Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V09_5/V9_581.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #581

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 9 : Issue 581

Today's Topics:
            George Koopman is Dead
      Re: Does this proprosal make sense ? (was RE: SPACE QUEST)
               Re: SPACE Digest V9 #549
            Re: Re: Impossible Space Goals
 Re: space news from June 19 AW&ST, and Apollo-anniversary editorial
               Re: latest Quayle gaffe
 Re: space news from June 19 AW&ST, and Apollo-anniversary editorial
   Re: space news from June 19 AW&ST, and Apollo-anniversary edito
        Re: Catch-A-Planet (was:Re:Curiosity)
        Re: Catch-A-Planet (was:Re:Curiosity)
           Re: It was 20 years ago today...
         Re: Magellan Status for 07/17/89 (Forwarded)
              Re: Neil Armstrong
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 23 Jul 89 01:05:53 GMT
From: att!mtuxo![e-mail]  (54317-T.EBERSOLE)
Subject: George Koopman is Dead


The following Associated Press bulletin was printed locally on Saturday, 7/22:

George Koopman, business executive

Palmdale, Calif.   Entrepreneur George A. Koopman, whose business
ventures ranged from making special effects for the hit movie
"The Blues Brothers" to co-founding a commercial rocket company,
died in a car accident. He was 45.

The Mailbu resident, who wanted his American Rocket Co. to carry
small commercial payloads into sub-orbital space, was pronounced dead
Wednesday morning (7/19/1989) after his car struck a dirt embankment
and flipped over.

He was on his way to Edwards Air Force Base to watch a test of a
rocket engine, said Jim Bennett, co-founder of the company.

Before helping found American Rocket in 1985, Koopman was involved
in a variety of enterprises, including producing the special effects
for "The Blues Brothers," the 1980 movie starring Dan Aykroyd and
John Belushi. He also headed a small defense contracting company
at one time.

===================================================================

I've heard Koopman speak a couple of times. He always seemed very
committed to AmRoc, very energetic, very practical about what steps
would be necessary for successful commercialization of space. My
impression is that he was responsible for acquiring most of the
financing of AmRoc. I hope that their funding won't dry up this
close to their objective, and in the future. Perhaps they would
appreciate words of encouragement from net.folk.

====================================================================

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

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

Date: 24 Jul 89 02:15:28 GMT
From: watmath![e-mail]  (Fred Walter)
Subject: Re: Does this proprosal make sense ? (was RE: SPACE QUEST)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Daniel Pezely) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Fred Walter) writes:
>>The work would be done by the members; all money raised would be put back
>>into the organization to better the facilities/do R&D/etc.

>I was hoping that people who could afford to spend their ?time? on something
>such as this, would do just that.

Someway of connecting these people together has to exist... or come into
existance. What sort of information does the existing space societies
collect on its members ? Do these space societies have mailouts to their
members that one could 'piggyback' on ? (By 'piggyback' I mean add a page or
two to the mailout describing the idea and asking for any needed info).

>we could have built massive space stations ten years ago with existing
>technology and have space for a population of 30,000.  That should be
>more true today.

Hmmmm. How much would such a station cost ? How much of that estimated cost
would be for labour/brain power (designing/etc) and how much for materials ?
If you had 30,000 people who were willing to try and build their own
station, how much would it cost/how long would it take ?

Are there any books/papers out there that look at these questions and try
to answer them ?

    fred

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

Date: Sun, 23 Jul 1989 23:26-EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V9 #549

Space BBS's: You forgot the National Space Society BBS run by Beverly
Freed here in Pittsburgh!!!

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

Date: 23 Jul 89 18:04:47 GMT
From: hp-pcd!hpcvlx![e-mail]  (Greg Goebel)
Subject: Re: Re: Impossible Space Goals

>
> Damn.  David's completely correct and I am a complete fool to have
> forgotten the balsa breakaways.  I remember being fascinated by the
> idea of WOOD on the moon at the time!
>
> Tom Neff
>

I read an article on Pegasus in MECHANICAL ENGINEERING and found out to
my surprise that the wings were overlaid with a layer of cork -- it burns
off at high velocity.

    +---------------------------------------------------------------------+
    | Greg Goebel                                                         |
    | Hewlett-Packard CWO / 1000 NE Circle Boulevard / Corvallis OR 97330 |
    | [phone]                                                      |
    | INTERNET: cwo_online@hp-pcd                                         |
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------------------------------

Date: 23 Jul 89 21:54:43 GMT
From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: space news from June 19 AW&ST, and Apollo-anniversary editorial

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jonathan Patrick Leech) writes:
>>(Voyager) is an Apollo-era leftover with *NO* planned followup.
>
>    What are Galileo and Cassini, chopped liver?

I hope not, they'll never meet Shuttle safety specs that way... :-)

The two of them together are half a followup.  Assuming Cassini ever gets
off the ground, that is.  Galileo at least seems pretty definite, assuming
it works -- there is no backup, and that half-spinning design gives me the
creeps.  But what about the other half?  Where are the Uranus and Neptune
missions?  (Answer:  nowhere, not even on paper.)  Where is the Pluto mission?
(Answer:  abandoned and forgotten.)  For that matter, Galileo has been
almost-ready-to-fly for a decade now -- where is *its* followup?  (Answer:
there isn't one.)

I plead guilty to slight exaggeration for rhetorical purposes, but only
slight.  As I've said before, one major problem with the US planetary
program -- what's left of it -- is its complete lack of any systematic
plan for future missions.  What comes after Cassini?  "We'll study that
when the time comes."
--
1961-1969: 8 years of Apollo.  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
1969-1989: 20 years of nothing.| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 23 Jul 89 18:10:37 GMT
From: hp-pcd!hpcvlx![e-mail]  (Greg Goebel)
Subject: Re: latest Quayle gaffe

>
> Seriously, though, Quale looks to be one of those people whose
> tongue is disengaged from his brain.  Gerald Ford is another.
> It doesn't mean the man is an idiot.  You're right, he *does*
> seem to be doing a good job as chairman of the NSC.
>

I don't think Quayle could be too stupid and reach the position he has,
and besides, he's got the entire world listening to every word he says,
looking for a gaffe.  (Some news magazine was making fun of him for
holding an RPG rocket launcher backwards ... big deal.  That only
would've been remarkable if it had been loaded.)

Ronald Reagan made gaffes all the time -- "The bombing starts in five
minutes!" sticks out -- and all it ever did for him was make him more
popular.  People could identify with him ...

    +---------------------------------------------------------------------+
    | Greg Goebel                                                         |
    | Hewlett-Packard CWO / 1000 NE Circle Boulevard / Corvallis OR 97330 |
    | [phone]                                                      |
    | INTERNET: cwo_online@hp-pcd                                         |
    | HP DESK:  CWO ONLINE / HP3900 / 20                                  |
    +---------------------------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: 24 Jul 89 02:56:30 GMT
From: bfmny0![e-mail]  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: space news from June 19 AW&ST, and Apollo-anniversary editorial

I treasure Henry's acerbity, and would foot race him any day in the NASA
critic dept., but I do think that in "stretching things to make a point"
it is easy to cross the line into silliness, and this does no-one (nor
the debate) any good.  "20 years of nothing" is kind of an atrocious
misstatement.  "25 years of not enough, and 15 years of nothing useful"
might be more on the mark.  That is if you count things from the
planning stage.  If you are satisfied with the years in which things
come to fruition (clearly NASA has been) then the program's still
muddling along -- just you watch, Neptune will rival Saturn for awesome
images.  And HST, delayed as it is, will wow us within weeks of
activation.

What's missing is getting down and dirty on the inner planets, in my
view.  That's where the excitement lies.  IMAX on a sample return and
rover mission!  How bout it!

I just frankly think the other stuff, the "our generation is GOING"
horse****, is just another regrettable 70's artifact of overenthusiasm,
like Rolfing and est.  Columbus's generation didn't "GO" either, in
numbers any more significant than our space specialists have gone.  That
analogy is fairly flawed so I won't push it.  :-)
--
"My God, Thiokol, when do you     \\    Tom Neff
want me to launch -- next April?"  \\    uunet!bfmny0!tneff

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

Date: 24 Jul 89 13:53:36 GMT
From: pilchuck!seahcx!phred![e-mail]  (Pete Jarvis)
Subject: Re: space news from June 19 AW&ST, and Apollo-anniversary edito

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (JOHN BRIDGE) writes:
>
>     Is this guy for real?  Whew!

Yes he is, but I wish he would get his dates right! ......Peter

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

Date: 24 Jul 89 18:54:27 GMT
From: tekbspa!optilink![e-mail]  (Clayton Cramer)
Subject: Re: Catch-A-Planet (was:Re:Curiosity)

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Ken Arromdee) writes:
# # Off-the-wall observation here, which probably belongs in
# # talk.religion.newage:  the Dogon tribe, among others in Africa, have rather
# # precise astronomical information on the period of Sirius B, the white
# # dwarf companion of Sirius.  It can't be seen by the naked eye (by a long
# # shot), yet this knowledge is thousands of years old.  When asked how they
# # know this, the shamans answer that they just speak to the inhabitants of
# # a planet orbiting around there.  Dialogs with the "Sirius beings" are
# # very old, dating to at least pre-pyramid Egypt.
#
# Sigh.  I suppose this _should_ belong in sci.skeptic, if that group ever
# gets created.  The people in question had ample contact with Europeans to
# have gotten the information.

I would wonder what they mean by "precise astronomical information".
If you ask the question right, you can give all the information to
the interviewee, and never realize it.

# If you could give me a source for your claims that dialogs date to "pre-pyramid
# Egypt", I'd like to see it.
# --
# Kenneth Arromdee (UUCP: ....!jhunix!ins_akaa; BITNET: g49i0188@jhuvm;

Sort of related subject.

Some of the very oldest Egyptian writings refer to Sirius as being
red -- which is clearly isn't.  I've seen the claim made that Sirius
B may have been much larger and red giant in the past -- but not
recently enough for the Egyptians to have seen Sirius as red, without
a significant rewrite of astrophysics.

Comments?

--
Clayton E. Cramer {pyramid,pixar,tekbspa}!optilink!cramer
Deng Xiaoping: why every home needs a rifle.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer?  You must be kidding!  No company would hold opinions like mine!

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

Date: 24 Jul 89 14:07:44 GMT
From: att!chinet![e-mail]  (Jack Schmidling)
Subject: Re: Catch-A-Planet (was:Re:Curiosity)


agiant/e4

Ref: Article 4892 (2 more) in sci.astro:
From: [e-mail] (J.A. Fegan)
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space
Subject: Re: Catch-A-Planet (was:Re:Curiosity)

Preacher says:

>ok so what's wrong with living next to a blue-white giant?

Arf says:

It's sort of like a "changing neighborhood"; really drives
down property values.  A normal, white sequence star is much
to be preferred.  But nothing quite comes close to having a
Black hole for a neighbor.

The Amateur Radio Forum (arf)

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

Date: 22 Jul 89 00:42:35 GMT
From: attcan!ncrcan!ziebmef![e-mail]  (Matthew Francey)
Subject: Re: It was 20 years ago today...

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Todd) writes:
>
> Need I say anymore?

  You may have said too much.

  Sigh.  I can't for the life of me figure out where the celebratory mood
in the media and the like came from.  While watching the replay of the Great
Event, I could barely hold back a wail of despair when comparing what the US
space program once was (or might have been (or should have been)) to what it
is today.
--
Name: Matthew Francey             Address: N43o34'13.5" W79o34'33.3" 86m
[e-mail]          uunet!utgpu!{ontmoh!moore,ncrcan}!ziebmef!mdf

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

Date: 24 Jul 89 22:35:19 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (RAMontante)
Subject: Re: Magellan Status for 07/17/89 (Forwarded)

<[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Peter G. Ford) :
->spinning so fast that they fly apart, there are auxiliary rockets on
->Magellan that are fired from time to time to give the spacecraft a
->strong twist in the opposite direction, thereby allowing the wheels to
->be spun down and "desaturated".

[e-mail] (Tom Neff) <[e-mail]> :
-
-Jeez I hate to disagree with someone on the Project, but wouldn't the
-thruster burns be twisting the spacecraft in the SAME direction as the
-momentum wheels' accumulated spin, rather than in the OPPOSITE
-direction?  If you add more opposite torque you'd have to spin the
-wheels even faster to compensate.  By tweaking in the same direction,
-you allow[require] spindown of the wheels to compensate.

No, think of it this way --- You can stop the spacecraft's spin by
transferring it's angular momentum to the momentum wheel(s).  If the
craft is spinning in the same direction as the wheel, then its angular
momentum has the same sign, so transferring the ang. momentum to the
wheel increases the wheel's spin.

So use the thrusters to give the craft a spin OPPOSITE to the wheel's
spin.  Then transfer this spin (ang. momentum) to the wheels,
incidentally causing the craft to stop spinning again.  The momentum
has the opposite sign to that of the wheel, so the transfer decreases
the net momentum, and hence the spin, of the momentum wheel.


The "opposite torque <=> spin wheels even faster to compensate" argument
would be true IF the torque came from the wheels, but it's coming from
an outside source.  The outside source, thrusters, apply a counter
torque, which just happens to be transmitted through the spacecraft
itself as an intermediary.

Yet another view:  imagine "hitting the brakes" on the momentum wheels.
This will completely stop the wheels, *relative to the spacecraft*, and
the craft will begin spinning in the same directions that the wheels
were (albeit slower).  Now fire up the thrusters to kill this spin.

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

Date: 25 Jul 89 00:16:16 GMT
From: concertina![e-mail]  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Neil Armstrong

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Fred Sabernick) writes:
>
> There is a humorous but rather unflattering story about Neil Armstrong in
> Chuck Yeager's autobiography _Yeager_. The gist of the story is that
> [...Neil does a touch and go on a dry lake and gets stuck in the mud...]

Another story was that he attempted to taxi a Century-series fighter
all the way to the hangar after shutting down the engine.  The only
problem was that the hydraulic system ran off the engine, and there
was only enough pressure to steer into position...but not enough to
operate the brakes.  (And they *told* him not to try it.)

On the other hand, he doesn't seem to have been the type to make a
given mistake more than once.

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

End of SPACE Digest V9 #581
*******************