Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V09_6/V9_614.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #614

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 9 : Issue 614

Today's Topics:
      Time Urgent: Voyager on TV networks and satellites
           Circumstances of Koopman's death
        Re: What is the Solar Impact Mission?
    Re: Does this proposal make sense? (Was: Space Quest)
    Voyager 2/Neptune encounter background broadcasts (Forwarded)
             Re: Golfball flight
 Re: space news from June 19 AW&ST, and Apollo-anniversary editorial
               Golfball flight
          Re: Space telescope - why only 1200 hours?
              Re: Eggs & baskets
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Tue, 22 Aug 89 16:55 CDT
From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey <[e-mail]>
Subject:  Time Urgent: Voyager on TV networks and satellites
Original_To:  SPACE

Here's news from NASA that just popped up on the CANOPUS bulletin board (God
bless Bill Taylor and the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics).
It gives the times and dates for NBC, CNN, and PBS coverage of the Voyager
thing.

By now all readers of Space Digest/sci.space/whatever should be aware that you
can get the direct feed on any satellite dish.  The more enterprising ones
(such as myself in Chicago and Pat Reiff in Houston) have persuaded their local
museums or universities to open their doors so the public can look over JPL's
shoulders this week as Neptune looms.  I've been plugging this thing on local
talk shows, saying that it's like standing on the deck of the *Santa Maria* as
the New World appears on the horizon...

Just in case you missed it, the satellite information is:

    GE Satcom F2R                    Aurora 1
    Transponder 13                   Transponder 6
    72 W. Long.                     143 W. Long.
    3960 MHz, vert. polar.           3820 MHz, hor. polar.

Show this to a  pal who has a satellite dish, and say you'll drop over Thursday
night.  If you don't know anyone with a dish, bake some brownies and get a cold
sixpack of beer.  Then drive around the suburbs of your town looking for
dishes.  Offer to trade brownies and beer for a glimpse of Voyager.

If your time is limited, the best thing to do is watch or tape the daily press
conferences at 10 AM Pacific Daylight Time (scheduled to last 90 minutes).
Friday's and Saturday's should have particularly spectacular news.  Perhaps the
best thing of all to tape is the Final Science Summary press conference on
Tuesday the 29th at 10 AM PDT.

I'd be interested to know (by e-mail, please) how you fare if you try any of
this.

Oh, yeah.  Chicago-area people should come to Scitech in Naperville
([phone]), Harper College, Cernan Earth and Space Center, Adler
Planetarium, or Governor State University to see Neptunian video.
==========================================================================
TV Schedule for the Voyager Neptune Encounter - can890816.txt - 8/22/89

HERE'S THE BROADCAST SCHEDULE FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS EVENTS ON NASA
SELECT TV.  ALL TIMES ARE EASTERN.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 21 THROUGH FRIDAY, AUGUST 25...........

DAILY COMPREHENSIVE COVERAGE OF THE VOYAGER 2 ENCOUNTER WITH
NEPTUNE CONTINUES TODAY WITH HOURLY ON-SITE REPORTS AND NEWS
BRIEFINGS FROM THE JET PROPULSION LABORATORY IN PASADENA,
CALIFORNIA.  COVERAGE WILL RUN FROM 12 NOON TO 8:30 P.M. WITH
EXTENDED COVERAGE ON AUGUST 24.  TRANSPONDER 13 ON SATCOM F2R AND
TRANSPONDER 21 ON AURORA 1.

ALL EVENTS AND TIMES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE.

Non-Satellite TV:

TV viewers can see the first pictures of Voyager's flyby of
Neptune when NBC airs a special bulletin at 4 a.m. EDT Friday.
That's when the first images are expected to reach Earth from the
spacecraft.  The network will run a longer report on "Sunrise"
from 6 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. EDT.

*  CNN has 10-minute live reports daily from JPL at 3 p.m.,
5 p.m., 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. EDT.  Other reports Friday:  1:30 a.m.
and 5:30 a.m. EDT.  On Saturday, at 8 a.m. EDT, CNN anchor Lou
Waters hosts an hourlong special, "Voyager: The Final Encounter."

*  PBS plans coverage from between midnight Thursday and
7 a.m. EDT Friday.
=====================================================================

                      ______meson   Bill Higgins
                   _-~
     ____________-~______neutrino   Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
   -   -         ~-_
 /       \          ~----- proton   Bitnet: [e-mail]
 |       |
 \       /                          SPAN/Hepnet/Physnet: 43011::HIGGINS
   -   -
     ~                              Internet: [e-mail]

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

Date: Tue, 1 Aug 89 14:42:50 PDT
From: mordor!rutgers!pnet01.cts.com![e-mail] (Jim Bowery)
To: hplabs!hp-sde!hp-sdd!crash![e-mail]
Subject: Circumstances of Koopman's death

Here are some of the circumstances of George Koopman's death:

After years of being harrassed by NASA, Koopman began going public
with criticism of NASA's attempts to suppress AMROC.  HR2674 was
introduced and Koopman was a leading industrial advocate of this
bill which would force NASA to abide by presidential policy mandating
that NASA purchase all launch services, where feasible, from the
private sector -- a bill which NASA has fought uncompromisingly.
NASA engages in a token gesture of support of AMROC by supplying
them with some hydrogen peroxide, a gesture that Koopman rewards
with praise of NASA's stepping in the right direction.  On the
eve of the 20th anniversary of Apollo 11, one month before the first
launch of an AMROC vehicle, George Koopman dies on his way to a
test firing at Edwards AFB in a single car accident with no witnesses.
He is pronounced dead at the scene.  I'm not sure what the status
is of AMROC's lawsuit against NASA after all this.

Has anyone seen a police report?  Did the coroner's report do
thorough testing for psychoactive substances?

Basically, I want to see the possibility of foul play eliminated.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Bowery    Phone: [phone]
PO Box 1981                  Join the Mark Hopkins Society!
La Jolla, CA 92038   (A member of the Mark Hopkins family of organizations.)

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01![e-mail]
INET: [e-mail]

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

Date: 4 Aug 89 17:28:07 GMT
From: rochester![e-mail]  (Paul Dietz)
Subject: Re: What is the Solar Impact Mission?

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Tom Neff) writes:
>If you can use a Venus gravity assist to do a Mercury flyby, I bet you
>could use it to do a Solar re-entry.

I don't think so.  However, I have read of a proposal to use very high
speed aeromaneuvering in the atmosphere of Venus to swing a spacecraft
onto a sun-grazing trajectory.  Firing a rocket at perihelion on such
a trajectory could send a probe into the outer solar system at up to
100 km/s.

The lowest delta-V way to reach the sun, gravity assist not considered,
is to send a probe *away* from the sun on a highly eccentric orbit, then
kill its velocity at apohelion.  But this is very time consuming.

    Paul F. Dietz
    [e-mail]

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

Date: 3 Aug 89 19:52:02 GMT
From: att!mcdchg!ddsw1!corpane![e-mail]  (John Sparks)
Subject: Re: Does this proposal make sense? (Was: Space Quest)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Steve Rehrauer)
writes:

 >    3.  Establish a national lottery.  Let it be known that the proceeds
 >        will go towards establishing a permanent manned American base on
 >        the moon.  Let the annual Grand Prize be a night on the moon with
 >        your choice of Don Johnson or Vanna White <*>, to be collected only
 >        when the base is complete.  (<*> Or pick your generic sex-symbol-
 >        of-the-year)

You know this isn't a bad idea. Sure, the spend the night on the moon is
silliness, but a national lottery is not a bad idea. People would have the
chance to make money and NASA would make bundles. Kinda like having a space tax
but making it voluntary with a chance on a huge return.

And if a national lottery is not legal, then how about 50 state space lotteries
that all donate to the space fund?

We just got a state lottery legallized here in KY, it took off like wildfire.
--
John Sparks   |  {rutgers|uunet}!ukma!corpane!sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps
|||||||||||||||          [e-mail]         | 502/968-5401 thru -5406
As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error.

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

Date: 4 Aug 89 21:03:24 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Voyager 2/Neptune encounter background broadcasts (Forwarded)

Charles Redmond
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.               August 4, 1989

N89-58

EDITORS NOTE:  VOYAGER 2/NEPTUNE ENCOUNTER BACKGROUND BROADCASTS


     On August 7 and August 14, NASA Select television will
transmit background information on the Voyager 2 Neptune
encounter.  The schedule is:



 Noon - 12:45 pm EDT   Dr. Ed Stone, Voyager Project Scientist,
                       will host a pre-encounter talk entitled,
                       "Voyager 2's Encounter with Neptune"

12:50 -  1:20 pm EDT   "Voyager Encounter Highlights" tape

 1:30 -  2:30 pm EDT   Replay of Voyager images.
                      (Length of replay is unknown at this time.)


     Media representatives can downlink the broadcast from NASA
Select television, Satcom F2R, transponder 13, C-band, located at
72 degrees W. longitude, 3960.0 MHz, vertical polarization, 6.8
MHz audio.

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

Date: 4 Aug 89 16:44:19 GMT
From: prism![e-mail]  (Matthew DeLuca)
Subject: Re: Golfball flight

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] ("DENVER BRAUGHLER") writes:

>Okay, would someone please tell me the gravitional acceleration on the moon?

From memory, about 1.7 m/sec

>    I want to figure out how far a mass traveling at 30 m/s (slow enough?)
>at an initial 45^ trajectory (15 m/s rise + 15 m/s horizontal) will travel
>before landing.  (On *earth* in a vacuum that would be about a 3 second flight
>[1.5 s up and 1.5 s down] X 15 m/s  = 45 meters, which seems less than a fourth
>what pros get in air.  Hmm.  Maybe I'd better let someone else do the
>computations too. I might not be impartial enough.  But that distance wouldn't
>be too bad for someone in a space suit, would it?)

Um, a 30 m/sec velocity at 45 degrees gives you 21.2 m/sec up and 21.2 m/sec
horizontal.

Using those figures:

     v=at
  21.2=(1.7)t
     t=12.5 sec

It's round trip (up and down), which gives a time in the (air?) of 25 seconds.

  21.2 m/sec * 25 sec = 530 meters.

At a guess, though, I'd say a golf ball goes a good bit faster, say, 60
meters per second.  (Any golfers out there?).  Running that number through
gives a distance of 2120 meters...assuming the surface of the moon is flat,
which it's not.

Normally, I don't speak for Tech, and they don't speak for me, but these
numbers are a special case: all errors in math and formulae are theirs.  :-)

>I'm not a golfer either.


--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Matthew DeLuca                      :
Georgia Institute of Technology     :          [This space for rent]
ARPA: [e-mail]      :
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: 5 Aug 89 00:29:52 GMT
From: bfmny0![e-mail]  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: space news from June 19 AW&ST, and Apollo-anniversary editorial

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Matthew Francey) writes:
>  What upsets me most is that all these probes we are launching seem to be
>completely unique.  Has no one considered the benefits of making a nice
>standard space probe that can do Everything?   Take for example, Galileo.
>I have no solid information on this machine, but I know it does go into
>orbit around Jupiter and does have at least 1 atmospheric probe... and that
>the Cassini mission will do much the same thing... which makes me think that
>perhaps instead of spending yet another huge sum on Yet Another Unique
>Space Probe, just build another Galileo (or 10) and fire it off to Saturn...
>Is this just too radical, or what?

Not at all.  The Mariner Mark II spacecraft is supposed to be a modular
chassis onto which all sorts of mission specific hardware can be attached.
NASA and JPL want to stop reinventing the wheel as much as anyone.

It's just awfully tough to make progress on these things when you're
fighting for table scraps...



--
"We walked on the moon --    ((    Tom Neff
    you be polite"         ))     [e-mail]

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

Date: 4 Aug 89 10:18:00 EDT
From: "DENVER BRAUGHLER" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Golfball flight
To: "space" <[e-mail]>

>Golfballs, like javelins and footballs, are gliders.  They actually travel many
>times farther in air than in vaccuum, thanks to aerodynamic lift effects that
>stretch their flight.
>
>The astronaut who teed off on the moon said (as I recall) that his ball(s)
>didn't go very far.

    No, maybe just about a half kilometer?  You're quite right if gravity
remains the same.  But the gravity on the moon is a LOT less than on earth.

Okay, would someone please tell me the gravitional acceleration on the moon?

    I want to figure out how far a mass traveling at 30 m/s (slow enough?)
at an initial 45^ trajectory (15 m/s rise + 15 m/s horizontal) will travel
before landing.  (On *earth* in a vacuum that would be about a 3 second flight
[1.5 s up and 1.5 s down] X 15 m/s  = 45 meters, which seems less than a fourth
what pros get in air.  Hmm.  Maybe I'd better let someone else do the
computations too. I might not be impartial enough.  But that distance wouldn't
be too bad for someone in a space suit, would it?)

I'm not a golfer either.

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

Date: 4 Aug 89 15:57:20 GMT
From: uakari.primate.wisc.edu!larry![e-mail]  (Jeffrey W Percival)
Subject: Re: Space telescope - why only 1200 hours?

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Tom Neff) writes:
>>Welcome to the joys of "manned presence in space."
>Name an unmanned system, except Energia, that could do better for a payload
>that big.


Ah, but maybe without the emphasis on manned shuttles, we could have
named such a thing.

Isn't that the point?
--
Jeff Percival ([e-mail])

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

Date: 4 Aug 89 21:22:40 GMT
From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Eggs & baskets

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Tom Neff) writes:
> 3. Whether a few get the privilege of living outside the Earth's
>eco- and socio-sphere or not, we still have to solve our problems down
>here.  Arguing pup tent architectures while the kitchen's on fire is
>not a rational strategy.

Ferdinand VI of Castile had many problems, including a few environmental
problems.  Some of them never were solved satisfactorily.  He and his
problems are long forgotten.  Oddly enough, hundreds of millions of people
remember and honor his wife Isabella.  Be careful about declaring long-term
strategies irrational.
--
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]

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

End of SPACE Digest V9 #614
*******************