Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V09_5/V9_542.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #542

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 9 : Issue 542

Today's Topics:
             space news from May 29 AW&ST
             Re: new space goals
              Re: Don't mess with NASA?
             Re: new space goals
             Re: new space goals
                life xtension
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 10 Jul 89 04:47:22 GMT
From: jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from May 29 AW&ST

Full-page ad for Pegasus, facing the editorial page.

Editorial observing that commercial spaceflight in the US is starting to
recover from its ills, but it's got a long way to go.  Mostly, it needs
stable government policy, plus government launcher buys done as commercial
deals with minimum unnecessary paperwork.

NASA to review astronaut-physiology data, with a specific eye on how
capable shuttle pilots will be after a 2-4 week stay in space on an
extended-duration orbiter.  Another issue of long-stay shuttle missions
is the need for more stowage space for food, clothing, and incidentals.

Space Commerce Corp. files formal protest of NASA's decision to exclude
it from commercial launch services bidding.  SCC says it is 100% US-owned
and should be allowed to compete, even though it proposes to use Soviet-
built hardware.  NASA interprets procurement rules to forbid other than
US-built rockets, but SCC points out that (a) the contracts call for
launch services, not hardware production, and (b) NASA has bought
sounding-rocket launches using Canadian hardware in the recent past.

Advisory panel warns the government that the government itself is the
major customer for commercial space ventures in the near term, and care
will be needed to keep the industry alive.

Brazil's Avibras Aeroespacial and China's Great Wall Industries form
joint venture specializing in comsat launching, tracking, and networking.
China contributes launchers.  Brazil contributes space-tracking experience,
efficient international marketing (Avibras is a major weapons exporter),
and equatorial launch sites.  Brazil is developing its own launcher, but
it is smaller than the Long March series and would not compete with them.

NASA looks, once again, at scaling down the space station.  The change
of administrations in both the White House and NASA is likely to result
in changes of plan.  The station has been in financial trouble for some
time and there are lingering technical problems as well:  assembly sequence
is tricky, the existing module designs are too heavy and their center of
gravity may be too far forward for safe shuttle launch (although these
issues are uncertain until equipment layout is fully settled, and there
is also the complicating issue that the shuttle will [theoretically] be
using the ASRM improved SRBs by the time station launches start), the
microgravity people are concerned that the station may not give sufficiently
clean free fall, and the latest review of the proposal to change to solar-
dynamic power called [sigh] for more studies.  The official position from
the station program office is that the approved configuration is the only
one that will be worked on until NASA HQ decides otherwise, and that the
plans cannot be based on availability of the ASRM because it is not yet
assured.

Various radical possibilities are being informally looked at, including
schedule stretches, a simpler design with some money diverted to building
Shuttle-C to launch it, and renegotiating some of the complex and constraining
agreements between NASA, Congress, and the White House (Truly is reported
to be willing to take the flak of breaking or renegotiating agreements if
they are too troublesome).  Truly seems to be taking the position that
scaling the station down is better than slipping its schedule, and one
or the other is probably inevitable given the financial problems.  He
is also said to be insisting that the station be launchable, without
question, on the shuttle.

The international station partners are throughly unhappy about all of this.

Galileo is in initial launch preparation at KSC.

USAF assessing schedule impact of May 24 Delta launch failure, believed
to be due to malfunctioning ground equipment.  The engine controller lit
the vernier engines successfully, but the LOX valve for the main engine
refused to open and the controller shut things down.  There was never any
significant risk of explosion, and preparing for another try should take
only a few days.  The payload is another Navstar; the only change made
since the last one (Feb 14) is some vibration-absorbing material to
damp out strong vibration observed in the new payload fairing.

NASA rejects the [inevitable] bid protest from Hercules over the award
of the ASRM contract to Lockheed/Aerojet, clearing the way for contract
negotiations.

Magellan trajectory correction successful May 21.

NASA putting major efforts into getting Columbia ready for a military
launch July 31.  Since NASA has already eliminated one planned DoD
mission this year (originally in August) to clear the decks for Galileo,
it badly wants to keep the remaining military launch on schedule.  There
is a lot left to be done, since Columbia had slipped badly behind in
hardware updates applied to the other orbiters.  Activity on Discovery
and Atlantis has practically stopped so the whole workforce can be put
on Columbia.

[The following are from Spaceflight, May issue.]

Tass reports that Soviet bureaucrats are trying to prosecute Sergei
Krikalev for draft-dodging, given that he failed to report for army-
reserve duty several months ago.  Krikalev has been unable to report as
requested because he has been in orbit aboard Mir.  The Tass headline
was "Space is no escape from dim-wit bureaucrats, cosmonaut learns."

Agreement due to be signed April 14 for 1991 launch of a British
astronaut to Mir.  This will be a purely commercial launch, funded by
a consortium of British companies, with no government funding... although
the British government clearly approves, since a Cabinet Minister will
attend the signing ceremony.  It will cost about $10M.  A short list of
5-10 candidates will go to Glavkosmos in September, and the Soviets will
pick a prime and backup, who will both spend about a year in training
(for emergency procedures and the basics of living on Mir) at Star City.
--
$10 million equals 18 PM       |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
(Pentagon-Minutes). -Tom Neff  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 4 Jul 89 06:25:58 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Jonathan Patrick Leech)
Subject: Re: new space goals

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Steve Hix) writes:
>If they give up eating pizza, they can have just as much effect on
>their ability to buy a house as if they quit spending on space.
>
>If space operations ever become a *profitable* business endeavor,
>separate from government interference, then we can have our space
>and eat our pizza, too.

    I don't see your point.  Americans by and large would rather have
pizza today than Mars tomorrow.  This is obvious given the relative
profits of the fast-food and commercial space industries :-)
    Followups directed to talk.politics.misc - redirect if you have
something specifically about space to say.
--
    Jon Leech ([e-mail])
    Apple Integrated Systems
    __@/

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

Date: 4 Jul 89 15:38:45 GMT
From: jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Don't mess with NASA?

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>>Actually, you can find non-government birds with afterburners, but there
>>aren't very many of them and often they aren't very accessible.
>
> [F-20] ...What others are there?

I know of two others which used to exist:  Darryl Greenamyer's souped-up
Starfighter and the privately-owned T-38 in California.  Greenamyer's
Starfighter, alas, is junk following a gear-deployment failure after a
world-low-altitude-speed-record flight, and I seem to recall hearing that
the California T-38 got written off recently too.  Rats.

>That's what this country needs--general aviation with afterburners!
>I'm ready!

Me too!  Unfortunately the US military wants to keep jet aviation all to
itself, so even its tamer aircraft are never sold to civilians.  (Both
the Starfighter and the T-38 were rebuilt from hardware that slipped out
basically by accident.)
--
$10 million equals 18 PM       |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
(Pentagon-Minutes). -Tom Neff  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 4 Jul 89 16:13:25 GMT
From: jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: new space goals

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Steve Rehrauer) writes:
>>... the Martian surface has useful supplies of things like water.
>
>... Have readily-accessible
>sources of water on Mars been identified, or do you mean that, given the
>presense in whatever amounts & form, accessing it is just a question of
>engineering?  My impression from the most recent stuff I've read on the
>subject was that there was conflicting data...

There is definitely water, frozen, in the polar caps.  There is some
uncertainty about its availability elsewhere.  Chances are excellent that
there is quite a bit of it in reasonably-accessible permafrost down to
quite low latitudes, but that is not yet certain.  A bit of preliminary
exploration would pin this down quickly.  You can definitely obtain water
if you're willing to land at the edge of the north polar cap in northern
summer; there is some uncertainty about more convenient sources, but there
*is* water there.
--
$10 million equals 18 PM       |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
(Pentagon-Minutes). -Tom Neff  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 4 Jul 89 19:58:14 GMT
From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: new space goals

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Tom Neff) writes:
>... We have what we need
>to GET TO Mars, and back, safely, in a sort of Apollo Mark II.
>
>What we do not have, and ain't even close to having, is the ability to
>go there and stay...

Uh, why not?  Mir would work just fine in Mars orbit; it lacks only a
solar-flare shelter (hiding behind Phobos might be simpler) and a resupply
system that can work at such distances.  Resupply requirements are not that
bad if (a) CO2 can be extracted without eating up consumables like LiOH,
and (b) water can be recycled moderately well; then the consumables drop
to -- if memory serves -- 2-3 kg per man-day.  That's enough to be annoying
but not too much to be feasible.  As for (a) and (b), new military aircraft
use molecular-sieve technology that ought to be applicable to (a), and (b)
is not something that should take a decade to develop, since normal human
metabolism generates water (from food) and hence recycling need not be
terribly good.

Staying on the surface is easier because the water problem is solved, and
harder because it probably requires a nuclear power source.  (Martian dust
storms can last a long time and are fairly opaque, which makes solar power
a doubtful approach.)  Buy a Topaz reactor from the Soviets; problem solved.

Yes, there are problems.  Ten years ought to suffice to get them firmly
under control, however.

>We could also do this on the moon, but Mars is sexier and has more to
>teach us I believe.  And as Henry has pointed out, it's not that much
>farther up the gravity well.

Actually, my own view is that the Moon is the obvious place to start, if
only because we've barely scratched the surface there.

>>                In some ways it's easier, because we have
>>Phobos and Deimos as potential resources, and the Martian surface has
>>useful supplies of things like water.
>
>And you wanted to know what new technology we'd have to develop??  Be
>honest, wonderful ANALOG fodder though it makes, nobody has ever run
>anything industrial off Earth for any length of time...

We don't need anything very industrial to use Phobos regolith for a
solar storm shelter; the free-fall equivalent of shovels will suffice.
Nor is it overly difficult to make use of CO2 and water, both available
on the Martian surface; water is useful in its natural state and plants
like CO2.  Making rocket fuel out of that combination isn't very hard,
either -- it's being seriously studied for *unmanned* missions.

>...We'll
>certainly do it some day, but not until humans have had the opportunity
>to kick around on-site for a while and play with things.  To do that we
>have to get them there, with Earth materials.

True.  But we can send an expedition equipped to (a) prosper using on-site
materials and (b) just barely get back to Earth without.  If we are fairly
confident that we can make simple things work -- which we are -- then we
can rely on them for everything except emergency return.

>We don't need commercial megaboosters to go to Mars...

It's likely to cut the cost by an order of magnitude, however, which is
not a trivial matter.

>>                            General Dynamics,
>>Martin Marietta, McDonnell Douglas, Arianespace, etc., will scream bloody
>>murder, hire lobbyists, and start talking excitedly to Congressthings,
>>because they simply can't do it.
>
>Precisely the kind of catfight that kills missions.  QED.

Uh, you think *hiring* those people keeps missions *alive*?  Ever noticed
what's happened to the space-station budget lately?  They're not planning
to use all those dollar bills as insulation in the modules.

>>And cheap transport to low orbit makes the whole thing much easier and
>>much less demanding, because it's no longer necessary to pare every gram
>>off the project's hardware.
>
>Paring grams off the hardware is where you learn.  Weight exigencies
>are the soul of spinoff...

[expetive deleted] spinoff.  If we want to get to Mars, that should be the
first priority, and never mind silly luxuries.  This is what I meant when
I specified that the mission should take priority over empire building.
Paring grams off the hardware is what turns millions into billions, and
makes aerospace-contractor stock a good investment.

>>Why can't we get the hardware in place for that in 10 years?
>
>Our track record supports my assertion better than your objection, I
>think.  We can't get that hardware ready in 10 years because we can't do
>ANYTHING in 10 years anymore.  The can-do technocracy that gave us
>Vietnam and Apollo is ancient history...

Nonsense.  It is alive and well in places like Amroc... and even here and
there within NASA.  All we need to do is harness it.  If we try to get to
Mars on a business-as-usual basis, we will NEVER get there!  The current
NASA/NASA-contractors combination is simply incapable of doing it at any
price the nation will support.  It's not clear that it's capable of doing
it at all, in fact; the extrapolated completion time for major projects is
perilously close to infinite already.  Reforming or bypassing the existing
organization is not merely nice, it's *necessary*.

>>                    [Apollo] developed -- but was
>>never allowed to *use* -- most of the hardware needed for more permanent
>>follow-ons.
>
>It would be more accurate to say that some NASA and contractor groups
>designed, but were not allowed to build or fly, follow-ons.  If Henry or
>anyone else is aware of built, unflown hardware besides CSMs, LMs and
>Saturn hardware, I would like to hear about it.

Quite a bit of it -- lunar rover technology, for example -- was developed
to the point of demonstration, although not flight-ready hardware.  And
remember that the later LMs, for example, were considerably more capable
than the early ones.

>... the program as pitched, designed and built logically
>culminated at Taurus Littrow.  (18 would have been nice, but not
>revolutionary.)

Ever seen the designs for the "LM Truck"?  Or other "Advanced Apollo"
hardware?  That was just the starting point.  The necessity to design
hardware to meet JFK's deadline did not prevent designing it to go farther
as well.  It's sad to see how many people have actually started to believe
the -- to put it bluntly -- lying bullshit about how Apollo was never meant
to be anything but a dead end.  The program as pitched, designed and built
logically led up to longer lunar expeditions and a permanent base; it
was designed that way from the start, and progressively cut back to the
sad state it finally died in.
--
$10 million equals 18 PM       |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
(Pentagon-Minutes). -Tom Neff  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 30 Jun 89 21:09:47 GMT
From: att!chinet!mcdchg!ddsw1!corpane!disk![e-mail]  (Lee wells)
Subject: life xtension

hello;

I am trying to start a mailing list about life extension /preventive medicine

stuff like the free radical theory of aging, how to *prevent* disease, immune

system stimulants, and nutritional information.  I think a couple of science

fiction writers have even said living in space may cause a slowing of the

aging effect, let me know what you think and send mail to the above address.


lee wells

[e-mail]

?future non-moderator of LIFE eXperiments?

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

End of SPACE Digest V9 #542
*******************