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Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #402

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 11 : Issue 402

Today's Topics:
     Hubble Space Telescope Update - 05/14/90 (Forwarded)
              Re: The Vatican Connection
               Query on Shuttle Aborts
               Re: why there are no ETs
            Re: Niven's Inertialess Drive
             Re: Mirrors in space
              terraforming Venus
                 XB70 - again
              Re: The Vatican Connection
       Re: Hubble Space Telescope Update - 05/10/90 (Forwarded)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 14 May 90 15:47:48 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Ron Baalke)
Subject: Hubble Space Telescope Update - 05/14/90 (Forwarded)

ASSOCIATED PRESS -- MAY 12

"The Hubble Space Telescope sees about 15 sunrises and sunsets
every day, and it wobbles each time.  Scientists are puzzled."

AP says NASA telescope officials are trying to figure out why the
telescope wobbles  for 10 to 30 minutes after it emerges from the
Earth's shadow on each orbit.  The wire story says engineers are
considering whether the problem is related to a slight twist
noticed in one of the solar panels by the STS-31 crew when the
telescope was deployed.

                      * * * * * * * *

UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL -- MAY 12

"Hubble Space Telescope Focusing Set"
By Rob Stein

"NASA engineers began focusing the Hubble Space Telescope
Saturday in preparation for taking the $1.5 billion orbiting
observatory's historic first picture of the heavens this week."

UPI says that if all goes well, the telescope's Wide
Field/Planetary Camera will snap the "first light" picture
between Wednesday and Friday (this week) depending on how much of
a 38-hour focusing task needs to be repeated.

The wire says engineers also completed an important set of tests
on the spacecraft's guidance system, tested several of the
instruments and turned on high power to one of them.

Stein says most of the problems encountered have been resolved
except for two -- each pertaining to unusual spacecraft motion.
UPI then quotes from program scientist Dr. Edward Weiler, who is
confident all of the problems would be fixed.
       _   _____    _
      | | |  __ \  | |       Ron Baalke           |  [e-mail]
      | | | |__) | | |       Jet Propulsion Lab   |  [e-mail]
   ___| | |  ___/  | |___    M/S 301-355          |
  |_____| |_|      |_____|   Pasadena, CA 91109   |

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

Date: 14 May 90 18:39:21 GMT
From: usc!jarthur!nntp-server.caltech.edu!gap![e-mail]  (David Palmer)
Subject: Re: The Vatican Connection

[e-mail] (Russ Brown) writes:
>    Actually, the Catholic church has always been a great supporter of
>astonomy. They funded many early astronomers in order to improve the
>calendar. They supported Tycho Brahe and even worked closely with Galileo
>in his studies (partially funding him too, I beleive). It seems that
>church officials realized Galileo was right, but they wanted to break the
>news slowly (to limit damage to church credibility perhaps). Galileo
>would not cooperate, so the church turned on him. I don't have figures
>handy, but I would bet MOST of the renaissance observatories were funded
>by the church.

Actually, recent evidence indicates that Galileo was an Atomist (he believed
that there was a smallest quantity of any given substance, and so God
could not produce 10^-100 grams of water)  Such a restriction placed on
God was a Heresy punishable by burning at the stake (I think it was Giordiani
Bruno (sp) who learned this the hard way).  Galileo, having
friends in the Vatican, managed to plea bargain this down to house
arrest for heliocentrism.

My source is someone who has read a book called 'Galileo Heretico', now
available in English as 'Galileo The Heretic'.  The papers that the author
discovered seem to have vanished from the Vatican library though.

--
        David Palmer
        [e-mail]
        ...rutgers!cit-vax!gap.cco.caltech.edu!palmer
    I have the power to cloud men's minds -- or at least my own.

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

Date: 14 May 90 06:06:32 GMT
From: swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!munnari.oz.au!metro!cluster!nuts!cc![e-mail]
Subject: Query on Shuttle Aborts


    I have an interesting question. I have seen and heard of ATO and
RTLS, but there is a section of the ascent I am not sure about.

    If there was ever a situation like 51-L (God forbid) and the new
sensors picked up the warning - what could the astronauts do? Would the
new crew escape system help them out under power, or would the shuttle
just be blown off the stack?

    I know for sure that the SRB's cannot be ejected until they have
burnt out, so logically the shuttle must do something for itself.

    If the shuttle is ejected, though, is this just an extreme
example of RTLS (Return to Launch Site..)

    I ain't a wingeing, just a little curious....


    I know I should have read this somewhere else, but up to the minute
information is not so easy to come by down here unless you want to invest
money in overseas subscriptions......Oh well.

Luke Plaizier...

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

Date: 14 May 90 16:58:44 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!rpi![e-mail]  (Scott E. Wright)
Subject: Re: why there are no ETs

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (bill davidsen) writes:
>
>  What are the odds of two civilizations existing at the same time?
>Earth is at least 3 billion years old, and we have been using radio for
>maybe 100 years. Assuming no change in the world population trends we
>will no longer have resources for space exploration in another 100
>years. That leaves a very small window for an intelligent race to
>discover us.

Salutations all,
  In Cosmos, pages 299-301, Sagan gives an estimate of the probability
of a technological civilization arising in the universe.  It's a long
string of values all multiplied together, including fraction of planets
capable of supporting life, fraction of those which give rise to intelligent
life, fraction of those which don't destroy themselves, etc.  Then Sagan
gives an approximation of each of these values and multiplies them out.
  The upshot of Sagan's commentary is that he estimates civilizations in the
universe to be in the order of millions, and that a random distribution of
them through the galaxy outs neighboring civilizations about 200 light years
apart.  Which means, from this standpoint, a 400 year wait before we ever
hear a response to our messages beamed into space.
  And I think most people would agree that even this estimate is optimistic,
for any ET civilizations have got to be at least as advanced (haha) as us.

Ciao...Scott

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

Date: 14 May 90 18:10:58 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (RAMontante)
Subject: Re: Niven's Inertialess Drive

-   In reply to Fred Mccall:
-
-   The Kzinti, in Larry Niven's series, had developed a 'gravity gradient'
-drive of some sort.  The Inertialess drive was a human (or at least
-human-used) device.  In one of his short stories Louis Wu (a recurring
-character) speculates that some new aliens he's met are using either a
-reactionless drive or a 'kzinti-style gravity gradient drive'.

Th' memory cells a randomizing, but...

I think the Outsiders had a true Inertialess drive for sale, price 1
trillion stars.  Beowulf Shaeffer ruminated on the unlikelihood of
anybody actually buying one.  Reference: the "Cueball" story about
the antimatter planetoid.

When humans first met Kzinti, they were riding on laser-reaction drives.
(And too naive to recognize these as weapons...)

I really think that I remember a throwaway line to the effect that what
saved the humans in the Kzinti wars was their meeting of the Puppeteers,
who sold them the (Hyperspace I?) drive.  If I'm right, Louis Wu was
disturbed by this very early evidence of the Puppeteers' manipulating the
humans for their own (anti-Kzinti) purposes.  Probably either Ringworld
or Ringworld Engineers.  I wouldn't think it was inertialess, not only
because the Outsiders' drive *was* inertialess, but also because that
would be inconsistent with getting splashed into the nose of the GP
hull that orbited that neutron star (okay, maybe Niven was inconsistent).

Hyperspace II, or whatever it was called, was the thing Beowulf Shaeffer
was testing when he traveled to the galactic core.  Never saw human use
because his findings caused the Puppeteers to promptly start running
away.  Reference:  "At the Core" or a similar title.

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

Date: 15 May 90 03:19:24 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!ogicse!blake![e-mail]  (William Lewis)
Subject: Re: Mirrors in space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Daniel Ake CAROSONE) writes:
|Consider:
|   There was mention made of some satellites being simultaneously in the
|beam from the mirror and from the sun. What about powering satellites
|in shadow for a while, or at least keeping it warm, if such a thing should
|become necessary. Or shine it on the greenhouse in a space-station?

Or shine it on a batch of photovoltaics and beam the power to useful
places.

|   It is a mirror, but it does not have to reflec only sunlight. Lasers for
|telemetry or comms or whatever could be bounced off it to provide a
|long baseline for triangulation, without having to wait for the
|Earth to move far enough in it's orbit. Or maybe radar.
|   Then, what about using it to shine light on the night-side of Earth?
|"Coke is it" in morse code from the heavens?

   Would it have to be in Morse? Quick and inaccurate calculation gives
an apparent size of about 13 arc-minutes. Equivalent to a one-inch disc
twenty feet away. A bit small, but with good eyesight a simple design
should be visible. See Heinlein's _The_Man_Who_Sold_The_Moon_.

|Club Med hiring time for the extra sun-tans?
|Just how big would this mirror appear to an earth-bound observer? Could
|it put out enough light to be used for search and rescue, or something
|requiring diffuse but noticeable light? Bet that would really piss the
|astronomers off! Might even inspire a new religion, remember one that
|seems to have been sparked off by bright lights in the sky?

  Scale it up a few times (or use a several separate sails,
which would present no new engineering problems), make them parabolic,
read lots of Larry Niven and the world is your oyster, ready to cook =8)
(Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I'm sure you could greatly
disrupt climates in small areas by focusing on them all night and all
day, especially the sidereal rhythms of the plants and such.
  The sun is about 32 minutes across as seen from Earth; a sun-sized object
80,000 km away would have to be 372 km in radius, or a bit over twice the
size (four times the area) of this sail. As you can tell the sun has
a significant effect on the Earth's climate; a small area that suddenly
had two suns would change drastically. I'm no ecologist but I'd guess
that you could easily desertify areas. If you put this mirror over
the pole (you already have active stabilization, and this would make
the moon's effects smaller) you could threaten to melt the ice caps.
Or just open a resort in Antarctica and ship an icecap off planet for
sale =8) ))

|The mind boggles...

  It certainly does...


--
JESUS SAVES   |  [e-mail]       Seattle, Washington
but Clones 'R' Us makes backups!  |  47 41' 15" N   122 42' 58" W

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

Date:         Mon, 14 May 90 08:28:00 EDT
From: Paul Shawcross <[e-mail]>
Subject:      terraforming Venus


>To terraform Venus you have to get rid of that gas, either by
>removing it to space or by reacting it with something to form solids.
>I suspect the first option is easiest, using many extremely large
>fusion bombs, containing, collectively, billions of tons of
>fusionable material.
>
>   Paul F. Dietz
>   [e-mail]

How about diverting a good sized asteroid into Venus?  It
should blow some of the atmosphere off, and might raise a
dust cloud as well.  Find an icy asteroid (or a comet), and
you get water too.  Most importantly, it would be fun to
watch.

Paul Shawcross
pshawcro@nas

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

Date: 14 May 90 17:53:21 GMT
From: noose.ecn.purdue.edu![e-mail]  (Duane P Mantick)
Subject: XB70 - again


Regarding recent comments/queries about the XB70 in discussions of
Concorde replacements, y'all might find this interesting.

Way back in the 60's, when North American knew that the XB70 Valkyrie
was a dead duck as a bomber (at least until Robert McNamara could
be gotten rid of as Sec. of Defense), they tried *everything* to get
funding to keep the basic production line open.  One dodge was to
call it the RS-70 (Reconnaisance-Strike) and maintain a latent
bombing capacity.  Unfortuantely, Lockheed's Skunk works had pretty
well beaten them to the punch with the Blackbird Family, which could
outperform the Valkryie substantially in the RS role.

The next attempt was to design an SST version to compete with Boeing's
SST designs.  The stuff actually was proposed in the "we want the
limited funds" competition, but Boeing got the nod.

Fans of the Valkyrie might recall that when it was known as WS110,
Boeing was the chief competitor - and that time, North American
got the contract.

Duane

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

Date: 15 May 90 01:59:48 GMT
From: bfmny0![e-mail]  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: The Vatican Connection

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Matthew C. Scallon) writes:
>In article <palmer.642710361@gap> [e-mail] (David Palmer) writes:
>>Actually, recent evidence indicates that Galileo was an Atomist ...

>I don't know, but I find it interesting that this has been the second series
>of Catholic-bashing in this otherwise cerebral group.

... and three more paragraphs of utter drivel.

Get a life, get a sense of humor, buy a history book, take a stress pill,
and take it to a flame group.  David's article was a serious note of
history and mine was just whimsy about silly uses for the VATT.  Neither
one was "Catholic-bashing," and neither merited the maudlin implosion
of defensive bathos referenced above.

>Still, could we please, PLEASE, get on with the discussion of space science?

Post a space article then.  That's how space science discussions
happen... not by waiting for the other fellow to oblige.

Grrr, I HATE whining!  This is our NAVY?
--
"We walked on the moon --       ((      Tom Neff
     you be polite"              ))     [e-mail]

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

Date: 14 May 90 20:35:35 GMT
From: usc!samsung!emory!mephisto!prism!fsu!gw.scri.fsu.edu![e-mail]  (Eric Pepke)
Subject: Re: Hubble Space Telescope Update - 05/10/90 (Forwarded)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ron Baalke)
writes:
> Wilford says engineers found that a pointing error of half a
> degree caused by use of an outdated star chart had been
> programmed into the telescope computer.

Just how outdated was this chart, anyway?  Even Tycho Brahe managed to do
an order of magnitude better than this.

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.

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

End of SPACE Digest V11 #402
*******************