Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V12_4/V12_471.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V12 #471

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 12 : Issue 471

Today's Topics:
             space news from Sept 3 AW&ST
                  Re: Pluto
           More Space Models: Skylab, Lunar Rover.
         Re: More Space Models: Skylab, Lunar Rover.
             Re: Theories needed on life
                  Re: Hubble
             Re: Cassini mission?
             Re: Theories needed on life
           HST Science Summary (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: 19 Oct 90 03:14:16 GMT
From: news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Sept 3 AW&ST

White House approves United Technologies' request to bid on construction
and management of the Cape York spaceport, contingent on "fair pricing"
[meaning "not too much competition for the launcher cartel, please"].
Note that it is still the case that any satellite built in the US needs
an export license to be launched from abroad.

SDIO can't decide whether Saddam Hussein is their friend or their enemy.
On one hand, he's the best argument they've had in years for the usefulness
of a small-attack antimissile system.  On the other hand, the Gulf crisis
is gobbling money by the carload, and somebody's going to have to pay
for it.

The CIA image-processing and photo-analysis facilities for satellite data
are on a war footing for the first time, and they're clearly overloaded.
Analysts are working 18-hour days and data is sometimes backing up.  The
Interpretation Center near Washington declines to be specific, but AW&ST
checked its parking lot at midnight and found over 100 cars there.  The
Defence Mapping Agency is also on an emergency schedule to provide precise
targeting data for cruise missiles and aircraft.  The two currently active
KH-11 satellites have been maneuvered to give an overhead pass of the Gulf
every two days; however, the KH-11 is known to be capable of looking well
to the side of its ground track, and useful data may be available more
often.  These are KH-11s numbers 7 and 8.  Number 6 is still in orbit but
thought to be out of maneuvering fuel; however, it may still be returning
data.  The Lacrosse radarsat is also said to be proving useful.  The
rather mysterious Aug 1989 spysat, initially observed to be tumbling but
since seen to maneuver, may also be active.  Nobody knows quite what the
failed Feb 1990 satellite was, although there is a rumor that it was
highly specialized, perhaps a dedicated infrared spysat.  The Soviets are
also busy, with at least one satellite maneuvered and another freshly
launched.

Magellan staff plan to command Magellan into a more intelligent operating
mode, as its current emergency-fallback mode is vulnerable to some kinds
of single-point failures.

The delayed H-1 launch of the BS-3A tvsat went off as planned Aug 28.

Harold Masursky, late of the US Geological Survey, died Aug 24.  He
played a major role in choosing Apollo landing sites and scientific
objectives, headed the Mariner 9 mapping of Mars, helped select the
Viking landing sites, and was instrumental in getting Magellan funded.
He saw the first Magellan images a few days before his death.

Hubble produces the first detailed photo of the gas shell around the
remains of Supernova 1987A, and an image of a "typical" galaxy, NGC
7457, revealing that its core is much more densely packed than expected
(strongly sugestive of a black hole).  The SN1987A image is 2-3 times
better than ground-based ones.  The images were made with ESA's Faint
Object Camera.

Feature section on Europe's Aerospace Industry, anticipating the
Farnborough Air Show.  Not much on space.  Nice photo of a night Ariane
launch.

Article discussing Arianespace's near-future plans, notably more flexibility
in mix-and-match two-satellite launches on Ariane (using a new payload
housing to handle two payloads of quite different size), exploration of
the idea of a marketing alliance with OSC/Hercules for Pegasus services,
and further use of the capability to piggyback small commercial payloads
on low-orbit Ariane launches [which are, admittedly, not common].  Various
options for cooperation on Pegasus operations are being considered,
including use of the Kourou tracking range for Pegasus launches, and
Pegasus assembly and carrier-aircraft operations from there.  Arianespace
is also studying the idea of commercial Hermes operations.  Looming in
the near distance is politicking on launcher pricing policy [translation,
"what on Earth is the launcher cartel going to do about Soviet competition
now that we don't have the Cold War as an excuse any more?!?"].

Arianespace counts the total loss of schedule from the February Ariane
failure as 3.5 months; the hiatus was five months, but six weeks of that
was normal turnaround time.  The cloth that blocked the water line
is still being investigated.  It is cotton, of a type used in shop coats,
unmarked, and completely clean (which indicates it was not being used
for cleaning).  Nobody is sure whether it was in the Aerospatiale part
of the line or the SEP part (nobody being responsible for the whole line,
a management mistake that will be fixed).  Sabotage has not been formally
ruled out, but the general belief is that it was an accident.

AW&ST often has a "Market Supplement" in the middle, with lots of advertising
and some lightweight pseudo-editorial coverage on a specific topic.  This
week's topic is a surprise:  Pegasus.  Good pictures, limited content.

"We're trying to use advanced technology to drive down costs rather than
to achieve performance breakthroughs." -- David Thompson, OSC chairman.
Pegasus cost about $45M of private funding.  (DARPA bought the first
launch and options on five more, four of which have been exercised, but
did not contribute any development money.)  OSC decided to use a fairly
small group of people rather than the "Battlestar Galactica" approach
to development; the OSC Pegasus team never exceeded 35 people.  The result
was first flight three years after project conception, less time than it
takes for NASA just to approve a project.  Off-the-shelf hardware was used
as much as possible; for example, the flight-control computer is the
fire-control computer from Israel's Merkava tank, and the guidance system
is the one Litton builds for the Mk48 torpedo.  "We didn't invent anything
we didn't have to."  One major problem area was aerodynamics, since nobody
knows much about Mach 8 flight, so "we tried to produce an aerodynamically
boring vehicle".

Production Pegasus tooling is available for one per month, with no great
problem in boosting production to one per week.  Three are currently
being built, with immediate plans for two more.  The hope is to build
8-10/year by 1992.  15-20 flights will be needed to recover development
costs.  A major upcoming goal is to end dependence on NASA's ancient
B-52, by fitting a commercial transport for Pegasus launches.  A used
Tristar is a strong candidate, because they are cheap on the secondhand
market (being a dead-end product, out of production, with operating
costs high compared to modern airliners) and are amply big enough.
Another plan is to equip Pegasus with a Navstar receiver, which would
improve guidance precision and eliminate the need for a pre-launch
guidance update from the launch aircraft.  A longer-term objective is
a restartable liquid-fuel fourth stage, which would increase payload
and permit much more accurate final orbits.

NASA Langley is doing early work on a telerobotic system for assembly
of space structures, initially aimed at dealing with a simple repetitive
structural unit like a truss.

Picture of the Alexis satellite (Array of Low-Energy X-ray Imaging Sensors)
being developed for Los Alamos as a sensor testbed.  It will fly next year,
on Pegasus.

Story on the details of the NRC study panels' report on EOS.  The first
EOS platform, aimed at lower-atmosphere interactions, really does benefit
from having all sensors looking from the same perspective at the same
time, the panels say, but the second, aimed at the upper atmosphere,
currently does not have a strong case for being one large platform.
There is no significant cost difference between one large satellite and
several smaller ones, and the smaller satellites would be more flexible.
NRC says that NASA generally has not paid enough attention to contingency
planning for instrument failure, and is casting the design of later
spacecraft in concrete too early, ignoring the benefits of revising their
design based on results from earlier ones and changing priorities.
--
The type syntax for C is essentially   | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
unparsable.             --Rob Pike     |  [e-mail]   utzoo!henry

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

Date: 19 Oct 90 02:56:35 GMT
From: wuarchive!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars![e-mail]  (Ron Baalke)
Subject: Re: Pluto

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Tim Bedding) writes:
>From article <[e-mail]>, by [e-mail] (Ron Baalke):
>>
>> ... since Uranus and Pluto are both rotating on their sides at about
>> 90 degrees ...
>
>Do you have a reference for that statement on Pluto?
>How did they find out?  Surely not by radar.
>

In 1978, it was known that Pluto had a light variation every 6.3867 days,
and this was assumed to be the planet's orbital period.  When Jim Christy
discovered Charon in 1978, he did so because he noticed bulges in Pluto.
But the bulges were occuring in the north and south poles of Pluto.
When he correlated the bulges with 6.38767 orbital period, he not only knew
that he had discovered a new moon, but the moon was orbiting north-south.
Since he was also able to tell that the new moon (Charon) was about 1/6
the size of Pluto, he was able to conclude that the two bodies were
tidally locked.  This also implied Pluto was rotating on its side.

Then a rare event occurred that only happens once every 124 years.  Starting
in 1985, Charon started eclipsing Pluto as seen from Earth.  This eclipse
season ended this year, and peaked in 1988 with the eclipsing being seen
edge on.  The eclipsing between Pluto and Charon not only determined very
accurately that Pluto was rotating at 94.0 degree angle, but the mass of
both Pluto and Charon was also determined.
      ___    _____     ___
     /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|
     | | | |  __ \ /| | | |      Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
  ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |___   Jet Propulsion Lab | [e-mail]
 /___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /|  M/S 301-355        |
 |_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/   Pasadena, CA 91109 |

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

Date: 18 Oct 90 15:38:40 GMT
From: mcsun!ukc!icdoc!syma![e-mail]  (Nick Watkins)
Subject: More Space Models: Skylab, Lunar Rover.

Further to my last posting on this subject, Marco's Miniatures of
Dracut, Mass. have produced a 1/144 Skylab in an edition of 500 & a 1/48
Lunar Rover (same scale as Monogram and Revell Lunar Modules) in a
similar edition. I have bought the Skylab. Skylab is cast in resin and looks
as if some moulds were home made & others came (or were modified) from
Airfix/Monogram Saturn rocket kits. Looks trickier than a plastic kit
but not as hard as vacuum formed ones. First ever kit release of Skylab,
but LRV did appear years ago in various, rather unauthentic versions:
Airfix OO gauge (in Astronauts figures set), and Dinky (?) metal model
(& metal kit), Lunar Models are now advertising a larger version. No
idea as to relative merits of LRV kits.

Address is: Four Star Collectibles, P.O. Box 658, Dracut Mass 08126, USA.

Phone is: [phone].

Prices are $45 for Skylab, $24 for LRV. Check with them for postage etc.
I have no connection with them, but have found their service to be good
and their stock of rare/old kits *is* impressive. Prices range from
reasonable ($35 for Monogram 1/32 scale Apollo CSM with cutaway details)
to spectacular ($145 for Airfix Vostok). And now back to CRRES data
analysis ...

Nick.
--
Dr. Nick Watkins, Space & Plasma Physics Group, School of Mathematical
& Physical Sciences, Univ. of Sussex, Brighton, E.Sussex, BN1 9QH, ENGLAND
JANET: [e-mail]   BITNET: [e-mail]

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

Date: 19 Oct 90 11:49:43 GMT
From: ksr![e-mail]  (Chris Jones)
Subject: Re: More Space Models: Skylab, Lunar Rover.

In article <[e-mail]>, nickw@syma (Nick Watkins) writes:
>                         Marco's Miniatures of
>Dracut, Mass.
>
>Address is: Four Star Collectibles, P.O. Box 658, Dracut Mass 08126, USA.
                                                        that's 01826
--
Chris Jones    [e-mail]    {world,uunet,harvard}!ksr!clj

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

Date: 20 Oct 90 01:15:53 GMT
From: ubc-cs![e-mail]  (Mike Gobbi)
Subject: Re: Theories needed on life


bruce writes:

>I am under the impression that there are relatively few ways for organisms
>to adapt to a given environment.  An often cited example is the physical
>characteristics of desert plants some of which appear nearly identical to
>plants on another continent even though the two are completely different
>species.  Ignoring the high gravity question, isn't it possible that an
>Earth-like planet could have beings remarkably similar to us?

Gee.  Perhaps when God created the plants he decided that a given style was
aesthetically pleasing, so he used it again.

(just a thought :-P )
--
     __
    /..\      In quest of knowledge....
 --mm--mm--         Mike Gobbi

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

Date: 19 Oct 90 15:17:21 GMT
From: ubc-cs!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Hubble

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Lon Stowell) writes:
>HOWEVER, I am extremely UNDERWHELMED that none of the photos
>have made it into mainstream media...specifically network TV.
>
>Is this because the networks refused to show the photo's or
>because no one thought to offer them?

NASA may not be very skillful at PR, but they do try.  Almost certainly
everybody got copies.  Do remember that the TV networks in particular are
in the sensation business, not the news business, so "it's not broken all
that badly after all" is guaranteed to get no airplay.
--
The type syntax for C is essentially   | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
unparsable.             --Rob Pike     |  [e-mail]   utzoo!henry

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

Date: 20 Oct 90 07:05:03 GMT
From: swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!umich!umeecs!msi.umn.edu!cs.umn.edu!sialis!orbit!pnet51![e-mail]  (S Schaper)
Subject: Re: Cassini mission?

Anything interesting at Jupiter? Stereo pair with Gallileo? flyby's of moons?


UUCP: {amdahl!bungia, uunet!rosevax, chinet, killer}!orbit!pnet51!schaper
The necktie is a device of Mordor
ARPA: crash!orbit!pnet51![e-mail]
INET: [e-mail]

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

Date: 19 Oct 90 18:16:23 GMT
From: optilink![e-mail]  (Clayton Cramer)
Subject: Re: Theories needed on life

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] writes:
> Could someone theorize on what humanoid life would be like on a planet 3 or 4
> times the size of the Earth.  I'm looking for theories on body structure,
> societies, technology, psychology, etc.  Thanks, I appreciate any speculation.
>
>                     dml

Short.  Squat.  Massive limbs.  Leg bones of tremendous density and
thickness.  Massive muscles to move those heavy and strong bones.
Enormous calorie requirement to operate those bodies.  A great fear
of heights. :-)

Smaller lungs, since the higher atmospheric pressure would require
less effort to get enough oxygen to burn all those calories.



--
Clayton E. Cramer {pyramid,pixar,tekbspa}!optilink!cramer
Alcohol prohibition didn't work; drug prohibition doesn't work; gun
prohibition won't work.
You must be kidding!  No company would hold opinions like mine!

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

Date: 19 Oct 90 20:18:16 GMT
From: usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Ron Baalke)
Subject: HST Science Summary (Forwarded)


                        HST Science Summary

On Monday, October 22, 11:30 A.M. to 1:00 P.M., NASA employees are
invited to attend a science summary of the Hubble Space Telescope's
astronomical investigations to date.  Drs. Charles Pellerin and
Edward Weiler will explain what Hubble and its science team have
discovered so far.

Their presentation will feature all the Hubble photographs which
have been produced and several video sequences.

The presentation will be shown live on NASA Select TV.  Following
the presentation, questions will be answered by Drs. Pellerin and
Weiler from attendees at Headquarters and the other centers.
Everyone will enjoy this informative summary.
      ___    _____     ___
     /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|
     | | | |  __ \ /| | | |      Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
  ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |___   Jet Propulsion Lab | [e-mail]
 /___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /|  M/S 301-355        |
 |_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/   Pasadena, CA 91109 |

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

End of SPACE Digest V12 #471
*******************