Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V11_4/V11_454.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #454

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 11 : Issue 454

Today's Topics:
         NASA Headline News for 05/25/90 (Forwarded)
           Payload Status for 05/25/90 (Forwarded)
            Re: Ulysses propulsion
         Re: nuclear policies (space probes)
              Splitting "SPACE"
New Advanced Life Support Division established at NASA Ames (Forwarded)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 25 May 90 18:43:09 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Headline News for 05/25/90 (Forwarded)

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Friday, May 25, 1990                 Audio Service:  202/755-1788
-----------------------------------------------------------------
This is NASA Headline News for Friday, May 25........

The Kennedy Space Center mission managers have confirmed the
launch date for the Space Shuttle Columbia for May 30.  The early
morning launch time for STS-35 to carry the Astro-1 into orbit is
12:38 A.M.  Technicians last week replaced a valve on the orbiter
and the coolant system is in order.  The Astro observatory will
examine the ultraviolet and X-ray wavelengths.  The landing is
set for 4:24 P.M. on June 8.

                            ********

Also at Kennedy Space Center, a two-day flight test to check the
Atlas Centaur vehicle concludes today.  The payload on this
vehicle is the Combined Release and Radiation Effects Satellite.
A countdown dress rehearsal is scheduled for around June 30.

                            ********

Meanwhile, the Ulysses spacecraft was removed from its shipping
container.  Receiving inspections are underway at KSC and final
assembly, along with testing operations, will begin next week.

                            ********

The Hughes Aircraft Company is developing a project to provide
educational programming to public elementary schools via
satellite.  A pilot version of the project for kindergarten
through 5th grade is scheduled to start in the fall of 1991.  It
is targeted at 30 schools from diverse demographic areas around
the country.
                            ********

Additional telecommunications services will be available to
Pacific Rim customers from Hawaii by the Columbia Communications
Corporation.  The company has the rights to provide high-power
voice, data video and VSAT applications.  Users will be able to
access the system by using a 1.2 meter parabolic satellite dish.

                            ********

Dr. Kathryn Sullivan has been assigned her third space flight.
She will serve as Payload Commander for Mission STS-45/Atlas-1
projected for April 1991.  The mission is dedicated to study
atmospheric phenomena.  Dr. Sullivan is the first U.S. woman to
perform an EVA and recently returned from Mission STS-31 that
deployed the Hubble Space Telescope.

                            ********









----------------------------------------------------------------
Here's the broadcast schedule for Public Affairs events on NASA
Select TV.  All times are Eastern.


Friday, May 25........


        9:00 A.M. - 8:00 P.M.     5201 Validation Testing


Tuesday, May 29.......

        9:00 A.M.                 Countdown status

        9:15 A.M.                 Astro-1 Introduction

        9:45 A.M.                 Astro-1 Science

       10:15 A.M.                 Astro-1 Observatory
                                  status

       10:45 A.M.                 Space Classrooms



Coverage of all Astro-1 activities will begin with the prelaunch
briefings on Tuesday and will continue through the end of the
mission.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
All events and times are subject to change without notice.  These
reports are filed daily, Monday through Friday, at 12:00 Noon,
EDT.  This is a service of the Internal Communications Branch,
NASA HQ.  Contact: JSTANHOPE on NASAmail or at 202/453-8425.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
NASA Select TV:  Satcom F2R, Transponder 13, C-Band 72 Degrees
West Longitude, Audio 6.8, Frequency 3960 MHz.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: 25 May 90 16:06:12 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Payload Status for 05/25/90 (Forwarded)


    Daily Status/KSC Payload Management and Operations 05-25-90.

    - STS-31R HST (at VPF) -

    Post launch GSE removal continues.


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

    Working final payload launch pre-ops to support 30 May
    launch.


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

    CITE MUE and S/W verifications continue to support CITE
    testing.  MVAK VAS training continues.  Closeouts of level
    III/II and preps are in work to support move to CITE on 1
    June.


    - STS-41 Ulysses (at ESA 60) -

    PAM-S spin balance operations will continue today at ESA 60.
    CITE MUE installation continues to support CITE testing.


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

    Module pyrell foam replacement, floor staging, and rack
    staging continues.


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

    No major activities scheduled.

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

    MLI repairs in work.


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

    No work is scheduled for today.

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

    Rack 12 staging will continue today.


    - STS-LON-3 HST M&R (at O&C) -

    ORUC interface testing continues today.

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

Date: 25 May 90 17:24:59 GMT
From: hplabsb![e-mail]  (David Smith)
Subject: Re: Ulysses propulsion

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Chip Salzenberg) writes:
>>On a related note, would any of the Soviet boosters be powerful enough
>>to send Ulysses up out of the ecliptic without help from Jupiter?
>
>An Energia might do it, if you stack on a few more upper stages.  It's
>a really ugly propulsion problem, though, the sort of thing where you'd
>really like to use solar sails or ion rockets.  (A severely out-of-
>ecliptic orbit is one reason why Halley-rendezvous proposals specified
>exotic propulsion.)

Well, Ulysses is supposed to go over the Sun's poles, an orbit which is pretty
severely out of ecliptic.  Suppose you want to blast out from Earth into
a circular solar polar orbit.  That means you must cancel Earth's 66,000
mph eastward velocity, and add 66,000 mph poleward.  The vector difference
is 93,000 mph.  If you blast out instantaneously from Earth's surface,
ignoring atmosphere, so that you have 93,000 mph after exiting Earth's
gravitational well, you must start out with 96,600 mph.  The fastest space
probes launched to date (Pioneer 10&11, Voyager 1&2) were sent on their
ways with an initial 37,000 mph.  As vehicle mass ratio goes up
exponentially with burnout velocity, I doubt that any chemical upper stages
stacked on an Energia could do it.

Mumble here a little about Sun's axis not being quite perpendicular to the
ecliptic.
--
    David R. Smith, HP Labs
    [e-mail]
    [phone]

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

Date: 25 May 90 12:40:51 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Daniel Alexander Davis)
Subject: Re: nuclear policies (space probes)

>There's a similar situation in the US - the community of Takoma Park, Md
>(adjacent to DC) has declared itself "nuclear-free". I'm not sure of the
>details, but I think basically they don't permit any businesses that deal
>in nuclear armaments, and their local government is not allowed to deal with
>such businesses.

Yes, I'm from MD. just a couple of blocks from Takoma Park.
Most of the kids growing up there take it pretty seriously, even if
they practice underage drinking, (wink wink) and stay out later than
both our parents wanted, they aren't very flippant about their
'nuclear free sone.'  As an experiment I wore a digital watch in to
see whether I was stopped, and they don't take it that seriously.

The community is mostly residential and small retail anyway, possibly
because of this.  Anyway, I know of several fathers who live there
whose work is funded by the military. (i.e. contactors)

Dan Davis (is), the Repunzel of the Mathematics Department.
Carnegie Mellon student
Disclaimer - don't look at me, I'm also a music major,
I don't have to know what I'm doing.
[e-mail](arpanet).
"Life sucks, but sometimes that feels good."

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

Date:     Fri, 25 May 90 10:05:03 CDT
From: Will Martin <[e-mail]>
Subject:  Splitting "SPACE"

The other thing to remember about "sci.space" is that it is not an entity
in and of itself; it is also part of the Internet SPACE Digest mailing list.
These are currently two-way gatewayed together. (I think "sci.space.shuttle"
is also fed into the SPACE Digest, one-way only.)

If sci.space is subdivided into several more subgroups, the effects
include:

- these subgroups will also have to be fed into the SPACE Digest mailing
list, so as to continue to provide the same level of information to
the participants on that side of things. This is more work for the
moderator and supporting (volunteer) personnel, and more places for
things to go wrong.

- submissions FROM the SPACE Digest side of things (like this message)
will have to be placed automatically into one group -- they can't be
sorted by topic and placed into appropriate subgroup(s); we'd need an
AI with real smarts to do that and they don't exist yet. This means that
discussions that may start out in one subgroup will inevitably spread
into at least two subgroups -- the original one and the one where the
SPACE Digest responses go (unless they just happen to be the same group).
This destroys the isolate-into-specific-subgroups rationale for creating
the subgroups in the first place.

USENETters seem enamored of topic-splitting and ever-more-specific
newsgroups, and invariably ignore the larger Internet context in which
many of these groups exist. It is really better to have fewer and larger
more-general-topic groups which fully two-way gateway to mailing lists,
to keep the participation open to the maximum number possible. News
readers have lots of tools with which to sort and select individual
postings by topic and references; they should use those instead of
subdividing groups to reduce the range of postings they are exposed to.

Will Martin

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

Date: 25 May 90 18:51:32 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: New Advanced Life Support Division established at NASA Ames (Forwarded)

Paula Cleggett-Haleim
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                       May 25, 1990
(Phone:  [phone])

Jane Hutchison
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
(Phone:  [phone])


RELEASE:  90-73

NEW ADVANCED LIFE SUPPORT DIVISION ESTABLISHED AT NASA AMES


     How can astronauts grow their own food, live and work on the
moon and safely explore the harsh environment of Mars?

     Research into these and similar questions will be the prime
focus of the newly created Advanced Life Support Division at
NASA's Ames Research Center, Mountain View, Calif.  William E.
Berry, who heads the new organization, said the goal is to
support President Bush's plan for a permanent lunar settlement
and an astronaut mission to Mars.

     Berry said the new division, which consolidates such
research efforts at Ames under a single organization, will focus
its efforts on developing new technologies that will allow humans
to live and work productively in space for long periods of time.

     As missions become longer and crews larger, storing or
resupplying food, water, oxygen and other consumables becomes
prohibitively expensive and difficult.  The life support system
necessary to meet crew members' daily needs without resupply
consists of several elements:  thermal control, air
revitalization and food, water and solid waste management.

     Berry's division has responsibility for developing several
new life support technologies, including:

        --  "Closed-loop" life-support systems, using physical or
chemical means to generate nutrients, gases and liquids from
waste products.  Ames is the lead center for development of
physical-chemical systems, which use chemical processes to
convert carbon dioxide, waste water and solid wastes to
breathable air, potable water and food.

        --  A "bioregenerative, closed-loop" system, called
Controlled Ecological Life Support System (CELSS), using plants
to produce food and recycle water vapor, oxygen and carbon
dioxide.  Work at Ames emphasizes developing a crop growth
research chamber and space flight investigations to study the
performance of CELSS technology in space and to maximize the
growth of edible plants under controlled conditions.

        --  Creation of new space suits and portable life support
systems.  These technologies could be used in the exploration of
Mars or the lunar surface.  Included is the AX-5 space suit, an
all-metal high-pressure suit which for the first time will allow
astronauts to exit the shuttle or space station without first
breathing pure oxygen for several hours.

     This "pre-breathe" phase is currently necessary to prevent
the "bends," a life-threatening condition resulting from the
formation of nitrogen bubbles in the blood stream.

     Berry is conducting a nationwide search for scientists and
engineers to join his research and development team.  "We are
looking for talented, creative people who want to help develop
the space technology of the future," he said.  "The unique human
habitats we will build in space may provide technologies
useful in solving some of the critical environmental issues which
we face on Earth today."


                             - end -


     NASA news releases and other NASA information is available
electronically on CompuServe and GEnie, the General Electric
Network for Information Exchange.  For information on CompuServe,
call 1-800-848-8199 and ask for representative 176.  For
information on GEnie, call 1-800-638-9636.

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

End of SPACE Digest V11 #454
*******************