Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V12_6/V12_632.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V12 #632

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 12 : Issue 632

Today's Topics:
        Re: Translunar/interplanetary shuttle?
       Galileo Earth flyby news conference (Forwarded)
Walter T. Murphy named Director of Engineering Development [KSC] (Forwarded)
              Re: Another Russian first
              Lunar element distribution
        Re: Translunar/interplanetary shuttle?
        Astro-1 Status for 12/05/90 [1840] (Forwarded)
           Re: Booster news from 19 November AW&ST
                Re: HST images
          Re: HST images via anonFTP and SPAN/HEPnet
           Re: HST images, conversion of FITS data
       WUPPE Status for 12/03/90 [0900 CST] (Forwarded)
          NASA Prediction Bulletins:  Space Shuttle
              Re: Another Russian first

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: 3 Dec 90 17:13:36 GMT
From: usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ub!ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu![e-mail]  (Craig L Cole)
Subject: Re: Translunar/interplanetary shuttle?

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] writes...
>As for the problem with the main engines (we've been told here that they are
>not restartable), would it be possible to use the extra fuel for the OMS
>engines instead...? (my guess is it won't be, anyway).

This was my suggestion to the NASA Outreach program - the OMS are
capable of burns long enough to propel the shuttle toward the Moon,
but I had no idea how much fuel would be required. I suggested
adding additional OMS tanks to the rear of the shuttle a la Extended
Duration Orbiter kit, or mounting tanks to the outside of the
shuttle back by the OMS fuel connections. These tanks could be
lofted by an expendable. Along with a lunar module, etc. This way,
none of it actaully has to fit in the cargo bay.

>BTW, do you think the shuttle would survive the atmospheric re-entry: a
>spacecraft returning from the moon is after all moving at higher velocities (11
>km/s?) when it hits the upper atmosphere than the shuttle was designed for
>(6-7 km/s). Or would it be possible to avoid the problem by first performing an
>aerobraking maneuver, the re-enter and land? The soviet Zond 5-8 lunar probes
>used this technique in the late sixties.

I may be mistaken, but back in the Apollo days, they skipped the
capsule across the atmosphere before actaully deorbiting to slow it
down a bit.

Craig Cole
[e-mail]
[e-mail]

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

Date: 5 Dec 90 22:58:59 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Galileo Earth flyby news conference (Forwarded)

[Ron Baalke seems to be having troubles with mars.jpl.nasa.gov, so I
am posting Galileo and other reports that he normally handles. -PEY]

Paula Cleggett-Haleim
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                   December 5, 1990
(Phone:  [phone])

Robert MacMillin
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
(Phone:  [phone])


N90-97

NOTE TO EDITORS:  GALILEO EARTH FLYBY NEWS CONFERENCE


     Scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory will hold a
news conference at 4:30 p.m. EST on Saturday, Dec. 8, to discuss
the Galileo spacecraft's flyby of Earth, report on the spacecraft
and misison status, and outline ongoing scientific observations
of the Earth.

     Galileo will fly by the Earth as part of its gravity-
assisted path to Jupiter on Dec. 8.  It will be closest to Earth
(about 590 nautical miles) at 3:35 p.m. EST.

     Press conference participants will include Project Manager
William J. O'Neil, Mission Director Neal E. Ausman Jr., Project
Scientist Torrence V. Johnson, and Science and Mission Design
Manager Clayne M. Yeats.

     The conference will be carried live on NASA Select
television, Satcom F2R, Transponder 13, C-Band.

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

Date: 6 Dec 90 03:51:14 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Walter T. Murphy named Director of Engineering Development [KSC] (Forwarded)


          Bruce Buckingham
          407/867-2468                                      Dec. 5, 1990

          KSC RELEASE NO. 195 - 90



          WALTER T. MURPHY NAMED DIRECTOR OF ENGINEERING DEVELOPMENT


               Walter T. Murphy has been named Director of Engineering
          Development at Kennedy Space Center.

               Murphy joined the NASA team at Cape Canaveral as a data
          systems specialist in June 1963. Two years later, he transferred
          to the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston (now Johnson Space
          Center), where he served as a mathematician and electronics
          engineer. He rejoined the KSC team in 1973 as the lead software
          systems engineer on the launch processing systems task group for
          the Space Shuttle program. Soon afterwards, he became chief of
          the Software Systems Branch in the Design Engineering Directorate
          and was a leader in launch processing system software
          development. For five years beginning in 1977, he was chief of
          the Guidance, Digital and Software Division in the Shuttle
          Engineering Directorate, with responsibility for checkout of the
          initial Space Shuttle avionics systems. From 1984 to 1986, he
          served as Associate Director of Shuttle Engineering, managing all
          Shuttle engineering activities at the Vandenberg Launch Site in
          Calif. Since 1986, he has served as Deputy Director of
          Engineering Development.

               In his new assignment as Director of Engineering
          Development, Murphy replaces Jim Phillips who recently retired.

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

Date: 4 Dec 90 03:00:07 GMT
From: elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!uxa.cso.uiuc.edu![e-mail]  (Steve "il-Manhous" Norton)
Subject: Re: Another Russian first

[e-mail] (Brian Yamauchi) writes:

...
>First Jupiter probe -- Pioneer 10
>First Saturn probe -- Pioneer 11
>First Uranus probe -- Voyager 2
>First Neptune probe -- Voyager 2

How about :
 First billion dollars wasted on broken telescopes -- Hubble
 First spacecraft explosion to kill all on board due
   to ground problems (faulty management) -- Challenger
 First spacecraft launch delayed more than six months -- Columbia

Any more?

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

Date:         Tue, 4 Dec 1990 14:27 IST
From: Moshe Solow <[e-mail]>
To: <[e-mail]>

Please unsubscribe me.  Thank you Moshe Solow  CUCMS@HUJIVM1

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

Date: 5 Dec 90 22:16:38 GMT
From: sun-barr!newstop!exodus!concertina.Eng.Sun.COM![e-mail]  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Lunar element distribution

Anyone know off the top of their head, roughly, what are the
relative percentages of, say, the twenty most-common elements
of the lunar regolith?

This is, obviously, of only idle interest (for now).  :}

--
------------
  The only drawback with morning is that it comes
    at such an inconvenient time of day.
------------

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

Date: 5 Dec 90 17:29:01 GMT
From: sun-barr!cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Translunar/interplanetary shuttle?

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Dan Meyer) writes:
>What about 1/2 the cargo bay for fuel, and half the cargo bay for an LEM ?

As people have pointed out repeatedly, it is far better to take the fuel
and the LEM *out* of the cargo bay and send *them* to the Moon without
taking a shuttle orbiter along for the ride.  The parts of the orbiter
that are actually useful on a lunar trip can be packaged much more
compactly into something resembling the Apollo CSM, and the result will
be much more useful payload delivered to the Moon.  A shuttle orbiter
is mostly dead weight on such a trip, and hauling that much useless mass
to the Moon and back is *EXPENSIVE*.
--
"The average pointer, statistically,    |Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
points somewhere in X." -Hugh Redelmeier| [e-mail]   utzoo!henry

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

Date: 6 Dec 90 03:53:38 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Astro-1 Status for 12/05/90 [1840] (Forwarded)


      Astro 1 Mission Report #22
      6:40 p.m. CST, December 5, 1990
      3/17:52 MET
      Spacelab Mission Operations Control
      Marshall Space Flight Center

      Minor orbiter problems caused a brief pause in the anticipated
      activities of the Shuttle Columbia's Astro crew during the last
      period, but they managed to continue gathering good science for most
      of the day with the Shuttle's ultraviolet observatory.

      Columbia experienced a minor thruster problem which interrupted
      normal payload observations. Managers at Spacelab Mission Operations
      Control in Huntsville, Alabama instructed the crew to close the
      telescopes' doors in order to prevent any contamination of the
      instruments' sensitive optics. Meanwhile, Payload Specialist Sam
      Durrance and Mission Specialist Jeff Hoffman used this time to
      continue to perform target acquisitions using the Instrument
      Pointing System and gathered engineering data. The Shuttle crew was
      able to conduct a series of "hot fire" tests to correct the
      situation. At 3/13:36 MET, the shuttle was able to resume scheduled
      observations and gather target data.

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

Date: 4 Dec 90 13:02:15 GMT
From: sdd.hp.com!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!primerd!ENI!ENS![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Booster news from 19 November AW&ST


Regarding booster news:

Don't know if this is old news or what, but I attended the "Soviet Space"
exhibit at the Museum of Science here in Boston a few months back.  One
of the items on display was an experimental engine designed to run florine
and ammonia (I think it was ammonia).  The writeup said it did not become
an engine to be used on a regular rocket, but they did learn a lot from the
research.  They didn't say what they learned.

Flourine and ammonia?  Whew!  Tricky stuff.

Jim Cook
<[e-mail]>
"Just my misinformation.  Prime has all it needs."

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

Date: 3 Dec 90 15:45:46 GMT
From: mcsun!ukc!icdoc!cc.ic.ac.uk![e-mail]  (M.S.Bennett Supvs= Prof Pendry)
Subject: Re: HST images



Hello! Some images can be found on ames.arc.nasa.gov
in /pub/SPACE listed as i1.gif,i2.gif, etc.

ENJOY!

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

Date: 4 Dec 90 17:19:45 GMT
From: xanth!xanth.cs.odu.edu![e-mail]  (David "Quasar" Bianco)
Subject: Re: HST images via anonFTP and SPAN/HEPnet

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Otto J. Makela) writes:

   All right.  Now, does anyone have WORKING tools to convert FITS to pbm,
   GIF or some other more common format for computer users ?
   I understand there are some problems with FITS (poor documentation of
   format extensions) ?

As I think I've mentioned before, the PBM+ graphics conversion package handles
many different types of images, including FITS, pbm, ppm, tiff, gif, and sun
raster format.  I'm not sure where to get the general sources, but I know
that Amiga specific ones are on pc.usl.edu (130.70.40.3).  We've got it
installed here on our Sun network also, so I know it runs on at least two
popular systems.

    David Bianco

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

Date: 4 Dec 90 14:03:13 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!sunic!news.funet.fi!tukki.jyu.fi!jyu.fi![e-mail]  (Otto J. Makela)
Subject: Re: HST images, conversion of FITS data

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Thomas L. Zimmerman) writes:
[Me: How to convert FITS to something more common to non-astronomers ?]
   The Portable Greymap tools of PBM+ have a conversion tool to go from
   FITS to portable grey map (pgm). A variety of tools in the package
   can then be used to create an output file in a format you find more
   palitable. I have not tried this yet, just remembered that my favorite
   public software package has yet another use.  PBM+ is a very popular
   package and can probably be found on a large number of ftp sites.

This was pointed out to me by several people.  We already had pbm+ installed,
so all I did was hauled the 5M data image file w0bs0102t_cvt.c0h (which was
the 1st on the list, NGC1850) from the NASA site.  No good.  The data is
3-axis (whatever that means) and pbm+ can only handle 2-axis data.  The
readme file at the image site did not specify if all these images are in
this format, but my guess is so.  Since it took about 4 hours to get this
one image to Finland, I'm not about to try all of them... any ideas ?
--
   /* * * Otto J. Makela <[e-mail]> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * */
  /* Phone: [phone], BBS: [phone] (CCITT, Bell 24/12/300) */
 /* Mail: Kauppakatu 1 B 18, SF-40100 Jyvaskyla, Finland, EUROPE         */
/* * * Computers Rule 01001111 01001011 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * */

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

Date: 4 Dec 90 23:50:35 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: WUPPE Status for 12/03/90 [0900 CST] (Forwarded)


                                  WUPPE STATUS REPORT
                               9 A.M. MONDAY, DECEMBER 3

              Working through the night, Wisconsin scientists and engineers
         were able to solve some of the onboard computer problems of the
         Wisconsin Ultraviolet Photo-Polarimeter Experiment (WUPPE).  As a
         result, the WUPPE science team can begin the procedures necessary to
         bring the Wisconsin telescope back into the Astro science program.

              Although one of the computers that controls the instrument is
         still down, the backup computer is fully operational and able to
         direct the telescope as needed.  the next steps for WUPPE include
         acquiring a star, a focus and alignment exercise and, somewhat later,
         an aperture mapping procedure.  After successful completion of these
         steps, the WUPPE instrument will be ready to begin taking data from
         selected Astro science targets.

              The WUPPE team hopes to begin its scheduled focus and alignment
         exercise at about 10 a.m. CST.  That procedure will take about 45
         minutes.  The WUPPE team will use the variable star EZ Canis Majoris
         to focus and align the telescope.

              The aperture mapping procedures will use the Orion Nebula as a
         bright background to shine through the seven apertures of the WUPPE
         telescope and allow its onboard computer to know their exact
         location.  The apertures differ in shape and size, some being smaller
         than the cross section of a human hair.  The telescope's apertures are
         situated on a rotating ceramic wheel and are used to take different
         types of readings of the various celestial objects on the WUPPE target
         list.  Although the time frame for this procedure is not yet firm, it
         is hoped that aperture mapping can begin at about 1 p.m. CST.  WUPPE
         aperture mapping will take about 45 minutes to complete.

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

Date: 4 Dec 90 23:22:42 GMT
From: ncis.tis.llnl.gov!blackbird![e-mail]  (TS Kelso)
Subject: NASA Prediction Bulletins:  Space Shuttle


The most current orbital elements from the NASA Prediction Bulletins are
carried on the Celestial BBS, [phone], and are updated several times
weekly.  Documentation and tracking software are also available on this
system.  As a service to the satellite user community, the most current
elements for the current shuttle mission are provided below.  The Celestial
BBS may be accessed 24 hours/day at 300, 1200, or 2400 baud using 8 data
bits, 1 stop bit, no parity.

STS 35
1 20980U 90106  A 90338.78402777  .00035780  00000-0  25599-3 0    87
2 20980  28.4673 346.8878 0009170 307.4417 262.4250 15.72167379   401
--
Dr TS Kelso                           Assistant Professor of Space Operations
[e-mail]          Air Force Institute of Technology

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

Date: 4 Dec 90 12:05:37 GMT
From: julius.cs.uiuc.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!rsoft!mindlink![e-mail]  (Bruce Dunn)
Subject: Re: Another Russian first

> [e-mail] writes:
>
> Person: John A. Weeks III
>
> For the most part, everything that is done in space can be listed as a first
> or biggest or other type of record.


     On one of the early shuttle flights (probably the second) the pilot joked
that (if I remember correctly) that he was the first grandfather to fly a used
spaceship on his birthday.

:-)
--
Bruce Dunn   Vancouver, Canada    [e-mail]

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

End of SPACE Digest V12 #632
*******************