Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V09_5/V9_521.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #521

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 9 : Issue 521

Today's Topics:
              Re: ADA and space station
               [Russians] Lost in Space
               Re: Fuel for lunar trip
               Phobos pictures
               Un-subscription
         Re: Magellan Status for 06/26/89 (Forwarded)
             Re: Space station computers
             Re: Space station computers
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 27 Jun 89 02:09:33 GMT
From: att!mtuxo![e-mail]  (54317-T.EBERSOLE)
Subject: Re: ADA and space station

References: <[e-mail]>

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. True, I can
> see how to fake many of these with the visibility rules, but I'm not
> sure it's quite the same.
>
------fascinating verbiage deleted--------

Since the use of Ada in the space station makes this topic marginally
spacey, I thought some of you folks might be interested in a course
being broadcast over satellite by NTU (a sort of electronic university
available to companies and universities by satellite). It is being given
by Peter O'Neill, a manager at Raytheon Company and faculty member with
Norteastern University's State-of-the-Art Program. The course will be
broadcast July 11, 20, 21, and 25, 11am to 5pm Eastern Time.

"Course Description:
Ada is not "just another programming language," but rather was specifically
designed to impact software development across the entire software life
cycle as no language has ever done before. Participants are shown how SW
written in Ada is more understandable and reliable than that written in
other languages, and how SW systems are more modifiable and maintainable
when developed using Ada.

This session begins with an historical perspective on the development of
the Ada language, and is followed by a detailed coverage of all of the
language's features. A description of APSEs (Ada Programming Support
Environments) concludes the seminar. Topics to be covered include

    * History and development
      -The Software Crisis
      -History of Ada's Development
      -Modern Software Engineering Principles
      -Responding to the SW Crisis

    * Ada language overview
      -High-level discussion of Ada language features
      -Short example of each feature

    * Ada in more detail
      -Detailed discussion of Ada language features
       Lexical structure
       Data types I
       Program structure -- packages
       Statements
       Data types II
       Subprograms
       Tasking
       Exception handling
       Program libraries and compilation
       Generic program units
       System-dependent features

    * Ada in use
      -Ada programming support environments

... A strong programming background is assumed."

A discussion of the pros and cons of using Ada for Space Station SW
might be more profitable if carried out in comp.lang.ada. I've added
a "Follow-ups To" line to that effect, but I have no idea if that works.

An interesting note on the history of Ada appeared in comp.lang.ada
last week:

<From: [e-mail] (Rosa Weber)
<Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
<Subject: Re: Who invented Ada (enquiering minds demand to know)
<Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
<Date: 23 Jun 89 22:56:17 GMT
<References: <[e-mail]>
<Lines: 15
<In-reply-to: [e-mail]'s message of 23 Jun 89 18:32:43 GMT
<>    ...    My buddy said that Ada was designed by somone
<>    in Europe. Not beeing an Ada proglammer (I've never coded even
<>    one single line of the stuff, I'm a C hack) I would like to
<>    know the answer to this nagging question "who actually invented
<>    Ada"
<
<     In May 1979 Ada became the official name for the high-order
<     language of the Department of Defense.  At this time the DoD
<     also announced that Honeywell/France was the winning contractor
<     of the design competition.  The principal author of Ada was
<     Jean Ichbiah from France but other members of the design team
      ************************
<     included citizens from the U.S., the U.K., and West Germany.
<
<     Source : "Software Engineering with Ada", by Grady Booch.

One wonders what languages are used for Ariane, Spot, other ESA projects.
Do they have a version of Ada?


--
Tim Ebersole ...!att!mtuxo!tee
                 or {allegra,ulysses,mtune,...}!mtuxo!tee

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

Date: 27 Jun 89 16:24:52 GMT
From: tramp![e-mail]  (Max Khaytsus)
Subject: [Russians] Lost in Space


 I spent this weekend, arguing with a friend, quoting to him text books of
published fact, but he keeps insisting that they are wrong.  Granted,
Russia (and the US and other countries) tend to under report at times, but
I am not sure that what he said can all be 'missing info'.  Can any of you
shed any light on the following?

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

total    names, places and dates
 3    Vladimir Komarov, 1967, Soyuz 1.  (2 others died with him, but only
                       commander is listed.)  1 day,
                       3 hour flight.
 6    Vladislav Volkov, Viktor Taisayev, Georgi Dobrovolsky, 1971,
    Soyuz 11.
 8    Vostok 5, missing, 2 men, 1962    (see notes)
11    Voskod 3, missing, 3 men, 1966    (see notes)
14    Soyuz 2, missing, 3 men, 1967    (see notes)

    total in-flight known dead =  14
    very likely additional dead = 21
                      --
                      35 highly probable dead

     3 Vostok, 2 man flts not reported = 6 possible
     2 Voskod, 3 men flts not reported = 6 possible
 ? = X Soyuz, 3 men flts not reported (numbering changes = 45 flts
                       only 40 can be accounted for)
     3 Soyuz T1, 3 man not reported (15 "T" flights flown = T-1 disappeared)

notes:    Vostok 5 launched - did not reenter - a 2 man "Gemini Type"
                          Very high orbit, still there.
                          No retro ignition
    Voskhod 3 launched - retro rocket failure - hole in ground landing
                            spy pictures in
                            conclusive (satillite photo)
    Soyuz 2 launched - retro rocket failure - partial burn on reentry, heat
                          killed crew, capsul recovered
    Soyuz 11 launched - blew up on reentry, 23 days, 18 hours into mission
                (had to deny - fireball visible to everyone)
    Soyuz 1 launched - life support system failure, 1 day 3 hours into mission


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spelling errors all his - I Xeroxed his 'claim sheet'.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

 I did my best to convince this fellow he's been reading the Enquirer too
long, but no go.  Please flame this if you see anything wrong with it and I'll
pass it on.  Flame me if I'm wrong.  He'll see all the messages.


 Thanks in advance,
             Max
---------------------------------------------------
khaytsus@{boulder|spot|tramp}.UUCP
khaytsus@{boulder|spot|tramp}.Colorado.EDU
..!{ncar|nbires}!boulder!{...|spot|tramp}!khaytsus

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

Date: Tue, 27 Jun 89 10:37:17 PDT
From: Peter Scott <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Fuel for lunar trip

mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer) writes:

>At one point there was a proposal to take up water ballast on shuttle missions
>that were volume-limited rather than weight-limited, and offload the ballast
>at an orbiting facility that would electrolyze it and liquefy the resulting
>hydrogen and oxygen.

Water takes up volume too.  Where were they proposing to store it?  Does the
shuttle fly with water tanks that are partially empty on weight-limited
missions?

Peter Scott ([e-mail])

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

Date: 26 Jun 89 16:11:11 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!icdoc!syma![e-mail]  (Nick Watkins)
Subject: Phobos pictures


In Article 6495 of sci.space [e-mail] (Bob Gray) writes:

>A space exibition featuring some of the results from Phobos 2
>opened at the Science Museum in London last week. In what
>they called an exclusive report, C4 news interviewed some of
>the Soviet scientists responsible for the Phobos mission.
>
>Three very strange details of the mission were revealed.
>
>First, a number of the images taken of an area near the
>equator in the infra-red clearly show an area covered with a
>series of regular rectangular features about two miles across.
>One of these images was shown in the report, and is in the
>exhibition. (Anyone in London reading this who has been to
>the exhibition and care to comment?)

Julie Cave asked me to post the following response for her. Please reply
to the Net or directly to her: [e-mail].

-------------------------Message Follows-------------------------

PHOBOS 2 IMAGES...COMMENTS FROM LONDON

Having heard of the exhibition of these photos at the Science Museum, London
(and the interest they were generating) I dashed off to see them...
and have to report that they are no longer there. Apparently they were only
borrowed for a few days and were then passed on to Jodrell Bank Science Centre.
I was informed that 16 (infra-red?) photos were on loan and 4 were displayed.

On a more positive note, " The Times " became interested in running a story
on them and sent us (at the University of London Planetary Image Centre) a
copy of one of the photos for our comments. I located the image as an area
covering Latitudes -6DEG S to 4DEG N and Longitudes 48DEG to 25DEG. The image
is ~1350 km wide (measured along the equator). For readers with access to
MC-lithographs etc., the upper (=Northern) third of the photo is located at
the bottom centre of Oxia Palus (MC-11 SW) and the lower parts lie in
Margaritifer Sinus (MC-19 NW).

The main feature of the photo is a large area of jumbled blocks of high
land confined within a divergent channel. We examined the image carefully
and did not find any unusual features (i.e nothing that hasn't already been
studied from Mariner/Viking data) though the feature did superficially resemble
a huge sprawling city to observers not familiar with the types of Chaotic
terrain frequently seen on the planet. The "city" is presumably what the paper
were hoping we would confirm!!

By careful comparison with NASA maps I identified the main central collapse/
channel feature as Hydraotes Chaos which opens southwards into the Northern
side of the Valles Marineris. The channel running down the left hand side is
Shalbatana Vallis and the faint linear feature between the two is Ravi Vallis.
A small portion of Hydaspis Chaos is seen in the top right hand corner,and the
large area of fuzzy Chaotic terrain, bottom right is Aureum Chaos. The chaotic
crater cut by S.Vallis is Aromatum Chaos.

The main features pass Northwards into Simud and Tiu Vallis and thence into
Chryse Planitia ( where Viking one landed ).

The albedo variations are very different to Viking images, with the channel
floor and low land between the remnant blocks of the collapsed terrain
showing up significantly darker than the rest of the cratered uplands. The
photos, if Infra-red, could be indicative of sub-surface volatiles in these
regions.

The Planetary research group here are hoping to receive details of this
experiment since our leader was one of the 3 British team members. Considering
the size of the area shown, the resolution is pretty good . Another 3 images
are believed to show other, equally spaced sections of equatorial regions.
Such information could greatly improve our knowledge of the distribution of
volatiles on Mars and hence our understanding of the planet's history.

My supervisor and I are investigating the possibility of seeing these images
and I'll report on any developments.

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

Date:         27-JUN-1989 12:55:48 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject:        Un-subscription
Site: Kings College London, England
Sender: "Malcolm.Hey" <[e-mail]>

Please would you remove me from the e-mali listing for sci-space.
I must be off on my summer vacation now :-)
            Thankyou
                malc
bitnet [e-mail]

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

Date: 27 Jun 89 18:41:27 GMT
From: bfmny0![e-mail]  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: Magellan Status for 06/26/89 (Forwarded)

I have a question about the Rocket Engine Module (REM) and Solid
Rocket Motor (SRM) overheating problem on Magellan.  Maybe someone
can answer it.

Is there some specific mishap or event that occurred to cause this
overheating?  Or did someone just plain *miscalculate*??  I mean,
this thing's going to Venus -- the incident sunlight levels aren't
going to get any lower.

I would think that the thermodynamics of a system like this would
be well understood by now.  Can anyone explain what's going on?
--
"My God, Thiokol, when do you     \\    Tom Neff
want me to launch -- next April?"  \\    uunet!bfmny0!tneff

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

Date: 27 Jun 89 17:10:00 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Jonathan Patrick Leech)
Subject: Re: Space station computers

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Robert J Woodhead) writes:
>    At normal viewing distances, 120dpi (which is only twice what
>    my Mac delivers) would be more than acceptable.

    I'm reminded of a story about the design of the Viking lander
cameras: supposedly some members of the design team argued for twice
the angular resolution, until pictures taken both ways were shown -
and they couldn't tell the difference.
--
    Jon Leech ([e-mail])
    Apple Integrated Systems
    __@/

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

Date: 27 Jun 89 17:24:55 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Eugene Miya)
Subject: Re: Space station computers

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Robert J Woodhead) writes:
>
>    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.

I'm not reading or posting for very long, but the above caught my eye.
The discussion has really gotten away from space and into computers
except for the above which is sort of wrong.  Mice are difficult
to use in 0-G.  Even the use of keyboards.  You are making too
many assumptions.  Some one has to write (right) a book about problems
with zero G, like the lack of convection.  Then some one needs to
teach a class on space-qualification of equipment, software, etc.
The some people need to take these classes.  In my case, I had to
learn by picking this up along the way.  A dumb way to learn.  That's
NASA's fault.  But the above illustrates we aren't educating
people enough and our problems maybe too specialized (marketing
influence here, perhaps).  Some things from ground will work after
shooting it up, many won't.  Just hope we kill a minimum number
of people along the way.  Question is: which one of you future people
would be one of those victims?  Hope its not you. 8)

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, [e-mail]
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {ncar,decwrl,hplabs,uunet}!ames!eugene
                  Live free or die.

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

End of SPACE Digest V9 #521
*******************