Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V12_6/V12_657.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V12 #657

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 12 : Issue 657

Today's Topics:
               Re: Light years and such
            Re: Planetary Society
    Re: Air pressure questions   (A human being in vacume)
          WUPPE Status for 12/09/90 [PM] (Forwarded)
    Monthly space flight briefing set for December 13 (Forwarded)
              Magellan Update - 11/30/90
              Ulysses Update - 12/04/90
      Air pressure questions   (A human being in vacume)
         Augustine Commission Recommendations

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: 11 Dec 90 06:03:35 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!qucdn![e-mail]  (Arnold G. Gill)
Subject: Re: Light years and such

In article <Added.IbMkq=[e-mail]>,
[e-mail] ("John Schultz") says:
>
>Whenever I hear about a new telescope (such as the HST, etc.) I also hear
>that the new telescope will be able to see even farther into the past.  Now,
>I have no trouble with the idea of light speed, light years, etc., but how
>can one telescope see back farther than another?  Is it due to focusing power,
>or something similar?

     No -- it is due to the fact that the telescope has better light
collection abilities and/or better detectors.  Either way, one can see fainter
objects, and for objects with the same intrinsic brightness, this means that
they can be seen further away.  However, the real important quantity is the
magnitude limit (how bright an object is).  The public finds things like 26th
magnitude difficult to understand, so they are told that one can see twice as
far.  I personally dislike this practise since it is so inaccurate and
misleading.

 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
|  Arnold Gill                        |   - If I hadn't wanted it heard,      |
|  Queen's University at Kingston     |         I wouldn't have said it.      |
|  InterNet:  [e-mail]  |   - Astrophysician in training        |
 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

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

Date: 11 Dec 90 06:03:59 GMT
From: usc!cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Planetary Society

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Nick Szabo) writes:
>>Last I heard, the Planetary Society was still pushing for a hideously
>>costly, crash-priority one-shot manned trip to Mars, mainly to serve
>>as an inspiration to mankind and generate political goodwill
>
>Good grief.  Everybody in the planetary science field knows this is
>just a political ploy to get funding for the stuff that does the real
>work, the probes...

Evidence, please.  They seem serious about it.
--
"The average pointer, statistically,    |Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
points somewhere in X." -Hugh Redelmeier| [e-mail]   utzoo!henry

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

Date: 11 Dec 90 17:40:58 GMT
From: usc!cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Air pressure questions   (A human being in vacume)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (james d. Del Vecchio) writes:
>1)  Imagine a cabin door breaks, something causes the pressure to
>go way down.  Would it be better to try to hold your breath,
>or could that just cause more damage.

Lung damage can occur at quite small pressure differences; ask any scuba
diver.  Trying to hold your breath is a major mistake.

>2)  If someone suddenly was exposed to 1/2 s.l. pressure
>What harm would be possible right away?  What about gradualy
>(over a few minutes or hours), like if he had extra oxygen?

Sudden exposure gives potential trouble with eardrums and with "the bends".
Gradual decompression, especially with extra oxygen available, no problem.

>2.1)  How about 1/4 or 1/8  ... or 1/32 etc.

A bit over 1/8th of an atmosphere is no problem if it is near-pure oxygen.

>2.2)  What is the highest alt/lowest p. that people live at?
>Is it the pressure that limits them, or just cold and inaccesablility,
>no food, etc, that keeps them from going higher?

Altitude sickness (oxygen shortage) is a serious problem for people going
from low to high altitude, and I believe it limits even people who are
somewhat adapted to it by generations at high altitude.  I don't know the
numbers offhand; I would say that the natives in the Andes probably hold
the record.

It is marginally possible to climb Mount Everest without oxygen, and it
has been done, but it is not healthy.

>3)  If a person was breathing pure oxygen at 1/5 normal pressure,
>What do you think would happen?  What might be harmfull about it,
>under what conditions might it be safe?

As the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo astronauts will testify, it is quite
safe for periods up to at least two weeks.  That's the same oxygen partial
pressure as here on Earth, and the absolute pressure is not low enough to
cause problems of itself.  There is some concern that there might be some
subtle medical effects over long periods, which is one reason why more
recent spacecraft have used mixed-gas atmospheres closer to normal air.
--
"The average pointer, statistically,    |Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
points somewhere in X." -Hugh Redelmeier| [e-mail]   utzoo!henry

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

Date: 10 Dec 90 20:02:12 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: WUPPE Status for 12/09/90 [PM] (Forwarded)


        WUPPE STATUS REPORT NO. 16
        PM, Sunday, Dec. 9, 1990
        Spacelab Mission Operations Control Center
        Marshall Space Flight Center
        Huntsville, AL

        The WUPPE science team was able to make observations of three
        WUPPE high-priority targets this afternoon.

        WUPPE was able to acquire and collect scientific data on Kappa
        Cassiopeiae, a supergiant star; and Pi Aquarii.  Also observed was
        the WUPPE primary target P Carinae, a Be star in the constellation
        Carina, the Ship's Keel.  WUPPE's observation of this target was
        abbreviated, however, because the attitude of the Columbia orbiter
        was not compatible with observing the star and sending commands at
        the same time.

        Kappa Cassiopeiae is of interest to the WUPPE science team because
        it is one of only two stars whose polarization has ever been
        observed in the utraviolet prior to the deployment of the WUPPE
        telescope.  It was observed by an instrument sent high into the
        Earth's atmosphere by balloon in the early 1970s.  WUPPE
        astronomers are anxious to compare WUPPE's observations with those
        made almost 20 years ago.  The star was observed by WUPPE for 40
        minutes.  It is a supergiant used by WUPPE to illuminate the
        interstellar medium, but astronomers are also interested in
        learning more about how the star sheds mass into its atmosphere.

        Pi Aquarii, located in the constellation Aquarius, was observed by
        the Wisconsin telescope for 34 minutes.  It is 1,500 light years
        away from the Earth and is thought to have a gaseous, disk-like
        shell of material around it.  Its spectrum is known to vary in the
        ultraviolet and it shows polarization of its visible light.  This
        indicates the possibility of a disk-like structure, at least for
        the cooler parts of the stellar wind.  WUPPE observations should
        provide a better picture of the nature of the hotter parts of the
        stellar wind.

        The WUPPE telescope was also able to successfully co-observe a
        number of other celestial objects with the other Astro
        instruments.

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

Date: 10 Dec 90 21:25:54 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Monthly space flight briefing set for December 13 (Forwarded)

Mark Hess/Ed Campion
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                  December 10, 1990
(Phone:  [phone])


Editors Note:  N90-100

MONTHLY SPACE FLIGHT BRIEFING SET FOR DECEMBER 13


     The Office of Space Flight monthly press briefing will be
held Thursday, Dec. 13, from 3 to 5 p.m. EST.  Participating in
the briefing will be Dr. William Lenoir, Associate Administrator
for Space Flight; Robert Crippen, Space Shuttle Director; and
Richard Kohrs, Director, Space Station Freedom.

     This briefing will be local only and will not be carried on
NASA Select or the NASA video teleconfrence network.  Members of
the news media who wish to attend the briefing should come to
NASA Headquarters, 600 Independence Ave., S.W., Room 425.

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

Date: 11 Dec 90 03:52:10 GMT
From: usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Ron Baalke)
Subject: Magellan Update - 11/30/90

[Note: We had a disk crash about a week ago on our computer, it was finally
       brought back up fully opertational today.  I've got a backlog of
       status reports that I will be posting to the net shortly.
                                        Ron Baalke                 ]

                            MAGELLAN STATUS REPORT
                              November 30, 1990

     The Magellan spacecraft is in good health, and has completed seven
successful mapping orbits and STARCALS (star calibrations) in the past 24
hours.  There were no uploads to the spacecraft yesterday.  Later today, the
weekly "tweak," an update of mapping parameters, will be sent.

     We have completed 450 orbits of radar mapping and have captured on the
Earth all but 11.8 orbits.  This represents about 25% of the surface area of
Venus.

     The radar sensor continues excellent performance.  A test image swath
processed from orbit #921 gives an indication of higher than normal rate of
zero-filled data frames.  This may signal the start of some performance
degradation on tape recorder tracks A1 & A3.  A radar calibration test
performed early yesterday is expected to demonstrate the present condition of
track A2.
      ___    _____     ___
     /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|
     | | | |  __ \ /| | | |      Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
  ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |___   Jet Propulsion Lab | [e-mail]
 /___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /|  M/S 301-355        |
 |_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/   Pasadena, CA 91109 |

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

Date: 11 Dec 90 04:14:53 GMT
From: julius.cs.uiuc.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Ron Baalke)
Subject: Ulysses Update - 12/04/90


                     ULYSSES STATUS REPORT
                        December 4, 1990

     Today Ulysses is about 54 million kilometers (34
million miles) from Earth, traveling at a heliocentric velocity
of about 128,000 kilometers per hour (79,500 miles per hour).
Relatively quiet housekeeping and collection of data from science
instruments is planned for the Ulysses mission this week.

     The wobble in the spacecraft's rotation that has been
present since November 4 has steadily decreased during the past
week as a greater percentage of the spacecraft's axial boom moves
into the shade and as the spacecraft's distance from the Sun
increases.  The 7.5-meter (24.3-foot) boom is used as an antenna
for the mission's Unified Radio and Plasma-Wave experiment.
During the past week the wobble has decreased from a high of
about 6 degrees side-to-side to a current value of about 3
degrees side-to-side.  Project officials believe that solar
heating of the axial boom exacerbates the wobble.  They do not
anticipate any immediate actions to attempt to reduce the wobble,
but rather plan on watching its behavior over the next weeks as
the axial boom moves into more complete shade.

     In other activities, a precession maneuver -- a
thruster firing to correct the spacecraft's pointing at Earth --
is scheduled for Thursday, December 6.

     The five-year mission to study the Sun's poles and
interstellar space beyond the poles is conducted jointly by
NASA/JPL and the European Space Agency.

      ___    _____     ___
     /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|
     | | | |  __ \ /| | | |      Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
  ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |___   Jet Propulsion Lab | [e-mail]
 /___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /|  M/S 301-355        |
 |_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/   Pasadena, CA 91109 |

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

Date: 11 Dec 90 11:10:10 GMT
From: mintaka!ogicse!unicorn![e-mail]  (james d. Del Vecchio)
Subject: Air pressure questions   (A human being in vacume)

1)  Imagine a cabin door breaks, something causes the pressure to
go way down.  Would it be better to try to hold your breath,
or could that just cause more damage.

2)  If someone suddenly was exposed to 1/2 s.l. pressure
What harm would be possible right away?  What about gradualy
(over a few minutes or hours), like if he had extra oxygen?

2.1)  How about 1/4 or 1/8  ... or 1/32 etc.

2.2)  What is the highest alt/lowest p. that people live at?
Is it the pressure that limits them, or just cold and inaccesablility,
no food, etc, that keeps them from going higher?

3)  If a person was breathing pure oxygen at 1/5 normal pressure,
What do you think would happen?  What might be harmfull about it,
under what conditions might it be safe?
(-not inside a plane. imagine there's just some _place_ like that
where people could go)

4)  What is the air p. in the highest inhabited altitudes,
at the citys where air p. is the lowest,
what is the lowest air pressure found on the surface (different mountains)

        Jim Del Vecchio

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

Date: Wed, 12 Dec 90 13:29:42 -0500
From: "Allen W. Sherzer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Augustine Commission Recommendations
Newsgroups: sci.space

Here are the recomendations of the Augustine commission on changes to
be made to NASA. These are from an advance copy of the executive summary
I got a couple of days ago. I will try and post the entire executive
summary later on.

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

Principal Recommendations --
This report offers specific recommendations pertaining to civil space goals
and program content as well as suggestions relating to internal NASA
management. These are summarized below in four primary groupings. In order to
implement fully these recommendations and suggestions, the support of both
Executive Branch and Legislative Branch will be needed and of NASA itself.

Principal Recommendations Concerning Space Goals --
It is recommended that the US future civil space program consist of a
balanced set of five principal elements:

1. A science program, which enjoys highest priority within the civil space
program, and is maintained at or above the current fraction of the NASA
budget.

2. A Mission to Planet Earth (MTPE) focusing on environmental measurements.

3. A Mission from Planet Earth (MFPE) with the long-term goal of human
exploration of Mars, preceded by a modified Space Station which emphasizes
life sciences, an exploration base on the moon, and robotic precursors to
Mars.

4. A significantly expanded technology development activity, closely
coupled to space mission objectives, with particular attention devoted to
engines.

5. A robuse space transportation system

Principal Recommendations Concerning Problems --
With regard to program content, it is recommended that:

1. The strategic plan for science currently under consideration be
implemented.

2. A revitalized technology plan be prepared with strong input from the
mission offices, and that it be funded.

3. Space Shuttle missions be phased over to a new unmanned (heavy lift)
launch vehicle except for missions where human involvement is essential or
other critical national needs dictate.

4. Space Station Freedom be revamped to emphasize life sciences and human
space operations, and include microgravity research as appropriate. It
should be reconfigured to reduce cost and complexity; and the current 90 day
time limit on redesign should be extended if a through reassessment is not
possible in that period.

5. A personnel module be provided, as planned, for emergency return from
Space Station Freedom, and that initial provisions be made for two way
missions in the event of unavaliablility of the space shuttle.

Principal Recommendations Concerning Affordability --
It is recommended that the NASA program be structured in scope so as not to
exceed a funding profile containing approximately 10% real growth per year
throughout the remainder of the decade and then remain at that level,
including but not limited to the follwoing actions:

1. Redesign and reschedule Freedom to reduce cost and complexity.

2. Defer or eliminate the planned purchase of another orbiter

3. Place the Mission from Planet Earth on a "go-as-you-pay" basis, i.e.,
tailoring the schedule to match the availability of funds.

Principal Recommendations Concerning Managemetn --
With regard to management of the civil space program, it is recommended
that:

1. An executive committee of the space council be established which
includes the administratior of NASA.

2. Major reforms be made in the civil service regulations as they apply
to specialty skills; or if that is not possible, exemptions be granted for
at least 10% of its employees to operate under a tailored personnel system;
or as a final alternative, that NASA begin selectively converting at least
some of its centers into university affiliated federally funded R&D centers.

3. NASA management review of the mission of each center to consolidate and
refocus canters of excellence in currently relevant fields with minimum
overlap among canters.


   It is considered by the committee that the internal organization of any
institution should be the province of, and at the discretion of, those bearing
ultimate responsibility for the performance of that institution. Hence, the
following possible internal structural changes are offered for the con-
sideration of the NASA Administrator:

1. That the current HQ structure be revamped, disestablishing the positions
of certain existing Associate Administrators in order that:

  A. An associate Administrator for human resources be established
  whose responsibilities include making NASA a 'pathfinding' agency
  in acquisition and retention of the highest quality personnel for
  the federal government.

  B. An associate Administrator for Exploration be established, whose
  responsibilities include robotic and manned exploration of the moon
  and Mars.

  C. An Associate Administrator for Space Flight Operations be
  established, whose responsiblitiies include Shuttle operations,
  existing ELV operations, and tracking and data functions.

  D. An Associate Administrator for Space Flight Development be
  established, whose responsibilities include space station Freedom
  and other development projects such as the Advanced Solid Rocket
  Motor and the new HLV.

2. An exceptionally well qualified independent cost analysis group be
attached to HQ with ultimate responsibility for all top level cost estimating
including cost estimates provided outside of NASA.

3. A systems concept and analysis group reporting to the Administrator of
NASA be established as a federally funded R&D center.

4. Multi-center projects be avoided wherever possible, but when this is not
practical, a strong and independent project office reporting to HQ be
established near the center having the principal share of the work for that
project; and that this project office have a systems engineering staff and
full budget authority (ideally industrial funding -- i.e., funding allocations
related specifically to end goals).
--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Allen W. Sherzer| I had a guaranteed military sale with ED-209. Renovation |
|   [e-mail]  | programs, spare parts for 25 years. Who cares if it      |
|                | works or not?  - Dick Jones, VP OCP Security Concepts    |

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

End of SPACE Digest V12 #657
*******************