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Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #292

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 11 : Issue 292

Today's Topics:
         NASA Headline News for 04/18/90 (Forwarded)
         Re: Apollo 13, STS-1, Vostok 1 anniversaries
              Re: Earth Observing System
          Intercepting "alien" probe signals
                   Re: SETI
              Re: Fermi Paradox
         Re: Apollo 13, STS-1, Vostok 1 anniversaries
       Re: Drake Equation (was Re: Interstellar travel)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 18 Apr 90 17:31:52 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Headline News for 04/18/90 (Forwarded)

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, April 18, 1990             Audio Service: 202/755-1788
-----------------------------------------------------------------
This is NASA Headline News for Wednesday, April 18....

Testing of Auxiliary Power Unit # 1 aboard the orbiter Discovery
was completed early today at Kennedy Space Center.  Visual checks
were underway mid-morning to make sure the test did not reveal
any problems.  An announcement is expected this afternoon on the
probability of advancing the launch date from April 25 to April
24.  Charging of the Hubble Space Telescope batteries is also
ahead of schedule.
                        *              *

Controllers at Jet Propulsion Laboratory report all subsystems
are operating satisfactorily aboard the Venus-bound Magellan
spacecraft.  It's traveling at a velocity of over 35-thousand
miles per hour relative to the planet and now is just 34 million
miles away.  An attitude reference test was successfully
completed last week, star calibrations have gone well and two
Deep Space Network checks have been successful.

                        *              *

Meanwhile, the Galileo spacecraft is operating extremely well.
The first four-day portion of a complicated trajectory maneuver
was completed last week.  The second part of the maneuver is
scheduled for mid-May.  Several more corrections will be made
before the spacecraft's gravity assist flyby of Earth in early
December.

                        *              *

Scientists are puzzled with some data from the Cosmic Background
Explorer Satellite launched last November, but also pleased with
a visual byproduct.  Wire service reports say scientists meeting
in Washington, D.C., are confounded by data which indicate an
unexpectedly smooth and uniform expansion of the universe and no
indication of other cataclysmic events that had been theorized.
Michael Hauser, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center says, "The
quandry is deepening".  A color image of the galactic center of
the Milky Way was released yesterday free of cosmic dust that has
obscured our galaxy's center previously.

                        *              *

President Bush was criticized yesterday by some western European
delegates to a White House conference on global warming for not
taking a stronger stand on the issue.  The President has called
for more data before taking drastic control efforts which could
have serious effects on the world economy.






_________________________________________________________________
Here's the broadcast schedule for Public Affairs events on NASA
Select TV.  All times are EDT.

Thursday, April 19.....

    11:30 a.m.     NASA Update will be transmitted.


Friday, April 20....

    10:30 a.m.     STS-35 astronaut news conference from
                   Johnson Space Center.


Sunday, April 22.....

     1:00 p.m.     STS-31  crew arrival at KSC


Tuesday, April 24..(Subject to change)

     9:00 a.m.     STS-31 Countdown Status Report

    10:00 a.m.     APU/telescope Status Report

    11:00 a.m.     Prelaunch News Conference


Wednesday, April 25..(Subject to change)

      4:00 a.m.    STS-31 mission launch coverage begins.

NOTE:  During the STS-31 mission television highlights will be
transmitted on Satcom F1R, transponder #13 at 12 midnight, EDT,
for the benefits of TV stations and educational institutions in
Alaska and Hawaii.

All events and times are subject to change without notice.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
These reports are filed daily, Monday through Friday, at 12 noon,
EDT.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
A service of the Internal Communications Branch, NASA Hq.

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

Date: 19 Apr 90 13:43:11 GMT
From: clyde.concordia.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu![e-mail]  (Chris Syed)
Subject: Re: Apollo 13, STS-1, Vostok 1 anniversaries

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Roger Noe) writes:
>
>Trivia time:  The nickname of the Apollo 13 command module was Odyssey,
>after the ship in the movie "2001".  The lunar module, which served as
>the astronauts' "lifeboat", was nicknamed Aquarius.

 More trivia - the motto of that mission, as emblazoned on its crest,
 was, if I'm not mistaken, "Ex luna, scientia." (Knowledge from the moon).
 The way the problem was solved has been considered "exemplary" and good stuff
 for "problem solving & decision making" courses. There's a bit about
 it in the Kepner Tregoe management training book, "The New Rational
 Manager." So even if the knowledge they hoped to gain didn't happen....
 There is also a book called "13 - The Mission that Failed", but it is
 long out of print.
---
[e-mail] (Chris Syed)
--
---
[e-mail] (Chris Syed)

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

Date: 19 Apr 90 13:51:21 GMT
From: dftsrv!iris613.gsfc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Dennis Flanigan Jr.)
Subject: Re: Earth Observing System



>From: [e-mail] (Rick 'Transputer' Stein)
>1) Given that EOS will generate 1 Tbyte/day, how will this data be
>managed?

Granted a Tbyte/day is a phenomenal amount of data, but there are ways
to handle such huge amounts of data.  Optical disk is the current
technology and optical tape ( sometimes called digital paper) soon to
come.   I suspect that while 1 Tbyte seems a lot to us now, 5 years
from now it won't seem that unmanageable.

>2) How do you analyze 1 Tbyte of data, let alone 1800 Tbytes?

With a Cray and lots of workstations.  Again, like the storage
problem, just the technology that we know about should be able to
handle the processing.  The concern in this case does not center
around the hardware technology, but the software technology.  UNIX,
networks and distributive processing are a big help, but software
"building" will still require a tremendous effort.

>3) If a scientist were to apply some visualization technique to
>this volume of data, on what type of machine would he do it?  Can you
>stuff 1 Tbyte into a graphics workstation and learn anything?

Yes.  One of the advantages of EOS will be the ability to look
at an one area with several types of instruments at the same time.
By combining data from spectrometer images, RADAR images and LIDAR
profiles a scientist will be able to analysis a subject in
greater detail and with better accuracy.  Detecting cloud heights
is one good example.  By measuring the length of shadows produced
by the cloud, the height of cloud tops at their edges can be
measured.  The height at the center of the cloud can be measured with
LIDAR and then by matching that data with the thermal image data,
the height of the entire cloud can detected.

>4) Is anyone at NASA asking these kinds of questions, given the
>prior revelations about poor archive procedures and data loss?

Lots of people are asking these questions and lots of people are
are trying to address them.

>Richard M. Stein (aka, Rick 'Transputer' Stein)

Dennis Flanigan, Jr.
Applied Research Corporation
[e-mail]

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

Date: 19 Apr 90 15:14:24 GMT
From: hadron!inco![e-mail]  (Tod Fontana)
Subject: Intercepting "alien" probe signals

Without starting a tangent debate, let's suppose that there is intelligent
life outside of our solar system.  If they have (had) technology equal or
greater than our current level and have sent a probe that is currently
travelling "aimlessly", like our voyager crafts, what would be the chances
of our interception of their telemetry (or whatever) signals?  Would we
have to lie in a very narrow straight line between the probe and its home
planet, or would a wide transmission "cone" be adequate?  If we could
somehow pick up such signals, who would be given responsibility for deciphering
and evaluating the data?

Just a bit of speculation....

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

Date: 19 Apr 90 21:41:12 GMT
From: mephisto!prism!fsu!gw.scri.fsu.edu![e-mail]  (Eric Pepke)
Subject: Re: SETI

It's not entirely that grim.  We can determine some things for sure about
anybody who receives those signals.  We know that they have figure out
radio.  If they hadn't, they wouldn't be listening.  There are a whole lot
of things that you have to figure out before you can figure out radio.
Mathematics, for instance.  There will no doubt be differences in the way
we percieve major areas of mathematics, but there should be many
similarities.

The most commonly suggested message that would take advantage of this
common knowledge is a sequence of prime integers, encoded as simply as
possible--uniformly spaced pulses counting the integer followed by a
pause.  This is easily comprehensible, and such sequences are not
generated by any known natural process.

Now, there are a number of possible extreme theoretical objections to
this, if you really want to reach.  Perhaps the BEMs do not understand the
concept of integers.  However, even if they naturally think in continua
and live in the liquid phase as part of a group mind, they would have to
figure out that things are countable in the study of physics and chemistry
and, failing that, if only to be able to wind the wire the right number of
times around the ferrite core.  Perhaps the BEMs have no interest in prime
numbers and wouldn't recognize one if it kissed them (or whatever it is
that BEMs do).  This is also very unlikely.  Prime numbers are so
staggeringly useful, and have such tight connections with fundamental
problems in mathematics and algorithm design that it is almost beyond
belief that they would never stumble onto them.

Finally, perhaps C.M. Kornbluth was right, and at some point the machines
they built would acquire self-sustaining capability and the beings would
evolve into happy little technologically advanced morons, forgetting even
the basic principles that once they needed to survive.  This one is a
little bit harder to laugh off.

Eric Pepke                                    INTERNET: [e-mail]
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute MFENET:   pepke@fsu
Florida State University                      SPAN:     scri::pepke
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052                    BITNET:   pepke@fsu

Disclaimer: My employers seldom even LISTEN to my opinions.
Meta-disclaimer: Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers.

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

Date: 19 Apr 90 16:16:49 GMT
From: uc!shamash!timbuk![e-mail]  (Lou Adornato)
Subject: Re: Fermi Paradox

[e-mail] writes:

>Humans are very Chauvinist when it comes to carbon and water

I'm posting this in case there is someone out there who's never
heard this...

First, it's pretty safe to assume that anything we're likely to
consider to be alive is going to have a pretty complex chemistry,
based on large, complex, chain-like molecules (like the protien
molecule).  Second, there must be some kind of solvent in which these
molecules can undergo sustained chemical processes.

There are only 2 elements that are capable of being the basis of
creating long, complex molecules, and those are carbon and silicon.  Of
the two, carbon is the only one that forms molecules that are soluble
in water.  There are (I think) fluid compounds in which silicon is
soluble, but they are much more complex than water and therefore are
much less likely to occur in large amounts naturally.

This doesn't rule out the possibility of silicon based life, but, absent
any other data, we _do_ know for sure that carbon based life is possible.
It's therefore more logical to limit ourselves to looking for conditions
where carbon based life could evolve (i.e. anyplace with a big supply of
liquid water), if only because we have no idea what conditions could lead
to the rise of silicon based life.

>Also, we may be blinded
>by our assumptions about what intelligent life looks like and how it
>behaves.

Agreed.  However, you have to make _some_ basic assumptions or you'll never
be able to do anything.  The basis of the scientific method is to make
assumptions, test them, and throw away the ones that don't work.  You have
to start somewhere.

BTW, just to define "life" objectively, never mind "intelligent", is a
non-trivial exercise.

Lou Adornato    |  Statements herein do not represent the opinions or
Cray Research   |  attitudes of Cray Research, Inc. or its subsidiaries.
[e-mail]    |       (...yet)

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

Date: 19 Apr 90 23:26:57 GMT
From: clyde.concordia.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Apollo 13, STS-1, Vostok 1 anniversaries

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Roger Noe) writes:
>...The crew of AS-204, the mission posthumously
>(and unofficially) designated Apollo 1, were Gus Grissom, Ed White, and
>Roger Chaffee...

Actually, "Apollo 1" was unofficial *before* the fire; the astronauts
used it, and the shoulder patch they designed carried it, but NASA HQ had
not officially approved a name for the mission.  After the fire, it *was*
made official, at the request of the astronauts' widows.

AS-204 was the designation of the booster, also used to designate the
mission as a whole.  The booster, and the AS-204 designation, were used
for a later mission.

(To head off a question that's come up before...  The first post-fire
unmanned test, the fourth such, was officially Apollo 4.  Nobody figured
out that there was a problem here until too late. :-)  The final decision
was that the pre-fire unmanned tests had no "official names", retroactive
or otherwise, and there never was an Apollo 2 or Apollo 3.)
--
With features like this,      |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
who needs bugs?               | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 18 Apr 90 18:22:06 GMT
From: att!cbnewsl!moss![e-mail]  (Forrest Gehrke,2C-119,7239,ATTBL)
Subject: Re: Drake Equation (was Re: Interstellar travel)

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Dan Tilque) writes:
> [e-mail] writes:
> >[e-mail] (Dan Tilque) writes:
> >>
> >Who is this "we" that has been listening?  And with what?  These
> >signals are not going to be picked up on a boombox with the
> >announcement the signal is from outer space.
>
> There's this obscure branch of science which you are probably unaware
> of.  It's called Radio Astronomy.  One of the things they're good at is
> aiming large radio antennae at the sky.
>
You can save the sarcasm.  I was directing the argument to listening
for limited power source signals, not that of the Big Bang or the
radiation resulting from energy released by a supernova.

To pick up the signals of Voyagers at the outer limits of the
solar system we need 70 meter parabolic antennas, carefully
aimed, tuned, and internally noise-reduced within the limits
of our technology.  Ok, our Voyagers don't start out with very
much transmitting power and their antennas are not very large.
But extend that out 50 ly and then tell me how much effective
radiated power will be required to achieve the Voyager signal.
We could do that, but we are not doing it; nobody would agree
to the expense.

Voyager level signals are what I would expect to be listening for
and those means required to make the search.  I don't know of any
such search going on.  If some intelligent life happened to be
out beyond a Voyager on a straight line, on the same frequency,
we might hear them.  Else forget it.  I don't expect any
intelligence in this galaxy to initiate a supernova and then
sentiently modulate it to get our radio astronomers' attention.
>
> We didn't really start to send signals in very high strength until TV
> and radar were in widespead use in the 40's.

None of our TV broadcast signals, despite often using effective
radiated power of a few megawatts, are aimed at outer space.  Those
canny transmitter owners spend a lot of money making sure that
energy is directed pretty close to the earth's surface where the
paying customers are.  So their signals are not going to be very
strong out at 50 ly.  That intelligence at the other end will have
to aim their 70 meter dishes very carefully, tuned to channel 6,
and listen hard.  Let's see, that will be about the year 2010.
Maybe if our grandchildren are listening about 2060, they will
hear that long-awaited "CQ Earth--what happened to Mr. Ed?". (;-))

Forrest Gehrke [e-mail]

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

End of SPACE Digest V11 #292
*******************