Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V10_1/V10_106.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #106

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 10 : Issue 106

Today's Topics:
               Re: Flame On!!!
         Re: What to do with the $30 billion
           Re: space news from Aug 14 AW&ST
          Rep. ROBERT ROE -- looking for information
          Re: Risk of NOT launching Galileo
            Re: NASA and face data
                 Flame On!!!
           Re: Space Station Strangles NASP
       Re: Shuttle to HEO or the Moon (was Re: Saturn V & F-1)
     Astronauts named for five space shuttle missions (Forwarded)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 28 Sep 89 23:44:28 GMT
From: rochester![e-mail]  (Paul Dietz)
Subject: Re: Flame On!!!

In article <28SEP89.11863199.0057.MUSIC@SDSUMUS> [e-mail] (Andy Edeburn) writes:

>(2.) Fears of Infecting the Jovian System.
>
>   How many of you people claim to be scientists? How many of you took
>basic college biology or microbiology courses? Wake up! Most bacteria
>or viruses do not survive in temperatures above 130 degress Celsius or
>below -50 degrees Celsius. Seeing how temperatures in the vacuum go
>farther beyond either of these two extremes, your fears of microbial
>infection at Jupiter seem pretty ridiculous, don't you think?

Do YOU claim to be a scientist?  Many (all?) bacteria and viruses can
survive cooling to cryogenic temperatures -- they just can't
metabolize or replicate until thawed, rehydrated and placed in a more
congenial environment.  Hell, even mammalian cells can survive
freezing, if properly protected (consider human embryoes frozen to
liquid nitrogen temperatures).

Do think before flaming, ok?

    Paul F. Dietz
    [e-mail]

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

Date: 28 Sep 89 22:14:27 GMT
From: prism![e-mail]  (SCHREIBER, O. A.)
Subject: Re: What to do with the $30 billion

What is the story about the meteorites findings in Antartica? I would
like to know more about that. Thanks for the info.

Olivier Schreiber [phone], Office of Computing Services
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp: ...!{allegra,amd,hplabs,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!prism!ccsupos
ARPA: [e-mail]
--
Olivier Schreiber [phone], Office of Computing Services
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp: ...!{allegra,amd,hplabs,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!prism!ccsupos
ARPA: [e-mail]

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

Date: 28 Sep 89 20:25:14 GMT
From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: space news from Aug 14 AW&ST

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Nick Watkins) writes:
>>  This bird is at a lower
>> altitude than the Lacrosse launched last year, and was deployed using the
>> arm, which Lacrosse wasn't.
>
>Article in fact says it was other way round.

I got the altitude right but the arm wrong -- just misread the paragraph.

>OK. So I'm ignorant. Who is D.D. Harriman?

D.D. Harriman was the fictitious protagonist of Robert A Heinlein's classic
story "The Man Who Sold The Moon" -- a Carnegie-style robber-baron plutocrat
who founded commercial spaceflight.

> Meanwhile, I was beginning to
>believe that Henry's summaries might be the on-line version of AW&ST
>mentioned in "2010"...

Afraid not. :-)  McG-H would undoubtedly want money for that!  (Although
the typically-one-month delay between the cover date and my postings is
mostly just how long it takes for me to receive, read, and summarize the
issues, and the terseness is mostly just a matter of minimizing typing
time, I also prefer to avoid any appearance of competing with the
magazine itself.)
--
"Where is D.D. Harriman now,   |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
when we really *need* him?"    | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 28 Sep 89 21:28:01 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Eric William Tilenius)
Subject: Rep. ROBERT ROE -- looking for information

I'm looking for information on Robert Roe, head of the Science, Space,
and Technology subcommittee.

Specifically:

* What is his voting record on key space votes?

* What are his personal ideas?  Visions for space?  Attitudes?

* What are his stands on different issues of interest to space activists?

* Who are the people in his office or his committee that deal w/ SPACE issues?

Please EMAIL all responses and information where possible -- thanks!

- ERIC -

Eric W. Tilenius     | Princeton Planetary Soc. | [e-mail]
523 Laughlin Hall    | 315 West College         | [e-mail]
Princeton University | Princeton University     | rutgers!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni
Princeton, NJ 08544  | Princeton, NJ  08544     | princeton!pucc!ewtileni
609-734-7677         | 609-734-7677             | DELPHI:  TILENIUS

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

Date: 28 Sep 89 18:48:13 GMT
From: bfmny0![e-mail]  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: Risk of NOT launching Galileo

If one assumes that a decision not to launch Galileo has no impact on
the future launch of Mission To Earth, then comparing the RISKS of not
finding out something about Jupiter's weather, thus not understanding
something about Earth's weather, thus blundering into some weather
related tragedy down the road, versus the RISKS of breaching the RTG, is
not too impressive.  There are other missions possible and planned to
give us good Earth information.  The purpose and value of Galileo is in
other areas.  Studying Jupiter needs to be evaluated as worth it or not
on its own terms, not in terms of far fetched spinoffs and "risk
comparisons," or else other pure research missions with no such glib
connections are going to get KO'd.
--
"We plan absentee ownership.  I'll stick to       `o'   Tom Neff
 building ships." -- George Steinbrenner, 1973    o"o   [e-mail]

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

Date: Thu, 28 Sep 89 13:14:24 PDT
From: [e-mail]
To: "[e-mail]"[e-mail]
Subject: Re: NASA and face data


    Many thanks to Loren Carpenter for supplying the raw data for the Mars
"face" images.  I wrote a small program to help analyze the images and spent
some time looking at them.  The results of about a half-day's worth of effort?
It's a pile of dirt, of course!
    I've never seen Hoagland's book, but I do recall having seen the "face"
images in a couple of magazines.  What I don't recall is ever having seen the
dark side of the face visible in picture 70A13.  Adjusting the gray scale
stretch to bring out the detail in this region breaks the facial "symmetry"
entirely.  The right side of the "mouth" doesn't go across, it goes up, so the
"nose" and "chin" features just look like mounds of dirt.
    The most interesting thing is an extremely dark feature, about where
you might expect an ear lobe on the right side of the "face".  It appears to be
circular, like a crater, and is embedded in a ridge on the far right side of
the face.
    So adjusting the contrast for the highlights reveals a face, but
adjusting for the shadows reveals "normal" planetary features.  Smoothing
doesn't affect the gross features as the noise is not very bad and the glitches
are separated by many pixels.
    I looked up the region in the Viking Orbiter Picture catalog.  It's in
the southeast quadrant of the Planitia Acidalia, an interesting region having
many well separated little mountains.  There is no apparent large-scale
regularity, just landscape.
    So why hasn't NASA made greater efforts to bring this disproof to
light?  Why should they?  It's just a trick of the lighting!  They already said
it was a trick of the lighting and apparently most people have been satisfied
with that answer (if they ever knew the question in the first place!).  There
never was a cover-up, wasn't any need for one, and if researchers don't seem
interested it is because a) they'd rather be doing science and b) the people
who pay their salaries (i.e., taxpayers) have deemed the "face" a nonissue.

----
"Drive Friendly or Die"            |         Dale M. Greer
  Proposed Texas License Plate Motto    |   Center for Space Sciences
              -- Anonymous    | University of Texas at Dallas
                    | UTSPAN::UTADNX::UTDSSA::GREER
The opinions are my own, and may or may not reflect those of my employer.

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

Date:        Thu, 28 Sep 89 10:59:03 CDT
From: Andy Edeburn <[e-mail]>
To: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Flame On!!!


Alright, let's get a few things straight out there.

(1.) RTG's. Let be real folks. This is not the first time NASA has
launched RTG's from the Cape. This is the first time they have been
launched by the shuttle. All previous launches were done with Titans.
The TITAN has a much a higher risk factor than the shuttle. And
realistically, RTG's emit _less_ radiation than the average color TV set
in a day's time. The possibilities of them doing any damage to the
environment are about as high as Dan Quayle winning a Nobel prize for
Physics.

(2.) Fears of Infecting the Jovian System.

   How many of you people claim to be scientists? How many of you took
basic college biology or microbiology courses? Wake up! Most bacteria
or viruses do not survive in temperatures above 130 degress Celsius or
below -50 degrees Celsius. Seeing how temperatures in the vacuum go
farther beyond either of these two extremes, your fears of microbial
infection at Jupiter seem pretty ridiculous, don't you think?

(3.) The Saturn V

   The Saturn V is dead. The technology surrounding it was outdated
before it launched Apollo 8. We have to build a new heavy-lift vehicle
before the year 2000 if we want to reach Mars. Private industry has to
build it because NASA moves like a pregnant water buffalo.

(4.) Mars

   Let's face it, we're never going to get to Mars alone. It is going
to take a world-wide effort. You rednecks better get over the fears
and paranoia about working with the Soviets, because right now, they're
kicking our a__ in the newly reborn space-race.

 Think before you post!!!

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| 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      |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| InterNet: [e-mail]                        |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: 28 Sep 89 23:09:43 GMT
From: nis!pwcs![e-mail]  (Roy Forsstrom)
Subject: Re: Space Station Strangles NASP

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Larry Smith) writes:
>
>Quoting SPACE NEWS Sept. 18, 1989 (the preview issue of the new
...
>aerospace plane was deleted from the agency's spending plan".
>
>This is absurd. Just like the Ford Model-T enabled people for the
>first time to AFFORDABLY travel hundreds of miles from their homes,
>and the DC-3 to AFFORDABLY travel thousands of miles, the national
....
>1990's concept !! Look at it yet another way ... X-30 would cost the same
>as about 4 B-2s. Which gives a better return ?

Ah, Larry, you hit the nail on the head here! The X-30 is primarily a military
plane, as is the shuttle. Perhaps the some hold the belief that the SR-71
doesn't need a replacement aircraft.

-----------------------------------+-------------------------------------------
Roy Forsstrom 612-298-5569         |  Traveling makes one modest. You see
Public Works Computer Services     |  what tiny place you occupy in the world.
pwcs!royf  [e-mail]    |         -Flaubert
-----------------------------------+-------------------------------------------

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

Date: 27 Sep 89 08:49:32 GMT
From: attctc!tlsi![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Shuttle to HEO or the Moon (was Re: Saturn V & F-1)



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TLSI: The Hard Drive Specialists - [phone]. We repair most brands.

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

Date: 29 Sep 89 20:52:33 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Astronauts named for five space shuttle missions (Forwarded)

Sarah Keegan
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                 September 29, 1989

Jeffrey Carr
Johnson Space Center, Houston


RELEASE:  89-154

ASTRONAUTS NAMED FOR FIVE SPACE SHUTTLE MISSIONS


     Astronaut crew assignments have been made for five Space
Shuttle missions in late 1990 and early 1991, including the first
assignments from the astronaut class of 1987, the first U.S.
Coast Guard astronaut to fly, the first European Space Agency
(ESA) astronaut to be named as a mission specialist and the first
black woman to be selected for space flight.

     The crew of the STS-41 mission, set for October 1990, will
be commanded by USN Capt. Richard N. Richards.  USMC Lt. Col.
Robert D. Cabana has been named as pilot.  Mission specialists
are USN Capt. William M. Shepherd, USCG Cmdr. Bruce E. Melnick,
and USAF Maj. Thomas D. Akers.  Melnick and Akers will become the
first of the astronaut class of 1987 to fly in space.  At an
orbital altitude of 160 miles, the crew of Atlantis will deploy
the space probe ULYSSES on its way to a major solar science
mission in polar orbit around the sun.

     USN Capt. Michael L. Coats will command the crew of
Discovery on STS-39, an unclassified Department of Defense
mission scheduled for November 1990.  The pilot will be USAF Maj.
L. Blaine Hammond, Jr.  Mission specialists are Gregory J.
Harbaugh and USAF Maj. Donald R. McMonagle.  Previously assigned
as mission specialists for the flight are USAF Col. Guion S.
Bluford, Jr., Richard J. Hieb, Ph.D., and Charles Lacy Veach.
During the 8-day mission, the crew will deploy, rendezvous with
and retrieve the free-flying Infrared Background Signature
Survey, a sensor experiment to gather signature data on a variety
of infrared, visible and ultraviolet sources.

     Kathryn D. Sullivan, Ph.D., and C. Michael Foale, Ph.D.,
have been named as mission specialists for the Atmospheric
Laboratory for Applications and Science (ATLAS-01) mission, STS-
45.  In March 1991, the crew of Columbia will spend 9 days in
Earth orbit conducting studies of the sun and of the Earth's
atmosphere in efforts to better understand the effect of solar
activity on the Earth's climate and environment.

     ATLAS-01 payload specialists Michael L. Lampton, Ph.D., of
the University of California at Berkley, and Byron K.
Lichtenberg, of Payload Systems, Inc., were selected for this
mission in 1984.  Additional crew members will be announced
later.

     In another partial crew assignment, USN Cmdr. Robert L.
"Hoot" Gibson has been named to command the crew of STS-46.  NASA
astronauts Jeffrey A. Hoffman, Ph.D., and Franklin R. Chang-Diaz,
Ph.D., plus Claude Nicollier, a European Space Agency (ESA)
astronaut assigned to NASA, have been named to fly as mission
specialists.  During their 7-day mission, the crew of Atlantis
will deploy the European Retrievable Carrier (EURECA), an ESA-
sponsored free flying platform which will be retrieved and
returned to Earth 8 months later.

     This first flight of EURECA features 5 multi-user facilities
serving some 45 principal investigators in the material and life
sciences.  In addition, the crew will demonstrate the Tethered
Satellite System (TSS), a joint project between NASA and the
Italian space agency, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana.  The Shuttle-
attached TSS will provide for the deployment, operation and
retrieval of a data gathering probe through the use of a tether
system which provides constant physical and electrical connection
and RF communication between the probe and the Shuttle.

     The STS-47 crew for Spacelab-J, a joint venture between the
United States and Japan to conduct experiments in life sciences
and materials processing, include mission specialists USAF Lt.
Col. Mark C. Lee and N. Jan Davis, Ph.D.  Mae C. Jemison, M.D.,
also will fly aboard Discovery on that mission in June 1991.
Jemison, assigned as a payload specialist, becomes the first
black woman to be selected for a space flight.  Other crew
members will be named later.

    - - -

     Richards, who will make his second space flight, his first
as commander, flew as pilot on STS-28.  He was born August 24,
1946, in Key West, Fla., but considers St. Louis his hometown.

     Cabana will make his first flight in space.  He was born
Jan. 23, 1949, in Minneapolis.


     Shepherd will make his second flight, having flown as a
mission specialist on STS-27.  He was born July 26, 1949, in Oak
Ridge, Tenn.

     Melnick will make his first space flight.  He was born Dec.
5, 1949, in New York City, but considers Clearwater, Fla., his
hometown.

     Akers will make his first flight in space.  He was born May
20, 1951, in St. Louis, but considers Eminence, Mo., his
hometown.

     Coats will make his third space flight, his second as
commander.  He flew as pilot of STS-41D and as commander of STS-
29.  Coats was born Jan. 16, 1946, in Sacramento, Calif., but
considers Riverside, Calif., his hometown.

     Hammond will make his first flight.  He was born Jan. 16,
1952, in Savannah, Ga.

     McMonagle, selected in 1987 as a pilot, will make his first
flight as a mission specialist.  He was born May 14, 1952, in
Flint, Mich.

     Harbaugh also will make his first flight in space.  He was
born April 15, 1956, in Cleveland, but Willoughby, Ohio, is his
hometown.

     Sullivan, currently in training for her second space flight,
STS-31, will make her third flight.  She flew previously as a
mission specialist on STS-41G.  Sullivan was born Oct. 3, 1951,
in Paterson, N.J., but considers Woodland Hills, Calif., her
hometown.

     Foale, an American citizen born in England, will make his
first flight in space.  He was born Jan. 6, 1957, in Louth, but
considers Cambridge, England, his hometown.

     Gibson, making his fourth flight, has flown previously as
pilot on STS-41B and as commander on STS-61C and STS-27.  He was
born Oct. 30, 1946, in Cooperstown, N.Y., but Lakewood, Calif.,
is his hometown.

     Hoffman, who will make his third flight, is currently in
training for his second Shuttle mission, STS-35.  He flew as a
mission specialist on STS-51D.  Hoffman was born Nov. 2, 1944, in
Brooklyn, N.Y., but considers Scarsdale, N.Y., his hometown.

     Chang-Diaz, currently preparing for mission STS-34, will
make his third flight.  He flew previously as a mission
specialist on STS-61C.  Chang-Diaz was born April 5, 1950, in San
Jose, Costa Rica.


     Nicollier, making his first flight, will be the first ESA
astronaut to fly as a mission specialist.  Under a special
agreement between NASA and ESA, he was assigned to receive
mission specialist training at NASA in 1980.  He was born Sept.
2, 1944, in Vevey, Switzerland.

     Lee flew as a mission specialist on STS-30.  He was born
Aug. 14, 1952, in Viroqua, Wis.

     Davis, making her first space flight, was born Nov. 1, 1953,
in Cocoa Beach, Fla., but considers Huntsville, Ala., her
hometown.

     Jemison will make her first flight in space.  She was born
Oct. 17, 1956, in Decatur, Ala.

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

End of SPACE Digest V10 #106
*******************