Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V10_1/V10_171.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #171

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 10 : Issue 171

Today's Topics:
             "Terraforming", so-called...
            Re: The true value of Galileo
                 Re: finally!
         NASA Headline News for 10/20/89 (Forwarded)
            The Anti-RTG Movement
           Galileo Status for 10/21/89 (Forwarded)
               More Aurora news
        Re: Reason with the Anti-RTG Movement?
      Galileo Status for 10/21/89 Afternoon (Forwarded)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 20 Oct 89 16:14:00 GMT
From: apollo![e-mail]  (Steve Rehrauer)
Subject: "Terraforming", so-called...

(Is anyone else getting tired of the RTGs-From-Hell debate?)

All the bickering over whether it is ethical to possibly "contaminate"
Jupiter with terrestrial life from the Galileo probe set me to wondering
about "terraforming".  A few questions:

 -  Assume that it is technically & fiscally feasible to terraform
    a world, via means unspecified.  Would the people who objected
    to "contaminating" Jupiter also think it ethically naughty to
    terraform a world which is considered dead?  Say, Venus?  The
    Moon?  What if Mars were found to have once supported life, but
    now to be incontrovertibly barren?  Should we slap on a big
    "Planetary Museum" sign and leave it as-is?

 -  Science-fiction offers terraform methods that range from the
    plausible (to me at least) to bizarre: seeding with gene-tailored
    life (usually targetted at Venus); targetting comets for impact
    (usually for Mars); orbiting devices to alter the amount of
    incoming light; moving the world closer to / farther from the
    sun (the bizarre :); etc, etc.  Is anyone blue-skying the
    feasibility of this sort of thing in a serious way?

 -  We seem to be on the verge of being able to tailor life as
    suits us.  Is it at all plausible to suppose that we could
    seed the clouds of Venus, say, and expect to alter conditions
    there such that your garden-variety homo sapiens could live
    there without armor & suit & techno-supports?  Would this likely
    take decades?  Centuries?  Millenia?  Do we know enough about
    the cloud-top environment of Venus to even guess yet?  Can we
    simulate such conditions here, and roughly what would it cost
    to build and operate a "Venus tank" if so?

 -  It would seem to me, and I admit my naivete in this area, that
    such a goal (the "creation" of another habitable world, presumably
    a modified Venus or Mars) is the sort of thing that would create
    intense excitement in people throughout the world.  So call it
    a goal for the 23rd century, and acknowledge the long, long road
    ahead.  Better than blundering about from one pseudo-goal (first
    men on the Moon) to the next (first men on Mars).


--
>>"Aaiiyeeee!  Death from above!"<< | Steve Rehrauer, [e-mail]
   "Flee, lest we be trod upon!"    | The Apollo Computer Division of H.P.

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

Date: 20 Oct 89 15:24:00 GMT
From: apollo![e-mail]  (Steve Rehrauer)
Subject: Re: The true value of Galileo

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jim Bowery) writes:
>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.  Such an event would finally
>wake us from our opiated stupor induced by eating the rotting
>carrion of Apollo that NASA has been spoon-feeding us for
>TWENTY YEARS.
>
>Such an awakening is our only real hope of getting to space.
>The cost of such a disaster would be small compared to the
>value of breakout out into the space frontier before the
>Club of Rome comes home to roost.

Oh, sure!  By logical extension, my employer should ship crap
software that we know will crash & burn -- our customers' clamors
for better software would force us to do better than we are now.
Right.

Check out the polls of John Q. (especially _young_ John Q.)
Public immediately after the Challenger:

    MEDIA-MAVEN:    "So, young person, would YOU like to
                     be an astronaut when you grow up?"
    YOUNG PERSON:   "Me?  Nuh-uh!  No way!  I doan wanna
                     blow up an' die!"

It doesn't help.  The next accident may be inevitable, but I
don't think it'll help anyone but the Media Carrion Birds (TM).
--
>>"Aaiiyeeee!  Death from above!"<< | Steve Rehrauer, [e-mail]
   "Flee, lest we be trod upon!"    | The Apollo Computer Division of H.P.

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

Date: 21 Oct 89 06:56:45 GMT
From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: finally!

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Andy Clews) writes:
>Thanks for the information, Henry, but, uh, haven't you slipped into the
>"I must be the first person in the world to announce this" trap? ...

It was meant to have a local distribution restriction in it, but I
goofed.  Sorry about that.
--
A bit of tolerance is worth a  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
megabyte of flaming.           | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 20 Oct 89 21:03:58 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Headline News for 10/20/89 (Forwarded)

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Friday, October 20, 1989                      Audio: 202/755-1788
-----------------------------------------------------------------

This is NASA Headline News for Friday, October 20...


The crew of Atlantis reports today that the STS-34 mission is
going well.  A problem in the spacecraft cooling system was
resolved Thursday and mission operations are pretty much on
schedule.  Early today lightning observations continued and
yesterday the crew took still pictures and Imax film of
super-typhoon Elsie in the Sea of Japan.

some concern was expressed by Commander Don Williams last night
when ice crystals didn't form in the student experiment.  The
crew will attempt to conduct the experiment today.  The
astronauts are also obtaining data on parts of the earth's ozone
layer.


Meanwhile, a major solar flare occured yesterday.  Although it is
expected to disrupt worldwide communications and electrical power
over the next two days, there is no danger to the Atlantis crew.
and engineers at JPL report that the Galileo spacecraft was built
to resist solar radiation much stronger than that expected from
the solar flare.


NASA's high altitude ER-2 research aircraft is taking aerial
photographs of the area affected by Tuesday's San Francisco-area
earthquake.  Cameras are looking for large scale natural damage
such as landslides or unusual water flow.  The aircraft cameras
may also be able to detect changes in fault line features.

At the Ames Research Center, clean up activities continue as a
result of the earthquake.  The NASA facility is only about 25
miles from the quake's epicenter.  Non-essential employees didn't
report for work Thursday as laboratories were checked for
chemical spills.  None were found.

At the time of the earthquake, doors between two large wind
tunnels were being moved and actuators were disabled.
technicians were also restoring electrical power yesterday to
computer areas.


And the Soviet news agency Tass says there will be a delay in the
launch of a module for the Mir spage station from Monday to late
November.  There are problems with the docking and guidance
system.


               *             *           *           *


-----------------------------------------------------------------
Here's the broadcast schedule for public affairs events on NASA
Select television.  All times are Eastern.


NASA Select television is providing near continuous coverage of
the STS-34 mission.  Landing is scheduled for 3:38 P.M., Eastern
time, Monday, at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.

NASA Select television will provide coverage of the launch of a
Delta rocket with a DoD GPS payload early Saturday.  Launch
window is from 5:26 to 5:47 P.M.

All events and times are subject to change without notice.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
These reports are filed daily, Monday through Friday, at 12 noon,
Eastern time.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
A service of the Internal Communications Branch (LPC), NASA
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

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

Date: 20 Oct 89 22:50:58 GMT
From: amid![e-mail]  (Loren I. Petrich)
Subject: The Anti-RTG Movement


    I wonder what the leaders of the anti-RTG movement (as I call
it) are saying now? Have they conceded defeat? Do they have any plans
to stop other RTG-equipped satellites? And is it really true that the
facility that makes RTG's in this country has stopped making them? If
so, that means no more missions to the outer solar system for a long
time (except if one uses Russian, let us say, RTG's).
                                ^
Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster             \  ^  /
    [e-mail]              \ ^ /
One may need to route through any of:               \^/
    sunlight.llnl.gov            <<<<<<<<+>>>>>>>>
    lll-lcc.llnl.gov                   /v\
    lll-crg.llnl.gov                  / v \
    star.stanford.edu                 /  v  \
                                v
"What do you MEAN it's not in the computer?!?" -- Madonna

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

Date: 21 Oct 89 19:15:49 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Galileo Status for 10/21/89 (Forwarded)

Galileo Status Report 10/21

Spacecraft is doing wonderful.  No adverse reaction from the
solar flares which have been observed by JPL team.  Current
spacecraft operations include deployment of science instrument
covers (energetic particle detector).

A planned sun acquisition isn't needed because the spacecraft has
sun lock.

The heavy ion instrument took data of the flare but no analysis
as of now.

The only out of ordinary item is a slight loss of data
synchronization (less than one percent) in the wide band data
stream coming from the Madrid Deep Space Network to JPL.  There
is a nearly 100 percent throughput in overall in the data signal
coming from the Galileo spacecraft through the Deep Space Network
to the JPL control center.

Source:
M.B. Murrill
JPL Project Office

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

Date: 20 Oct 89 17:53:40 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (David Palmer)
Subject: More Aurora news

More news on the Humungous proton storm, this just in (10/20/89, 1050 PDT)

The astronauts have reported seeing aurora, and they are at an altitude
of only a few hundred miles and in a low (~23 degree?) inclination orbit.

Watch tonight.

        David Palmer
        [e-mail]
        ...rutgers!cit-vax!tybalt.caltech.edu!palmer
    Meanwhile, on eng.string.floss, the waxed vs. unwaxed flamewar
    continues unabated.

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

Date: 22 Oct 89 15:05:26 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Eric William Tilenius)
Subject: Re: Reason with the Anti-RTG Movement?

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Bob Ayers) writes:
>Anyone got any evidence to suggest that the Christics (and other
>anti-RTGers) can be swayed by logic?

Rifkin's group, The Coalition on Economic Trends (or some such drivel),
is blatently anti-science.  And that's that.

Technology, science, and most of what we call "progress" is exactly what
Rifkin & Co. would banish from the face of the Earth.  We shouldn't be
messing around with science is Rifkin's essential message.

Rifkin saw Galileo and the RTGs as a good publicity stunt - a good way
to capitilize on people's fears.

But it is important to realize that it is part of a bigger plan to destroy,
halt, or hinder science and technology.

True, Tom Neff has a good point that NASA should do more to counter the
anti-RTG propaganda and that NASA should do more to reach out to Congressmen
and get them excited about space, but reasoning with Rifkin's group is
not likely to be productive because of their stated aims.

We need to reach out to the general population at large and sway them.

Arguing directly with one's opponent is most often a futile tactic.

- 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             | COMPUSERVE:  70346,16

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

Date: 21 Oct 89 20:31:07 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Galileo Status for 10/21/89 Afternoon (Forwarded)

Galileo Status Report 10/21/89 1:46 pm CDT

Flight controllers at JPL say the Galileo spacecraft is
experiencing no known problems related to the solar flare and
that one of the spacecraft science instruments, the heavy ion
counter, is making measurements of high energy particles
associated with the flare.

Galileo scientists "are quite ecstatic with the data they are
seeing and with the opportunity to observe the solar flare," said
Dr. Neal Ausmann, science manager for the project.

Ausmann said there has been no detectable damage to Galileo's
electronics.  He said one telemetry channel in the Attitude and
Articulation Control Subsystem has been primed with special
software to track any loss or disruptions of the memory due to
radiation from the solar flare.

Earlier today, the valves of the retropropulsion module opened
and closed as expected in prepartion for a planned sun
acquiusition maneuver.  The maneuver, however, was cancelled
because the spacecraft was already on target.

Other spacecraft activity today includes the removal of the
protective cover on the electrical particle detector.

"So far," said Ausmann, "everything we've tried to do with the
spacecraft has worked like we expected.  Everything is going
magnificiently."

Source:
M.B. Murrill
Dr. N. Ausmann

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

End of SPACE Digest V10 #171
*******************