Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V11_4/V11_461.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1991-07-08 | 19KB

Return-path: <[e-mail]>
X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson
Received: from beak.andrew.cmu.edu via trymail for +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/[e-mail] (->+dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl) (->ota+space.digests)
          ID </afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr1/ota/Mailbox/gaMpqgu00VcJ46Xk4O>;
          Wed, 30 May 1990 01:44:13 -0400 (EDT)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
From: [e-mail]
To: [e-mail]
Date: Wed, 30 May 1990 01:43:47 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #461

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 11 : Issue 461

Today's Topics:
             Re: PLEASE HELP ME!!
  Re: US/Soviet Planetary Activity (was Re: Manned mission to Venus)
               Re: Naming Stars
            Re:  An End To Micromanagement
             Re: Problems of missing mass
         Re: Payload Status for 05/29/90 (Forwarded)
              Re: SPACE Digest V11 #344
             Re: Problems of missing mass
              Re: archaic units
  Re: US/Soviet Planetary Activity (was Re: Manned mission to Venus)
               Soviet Missions to Mars
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 29 May 90 20:40:52 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Kevin William Ryan)
Subject: Re: PLEASE HELP ME!!


   I have forwarded another request to the moderator of space-digest.  Requests
for subscription action should be sent to the following address:

          [e-mail]

   The moderator, Todd Masco, is planning to add a notice to this effect to
the beginning of each Digest (what's the status, Todd?) for everyone to see.
In the meantime the above address is that of the moderator.

                                                 kwr

   "Jest so ya know..."

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

Date: 30 May 90 02:15:09 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: US/Soviet Planetary Activity (was Re: Manned mission to Venus)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Mark SOKOLOWSKI) writes:
>>>The fact is, after the Magellan mission, it will probably be a long
>>>time before the next Venus mission.  Most everybody gives it a rather
>>>low priority now.
>>
>>This is true.  The U.S. do not have any plans on the drawing board for
>>Venus after the Magellan mission, and the Soviets won't launch another
>>mission until 2005 with another Venera Venus soft lander.
>>
>So why don't you guys do something about it???? It's a terrible loss!!!!

Why don't *you* do something about it?  You're the one who's excited about
Venus.  I can think of plenty of things that should have higher priority,
like resuming the exploration of the Moon.
--
As a user I'll take speed over|     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
features any day. -A.Tanenbaum| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 28 May 90 14:45:59 GMT
From: usc!samsung!munnari.oz.au!uniwa!vax6![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Naming Stars

Who cares I mean who want's to call a STAR something,Don't you
know, they call the stars M1,M2 and dumb names like that, why
not anything imaginative e.g. Nostridamis, Abjenon,Causous.
In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Jason Edward Floyd) writes:
>
>     I have heard that it is possible to name a star or galaxy. Is this
> true? If so how does one go about doing it?
>
> --
> In Real Life: Jason E. Floyd  [e-mail]
>               University of Maryland at College Park
> "Life is a grapefruit."
> motto: NUKE 'EM ALL

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

Date: Tue, 29 May 90 15:25:07 CDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re:  An End To Micromanagement

Well, since Jim Bowery is now repeating postings that he had someone
else make for him a while back, I guess I'll repeat my answer as
well.

This is a response to the repost from
mordor!lll-tis!ames!ucsd!pnet01.cts.com![e-mail] (Jim
Bowery).  The original reply was a response to a posting of the same
article for Mr. Bowery by Mr. William Baxter.  The original subject
was "Subj:  Re: Launcher Development Costs" and it was originally
posted toward the end of March

==============================================================================
| Fred McCall  ([e-mail]) | "Insisting on perfect safety is for  |
| Advanced Systems Division           |  people who don't have the balls to  |
| Defense Systems & Electronics Group |  live in the real world."            |
| Texas Instruments, Inc.             |                     -- Mary Shafer   |
+-------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
|  I speak for me.  I don't speak for others, and they don't speak for me.   |
==============================================================================


============================ cut here ============================
> Jim Bowery, posted by agate![e-mail]  (William Baxter)

> I agree with Fred McCall on this issue except I'm sure he won't
> like the WAY I agree with him. :-)

Now *there* is a fairly safe bet!  ;-)

> Under no circumstances should we find our Congressmen debating with
> NASA managers about the details of budget, schedule and the
> perversities of technical developments.

Right.

> Congress is not competent to manage or oversee technically complex
> projects and therefore should not attempt to do so.

Right again.  The trick is to convince *them* of that.  And the same
reasoning can be applied to most other things Congress 'funds'.  Are
they really competent to decide what the best uses of funds to take
care of the poor are, or what the best use of funds to defend the
country is?  I really don't think so.

> It should, instead, prioritize RESULTS and associate funds with
> those RESULTS.

Unfortunately, Congress in general isn't even competent to get down
to this level of detail.  Congress is competent to make decisions on
general policy directions, and that's about it.  By 'general policy
decisions', I mean things like 'establish a manned base on Mars' or
whatever.

Trying to go from that kind of broad policy brush to funding things
in detail winds up putting us right back where we are now, with
Congress having to micromanage just what the priorities on every
little thing are (which they aren't competent to do) and a huge
bureaucracy to decide just what counts as 'partial success' on any
given thing.

> All funding should be COD, to WHOEVER DELIVERS FIRST.

For some things that approach makes sense; for some it does not.
Some things are 'time critical', and it's just not feasible to wait
for someone to decide to go for a particular 'prize' in those cases.

[Examples of those kinds of things are information on landing sites
for probes or for initial manned missions - the information is a
roadblock to planning the rest of the mission, and it impacts things
badly to have to wait until someone in the private sector decides to
take whatever risks are necessary to get it.]

In my opinion, what Congress *should* be doing is providing approval
of that kind of broad policy direction I mentioned earlier, and
appropriating funds toward the goals of that policy.  How the
funding gets spent in detail are decisions that ought to be getting
made elsewhere.

That would eliminate the 'bookshelf budget' phenomenon, where the
printout of the budget takes up some ridiculous amount of
shelfspace.  Of course, it would also eliminate the ability of
Congress to attach riders to various bits and pieces of
appropriations bills (which in my opinion would be another plus), so
it will never happen.

> This is a more general version of a proposal I've been circulating
> around Congressional staffers on a "National Science Trust" which
> would pay out for delivery of quantifiable information, such as
> digital maps at various frequencies, etc. of various bodies and
> atmospheres.

Was this also posted here?  I think I recall reading it (and was
almost moved to comment on it then - I can imagine what your
response to any criticism of *that* would have been).  As I recall
it, some parts of it made good sense, some parts of it didn't, and
some parts seemed to be motivated solely by politics and ideology
and probably shouldn't have been addressed in the first place.

> What do NASA's space centers do?  Who cares?  Maybe sell them off
> to the highest bidder and/or let them go belly up, hopefully as soon
> as possible.

Personally, I think that the thing to do with much of the NASA space
system is to get it into the mode that the aeronautical side has
been in since its inception.  It should be providing the detailed
policy direction and technology driving part of the equation.  This
means that it should be doing the things that are often the first to
be cut when the budget axe starts flailing about in Congres, such as
Project Pathfinder.

Spin the 'space science' part of the organization off to someone
like NSF, and let 'space science' compete with all other science for
funding (but keep the money from it in the NASA budget and allocate new
funds to NSF).  This would probably result in *less* funding for space
science, given the costs of putting something in space compared to
other experimentation, but it would at least put the programs of
various scientists into some kind of real competition, and might lead
to more funding for *other* science coming out of the space science
budget.

[Something needs to be done about the bureaucratization that NSF has
suffered from down through the years, too, but that's another story.]

Anyway, this is more than long enough without getting into too many
specifics at this point.


==============================================================================
| Fred McCall  ([e-mail]) | My boss doesn't agree with anything  |
| Military Computer Systems           | I say, so I don't think the company  |
| Defense Systems & Electronics Group | does, either.  That must mean I'm    |
| Texas Instruments, Inc.             | stuck with any opinions stated here. |
==============================================================================
============================ cut here ============================

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

Date: 29 May 90 21:56:36 GMT
From: clyde.concordia.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!physics.utoronto.ca![e-mail]  (Christopher Neufeld)
Subject: Re: Problems of missing mass

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Christopher Neufeld) writes:
>   I do agree with the final conclusion, namely that the mass of
>Jupiter-like bodies in interstellar space which were ejected from solar
>systems is small compared to the visible mass in the universe. After
>all, Jupiter masses only 10^-6 solar mass.
>
   I was corrected in e-mail.
   Curse all textbooks with tables in other than SI units! Weinberg
gives the mass of the Sun in grams, and the CRC gives the mass of
Jupiter in kilograms. That should read "Jupiter masses only 10^-3 solar
mass." It seemed a bit small to me. It doesn't change the meat of the
argument, though. After all, a solar system with 1000 Jupiters seems
quite unlikely, also.


--
 Christopher Neufeld....Just a graduate student  | He's the kind of person
 [e-mail]              | who'd follow you into a
 [e-mail]          Ad astra! | revolving door and come
 "Don't edit reality for the sake of simplicity" | out first.

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

Date: 30 May 90 04:00:33 GMT
From: mailrus!uflorida!mlb.semi.harris.com!thrush.mlb.semi.harris.com![e-mail]  (Don Lewis)
Subject: Re: Payload Status for 05/29/90 (Forwarded)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Peter E. Yee) writes:
>
>    Daily Status/KSC Payload Management and Operations 05-29-90.
>
>    - STS-42 IML-1 (at O&C) -
>
>    Module pyrell foam replacement, floor staging, and rack
>    staging continue.

What's pyrell foam?
--
Don "Truck" Lewis                      Harris Semiconductor
Internet:  [e-mail]     PO Box 883   MS 62A-028
Phone:     [phone]              Melbourne, FL  32901

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

Date: 24 May 90 23:21:45 GMT
From: mcsun!inria!axis!axis!coms![e-mail]  (John H)
Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V11 #344


At last!!  Someone has found a REAL name!  I mean, "Freedom", "Mir" (peace),
don't they make you sick???!!!

Space station Fred.  I can deal with that.  How about Albert?  That's a
good name too!

John Hughes.

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

Date: 29 May 90 15:32:08 GMT
From: usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars![e-mail]  (Ron Baalke)
Subject: Re: Problems of missing mass

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pavlos Papageorgiou) writes:
>    The Voyager spacecraft were recently ejected from this solar
>system, but this feat caused Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune to
>suffer a loss of momentum and corresponding degradation of their orbits.

Most people do not realized this, but Voyager 2 did not get a gravity assist
with its encounter with Neptune, and actually slowed down.  It did, of course,
have enough momentum to leave the solar system.
       _   _____    _
      | | |  __ \  | |       Ron Baalke           |  [e-mail]
      | | | |__) | | |       Jet Propulsion Lab   |  [e-mail]
   ___| | |  ___/  | |___    M/S 301-355          |
  |_____/ |_|      |_____|   Pasadena, CA 91109   |

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

Date: 29 May 90 11:04:21 GMT
From: mcsun!ukc!edcastle![e-mail]  (Bob Gray)
Subject: Re: archaic units

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Bruce Dunn) writes:
>> [e-mail] writes:
>> >I'm not sure about new programs in general, but the official units for

Please be more careful with your editing. I did not write these
lines that are attributed to me.
    Bob.

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

Date: 29 May 90 22:55:01 GMT
From: yamuna.cs.umd.edu![e-mail]  (Yuan Liu)
Subject: Re: US/Soviet Planetary Activity (was Re: Manned mission to Venus)

In article 20282 [e-mail] (Mark SOKOLOWSKI) wrote:
>
>Considering the amount of resources the russian have, their space program
>is quite an achievement, so I doubt very much that the current instabilities
>can have an effect. Don't forget that even in the most crazy period of
>the cultural revolution in China, the engineers pursued in complete
>tranquility their work in camps well protected by the army (with the
>red guards "playing" all around). And it's in this most instable period
>that the Chinese got their atomic bomb and their space program.
>
>Mark S.
>-------
>
Have you heard the phrase (allegedly) by Mao:
"Rather people have no pants,
 We must have atom(ic bombs)"

("pants" and "atom" rhyme in chinese)

Personally, I would rather have pants.

--
===================================================================
Yuan Liu               | Computer Science Dept. |   ,  |     +
[e-mail]    | U. of Maryland         | ----||  , lZ
(O)301 454-6152        | College Park, MD 20742 |  \/  |  > /K

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

Date: 29 May 90 14:39:28 GMT
From: shlump.nac.dec.com!renoir.dec.com![e-mail]
Subject: Soviet Missions to Mars


        [e-mail] (Mark Sokolowski) writes:

    > The Russians were able to land 2 probes (i.e. Mars 3 and 6) safely on
    > the Martian surface at the beginning of the 70's, and beside, a Zond
    > capsule probably crashed there in the 60's. It's simply bad luck that
    > so few data were actually returned back to Earth.

        Only one Soviet Mars probe has yet landed successfully on the
    surface of the Red Planet.  MARS 3 touched down on Martian soil in
    December of 1971.  Unfortunately, it ceased transmitting after only
    ninety seconds of operation.  A partial picture of its landing site
    was returned, but it failed to show any useful details.  Two main
    theories arose to explain the demise of the MARS 3 lander:  The
    global dust storm raging at the time knocked the probe over, or
    the main bus in Martian orbit failed to continue transmitting the
    lander's data to Earth.

        Of the other known Soviet Mars landing attempts:  MARS 2 crashed
    on the rusted surface, giving it little more than the distinction of
    being the first known human craft on the Red Planet.  MARS 6 ceased
    transmitting just seconds before touchdown.  It is believed that the
    lander was destroyed when it impacted with the ground at a horizontal
    speed of several hundred kilometers per hour.  MARS 7 missed the
    planet entirely.  ZOND 2, launched in 1964, was believed to be carry-
    ing a lander capsule; the probe ceased communications just a few
    months before encounter.  ZOND 2 is believed to have missed Mars
    by 1,497 kilometers (930 miles) and gone into solar orbit.  PHOBOS
    1 and 2 were both failed 1988 attempts to place landers on the sur-
    face of Mars' largest moon, Phobos.

        Several other Soviet Mars lander craft, MARS 1969A and B and
    COSMOS 419, failed to leave Earth orbit.  MARS 1960A and B may have
    been impact attempts, as well as the failed Mars launches of 1962.

    > (And if I recall well, 2 or 3 Mars missions actually returned photos
    > matching those of Mariner 9 in details).

        The MARS 2 and 3 orbiters returned rather poor images of the
    Martian surface, due primarily to the obscuring dust storm at the
    time.  MARS 5 did return a number of images comparable to the U.S.
    Mars probe MARINER 9.  MARS 4 also returned some useful images of
    the Red Planet before sailing off into solar orbit (MARS 4 was
    supposed to be an orbiter, but its braking rockets failed to work
    at the time of insertion).  PHOBOS 2 returned many highly useful
    images of Mars and Phobos before its premature demise in late March
    of 1989.

        Larry Klaes  [e-mail]
             or - ...!decwrl!wrksys.enet.dec.com!klaes
                 or - [e-mail]
                     or - [e-mail]

             "The Universe, or nothing!" - H. G. Wells

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

End of SPACE Digest V11 #461
*******************