Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V10_2/V10_234.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1991-07-08 | 15KB

Return-path: <[e-mail]>
X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson
Received: from beak.andrew.cmu.edu via trymail for +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/[e-mail] (->+dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl) (->ota+space.digests)
          ID </afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr1/ota/Mailbox/cZKvjMi00VcJ8V004W>;
          Sat, 11 Nov 89 01:27:37 -0500 (EST)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
From: [e-mail]
To: [e-mail]
Date: Sat, 11 Nov 89 01:27:15 -0500 (EST)
Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #234

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 10 : Issue 234

Today's Topics:
          Wanted: Allen's "Astrophysical Quantities"
              Re: Future Space Missions
            Re: Moon Colonies / Ant Tanks?
                 space digest
         Re: Atomic weapon/power demographics
              Re: Thanks For Responding
                 Drop address
              When is Pegasus Launching
            Re: When is Pegasus Launching
              Re: Thanks For Responding
            Re: Moon Colonies / Ant Tanks?
            Re: Moon Colonies / Ant Tanks?
       Re: NASA Headline News for 10/26/89 (Forwarded)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 10 Nov 89 17:05:44 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Pedro Safier)
Subject: Wanted: Allen's "Astrophysical Quantities"


For a long time I've been trying to buy a copy of Allen's "Astrophysical
Quantities", but I was told that it has been out of press for many years.

Does anybody know where can I get one?
                                                   Pedro.

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Pedro N. Safier                   | e-mail: [e-mail]
 Dept. of Astronomy & Astrophysics |         [e-mail]
 University of Chicago             | phone: [phone]
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: 9 Nov 89 18:25:30 GMT
From: mcsun!ukc!inmos![e-mail]  (Conor O'Neill)
Subject: Re: Future Space Missions

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ron Baalke) writes:
>
>                         Future Space Missions

What you really mean is "Future US Space Missions" ...

--
Conor O'Neill, Software Group, INMOS Ltd., UK.
UK: [e-mail]        US: [e-mail]
"It's state-of-the-art" "But it doesn't work!" "That is the state-of-the-art".

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

Date: 10 Nov 89 21:11:46 GMT
From: bfmny0![e-mail]  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: Moon Colonies / Ant Tanks?

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Donald A. Varvel) writes:
>Somebody once asked Arthur C. Clarke, who lives in Sri Lanka, what
>it would be like to live in a space colony.  He replied, ``You'll
>have to ask my friend Isaac Asimov.  He lives in New York.''  Asimov
>was asked why he created something as unattractive as the totally
>enclosed lifestyle of the earth civilization in _The Caves of Steel_.
>He simply couldn't understand what was unattractive about it.  He
>_liked_ the idea of living in steel caves.

This gets repeated ad nauseam.

A city like New York may look like a steel cave to someone like Clarke,
but it assuredly is not.  It's a breathing organic entity literally
filled with life and ecology.  It's quite diverse and TOTALLY
uncontrolled.  I don't mind if country folk amuse themselves with
erroneous preconceptions about what cities are like :-) but don't
try and apply it to this debate as fact.

What we normally think of as "cities" are just the most-paved
and most-peopled centers of vast interconnected economic zones.
People visualize the inner 5% and conveniently ignore the outlying
95% that makes it possible.  If you hovered above NYC in a blimp
on any working day you would get a much better sense of what a
sprawling, GREEN, OUTSIDE type of place even the biggest city is.

In truth, the only places where people truly live indoors in
closed environments are things like SAC bases and prisons.  We
consider these the extremity of human existence and don't think
it unusual that most people wouldn't want to to more than visit.
But they may be the *norm* in space.

After long consideration I have decided that while enclosed off-Earth
colonies may be workable in the short term on the strength of good
intentions, and in the long term on pure coercion (don't knock it),
they will spawn the most neurotic societies yet known to man, and
possibly the most violent.  Personally I love all this because it
makes for compelling story lines, but as rosy futures go it leaves
something to be desired.

For peace of mind I suspect we will ultimately concentrate on enabling
technologies for decentralized space living.  That sets up some nice
cultural wars if you go out several centuries.  But this is now sci.fi
and not sci.space... :-)

--
"UNIX should be used          ::   Tom Neff <[e-mail]> or
 as an adjective." -- AT&T   ::    ...uunet!bfmny0!tneff (UUCP only)

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

Date:     Fri, 10 Nov 89 14:49:52 -0900
Sender: <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: <[e-mail]>
From: "Dave Thomas, one of the many"  <[e-mail]>
Subject:  space digest

How do I get on your mailing list?  If you can, please put me on it.
Dave Thomas  FTDJT@ALASKA

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

Date: 9 Nov 89 20:16:52 GMT
From: thorin!alanine![e-mail]  (Jonathan Leech)
Subject: Re: Atomic weapon/power demographics

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Peter Scott) writes:
>...This would make
>a heck of a bargaining point the next time one of us has to debate one
>of them to garner support for something like Galileo.

    I think it's probably not a good idea to draw a direct link
between nuclear weapons and RTGs.  Most people are fuzzy on the
difference already, without the pro-RTG side adding potential
confusion.
--
    Jon Leech ([e-mail])    __@/
    ``Nuclear fusion, the promise of limitless energy from sea water
    or something, has been just around the corner ever since World War
    II and is still just around the corner.'' - David Goodstein

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

Date: 10 Nov 89 17:11:52 GMT
From: hplabsb![e-mail]  (David Smith)
Subject: Re: Thanks For Responding

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Lance Michel) writes:
>However, one thing you mentioned was Apollo 12 retrieving pieces from
>Surveyor 3.  WOW.  I never knew that.  and for some reason I find it
>incredible that the navigation and guidance at that time could actually
>bring someone that close to a specific spot.  Can you provide any datails
>as to WHAT PARTS??  or were their any PICURES of the Surveyor sitting there?
>Was this planned, or luck?

Definitely planned.  Otherwise, what are the chances of coming down
randomly somewhere on the Moon, just accidentally within walking distance
of a Surveyor?  I have a Life magazine covering the Apollo 12 mission,
which contains a photo of one of the astronauts standing next to Surveyor,
with the LEM up the hill in the background.  Unfortunately, the astros
killed their TV camera, and loaded their film camera with black&white
film.  Other than that, I greatly wished that they (Conrad & Bean) had
been the first crew to land on the moon.  They whistled while they
worked, exclaimed at the beauty, talked a lot, and had a lot of fun.
Armstrong & Aldrin kind of killed the excitement by their deadpan manner.
--

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

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

Date:     FRI NOV 10, 1989 11.33.49 EST
From: "*** PUT YOUR NAME HERE ***" <$[e-mail]>
Subject:  Drop address
To: <[e-mail]>

Please frop "#AST" from your mailing list as this account no longer
exists here at Lehigh.  Thank you.


Dead Letter Account Coordinator
----------------------------------------
= User Services                        =
= Lehigh University Computing Center   =
= Internet: <[e-mail]>  =
= BITNET:   <LUCC@LEHIIBM1>            =
----------------------------------------

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

Date: 9 Nov 89 16:54:53 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!usc!henry.jpl.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!peregrine!ccicpg!cci632!rit!ritcv![e-mail]
Subject: When is Pegasus Launching


I was wondering if somebody out there knew when the Pegasus booster
was going to be first launched. Thanks in advance.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                            |
"If you smile at me I will understand.          |  John R. Broderick
 'Cause that's something everybody             |
 everywhere does in the same language."         |  rochester!ritcv!jrb9465
                            |
 S. Stills, D. Crosby, P. Kantner        |
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: 10 Nov 89 18:38:53 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!samsung!usc!henry.jpl.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars![e-mail]  (Ron Baalke)
Subject: Re: When is Pegasus Launching

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John R. Broderick) writes:
>
>I was wondering if somebody out there knew when the Pegasus booster
>was going to be first launched. Thanks in advance.
>
December 8th.

 Ron Baalke                       |    [e-mail]
 Jet Propulsion Lab  M/S 301-355  |    [e-mail]
 4800 Oak Grove Dr.               |
 Pasadena, CA 91109               |

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

Date: 10 Nov 89 18:11:54 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Thanks For Responding

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Lance Michel) writes:
>However, one thing you mentioned was Apollo 12 retrieving pieces from
>Surveyor 3.  WOW.  I never knew that.  and for some reason I find it
>incredible that the navigation and guidance at that time could actually
>bring someone that close to a specific spot.  Can you provide any datails
>as to WHAT PARTS??  or were their any PICURES of the Surveyor sitting there?
>Was this planned, or luck?

It was planned; a major objective of Apollo 12 was to demonstrate precision
landing at a known point.  (Apollo 11 didn't worry about such things, and
in fact there was initially some uncertainty about its exact location.)
There were plenty of pictures; see any account of the mission.  Parts
included Surveyor's camera and soil scoop; I can dig up an exact list if
it's important.
--
A bit of tolerance is worth a  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
megabyte of flaming.           | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 11 Nov 89 00:57:13 GMT
From: bfmny0![e-mail]  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: Moon Colonies / Ant Tanks?

I'm sure Asimov himself is being humorous when he says he likes living
in the 'steel cave' of NY.  He has not volunteered to move to Riker's
Island, for instance, which is *truly* a steel cave. :-)

It's a matter of degree, and of support.  We flatter ourselves that we
are good at staying indoors, but gloss over how much care we take to
spend a certain hunk of every day OUT of doors, away from others.  We
point to isolated examples of people who look happy in semi permanent
basement residence, without noticing the extensive network of other
people whose *aboveground* daily lives and work are needed to make life
in the basement possible.

I am concerned that people are not taking in the whole picture at once.
When we concentrate on the huge fun skydomes and golf courses and such,
and hire our OMNI artists to paint them up real nice, we slide over
issues of cost effectiveness.  When we grind through heavy geochemistry
scenarios for processing lunar materials at maximum efficiency,
assembling low cost closed ecosystems etc., we don't spend much time
worrying who'd want to LIVE in the resulting narrow Phantom of the Opera
sewer complex and eat that green Robocop paste every damned day.  Much
less how their kids would grow up.

Anyway, if you want your grandkids to live in space don't send them to
the moon.  The moon isn't space, it's another dirtball -- worse than
this one!  Send them to an asteroid instead.  Asteroid interiors aren't
space either, but the front porch is.
--
"DO NOT, repeat, DO NOT blow the hatch!"  /)\   Tom Neff
"Roger....hatch blown!"                   \(/   [e-mail]

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

Date: 10 Nov 89 01:26:37 GMT
From: munnari.oz.au!murtoa.cs.mu.oz.au!ditmela!yarra!melba![e-mail]  (Zev Sero)
Subject: Re: Moon Colonies / Ant Tanks?


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jonathan Leech) writes:

   but aren't doing so.  The millenia+ delay between the enabling
   technology for crossing the Atlantic and large scale immigration to
   the New World provides no encouragement.

The technology for crossing the ocean from Western Europe to Eastern
Asia *and not starving on the way* did not exist millennia ago, and
did not exist in Columbus's day.  If Columbus had known how far it
really was to India (like everyone else knew), he would never have
tried to go there.  It was just his luck that he found this great big
refuelling station on the way.
--
                Zev Sero  -  [e-mail]
Australia, n.   A country lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and
commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate
dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island.
         -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

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

Date: 9 Nov 89 14:09:06 GMT
From: mcsun!ukc!icdoc!syma![e-mail]  (Nick Watkins)
Subject: Re: NASA Headline News for 10/26/89 (Forwarded)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Nick Watkins) writes:
>CRRES (Combined Radiation and Release Experiments Satellite). Gas
>release experiments, effect of radiation on microelectronics, and general
>space plasma physics in GTO.
Sorry. Should be Combined Release and Radiation Effects
Satellite. Radiation effects experiments are the highest priority.
> Maybe I'll post more after the CRRES Science meeting in Boulder I'll be
>attending next week (I am starting a postdoc at Sussex related to this
>mission).
Nothing really to add otherwise.
> CRRES seems to be a follow on to AMPTE and various USAF space test
>program missions.
It also effectively replaces the EQUATOR part of the Global Geospace
Program, which also includes POLAR and GEOTAIL.

Now my question. CRRES is to ride an Atlas 1. What is the difference
between this and current Atlas Centaurs, and also what is an Atlas 2?

Nick



--
Nick Watkins, Space & Plasma Physics Group, School of Mathematical
& Physical Sciences, Univ. of Sussex, Brighton, E.Sussex, BN1 9QH, ENGLAND
JANET: [e-mail]   BITNET: [e-mail]

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

End of SPACE Digest V10 #234
*******************