Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V12_6/V12_673.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V12 #673

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 12 : Issue 673

Today's Topics:
             space news from Nov 12 AW&ST
    Re: $$/pound of Freedom vs LLNL (was: ELV Support...)
           Re: ASTRO status at 4/16:00 MET
    Re: Who killed Nuclear Rockets? (was Re: The Next Ten Years In
      Astro-1 Status for 12/10/90 [1135 CST] (Forwarded)
       Re: NASA Headline News for 12/10/90 (Forwarded)
               Re: Black Holes
          NASA Prediction Bulletins:  Space Shuttle

Administrivia:

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

Date: 12 Dec 90 04:44:42 GMT
From: usc!cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Nov 12 AW&ST

Editorial calling for solid funding for the X-30, observing that every year
the Senate says it's a valuable program and then zeros the budget for it
(and then the House puts it back).  Making progress requires reliable funding.

Germany picks astronaut teams to train for Spacelab D-2 and the German Mir
flight.  [They didn't give names for some reason.]

Image of a gravitationally-lensed quasar from HST's Faint Object Camera,
substantially more detailed than the best images from the ground.

NASA appoints five-man team to assess recent orbiter turnaround problems
and consider whether changes are needed.  The team is headed by "former
astronaut" John Young.  ["Former"?  I thought he was still nominally an
active astronaut.]

Amusingly, later in the same issue, Lenoir is quoted as saying that the
team has already finished the bulk of its assessment.  Informally, its
conclusions are that recent processing problems have no common pattern
but that it is hard to say whether the trouble rate is abnormal.  NASA
would like airline data on industrial accidents for comparison, but the
airlines consider this proprietary.  General recommendations include a
specific leader being responsible for each task, engineers spending more
time "in the shop" with the technicians, more specialization among at
least a core of technicians (there has been a tendency to eliminate
specialization to cut costs), less wildly-optimistic scheduling, and
discipline for the more serious mistakes extending to the supervisors
as well as the technicians.

Unofficial sources inside the space station work at JSC say:  "Our worst
fear was approval of full funding.  It would have made it difficult for
us to achieve the major redesign needed."  There is widespread agreement
that a major shakeup was needed, but the budget cuts make a splendid
justification for it.

Speaking of which...  Redesign work has been underway quietly for some time,
but now it is out in the open.  The long truss is probably not long for this
world, in particular:  a Goddard project to attach science payloads to it
has been cancelled, and the request for bids for the assembly training
facility in Houston has been withdrawn.  The leading idea right now is
simply to retain the central cluster of modules, but kill the truss.
Among other advantages, the resulting station should have gravity-gradient
stability, eliminating attitude-control thruster firings that eat fuel and
bother the microgravity people.

NASA HQ has issued an 11-point directive to centers, contractors, and the
international partners on how the redesign will be done.  Assembly will
assume at most four shuttle missions per year.  Construction will be done
in phases.  Budget is capped at $2.6G/yr, down from $4G/yr.  The initial
crew will be four, not eight.  Life sciences and materials work explicitly
have highest priority.  An attempt will be made to stick to March 1995 as
the date for start of assembly.  [A mere 13 years after Reagan told NASA
to build a space station.  I suppose that's not bad... considering.] The
redesign will try to avoid impact on the international partners, and will
involve them early.  [Translation:  if NASA botched this redesign process
like the last one, they wouldn't have any partners left.]  (There is,
however, a possibility that the international modules may fly a year later
than the current date, which will bother ESA's budget in particular.)
There will be no revision of the management structure, despite a lot of
feeling that it could use one.  Development not directly supporting the
"baseline configuration" will be dropped or deferred.

Lenoir says no station hardware is immune to being eliminated or deferred,
but there is unlikely to be any move towards free-flying experiment
platforms (on the excuse that the station will be only man-tended for
the first 3-4 years anyway) or expendable launchers (in particular, NASA
does not want to wait for development of a new booster).  There will be
no specific target date for completion, in hopes that station expansion
will be seen as an ongoing process.  One problem yet to be resolved is
the clash between "no development not supporting baseline configuration"
and the interest in using Fred as a Moon/Mars staging point.

Interesting graph of projected space shuttle launch schedules vs. actual,
with every projection assuming that the launch rate is about to rise to
a high sustained level.  More realism called for.

Congress largely kills SDI's nuclear X-ray laser, cutting it back to a
modest long-term research project.  The nuclear-directed-energy part of
SDI's budget was cut drastically, and LLNL says that the project's current
near-term-hardware orientation cannot be maintained.  The project has hit
two fundamental technical problems -- conversion efficiency and focusing --
and one massive political problem, the aversion to exploding large numbers
of nuclear weapons as part of a defensive system.

Atlantis set to launch Nov 15.

New shuttle manifest being composed for the next five years (although
probably with specific dates only for the next three), including seven
launches in 1991.

It is said that the proposal for a Mriya-launched pure-rocket Hotol has
reawakened British government interest in funding the project to some
extent.  [Not entirely surprising.  The British government has been
obsessed with joint projects for a long time, to the extent where it
often seems to consider British-only projects inherently worthless.]

Story on a new spacesuit design originated as a private project by
Boeing Huntsville engineer Brand Griffin and space artist Paul Hudson.
Volunteer efforts from colleagues in NASA and industry have supported
construction of an engineering mockup, with Harrison Schmitt assisting
in evaluation.  The major novelty is that the torso, helmet, and backpack
are one rigid piece.  The helmet uses several flat panes rather than a
bubble shape, which gives a roomier helmet, a better view, and the
opportunity to mount data displays on the framing bars.  That last is
of particular note, because current cuff-mounted checklists are widely
considered inadequate, and high-tech solutions like voice control have
various problems.  Putting the displays inside the helmet would reduce
problems with glare and avoid lunar dust, and would eliminate most of
the chest-mounted clutter of the current suits, which gets in the way
of the arms.  Flat windows also permit thicker panes for better radiation
shielding, and make louvered sunshades practical.  A final flourish is
that the rigid suit body could be attached to vehicles to provide a
sort of ready-made cockpit.  [One major loss is that the proposal does
not envision higher internal pressure to reduce prebreathing time.]

The four "prime" contractors for Hermes agree to form a single management
company to run the show, once final funding approval is given.

Aerospatiale study confirms that Hermes would be feasible as a space-station
lifeboat.  ESA is building two for its own use, and the station would need
two more for lifeboat use at a total cost of about $800M.  They would go up
on Ariane 5s and would share Hermes infrastructure for operations.  The
payload area would be fitted with six rear-facing seats in addition to
the two for the pilots.  The major design change needed would be better
protection against micrometeorites and space debris for the long stay
in orbit.

Soviet-Canadian joint venture plans to build and launch three comsats for
services to international businesses.  NPO PM (Krasnoyarsk) will build the
spacecraft bus, which will then go to Spar Aerospace for payload installation,
returning to the USSR for launch.  The birds will go into Soviet comsat
slots in Clarke orbit, and will be operated by Soviet facilities and
marketed by Canadian Satellite Communications.  Various kinds of approval
are still needed, not to mention significant funding.

Japan's Space Communications Corp signs with Arianespace to launch
Superbird E, a replacement for Superbird B that went into the Atlantic
when Ariane failed in February.  (The replacement for BS-2X, the other
casualty, will go up on an Atlas.)
--
"The average pointer, statistically,    |Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
points somewhere in X." -Hugh Redelmeier| [e-mail]   utzoo!henry

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

Date: 9 Dec 90 04:47:20 GMT
From: zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!sequent!crg5![e-mail]  (Nick Szabo)
Subject: Re: $$/pound of Freedom vs LLNL (was: ELV Support...)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>
>In case you haven't noticed, Fred is losing its truss in the latest design
>revision, now underway.

And it won't be long 'til the striptease is over.  :-) :-)



--
Nick Szabo            [e-mail]
"We live and we learn, or we don't live long" -- Robert A. Heinlein
The above opinions are my own and not related to those of any
organization I may be affiliated with.

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

Date: 10 Dec 90 07:40:41 GMT
From: elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: ASTRO status at 4/16:00 MET

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Greg Hennessy) writes:
>... The astronauts are doing better than expected, and
>the machines worse.

This happens a lot, actually, although you wouldn't know it from the
things certain people say...
--
"The average pointer, statistically,    |Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
points somewhere in X." -Hugh Redelmeier| [e-mail]   utzoo!henry

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

Date: 9 Dec 90 21:37:51 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com![e-mail]  (Mark Robert Thorson)
Subject: Re: Who killed Nuclear Rockets? (was Re: The Next Ten Years In

Two main problems:  you can't avoid releasing highly radioactive fission
products in the rocket exhaust, and the worst-case accident scenario is
is pretty bad if the rocket is hot during ascent.  On the other hand,
nuclear propulsion makes a lot of sense for interplanetary missions, in
which the rocket only becomes hot after being delivered to orbit.

Of course there is the problem of shielding with regard to manned missions.
Shielding must completely surround the cabin if a manned nuclear rocket
takes off from Earth, because radiation is reflected back into the cabin
by the atmosphere.  In space, however, a simple disc of lead (called a
"shadow" shield) is sufficient.

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

Date: 10 Dec 90 20:15:24 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Astro-1 Status for 12/10/90 [1135 CST] (Forwarded)


      Astro 1 Mission Report #45
      11:35 a.m. CST, December 10, 1990
      8/10:45 MET
      Spacelab Mission Operations Control
      Marshall Space Flight Center


      There were smiles and hugs in the Astro Science Operations Area as
      ultraviolet science gathering for the mission came to an end just
      after 9:00 CST this morning.  "We just had a wonderful mission,"
      said Arthur Davidsen, Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope principal
      investigator.  "We've spent 13 years getting ready for this
      opportunity.  There were many times when we feared it would never
      come to pass, and other times when we thought it wouldn't work, but
      it actually worked spectacularly well.  Everybody on the HUT team is
      just thrilled with the results."

      The observations ended on a high note.  The three ultraviolet
      telescopes were in the midst of an observation of Comet Levy, just
      discovered in May of this year.  "Here we are just about ready to
      button up the payload and bring it home, and Hopkins Ultraviolet
      Telescope is continuing to make an observation in the last moment.
      It was the last observation of the mission; the spectrum of the
      comet was on the screen; and they were just jumping up and down!"
      said Deputy Mission Scientist Gene Urban as he described the elation
      of the science teams at the success of the mission.

      "We are just delighted at the way the mission played out," said
      Mission Manager Jack Jones.  "We can only thank the great team we
      have working the mission."

      Urban reported that Dr. Leonard Fisk, NASA Associate Administrator
      for the Office of Space Science and Application, had spoken with the
      Astro team shortly after it was announced that the mission would end
      a day earlier than hoped.  Urban said that Fisk told the group:
      "Although we would like to have had more science time on orbit, from
      what I have been told the science return is incredible, and I
      consider this mission as nothing less than a total success."

      Though the Shuttle is scheduled to land at 11:51 CST tonight, the
      ultraviolet instruments began to shut down within a few minutes of
      the announcement of the rescheduled touch down.  Deactivation and
      stowing of the telescopes and Instrument Pointing System must begin
      around 12 hours prior to landing.  Though its motions are restricted
      by landing preparations, the Broad Band X-Ray Telescope may take
      limited observations up until four hours from the end of the
      mission.

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

Date: 10 Dec 90 22:26:07 GMT
From: usc!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!uxa.cso.uiuc.edu![e-mail]  (Steve "il-Manhous" Norton)
Subject: Re: NASA Headline News for 12/10/90 (Forwarded)

[e-mail] (Peter E. Yee) writes:
>time.  Galileo gained about 10,800 miles per hour during the flyby.  A
>photo of the moon and another of Australia were downlinked within
>minutes of the flyby.  More than 2,000 images of the Earth and moon
>are scheduled to be downlinked in the next few days.
-------
Could these be made public in computerized format?  Surely the
"origional researcher for x years" clause wouldn't prevent such things
from being released, and the business about "computer resources
unavailble" is as always negated by the enormous number of anonymous
FTP sites that support graphics images.

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

Date: 10 Dec 90 18:38:37 GMT
From: cs.dal.ca![e-mail]  (Jose Castejon-Amenedo)
Subject: Re: Black Holes


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Raymond Seibert) writes:


> Ok, the space shuttle is on the search for black holes which brings up one
> of my oldest questions.  According to what I know about the current theory
> about them, they begin as regular supergiant stars, then collapse in on
> themselves.  Here is what I don't understand, it then procedes to turn
> inside out, leaving a void in the center.  Now let me tell my version of the
> story.  It keeps collapsing until it can collapse no more -- possibly forming
> a donut(sp?) shape?.  It can still behave as the above theory's black hole
> does, but matter keeps sticking onto the top of the existing matter.  Now
> according to this theory, the black hole should at some point consume enough
> matter to make it unstable.  This in turn would cause all the compressed
> matter to be spewed out in a tremendous explosion.

    This is a classical vision (a la Laplace) of what a black hole
is like. In the context of general relativity (probably the most
successful gravity theory available) black holes are much more exotic
beasts.

    If a star is massive enough, nothing will prevent it from
collapsing endlessly once its nuclear fuel is burnt up.  Assuming a
spherically symmetric model, the star will cross what is called its
event horizon and will collapse all the way to a spacetime
singularity. No matter, no energy, no nothing is at the singularity.
In fact, the sentence "at the singularity" does not make sense,
because spacetime singularities are not points of the spacetime
manifold. What a black hole of this kind swallows vanishes forever,
and you cannot speak of matter sticking onto the top of existing
matter.

    There is a mechanism whereby a black hole can explode, and
that is a result of the Hawking process. But it has to do nothing
whatsoever with instability of matter in the black hole.

> Believe me; its better than that 4D crap that they try to pull on us.

    What crap? If you are referring to general relativity the
point is that its scope is greater and deeper than Newton's theory.
There is nothing sacred about it, though, just as there was nothing
sacred about Newton's, and it was superceded eventually.


JCA
[e-mail]

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

Date: 11 Dec 90 02:05:29 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 90343.95062616  .00170916  00000-0  11617-2 0   194
2 20980  28.4647 309.2864 0016232  26.8618 333.3723 15.73068358  1213
--
Dr TS Kelso                           Assistant Professor of Space Operations
[e-mail]          Air Force Institute of Technology

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

End of SPACE Digest V12 #673
*******************