Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V10_1/V10_168.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #168

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 10 : Issue 168

Today's Topics:
             Re: Christic Bashing
            Re: The true value of Galileo
           Re: Try thinking before stinking
             Re: Christic Bashing
      Re: Galileo--- history repeats itself [Christic Institute]
               Dale Amon's new address
            Re: More whining about Galileo
        Re: Amateur Earth Approaching Asteroid Project
          Alledged Catholic Anti-Technology
        Re: Amateur Earth Approaching Asteroid Project
              Re: Galileo Update
         Re: How the GALILEO mission may end.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 19 Oct 89 14:35:45 GMT
From: datapg!com50!questar![e-mail]  (Al Viall)
Subject: Re: Christic Bashing


Heh. I am still waiting for the Christic Institute to find a correlation
between Galileo and the San Francisco earthquake.

I can hear it now, "We believe that the tons of plutonium aboard ATlantis,
has caused an upheaval in the atmosphere which traveled all the way to
the San Andreas fault thereby causing an environmental impact so horrendous
that it caused an earthquake. For this, we are sueing NASA for the
devastation and ask for an injunction to stop the forward motion of
Galileo, and are demanding that NASA send someone out there to get it back."



--
| INTERNET: [e-mail]      | "Major Earthquake hits the San   |
|     UUCP: ..!amdahl!tcnet!questar!al     | Francisco area, and the Governor |
|  FIDONET: 1/282:2,3 (Al Viall)           | is mad about his bridges         |
| "WHAT! You want ME to eat THAT? No Way!" | collapsing? Geeezzz!"            |

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

Date: 20 Oct 89 02:27:50 GMT
From: gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!haven!uvaarpa!hudson!astsun.astro.Virginia.EDU![e-mail]  (Greg S. Hennessy)
Subject: Re: The true value of Galileo

Jim Bowery writes:
#2) NASA decided it was more important to keep Galileo on a Shuttle
#even though the fleet was grounded, than it was to launch in a
#timely manner.

What else could it have been launched on?

#I hope the suit to block launch of Galileo fails.  We need
#to see another Shuttle blow up a bunch of astronauts,
#the lives work of many competent and idealistic scientists and
#possibly, 50lbs of Plutonium.

You, sir, are sick. I remember what I felt like that day. I would not
wish that feeling upon my worst enemy. Your statements are the most
vile things I have heard in years.



-Greg Hennessy, University of Virginia
 USPS Mail:     Astronomy Department, Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475 USA
 Internet:      [e-mail]
 UUCP:        ...!uunet!virginia!gsh7w

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

Date: 17 Oct 89 18:42:04 GMT
From: tank!eecae!netnews.upenn.edu!clarke.cis.upenn.edu![e-mail]  (Walter Santarelli)
Subject: Re: Try thinking before stinking

Sorry, I was wrong about the Atlas' gleaming record. I shouldn't have
believed the manufacturer when I went on a tour of the G.D. factory 3-1/2
years ago.

        Thanks for correcting me.

                    -wally
([e-mail])



[Just goes to show, you can't trust the mil./indust. complex!]

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

Date: 18 Oct 89 19:10:00 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Christic Bashing


I would like to second Greg Goebel's comments.  Not everyone who is
afraid of the RTG's is a mindless zealot and the best response to
questions of their safety is to formulate a calm, rational answer.

This whole episode has somewhat tarnished the Christics in my eyes,
however -- I was quite sympathetic to there Central American initiatives.
Any organization that can stake so much of its credibility on something
like the RTG issue immediately becomes suspect.

--
paul hager

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

Date: 20 Oct 89 03:18:12 GMT
From: pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!usc!aero!aerospace.aero.org![e-mail]  (Dave Suess)
Subject: Re: Galileo--- history repeats itself [Christic Institute]

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Joe Applegate) writes:
>In <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Mark Robert Thorson) writes:
    [re: the Christic Institute]
>> I thought I heard that they are funded by a number of Christian churches,
>> hence the name.  Of course, this could just be a cover story.
>
>I have heard that they are funded by various New Age and several extremely
>liberal "Christian" denominations... and that their calling is to bring the
>"Christ" consciousness into politics... this is of course New Age theology
>and has no resemblance to Biblical Christianity.
>I would appreciate any real information as to the theology and specific
>supporters of the Christic institute as I am going primarily on hearsay...

    The Christic Institute describes itself as "a religious, public
    interest law firm and public policy center."  The institute is
    dependent on donations from "individuals and from Christian,
    Jewish, and private foundations."

    They have done some good work; most famous is the Karen Silkwood
    v. Kerr-McGee.  Currently, they're using RICO to sue several
    "contragate" people (filed before the scandal broke).  They've
    done good work down south in civil rights cases.

    In this debacle, though, I have no idea where they got their
    position (I'm on their mailing list; I hope to find out in the
    next few months).  I think they've just blown a lot of credibility.

    But I doubt that the would-be trespassers were "Christics" (they
    are a law firm, after all).  More likely "Rifkinists", in my opinion.
                    Dave Suess    [e-mail]

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

Date: Fri, 20 Oct 89 10:55:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ted Anderson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Dale Amon's new address

I got a card from Dale Amon yesterday with his new address on it.  He says
he's working on network access but it will be a few weeks at least.
Meanwhile I'm sure he'd appreciate keeping in touch with friends using more
conventional channels.
        Dale Amon
        52 Myrtlefield Park,
        Flat 4,
        Bellfast BT9 6NF
        Northern Ireland
        011 - 44 - 232 - 663755

-Ted Anderson

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

Date: 19 Oct 89 18:49:12 GMT
From: pyramid!leadsv![e-mail]  (Pat Wimmer)
Subject: Re: More whining about Galileo

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Mark Robert Thorson) writes:

> 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!
                                              ^^^^^^^^^^

It certainly is!

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

Date: 20 Oct 89 06:46:07 GMT
From: bungia!orbit!pnet51![e-mail]  (S Schaper)
Subject: Re: Amateur Earth Approaching Asteroid Project

I love it! I don't know how practical it is, but if it is a `go', count me in!
Except that I don't have an IBM compatible - although for either $89 or $300
for speed, I could,... I have an Atari ST, not a game machine, but the
Macintosh for the rest of us...

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

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

Date: 20 Oct 89 04:47:59 GMT
From: gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!srhqla!quad1!ttidca![e-mail]  ( Avatar)
Subject: Alledged Catholic Anti-Technology

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (S Schaper) writes:
+
+ I am not a Roman Catholic, I am a student of history. Avatar aka Erik K.
+Sorgatz's posting does not give evidence of history, at least not Church
+history, which I have studied, only some indoctrination in biased myths which
+cannot be deduced from the primary documents. He knows very little about the
+Crusades either.

 So, with a single wave of your hand, you dismiss my entire point. Thanks. I
had hoped someone like you would show up, my mentioning of the historical
anti-tech bias in the Church is not unfounded. You, above all, might remember
the support that the Church gave the Weaver's Guild during the time when
mechanization was changing the way cloth was being manufactured? Do I have to
drag out the entire bloody mess? Somehow I'm sure you're more intelligent
than that!

 The mention of the Crusades was also a "pointer" to a greater body of real
history: The Church has backed some damn-fool enterprises! All of which seems
lost on the faithful, since they appear to not want to address the POINT:

  The Church has, at various points in history, done things that had very
little to do with matters spiritual. Most of these involve a restriction
of information transfer, or freedom of life-purpose/advowed religious faith.
  Not the least of which has been the locking away, in Vatican City, of many
thousands of books and records that were confiscated from those individuals
that they, the Church, deemed heretic. What secrets have been lost to this
monster?  The answer is: few (if any) people know. There are portions of the
Vatican Library that have been under lock since 1500, and noone has seen these
intellectual treasures.  There is no Master Catalog either...what are they
hiding??

+   Granted, they did suspect Galileo of heresy, but that had little to do with
+his proposition of helio-centrism. The opposition to _that_ was due to the
+influence of Aristotelian thought in Academic circles of the Church, due to
+the influence of Aquinas, not the Bible, not the Creeds.

 I'm talking Church-bias. Not what it was founded upon. It's very worth the
effort to split hairs here, since irregardless of the basis for it's faulty
outlook, the Church has been doing everything in it's power to prevent any
inroads on it's power grasp. Which is exactly what this discussion has to
DO with SPACE and SPACE EXPLORATION.

+  Opposition to Columbus was not from the Bible either, but was due to the
+fact that the scholars of the time knew well that the Earth was spherical and
+that there was no way that Columbus could make it to the East Indies with the
+technology of the time, the Earth was known to be far larger than Columbus had
+calculated. [Of course there is the theory that C. knew exactly what he was
+doing, and sold the expedition to the Crown on the basis of promised comercial
+benefits, like the moon-base SiLox proposal? :-) - he apparently did visit
+Iceland before his more famous voyages, but I am not in possession of the
+necessary documents to evaluate that!].

 But the point, dear fellow, is that there WAS a bias against exploration!
..and now we're seeing the same kind of unthinking opposition to the very
same sort of spirit - Space Exploration, and most real Science threatens
Church's stranglehold on "TRUTH". If you doubt this, you've just not been
paying attention.  The Christic Institute represents a backward, uneducated,
outlook. It's means are mostly delay and feeble protest via the court..

+  This doesn't really belong here, but I don't get talk.phil/relig, and I am
+responding to a highly innaccurate posting here.

 This DOES belong here! As supporters of Space Exploration we need to be
AWARE of those that oppose said exploration. We must understand their basis,
and we must be mindful of all aspects of this endeavor..we must NOT let our
religious beliefs deter that exploration from it's mission: To enlighten.

 One more point, to all those warm, wonderful persons that have sent me email
about this discussion: If you want to hide from what has happened, that is
quite your business. Just remember that intellectual progress and enlightenment
do not need any strings from the frightened and feeble...besides, the Church
should be calming their fears and attending to their spiritual needs -- not
handing them a protest-sign!

(ps-it would seem, since the probe is now on it's way, that the Christic's
 childish-demonstrations are history as well -- was anything accomplished?
 ..I think so, we know WHO they are now! ;-) )
--
-Avatar-> (aka: Erik K. Sorgatz) KB6LUY           +-------------------------+
Citicorp(+)TTI                          *----------> panic trap; type = N+1 *
3100 Ocean Park Blvd.   [phone], ext. 2973 +-------------------------+
Santa Monica, CA  90405 {csun,philabs,randvax,trwrb}!ttidca!ttidcb!sorgatz **

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

Date: 20 Oct 89 14:20:22 GMT
From: rochester![e-mail]  (Paul Dietz)
Subject: Re: Amateur Earth Approaching Asteroid Project

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jim Bowery) writes:

>Which brings to mind an interesting thought:  Amateur astronomers
>represent, in aggregate, a detection array with a very LARGE field
>of view.  If a simple technique could be developed so that amateur
>astronomers could easily use their telescopes' "idle time" to '
>search for asteroids, they could organize themselves into a very
>effective and efficient EAA detection project.  Perhaps a "kit"
>including a ccd array, circuit board and software for PCs.  For a
>thousand or two you could be set up as one piece of a huge compound
>eye gazing at the sky.

Some time ago I was motivated to look into this, so I sent away to
Astrolink (see ads in Sky&Telescope) for the specs of their chilled
CCD imagers.  Here are some specs on their HAL 21 PC65 camera.

Price: $12,800 for the bare camera, to $20,400 for the camera, digitizer,
386-based computer, and various other things.

The CDD is 572x485 pixels, 8.8 x 6.6 mm.  It is cooled by a Peltier
(thermoelectric effect) cooler to -75 to -80 deg C.  At this
temperature, the dark current is low enough for integration times of
up to an hour.  Dark current is .01 electrons/pixel/s; readout noise
20 electrons/pixel.  The quantum efficiency of the CCD is near 100% in
the range 750-900 nm, tailing off to about 50% at 500 nm and 1150 nm.
The good quantum efficiency in red is desirable when searching for
carbonaceous asteroids.

They give an example of an image on a 36 inch scope at Kitt Peak.
Stars slightly fainter than mag 19.5 can be seen in a two minute exposure.

For asteroid searching, you would want to use a computer-controlled
scope in "drift-scan" mode (it is not clear to me if Astrolink's
camera is set up for this).  The scope would be pointed near the
opposition point (opposite the sun) and locked.  The rotation of the
earth would cause the image to drift across the CCD.  The CCD's rows
would be arranged so that the electrons could be clocked across to
stay in sync with the image.  This lets you scan a strip of sky.
After an exposure, the scope is pointed back to the start of the strip
and another scan is taken.  You'd want image processing software to
look for aligned streaks in the pictures.

Plug in some numbers... if you have a 50 cm, f/4 scope, the rows see
3.3 milliradians of image, so the drift time is over four minutes
(more at high celestial lattitude).  The width of the strip is about a
quarter of a degree.  The pixels are 6.6 by 7.7 microradians.  An
asteroid 2e7 km distant, with a lateral velocity of 5 km/s, moves .25
urad/s, so it moves from one pixel to another in about half a minute.
Plug in some numbers: a C type asteroid at opposition at this
distance would have to be 14 km across to be as bright as Ceres at
opposition.

    Paul F. Dietz
    [e-mail]

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

Date: 20 Oct 89 14:52:03 GMT
From: pikes![e-mail]  (Scott Casto Pinkerton)
Subject: Re: Galileo Update

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ron Baalke) writes:
>                                     The 2nd stage IUS spinoff at a rate of
>2.9 revolutions/second for the separation of the IUS from Galilio sooned
>followed.

Was this correctly printed ??  The IUS spun itself and the payload up to
174 RPM prior to separation ??  That seems like an incredible controls
problem to prevent the stack from spinning in a very wide "cone".  Also at
actual separation, the CG will jump back some 30-40 feet maybe (don't know
actual Galileo dimensions) - again sounds like one hell of a controls
problem.  Was this meant to be 2.9 RPMinutes ??

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

Date: 20 Oct 89 07:05:07 GMT
From: bungia!orbit!pnet51![e-mail]  (S Schaper)
Subject: Re: How the GALILEO mission may end.

Interesting thread to pursue for the next 8 years. :-)
  But more seriously, Can we not get images processed out of pics taken by a
spin-stabilized craft? Wasn't Giotto, so perhaps the last fuel could be used
for spin-stabilization, and we could at least track major changes in Jovian
weather and Ionian volcanic deposits for a number of years longer, until the
decay of teh RTG's renders that impossible, then at least we could still
moniter magnetosphere events for some time to come.
  Thoughts?
If a grad student can come up with the Grand Tour, maybe we net addicts can be
useful, too.

Steve Schaper                      Committee for making Participle Dangling an
                                   Official Olympic Sport

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End of SPACE Digest V10 #168
*******************