Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V12_5/V12_531.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V12 #531

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 12 : Issue 531

Today's Topics:
  LLNL Astronaut Delivery (was Re: You Can't Expect a Space Station)
             Re: LNLL Inflatable Stations
              Re: "What's New" Nov-2-90
               Clarify Acronyms
       Re: You Can't Expect a Space Station to be Cheap
            Re: Galileo Update - 11/02/90
         Re: Replacement and Insurance Costs
               USAF Robots on the Moon
       Re: You Can't Expect a Space Station to be Cheap
         Re: Replacement and Insurance Costs

Administrivia:

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Date: 5 Nov 90 06:02:59 GMT
From: rochester!sol![e-mail]  (Brian Yamauchi)
Subject: LLNL Astronaut Delivery (was Re: You Can't Expect a Space Station)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Charles Radley) writes:

   [quoting Alan Sherzer]

   +Again, can you be more specific? When McDonnell Douglas says they
   +can cluster Deltas to lift a 100K pound payload for $500M in three
   +years on what do you base your belief that it can't be done? When
   +Martin Marrietta makes similar claims about the Titan, why are they
   +wrong? What error in costing did they make?
   -
   I have no doubt MDAC and Martin can deliver those.   But I am still
   waiting to hear how they or anybody else can build a new re-usable
   manned spacecraft with long stay EVA capability (including robot arm)
   for less than $ 5 - 10 B.  You cannot build LLNL without one, you
   yourself acknowledge the need for contingency EVA, and that is what
   it takes.   Looks cheaper to use the Shuttle for the contingency EVA
   role.

I'm not sure that contingency EVA requires a "re-usable manned
spacecraft with long stay EVA capability (including robot arm)".  As
long as the Earth Station maintains integrity, the astronauts should
be able to run EVAs out of it.  Of course, if it doesn't, then they
*are* in deep trouble.

On the other hand, Charles Radley does raise an important point here.
How *is* LLNL planning to get astronauts up to the station?  Are they
planning to use the shuttle or develop their own spacecraft?  It
probably wouldn't be too risky to rely on the shuttle for one or two
launches, where it really *is* useful (i.e. launching astronauts).

In contrast, the number of shuttle launches that Freedom requires
makes me a bit uncomfortable.  Then again, I could be wrong -- at
least the hydrogen leaks have been fixed...
--
_______________________________________________________________________________

Brian Yamauchi                University of Rochester
[e-mail]        Computer Science Department
_______________________________________________________________________________

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

Date: 5 Nov 90 17:25:53 GMT
From: usc!wuarchive!rex!rouge![e-mail]  (Fraering Philip)
Subject: Re: LNLL Inflatable Stations


Ugh! here you go, I don't know the best way to prune this:

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ken  Sheppardson) writes:

>      [e-mail] ("Allen W. Sherzer") writes:
>   >In article <[e-mail]> you write:
>   >
>   >>On Freedom, everything is simply installed inside the modules before launch.
>   >
>   >At the Midwest Space Development Conference two weeks ago an engineer
>   >on Freedom implied that the modules had to be assembled in orbit. They
>   >are too big/heavy to fit on a single Shuttle flight. However, I didn't
>   >get a chance to ask him if my understanding was correct.

>      I believe a the current US Hab/Lab modules are too heavy to launch
>      fully outfitted using the current shuttle.

From what I gather, the stripped modules run into problems with
the shuttle senter-of-gravity limits.

Phil

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Date: 5 Nov 90 18:17:49 GMT
From: swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!rex!rouge![e-mail]  (Fraering Philip)
Organization: Univ. of Southwestern LA, Lafayette
Subject: Re: "What's New" Nov-2-90
References: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail]
To: [e-mail]


I found this on sci.physics. Suddenly spending money
on putting inflatable balloons in space looks a lot
less stupid. Look at the Alaskan thing.

p.s.: for those of you who know what I'm talking about,
_this_ gets money and Paul Koloc doesn't?

Phil Fraering

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

   From: [e-mail]

   WHAT'S NEW, Friday, 2 November 1990                Washington, DC

   1. WALTER E. MASSEY HAS RESIGNED AS VICE PRESIDENT OF THE APS,
   citing his nomination to be the director of the National Science
   Foundation.  Ernest M. Henley, who was just elected to follow
   Massey, will therefore move directly to President-Elect.  Henley
   is director of the Institute for Nuclear Theory at the University
   of Washington, where he has been chair of the Physics Department
   and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.  A Berkeley PhD, he
   is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and recipient in
   1989 of the APS Tom W. Bonner Prize in Nuclear Physics.  A
   special election will be held to select a new Vice President.

   2. MASSEY'S FIRST YEAR ON THE JOB WILL NOT BE AN EASY ONE; NSF's
   FY 91 appropriation suffered a devastating last-minute cut!  As
   What's New reported (19 Oct 90), a House/Senate Conference agreed
   to an 8.9% increase for NSF research.  Conference agreements are
   usually final--not this time.  The budget summit gave OMB final
   say on scorekeeping.  To salvage as much of the defense budget as
   possible, OMB refused to let logistical support for the Antarctic
   Program be charged to the DOD.  One consequence was to eliminate
   any real growth in NSF research, which now goes up by only 6.2%.

   3. AND THINGS ARE GOING TO GET WORSE BEFORE THEY GET BETTER.  The
   five-year budget agreement limits domestic discretionary spending
   in FY 91 to $182.7B and $191.3B in FY 92, a growth rate of just
   4.7%--and it drops to 3.7% the following year.  The "zero sum
   game" is no longer a hypothesis.  Yet, even as it claps a lid on
   discretionary spending, Congress continues on a wild earmarking
   binge that is funding some of the world's wackiest projects.

   4. CONSIDER AN ALASKA SENATOR'S PROJECT TO HARNESS THE AURORA.
   Sen. Ted Stevens proposes to capture the gigawatt or so of energy
   in the electrojet formed by the interaction of the solar wind
   with Earth's magnetic field.  Is this really practical?  Is it
   ever!  The Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska is
   getting about $10M per year in pork-barrel research funds and now
   Stevens has tossed in a $25M supercomputer center.  Actually, the
   Geophysical Institute director seems to think they are developing
   a new communications system in which the aurora borealis would
   serve as a gigantic antenna for low-frequency radio transmission.
   But why straighten the Senator out?  Let the good times roll.

   5. GORDON & BREACH CASE DISMISSED BY GERMAN APPEALS COURT.  APS,
   AIP and Henry Barschall were sued by G&B over a survey of cost
   effectiveness of physics journals. G&B, which came out on bottom,
   claimed the survey was biased.  A lower court dismissed the case,
   but G&B appealed--and lost again.  Martin Gordon, G&B Chairman,
   claimed moral victory, but must have had difficulty with German.
   Harry Lustig, APS Treasurer, who represented APS and AIP at the
   Frankfurt hearing, observed that "we wish them the same success
   in Switzerland and France," where G&B has filed similar suits.

   Robert L. Park  [e-mail]      The American Physical Society

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Resent-Date:  Mon, 05 Nov 90 08:26:02 EST
Resent-From: Harold Pritchett <[e-mail]>
Resent-To: Space discussion group <[e-mail]>
Date:         Sat, 03 Nov 90 18:49:25 CST
From: Steve Davis <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Clarify Acronyms
To: Space list <SPACE@FINHUTC>

This message was originally submitted by S77175DS@ETSUACAD to the SPACE list at
FINHUTC. If you simply forward it back to the list, it will be distributed with
the paragraph you are now reading  being automatically removed. If you edit the
contributions you receive into a digest, you will need to remove this paragraph
before mailing  the result to the  list. Finally, if you  need more information
from the author of this message, you should be able to do so by simply replying
to this note.

------------------ Message requiring your approval (6 lines) ------------------

Would those who submit to this list please remember that there are
people like myself who are not familiar with all the acronyms being
used? When acronyms are used would you parenthisize the meaning of
each letter at least once? Many already do this, but some mail is
meaningless when it is not done.

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

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Date: 5 Nov 90 04:25:02 GMT
From: crash!orbit!pnet51![e-mail]  (S Schaper)
Organization: People-Net [pnet51], Minneapolis, MN.
Subject: Re: You Can't Expect a Space Station to be Cheap
Sender: [e-mail]
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-40*F with a wind chill off the scale (more than -80* can't be measured
because
human skin freezes too rapidly to measure) sure is interesting.
   I just discovered that I live further north than Henry, and I'm in the
lower fourty-eight.
      What _am_ I doing up here?   :-)

On the other hand, I don't usually worry about a piece of space debris coming
through the roof and exposing me to the prairie winds in January.

Zeitgeist Busters!

UUCP: {amdahl!bungia, uunet!rosevax, chinet, killer}!orbit!pnet51!schaper
ARPA: crash!orbit!pnet51![e-mail]
INET: [e-mail]

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

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Date: 5 Nov 90 18:46:01 GMT
From: usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars![e-mail]  (Ron Baalke)
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA.
Subject: Re: Galileo Update - 11/02/90
References: <[e-mail]>, <[e-mail]>, <[e-mail]>
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jean-Yves Herve') writes:
>>There is just one little thing that bugs me: how come the Galileo are given
>>with funny units only, while the Ulysses report have both metric and funny
>>units?
>
>Probably because Ulysses is a European project and hence the European
>audience is being considered.  Unless I miss my guess, the numbers from
>JPL et al are metric, and the NASA PR people are translating them for the
>Great Unwashed... but for mostly-European projects they are constrained
>to also supply civilized units.

Ulysses is a joint mission between NASA and the European Space Agency, so the
units are given in both miles and the funny metric units :-).
      ___    _____     ___
     /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|
     | | | |  __ \ /| | | |      Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
  ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |___   Jet Propulsion Lab | [e-mail]
 /___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /|  M/S 301-355        |
 |_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/   Pasadena, CA 91109 |

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

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Date: 5 Nov 90 19:12:00 GMT
From: uceng!minerva![e-mail]  (Daniel Mocsny)
Organization: University of Cincinnati, Cin'ti., OH
Subject: Re: Replacement and Insurance Costs
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Wales Larrison) writes:
>  So what was the real replacement cost of a lost shuttle mission?
>Replacement costs are orbiter (assume $1.5 billion), lost ET, lost
>SRBs, lost SSMEs.  ET costs are in the vicinity of $25 M.  SRB cases
>(not the propellent) are about $25 M per shipset (two complete sets
>of segments and components). SSMEs are more expensive - a shipset of
>SSMEs costs about $150 M.   Total of about  $1.7 B.  Which is about
>1/2 of the "3,000,000,000.00" being bandied around.


I have a question (not an assertion):

When the next shuttle accident occurs, what will be the likelihood
that the disaster will result from another generic flaw that grounds
the program for an extended period?

The MTTR (mean time to repair) is probably an important (hypothetical)
statistic to consider with shuttle accidents. The money spent to sustain
an idle program during the repair interim might be considered a
legitimate part of "replacement cost". Also, the time value of idle
assets should be taken into account (i.e., all the expensive hardware
that takes a two-year vacation).

If NASA can recover from the next shuttle disaster within a few months,
and keep up with its launch commitments, then the cost for the lost
shuttle is roughly its purchase price. But if the program goes down
for 2 years, the overall loss is probably far in excess of the purchase
price of the shuttle.


--
Dan Mocsny                Snail:
Internet: [e-mail]    Dept. of Chemical Engng. M.L. 171
      [e-mail]        University of Cincinnati
513/751-6824 (home) 513/556-2007 (lab)    Cincinnati, Ohio 45221-0171

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

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Date: 6 Nov 90 01:45:15 GMT
From: bu.edu!dartvax!eleazar.dartmouth.edu![e-mail]  (Guy A. Schiavone)
Subject: USAF Robots on the Moon
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 In the November 1990 "IEEE Spectrum" there is an article that contains the
sentence: "The U.S. Air Force, in its Project Forecast II report, offers
dozens of initiatives to maintain military supremacy, including 'electronic
associates' to aid pilots and the possible stationing of robots on the
moon." (pg. 32)
  I am intrigued by the part about robots on the moon.  Can anyone shed
any further light on this?  Robots on the moon for what purpose?  Why on
the moon instead of in orbit?  How close is this idea to being put into
action?  Any answers (or speculations) would be appreciated.
 -Guy Schiavone                 [e-mail]

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Date: 5 Nov 90 15:48:50 GMT
From: mojo![e-mail]  (Doug Mohney)
Organization: The U. of MD, CP, CAD lab
Subject: Re: You Can't Expect a Space Station to be Cheap
References: <[e-mail]>, <[e-mail]>, <[e-mail]>,<[e-mail]>
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In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (SERRE GLENN) writes:

>Actually, the question that bothers me most about both the NASA and the
>LLNL station is "Why so big?"  Since we (the U.S.) seem to have little, if any,
>usable experience in launching, assembling, operating, and maintaining space
>stations, it seems to me that we would want to start small and build up
>incrementally.  Like, first we launch a 86' x 16' 8" (this is the max. size of
>a Titan IV Payload fairing, by the way) lab, then stick another one on the
>first, ...  Personally, I think we should can both the NASA and the LLNL
>stations and start small.

I think the latest mandated redesign by Congress emphasizes a smaller,
incremental approach; something like putting up the microgravity research block
up there first as a stand-alone design, and adding other modules as you go, as
well as making Fred less dependent on shuttle.

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

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Date: 5 Nov 90 23:14:34 GMT
From: usc!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!ogicse!unicorn![e-mail]  (Worth Henry A)
Organization: Western Washington Univ, Bellingham, WA
Subject: Re: Replacement and Insurance Costs
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>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Wales Larrison) writes:
>
>I have a question (not an assertion):
>
>When the next shuttle accident occurs, what will be the likelihood
>that the disaster will result from another generic flaw that grounds
>the program for an extended period?
>
    Even if the accident is unrelated to any generic flaw, expect the
fleet to be grounded for at least six months while various review boards
and Congress (opps, nearly forgot the press) determine the probable
cause; depends a lot on how long it takes everyone to reach a concensous.

    Additionally, even if it is determined that the accident was unrelated
to any generic flaw, the review process would likely result in "safety
upgrades" that would result in further delays. There is also a very real
possibility that the resulting political firestorm would result in the
permanent grounding of the fleet. :-(

    Our pioneer ancestors must think us such ungrateful wimps, to simply
survive, yet alone carve out a nation, they faced more risk on a regular
basis than we are prepared to allow a few informed volunteers to face
today -- despite the potential gain, despite the infrequency, despite
mankind's instinctive need to explore and pioneer.

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End of SPACE Digest V12 #531
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