Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V11_3/V11_319.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #319

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 11 : Issue 319

Today's Topics:
                  Re: [HELP]
              Re: Re: Rename the Earth?
            Re: Vandeburg Launch Schedules
              Re: Dyson spheres?
        Krystall addition to Mir delayed until June 1
             Mars Mini-Rovers (Forwarded)
         Isotropic CBR implies BIG universe?
                  Our galaxy
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 25 Apr 90 16:13:58 GMT
From: n3dmc!gronk![e-mail]  (John Limpert)
Subject: Re: [HELP]

In article <16000028@bucc2> [e-mail] writes:
>Frankly, I'm ticked off about how poor science education is getting. I
>am, at present, a physics major at a mid-sized college. I know of
>people IN COLLEGE who were never exposed to a math or science class.

If a college believes math and science are important, they should
revise their entrance requirements to reflect their concerns.  A high
school can make science and math mandatory.  I thought all high
schools required at least a year of math and science.

>The sad thing about it is that Pres. (I hate broccoli) Bush actually
>intends for these people to understand why he wants America to
>re-establish a forceful presence in space. He is one of the same dolts
>who cut education funding to deprive these people of learning science
>to fund defense projects that have gone nowhere.

What does federal education funding have to do with this?  The
responsibility for funding public education lies with the states and
localities.  Except for special projects, I don't think the
federal government should be involved in funding public education.

>It galls me that even
>my teachers in grade school knew less about science in general than I
>did at the time.

That's what happens when public school systems hire people with
'education' degrees and refuse to set minimal standards.

I would like to see the public schools require courses in biology,
chemistry, physics and mathematics (statistics and algebra).
Why do they let students get away with 'business math' and
'general science'?  There is no reason that most students couldn't
take and pass these courses.  I would also require a secondary
school teacher to have majored in the field they are teaching.



--
John Limpert        [e-mail]    uunet!n3dmc!gronk!johnl

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

Date: Wed, 25 Apr 90 15:59:48 EDT
From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are those of the sender
    and do not reflect NIST policy or agreement.
Subject: Re: Re: Rename the Earth?


>From: bfmny0![e-mail]  (Tom Neff)
>Subject: Re: Rename the Earth?

>"Earth" is considered to derive from Indo-European 'ar' meaning the
>(plowed) ground, via lots of Northern European intermediate forms including
>Hertha the Icelandic earth goddess.  It is in no sense less appropriate
>than the Latin 'tellus' form.  The latter just sounds more exotic to our
>Anglophone ears.  If there were Latin language SF writers they would
>probably call their characters Earthlings for that nifty sound. :-)

The point I was trying to make - among the planets known in classical times:
 Mercury is named after an ancient Roman deity.
 Venus   is named after an ancient Roman deity.
 Earth   is named after plowed ground.
 Mars    is named after an ancient Roman deity.
 Jupiter is named after an ancient Roman deity.
 Saturn  is named after an ancient Roman deity.

I like the name Earth , and have no desire to change it. I'm just saying
that if someone feels it *has* to be changed, the most logical choice
would be Tellus, after the appropriate ancient Roman deity. "Terra" is
just calling it dirt in a different language.

>At the time Lunar features were first mapped, Latin was the universal
>language of Western science.  Mare Tranquillitatis was the first "official"
>name the feature had; "Sea Of Tranquillity" came along later for the
>benefit of monolingual English and American students.

You're right, of course (I had the chronology wrong), and I can understand the
incentive to have uniform terminology, but I think it should be restricted to
proper names, not geologic formations. It's more difficult when the proper name
is a word which can be easily translated.

Translating all the nouns into a common language is not widely practiced in
other fields - for example, chemists from different countries use their own
languages for the names of chemical compounds (though chemical notation may
be uniform). Suppose this principle had been applied to international politics -
the official name of this country would now be "les Etats-Unis d'Amerique".

[Insert joke about the astronauts on the moon reporting back to Earth in Latin.
Anyone care to give it a try?]
                        John Roberts
                        [e-mail]

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

Date: 25 Apr 90 21:16:34 GMT
From: oliveb!orc!inews!cadev5![e-mail]  (Doug Braun ~)
Subject: Re: Vandeburg Launch Schedules

A little while ago, this subject was brought up.  I would love to see a launch
there, but I don't have a clue how to find out when something will be launched.
Does anyone know when there will be a launch, or how to find out?
I NEVER hear about these in the papers before they happen.

Doug Braun                Intel Corp CAD
                    408 765-4279

 / decwrl \
 | hplabs |
-| oliveb |- !intelca!mipos3!cadev4!dbraun
 | amd    |
 \ qantel /

 or:

 [e-mail]

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

Date: 25 Apr 90 19:14:04 GMT
From: usc!cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Dyson spheres?

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Brian or James) writes:
>...suspend habitats from solar sails, and have them just balance their
>star's gravity with reflected light. Problem with that is that the 'sun'
>light has to be reflected back at the star providing it, and that'll make
>the star burn hotter for a shorter time. I'm sure this is a minor problem...

I'll class it as a minor problem after you've tried it on a few other stars!
Reflecting most of the output of a star back into it is probably *not* a good
idea, to put it mildly.

Better would be to use absorbing sails (make them out of doped silicon and
you've solved your power problems too!), which only give half as much thrust
but don't have this particular problem.  Well, don't have it so badly, at
any rate, given suitable coatings etc to reduce infrared re-emission inward.
--
If OSI is the answer, what on |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
Earth could be the question?? | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: Wed, 25 Apr 90 16:53:26 -0400
From: Glenn Chapman <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail],
        [e-mail], [e-mail],
        [e-mail]
Subject: Krystall addition to Mir delayed until June 1

     On board the Mir space station cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyov and Alexander
Balandin, now in orbit for 72 days, have not had their most successful month,
through no fault of their own.  The new 20 tonne expansion module for Mir
(called Kristall) was originally to be launched in February, then the end of
March was set, Apr. 9 was the next day scheduled though as that came close
statements of "the launch might be delayed" were given on short wave.  The
last date mentioned was Apr. 19th.  However, on Apr. 17th UPI carried a report
stating that software problems had delayed the launch.  This was confirmed by
the Radio Moscow announcement of Apr. 22 that software problems on board the
Mir station computers were causing problems with the docking tests.  The
report stated that the Mir software was having to react to more dockings than
expected (of Progress and Soyuz craft) thus was having some difficulties.  The
stated launch date for Kristall was set for June 1.  In addition an insulation
blanket on the Soyuz TM-9 has come free, and is flapping when the station
moves.  This movement is distracting the station's star trackers used in Mir's
alignment system and making that problem worse.  Originally it was planned
that repair materials for the blanket would be sent up with Krystall.
     Now for some analysis. The original plan called for the Kvant 2 module to
attached to Mir, swung over to the side, docked there, and then the Kristall
module would be launched within about a month.  With the Mir/Kvant complex
forming a "L" shaped structure now there is considerably more difficulty
maintaining the orientation of the system.  They may not have designed the
software with much consideration of Soyuz movement and Progress cargo craft,
assuming that none would arrive at that time.  Thus the software may have that
capability, but put an extra load on the station computers during what was
expected to be a short time.  Now they may need to rewrite the software to
better stabilize the station with lower computer load for the more complex
Mir/Kvants1/2/Soyuz/Progress arrangements that will occur until the module
arrives (and to guarantee the success of that docking).  (Radio Moscow, AW&ST
Apr. 23, Soviet Aerospace Apr. 9)
   On Apr. 11th the Soviets launched their 16th Fonton type materials processing
capsule for a two week mission.  The French space agency, CNES, paid $263,000
for the 17 Kg (26 lbs.) experiment which contains as small crystal growth
system for electro-optical materials that runs at near room temperature.
Glavcosmos is charging as little as $10,000 per Kg ($4500 per pound) for self
contained experiments lifted into orbit, and returned to earth. One Soviet
biological experiment ended when six young Japanese Quails, hatched from eggs,
but failed to adapt to space, refused to eat and had to be put to sleep. West
Germany has signed an agreement for an eight day mission to Mir in 1992, for a
cost of $9 million. (AW&ST Apr. 23, Space News, Apr. 16)  The Soviet
journalist visit to Mir has been moved up to the Soyuz TM-10 mission scheduled
for July 22, to beat the Dec. 2 flight of a Japanese reporter on Soyuz TM-11.
The primary candidates are Svetalna Omelchenko of Moscow's Vozdushny Transport
(Air Transport) and Pavel Mukhortov of Riga's Sovetskaya Moledesh (Soviet
Youth). The July mission will also bring up several IBM PC clones recently
allowed for export from the USA. (Spaceflight, Apr., AW&ST Apr. 23)  Meanwhile
the British/Soviet Juno mission to Mir, scheduled for 1991, may be scrapped
due to a lack of financial support.  Antequera, the organization set up to run
the mission, has failed to get sufficient corporate sponsorship, and after the
Moscow Narodny Bank withdrew its seed money on that basis it also lost the
major contributor, ITV which was to pay 3 million pounds ($4.9 million) for TV
rights has pulled out.  Antequera need to raise 16 million pounds ( $26
million) and is trying to save at least some of the experiments. The British
government, arguing for private initiatives only on this flight, is not
contributing one red penny (sorry, I couldn't resist that). (AW&ST Apr. 2,
Nature Apr. 5, Space News Apr. 2)  The Soviet manned program itself is
suffering money problems, with a 28% budget cut this year according to
Glavcosmos. This may be part of the reason for the sending of only two men to
Mir on the Soyuz TM-9 mission, rather than 3 as earlier expectations had been.
(Space News. Apr. 9)  Payload Systems, which rented part of Mir to do protein
crystallization experiments which came down in Feb. 19th, has been pleased
with the apparent lack of damage to the crystals after the G stress of
reentry.  Photographs taken of the samples while in orbit and after landing
showed little apparent damage.  X-ray diffraction of the samples has been done
but the results are still being analyzed. (Lecture by Payload Systems at New
England Business Roundtable, Mar. 20, AW&ST Apr. 2).
      (Sorry that some of this news is a bit old but I have been travelling
for the past month in preparation for a job change and have been cut off from
the net)

                                                          Glenn Chapman
                                                          MIT Lincoln Lab

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

Date: 26 Apr 90 03:27:27 GMT
From: sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Ron Baalke)
Subject: Mars Mini-Rovers (Forwarded)


Final Frontier, May/June 1990

"Planet of the Ants"  by Beth Dickey

It sounds like something out of a campy sci-fi flick: a red planet crawling
with giant ants that click their pincers and devour everything in sight.

It's actually one scenario for a "sample return" mission to Mars. In David
Miller's imagination, the hungry ants are actually tiny robots that roam
the surface and scoop up Martian soil to take home to Earth.

Miller, one of the robotics experts designing NASA's proposed Martian rock
hunt, thinks that using 100 toy-sized rovers instead of one huge lander
could save the project billions of dollars.  A Mars sample return mission
could cost even less than the $1.5 billion flight of Galileo to Jupiter,
guesses the Caltech computer scientist.

"It should cost well under a billion dollars," Miller figures, "so it's
a bargain as far as interplanetary launches go these days."

Miller's idea is still a sketch on the drawing board.  But according to his
vision, a spacecraft would drop up to 100 mini-rovers into the Martian
atmosphere before descending to the surface itself.  Protected by heat
shields and parachutes, the mini-rovers would hit the ground running---
literally.

They would be programmed to gobble up samples until their bellies were full,
then home in on a radio beacon aboard their mother ship.  "If these guys can
make it from wherever they're dropped off back to the return vehicle in a
year, you're doing fine," Miller says.

For the idea to work, he figures, each rover would weigh less than 10 pounds
and measure no more than 18 inches long.  It would be solar-powered and would
crawl no faster than one or two inches per second over the surface.  With
a single square-foot solar array charging its battery, a mini-rover could
run at this speed for a few hours, covering a few thousand feet a day.

"My guess is it might look like a giant ant with mandibles in front," Miller
says.  Each rover would have a vise that could squeeze and crack a rock
outcropping, a trap to catch the sample and a camera to photograph where
the sample came from.

Miller thinks the scenario is a money-saver because the mini-rovers can
widen the scope of a single mission.  What's more, they can take a beating
better than a sophisticated, large roving lander.  "You can basically have
the things plow into the Mars surface at 100 miles an hour and use air bags
to reduce the shock," Miller says.  "If you lose a few, it doesn't really
matter."

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

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

Date: 25 Apr 90 04:55:00 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu![e-mail]
Subject: Isotropic CBR implies BIG universe?



>Subject: NASA Headline News for 04/18/90 (Forwarded)
>
>Scientists are puzzled with some data from the Cosmic Background
>Explorer Satellite launched last November.  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.

Humm, perhaps the univerise is much bigger that we thought?  I mean
perhaps it is really REALLY BIG?

Facts:

1) We find that the cosmic background radiation is extremely
isotropic, much more so than would be expected.

2) We find that the observed ratio of matter in the universe and the
amount to halt expansion is suspiciously close to unity (within an
order of magnitude).

3) We find galatic supercluster structures on an ENORMOUS scale
(> 1 billion LYs wide) which are inconsistent with the notion of
a uniform universe on a scale of 10^10 LY.

4) We observe quasars at distances that would imply their creation
too near the beginning of what ought to be a still homogenous
universe.

How big would the universe have to be to consistently explain all
these observations?  1 trillion LY?  More?  Do any observations
establish a firm upper bound?

As Douglas Adams would say, "Space is big.  Really big.  You won't
believe how mindbogglingly big it really is.  I mean, you may think
it's a long way down the street to the chemist, but that's just
peanuts compared to space!" :-)

--
Alan E. Klietz
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
Ph: [phone]           Internet: [e-mail]

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

Date:       Wed, 25 Apr 90 14:38:33 EST
From: [e-mail]
Subject:    Our galaxy

In SPACE Digest V11 #307, Will Martin <[e-mail]> writes:

> In a related topic, is there any "better" name for our galaxy than "the
> Milky Way"? Something that sounds more like a proper name and is more
> dignified?

Yeah, how about a nifty Greek word meaning 'milky'. Let's see... that would
be 'galaktos'.  Oh well...  8-)

John Coughlin    Net: [e-mail]   Vox: 613-541-6439   Fax: [phone]

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

End of SPACE Digest V11 #319
*******************