Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V11_3/V11_371.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #371

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 11 : Issue 371

Today's Topics:
             Re: Manned mission to Venus
               Re: Apollo 11-17
           Payload Status for 05/07/90 (Forwarded)
             Re: Manned mission to Venus
                Re: Space Camp
               Contact policies
              Re: SPACE Digest V11 #285
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 7 May 90 16:22:18 GMT
From: sparkyfs!ads.com!IDA.ORG!pbs![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Manned mission to Venus

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Daniel Ake CAROSONE) writes:
> In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Mark SOKOLOWSKI) writes:
>> I would like to start a new discussion about a manned mission to Venus.
>
It may be several centuries too early to talk about a manned landing mission to
Venus, but a manned flyby mission would make sense.  With additional heat
shields for traveling closer towards the sun, whatever spacecraft we finally
decide to build to take a crew from Earth orbit to Mars orbit could just as
easily be launched towards Venus, perhaps before the Mars mission.  (For a
flyby no landing craft are needed.  They are needed to land on Mars, but are
likely to be the most difficult piece of mission hardware to design and more
likely to fall behind schedule.  A Venus flyby could use hardware that is
ready, but otherwise would have no mission until the bugs in the landing craft
for Mars are worked out.)  Swinging around Venus the crew could deploy an
advanced radar mapper then head on to Mercury using gravity assist.  (Similar
mission profile to that flown by Mariner 10.)  Looping around Mercury the
Astronomy Research & Interplanetary Exploration Ship (ARIES) would approach the
planet at such an angle as to be boosted outward bound for Earth. (Maybe by way
of Venus again.)  Of course specific details would depend on when the mission
first left Earth orbit and the alignment of the planets at that time.  I see no
technological reason, though, why such a mission could not be mapped out and
executed just after the turn of the century.

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

Date: 7 May 90 15:23:46 GMT
From: ames.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: Apollo 11-17

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Timothy B. Reynolds) writes:
<Ok here's a trip back in history.
<In the late 60's or early 70's I remember watching TV when the
<astronauts were walking on the moon, one of the major networks
<was doing the "moon-walk" simulations with puppets of the astronauts.
<The looked very real ! Anyway I have spent 15 years calling the networks
<trying to find out where these puppets came from or who made them.
<On the broadcast they even interviewed the man that was operating them !
<No one I have talked with remembers this (at the nets) if I remember
<correctly it was WALTER CRONKITE that did this, this means means CBS.
<If anyone has any info on this or remembers it please e-mail me
<with the details. I WONT GIVE UP...
<
<==============================================================================
<     Timothy B. Reynolds               |             VAX Systems Manager
<Howard Hughes Medical Institute        |         Structural Biology Laboratory
<  Baylor College of Medicine           |               Houston, Texas

I believe that it may have been ABC that used the puppets. They did the same for
EVA coverage during Gemini (along with using trains to carry spacecraft
models in "orbit" around an earth model"). NBC used real human critters
for they're EVA sim (the NBC Lunar Module is on display at the Hutchenson
Cosmosphere in Kansas, BTW).

I would love to get some videotape of these old broadcasts sometime. Anyone
have contacts in the network tape libraries?


                                                      *** mike smithwick ***
"This is a tale of sex, lies and junkfood" - Twin Peaks

[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

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

Date: 7 May 90 21:31:47 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Payload Status for 05/07/90 (Forwarded)


    Daily Status/KSC Payload Management and Operations 05-07-90.

    - STS-31R HST (at VPF) -

    Post launch GSE removal continues.


    - STS-35 ASTRO-1/BBXRT (at Pad-A) -

    ASTRO MMU load was completed second shift Sunday.  BBXRT
    liquid argon servicing and uit film installation will be
    performed today.


    - STS-40 SLS-1 (at O&C) -

    Experiment train interface testing and ECS systems checks
    are continuing along with MVAK training.


    - STS-41 Ulysses (at esa 60) -

    Preps for PAM-S spin balance operations will be performed
    today.


    - STS-42 IML-1 (at O&C) -

    Module pyrell foam replacement, floor staging, and rack
    staging continue today.


    - STS-45 Atlas-1 (at O&C) -

    Bracket and coldplate installations continue today.


    - STS-46 TSS-1 (at O&C) -

    No work is scheduled for today.

    - STS-47 Spacelab-J (at O&C) -

    No work is scheduled for today.


    - STS-55 SL-D2 (at O&C) -

    No work is scheduled for today.


    - HST M&R (at O&C) -

    ORUC interface testing continues today.

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

Date: 7 May 90 16:18:28 GMT
From: swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!rex!rouge![e-mail]  (Fraering Philip)
Subject: Re: Manned mission to Venus

About Mark Sokolowski's posting:

It is some of the worst nonsense I have read in quite a while.
Specifically:

1. Missions to Venus/Colonization:

The gravity is similar to earth's, and the soil might be. Of course, the soil
probrably isn't, because the carbon is all in the atmosphere...

There is a problem with the atmosphere. It isn't that 'Venus has kept most
of its CO2.' It's that the oceans boiled away into the atmosphere; the
hydrogen in the water escaped, and the oxygen burned with carbon to form
Co2. What you see isn't leftover primordial co2, but the remains of its
oceans. So at the surface of Venus, you have pressures comparable to
several hundred feet below the sea floor, combined with a heat well beyond
that needed to boil water at that pressure. Granted, if you were standing
inside a shielded bathyscape as have been proposed on this net, you
would feel a pull similar to Earth's. You probrably couldn't tell the
difference between being in a bathyscape on Venus and being in a bathyscape
on Earth, except you may feel a little hotter, depending on how good your heat
sink is.

Continuing on Venus surface conditions: the atmosphere at the surface is so
thick, walking in it is more akin to wading than walking on dry ground.
Also, due to some interesting refractory effects, the horizon appears to curve
over your head; even when you are standing on a flat plain, it looks like
you are in a bowl.

All in all, a pretty bleak place. Much less hospitable than the moon;
much less easy to colonize than the bottom of our own ocean.

Also, unless you have a rocket _much_ better than the ones we currently
have, it will take you  several months to get there. Several months of
free fall. You see those pictures of the Soviet cosmonauts coming back
after free fall? Straight from the capsule to the stretcher.

All in all, a one-way trip such as you propose would be a very expensive
way to die, and for symbolic reasons. Symbolic reasons for exploration
have generally been unsuccessful. Look up any discussion about the
'Star Raft' expeditions to Africa in the time of the Ming Dynasty.
Finally, there are a hell of a lot of more constructive things to do with
several billion (tens of billions?) dollars than give someone a fun way
to suicide.

2. Space technology is not so advanced that only a few thousand people
can understand its use. Maybe in _THIS_ country, but I doubt even that.
I'm willing to bet that the average West European, Soviet citizen,
Taiwanese, Korean, or Japanese has, or could learn with _very_ little
effort, the physics and some of the details behind the technology of
space flight. We aren't using any quantum physics, or relativity,
or magic spells, or anything like that when we launch a spaceship. As Robert
A. Heinlein pointed out, a NERVA-powered spacecraft is infinitely
less complicated than the abominations you and I are riding along in
on the freeway.

3. Space technology is ***__NOT__*** something that is without promise
until we get around to building warp drive several centuries from now.
The industrialization of space, and its subsequent colonization, will start
within 5 years of either A) cheap launch technology or B) Access to
extraterrestrial resources, either on the moon or the asteroids.

   Likely space industries:
     1. Mining. The reason there isn't much heavy metals in the earth's crust
        is because they tend to sink to the core. In space, there are
        asteroids formed from the breakup of parent bodies which had
        differentiated in that fashion. All we need to do is find a piece
        of the core, and we won't be dependent on such bulwarks of democracy
        as South Africa or the Soviet Union for platinum, gold, iridium, etc.
        ever again.

     2. Power. Solar Power Sattelites could be the ultimate energy
        source, beaming energy to earth over microwave beams. Clean,
        renewable, and almost infinitely expandable.

The nation that builds these probrably won't have to work. That's what they'll
own us for. :-) Other potential projects involve materials we can't make
here. The Soviets are about to dock a prototype plant for protein and
pharmacuticals manufacture to Mir. Another is orbiting mirrors to illuminate
cities.

The ultimate ramifications of all of this make fire and agriculture look
like a trivial invention like sliced bread.

And as for who's going to be doing all of the work in space? The people who
live there, in gigantic orbiting cities so large that a blue sky will
be seen from the inner surface.

I probrably have been too negative in tone in this posting, but in light
of what I said above, please believe me: _There is hope._
                                         ----------------

With all of that potential, who needs silly stunts like sending a man
one-way to Venus? While we were watching the spectacle, the Japanese would
calmly move into the future. Personally I hope they do, but I hope that we
are there with them. While we have sent probes to Uranus, they plan probes
to look at the surface composition of the moon. Spectacle, I am beginning
to conclude, is more of a restraint on a _real_ space program than
an advantage.

Philip Fraering
[e-mail]

"I'm troubled, I'm dissatisfied, and I'm Irish." - Marianne Moore, Spencer's
Island

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

Date: 7 May 90 17:04:43 GMT
From: eagle![e-mail]  (Gregory Fedor)
Subject: Re: Space Camp

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Scott Johnson) writes:
>Hello,
>  Does anyone have any information on the United States Space Camp
>in Alabama and/or Florida?  My SO and I were considering going, but
>we didn't want to get mixed into something that is "just for kids".
>

   I attended Space Academy this past fall.  I'm going from memory right
now, but I'll try to be complete.

   Space Camp and Space Academy are two separate beasts.  Space Camp is just
like a summer camp.  It's meant primarily for 8-10 year olds.  They learn
things, but are mainly there to run around and have fun.  Space Academy is
for ages 10-17.  There are two levels I and II.  Level I is a one week program
while II is a two week program.  I'm not sure but I think you have to have
taken I before taking II.  I took the adult program which is Space Academy
Level I compressed into a 3 day weekend.

   The basic program is made up of lectures, demonstrations, and simulations.
We had lectures about the shuttle, the space program, and various technical
things.  We had an original member of Von Braun's rocket team talk to us
about propulsion (it was very very very good!!!)  We got to try out several
pieces of training equipment such as the 1/6th-g chair, the "zero-g" pod, and
the 3-g centrifuge.

   The best part IMHO was the two shuttle mission simulations.  There were
60 adults and we were broken into 3 teams of 20 each.  The first thing we
did on day 1 was to take a test of what we already knew.  Based on the results
we were place in the team postions (ie. Commander, Pilot, MS, Spacelab,
Space Station, Mission Control).  10 people were assigned "space" duty while
the other 10 worked Mission Control.  The second simulation had the people
switching so that we got a taste of both sides.

   I personally scored second on my team which qualified me to be Pilot on
the first mission, and after the swtich, space lab chief scientist (sat
in MC and looked pretty!)  I was fortunate to be on the team with two other
people who work as NASA, They from Johnson, me from Lewis.  We ended up being
Commander, Pilot, and CapCom.  These are the three top positions.

   I could go into detail about what we did, but that'd be too much for here,
so surfice it to say, IT WAS GREAT!  They've expanded the Adult program to
have sessions during the summer, but they haven't expanded what it covers.
I'd really like to see a Adult II program that builds on I.  I plan on going
back, even to I.  I must admit though that much of the material was old hat,
and would be for anyone who follows the space program, but it'w worth the
time and money just to say you did it.

   If you'd like more detail, let me know.  I have the specifics at home and
dig them up for you.


P.S. Strong rumor has it that along with the Alabama (Marshall Space Flight
Center), Florida (KSC) there are definite plans for one in Japan.  And my
personal favorite, negotiations are under way to bring one to my home town
of Cleveland, OH here at the Lewis Research Center as part of expanding our
Vistor Center.  I can't wait for that!
Hailing frequencies closed...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gregory Fedor                 [phone]
Sverdrup Technology           [e-mail]
NASA Lewis Research Center    Cleveland, Ohio 44135
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Hailing frequencies closed...

Gregory Fedor                 [phone]
Sverdrup Technology           [e-mail]
NASA Lewis Research Center    Cleveland, Ohio 44135
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: 7 May 90 19:43:19 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Michael Reed)
Subject: Contact policies

Something I was wondering about the other day . . .
have any governments (US, USSR, UN, etc.) established "first contact
policies" for the possibility of such an occurence?

Michael Reed, aka
Lestrade
"Do not come to this University."
[e-mail]
[e-mail]

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

Date: 8 May 90 02:12:35 GMT
From: oliveb!amdahl![e-mail]  (Bug Hunter)
Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V11 #285

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>There has been a fair amount of discussion on E.T. life-forms and UFOs, so it
>might be instructive to consider two phenomena I have seen, and what they
>likely are:
>
>1> whilst watching the night-sky a few years back one summer, there was a point
>source of light, say 4th magnitude, that traversed across the celestial sphere,
>but erratically:
>Can anyone find a suitable explanation for this (and no, it wasn't Venus *8-)

Sorry, no idea one this one, however...

>     2>  I  was  cycling down a hill one day, when a shadow about 2.5 x 1 metre
>(blockish) crossed my path. I was able to look up 15 seconds later,  and  there
>was  nothing in the sky, and there had been no noise, though I didn't check for
>clouds - it strikes me as a very strange cloud if it were one!

I fly Radio control gliders, and they are often flown on hillsides where
  they can get lift from the wind rising over the hill. A glider is nearly
  silent (quieter than the wind in your ears). Some gliders are up to 100
  inch wingspans (over 3 meters), but admittedly, these are really thermaling
  birds, not normally flown on slopes. My plane has about a 2 meter wingspan.
  It could have landed over the top of the hill before you had a chance
  to look up.

Then again it could be a one man scooter using Larry Niven's reactionless
  drive. :-)

Keith

--
Keith Hearn               \
[e-mail]          \   Say it ain't so, Krusty
Amdahl Corporation          \             - Bart Simpson
[phone](work) [phone](home)\

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

End of SPACE Digest V11 #371
*******************