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Date: Tue,  8 Jan 1991 02:12:36 -0500 (EST)
Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #023

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 13 : Issue 23

Today's Topics:
               Re: Interstellar travel
       Launch of Navstar GPS II-10 and Shutdown of I-6
              Energia derivative
      Re: You can help clear cloud over MIR SWEERSTAKES.
           Magellan Status for 01/02/91 (Forwarded)
          Re: Space News from Flight Int. for Dec90

Administrivia:

    Submissions to the SPACE Digest/sci.space should be mailed to
  [e-mail].  Other mail, esp. [un]subscription requests,
  should be sent to [e-mail], or, if urgent, to
             [e-mail]

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

Date: 2 Jan 91 18:28:22 GMT
From: usc!samsung!rex!rouge![e-mail]  (Fraering Philip)
Subject: Re: Interstellar travel

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Mark Gellis) writes:

>Three useful sources for interstellar spacecraft designs are Dean Ing's THE
>FUTURE OF FLIGHT (actually, he wrote it with someone else, but I cannot find
>my copy and I don't remember the name, sorry), Robert Forward's FUTURE MAGIC
>(interesting book, dumb title), and Charles Sheffield's article "Fly Me to
>the Stars" in the Fall, 1989 issue of NEW DESTINIES.

I think the other author is Leik Myrabo (sp?).

Phil

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

Date:        Wed, 02 Jan 91 17:02:25 AST
From: [e-mail]([e-mail] Langley)
Subject:     Launch of Navstar GPS II-10 and Shutdown of I-6

The 10th Navstar GPS Block II satellite, PRN 23, was launched on 26
November 1990 into the E-plane, and was made available on 10 December.
Satellite I-6,PRN 9, has been set unusable since 11 December 1990.  The
updated Navstar GPS Constellation Status table given below reflects
these events.

                        Navstar GPS Constellation Status
                                   (91-01-02)

Blk                       NASA   Orbit
II        PRN Internat. Catalog  Plane   Launch
Seq   SVN Code   ID      Number  Pos'n    Date   Clock        Comment
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Block I
       1   4  1978-020A  10684          78-02-22      Not usable since 85-07
       2   7  1978-047A  10893          78-05-13      Not usable since 85-09
       3   6  1978-093A  11054    A-3   78-10-06  Rb
       4   8  1978-112A  11141          78-12-10      L-band signals turned
                                                       off 89-10-14
       5   5  1980-011A  11690          80-02-09      Not usable since 84-05
       6   9  1980-032A  11783    A-2   80-04-26  Rb  Operating on 2nd Rb clock;
                                                       set unusable 90-12-11
       7                                81-12-18      Launch failure
       8  11  1983-072A  14189    C-3   83-07-14  Cs
       9  13  1984-059A  15039    C-1   84-06-13  Cs
      10  12  1984-097A  15271    A-1   84-09-08  Cs
      11   3  1985-093A  16129    C-4   85-10-09  Rb  operating on Rb clock
                                                       without temp. control

Block II
II-1  14  14  1989-013A  19802    E-1   89-02-14  Cs  Became available 89-04-15
II-2  13   2  1989-044A  20061    B-3   89-06-10  Cs  Became available 89-08-10
II-3  16  16  1989-064A  20185    E-3   89-08-18  Rb  Became available 89-10-14
II-4  19  19  1989-085A  20302    A-4   89-10-21  Cs  Became available 89-11-23
II-5  17  17  1989-097A  20361    D-3   89-12-11  Cs  L-band signals enabled
                                                       90-01-06
II-6  18  18  1990-008A  20452    F-3   90-01-24  Cs  Became available 90-02-14
                                                       22:26 UT
II-7  20  20  1990-025A  20533    B-2   90-03-26  Cs  Became available 90-04-18
                                                       23:13 UT
II-8  21  21  1990-068A  20724    E-2   90-08-02  Cs  Became available 90-08-22
                                                       15:00 UT
II-9  15  15  1990-088A  20830    D-2   90-10-01  Cs  Became available 90-10-15
                                                       00:39 UT
II-10 23  23  1990-103A  20959    E-4   90-11-26  Cs  Became available 90-12-10
                                                       23:45 UT

Notes
1.  NASA Catalog Number is also known as NORAD or U.S. Space Command object
    number.
2.  No orbital plane position = satellite no longer operational.
3.  Clock:  Rb = Rubidium; Cs = Cesium
4.  PRN 16 is scheduled to switch to a Cs clock early in 1991.

================================================================================
 Richard B. Langley                            BITnet: [e-mail] or [e-mail]
 Geodetic Research Laboratory                  Phone:  [phone]
 Dept. of Surveying Engineering                Telex:  014-46202
 University of New Brunswick                   FAX:    [phone]
 Fredericton, N.B., Canada  E3B 5A3
================================================================================

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

Date: 2 Jan 91 13:33:06 GMT
From: world!ksr![e-mail]  (Chris Jones)
Subject: Energia derivative

Chris Jones    [e-mail]    {world,uunet,harvard}!ksr!clj

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

Date: 3 Jan 91 18:14:49 GMT
From: agate!shelby!neon![e-mail]  (Andy Freeman)
Subject: Re: You can help clear cloud over MIR SWEERSTAKES.

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (M. Edward Borasky) writes:
>If they sell $2M in tickets, they will LOSE $8M.  But what happens in
>this case?  Does the winner still get his ride?  More importantly,
>if in this case NO ONE gets his ride, will the people who bought tick-
>ets get their money back?

That's one of the chances I'm willing to take.  I might die before the
contest ends, but I don't expect the promoters to do anything about
that either.

>And do the promoters have insurance to cover the lawsuit your loved
>ones will bring if you are the "winner" and are killed or injured?

Frankly, I don't care.  If MY loved ones want to protect their
interests, that's our problem.  I am willing to take whatever measures
there are to indemify the promoters if that increases my chances.  If
you're not willing to do likewise, you're more expensive to send up
and should pay more/have less chance of going and that's your problem.
In short, butt out.

>Dammit, this deal STINKS!  If someone wants to promote a scam, fine,
>but DON'T do it in "sci.space" and DON'T ask the readers of "sci.space"
>to make phone calls SUPPORTING the scam.

I'm still waiting for evidence that it actually stinks.  Sure, they
may not get enough calls.  (What was that number again?)  But, they
may.  The only way to know for sure is to wait and see, which is
rather late.  A good guess would be based on market research.

>I'm not trying to protect you.  You are free to throw your money down
>any rathole you wish to.  But you are NOT free to ask others to do so;
>that constitutes FRAUD and is punishable by law.  I'm trying to warn
>those others that this is a scam.

Before I said anything, I was one of those "others" who must be
protected.

BTW - If turns out not to be a scam, I'm sure that Borasky will
compensate the promoters for the damage done by his accusations.  If
his bad publicity scuttles the idea, I'm sure that he'll compensate
the rest of us.  Surely he doesn't think that his whining has no
effect.  Therefore, it is reasonable to hold him responsible for that
effect.  What, he isn't willing to be responsible for his actions?

-andy

ps - Send money to my rathole.
--
UUCP:    {arpa gateways, sun, decwrl, uunet, rutgers}!neon.stanford.edu!andy
ARPA:    [e-mail]
BELLNET: [phone]

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

Date: 2 Jan 91 22:06:38 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Magellan Status for 01/02/91 (Forwarded)


                     MAGELLAN STATUS REPORT
                         January 2, 1991


     The Magellan spacecraft continues to perform normally. All
star calibrations and momentum wheel desaturations during the
holiday weekend were successful with only small attitude
corrections.

     All of the commands sent to the spacecraft during the
holidays were performed without incident. A new command sequence
will be uplinked Friday, January 4. It will be a normal weekly
mapping command sequence.

     The single tape-recorder strategy which was implemented just
before Christmas has been performing as expected. The project
shut off tape recorder A because each of its four tracks was
returning corrupted radar data. With just one tape recorder, each
image swath now has three small gaps in it. The gaps occur when
the recorder switches from one track to another.

     A few bad frames still occur with the B-side recorder but
the cause is not known. A project spokesman said, however, that
the rate of bad image frames has dropped and the amount of usable
data has increased significantly with the new strategy.

     Magellan this morning completed its 694th mapping orbit of
Venus and data from about 677 orbits has been successfully
received on Earth. The project is currently assessing the number
of mapping orbits that were adversely affected by the tape
recorder problem to determine how many can be recovered by
reprocessing.

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

Date: 3 Jan 91 02:13:25 GMT
From: usc!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!exodus!norge.Eng.Sun.COM![e-mail]  (John McKernan)
Subject: Re: Space News from Flight Int. for Dec90

[e-mail] (swaraj jeyasingh) writes:
>The Oct 4 Zenit launch failure destroyed Launch pad one. That explosion has
>been attributed to Zenits RD-170 first stage engine.  It  is regarded  as
>random  and  not  a  sufficient  reason to  stop launches  for a  lengthy
>investigation.

This is an interesting claim for the Russians to make, assuming Flight
International quoted them correctly. "Don't worry about the launcher's
explosion, it was just a random occurrence, the launcher is fine." They
obviously do things a little differently in the USSR.

John L. McKernan.                                                  [e-mail]
Disclaimer: These are my opinions but, shockingly enough, not necessarily Sun's
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End of SPACE Digest V13 #023
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