Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V10_1/V10_159.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #159

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 10 : Issue 159

Today's Topics:
             Try thinking before stinking
              potential fall of GALILEO
           Re: Try thinking before stinking
         Face on Mars (not the one you think)
Re: Geyser-like plume discovered on Neptune's moon Triton (Forwarded)
              Re: Enterprise Utilization
                   An Idea
        International participation on Freedom
       Re: NASA Headline News for 10/04/89 (Forwarded)
     Re: Plutonium (was: South Florida Environmental Reader #12)
            Re: More whining about Galileo
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 16 Oct 89 02:59:07 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Christopher John Rapier)
Subject: Try thinking before stinking

Okay, first a couple of things.

1) I am an ardent supporter of space exploration, especially manned
mission.
2) I am a liberal by most definitions of the word

okay thats a couple of things. My involvement with the Christic
Institute started with the reading of a graphic-docunovel entitled
Brought to Light. It dealt with questionable American activity in
central america and the role of the CIA in subversive and covert
operations thoughout the world. Really good peice of work. Read it if
you can. Gives an interesting (not nessecarily the last) viewpoint on
what we've been doing. They also included a brief on The Christic
Institute. They are a predominantly Catholic organization, they have a
number of priests and nuns (reminds me of a cousin of mine, was a nun
that went to work in the Appalacias to fight the coal companies) working
with lawyers and case specialists. They take cases on a basis like the
ACLU but lately they've been working covert operation in Central
America. They played an important part in uncovering much of the
information about the Iran-Contra connection. For the most part though
they are not "tree-hugging" environmentalists. Though I see no reason
for this seeming hostility towards trees. Face it, mans greatest
accomplishment pales in comparison to the beauty and marvel of a leaf of
grass.

Now from what I've been reading they have some valid questions that you
really haven't been answering. Admittedly the plutonium (which is the
most poisonous substance known to man, makes dioxin look like lemonade)
is encased in "explosion proof" packings and the chance of a
catastrophic failure is small. More than likely the thing will just zoom
off and be placed in the wrong orbit anyway. But what chance is there of
something wrong, very wrong happening? Now if something very wrong does
happen what will the effects be? Okay lets say, god forbid, the shuttle
explodes again. Lets say it it smashes into the ocean and, say, 5% of
the packing fails and 2 pounds of plutonium escape. Can any of you give
more than a hapazard guess as to what effect that will happen to the
environment in that area? Or doesn't the environment matter in light of
man's domination of space? What if something worse happens? Like the
shuttle explodes at around 3 miles? Even if only 2 pound of plutonium
escape into the atmosphere (only 5%) how many people will this kill over
the next 20 years?

Are you willing to take the responsibility for something like this? I
support the mission. I personally feel that nothing is going to happen
and  everything will go fine. However, we cannot turn a blind eye to the
dangers that something like this entails. We cannot dismiss everyone
that wants more careful thinking done as an obstructionist. Sometimes we
actually have to take a hard look at what we are doing and what the
consequences will be. In our mad dash to escape the Earth we must be
careful not to destroy it.


enjoy all the sins of life
vida loca
christos del sinep


p.s. Um, Greg Wilkins, why don't you try talking to them. I mean your
basing your whole opinion of them on the basis of this newsgroup or so
it seems. I mean how many of you people actually knew about the Christis
Institute before this? Any of you. For the most part, I think they would
be more than willing to talk to anyone that made the effort to get in
touch with them. Just as long as you don't act like a bunch of flaming
assholes hell bent on proving them to be the fanatics you think they are.

p.p.s. I just wonder if any of this will actually get make you think.

p.p.p.s. Interesting replies are welcome and will be answered. Flames
will be dealt with as harshly as I am able.

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

Date: 16 Oct 89 09:23:30 GMT
From: amethyst![e-mail]  (Adrian Jones)
Subject: potential fall of GALILEO

Apparently, lot of folks are (or were) worrying about Galileo's launch.
I read about it very funny (and much more stupid) article about it.
Some hint that the NASA want (or wanted) to launch Galileo in order to
prepare the mind of the public for orbital nuclear stations to power
lasers....and even if that was true (and that's an ecologist's fantasm),
what's wrong with nuclear spaceship's concept ?

Even more stupid, I heard there exists a plot of the CIA associated with
some Real Estate agents to blast Atlantis. Therefore, plutonium would be
spread all over Florida. A lot of fellows would quickly get away from the
(potentially) doomed zone. Hence, real estate prices would fall and
speculators would buy huge properties, then calm the panick and make a nice
profit. Ain't it nice ?
    James Bond and te nuts still live

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

Date: 16 Oct 89 14:30:43 GMT
From: cloud9![e-mail]  (Carl Ellison)
Subject: Re: Try thinking before stinking

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Christopher John Rapier) writes:
>    What if something worse happens? Like the
> shuttle explodes at around 3 miles? Even if only 2 pound of plutonium
> escape into the atmosphere (only 5%) how many people will this kill over
> the next 20 years?
>
> Are you willing to take the responsibility for something like this?

Your posting smacks of panic -- your own or someone else's and an
apparent desire to get the listener to emote along similar lines.

The man who was faced with designing the explosion-proof package for the
fuel pellets IS willing to take responsibility for serious accidents --
full shuttle explosions and worse.  It was his or her job to make sure
NOTHING escapes in case of disaster.

I'm talking about someone who is a qualified engineer and concerned
about safety.  I'm not talking about a NASA bureaucrat concerned about
the schedule for a very visible launch (eg., the culprits in the
Challenger explosion).

What evidence do you have to suggest that this design wasn't done by the
kind of engineer I describe?


--Carl Ellison                      UUCP::  [e-mail]
SNail:: Stratus Computer; 55 Fairbanks Blvd.; Marlborough MA 01752
Disclaimer::  (of course)

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

Date: Mon, 16 Oct 89 12:08:40 PST
From: Peter Scott <[e-mail]>
Subject: Face on Mars (not the one you think)
X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"[e-mail]"

I just discovered an issue of the JPL _Universe_ dated February 22, 1985,
(before most of the current fuss) which contains the following:

BEST FACE FORWARD - "Imagination", so goes the old song, "is crazy; your whole
perspective gets hazy..."  Lately, news stories have focused on the center
photo of this trio [pic of Hoagland face], a feature strongly resembling human
or anthropoid characteristics, reflecting the belief of some that the face was
sculpted by another civilization [but how do we know that some feature that
resembles an armadillo, say, wasn't created by a race of sentient
armadillo-like creatures?  - PJS].  These three [pix] are typical of many
surface details found on Mars by the Viking Orbiters in the late 70s and which,
with a little fantasy, could be transformed into serious or whimsical
caricatures.  A typical Martian impact crater, above, offers a smiling mouth
and eyes formed by fractures caused by the original impact.  (The area around
the crater even reinforces our happy man's "sunny" disposition!)  [Pic is of a
smiley face-crater with bright rays.  Eyes and mouth are distinct and in the
right places, and there is a hint of a nose - PJS].  The main crater is about 8
km (5 mi) in diameter, creating the largest known "Happy Face" in the solar
system.  The center photo [Hoagland pic] was taken by Viking 1 orbiter in Mars'
northern latitudes on July 25, 1976, while searching for a landing site for the
Viking 2 lander.  The speckled appearance is due to missing data, called "bit
errors", and including the "face's" visible "nostril" and part of the "eye".
[In other words, what looks like a nostril on the pic is actually an error in
the picture; it's remarkable how un-lifelike the picture is without it - PJS].
Planetary geologists attribute the origin of the formation to purely natural
processes.  The feature is 1.5 km (1 mi) across.  The third in this whimsical
trio of Martian "creatures" is the piece de resistance.  An unusual lava flow
pattern lies on the flank of Alba Patera, a large volcano north of the Tharsis
region in Mars' northern hemisphere.  Any grade-school kid -- and maybe even a
few adults -- will go to bed dreaming that the Muppets' "Kermit the Frog" had a
prior life on Mars.  [Pic shows a pretty good outline of upper part of Kermit,
including eye, in profile - PJS]


To forestall the inevitable - all I have is what I just told you, on paper.
I don't have: latitude/longitude, picture catalog numbers, GIF/PostScript/TIFF
images, or any other machine-readable form of the pictures mentioned.  Sorry.

Peter Scott ([e-mail])

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

Date: 12 Oct 89 12:41:14 GMT
From: gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!ginosko!shadooby!terminator!um.cc.umich.edu![e-mail]  (Gavin Eadie)
Subject: Re: Geyser-like plume discovered on Neptune's moon Triton (Forwarded)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (nick szabo) writes:
> The "Voyager Interstellar Mission" is a new twist.  There are a large
> number of people working on Voyager right now, and quite naturally they
> need something to do.

The number of Voyager workers will be reduced from a Neptune encounter
high of about 230 to more like 20-30 for the remainder of the Voyager
missions.

> .....  Both Voyagers, two of the Pioneers, and ICE all require the
> use of our largest and rarest (70m) antennae. ...

The VIM portion of the Voyagers' travels will be conducted at a low bit
rate so it can be accomplished with 34m antennae.

> A question for astronomers and planetary scientists on the net: does
> the "Voyager Interstellar Mission" have enough scientific merit to sacrifice
> data from Galileo and Magellan?

It certainly has merit, but I don't know if there's truth in your assertion
that Galilieo and Magellan will suffer as a result. Magellan's demands on
antennae time are substantial during on-orbit operations.

The two Voyagers and two Pioneers that are travelling out of the solar system
are unique in that most of the currently planned planetary missions will end
up at target planets and will not fly past them to points far from the Sun.
This is the only chance in our lifetimes to get long range solar system data.

> and deserve our best.  We can let the Voyagers fly free, checking in
> as schedules allow, ...

Apart from the late-Feb/90 Voyager 1 'over the shoulder' mosaic portrait
of the solar system, that's a pretty good description of the VIM actually!
----
Gavin Eadie, Associate Director/Software Engineer
The University of Michigan Computing Center
535 West William Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-4943
[phone]

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

Date: 13 Oct 89 17:29:13 GMT
From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Enterprise Utilization

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (S Schaper) writes:
>  Could the Orbiter Enterprise be refurbished as the Emergency Crew Return
>Vehicle for the Space Station? Just dock it and plug it in. Would the tile
>material hold up? APU's even though not in use?

Enterprise doesn't even have tiles at the moment; that's one of the bits
of refurbishing that would have been necessary to make it spaceworthy.
As for APUs and such, that's one big issue with using a shuttle orbiter
as a lifeboat (the other being the shortage of shuttle orbiters...):  the
hardware was not designed for a long stay in space and the problems would
have to be studied very carefully.

The Soviets solve this one by just rotating Soyuzes frequently.  The
short-visit Mir missions typically come back to Earth in the Soyuz that
was parked at Mir, not the one they themselves went up in.  That way,
the current long-stay crew always has a reasonably fresh Soyuz on hand
in a crisis.
--
A bit of tolerance is worth a  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
megabyte of flaming.           | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 12 Oct 89 22:04:45 GMT
From: agate!typhoon.Berkeley.EDU![e-mail]  (George William Herbert)
Subject: An Idea


    Does anyone have the competence to comment on this idea:

    Take a Pegasus rocket, being developed now, and mount it on top
of a surplus A-12 (variant of SR-71, the ones outfitted to carry a drone
on top).  It can get probably a thoudand MPH and fifty thousand feet
better launch position over the current B-52 platform.  Seperation
would probably need some mini solids to ensure distance, but it could be
done easily enough,,....

I would (guesstimate) a hundred percent improvement in payload to orbit.
Going from the 1.5Mg to 3Mg.

Sound like a good idea?

****************************************
George William Herbert  UCB Naval Architecture Dpt. (my god, even on schedule!)
[e-mail]  [e-mail]
----------------------------------------

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

Date: 13 Oct 89 06:05:05 GMT
From: hubcap!ncrcae!ncr-sd!crash!orbit!pnet51![e-mail]  (S Schaper)
Subject: International participation on Freedom

A Question for Dr. Spenser.  Does Canada get anything in return from NASA for
the Canadian Arm? They ought to. Any participation in Freedom? [if and when,
at least Mir is _there_].


UUCP: {amdahl!bungia, uunet!rosevax, chinet, killer}!orbit!pnet51!schaper
ARPA: crash!orbit!pnet51![e-mail]
INET: [e-mail]

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

Date: 13 Oct 89 15:47:58 GMT
From: gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: NASA Headline News for 10/04/89 (Forwarded)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (daniel mocsny) writes:
>The members of the Christic Institute do not appear to be opposing the
>launch of Galileo because it will increase industrial productivity
>enough to put them out of work. (What is their product, BTW?) So to
>call them "luddites" is erroneous...

Yes, if we're being pedantic [words do change meaning, folks, and nowadays
"luddite" is often used to mean "mindless technophobe"], it is incorrect.
More significantly, calling the Christics "luddites" is an insult to the
original Luddites, who had rational reasons to dislike automated machinery.
--
A bit of tolerance is worth a  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
megabyte of flaming.           | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 14 Oct 89 22:19:08 GMT
From: jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Plutonium (was: South Florida Environmental Reader #12)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jan Steinman) writes:
>Danger from metallic plutonium contained in an inert environment is, therefore,
>low.  However, plutonium is a strong oxidant, spontaneously catching fire when
>exposed to the atmosphere.  The resulting fine, white plutonium oxide powder is
>readily airborne...

Except that as I recall, the plutonium in Galileo's RTGs is oxide already,
not metallic plutonium.
--
A bit of tolerance is worth a  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
megabyte of flaming.           | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 14 Oct 89 20:46:49 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com![e-mail]  (Mark Robert Thorson)
Subject: Re: More whining about Galileo

[e-mail] (Pat Wimmer) says:

> Dear Flatlander,
>
>     Your outburst proves my observation of the mental powers and
>     sense of vision of your ilk.  To paraphrase a quote from RFK, who
>     borrowed the original quote, "Some people look at a new challenge
>     and say WHY.  I look at the same challenge and say WHY NOT?"
>
>     If you are more worried about risk, which is a downward spiral
>     into mental midget mentality, than you are with risk management,
>     than you deserve the country you get!  But you won't have to
>     worry too long about controlling your own fate, because your
>     country won't be yours much longer!
>
> Pat

Spoken like a true Stalinist.  Bleed the people today so we can build the
great Utopia tomorrow.  If you really believe a tiny minority has a right
to loot the nation to achieve your own private goals, why don't you join
your space-faring friends in Commie Russia.

Remember we still live in a democracy, even if Joe Sixpack doesn't know how
to spell "democracy".  Our Congress cut funds for the last few flights of
Apollo because the American people lost interest in it.  Without the keen
foresight of Congress, we wouldn't have that neat display of an authentic
Saturn V booster in the National Air & Space Museum.

If you want American consumers to support your expensive hobby, you gotta
give them a consumer reason for it.  You gotta let'em know that Galileo
will provide the same improvement in astrological prediction that weather
satellites provided to weather prediction.  Educastion is the solution!

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

End of SPACE Digest V10 #159
*******************