Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V10_2/V10_294.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1991-07-08 | 16KB

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/sZRqq4a00VcJ43IU5r>;
          Sat,  2 Dec 89 01:36:53 -0500 (EST)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
From: [e-mail]
To: [e-mail]
Date: Sat,  2 Dec 89 01:36:31 -0500 (EST)
Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #294

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 10 : Issue 294

Today's Topics:
What happened when SkyLab came down? [was : What happens when a satellite comes down?
             Re: Reasons for Mars mission
      Information sources for frequent space questions (1 of n)
        Re: Galileo Astronauts Honored at JPL
             Re: Reasons for Mars mission
                 Re: Salyut 7
          Re: Antimatter Drives and Area 51
               Re: FUSE and ACE
           Re: Why NASA wants to go to Mars
            RE: CRESCENT MOON ...
           Re: Gary Hudson and the Phoenix
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 2 Dec 89 00:46:04 GMT
From: bbn.com![e-mail]  (Nichael Cramer)
Subject: What happened when SkyLab came down? [was : What happens when a satellite comes down?

In article [e-mail] (J. Loughry) writes:
> Solar Max is coming down.  According to the papers, [...]

Can somebody settle an old discussion for me?

When SkyLab came down, it was treated by the papers, Johnny Carson (and the
Man In The Street) as more or less a miracle that nobody died.  But I tried
arguing with a friend that its reentry trajectory (i.e. down the Atlantic,
around the tip of Africa and out across the Indian Ocean) was just too
fortuitous to be blind luck.  His arguement was that if this had been the
case, we would have heard more about it.

So, does anyone know?  Was this just a lucky stroke?  Or did NASA's PR (or
more likely the media) blow it?

Thanks
NICHAEL

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

Date: 2 Dec 89 01:44:24 GMT
From: norge![e-mail]  (John McKernan)
Subject: Re: Reasons for Mars mission

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Tom Neff) writes:
>Considering that it's easier and cheaper to inhabit the shelves than
>the equivalent acreage on Moon or Mars, I wonder why people don't
>spend more time pondering "self sufficient colonies" and "population
>pressure relief" efforts down there.

The continental shelves (or Antartica) are no replacement for space
colonization. In the first place these areas have already been colonized,
ie permanent manned research stations in Antartica and permanent manned
oil drilling sites on the continental shelves. There are proposals for
increased colonization, such as massive strip mining of the sea bed, or
mining/drilling operations in Antartica, but political and ecological
factors will likely stop such plans. If arbitrary groups of people were
alowed to claim permanent mineral or fishing rights over the continental
shelves then such groups of people would already exist. And if they were
required to live were their claims were, I'm sure they'd be doing so
(above the water because that's easier).

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

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

Date: 1 Dec 89 12:01:01 GMT
From: amelia![e-mail]  (Eugene Miya)
Subject: Information sources for frequent space questions (1 of n)

Many space activies center around large Government or International
Bureaucracies.  In this country that means NASA.  If you have basic
information requests: (e.g., general PR info, research grants, data,
limited tours, and ESPECIALLY SUMMER EMPLOYMENT (typically resumes
should be ready by Jan. 1), etc.), consider contacting the nearest
NASA Center to answer your questions.

EMail typically will not get you any where, computers are used by
investigators, not PR people.  The typical volume of mail per Center is
a multiple of 10,000 letters a day.  Seek the Public Information Office
at one of the below, this is their job:

NASA Headquarters (NASA HQ)
Washington DC 20546

NASA Ames Research Center (ARC)
Moffett Field, CA 94035
[Mountain View, CA, near San Francisco Bay, you know Silicon Valley 8-) ]

Ames Research Center
Dryden Flight Research Facility [DFRF]
P. O. Box 273
Edwards, CA  93523

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)
Greenbelt, MD 20771
[Outside of Washington DC]

NASA Lewis Research Center (LeRC)
21000 Brookpark Rd.
Cleveland, OH 44135

NASA Johnson Manned Space Center (JSC)
Houston, TX 77058

NASA Kennedy Space Flight Center (KSC)
Titusville, FL 32899

NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSC)
Huntsville, AL35812

NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC)
Hampton, VA 23665
[Near Newport News, VA]

Not a NASA Center, but close enough:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory [JPL/CIT]
California Institute of Technology
4800 Oak Grove Dr.
Pasadena, CA 91109

There are other small facilities, but the above major Centers are set up
to handle public information requests.  They can send you tons of information.

Specific requests for software must go thru COSMIC at the Univ. of Georgia,
NASA's contracted software redistribution service.  You can reach them
at [e-mail].  If this gives you problems, tell me.

NOTE:  Foreign nationals requesting information must go through their
Embassies in Washington DC.  These are facilities of the US Government
and are regarded with some degree of economic sensitivity.
Centers cannot directly return information without high Center approval.
Allow at least 1 month for clearance.  This includes COSMIC.

EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY        (O) 202/488-4158
955 L'Enfant Plaza S.W., Washington, D.C.  20024

 Arianespace Headquarters
 Boulevard de l'Europe
 B.P. 177
 91006 Evry Cedex
 France

ARIANESPACE, INC. (O) 202/728-9075
1747 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Suite 875, Washington, DC  20006

SPOT IMAGE CORPORATION           (FAX) 703/648-1813    (O) 703/620-2200
1857 Preston White Drive, Reston, VA 22091

National Space Development Agency (NASDA), 4-1 Hamamatsu-Cho, 2 Chome
          Minato-Ku, Tokyo 105, Japan

SOYUZKARTA
45 Vologradsij Pr., Moscow 109125, USSR

SPACE COMMERCE CORPORATION (U.S. agent for Soviet launch services)
504 Pluto Drive, Colorado Springs, CO  80906   (O) 719/578-5490
69th flr, Texas Commerce Tower, Houston, TX 77002  (O) 713/227-9000

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

Date: 1 Dec 89 14:06:07 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com![e-mail]  (Stephen R Fleming)
Subject: Re: Galileo Astronauts Honored at JPL

>Time was then set aside for the
>JPL employees to chat with the astronauts and to get their autographs.

...Just think about this sentence for a second...

I'm not a basher of the individual astronauts; I'd love to be one.
But the thought of people at JPL, the *real* space-science heroes
of the last couple of decades, clustering around a bunch of
Right-Stuffers like teenage groupies...

I dunno.  Maybe I'm getting cranky in my old age.  Let it pass.

+--------------------------+-------------------------------------------+
|  Stephen Fleming         | My employer doesn't pay for this account. |
|  [e-mail]  | In fact, my employer doesn't even know    |
|  CI$:   76354,3176       | I'm here!  Disclaimer enough for any      |
|  Voice: [phone]   | network-aware lawyer-types, I hope...     |
+--------------------------+-------------------------------------------+

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

Date: 1 Dec 89 13:42:14 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com![e-mail]  (Stephen R Fleming)
Subject: Re: Reasons for Mars mission

>Well then, you must find going to the ocean floor equally appealing...
>after all, it's a place for us to go, too. Seriously, if I was a
>frustrated space cadet I would try to make a living somewhere out in
>the relatively unexplored 70% of our planet's surface. You have all
>the important analogies with space...it's hostile, expensive,
>difficult, a place where Men can be Men, and so on.

In Robert Heinlein's posthumously published book "Grumbles from
the Grave" (just out), he mentions plans for a undersea science
fiction novel titled "Ocean Rancher" which he was going to write to
break up the string of spaceships-and-rayguns in the early 1950s.
Poor health prevented him from completing the diving and travel
required for his research.

Considering the impact Heinlein's other "juvenile" science fiction
novels had on an entire generation (take an informal poll of NASA's
astronauts sometime), I wonder if getting such a book out in the
mid-1950s would have had an effect.  I suspect so.

+--------------------------+-------------------------------------------+
|  Stephen Fleming         | My employer doesn't pay for this account. |
|  [e-mail]  | In fact, my employer doesn't even know    |
|  CI$:   76354,3176       | I'm here!  Disclaimer enough for any      |
|  Voice: [phone]   | network-aware lawyer-types, I hope...     |
+--------------------------+-------------------------------------------+

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

Date: 1 Dec 89 16:42:18 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!watserv1!watcgl!watsnew![e-mail]  (Mark Earnshaw)
Subject: Re: Salyut 7

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer)
writes:
>Well, Salyut 7 itself is nominally still in operational condition, although
>mothballed...
>--
>Mars can wait:  we've barely   |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
>started exploring the Moon.    | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

Of course, this would be a fast cheap way for the Western world to get a space
station.  All we have to do is buy Salyut 7 from the Russians.  They get
desperately needed hard currency, and we get a working (?) space station a
decade ahead of schedule (possible much more given the way deadlines have been
slipping  :-( ).

:-)  :-)

--
Mark Earnshaw, Systems Design Engineering      {uunet,utai}!watmath!watsnew!mark
University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada        [e-mail].{edu,cdn}

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

Date: 29 Nov 89 12:19:59 GMT
From: eru!luth!sunic!tut!hydra!hylka![e-mail]  (Tom Sundius, U of Helsinki/Physics, [phone])
Subject: Re: Antimatter Drives and Area 51

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (W.T. Higgins) writes:
> Michael Sloan MacLeod posted a discussion about:
>
>>Robert Lazar, formerly employed by the government at the mysterious
>>Area 51, says that the US government has 500 pounds of element 115,
>>which somehow produces antimatter when irradiated.
>
> Lazar is pulling the wool over somebody's eyes. There were less than 300 pounds
> of element 115, and probably less now. Samples were tested in various
  Amazing! I thought that the highest-numbered element produced so far
  was number 109, and that just a few (3?) nuclei had been seen...

   Cheers, T S :-)

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
!  Tom Sundius                BitNet:   SUNDIUS@FINUH, SUNDIUS@FINUHCB, !
!  Department of Physics                SUNDIUS@FINFUN                  !
!  University of Helsinki     Internet: [e-mail],      !
!  SF-00170 Helsinki, Finland               [e-mail]              !
!  Phone : [phone]     Decnet:   HYFLT::SUNDIUS, HYLK::SUNDIUS   !
!  Fax   : [phone]     PsiMail:  PSI%244203008::SUNDIUS          !
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: 1 Dec 89 20:42:59 GMT
From: bfmny0![e-mail]  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: FUSE and ACE

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Peter Scott) writes:
> [The acronym department earned its pay this month - PJS]

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

Otto Preminger
Korolev Space Complex, Beltway, Maryland        Dec. 1, 1989

ACRONYM GENERATOR SYSTEM (AGS) CONTRACT AWARDED FOR SPACE STATION FREEDOM ...

[oh never mind]


--
When I was [in Canada] I found their jokes like their   | Tom Neff
roads -- not very long and not very good, leading to a  | [e-mail]
little tin point of a spire which has been remorselessly
obvious for miles without seeming to get any nearer. -- Samuel Butler.

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

Date: 1 Dec 89 22:03:21 GMT
From: mephisto!prism![e-mail]  (Michael J. Gourlay)
Subject: Re: Why NASA wants to go to Mars

Jeff Goldader writes:
]From "Aviation Week and Space Technology," Oct. 30, 1989 (p.15):
]
]`SAY WHAT?
]Franklin D. Martin, NASA's associate administrator for exploration, has a
]host of reasons for sending humans to Mars....
]... one committee member thought
]he noticed an omission.  "Hey, Frank, you left off science," A. Thomas
]Young, the president of Martin Marietta Electronics and Missiles Group,
]...  "Yeah, maybe so.  Yeah," Martin acknowledged.  But he quickly
]brushed Young's comment aside, remarking offhandedly that "science is
]one of the reasons you do these things, but it's not the driver." '
]
]Personal Editorial Begins:
]
]Am I the only one who nearly became physically ill after reading this?

  No, you are not the only one. That is truely unbelievable. Who the..
What!! He!! Hey! Harumph.

]Is this truly what our space program has become, a bunch of administrators
]who are no longer aware that space exploration is meant for science? ...
]
]I would rant and rave about cancelling the whole damned mess, but you've all
]heard that before.  If any of you hopeful ones needed proof of the final
]collapse of the United States' space program, here it is.

 Instead of cancelling, what seems like a possibility is competition from
other space administrations. Too bad there isn't a totally private space
industry to compete with NASA. It seems that what this.. this _guy_ was
after was that nobody wants to fork over (sound pun intended) the dough
for pure science. It's not economically hip.
--
Michael J. Gourlay                          GT Box 35431
Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Physics, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp:      ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!gt5431b
Internet: [e-mail]                            My opinions.

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

Date: Fri, 1 Dec 89 17:16:40 CST
From: [e-mail] (When in fear, or in doubt, run around, scream and shout)
Subject: RE: CRESCENT MOON ...

Although the information requested is, in some way, related and even useful to
the readers of this e-pub, I personally can deal without the 300+ (did anyone
count?) lines.  If someone is actually interested, let him or her subscribe.
But don't take up my precious disk space until I can read it.  A short
announcement and pointer to where more info can be obtained would be more
appropriate.  Especially since this has been going on for a year or so.

Dillon Pyron                      At some time, each must stand alone.
[e-mail]

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

Date: Fri, 1 Dec 89 10:22:07 PST
From: Peter Scott <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Gary Hudson and the Phoenix

This is the venture that was going to provide either orbital or sub-orbital,
I forget which, tourist flights for Society Expeditions by 1992.  Cost was
$55,000 per passenger.  They took $5,000 deposits (I know some people who
paid it), and supposedly the first flight was reserved by the Stanford
Alumni Association, but a few years ago they announced that they had met
insurmountable technical difficulties and S.E. refunded all the deposits,
with the option of applying it to another trip of theirs.

So what did they do that now makes this a viable project?

Peter Scott ([e-mail])

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

End of SPACE Digest V10 #294
*******************