Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V13_0/V13_085.TXT

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Date: Mon, 28 Jan 91 02:06:19 -0500 (EST)
Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #085

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 13 : Issue 85

Today's Topics:
          Fred (was Re: Firm Fred Decisions)
               An Atlas Story (2 of 2)
     One Small Step for a Space Activist... (vol 2 no 1)
              Re: decimal to hexadecimal
              Salyut 7 elements
               Re: Science as Religion
          Re: What is cosmological constant?
              Re: Space Station Weights

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: 24 Jan 91 15:27:26 GMT
From: eagle![e-mail]  (Ronald E. Graham)
Subject: Fred (was Re: Firm Fred Decisions)

By the way, if you folks in this group were calling Space Station Freedom
"Fred" before, does that mean we have to call it "Ed" now?  Just asking.

RG

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

Date: 24 Jan 91 00:55:41 GMT
From: usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!zardoz.cpd.com!dhw68k!ofa123![e-mail]  (Mark Perew)
Subject: An Atlas Story (2 of 2)

Another of our machines was used for range safety; it
displayed present predicted impact point to the Range
Safety Officer, the guy with his hand poised over the big
red DESTRUCT button in case the bird veered toward a
populated area.

Anyway, a new set of equations came to the programming
group (in the next set of offices to me), and they were
screwy -- the impact point wouldn't calculate.  Message
to RW (via classified courier): there's a mistake!
Answer back: do it anyway!

So, some months later, comes the day of the test flight;
the bird lifts off, goes up, up, and away -- and doesn't
come down, it's in orbit!  Wow, hot damn, and WE DID IT!
(Even if we didn't know what we were doing.)  And ours
was a BIG payload (a thousand pounds??), not a measly
little basketball like Sputnik or Werner von Braun's
Redstone Arsenal satellite.

An afterthought:

I enjoyed working on the Atlas project; it was
interesting and exciting and really pushing the frontiers
of technology (and I was young and bushy-tailed).  I
tried not to think too much (because it bothered me) that
what we were really doing was working on a weapon that
would be the worst intrument of mass destruction that had
ever been created (at the time).

Being a real sci-fi addict (I still am), I saw this
launch, with a real payload, as my own dawn of the space
age -- a boon for mankind; surely we would have moon
colony in a few years; I might even in my lifetime be
able to take a trip to the moon!  (Where in hell did the
last thirty-odd years go?)

*This* purpose of the machine that I was working on was
soooo much more satisfying than merely as a weapon
delivery system!!  And as it turned out, this Ground
Guidance Computer system did guide the launch of all of
the Mercury and Gemini flights, but was not used for the
Apollo program.  I understand that the range safety
system continued to be used for a few more years for many
launches (yes, several birds were blown up by the RSO.)

I was surprised (and disappointed) by the reaction of
some of my colleagues to our unexpected satellite launch:
Sure it's interesting, but what's the big deal?  A job's
a job, isn't it?

Ah well....

Jim Hopkins, S220 Devon



--
Mark Perew
Internet: [e-mail]
Compuserve: >internet:[e-mail]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Mon, 21 Jan 91 09:42:30 -0500
From: "Allen W. Sherzer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: One Small Step for a Space Activist... (vol 2 no 1)


                  One Small Step for a Space Activist...
                                      by
                            Allen Sherzer & Tim Kyger

Last December the Augustine Committee completed its assessment of the US
space program and published its findings and recommendations. If and when the
recommendations are implemented we will see a more robust and focused NASA.

There is also a good chance that the recommendations will be carried out. The
committee worked hand in hand with the Office of Management and Budget as well
as the Space Council, and both bodies liked what they saw. In fact, many of
the recommendations will find their way into next year's budget. Example:
NASA, in its '92 budget request, asked for a new orbiter but in accordance
with committee recommendations OMB turned down the request.

Another good sign is the new House Science Committee. George Brown (D-CA), the
new chair of the full committee, wasted no time examining the Augustine
recommendations, holding hearings on January 3rd. Expect them to move
vigorously on this issue and (as we reported last month) move beyond the
Augustine recommendations to even bigger change.

Some of the recommendations may cause problems for space activists:

1. New heavy Lift Vehicle (HLV). The Augustine committee advocated reduced
reliance on the Shuttle and the construction of a new HLV. This could reduce
costs and free up money for other projects. The current favorite (gets the
most hype and has strong Senate support) is Shuttle-C or some variant. Shuttle
C would work but may not be the best choice: other alternatives (Heavy Lift
Delta and Titan V) may cost less than half as much to develop and operate.
Activists will need to monitor this to insure that the design meets space
development goals and not Congressional political goals. Whatever design is
selected, we also need to insure that the resulting launcher is man rated
(which is supported by the committee).

2. Priorities. The committee divided civil space program activities into five
goals of which two were 'mission oriented'. These mission goals where a
Mission TO Planet Earth and a Mission FROM Planet Earth. The former is for
environmental measurements and the latter is for human and robotic exploration
of the solar system.

The committee thought the Mission TO should be of higher priority than the
Mission FROM. This means a lunar base and planetary science probes will take
a back seat to the Earth Observation System (EOS) when funding decisions are
made. Under current conditions EOS and Freedom will use all of NASA's space
funds for the next 20 years. To accomplish our goals, therefore, we must
either change this priority, move EOS (and Mission to Planet Earth) to another
agency, or find another agency to conduct civil space exploration programs
(like DoE).

                               Legislative Roundup
                                      SSX
Several months ago the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) awarded
several proposals to investigate ideas for a Single Stage to Orbit spacecraft.
This effort was motivated by the Space Ship Experimental (SSX) concept. Many
excellent ideas have resulted. Details are classified but studied say that we
can have a spacecraft with airliner like operations for $100/pound to LEO.

Things to do:
1. There is a chance that development of this concept may be killed or moved
to another agency. No matter how you feel about Star Wars, SDIO is the only
agency of the government that has a real interest in reducing the cost to
orbit so any change or move would add tremendous risk. A letter to your
Representatives asking funding to continue INSIDE SDIO would help.

                             Space Station Freedom
NASA is almost done with the redesign mandated by Congress and endorsed by
the Augustine Committee. Although not completed, it looks like NASA is about
to conclude that there is nothing wrong with the current design and all that is
needed is to make it smaller. Yes, the incredible shrinking station is about to
get even smaller and even more expensive. All this was done despite many
excellent proposals from some of the contractors which might have snatched
victory from the jaws of defeat.

Don't expect this this to go over well in Congress. The same forces which
mandated the redesign are still active. The station's design flaws are still
there. Expect to see more funding cuts for Freedom next year, if not total
cancellation.

In other station news, Lenoir wants to abolish the Reston program office and
move the program to Huntsville or Houston. Bad move. Reston was just getting
into gear and starting to do good work moving Freedom along. They are the only
group which knows what's going on as a whole and this move will be a setback.

Things to do:
1. The biggest risk is that Freedom will be canceled with nothing to take its
place. Congress must understand that a low cost and expandable space station
CAN be built for what we are spending. To demonstrate this, write your
Representative and tell them about low cost stations, such as External Tank
based ideas, Commercially Developed Space Facility, LLNL inflatable stations,
or any others you know of. Ask your Representative to support these concepts.

                              New Agency for EOS
At the end of last November, a letter was written by several Representatives
to Richard Darman, Director of OMB. The letter asked Mr. Darman to put funding
in the FY '92 budget for a successor to Landsat 6. Sources say the original
letter had a paragraph calling for a new agency to run Landsat and EOS. This
paragraph was deleted because of objections from some  Representatives.

A new agency for Landsat and EOS is critical to space activists. NASA for
the next ten years will only have enough money to run two large space efforts.
Right now they are Freedom and EOS; both will take 20 years and consume ALL
available funding. This means that as long as EOS is inside NASA, it will be
20 years before we can even think about a lunar base or other efforts. Even
unmanned planetary exploration will take a back seat. Rep. Brown (D-CA), the
new head of the House Science Committee, is expected to review this issue this
year, so there is hope if we can get past the opposition of other
Congresscritters.

Things to do:
1. Write Rep. Brown and ask him to look into a remote sensing agency to run
Mission to Planet Earth.

                                    Tidbits
George Brown wants to head the Space Subcommittee in addition to the whole
Science Committee... Expect a version of the Omnibus Space Act to be submitted
this session, Brown likes it and Walker is set to run with it... Brown is said
to be very interested in working with space activists (we have a strong
friend here).

Allen Sherzer: [phone] (work) [phone] (home) [e-mail] (net)
Tim Kyger: [phone] (work) [phone] (home)

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

Date: 21 Jan 91 17:00:37 GMT
From: mentor.cc.purdue.edu!mace.cc.purdue.edu![e-mail]  (Perry G Ramsey)
Subject: Re: decimal to hexadecimal

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Earl W Phillips) writes:
>
> Could someone give me a quick lesson ({r equation) on how
> to conver{ decimal numbers to hexadecimal? Thanx in advance!

The summary contains the best way.  You can get such a beast at
Target or K-Mart or any other cheapo discount store.


--
Perry G. Ramsey           Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
[e-mail]   Purdue University, W. Lafayette, IN USA
[e-mail]
 Why waste time learning when ignorance is instantaneous?  -- Hobbes

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

Date: 22 Jan 91 00:18:23 GMT
From: isis!scicom![e-mail]  (Bruce Watson)
Subject: Salyut 7 elements


Salyut 7        27.0  4.2  0.0  3.6
1 13138U 82033  A 91 18.34644536  .00342313  62221-4  44165-3 0  7383
2 13138  51.5907 272.1956 0001998 156.4317 203.6618 16.06576007498826

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

Date: 23 Jan 91 13:53:26 GMT
From: usc!sdd.hp.com!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!sun4![e-mail]  (James W. Meritt)
Subject: Re: Science as Religion

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Paul M. Koloc) writes:
}In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Kent Sandvik) writes:
}>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pete Yadlowsky) writes:
}>>>An open minded scientist may speculate that someone organized the universe.
}
}>We have this age-old mythological scene where people belive that
}>everything has to be created, by someone else... .  and for instance
}>quantuum mechanics shows us how particles suddenly appear from nothing,
}> .. .
}
}Huh???   What?  Pray you tell, "WHAT PARTICLE is created 'from nothing',
}quantum mechanics or not ???"  Are you a Joe Newman follower?
}
}and .. describe "particle" if you do answer.

See also "virtual particles" and "Hawkins radiation".

}>It will take some time before the acceptance of an idea such as a
}>self-contained universe will be more widespread.
}
}Seeing as how energy is conserved and we are in a low energy density
}dimensional state (limited information in a high order universe), I
}would say you may not have a good working model (concept) of the total
}physical universe let alone what ever the whole of REALITY is.

Oh, really?  Why not read up on vacuum energy?  The Joural of British
Interplanetary Society had a very interesting article on how it may
be used forInterstellar flight.  A unquantified "energy is conserved"
is wrong.  Ask, for instance, Japan.

}> == self contained ==
}
}I thought studies show our physical (3D) universe is "open".  I think
}that means it could have disconnected islands.  It depends on how
}you conceptual the metric.  Did the metric pre-exist (was it defined
}in the conditions prior to) the Big Bang?

Within this last week I read they were still looking, and the article
was within the context of the "cold dark matter" tests.  You have
better information?


BTW:  Yep, I know about the bubble universes...



Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not necessarily
represent those opinions of this or any other organization.  The facts,
however, simply are and do not "belong" to anyone.
    [e-mail] or [e-mail] or meritt%aplvm.BITNET

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

Date: 23 Jan 91 17:59:53 GMT
From: brazil.psych.purdue.edu![e-mail]  (Albert Zhou)
Subject: Re: What is cosmological constant?

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (joefish) writes:
>      When Einstein introduced it, it was assumed that our galaxy
>represented the entire universe, and to be stable, a finite universe
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This might not be exactly the case, although Einstein did try to build a
model of a stable universe. When the notion that the universe is expanding
became popular, Einstein finally gave up his model.

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

Date: 22 Jan 91 06:16:07 GMT
From: pilchuck!amc-gw!sumax!polari![e-mail]  (Charles Radley)
Subject: Re: Space Station Weights



Reference:- From: [e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer)
 Organization: Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow
 Date: 21 Jan 91 21:17:04 GMT
 Subject: Re: Space Station Weights

 In article <[e-mail]> Charles Radley writes:
 |There is no point in reproducing all the material here.   I was
 |interested to note that many of the points I had expressed in
 |sci.space  are independently raised in the NASA Critique.
+ ...and are adequately dismissed in the LLNL reply.
  You are being dogmatic.  Some of the NASA answers I agreed with, and
some of the LLNL rebuttals were good too.   I was particularly
impressed by LLNL actually referencing NASA's own studies in some of
their rebut als, giving the NASA critique the apparance of being
unaware of its own research results.

If congress appropriated more money it would be interesting to
continue the study.
  I have said in response to your posts that there are interesting
aspects to LLNL's approach, and so does the NASA Critique.  There
simply is no money in the NASA budget to study it.    And the budget
continues to shrink.

+ BTW, since you
+ saw the critique, can you tell me who wrote it and where they are
+ from?
  No idea.   Irrelevant anyway, they got no money to continue any
evaluation, unless you can persuade somebody to do it after hours.
But then it would not have the authority of NASA.....

+So what. If the approach is good then the politics of the people
+ advocating it are not relevant!
  Then why does LLNL waste valuable time with that stuff ?  NASA's
charter is technical, not political.

+You have yet to post any compelling
+ technical reason why their approach won't work.
  I thought we had covered that.   It could probably be made to work,
but the costs require further study.   The vu-graphs show no weight or
cost allocations for science.   LNNL replies that will be handled ad
hoc after the fact.   To which the only possible answer is we shall
see.  Freedom was expensive & heavy because it included a large up
front science capability.  Reference the JEM external & internal
equipment budgets I previously posted.

+ This from the person who said using a Soyuz was not acceptable?
    Soyuz is not a launch vehicle and is unsuitable as a Freedom
ACRV.    The problems about soviet  participation are legal and
political, not fiscal.
Crew transportation remains unaccounted for, the LLNL vu-graphs
presented no cost or weight data for that big ticket item.   The
only reference is in the Lunar Base Mass Budget Summary which shows
a return-to-earth module of 8.3 tons, but no description, (well ok,
it shows up in a pretty 2001 type color painting with no dimensions
or specifications, and no labels so I am not really sure what I am
looking at) .  Have they put any of this stuff on a CAD
package ? Does it have docking port ?  How many crew and passengers ?
What is its endurance ?
   Your space activist newsletter also mentions External Tank and
LLNL in the same paragraph.   Why ?  Which is better ?  I called
External Tank corp and they have minimal technical data, no mass
budgets.    If you compare ET with the JEM & Freedom (or even LLNL )
weights it looks like several shuttles are needed to outfit a single
tank.  Major design changes seem needed to the tank, adding a door
presumably requires complete structural redesign adding weight /
cost.  ET seems oversold.  How can you advocate to our lawmakers that
we should fund such a system ?
   Your efforts are on the verge of permanently grounding the
manned space program.  Already PMC for Freedom is gone, which was
its principle purpose.
    It is also ironic to note the apparent cancellation of the FTS.
FTS was the brainchild of a previous Congress who were worried that
US was losing its robotics edge to Canada.  Cancellation of FTS
means that the only robots on Freedom are Canadian and Japanese.
This is a perfect illustration that it is the CONGRESS, advised by
such as you, whose on-again off-again mood swings are bleeding the
program, yet all you do is blame NASA......
   One of the benefits of international participation in Space is that
unlike the USA, most nations approve multi-year funding for hi-tech
programs, instead of the bizarre anuual blood-letting we have in
the USA.   Which is something the LLNL do not understand.
They are used to the bottomless coffrs of the DOD world, civilian
space is a differnt ballgame.

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

End of SPACE Digest V13 #085
*******************