Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V09_5/V9_586.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #586

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 9 : Issue 586

Today's Topics:
           Voyager Status for 07/25/89 (Forwarded)
              Apollo XI landing
           Re: Re: Henry's (not Weinhards)
O'Brien returns to NASA as Assistant Deputy Administrator (Forwarded)
                Beyond Neptune
 Re: space news from June 19 AW&ST, and Apollo-anniversary editorial
               Re: SPACE Digest V9 #552
        Cheerleading (was Re: Henry's (not Weinhards))
         Catch-A-Planet (More than a Summary)
          Re: Space telescope - why only 1200 hours?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 25 Jul 89 23:34:59 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Voyager Status for 07/25/89 (Forwarded)


                    Voyager Status Report
                        July 25, 1989


     Images of Neptune sent back by Voyager 2 in recent days
show evidence of surprising variability in the large-scale
weather patterns of the planet.

     Two images taken 53 hours apart show the previously
observed small bright cloud breaking away from the edge of
the large dark oval that dominates Neptune's face.

     A time-lapse movie of sequential Voyager images shows
several small cloud features moving across the disc of the
planet as it rotates.  (One Neptune rotation is about 18
hours.)  The smallest detail visible in the images now is
about 1,700 kilometers (1,000 miles) across.  The time-lapse
images show Neptune's atmospheric circulation and are being
used by Voyager scientists to clock wind speeds on Neptune.



DISTANCE TO EARTH:  2,694,587,000 miles
DISTANCE TO NEPTUNE:  27,510,000 miles
HELIOCENTRIC VELOCITY:  42,188 mph

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

Date:        TUE 25 JUL 1989 15:44:00 CDT
From: Andy Edeburn <[e-mail]>
To: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Apollo XI landing

 Doug Pape (dbp@bcd-dyn!dsacg) writes:

>                        .......just at landing,
>something that looks like a hand holding a needle-like object appears
>in the upper right-hand side of the picture and comes down across the  w.
>window. What was that?  What did it do?

   What you saw was not an antenna but an indicator about five-feet
long that that signaled the pilot when to shut off the lower-stage
descent stage. When the probe hit the surface, the light in the cockpit
came on, the commander killed the engine, and the LEM glided the last
five feet to the surface.

| Andy Edeburn  {CC62@SDSUMUS}       | "It is always better to trust |
| Computing Center & Data Processing |   your dog, rather than your  |
| South Dakota State University      |     neighbors." - Walton      |

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

Date: 25 Jul 89 16:26:21 GMT
From: hp-pcd!hpcvlx![e-mail]  (Greg Goebel)
Subject: Re: Re: Henry's (not Weinhards)

/ hpcvlx:sci.space / [e-mail] (Greg Goebel) /  9:25 am  Jul 25, 1989 /

I am sympathetic to Eugene Miya.  The tenor of rec.space is in general
the most strident of any newsgroup I read.  It is not that some of the
complaints are not justified (to say they are or are not would require
both a level of knowledge and interest I do not possess) but that after
a while they simply become numbing, and it go in one ear and out the
other.

    +---------------------------------------------------------------------+
    | 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: 25 Jul 89 22:36:51 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: O'Brien returns to NASA as Assistant Deputy Administrator (Forwarded)

David W. Garrett
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                     July 25, 1989


RELEASE:  89-125

O'BRIEN RETURNS TO NASA AS ASSISTANT DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR

     NASA Administrator Richard H. Truly today announced that
John E. O'Brien will return to NASA as Assistant Deputy
Administrator, NASA Headquarters, effective July 30.

     In this position, O'Brien will support the agency's efforts
in formulating plans to implement future goals in space as
outlined by President Bush in his July 20 speech.  Also, he will
perform special analyses for the Administrator and be involved in
management problem solving.

     O'Brien returns to NASA from the Washington law firm of
Steptoe & Johnson where he specialized in defense and aerospace
legal issues.  He previously served as NASA General Counsel from
August 1985 to July 1988 after serving as Deputy General Counsel
since November 1981.  He joined NASA in 1962 as staff attorney at
NASA's Launch Operations Center, now the Kennedy Space Center.
Prior to that position, he had served as staff attorney at the
Navy General Counsels Office in Washington, D.C., from 1957 to
1962.  In 1970, he was appointed Chief Counsel of the Kennedy
Space Center and NASA Assistant General Counsel for Procurement
Matters in 1973.

     O'Brien received the NASA Exceptional Service Medal in 1976
and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal in 1988.  He was awarded
the Presidential Rank of Meritorious Executive in 1980 and the
Presidential Rank of Distinguished Executive in 1988.

     O'Brien received a BA degree from Niagara University and a
Juris Doctorate degree from Georgetown University.  During 1965-
66, he was a Princeton Fellow in Public Affairs at the Woodrow
Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton
University.  He is a member of the D.C. Bar, Virginia State Bar,
the Federal Bar Association, the American Bar Association, the
International Bar Association and the International Institute of
Space Law.

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

Date: 25 Jul 89 17:07:51 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Charles Daffinger)
Subject: Beyond Neptune


Ok, here's a far-fetched question..

My understanding is that after the Voyager II Neptune fly-by, Voyager
will head out of the solar system.  What possibilities are there for a
slingshot around Neptune to send the probe towards Pluto (if it could
catch the planet), or even slingshot it back towards the planets it had
already visited for yet another look, eventually bringing it towards
Earth?  Let's get a little bit more carried away and say that we could
capture the probe for analysis of anything which may have been carried
back from encounters with the distant planets, such as microscopic dust
from the outer planets.

How possible would such a maneuver be?  Are we lacking too much
information on the planets to be able to calculate the trajectories?

Alternatively, if Voyager II heads out of the solar system, how much
longer will we be able to maintain radio contact?  Will the probe be
sending back information at that time, or will it be simply shut off
and left to drift?


-charles

--
Charles Daffinger  >Take me to the river, Drop me in the water<  [phone]
[e-mail]              {pur-ee,rutgers,pyramid,ames}!iuvax!cdaf
Home of the Whitewater mailing list:    [e-mail]

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

Date: 24 Jul 89 16:06:38 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!etive![e-mail]  (Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: space news from June 19 AW&ST, and Apollo-anniversary editorial

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Tom Neff) writes:
>The UK will be sending a cosmonaut up in 1991 (oooh, where are you Eric
>Blair!), they are not paying in SFr and although, with 13,000
>applicants[!], HMG has the luxury of making an acquaintance with Russian
>a requirement, I don't believe the Soviets themselves impose it on
>visitors.

NO, No, No! HMG has nothing whatever to do with the sending
of a UK cosmonaut to Mir.

They have done everything they can to dismantle any British
involvment with manned spaceflight as being "too expensive"
and "a joyride at the taxpayer's expense".

A group of companies have research they are wanting done in
orbit, and with the extra funding raised by sponsorship,
advertising and sales of TV rights, they will buy the launch
they need from anyone who is selling. The only sellers so far
are the Soviets.

Please do not give any credit to the myopic penny-pinchers
who seem to be doing their best to stamp out research and
education in the UK.
    Bob.

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

Date:         Tue, 25 Jul 89 13:58:01 PDT
From: Craig Cholar <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Re: SPACE Digest V9 #552


>> This one I've wondered about for 20 years.  There is the famous view
>> of the moon's surface as the Eagle was landing.  I suppose the
>> pictures were looking out through the LEM's window.  Just at landing,
>> something that looks like a hand holding a needle-like object appears in
>> the upper right-hand side of the picture and comes down across the window.
>> What was that?  What did it do?
>>
>
>I believe that is the shadow of the antenna on top of the LEM on
>the lunar surface.  The needle like object is the antenna, and the
>"hand" is the base of the antenna.

Well, that's a good guess, but I think I have the real solution...

Below each landing pad of the LEM there were long, fragile probes with
sensors mounted at the tip.  When the lunar surface was first touched
by one of the probes a console light in the LEM would turn on so the
the astronauts would know they were just about to land on the surface.
In the recording of the Apollo 11 landing one can hear an astronaut
(either Armstrong or Aldrin, I'm not sure which) say "Contact Light";
this is when the LEM first actually touched the surface of the moon, so
technically these are the very first words spoken by men on another
world.  Why am I mentioning this?  Because the shadow of one of landing
legs (with the probe dangling beneath it) is the shadow seen coming down
the screen in the landing film.  The 'hand' is the wide foot pad at the
base of the leg.

>There is lots of footage looking backward as a stage separates and
>falls away.  The cameras that took these shots were mounted in other
>stages that were eventually discarded as well.  How were the pictures
>from those cameras retrieved? ...

I don't know how those fantastic 'rear-view-mirror' shots of the Saturn
stages separating were done, either.  I've been wondering about that
for a long time, too.

Craig Cholar, 3432P@NAVPGS

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

Date: 26 Jul 89 06:22:26 GMT
From: agate![e-mail]  (William Baxter)
Subject: Cheerleading (was Re: Henry's (not Weinhards))

>   Neff
>>  Miya
>>> Neff

In article <[e-mail]>, tneff@bfmny0 (Tom Neff) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (The Miya-creature) emerges
>from the NAS-cave and writes:
>>Neff writes:

>>>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!

>>Sounds great.  Don't see a question mark.

>That's because I'm cheerleading more than I'm honestly questioning.

And you're admitting it!  What an important revelation!  Why don't you
spare us the cheerleading noise and do some honest questioning.

William Baxter

ARPA: web@{garnet,brahms,math}.Berkeley.EDU
UUCP: {sun,dual,decwrl,decvax,hplabs,...}!ucbvax!garnet!web

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

Date: 25 Jul 89 00:41:47 GMT
From: pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!ohstpy![e-mail]
Subject: Catch-A-Planet (More than a Summary)


It looks like such an interesting topic as looking for planets
around other stars died out. It's a shame. Let me summarize:

Someone's original question was about the path described by a
nearby star due to the gravitational influence of a planet.

The right answer, given by several people, was that it would be
some sort of wobble around the path described by the center of
mass of the system.

Just from memory, I made a summary of the methods to detect a
planet: spectroscopy, infrared photometry, astrometry, and
even by detecting intelligent life living on a planet. After
all, there is a lot of serious groups looking for it, in
several countries. I did not want to start an argument about
this, but I thought it was a perfectly legal method.

What I did not understand is what religion has to do with
this, as someone pointed out. I thought it was radioastronomy.
Anyway, I assumed that everybody was half-joking.

On the interesting side we have some points that can be/have
been made:

1. How  hot should be an star not to allow life to develop on
its planetary system?

2. Can a planetary system form in a very hot star?

3. Do we ALREADY have the techniques to detect other planets?
Anita Cochran (sp?) said we are very close to it, at least
from spectroscopy. Can anyone provide more updates?

4. HIPPARCOS is an astrometric satellite designed to measure
high precision parallaxes. Will it be possible to look for
planets using this satellite?

   ...and so on. So there we go. Post your answers or mail
them to me and I'll summarize. If anyone is interested...

Have a nice day, you humans.

Pedro

Pedro @ ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.EDU
BITNET: Pedro @ ohstpy.bitnet

-----------------------------------------------------------------
"I was very concerned about my significance in the Universe until
I found out that each time I use my deodorant I enlarge the
ozone hole" (R.Fontanarrosa, 1987).
-----------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: 25 Jul 89 14:59:39 GMT
From: stsci![e-mail]  (Jim Berry)
Subject: Re: Space telescope - why only 1200 hours?

From article <[e-mail]>, by [e-mail] (Tom Neff):
> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Brian Yamauchi) writes:
>>Why does [HST] really need to be LEO?  Why not put it in a higher orbit?

> HST is a very heavy payload designed to be serviced by the Shuttle, which
> cannot visit orbits higher than about 300nm under any circumstances.  Hence
> it lives in LEO.  Welcome to the joys of "manned presence in space."

Actually, HST is a very LIGHT payload (it's mostly empty space, after all)
and could be boosted fairly high (still LEO, though).  The problem is that
a 'service' flight would then require that the shuttle take off empty since
any normal payloads would make it too heavy to get up to HST, so we can't
even have a high low Earth orbit.

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Berry                         | UUCP:{arizona,decvax,hao}!noao!stsci!berry
Space Telescope Science Institute | ARPA:   [e-mail]
Baltimore, Md. 21218              | SPAM:   SCIVAX::BERRY, KEPLER::BERRY

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

End of SPACE Digest V9 #586
*******************