Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V10_1/V10_119.TXT

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Date: Sat,  7 Oct 89 04:24:32 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #119

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 10 : Issue 119

Today's Topics:
               Shuttle-Centaur
        Re: X-30, Space Station Strangles NASP
            Re: Magellan summary?
     Re: Trying to build a fluxgate magnetometer -- help!
      Re: Electronic Journal of the ASA, Vol. I, No. III
      Re: Electronic Journal of the ASA, Vol. I, No. III
            Just Desserts (maybe)
               HST headed east!
              RTGs, shuttle launch risks
                D. D. Harriman
            Re: The End of Galileo
              More whining about Galileo
           HST now in Florida at the cape!
            AMROC launch coverage
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 4 Oct 89 22:59:58 GMT
From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Shuttle-Centaur

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (SCHREIBER, O. A.) writes:
>... quotes many people
>saying the Centaur would have been way unsafe inside the shuttle.

Agreed that there were safety problems with Shuttle-Centaur.  What I find
bizarre is the assertion that these problems could not be solved, given
some time (like, say, 2.5 years of no shuttle flights) and effort.
--
Nature is blind; Man is merely |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
shortsighted (and improving).  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 4 Oct 89 15:02:29 GMT
From: skipper![e-mail]  (Mary Shafer)
Subject: Re: X-30, Space Station Strangles NASP

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Paul Raveling) writes:

           Can any of the NASA folks post info on the shuttle's
           approaches?  Isn't the standard pattern a simple 180?
           What sorts of descent rate or glide slope profile does
           the shuttle have as a function of altitude & airspeed?

The shuttle comes in from the north to north east.  It comes "feet
dry" at about Mach 7 and 145K ft, it's overhead at Edwards at Mach 1
at about 40K ft.  It does a HAC (Heading Alignment Circle) to put it
on the runway heading (usually 17 or 22), so essentially the pattern
is about a 270 teardrop with a longish final.  I think it's a 20 deg
glidepath, with a fairly short flair.  Final is flown at 285 KEAS,
gear deployed at 275 KEAS, touchdown at 185 KEAS.  (I'm taking these
figures from Young and Crippen's 1981 SETP paper on STS-1, so the
speeds may not be exact for any given mission, but they're about
right.)


--
Mary Shafer   [e-mail]  ames!elxsi.dfrf.nasa.gov!shafer
         NASA Ames-Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA
                    Of course I don't speak for NASA

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

Date: 4 Oct 89 16:43:58 GMT
From: prism![e-mail]  (SCHREIBER, O. A.)
Subject: Re: Magellan summary?

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>have sent it there -- Centaur G-prime -- was cancelled due to shuttle safety
>hysteria in the wake of Challenger.  So Galileo has to make do with the lousy


I am almost finished reding "prescription for disaster" by
Joseph J. Trento.
It is not a very good book I think but it quotes many people
saying the Centaur would have been way unsafe inside the shuttle.


--
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: 4 Oct 89 08:10:49 GMT
From: emcard!stiatl!rsiatl![e-mail]  (John G. De Armond)
Subject: Re: Trying to build a fluxgate magnetometer -- help!

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (PUT YOUR NAME HERE) writes:
>
>How many of you circuit dweebs use the "right" term for inverse ohms?
>I thought so.
>

You mean you don't sling your *ahem* Semen(s) around with wild abandon? :-)

(I no, I no, it ain't spelled rite but whot the hek?)

John


--
John De Armond, WD4OQC                     | Manual? ... What manual ?!?
Radiation Systems, Inc.     Atlanta, GA    | This is Unix, My son, You
gatech!stiatl!rsiatl!jgd  **I am the NRA** | just GOTTA Know!!!

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

Date: 4 Oct 89 16:43:28 GMT
From: hplabsb![e-mail]  (David Smith)
Subject: Re: Electronic Journal of the ASA, Vol. I, No. III

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] () writes:
> THE ELECTRONIC JOURNAL OF THE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF THE ATLANTIC ...
>    The object was still
>    traversing the Moon at a very steady rate, but it appeared to be
>    twirling or tumbling....
>        Was it a man-made satellite?  It had to be ...
>    I've never won anything, but the odds of being in the right
>    place and looking at the right time to see the silhouette of an
>    artificial satellite as it transited the moon must be "astronomical".

A friend of mine teaches science in a middle school.  A few weeks ago,
he was showing sunspots to his class using his telescope, when a
satellite transited the sun in a polar orbit.
--

            David R. Smith, HP Labs
            [e-mail]
            [phone]

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

Date: 4 Oct 89 17:33:23 GMT
From: gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Electronic Journal of the ASA, Vol. I, No. III

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] () writes:
>    as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in the U.S. was doing with its
>    VOYAGER mock-ups (later to be known as VIKING) around the same time.

A small error here:  Viking was not just a renaming of the original Voyager
project.  The original Voyager project, which planned large, ambitious
unmanned missions to both Venus and Mars, was killed around the same time
that the last three Apollo missions died.  Viking was an attempt to do a
much-cut-back mission at much lower cost.
--
Nature is blind; Man is merely |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
shortsighted (and improving).  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 4 Oct 89 21:12:23 GMT
From: frooz!cfashap![e-mail]  (Steve Willner)
Subject: Just Desserts (maybe)


[Excerpt from AP story by Jay Sharbutt in Boston Globe 1989 Sept. 28]

This summer, a CBS source said, [producer Perry] Wolff was suspended by
CBS News after the disclosure that a July special on man's first walk on
the moon identifies footage taken in 1972 as having occurred during the
first moon walk in 1969.

Wolff called it "an honest mistake" and blamed a mislabeled tape.  Both
he and CBS News spokesmen have refused to confirm or deny that he was
suspended.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Willner            Phone [phone]         Bitnet:   willner@cfa
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                 Internet: [e-mail]

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

Date: 4 Oct 89 12:48:35 GMT
From: stsci![e-mail]  (Jim Sims)
Subject: HST headed east!


 The HST is headed east at long last! It departed California on 10/3/89
just after dawn. Launch is still set for March 26, 1990. See you there.
--
    Jim Sims      Space Telescope Science Institute      Baltimore, MD
             UUCP:  {arizona,decvax,hao,ihnp4}!noao!stsci!sims
    INTERNET:  [e-mail]                      SPAM:  SCIVAX::SIMS

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

Date: Wed, 4 Oct 89 13:45:10 EDT
From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are those of the sender
    and do not reflect NIST policy or agreement.
Subject: RTGs, shuttle launch risks


>From: voder!pyramid!infmx![e-mail]  (David Cortesi)
>"Source: Interagency Nuclear Safety Review Panel."  I am reproducing the
>chart below, not for what it says about plutonium but for the very
>remarkable and frightening things it seems to say about the shuttle.

>Accident        Risk of   Risk of      Pop.     Fatal    Individual
>                        Accident  Pl. release  Exposed* Cancers  Risk
>External fuel tank
>explodes on launch pad  1:256     1:1e6        860,000  40       1:25e9

>Shuttle hits tower
>and explodes            1:5,000   1:1e6        670,000  20       1:33e9
...
>* Exposure is more than 1 millirem in 50 years

>But what is very clear is that the "Interagency Nuclear Safety Review
>Panel" (whoever they are) have published some very scary numbers on the
>risk of an unsuccessful shuttle launch.  1 chance in 256 of the external
>tank blowing!  1 in 556 of SRB rupture at launch!  Where did these
>first-column numbers come from?  Are they correct?

Several people have said that the official estimate for the loss of a shuttle
(meaning that the shuttle is in some way damaged to the extent that it can not
be used again) is a chance of about 1:78 for a typical mission. I have never
seen a breakdown by type of accident, so I can't say whether or not the
numbers in the first column are plausible. There are risks associated with any
manned rocket launch, which is why the nearest shuttle spectators are over
three miles away. Note that the 1:78 figure is small enough that shuttle
replacements would make up only a small percentage of operating costs.
Potential astronauts should be given the most accurate available figures,
and if they are uncomfortable with the risks, they shouldn't fly.

The columns for chance of release, number exposed, and number of deaths
obviously contain many underlying assumptions, without which it is difficult
to judge their correctness. I've always been particularly skeptical of the
assertion that "if you expose a large group of people to a certain amount of
radioactive material, then 1 out of 20000 [for example] will eventually die
as a result". It seems to me that it would be almost impossible to establish
the proper controls for any study to ensure that the numbers are anywhere
near accurate. Just as a reference, I'd like to see an estimate (using the
same techniques) of the number of environmentally-related human deaths
one would expect to result from the known toxins and radioactive materials
released by a "typical" coal-fired power plant in a year of operation. I
suspect the number would be high enough to surprise most people. Since
coal-fired plants are not "nukes", the fringe groups tend to leave them alone.
                                    John Roberts
                                    [e-mail]

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

Date: 4 Oct 89 09:03:06 GMT
From: sjsca4!ukfca1![e-mail]  (Fraser McCrossan)
Subject: D. D. Harriman

> "Where is D.D. Harriman now,   |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
> when we really *need* him?"

Working for Glavcosmos, I believe....

--
|Fraser McCrossan                   |  "Impossible, sir. I know from long
|Schlumberger ATE Div. Ferndown; UK |  experience that my men have all the
|fraser@ukfca1 (SINET)              |  artistic talent of a cluster of
|[e-mail]       |  colour-blind hedgehogs...in a bag."

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

Date: 4 Oct 89 17:08:42 GMT
From: bungia!quest!tcnet!questar![e-mail]  (Al Viall)
Subject: Re: The End of Galileo

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] writes:

> I have read and heard about the Galileo spacecraft's 22 month mission
> at Jupiter, which will end about October 1997.  Does anyone know what
> will happen then?  Will the spacecraft be shut down?  Does it plunge
> into Jupiter (because of the 10 satellite-gravity assists)?  Is this
> how long its RTG's are supposed to last?
>
> Does someone have some information on this?
>

It's very possible that this is how long the RTG's will last. Or rather, they
won't last too much longer than this and any juice that JPL can squeeze
out by that time would be heaven sent.
Hey! We're talking about alot of years here.
- Al -

--
  | INTERNET: [e-mail]  |  FLASH: "Dan Quayle's face    |
  |     UUCP: ..!amdahl!tcnet!questar!al | seen on Mars" It Looks Puzzled|
  |   "Uhh, Excuse me while I take a moment to adjust my tribble."       |
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: 5 Oct 89 00:47:24 GMT
From: agate!shelby!portia![e-mail]  (Joseph Brenner)
Subject: More whining about Galileo

My emotional reaction to the news of the Christic institute's
attack is extreme depression.  I'm once again impressed
with the extreme stupidity of our society: we don't seem to
have anything resembling a rational way of resolving debates
like this.  We don't even have a halfway reasonable way of
ranking what questions are worth debating.  We seemed to be
ruled by a tyranny of fear, a collection of unthinking
reactions to buzzwords and images.

You can see people on this newsgroup screaming in frustration,
trying to argue in terms of quantitative risk estimates, and
qualtitative comparisions to other risks, and in short bringing
out the whole range of arguments that have already arisen in the
nuclear power debate.  But all these arguments have already
fallen on deaf ears.  The question is now in the hands of the
courts-- technically ignorant and notoriously flaky, and all we
can do is hope that NASA will bring off the launch by force
of authority and momentum, before the hysteria really gets
rolling again.

And in a way, focusing on risk analysis misses the real point.
You wind up dealing with things you can stick numbers on, like
probabilities of accidents and potential lives lost, and you
underplay the real value of the mission, which to me at least,
is close to infinite.  We're talking about a probe into the
atmosphere of Jupiter! It's not just a fly-by, not more peering
through telescopes, but a chance to stick our noses right up against
the face of the unknown.  If this isn't worth risking our lives,
then what is it we're alive for?

The problem with the Galileo is nothing new, but it really brings
home to me a number of things I suppose I already knew:
This is not my world, these people are not my people.  We have
things in common, but the way I think is not at all the way
they do, and the things I care about most strike them as trivial
and tedious.

The only way I can see to go from this realization is to get
away from the mundanes as much as I can.  Work private, keep
things small, and maybe we can dance around them, if not
with them.

-- Joe B.

([e-mail]  Materials Science Dept/Stanford, CA 94305)

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

Date: 4 Oct 89 19:15:14 GMT
From: stsci![e-mail]  (Jim Sims)
Subject: HST now in Florida at the cape!

HST TRANSPORTED FROM LOCKHEED TO KSC  -  IT'S OFFICIAL
******************************************************

Official confirmation has been received that this morning, 4th
October, 1989, HST arrived at Kennedy 7:45 EDT.



--
    Jim Sims      Space Telescope Science Institute      Baltimore, MD
             UUCP:  {arizona,decvax,hao,ihnp4}!noao!stsci!sims
    INTERNET:  [e-mail]                      SPAM:  SCIVAX::SIMS

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

Date: 4 Oct 89 18:48:30 GMT
From: cica!ctrsol!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!ginosko!usc!aero![e-mail]  (Thomas F. Smith)
Subject: AMROC launch coverage

In response to questions:
Yes the launch is scheduled for 10:28 am PDT.
NO, NASA select will not coverage this attempt.

In case you missed the previous post.
AMROC, American Rocket Company is scheduled to launch
the "Koopman Express" 5 OCT 89, 10:28 am PDT
from pad ABRES-a3 at Vandenberg AFB, CA.
Access to the launch is by AMROC pass only.

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

End of SPACE Digest V10 #119
*******************