Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V11_5/V11_526.TXT

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Date: Fri, 15 Jun 1990 01:29:36 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #526

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 11 : Issue 526

Today's Topics:
Re: Public Perception Of Space (was Re: US/Soviet Planetary Activity)
            NASA 91 Appropriation
            Re: Satellite Pictures
               Re: Mount Graham
                KH-12
        Re: Doing something/political reality
             Re: Space Sail Race
             Re: Weather Satellite Photos
Re: NASA signs agreement with consortium of minority universities (Forwarded)

Administrivia:

    Submissions to the SPACE Digest/sci.space should be mailed to
  [e-mail].  Other mail, esp. [un]subscription notices,
  should be sent to [e-mail], or, if urgent, to
             [e-mail]

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

Date: 13 Jun 90 05:01:59 GMT
From: bfmny0![e-mail]  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: Public Perception Of Space (was Re: US/Soviet Planetary Activity)

>>Mostly that's because the press presents it that way.  The media get the
>>same info you enjoy reading (or more), but then they feel they have to
>>make the information understandable to an eighth grader (the approximate
>>reading level newspapers are pitched to).  The result is easy to read but
>>with a near-zero information content.

In practice this tends not to be true unless one's reading is restricted
to USA TODAY captions, but read on.

>True. But it's also probably accurate to say that most members of the press
>have an understanding of science corresponding to eighth grade level, if that.
>They studied journalism in college, not physics.

This is probably true for journalists as a class, counting the vast
majority who have nothing to do with science reporting.  But standards
for science reporting in major media are higher.  And good reporters
know whom to ask for the answers they don't have.

>>To be fair, newspapers and electronic media are giving the public what
>>they want.  Nobody cares if a new galaxy is discovered or high-resolution
>>photos of the Jovian moons are obtained.

People certainly do enjoy seeing pictures of planets and galaxies and so
forth.  That's why the papers and magazines print them -- it sells
copies.  No, people don't want to wade through spectroscopic results
from someone's binary star research, but why should they?

>These things *are* reported, but they sound like this:
>
>"Scientists report the discovery of a new galaxy in the Milky Way. It is
>the largest object of its type ever found. The new galaxy is more than
>six billion miles away." (End of report)

Not true in practice!  I scan and archive a LOT of space news from the
major media.  There are some inaccuracies but generally the standards are
very good.  We are talking about veteran professionals on most of these
beats!

Just out of curiosity I scanned my 1990 archive for "galaxy" and/or
"discover", to see what is REALLY printed.  The resulting collection of
extracts was uniformly intelligent and generally accurate.  (I decided
not to include them in this article to save space and also out of
copyright cowardice.)

>To say this has "near zero information content" is kind. CNN in fact has
>a weekly series, "Science and Technology Today", consisting of a rundown
>of the week's stories in these areas. But it tends to be superficial ...

CNN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY TODAY is a poor example of science
"reporting," because they carry the terrible burden of having to produce
a half-hour EVERY week (regardless of whether anything major is
happening), and doing it on a very limited budget.  The "solution" is a
common one -- use canned tapes from corporate PR packages, and/or find
something marginally interesting within a half-day's drive of Atlanta,
so one van and crew can do the piece without overtime.  So we get all
these eye-glazing segments on what some chip maker is up to, or what a
wonderful science fair they had in Bugton, Georgia.  (All of CNN is
prone to this approach, not just S&TT.)
--
"UNIX should be used          ::   Tom Neff <[e-mail]> or
 as an adjective." -- AT&T   ::    ...uunet!bfmny0!tneff (UUCP only)

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

Date: 13 Jun 90 19:40:44 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!samsung!umich!umeecs!itivax!vax3.iti.org![e-mail]  (Allen W. Sherzer)
Subject: NASA 91 Appropriation

I just received a copy of the markup for the NASA 91 appropriation. This
is out of the subcommittee on VA, HUD, and Independent Agencies. In a
nutshell, anything related to Moon Mars is gone. Anything related to
Mission to Planet Earth just got a whole lot bigger.

Some highlights:

                       SEI Programs

Program              Request    Recomendation    Delta
ALS and Heavy
Lift studies             53M       3M             -50M

Lunar Observer           15M       0              -15M

SEI Exploration
Mission Studies          37M       0              -37M

Pathfinder              179M      22M            -157M

Civil Space
Tech. Initiative        102M      57M             -45M


                  Mission to Planet Earth Programs

Program              Request    Recomendation    Delta
EOS Instruments         103M     108M              +5M

Ozone Mapping
Earth Probes             25M      35M             +10M

EOS SAR Program          ???      ???             +10M

Overall, the NASA R&D request of 7,074,000,000 was cut by 615,375,000.


    Allen
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Allen W. Sherzer         |          Death to all extremists!              |
|   [e-mail]            |                                                |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: 14 Jun 90 20:40:31 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Kevin William Ryan)
Subject: Re: Satellite Pictures

>There are several NOAA pictures in GIF format which are updated every
>week or so and can be obtained using anonymous FTP at VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU
>directory: phil.515

    Great photos.  Unfortunately they are all of the West Coast - I'm in
Pittsburgh.  Anyone have any weather sat photos of the east/northeast
region?

                                                        kwr

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

Date: 14 Jun 90 19:33:55 GMT
From: uoft02.utoledo.edu![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Mount Graham


I would like to point out that there used to be logging and hunting on the
mountain which would have led to the destruction fo the squirrels.
Part of the agreement that allowed the observatory was that logging
and hunting would be forbidden.  It seems to me that the observatory
has helped the plight of the little fellas if anything.

Rober Dempsey
Ritter Observatory

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

Date:         Wed, 13 Jun 90 11:41:45 EDT
From: Rick Papaj <[e-mail]>
Subject:      KH-12


This might very well have been discussed before, but I just
saw a repeat episode of NOVA on PBS in which the KH-12
satellite was discussed, and I am intrigued.  Does anyone
have a clue to the number deployed, resolution, etc.?

Rick Papaj  ([e-mail])

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

Date: 12 Jun 90 19:18:45 GMT
From: philmtl!philabs!ttidca![e-mail]  ( Avatar)
Subject: Re: Doing something/political reality

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (David Anderman) writes:
+Avatar, at this point I believe that the principal reason that the
+politicians in this country have been unwilling to move forward on space
+development is due to space activists preaching to one another via
+computer networks rather than informing their elected officials about
+space policy issues.....

 My dear Mr. Anderman-

   I couldn't agree with you *LESS*! ;-) No, I'm not kidding, I'm quite
serious in stating for the record that we are sheerly dreaming in our
attempts to communicate the serious need-for-space to the politicians.

 1) They are (mostly) lawyers, they do not have the slightest sense of
    adventure or scientific curiousity. They are very-lightly braindead
    in their pre-frontals! Their major concern is the proliferation of
    the zero-sum game here on planet earth. That is the status-quo, and
    it is their job to defend it.

 2) The very idea of a high-frontier colony (like L5 perhaps) scares the
    the hell out of such people since such a group, once self sufficient,
    would have very little need for planet-bound thinking..i.e. there's
    always the chance that the spacers might ignore their politically-
    bent blather, declare autonomy, etc.

 3) The entire possibility of an ever-expanding abundance in materials,
    knowledge and capability is an anathema to the collect-and-divide
    mentality. If they can't make an *exclusive* buck off something then
    it's not something they'll support.


 In short Old Man, the preaching of space doctrine to politicians is
quite like trying to teach a pig to sing..it annoys the pig and it wastes
your time. We should simply bypass the bastards, form a rational public
corporation and do it! Screw the "budget crunches", to bloody-hell with the
need for NASA's "executive leadership", abandon all the traditional rituals
associated with such ventures..LET'S DO IT!

-Avatar-> (aka: Erik K. Sorgatz) KB6LUY           +-------------------------+
Citicorp(+)TTI                          *----------> panic trap; type = N+1 *
3100 Ocean Park Blvd. Santa Monica, CA  90405     +-------------------------+
{csun,philabs,psivax,pyramid,quad1,rdlvax,retix}!ttidca!sorgatz **
(OPINIONS EXPRESSED DO NOT REFLECT THE VIEWS OF CITICORP OR IT'S MANAGEMENT!)

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

Date: 14 Jun 90 06:26:03 GMT
From: usc!snorkelwacker!ai-lab![e-mail]  (Jim Kingdon)
Subject: Re: Space Sail Race

I saw a lecture a week or two ago by an MIT researcher who (over a
weekend) drafted a proposal for the race; all the following
information is from that lecture (sorry, I don't remember his name).

He does not include much allowance for instruments or sensors.  As he
put it "Why do second-class science?" when the real goal of the thing
is to demonstrate the working of a solar sail.  The keep it small and
cheap attitude as opposed to the throw a whole bunch of things onto
one spacecraft (e.g. Galileo) one.

The race is being run by some U.S. government committee to commemerate
the anniversery of Columbus's landing in the Americas.  I don't have
more information, but a few calls running around information and
various government offices could locate it, I imagine.  Their request
for proposals specified a 500 kg payload.  This would allow room for
stuff like the camera, etc.  But the MIT team's design sketch (no one
yet has a completed design) is much smaller--30 kg.  This would allow
launch on a Pegasus or other small booster, or as a secondary payload
on a large booster (the former is preferable from the point of view of
avoiding red tape).

[e-mail] (Thomas G Edwards) writes:
    'Sailing' out of an Earth Orbit sounds like a fairly difficult
    maneuver.

Well, the calculations have been done; it involves spiralling outward.
You have to start at about 1000 miles, or else air drag is stronger
than the propulsion from the sun.  The orbit for going from "near
earth" (after having escaped) to Mars has also been computed; it is an
unsolved problem to combine the two.  The MIT proposal estimates 500
days from launch to a moon flyby, and 250 days from the moon to Mars.

    There also is probably a good deal of guidance control mechanisms.

This is very complicated for a square sail type design, because you
need to have additional pieces of sail at the corners and/or move the
payload relative to the sail.  For a heliogyro (such as the MIT
design) you merely need to be able to twist each of the thin strips of
sail once per revolution.  Many designs use electric motors for this;
the MIT design uses a piezoelectric film--run an electric current
through this film and presto!, it bends so as to twist the strip.

For more information on this stuff, there is a book out on solar sails
that the lecturer recommended.  I don't remember the title, but
perhaps "The book on solar sails" is enough to unambiguously identify
it.

The real problem is getting the thing funded; this race has generated
a lot of press releases but (as of yet) does not appear to have
attracted funding.  Meanwhile, the World Space Foundation has spent
$0.5M over the past 5 or 10 years working on solar sails.  The MIT
design sketch is currently priced at $15 million.

The other problem is getting something launched by 1992, another
reason to favor small and simple projects which don't require things
like the development of new (thinner) plastic films (MIT uses existing
films).

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

Date: 13 Jun 90 05:51:39 GMT
From: ogicse!intelhf!reed![e-mail]  (Iain Odlin)
Subject: Re: Weather Satellite Photos

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer)
writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John H.
 Kim) writes:
>>I'm interested in weekly (or daily) satellite photos of ocean
>>surface temperatures.  I recently visited Scripps Institute
>>of Oceanography and they had a small display about it at the
>>aquarium.  Something about satellite NOAA 6.
>>
>>Does anyone know if these pictures are free to the public,
>>where/how you can get it, or if you can get it if you have
>>a satellite dish (and enough computer power)?
>
>US weather-satellite pictures are free to anyone who feels like receiving
>them; there are a good many amateurs doing so.  Unfortunately, to do this
>you need special electronics -- it's not in the commercial comsat frequency
>bands -- and there's a fair bit of hardware involved.  For the low-orbit
>birds (I forget where NOAA 6 is), you also need tracking programs and
>a computer-controlled antenna.

  At last!!!  The opportunity to amend something Henry Spencer has said! :-)

  With a ham radio and a personal computer, you can nab all the satellite
  photos and NOAA charts your heart desires from the airwaves.  You don't
  need any special equipment, because the satellite pictures are rebroadcast
  by the NOAA on normal radio frequencies.

  About five years ago, 'Rainbow,' the magazine for TRS-80 Colour Computer
  users, included a program to do just this, where the sound from the radio
  was fed into the computer via the cassette tape port.  For years, I was nab-
  bing satellite photos and weather maps from all over the world.  I even got
  several from Australia (A neat trick from the state of Washington!)!

  Now I don't have access to the Colour Computer and I haven't done this for
  a few years, but the idea is still the same.  You can even capture broadcast
  UPI wirephoto pictures this way as well.

  If anyone is interested, I would be willing to try and find my files of
  relevant information on the subject and mail photocopies to folk.
--
----------------------------------Iain Odlin-----------------------------------
             4326 SE Woodstock Blvd, Suite 378, Portland OR, 97206
                 odlin@reed -or- {ogicse,tektronix}!reed!odlin
                   Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

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

Date: 13 Jun 90 20:23:29 GMT
From: convex![e-mail]  (Edward V. Wright)
Subject: Re: NASA signs agreement with consortium of minority universities (Forwarded)

[e-mail] (Greg Retzlaff) writes:

>The new NASA.  Creating a bureaucratic nightmare to associate itself
>with 3rd rate universities in a typical government bullshit technology
>techtransfer thingie.  Oh for the mid-60's NASA again, the can-do
>organization.  Mir is now up to 85 tons.  I am pretty sure that a single
>Saturn V could have put that in orbit in one launch,

Yeah, and for less than the cost of a single Space Shuttle flight.
But at that price, how would we ever sustain the current NASA
budget?  You've got to see the "big picture."

>and I bet that the old NASA could have dummied together a station
>of that size in less than a year.  Sigh.

Dummy, hell, NASA already *had* one. It was called the backup Skylab.

But what happened to NASA is probably inevitable in any government
organization.  The seeds of its demise were there from the beginning.
When the administration first proposed cutting back the number of
Apollo flights, one of the top officials at NASA supported the idea,
saying that if we continued to launch lunar missions "sooner or later,
somebody's going to get killed."

(Gee, that sounds an awful lot like the Rogers Commission. :-()

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

End of SPACE Digest V11 #526
*******************