Voyager 2 will pass Neptune on August 24, 1989.  The article provides
a summary of the mission and a look at its future.

"Look Back in Wonder" by Frank White
This is a collection of thoughts of astronauts after having seen the
Earth from orbit and the moon.

"The Visions of Vladimir Dzhanibekov" by Les Dorr Jr.
Quotes from the cosmonaut and artist Vladimir Dzhanibekov are presented
along with some reprints of his and other Soviet space art.

"Los Alamos Dreaming" by Robert M. Powers
Los Alamos National Laboratories is the subject with a brief history
of the center leading to a brief discussion of current work.

"Mars--The Next Giant Leap?" by Leonard David
Should the next bold goal of the US be the moon or Mars? Arguments and
scenarios for both are discussed.

Insert showing the next 19 shuttle launches scheduled.

"The Loneliest Place on Earth" by Ray Spangenburg and Diane Moser
Living in Antarctica is useful since effects on humans could be related
to living in space.

"Interview: Gerard O'Neill"
An interview with "The father of space colonies."

"Boundries: Beam me up, Arthur" by T.A. Heppenheimer
Laser propulsion of rockets.

[e-mail]
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the
support of Paul." --George Bernard Shaw
-------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: 26 Jun 89 15:36:30 GMT
From: jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: HST update - from the horse's mouth

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jim Sims) writes:
>... Then, the solar panel sprobably won't stand the reboost
>in the deployed position, so you lose them...

If I'm not mistaken, the HST solar arrays are retractable, specifically to
permit reboost or even back-to-Earth retrieval of the telescope.
--
NASA is to spaceflight as the  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
US government is to freedom.   | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 27 Jun 89 04:20:43 GMT
From: biar![e-mail]  (Robert J Woodhead)
Subject: Re: Space station computers

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>If you want a sophisticated machine for 1998, and you REALLY MUST roll
>your own, then do something real instead of spending many millions for
>a museum piece. I'd suggest you look at:
>
>    - minimum resolution on screen of 300 dpi (400 would be nicer)

    At normal viewing distances, 120dpi (which is only twice what
    my Mac delivers) would be more than acceptable.  32 bit color
    will probably be standard.  Remember however that the more
    dpi, the more memory required, the higher the dot clock rate,
    (faster memory required), and the more bits you have to twiddle
    to repaint the screen.

    I for one would prefer a LARGER screen to a higher resolution
    one.  Having gotten very used to my 1024x768 Mac screen, I
    would much prefer to double the size than double the resolution.

>    - a 100% object oriented interface using a combination of
>      gesture sensing and voice for primary input. Keyboard will
>      still be necessary for many things though.

    Cute, but most people will be keybanging and mousing, because
    the world runs on shuffling words around.  Unless you are doing
    3D work, you don't need fancy datagloves.  Voice is fine for
    some things, not for others.  Note the difference in speed
    between, say, selecting the second sentence in a third
    paragraph of a page with the mouse, and just saying ``select
    the second sentence of the third paragraph''

>    - 256MB or more main memory with a bus that can support sizes
>      deep into the gigabyte or even terrabyte range.
>      (64MB personal computers are > 1 yr away now. This is
>       conservative.)

    I'd be surprised to see 64MB PC's this year, especially for
    <$10k.  I take it back -- I'd be delighted.  BTW, it's
    ``terabyte.'' ;^)

>    - Terrabyte R/W removal optic disks
>      (I understand that 512MB units are already available)

    Hey, what's a factor of 2000 between friends?  You may have
    some fundamental scaling problems here.  Same goes for the
    Magnetic disks.


--
(^;-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-;^)
Robert J Woodhead, Biar Games, Inc.   !uunet!biar!trebor | [e-mail]
  ``I can read your mind - right now, you're thinking I'm full of it...''

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

Date: 27 Jun 89 01:33:33 GMT
From: leah!rpi!crdgw1!ge-dab!peora!rtmvax![e-mail]  (David Andrews)
Subject: Re: Phobos 2 images

From article <[e-mail]>, by [e-mail] (John Roberts):
> recent events have shown that the people in the news media are generally
> highly skilled at *misinterpreting* images from space probes.

You mean that might NOT be a statue of Elvi on the surface of Mars?   :-)

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

Date: Mon, 26 Jun 89 20:40 EDT
From: "Asst. Dir. Of Three: The Magic Number" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Question
Original_To:  KOS_ROJ,BITNET%"[e-mail]"


Hello,

   I am just about done with my Bachelors Degree in Computer Science and need
some relatively simple data for my Senior Project.  Judging from the
intelligent conversations going on here, this must be the place.
I am building a gravitational/orbital simulator and need positional/velocity
data on the large bodies of our system.
'Large' is kind of subjective, just planets would be O.K.
Titan, Europa, other big Jovians and Saturnians would be great, heck we even
have data on the Uranian and Neptunian systems now.

I would like it in heliocentric X,Y,Z coordinates/vectors and at multiple times:

    Jupiter position was:
                X1 A.U.'s from the sun along some arbitrary X-Axis
                Y1 A.U.'s from the sun alone some arbitrary Y-Axis
                Z1 A.U.'s from the sun alone some arbitrary Z-Axis
    it's velocity was:
                XV1 A.U./Hour along the same arbitrary X-Axis
                YV1 A.U./Hour along the same arbitrary Y-Axis
                ZV1 A.U./Hour along the same arbitrary Z-Axis
    at time 23:00:01 JULY,2,1986 GMT.

    Jupiter position was then :
                ...
    it's velocity was:
                ...
    at time 14:30:21 AUGUST,2,1986 GMT.

Something like that, or angular/polar coordinates.
Any units are O.K.
(AU/Hour, Meters/Sec, Angstroms/Chronon, anything can be converted.)
Any precision, no matter how high, high is best.
Specific times and multiple position/velocity frames are vital though.

   I hope to feed the coordinates into my program at Time1, given position
and velocity, run the program, and then see if the planets are in
the right positions at Time2.
I would imagine JPL uses something like this to figure out where their probes
are going, maybe someone there could help.
Seems simple enough.  Although the N-squared efficiency algorithm tends to clog
up a VAX 8650 completely for sufficiently large numbers of bodies, 10 or even
50 bodies is no sweat.  Hopefully this is all that's required to model our
system accurately, however, with all their finding out about chaotic phenomenon
in orbits, who knows.
Anybody ever heard of this kind of thing working to any degree of accuracy?
The Scientific American Compendium entitled "The Armchair Universe" says this
is a pretty popular computer recreation, and gives some preliminary hints on
how to get started.  It's really a great deal of fun to see orbital mechanics
in real-time on a machine, especially since you can design special bodies
like thrusters and probes to zip around inside some imaginary planetary
system.

  Anyway, any help is GREATLY appreciated, as my own searches for such
data have yielded nothing but masses and vague orbital definitions.
Any correspondence on the subject is appreciated also.

Thanks,
     Ken Colangelo
     COLANGELO@CTSTATEU

P.S. Can anybody at JPL tell me the name of the Personnel Director there
as I would like to specifically address my resume to him/her.  A while ago
it was Duane Patterson, not sure if this is accurate now though.

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

Date: 27 Jun 89 15:48:07 GMT
From: jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: ADA and space station

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>> I have talked with several people who have studied Ada, and they claim that
>> object oriented programming is one of the major points of emphasis in the
>> design of the language.
>
>I was unaware that ADA had classes, objects and methods...

As Bjarne Stroustup observes, the Ada fanatics tend to reason along the
lines of "Ada is good, and object-oriented is good, therefore Ada is
object-oriented".
--
NASA is to spaceflight as the  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
US government is to freedom.   | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: Tue, 27 Jun 89 15:02:10 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Who remembers 8USER.PAR?)
Subject: Space medicine

Does anyone know of any research done in the following area?  It's of some
interest to me, and probably others.

There is a medical condition in which a small tear/hole develops in the
esophogus near the stomach.  The hiatal hernia is easily handled, although
cure requires rather nasty surgery.  My doctor tells me that about 15% of
American men have this, even if some don't know it (heart burn at night,
trouble sleeping on your back, etc).

Anyways, this seems to be a condition which would be exerbated in microgravity,
or even one which might develop in those conditions, since it frequently
(according to one theory) develops due to excess stomach acid washing back
out of the stomach.

So has there been any research done on this, or should I be contacting the
Mir medical research team? :-(

Thanks,

Dillon Pyron                         | The opinions are mine, the facts
TI/DSEG Lewisville Computer Services | probably belong to the company.
[e-mail]              |
[phone]                        | We try, we learn, sometimes we die.
                                     | We sit on our butts, learn nothing,
                                     | and we still die.

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

Date: 21 Jun 89 04:55:56 GMT
From: bfmny0![e-mail]  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: Magellan Status for week of 06/20/89 (Forwarded)

Can anyone give a plain English explanation of the Rocket Engine
Modules (REM's) temperature problems, and how they arose unexpectedly?
Surely it's not possible that the engineering and assembly team built
the VRM without taking into account normal solar heating effects?
Did something fail to make REM heating a problem?

--
You may not redistribute this article for profit without written permission.
--
Tom Neff                UUCP:     ...!uunet!bfmny0!tneff
    "Truisms aren't everything."    Internet: [e-mail]

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

End of SPACE Digest V9 #520
*******************