Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V10_2/V10_288.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #288

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 10 : Issue 288

Today's Topics:
           Re: Why NASA wants to go to Mars
                   Area 51
        RE: Looking down, was; HST resolution
          Galileo Astronauts Honored at JPL
             Thiokol / Grand Jury
      Space Station Power (was Re: space news from Oct 2 AW&ST)
          Re: Antimatter Drives and Area 51
          Re: Antimatter Drives and Area 51
         What's an 'aerospike' booster configuration?
         NASA Headline News for 11/29/89 (Forwarded)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 29 Nov 89 08:14:32 GMT
From: norge![e-mail]  (John McKernan)
Subject: Re: Why NASA wants to go to Mars

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jeff Goldader) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (douglas.h.price,45261,ih,6x203,312 979 3664) writes:
>>$400 billion applies if we continue to use 'standard' chemical rocket
>>technology to get to Mars.  If I invoke the nuclear propulsion
>>technologies (eeek! the dreaded 'N' word!)  the cost drops quickly to
>>about $150 billion with our current understanding of the life support
>>issues and the launch of all mass for the mission from earth.
>And at that price, even *I* would say, "GO!"

Anybody with a clear view of NASA's past and present would say "NO" at any
price. Putting four people on Mars to take a quick look around and then leave
is exactly what we accomplished with Apollo. Ie we put on a big show and
showed what we are capable of, but we didn't actually end up with anything
solid after all our effort and expense.

I think EVERYBODY'S goal in manned space is the colonization of the solar
system. NASA even mentions this goal buried amongst a dozen other
conflicting "goals". But given this goal, all of NASA's manned space efforts
are hopelessly misguided. The goal of moving millions of people into space
requires substanstial technological advance in a number of areas. The most
efficient way to do this is to fund lots of independent R&D efforts in the
same way NSF projects are financed. NASA should simply be dismantled as
inappropriate for the curent task, with the exception of things like JPL
which already follow an NFS type model.

John L. McKernan.                                                  [e-mail]
Disclaimer: These are my opinions but, shockingly enough, not necessarily Sun's
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: 29 Nov 1989 09:22:50 EST (Wed)
From: Ralph Hartley <[e-mail]>
Subject: Area 51

In the spirit of your posting.

> There were less than 300 pounds of element 115, and probably less now.
> Samples were tested in various university and government labs, including
> mine.

You wouldn't by any chance still have any still lying around, would you? I
have been trying to obtain a small sample of 115, which is required for my
research, for some time - so far without sucess. Apparently very little of
this material seems to still exist in pure form (115's well known bizarre
chemistry may have something to do with this). A few grams would be plenty.

> You might remember the big *Popular Mechanics* article about it.

There is no such article. However *Popular Science* had a short write up on
the subject just as the excitement was starting to die down. You may have
gotten the publications confused.

>>This fuel is used to drive waveguide-type gravity amplifiers which
>>are the FTL drive components of nine alien spacecraft
>
>Eight.  One crashed during tests in August 1981.  Three of the remaining
>eight have now been dismantled.

Could you point me to any references that give details of the 1981 crash?
The roumor in AW&ST was that the crash was caused by catastrofic failure of
an O ring in the SRM (Sewage Recovery Module), but this has never been
confirmed.

            Ralph Hartley
            [e-mail]

PS my work on this subject is so secret that even I dont know about it.

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

Date: Wed, 29 Nov 89 20:23:28
From: Michel van Roozendaal ECD <[e-mail]>
Subject: RE: Looking down, was; HST resolution

From:      Michel van Roozendaal
Darmstadt, 29-11-1989   19:45 GMT

[e-mail] mentions:

>Just a second here.  I agree that the HST would have a resolution on
>earth of ~6 inches, but dont DoD Spysats have a resolution of about
>2 inches? Why dont we just tell the DoD to point one of em at whatever
>astronomers want to look at?

Besides other aspects, like pointing accuracy and the different
wavelengths in which the HST and a Keyhole satellite observe, there
is one aspect which makes it rather difficult to compare both systems:
The orbit of both satellites.

The reason why a KH-satellite reaches a resolution in the order of
centimetres (OK,I cant resist: why using these stone-age @!*&!# inches??)
is that it is in a rather low orbit. Whereas the HST is at 590 km, the
KH satellites are at one third of this altitude, even lower in some
cases.

This aspect also plays a role for civil remote sensing satellites:
The best western remote sensing system, the French SPOT satellite,
reaches a resolution of 10-20 meters.(panachromatic versus multispectral)
The Russians sell pictures (Sojuzkarta, 45 Volgogradskij pr., Moscow
109125 USSR) with a resolution of about 6 meters. SPOT is in an orbit
at 835 km, while the Kosmos vehicles the Russians are using are at about
225 km, which explains much of the difference. (Not everything, since
the Russians are using return capsules, and chemical films,
like the former generation of KH satellites did. BTW, the Russians might
soon come with even better resolutions than 6 meters.)

*************************************************************************
* Michel van Roozendaal             *  In order to write compact        *
* European Space Operations Centre  *   you need to know many words     *
* Robert Bosch strasse 5            *                                   *
* 6100 Darmstadt  RFG               *************************************
* (0)6151-886376                    *                                   *
* (0)6151-595725  (Until 20-12-89)  *Don't tell my boss I wrote all this*
* EARN: esc1759 at esoc             *                                   *
*************************************************************************


End of Message

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

Date: 29 Nov 89 21:04:50 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!usc!henry.jpl.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Ron Baalke)
Subject: Galileo Astronauts Honored at JPL


     The crew of the STS-34 Space Shuttle Mission was honored today at the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The major objective of the STS-34 flight was the
deployment of the spacecraft Galileo which was accomplished last October 18th.
The ceremony occurred at noon in the JPL mall area. Dr. Lew Allen, the
director of JPL, presented each of the astronauts with a personalized
plaque commemorating the Galileo deployment. Don Williams, the commander
of STS-34 and mission specialists Ellen Baker were then introduced and each
gave a speech in front of the JPL personel.  Time was then set aside for the
JPL employees to chat with the astronauts and to get their autographs.

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

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

Date: 29 Nov 89 17:51:44 GMT
From: bfmny0![e-mail]  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Thiokol / Grand Jury

I respect the usual dictums regarding posting headlines-of-the-moment to
the newsgroup ("Ike Still Dead", etc), but I don't know whether this is
going to get a lot of play, and readers should be aware of the basics.

A federal grand jury convened Wednesday (29-Nov-89) to investigate
the claims of Dan Joos, a quality control engineer for Thiokol Corp.,
who says some equipment used on the post-Challenger shuttle flights
was improperly inspected, so that up to 50% of the data measured
on these flights may be inaccurate.  "We could lose another shuttle
today," he is quoted as saying.

From the descriptions it sounds like this is the specialized testing
equipment added to the SRMs for the first three resumption flights.
Joos says he sent a memo to his superiors about the improper inspection
procedures, and that they forwarded it to NASA.  Thiokol has been asked
to provide information to the grand jury, which is expected to complete
its work by Friday.  Joos has been subpoenaed to appear before it.

I presume AvWeek will be on this one in spades.  More as we hear it...

--
"NASA Announces New Deck Chair Arrangement For   \_/  Tom Neff
Space Station Titanic" -- press release 89-7654  \_/  [e-mail]

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

Date: 29 Nov 89 23:09:28 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!venera.isi.edu![e-mail]  (Craig Milo Rogers)
Subject: Space Station Power (was Re: space news from Oct 2 AW&ST)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Mike Chin) writes:
>Why is 20 kHz bad? I vaguely remember an article in Powertecnics describing
>this system, but I wasn't aware of any controversy.

(begin unsubstantiated opinion mode)

    Electric circuit components tend to vibrate and couple
acoustically to the air at 20kHz much more than at 400Hz or 60Hz (or
DC).  20kHz is within the "normal" human hearing range.  Without
*lots* of special design and fabrication attention, the proposed 20kHz
design would "shriek" like an television monitor (horizontal retrace
frequency of about 16kHz) or an FM stereo receiver lacking a good
stereo pilot signal (about 18kHz ?) filter.

    Most adults I've met can no longer hear this high, but this
doesn't mean that continuous, high-intensity exposure to these
frequencies won't have a physiological effect on them.  Some, such
as I, retain the ability to hear this high;  this is one of the
reasons I avoid television and cheap stereos.

    A 20kHz acoustic vibration might, in turn, affect the results
of biological or microgravity experiments aboard the station.

(end unsubstantiated opinion mode)

    Does anyone out there know whether the team(s) that propose
and evaluate power supply designs for the space station receive input
from an operations team (for the medical effect of power supply
configurations on the stationauts) or the science teams (for the
effects of the power supply on the proposed scientific payloads)?

                    Craig Milo Rogers

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

From: [e-mail]
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 89 08:47:35 EST
X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (6.4 2/14/89)
Subject: Re: Antimatter Drives and Area 51

> From: W.T. Higgins <[e-mail]>
>
> >This fuel is used to drive waveguide-type gravity amplifiers which
> >are the FTL drive components of nine alien spacecraft
>
> Eight.  One crashed during tests in August 1981.  Three of the remaining
> eight have now been dismantled.

Huh?  Being a casual reader of Space digests, the seemingly off-handed
discussion of alien spacecraft drives being examined and tested has me
expecting my alarm clock to go off any second now.  Either that or I must
be in line at the supermarket checkout |-).

Unless such information is generally accepted to be fact (in which case I'd
appreciate knowing where I can get model kits of these babies ;-), would it
be too much to ask that such statements be prefaced with adjectives like
"alleged" or "supposed"?  I really enjoy following this digest and on the
whole I find it extremely educational, but postings like the above can
be somewhat confusing and disillusioning, especially for us laymen in the
crowd.

Gregg TeHennepe                        | Minicomputer Specialist
gateh@conncoll                         | Connecticut College, New London, CT

August '81: News flash - Big Foot dies in freak accident while test piloting
alien spacecraft.  Hoffa's body found in the wreckage.

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

Date: 29 Nov 89 21:52:48 GMT
From: bbn.com![e-mail]  (Nichael Cramer)
Subject: Re: Antimatter Drives and Area 51

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>> From: W.T. Higgins <[e-mail]>
>> >This fuel is used to drive waveguide-type gravity amplifiers which
>> >are the FTL drive components of nine alien spacecraft
>> Eight.  One crashed during tests in August 1981.  Three of the remaining
>> eight have now been dismantled.
>Huh?  Being a casual reader of Space digests, the seemingly off-handed
>discussion of alien spacecraft drives being examined and tested has me
>expecting my alarm clock to go off any second now...
>Unless such information is generally accepted to be fact [...] would it
>be too much to ask that such statements be prefaced with adjectives like
>"alleged" or "supposed"?...

Ah, come on son, they're funnin' ya.

Being as this isn't alt.conspiracy or some such nut.net, are such
adjectives *really* necessary when discussing these things.  (Now it's a
different question as to whether the joke has outlived it's useful
lifetime... ).

>Gregg TeHennepe                        | Minicomputer Specialist
>August '81: News flash - Big Foot dies in freak accident while test piloting
>alien spacecraft.  Hoffa's body found in the wreckage.

Case in point.   ;)

NICHAEL

|  Nichael Lynn Cramer    | "'Light Years' only has a few pictures. |
|   --  [e-mail]   |  'UFO...Contact from the Pleiades' is a |
|   --  [e-mail]   |  better photo album."  -- Rick Wilson   |

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

Date: 29 Nov 89 17:54:30 GMT
From: zephyr.ens.tek.com!tekig5![e-mail]  (Phil Jansen)
Subject: What's an 'aerospike' booster configuration?

Hi.  I heard that an 'aerospike' rocket configuration would work out to be
fairly efficient, and eliminate the need for rocket nozzles.

What is an 'aerospike' anyway, and how does it work?

Thanks.

--
                          If you repeat things often enough, they become true.
Phil Jansen               If you repeat things often enough, they become true.
[e-mail]  If you repeat things often enough, they become true.

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

Date: 29 Nov 89 18:46:01 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Headline News for 11/29/89 (Forwarded)

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, Nov. 29, 1989                     Audio:  202/755-1788
-----------------------------------------------------------------

This is NASA Headline News for Wednesday, November 29th......

A federal grand jury convenes today in Birmingham, Alabama to
investigate allegations that some parts used on space shuttles
were not properly inspected.  The charges were made by a Thiokol
Corporation quality control engineer in a memo written to his
superiors, who forwarded it to NASA.  The Thiokol engineer claims
up to 50 percent of the data measured on shuttle flights may be
inaccurate.

At Kennedy Space Center...technicians today are installing a
communications satellite into the space shuttle Columbia's cargo
bay, which will be deployed during next month's STS-32 mission.
Tomorrow, a two-day countdown-rehearsal test gets underway.  the
high-light of the 10-day, Christmas-time mission, will be the
retrieval of the Long Duration Exposure Facility that's been in
orbit since 1984.  A launch date for Columbia will be set
following completion of the two-day flight readiness review
scheduled for next Monday and Tuesday at KSC.

Officials say the space shuttle Discovery came through its
five-day military mission in excellent condition.  Tip Talone,
Discovery's processing manager, says initial inspections show
fewer than 10 thermal tiles will have to be replaced.  He also
said the orbiter's brakes are in good condition.  Discovery's
next mission is to carry the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit
late next March...and Talone said, "the bottom line is, we think
we've got a really good start...to get the Hubble out next
March."

James Hansen, a researcher at NASA's Institute for Space Studies,
says major climate changes predicted from global warming are
being delayed due to less use of chloroflorocarbon gases.  Hansen
says in an article in the Journal of Geophysical Research, that
if CFC production had not been cut sharply beginning in 1974, the
heating of the Earth from the greenhouse effect would occur in 20
years rather than in 40 years as most theories now predict.



                         **********










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Thursday, Nov. 30.....

     11:30 A.M.       NASA Update will be transmitted.

Friday, Dec. 1........

      6:00 A.M.       Coverage begins of the concluding 6-hours
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All events and times are subject to change without notice.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
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------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V10 #288
*******************