Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V11_2/V11_257.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #257

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 11 : Issue 257

Today's Topics:
          Space Shuttle Development (7 of 7)
               Re: Interstellar travel
              Silo Launches etc.
              Vandeburg Launch Schedules
               Re: Interstellar travel
       Re: Comet Austin. Is it visible from Australia ?
        Re: HST Image Status for 04/01/90 (Forwarded)
              Re: Ejection seats
          Space Shuttle Development (3 of 7)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 12 Apr 90 03:04:35 GMT
From: pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!zardoz.cpd.com!dhw68k!ofa123![e-mail]  (Wales Larrison)
Subject: Space Shuttle Development (7 of 7)


  It was not until 3 January 1972 that the final approval for the
Space Shuttle was communicated to NASA.  Appropriately enough, NASA
had spent the holidays struggling to answer another set of detailed
OMB questions, and had set a 14x45 foot payload bay as the minimum
size for the shuttle.  To NASA's surprise, they were told the 15x60
foot payload bay had been approved.
  The decision to use solid rocket motors for the booster stage was
made soon afterwards.  As part of the extensions of the Phase B
contracts, numerous booster propulsion schemes had been examined. The
major reason for the choice of solid rocket boosters was the
development cost of the liquid boosters.  NASA specifically chose to
accept a higher recurring cost and a complex operations flow, to
reduce the projected development cost.  Reusable cryo tanks were also
rejected on the basis of a higher development cost and increased
technical risk, although they had a lower recurring cost.  OMB
director George Schultz said "NASA is to be congratulated for its
willingness to examine a wide range of alternatives to find a
configuration which retains system capability but which reduces the
amount of investment required." (Ref: Letter from George Schultz to
Jame Fletcher, 17 March 1972, NASA historical archives)

  In March of 1972, a "request for proposals" was released to the
industry for the specified space shuttle system.  It had all of the
elements of the current design - 15X60 payload bay volume, cross range
of 1100 nmi, 65,000 pound payload capability, large external tank, and
dual solid rocket boosters.  4 teams of companies replied - each with
a proposal of 2000+ pages. These were MDAC, Grumman, North American
Rockwell, and Lockheed.   Of these, North American Rockwell was
chosen, and contract NAS 9-14000 to design, develop, test, and
construct the space shuttle was let in late 1972.

   Between 1972 and 1980, the funding profile for the program changed
dramatically - annual budgets for the phase C/D contract effort
changed yearly.  Each year the effort had to be replanned and rephased
by NASA and the contractors.  The expected 5 year contract was
stretched by Congress to 7, then 9 years.  The number of vehicles to
be built changed from 10 (1972) to 5 (1975)  to 4 (1976) to 1 (1977)
to 4 (1978) again, and the delivery schedule stretched out.  Each year
the contracts for delivery of parts and materials had to be
renegotiated with subcontractors and vendors.  This doubled or tripled
the expected program costs.  (Rockwell claimed after 51-L that a block
buy of 3 orbiters can be made for the price of 2 - if the dollars are
allocated up front).
   Meanwhile, the NASA budget continued to shrink.  In constant 1972
dollars, the NASA budget shrank from $3.2 billion in 1971 to $2.4
billion in 1978.  As the budgets decreased, new programs that had been
expected to provide the majority of the payloads to be carried on the
shuttle were eliminated or severely cut back.  Since these programs
were not yet established, or not even in existence, they could not
defend themselves against budget cuts. This created the vicious spiral
of: few missions - high cost transportation - high cost missions -
more importance on fewer missions - fewer, more costly missions -
higher cost transportation - ...

  And it is from this "death spiral" that we are trying to extract our
national space program.  The Challenger accident, the failure of the
few alternative launch systems, and the increased attention given to
space by the public are all working to extract us from this.
   Hope you folks find this interesting.  I had fun putting it
together.                              (Finis)


--- Opus-CBCS 1.10
 * Origin: Universal Electronics, Inc. (1:103/302.0)
--
Wales Larrison
...!{dhw68k,zardoz,lawnet,conexch}!ofa123!Wales.Larrison                             [e-mail]
714 544-0934 2400/1200/300

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

Date: 12 Apr 90 23:37:45 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Nick Kline)
Subject: Re: Interstellar travel

So what is the Fermi Paradox?  Is this the equation where you try
to estimate various factors which relate to the chances of intelligent life,
like say % of suns with planets, % with life, % with intelligent life,
% with life that doesn't destroy itself, similar in scope to the equation in
Cosmos, by Carl Sagan?

-nick

[e-mail]

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

Date: 12 Apr 90 12:11:02 GMT
From: mcsun!ukc!icdoc!syma![e-mail]  (Nick Watkins)
Subject: Silo Launches etc.

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Dean F. Kling) writes:
>
>    :Very few USAF programs ever receive every dollar they request, popular
>    :mythology notwithstanding.
Classic case here is Macnamara's reminiscence (in Michael Charlton's
book/radio series "The Star Wars History" (BBC)) of an AF general climbing
into a taxi and saying to him & (I think) JFK, "well Mr President, when we
get the 10000 Minutemen ... "). I think that's what Boeing would call an
order of magnitude ... Good book btw, I look forward to reading "The
Eagle & the Small Birds".

> I believe it is still the case that no
>    :Minuteman has ever been successfully test-fired from the operational
>    :type
>    :of silo.  Many have been fired from the Vandenberg test silos,
>    :but those
>    :are not representative of the operational ones.  There were a series of
>    :attempts to fire from an operational-type silo at Vandenberg,
>    :all failures.
What about the operational silos at the bases? I remember hearing that a
Titan II had exploded in a test launch from an operational silo thus putting
an end to them, is this my faulty memory ? Also there was a report a
while back of an accidental Titan II launch. Is this an urban legend or
is there some truth to it?

>    :I believe the failures were all minor things, not indicative of
>    :any sort
>    :of fatal flaw, and money and official patience simply ran out.
>    :After all,
>    :it says in the specs that it will work...
It also says it'll fly happily over the popular polar route ... :-)

>    :--
>    :Apollo @ 8yrs: one small step.|   Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
>    :Space station @ 8yrs: .| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]
Journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step ...:-)

>  My recollections of attempts to do a test launch from an operational silo
>were that they were all quashed due to the prospect of the multi-ton first
>stage coming down somewhere in the U.S. , possibly on the head of some
>tax-paying (and probably litigating) citizen.  I was involved in the other leg
>of the triad and we did regular test launches from operational silos
>(submarine missile launch tubes) which worked reliably a large percentage of
>the time.
>
Did quashing apply to Minuteman only or Atlas & Titan I/II as well?

Our news was down 5th to 10th or so, sorry if above q's answered while
I was not looking. Ditto sorry for losing some of 2010 thread, which
I've been enjoying.

Nick


--
Dr. 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]

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

Date: 12 Apr 90 17:31:00 GMT
From: acad![e-mail]  (John Sergneri)
Subject: Vandeburg Launch Schedules

I read in the paper this morning that there was an Atlas launch from Vandeburg recently.
Because it is much closer to San Francisco than the Cape is, I wonder if there is a way
to get advanced notice of launches. I know that Vandenburg is more prone to military
secrecy than the Cape but I'd still like to see one of the big rockets go up. Does
anyone know the likelyhood of being able to witness such launches?

--
John Sergneri            "Final Note: Capitalism, for good or ill, is the
uunet!acad!johns          river in which we sink or swim, and stocks the
                          supermarket."  ROZZ-TOX Manifesto - Gary Panter

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

Date: 12 Apr 90 19:55:37 GMT
From: skipper![e-mail]  (Al Bowers)
Subject: Re: Interstellar travel

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jeffrey Kirk Bennett) writes:

I noticed a lot of talk about interstellar travel a while back, and
I'm a little confused. Am I wrong, or is there a point to thinking
about such things? It seems to me that there a a couple principles
which make it completely impractical- but I'm not a physicist, so
please expand or correct me if I'm wrong.

   I also noticed this disscussion and it seemed to me there was alot
   of sci-fi type of mentality.  I pointed out the near term solution of
   a Daedalus type of one-way unmanned probe and was immediately
   _flamed_ for lack of foresight so I withdrew from subsequent
   disscussion.  As an engineer living in the here and now such probes
   interest me as they will provide the only answer in my lifetime as to
   whether our solar system evolution is unique or not (Hubble will
   answer some of the questions, but not as many as a probe).

1. The goal is to find intelligent life and/or a habitable planet. It
seems to me that both are extremely rare events. Though I've no doubt

   I disagree.  Finding anything at all will tell us a lot.  Just by
   visiting another star we double our experimental sample ;-).

2. I don't see mankind inventing practical anti-matter propulsion or
whatever the current idea is in the next century or two. But, since

   Nuclear drives are available now, and with a limited development of
   technology it appears that .12c is possible. This gives a flight time
   of 30 to 50 years to various stars (Proxima Centauri, Barnard's star,
   Alpha Centauri, etc.).  If I live to be 90 or so it could be done
   before I die, but we gotta start now!

3. Assuming all the fuel is burned during the acceleration and
deceleration phases, how would the craft return?

   Just crawl first, worry about walking later.  Do the fly-by mission.
   You gotta start somewhere, right?

4. Even if it had the fuel to return, how would it find the Earth
again, since it is not exactly standing still, and may have moved
unpredictably due to passing stars, black holes, etc. in the path of
the Sun.

   See above.  There are some time dilation effects even on this short
   mission, but readjusting the data rate isn't a _major_ undertaking.

So I don't see the point in even talking about it, but comments are
welcome.

On a related note- can't we dismiss UFO reports out of hand? My
reasoning is this:

   I leave this to the National Enquirer and Star crowd to argue with
   you.  I would not dismiss ETI completely (I do believe SETI is
   important) as it is utter arrogance to outright assume that we are
   unique in the Universe.  I do discount UFO's as preposterous.

These are things which have bugged me forever. I believe interstellar
travel is probably impossible and certainly impractical, and UFO's
don't exist. Am I missing something here?

   I think interstellar travel will begin in the next few generation (my
   grandchildren or great-grandchildren?) at an unmanned probe level.  As
   for flying people, I don't know and I would not hazard a guess (one
   Einstein in a life time can turn physics upside down on you ;-).

--
Albion H. Bowers  [e-mail] ames!elxsi.dfrf.nasa.gov!bowers

`In the changing of the times, they were like autumn lightning, a
thing out of season, an empty promise of rain that would fall unheeded
on fields already bare.'
                              attributed to Abe Shosaburo by Dave Lowery

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

Date: 11 Apr 90 12:32:45 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!munnari.oz.au!metro!bunyip!uqvax!csvax![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Comet Austin. Is it visible from Australia ?

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Anthony Lee) writes:
> I been trying to find out what area of the sky am I supposed
> to be looking at to find Comet Austin.  I got this chart from
> Sky and Telescope, but since it is for the Northern Hemisphere,
> it is useless in Australia.
>
> Basically the chart got the Pleiades and ARIES visible at SUNSET.  I
> don't suppose anyone can translate that into the Australian sky ?
>
> thanks in advance
> Anthony

I would also like to know where to look to see the comet.  Please EMail
me seeing as I rarely have time to read this group.

Thanks!

Au revoir,

@~~Richard Thomas  aka. The AppleByter  --  The Misplaced Canadian~~~~~~~~~~~@
{ InterNet: [e-mail]             JANET:   [e-mail]     }
{ ACSNet:   [e-mail]       BITNET:  as [e-mail]      }
{ PSI:      PSI%505272223015::R_Thomas      ARPANet: as [e-mail] }
@~~~~~School of Computing Science - Queensland University of Technology~~~~~~@

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

Date: 12 Apr 90 17:18:13 GMT
From: cellar![e-mail]  (Doug Davey)
Subject: Re: HST Image Status for 04/01/90 (Forwarded)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (lawrence.m.geary,ho,) writes:
> It turns out that Senator Al Gore is quite concerned with NASA sitting
> on many terabytes of unprocessed data collected from all the space probes
> over the last two decades. Supposedly some of this data is on unlabeled
> tapes

I presume that Tipper Gore (Al's wife) is really the Gore most concerned
about NASA having unlabeled tapes.  After all, if they are unlabeled an
innocent child might not realize that they are filled with explicit data!
It is rumored that Magellan will even be returning venereal data (horrors).
What's a parent to do?    :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Doug Davey   bellcore!cellar!ddavey   [e-mail]

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

Date: 12 Apr 90 15:58:31 GMT
From: van-bc!ubc-cs!kiwi!dssmv2![e-mail]  (Roger Fischer)
Subject: Re: Ejection seats


Some early jet fighter plane first blew the canopy and ejected the seat
after a one second delay. All pilots agreed that this was the longest
second in their life.

Roger
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roger W. Fischer         [e-mail]         [e-mail]
..seismo!ubc-cs!mprgate!fischer     ...ihnp4!alberta!ubc-cs!mprgate!fischer

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

Date: 12 Apr 90 01:51:19 GMT
From: pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!zardoz.cpd.com!dhw68k!ofa123![e-mail]  (Wales Larrison)
Subject: Space Shuttle Development (3 of 7)


  Each of the major aerospace contractors also funded and ran their
own conceptual design and costing exercises, in parallel with their
contractual efforts.  The estimates of these company investments come
to about $120 million over the 1968-1970 time period.  Unfortunately,
much of the data supporting these industry studies is lost, excepting
conclusions and summaries of the results.

  In 1970, NASA let 4 basic Phase B Contracts for a total of $30M,
over a 1 year period.  Each contractor submitted about 500 pages of
technical and cost analyses supporting their proposal.  Proposals
were submitted from:
  o Lockheed/Boeing (teamed with TWA, AC Electronics Division, Bell
Aerosciences, Bendix Navigation, and Messerschmitt-Boeklow-Bolm)
  o Grumman (teamed with General Electric, Northrup, Aerojet General,
and Eastern Airlines)
  o MDAC (teamed with Martin Marietta, TRW, PanAm, Raytheon, and
United Aircraft Norden Division)
  o North American Rockwell/General Dynamics (teamed with American
Airlines, Honeywell, and IBM)

  Two proposals were selected (MDAC and NAR), each company team to
study a fully reusable system, with both a high (1100 nmi) and a low
(600 nmi) cross range orbiter, carrying a 40,000 pound payload.  Each
was funded at $20 M
    MDAC, contract number NAS 8-26016 (with MSFC), 1970
    North American Rockwell, contract NAS 9-10960 (with JSC), 1970

  However, budgetary impacts and external politics began to affect the
system.  As studies of the Space Station and fully reusable shuttle
continued, it became clear to pursuing the Space Station and Space
Shuttle as a first step towards longer term objectives (such as the
lunar base and Mars mission) would require more than a doubling of
NASA's annual budget for some years.  This was felt to be unrealistic
due to the current budget crunch needed to support increased military
expenditures in Southeast Asia and the continuing expansions of
programs from "the Great Society" begun in the mid-1960's. (Note:
NASA's space budget had peaked at $5.9 billion in 1966, and by 1970
had declined to $3.5 billion.)
  During Congressional Review of the NASA 1971 budget, it was stated
that NASA should first build the Space Shuttle over the Space Station
because if they could not be developed simultaneously, the Shuttle
could act as a surrogate station in extended orbital missions, and the
establishment of the space shuttle was necessary for cost-effective
logistics support of a space station.  This decision was bumped to the
highest level in the administration to President Nixon, by his top
domestic policy advisor John Erlichman.
                                        (Cont)


--- Opus-CBCS 1.10
 * Origin: Universal Electronics, Inc. (1:103/302.0)
--
Wales Larrison
...!{dhw68k,zardoz,lawnet,conexch}!ofa123!Wales.Larrison                             [e-mail]
714 544-0934 2400/1200/300

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

End of SPACE Digest V11 #257
*******************