Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V11_4/V11_435.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #435

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 11 : Issue 435

Today's Topics:
              Magellan Update - 05/21/90
          Re: space news from April 9 AW&ST
           Hubble Space Telescope Update - 05/21/90
             Cape York Space Port
          Re: space news from April 9 AW&ST
               Re: Endangered squirrels
             Re: Contact policies
             terraforming sources
          Re: space news from April 2 AW&ST
         Re: Hubble Space Telescope Update - 05/21/90
          Re: space news from April 2 AW&ST
         Re: Hubble Space Telescope Update - 05/21/90
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 21 May 90 17:29:39 GMT
From: usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Ron Baalke)
Subject: Magellan Update - 05/21/90


                     MAGELLAN STATUS REPORT
                          May 21, 1990


     The Magellan spacecraft continues in excellent health today.
The spacecraft is 104 million miles from Earth and 13
million miles from Venus.  Heliocentric velocity is 71,000
miles per hour. One way light time is 9 minutes and 19 seconds.

     The first week of a two-week Cruise Mapping Test was completed on
May 17. On May 14, the radar start-up test successfully
cycled the radar instrument on and off through each operating
mode.  The test also verified that the telemetry was normal and the
problem with receiving data seen in the test last December has
been corrected.

     On May 16, the radar functional test was successfully
performed, putting the spacecraft in a 8 minute "mapping pass"
complete with a requisite star calibration and tape recorder
playbacks.  No anomalies were experienced on the spacecraft
although a couple of minor anomalies were discovered, and
corrected, in the ground data processing software and procedures.

     The daily star calibrations during the week were all
successful with average attitude updates of less than 0.05
degrees.  Several non-standard commands were successfully
transmitted, including a resetting of battery and radar thermal
control limits, resetting tape recorder tape position counters,
and the commands to initiate the various test activities.


     SPACECRAFT
     Distance from Earth (mi)             104,101,936

     Velocity Heliocentric                71,313 mph

     One-way light time                   9 mins, 19 secs
       _   _____    _
      | | |  __ \  | |       Ron Baalke           |  [e-mail]
      | | | |__) | | |       Jet Propulsion Lab   |  [e-mail]
   ___| | |  ___/  | |___    M/S 301-355          |
  |_____| |_|      |_____|   Pasadena, CA 91109   |

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

Date: 21 May 90 16:21:11 GMT
From: mephisto!prism![e-mail]  (Matthew DeLuca)
Subject: Re: space news from April 9 AW&ST

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Greg Rose) writes:
>
>Strange, one of the smallest, most isolated countries in the world
>stands up to one of the biggest and most powerful (and who the party
>of the first part relies upon for defence) and tells them that they don't
>want their nuclear weapons thanks, AND YOU CALL THIS WIMPING OUT?
>I'd like to see a lot more of this.
>
>(When was the last time you told the gang of muggers where to get off...:-)

I was under the impression that the alliance was freely entered upon by
all three parties; did we beat the New Zealanders over the head until they
signed the treaty?  In any case, there were no nuclear weapons stationed
on New Zealand soil; the nuclear weapons in questions were the ones that
*may have been* carried on U.S. ships making port calls.  Standard U.S.
policy is not to tell whether or not a particular ship is carrying nuclear
weapons; I assume this is for security reasons, i.e., we don't want to tell
the terrorists which ships to try to board in the night or whatever.  Not a
likely scenario, of course, but better safe than sorry.  The New Zealand
government wanted us to certify that there were no nukes aboard the ships.
Also, no nuclear *powered* ships were to be allowed in New Zealand waters...
I can only attribute this to 'wimping out'.

If I remember this correctly, we were given no notice of this change in
policy; the new government (they had an election just before all this
happened) just told the arriving fleet to certify that they were nuclear-free.

>By the way, New Zealand objects far more to the nuclear weapons than
>to the nuclear stuff in general. But bear in mind that they don't need
>nuclear power stations, so why bother with figuring out how to cope
>with nuclear accidents?  My understanding of their policy is that they wouldn't
>have any real problem with shooting reactors up (as opposed to
>shooting up reactors) from somewhere else, if they thought they were
>reasonably safe.

This is all well and good; any country that deosn't want anything to do with
nuclear weapons/power has that right...but if they are changing their policy
from a more permissive stance, they should meet with any country that will
be affected and work out amendments to treaties; unilateral actions are
generally considered rude.

Followups are directed to talk.politics.misc; I haven't mentioned the word
'space' in here once. :-)

--
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: 21 May 90 17:50:30 GMT
From: usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Ron Baalke)
Subject: Hubble Space Telescope Update - 05/21/90


                  Hubble Space Telecope Update
                         May 21, 1990

     The first picture taken by the Hubble Space Telescope yesterday was
supposed to be just an engineering test, but it surprised scientists
by revealing an unsuspected double star.  The inaugural photo sequence
showed bright, crisp stars against a black background and clearly
revealed as a double star an object which had previously only been
suspected as being a doublet.

     James Westphal, wide field and planetary camera investigator, said
"the images were at least twice, if not three times better than expected.
We could get lots of science out of this right now."

     There was little evidence of drift or unwanted movement in the longer
exposures, showing the telescope's stabilizing gyroscopes to be working.
Over the next seven months, the telescope's optical system will be
precisely aligned giving the instrument 10 times the clarity of
ground-based observatories.  Picture quality is expected to improve
several times as Hubble loses air and water from its Earth days.
       _   _____    _
      | | |  __ \  | |       Ron Baalke           |  [e-mail]
      | | | |__) | | |       Jet Propulsion Lab   |  [e-mail]
   ___| | |  ___/  | |___    M/S 301-355          |
  |_____| |_|      |_____|   Pasadena, CA 91109   |

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

Date: 20 May 90 04:37:41 GMT
From: usc!samsung!munnari.oz.au!metro!otc!softway!cluster![e-mail]  (Raymond Lister)
Subject: Cape York Space Port


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:

   White House is dithering on whether to let United Technologies Corp's
   USBI division get involved in managing the Cape York spaceport.  The
   problem is that although the spaceport would be in Australia and
   manned by Australians, they'd be using Soviet boosters.

Then, in article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Gregory N. Bond) writes:

   Well, the security guards and the cleaners might be Australians.   I
   doubt thant any of the "key" personnel would be ...


My compatriot is incorrect.  The launch team will be Australian.

(The real problem for the White House is not that the rockets are Russian.
The American rocket industry can see itself loosing business, and has spent
quite a lot of money lobbying politicians to prevent it happenning.)

Raymond Lister
Department of Computer Science
University of Sydney
AUSTRALIA

Internet: [e-mail]

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

Date: 21 May 90 15:58:40 GMT
From: swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!umich!wsu-cs![e-mail]  (Patrick B. Haggood)
Subject: Re: space news from April 9 AW&ST

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) 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...  ...few
> people today would argue that the risk was unacceptable and that these
> expeditions should not have taken place until advances in transportation
> technology could virtually eliminate all risk... ...my guess is cruising
> the planets in inflatable modules beats crossing seas in wooden ships."

Actually, the greater inhibitor to space exploration seems to be financial.
Damn straight *I'm* going to do a urine/Cocacola spectral analysis exam
if this mission is costing me $15 gazillion dollars...

Besides, Magellan didn;t have to throw his boat away after the trip (yeah,
I know he died, I'm trying to make a point!) :-)
.

--
Patrick B. Haggood
Wayne STate University
Detroit, MI
Physics - Class of 1991 (-2?)

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

Date: Mon, 21 May 90 12:40:27 PDT
From: [e-mail]
X-Vmsmail-To: UTADNX::UTSPAN::AMES::"[e-mail]"
Subject: Re: Endangered squirrels


In SPACE Digest V11 #427, philmtl!philabs!briar![e-mail] (Robert Casey)
writes:

>I see squirrels (grey ones) all around in surburban NYC.  They don't seem to
>mind the presence of homo sapiens.  Are the red ones on this mountian very
>different from the grey squirrels I see lots of?  I would guess, as long as
>you don't knock down too many trees, that the squirrels wouldn't be much
>bothered.
>
>But I'm no squirrel expert.

    They're not just any old red squirrels, but Mt. Graham Red Squirrels.
According to an article in _The Dallas Morning News_, 20-MAY-1990, the top of
Mt. Graham is sort of an evolutionary island.  It's high enough that it still
has pine trees and that sort of vegetation while all around is desert, which
the squirrels can't cross because of the way they've evolved.  Estimates of
the Mt. Graham red squirrel population range from 50 to 150 individuals.
    Actually, plans are to have seven separate facilities up there, of
which the VATT is the first.  The VATT will take up about 9 acres and when the
entire development is complete it will take about 25 acres.  Since the
squirrels' habitat spans about 10,000 acres, I don't see how they'd die off
even if they didn't get along with people.  Maybe their protectors are just
trying to fend off the destruction of yet another wilderness.

_____________
Dale M. Greer, whose opinions are not to be confused with those of the
Center for Space Sciences, U.T. at Dallas, UTSPAN::UTADNX::UTDSSA::GREER
"If we do not succeed, then we run the risk of failure." -- J. Danforth Quayle

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

Date: 21 May 90 15:05:47 GMT
From: ogicse!plains![e-mail]  (Michael J. Hennebry)
Subject: Re: Contact policies

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Michael Reed) writes:
<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?

Unless the ET's can prove that they came from a communist planet
the INS will deport them as economic refugees.

--
Mike [e-mail]
"For my part I prefer aliens that look alien. Then when they
ritually eat their first-born, or turn arthropod half-way
through their life-cycle, it isn't so much of a shock."   --   Lynne Christie

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

Date: 22 May 90 03:38:55 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: terraforming sources

Folks who want to look at the technical literature on terraforming, as
opposed to uninformed speculation :-), should check out the Dec 1989 issue
of the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society.  It just surfaced
from the wilds of my to-be-read pile.  It's a special issue on the
subject, with papers on terraforming Earth (!), Venus, Mars, and the
satellites of Jupiter, plus some interesting odds and ends.  The
reference lists at the ends of the papers are fertile ground for people
who want to dig further, too.

(PS to hutto!henry in Texas -- my mail to you bounced, although this is
a better reference than the one I sent you anyway...)
--
Life is too short to spend    |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
debugging Intel parts. -Van J.| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 22 May 90 01:25:03 GMT
From: swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!munnari.oz.au!metro!cluster!nuts!cc![e-mail]
Subject: Re: space news from April 2 AW&ST

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gregory N. Bond) writes:
>>   problem is that although the spaceport would be in Australia and
>>   manned by Australians, they'd be using Soviet boosters.
>
> The way you build up experience is to build a spaceport and start using
> it, which is what Australia is doing! :-)  Most technicians and the like
> will have to be trained almost from scratch anyway, since there are no
> Western technicians with Soviet booster experience.  Australia has enough
> of an aerospace industry -- the space side of it isn't large but isn't
> quite zero -- to supply a lot of the people needed.  It might be desirable
> to have experienced US or European people in the top-level jobs for the
> early stages, though.

    The are enough of us down here with more enthusiasm than you give us
credit for. Give us a text book and a day or two and coffee aside, we'll have
it down pat!

Luke.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Signature? This is the best I can do! |   University of Newcastle
                                      | (Australia, not UK)
The Sabbath was made for man, not     |
man for the Sabbath! (Good enough?)   |        [e-mail]
 So work and be merry!                |               Shuttle Assasin.......
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: 21 May 90 09:05:54 GMT
From: bfmny0![e-mail]  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: Hubble Space Telescope Update - 05/21/90

>                  Hubble Space Telecope Update
>                         May 21, 1990

>                             Picture quality is expected to improve
>several times as Hubble loses air and water from its Earth days.
                         ^^^^^^^^^

Could the "sunrise wobble" be due to venting reaction effects?
--
US out of North America, NOW!!   /:   Tom Neff
           -- Richard O'Rourke   :/   [e-mail]

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

Date: 21 May 90 15:52:02 GMT
From: pilchuck!seahcx!phred![e-mail]  (Pete Jarvis)
Subject: Re: space news from April 2 AW&ST

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Doug Lhotka) writes:
>
>I seem to remember from somewhere (in First Aid Training I think) that
>breathing pure O2 is not only dangerous, but can be lethal.  When divers
>exceed the 'normal' dive limits they are breathing a mixture of helium and
>oxygen...is it possible the EVA guys do the same thing?  I realize that the
>pressure problem is reversed, but even still pure O2?  Anyone out there work
>with the systems involved who can definitively answer this question?
>

The answer is that they are breathing it at much reduced pressure,
around 3 psi...........Peter Jarvis

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

Date: 21 May 90 20:12:55 GMT
From: sunybcs![e-mail]  (Devon E Bowen)
Subject: Re: Hubble Space Telescope Update - 05/21/90

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Ron
Baalke) writes:
|>      The first picture taken by the Hubble Space Telescope yesterday was
|> supposed to be just an engineering test, but it surprised scientists
|> by revealing an unsuspected double star.

So where do I ftp it from?    8-)

Devon

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

End of SPACE Digest V11 #435
*******************