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Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #464

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 11 : Issue 464

Today's Topics:
           Re: Voyager Confirms Relativity
               Is there a comet coming?
           Payload Status for 05/29/90 (Forwarded)
        Re: The Spaceport of the 21'st Century
               Re: HAWAII AND STAR WARS
               Re: wooden ships
             Re: Problems of missing mass
  Re: US/Soviet Planetary Activity (was Re: Manned mission to Venus)
     Re: One Small Step for a Space Activist  Vol 1 No. 5
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 30 May 90 04:51:11 GMT
From: uoft02.utoledo.edu![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Voyager Confirms Relativity

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Tara C. Woods) writes:
>>I would rather see confirmation that black holes exist.  Recent work with
>>quantum gravity suggest such critters may not even be possible (but there
>>still could be superdense solutions).
>
>
> Are you saying QUANTUM THEORY OF GRAVITY?  I thought this isn't known.  I
> thought that the whole reason why we can't understand the first 10E-43 sec.
> or so of the big bang is because we are missing a quantum theory of gravity.
> Please explain where this came from.  Who developed it?  Who is working with
> it?  Aaaack!  I'm confused.

No, you are correct in that a complete theory of quantum gravity has not been
worked out.  In the past work with black holes and the early universe
have been done from a classical point of view which easily leads to
singularities and event horizons.  There have been a number of attempts
to incorporate quantum mechanics into Einstein's equations (I can give
some references if people are interested).  Unfortunately, it is very
difficult.  Most of these attempts have been semi-classical by modifying
Einstein's equations with a QM correction as in perturbation theory (there
are other ways too).  One can then get solutions with/without singularities
and/or event horizions.  We will have to wait for a complete theory to
be sure but we should not make assumptions classically when we know QM
must be important.


Robert Dempsey
Ritter Observatory

"Publish and perish." - Giodono Bruno

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

Date: 29 May 90 19:39:24 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Shirley Peters)
Subject: Is there a comet coming?

I read a short time ago that there would be a good showing of a comet in the
very near future (summer?).  Does anyone know when this is going to take
place, if it hasn't already? I have no idea where or exactly when I read it.

Thanx,
  Shirley
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shirley Peters                                             [e-mail]
                           I'd rather be sleeping!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: 29 May 90 23:49:37 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Payload Status for 05/29/90 (Forwarded)


    Daily Status/KSC Payload Management and Operations 05-29-90.


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

    Final payload closeouts were completed Sunday.  Launch
    countdown support continues today.


    - 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) -

    CITE MUE installation continues.


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

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


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

    Cable installations will continue today.


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

    No activities are scheduled for today.


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

    Rack frames will be unloaded 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: 30 May 90 02:59:18 GMT
From: usc!samsung!munnari.oz.au!metro!natmlab.dap.csiro.au!ditsyda![e-mail]  (Craig.Lindley)
Subject: Re: The Spaceport of the 21'st Century

in article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Matthew DeLuca) says:
... etc. ...
>
> The original poster, whose message has been dropped from this in the name
> of brevity, was suggesting a Canadian-Australian-New Zealand-US (CANZUS)
> space alliance.  The last time we got into something like that (the ANZUS
> military alliance) the New Zealanders decided they didn't like nuclear
> thingies on ships and wouldn't let U.S. ships dock.  I have this vision
> of a RTG-powered probe on the pad, and NZ deciding to pack up and go
> home...
>
> Pesonally, I would like to see a Pacific-Rim space organization, but I'm
> just not terribly thrilled with New Zealand...
>
The world tends to look a bit different from this lat/long. Several points
can be made:

1. a decision that nuclear weapons are immoral does not preclude the use
of radioactive materials for peaceful scientific and industrial purposes.

2. the issue is also one of sovereignty: _we_ have the right to know whether
_your_ vessels are carrying weapons of type X when they are berthed in
_our_ ports.

3. I expect those who run the Cape York Spaceport to have the good sense
to form international collaborative agreements for sound technical and
business reasons, and not for political or military purposes. Since the
spaceport is to be a fully commercial venture, good sense should prevail
over politics. An _alliance_ would be an inappropriate mechanism.

4. Given the current US attitude towards the spaceport, it is most likely
that any such collaborations will be with neighbouring countries in the
Asia/Pacific region.  This could include Japan (already backing the project),
China (already launching our satellites), the USSR (providing the Zenits),
Indonesia, etc..

5. Exclusion of New Zealand from commercial and technical ventures for the
sake of satisfying US strategic military goals probably only benefits the USA.

craig lindley
csiro dit
sydney, Australia
[e-mail]

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Craig Lindley       ( [e-mail] )
CSIRO Division of Info. Tech., Sydney.

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

Date: 29 May 90 14:26:33 GMT
From: attcan!utgpu!watserv1!maytag!watdragon!watyew![e-mail]  (Brian or James)
Subject: Re: HAWAII AND STAR WARS


    Hawaii already has [I believe] the highest respiratory
disease rate in the USA. Something to do with volcanic output...
How will the proposed launch rate affect this. Is this a trivial
increase in Hawaiian air pollution and are there ways of minimising
the effect on the Hawaiians? I think Malaki is now available for
use as a housing location for the various SDI researchers :)
    A while back, I asked how much of a power drain the
proposed Hawaiian railgun would be. For those interested, it
would need *all* of the current power available in the Hawaiian
electrical distribution system at this time; clearly, the rg
will need a power source built for it.
    Could the SDI stuff be worse than tourists? There's
something about tourist that turns off the higher intelligence
centers in tourists. Normally intelligent folks will ask questions
like 'Do Old Order Menonites mind if we walk into their homes
uninvited and photogragh them in a state of nature?' [A True
Life Example]. The current system to contain the Touring Plague
[I am told by my Hawaiian relatives] basically writes off the area
around Honalulu [sp? and I might have the region wrong] as Tourist
Country and only rents the Tourists distinctive vehicles whose
terrain range is limited [No four wheel drives]. Just imagine a
Tourist in space. "Anyone mind if I open both doors of this airlock?
I wanna photograph explosive decompression' *Whooosh*.
                            JDN

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

Date: 29 May 90 13:23:20 GMT
From: attcan!utgpu!watserv1!maytag!watdragon!watyew![e-mail]  (Brian or James)
Subject: Re: wooden ships

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Thomas Cohen) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Phil Gustafson) writes:
>>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Brian or James) writes:
>>
>>[British are inept explorers.]
>>
>That's not all he wrote...
>
>Besides, some of them were actually quite good,
>for example Capt. James Cook. (admittedly getting
>killed and eaten by Hawaiian natives was hardly
>the high point of his career).
>But how do you draw the distinction between 'navigators'
>and 'explorers'?.
>
>Enuff, on with space.
>

    My critique of the British was mainly about their failure to
adapt to the climates they found in their travels. Thin, tight clothing
is not the ideal gear for the Arctic, unless your goal is to set records
for frostbite deaths. It's worth noting that they had one or two other foibles.
Captains going on long voyages had to pay for citrus fruits out of their
own pockets. I guess the Powers That Were didn't consider scurvy deaths
bad enough to budget money for food suppliments.

    On another note...
The Hawaiians Did NOT Eat Captain Cook!!! This slander has been repeated for
some centuries now. They definitely killed him. They may have used his
remains for raw tool materials, but cannibalism is not part of the Hawaiian
culture [My grandfather, born in Hawaii, was told that only the folks
down around Fiji eat each other. This is slander, too]. Pop was also
told that pre-european Hawaii was chronically short on non-wood or
stone resources, and that it was considered a major insult to be used
as a source of bone [I have dim memories of hip bones [?] being used
for fishing hooks, but, alas, my mempry is dim...] and the boiling of
Cook's body probably was related to this. Damned if I can remember if
he said Cook ended up as tools or was safely disposed of such that
he would not be tooled. Cook had some admirers among the Hawaiians.
[I'd like to add that my paternal family *just* missed the revolution
in which the Hawaiian Royal Family was deposed in 1880 or so. We
keep moving to places the US annexes].
                            JDN

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

Date: 29 May 90 03:32:31 GMT
From: attcan!utgpu!utzoo!yunexus!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!physics.utoronto.ca![e-mail]  (Christopher Neufeld)
Subject: Re: Problems of missing mass

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pavlos Papageorgiou) writes:
> [interesting thermodynamic discussion deleted]
>
   Well, I have a couple of objections to this discussion. First, a
thermodynamic treatment like this really isn't appropriate for a very
small collection of particles, such as a star and twenty major planets,
unless the time scale is very long, so that certain ergodic assumptions
can be made. I submit that the time scale imposed by the age of the
average solar system is not long enough to make these ergodic
assumptions.
   Second, you omitted the possibility of a close approach by an object
approaching from infinity (ie. an unbounded orbit). This can have the
effect of ejecting orbiting bodies, depending on the relative positions
and velocities of the bodies in question and the intruder. Again,
because the time scale is relatively small, this cannot be modeled as an
applied heat source, but has instead to be modeled as the occasional
injection at random times of a random amount of energy.
   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. Planets much larger than
Jupiter would glow under their own light, and we would not be
considering them in this discussion of "Jupiter sized objects." I find
it unlikely that the average solar system contains on the order of a
million Jupiters which would all be ejected in a span of some 10^10
years.
   A possibly more likely source of dark matter ejected from solar
systems comes from cometary clouds like the hypothesized Oort cloud.
These particles are very loosely bound, extending out over a light year
from the Sun, so they would be more easily affected by close approaches
of other stars. The available mass seems quite large, also.

>    Pavlos Papageorgiou ([e-mail])


--
 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 05:10:45 GMT
From: thorin!ornat![e-mail]  (Jonathan Leech)
Subject: Re: US/Soviet Planetary Activity (was Re: Manned mission to Venus)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Mark SOKOLOWSKI) writes:
 <re lack of Venus missions in the forseeable future>
>So why don't you guys do something about it???? It's a terrible loss!!!!
>(I hope it's not true...)

    You have things backwards.    Something was done about the planetary
program in the early 1980's: the Solar System Exploration Committee
laid out a strategy for the next few decades (I had the fortune to be
at their summary meeting due to being in Bruce Murray's seminar at the
time).    The major efforts recommended were the first Mariner Mark II
missions - CRAF (comet) and Cassini (Saturn/Titan).  Mars rover/sample
return is the next big wishlist item - with no funding.

    Magellan in a sense predated the SSEC, being a resurrected
on-the-cheap version of the Venus Orbiting Imaging Radar mission which
was canned; aside from this, Venus was not deemed worthy of
significant effort in the near future.

    The SSEC had the sense to prioritize, though their priorities have
largely been ignored by NASA administration and Congress resulting in
a yet slower program.  In any case, Venus is not up for major US
missions, no matter how much you are dismayed by it.  If the
Observer-class missions recommended by SSEC are ever funded, it might
get another visit in 15 years or so.
--
    Jon Leech ([e-mail])    __@/
    ``The tuba recital is one of the most memorable experiences of
      music school.''
    - Seen on a bulletin board in the UNC Music School

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

Date: 30 May 90 05:18:41 GMT
From: thorin!ornat![e-mail]  (Jonathan Leech)
Subject: Re: One Small Step for a Space Activist  Vol 1 No. 5

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer) writes:
>The attendees also expressed the need for
>greater continuity in NASA goals and programs. Hopefully, this will help to
>get stable multi-year funding for some of these projects.

    I keep hearing this idea.  Which other, if any, federal programs
(a) have any sort of multi-year funding commitment and (b) have
actually received the money in the second year and beyond rather than
been reshuffled in the next frantic budget summit?  E.g., is there any
reason to expect a longterm commitment will be either made or kept?
--
    Jon Leech ([e-mail])    __@/
    ``Even by the 22nd century, no way had yet been discovered of keeping
    elderly and conservative scientists from occupying crucial administrative
    positions.    Indeed, it was doubted if the problem ever would be solved.''
     - Arthur Clarke, _Rendezvous with Rama_

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

End of SPACE Digest V11 #464
*******************