Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V11_4/V11_420.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #420

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 11 : Issue 420

Today's Topics:
               Re: Sagan vs. asteroids
          Re: Manned mission to Venus (long)
            Re: Deep Space Relay Satellite
          Re: space news from April 9 AW&ST
                 Re: Magellan
              Re:  SPACE Digest V11 #387
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 17 May 90 09:36:11 GMT
From: mcsun!ukc!icdoc!syma![e-mail]  (Nick Watkins)
Subject: Re: Sagan vs. asteroids

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>The point is, when LBJ talked about space, everyone *knew* this was a
>politician speaking.  But people still think of Sagan as a scientist,
>and incorrectly attribute primarily scientific motives to his statements.
Point taken, but would you have said the same about, for example, Carlo
Rubbia, to name but one astute Scientist/Politician ?

Nick

"UA1 was Carlo's Pyramid" - Don Perkins quoted in "Nobel Dreams"


--
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: 15 May 90 19:05:08 GMT
From: crash!orbit!pnet51![e-mail]  (S Schaper)
Subject: Re: Manned mission to Venus (long)

Terraforming Mars and (maybe) Venus is that if we goof it up, no one dies, we
can learn and apply that towards Earth.

UUCP: {amdahl!bungia, uunet!rosevax, chinet, killer}!orbit!pnet51!schaper
ARPA: crash!orbit!pnet51![e-mail]
INET: [e-mail]

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

Date: 17 May 90 14:55:32 GMT
From: mojo![e-mail]  (Doug Mohney)
Subject: Re: Deep Space Relay Satellite

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>
>Doubtful.  For one thing, they're not all going in the same direction!
>Even now, we have two Pioneers and two Voyagers heading out of the
>solar system in four different directions.

The Pioneers are a write-off. By the time you build the thing, the
Voyagers are gone too. We can look towards future probes, I guess.

>It is generally more cost-effective to build bigger and better receiving
>systems here on Earth.

I've never heard of a space-based receiving station losing data becuase
it rained in Spain ;-) Besides, building bigger is going to bring up
interesting problems with A) real estate and B) EM interference/noise
by a steadily noiser civilization, or interference by the antennas
themselves with ground-based stuff.

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

Date: 18 May 90 03:38:54 GMT
From: swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!emory!mephisto!prism![e-mail]  (Matthew DeLuca)
Subject: Re: space news from April 9 AW&ST

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

>Cape York is going to be THE spaceport of the 21st Century.  I hope the United
>States does not miss out on the action there because of as myopic viewpoint
>now.  In fact, I would like to see a Shuttle launch pad installed at Cape York
>as the start of a CANZUS Space Alliance.  (CANZUS = Canada, Australia, New
>Zealand and United States).

But if there's nuclear material (RTG's or reactors) aboard the satellites to
be launched, won't New Zealand wimp out? (Only a half-smiley, folks.)



--
Matthew DeLuca
Georgia Institute of Technology      Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards,
Office of Computing Services         for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
ARPA: [e-mail]

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

Date: 17 May 90 13:04:09 GMT
From: ox.com!itivax!vax3.iti.org![e-mail]  (Allen W. Sherzer)
Subject: Re: Magellan

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Raymond Lister) writes:

>  >  Letter from James Duval in Pasadena...  "If Columbus or Magellan had
>  >  been victims of the same 'analysis paralysis' that seems to grip NASA
>  >  management, they'd still be pacing the decks pondering the weather,
>  >  food preservation, scurvy and the possible long-term effects of
>  >  constant seasickness and salt air exposure.  Fortunately, they were
>  >  explorers, not bureaucrats...


Well, there is Laurence Livermore. It seems they are going ahead with
their plan. I wish them luck.

>Somebody should tell Mr Duval that Magellan died during his fleet's
>circumnavigaton of the globe.

So what?

  Allen

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Allen W. Sherzer         |   Real men write self modifying code.          |
|   [e-mail]            |                                                |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

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From: Kevin 'Charlie' Brown <[e-mail]>
Subject:  Re:  SPACE Digest V11 #387
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----------------- Message requiring your approval (329 lines) -----------------

In message <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] writes:
>
>> Mark S. also questions the ability of Space Industrialization to make
>> a difference in how we live here, saying the military will eat all of the
>> benefits and nothing here will change.
>>
>> I severely disagree with this. Solar Power sattelites could provide a
>> cheap source of renewable energy indefinately. Asteroid mines could
>> provide us with metals without destroying biosphere. It would be exporting
>> our problems, but wouldn't it be prudent to export them to somewhere where
>> there is _no_ life whatsoever?
>>
>I must agree with Mark S.' assessment of the situation, as must any reas-
>oning person.

Well, I believe myself to be a reasoning person, and I don't really agree with
Mark S.' assessment.

There are a couple of factors involved here.  The first factor is the
expense of establishing a manned presence in space.  The second factor is
the expense of remaining here on earth.

It's a fact that there are limited resources on our planet.  As said resources
get more and more scarce, the cost of those resources will rise.  This is
simply a question of supply and demand.  Now, we can assume for the sake of
simplicity that the frequency of launches into space will remain constant,
especially since the current launch frequency isn't very high.  The cost of
a launch into space is determined by the cost of the booster, the cost of
insurance, and the cost of the labor required to perform the launch.  The
cost of the booster is determined by the combination of (a) supply and
demand of the booster itself, (b) availability of materials, and (c) cost
of assembly.  Clearly, the more frequently a booster is used, the more
effect mass production has, and the lower the cost.  It's even better (in
the long run) if the booster is reusable.  So we assume that the cost of
the booster changes only with the price of materials, which will rise as
these materials become more scarce.  But since the booster is a combination
of materials, the price will rise only in proportion to the amount of the
given scarce material being used.  My point, of course, is that the cost of
the booster will not rise as quickly as the cost of scarce resources.

Note that the above assumption is a rather pessimistic one, as commercial
demand for boosters is likely to increase with time, due to the demand for
more and larger communications satellites, observation platforms, etc.

Now, given that, it immediately follows that there will come a point where
the expense of establishing a manned presence in space will be justified
based on the profits to be gained by acquiring (currently scarce) materials
in space.  This is simply the result of economics, and it relies on the
traits of mankind that you seem to believe are dominant (e.g., greed).

Thus, unless we destroy ourselves first, we are *guaranteed* to, sooner or
later, establish a manned, industrial presence in space.

Why manned?  Well, mainly because there are cases where real-time human
control of the materials processing in space will be necessary.  While we
depend more and more on machinery, I don't believe there will ever be a
time where we depend COMPLETELY on machinery (due to another trait of
mankind that you seem to believe to be dominant : fear and lack of trust).

There's another reason the presence will be manned (though not necessarily
initially) : there are people who want to go out there, for whatever
reason.  If the expense is low enough (as it must be eventually, since an
industrial presence must eventually lower launch costs to a minimum as a
result of competition if nothing else), people will go.  Companies will
build habitats because that way their people will be close to their work,
and will thus work more efficiently.  Again, simple economics.

>The percentage of materiel being lifted into orbit that is
>of a military nature is increasing logarithmically.

I assume that by "logarithmically" you really mean "exponentially".  In any
case, on what data do you base this?  According to what I've read, the
frequency of scientific and commercial payloads has increased rather
dramatically in the last year or so, and I've not heard of such a dramatic
increase in the frequency of military launches.  That, of course, may be
because I don't have the sources you have, so it's hard for me to say.  But
either way I'd be interested in seeing the data you base your claim on...

BTW, does anyone out there (Henry?) know what percentage of the space
shuttle's backlog consists of military payloads?  This would probably be a
decent indicator of how much of the space program is military in nature...

>The u.s. "space program"
>has been completely militarized (the desired outcome of the Challenger affair),

I'm not sure what to make of your parenthesized statement.  Do you believe
the Challenger explosion to be deliberate?  Who is it that desires the
space program to be completely military?  The military?

The space program has definitely NOT been "completely militarized" unless
Galileo, Magellan, HST, Astro-1, and a host of commercial payloads are
actually military in nature.  I believe this to be highly unlikely.

>and with deployment of SDI weapons systems on the way, I don't really see
>any sort of improvement in life on Earth, unless you call the very REAL threat
>of nuclear death from the sky replacing the UNLIKELY POSSIBILITY of nuclear
>death from the ground an improvement.

You assume here that the politics of the situation will change when the
nuclear arsenal moves into space.  Why should it?  The deterrence effect
still remains the same, unless one side has an incredible survivability
advantage over the other.  SDI might give NATO a big advantage in terms of
surviving the direct effects of a nuclear strike, but it won't do anything
about NATO's ability to survive the indirect effects of a nuclear strike
(the much-discussed "nuclear winter", global nuclear fallout, etc).  If YOU
were the leader of a nation, would YOU want to be responsible for bringing
such things down on the population you were responsible to?  *I* wouldn't
re-elect an official that launched a first strike against the Soviets,
regardless of whether or not we had SDI, because such an act is sheer
stupidity, and as an inhabitant of the planet I'd probably suffer from the
results.

If the situation is reversed (i.e., the Soviets have SDI and we don't),
then their leader faces the same problems, though re-election might not be
a factor.  The Soviets DO have to answer to their people in one form or
another, as evidenced by the social and economic problems they're having
over there.  Global nuclear fallout might be enough to start a civil war
over there...

To top it all off, what do you gain by nuking a country?  You can't use the
land afterwards because of all the radiation, and so you won't have access
to that country's resources after it's all over with.  Is the United States
so much of an annoyance to the Soviets (or any other nuclear superpower)
that they would risk global fallout, nuclear winter, and all the other
nasty things associated with a large-scale nuclear strike?  I doubt it.
Especially in light of recent events in Eastern Europe.  You, however, may
have different opinions.  I'd be interested in hearing them, and in hearing
a logical, plausible explanation for them.

>
>We are as far from being able to mine the asteroid belt as we are from
>finding Oz at the end of the yellow brick road. They are both farfetched
>fantasies. The space program of lunar exploration followed by Mars ex-
>ploration that would have led to our eventual mastery of space travel
>has been replaced by the "space program" that explores new and better
>ways of launching new and better weapons systems into orbit around the
>Earth, that will eventually lead to confrontation and nuclear-armed
>conflict in space.

Again, on what do you base this conclusion?  I haven't heard anything at
all about the Mars mission, lunar base, etc. being cancelled outright.  As
for the space station, that hasn't been canceled either, though it looks
like it might be in trouble (@#%@*! beancounters...).

>There are no benefits for mankind to be derived from
>this course of action, unless you loosen the definition of mankind to
>include the profiteering weapons-builders who derive their vast incomes
>from producing horrifying devices to kill humans on a massive scale.
>They, as always in our "society," will benefit.

See my previous comments for why nuclear arms in space probably won't
change the situation with no manned presence in space.

Assume the existence of a relatively large, manned presence in space.  Do
you really think that the people in space will associate themselves with
various political entities on earth?  Why should they, when the politicians
on earth are highly unlikely to know or care about the conditions that
exist in space?  Furthermore, the space people will have their hands full
surviving.

And they WON'T be stupid enough to fight wars amongst themselves, because a
space habitat is much more fragile when subject to weaponry than the earth
is, since the immediate environment around the habitat is hostile, unlike
the immediate environment on earth.  Those that ARE stupid enough to fight
wars will simply die, and you then have evolution in action.

And then there's the case where the earth fights the spacepeople.  That
won't happen either.  Why?  Because it's REAL SIMPLE for the spacepeople to
drop big rocks on the earth.  Make the asteroid big enough, or have enough
of them, or get them going fast enough, and you can get orders of magnitude
more power than the earth's entire arsenal.

From the standpoint of the earth, it's even worse than that, because by the
time the spacepeople become a significant political entity, they'll be
spread out so much that you CAN'T kill them all.

What about the spacepeople attacking earth?  Well, why should they?  The
earth is still a good resource for some things, like water, oxygen, etc.,
but even if the earth is useless, what do the spacepeople gain by attacking
earth?  It would be a waste of valuable resources if nothing else.  And no
matter what, the earth is where mankind started.  More likely than not,
it'll ALWAYS have a psychological significance to the inhabitants of the
solar system.

>
>> Given the several tens of thousands of asteroids out there, there are more
>> than enough for us to supply ourselves with metals well into the fourth
>> millenium, build space colonies, and still have enough left over for
>> Dr. Sagan to find out the ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and
>> Everything. (42!).
>>
>Before we can capture and mine asteroids for metals, and build "space colonies,
"
>we must learn to keep men alive and HEALTHY in space for more than seven days a
t
>a time,

This is true.  But see my arguments above for why, sooner or later, we will
eventually do this.  Furthermore, the solution is easy once you've got good
genetic engineering techniques.

> must develop REAL spacecraft that are not just bullets with men in their
>noses,

This is a simple matter of technology, and thus a matter of time.  BTW,
does the space shuttle count as a "bullet with men in its nose"?

> develop human psyches that will not become deranged by close confinement
>with other humans for more than 30 days at a time,

I don't know what progress has been made in this respect, but I haven't
heard about any problems like this aboard the MIR space station, and they
stay up for months at a time in some cases, do they not?  Furthermore,
seagoing military vessels have much the same conditions, and THEY don't
have extraordinary problems with it.  The worst problems that I know of are
a result of the lack of women on board.  That probably won't be a problem
when it comes time to industrialize space.

>develop equipment that can do more in space than just open its doors and
>pop weapons satellites into orbit,

This is also a matter of technology, developed as a result of the need to
industrialize space.

>and develop the intellectual advancement necessary to produce a world whose
>population cooperates for the mutual good of mankind and the planet Earth, in-
>stead of a planet of warring nations still fighting each other over moronic
>thousand-year-old territorial claims,

A couple of points on this.  Firstly, it's NOT necessary for all mankind to
cooperate to industrialize space.  Once the economic incentives are high
enough, people will do this out of greed if nothing else.  There are
companies large enough and diversified enough (e.g., Mitsubishi) that they
could probably produce their own space technology from scratch if
necessary, so only intra-company cooperation is necessary.

Secondly, most of the "warring nations still fighting each other over
moronic thousand-year-old territorial claims" are small and (relatively)
harmless.  If they get nuclear weapons, then that'll change things
significantly, but they'll probably in their religious zeal use them on
each other.  Problem solved.

> and finally a world population that
>recognizes that organized religion is a racket from which thousands profited
>for nearly two thousand years, while BILLIONS HAVE DIED.

Religions that have as a part of their doctrine the killing of other human
beings must necessarily fail eventually.  Religion, like any other process
you care to name, is subject to "survival of the fittest".  If (a) this
were not the case, and (b) humans have exactly the nature you appear to
believe they do, then satanic cults and other such religious
viewpoints would be a lot more prevalent than they actually are.

Furthermore, the industrialization of space, like most other commercial
ventures, will probably be independent of religion and guided solely by the
quest for economic gain.

I have my own views on religion (I'm agnostic), but this probably isn't the
appropriate place for me to discuss them.

>And all of this develop-
>ment shouldn't take more than another two or three thousand years. Now, con-
>sidering that at our present rate of destruction of the planet Earth, we have
>perhaps between 50 and 100 years left to exist, well..., you get the idea.

Since growth and technological development are both exponential processes,
I suspect your "two or three thousand years" is way off.  I do recognize
that there are other factors which influence this growth (they modify the
curve, but don't really change its overall shape), such as politics, but
these effects merely postpone the inevitable.

>>
>> One of the main problems with the U.S. space program has been that it
>> contains so many programs, such as Hubble, the Neptune Probes, etc. that
>> cater mostly to pure scientists that it seems to be a vehicle mainly
>> for the studies of those _high priesthood_ projects of finding the
>> origin of the universe, what was God thinking when he did it, and other
>> such things.
>>
>THE main problem with the u.s. "space program" is that everyone is being
>fooled by this misnomer. It should immediately be corrected to the far
>more truthful, "orbital weapons deployment program." Then everyone can stop
>pipe-dreaming about colonizing space, and concentrate on being scared
>s**tless of nuclear death from the skies.

Well, "space program" may be a misnomer, but I'm afraid that your "more
truthful" name is probably not really more truthful.  If "space program" is
a misnomer, it's because we don't really DO much in space but put up
various satellites and launch probes.

The only defense-related satellites that they can put up right now that
I know of are :  (a) spy satellites, (b) anti-satellite satellites, (c)
single orbital nuclear bombs.  They most definitely put up (a), probably
put up (b) (although there are anti-satellite missiles that can be launched
from high-altitude aircraft that are much less expensive), and probably
don't put up (c) because you don't get much out of a single nuclear bomb,
whether it be ground-launched, submarine-launched, or orbit-launched.  The
space shuttle doesn't have the payload capacity to put up more than a
couple of nuclear bombs (I know, the bomb itself isn't that large, but the
guidance systems, delivery engines, etc.  take up a considerable amount of
space.  The result would be at least as large as a small to medium sized
satellite).  Henry Spencer probably knows more about this than I do,
though...

>>
>> If we make the program mainly a spectator sport, it will fail. Football
>> is cheaper.
>Football, baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey, tennis, wrestling, boxing,
>lacrosse, and gladiatoring are all CHEAPER than conquering space, and in
>fact are the DIRECT CAUSE of the u.s.' failure to do so. So, batter up...
>

I'd be most interested in hearing about how spectator sports are a direct
cause of the problems with the space program, and what evidence you have to
support your claim.

>                                                 Marlen
>                                                 AZM@NIHCU

To the rest of the newsgroup : if there are any flaws in my arguments
above, I'd really like to hear about them so that I can revise my facts
and/or thinking.  I don't like to be wrong if I can avoid it, and I try to
keep an open mind about things (while remaining skeptical enough to tell
the difference between truth and falsehood!)...

                                Kevin Brown
                                CSCI31F7@UHCL2
                                [e-mail]

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End of SPACE Digest V11 #420
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