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Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #423

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 13 : Issue 423

Today's Topics:
         NASA Headline News for 04/15/91 (Forwarded)
         NASA Headline News for 04/16/91 (Forwarded)
               Re: SSF Micro-g
               Re: Earth/Moon formation

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: 17 Apr 91 06:55:03 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Headline News for 04/15/91 (Forwarded)


                       NASA HEADLINE NEWS
     Internal Communications Branch (P-2) NASA Headquarters


Monday, April 15, 1991               Audio Service:202/755-1788


This is NASA Headline News for Monday April 15, 1991


The Space Shuttle Atlantis is currently on schedule to begin the
trip back to the Kennedy Space Center tommorrow morning, landing
tomorrow afternoon at KSC.  This schedule will be confirmed at a
ferry readiness review this afternoon.


For the orbiter Discovery, the aft compartment is being closed
out and payload processing continues on schedule.  The two-day
flight readiness review for STS-39 starts today and may be
wrapped up by day's end, at which time the launch date for this
mission will be announced.


In the meantime, in preparation for Columbia's STS-40 mission,
close-out work on the elevons and reaction control system is
underway.  In the Vehicle Assembly Building, the solid rocket
boosters have been stacked and preparations are underway to mate
the external tank with the SRB's this Thursday.  Rollover of the
orbiter for mating with the ET and the SRB's is scheduled for
April 24, and rollout to the launch pad on May 4.


Japan's BS-3H Communications satellite is scheduled to be
launched on Friday, April 19 aboard General Dynamics Atlas 1
rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

NOTE:  Disregard the initial information about Galileo as it was
inaccurate.

Today Marshall Space Flight Center Spacemobile lecturer, Will
Robertson, will make several presentations at Columbia State
Community College, Columbia, Tennessee, to high school students
from 11 Tennessee schools.  The Marshall education office worked
with Rep. Bart Gordon's (D-Tenn., 6th District) Office to set up
the presentations.  Last month, Marshall's three Spacemobile
lecturers visited 39 schools, conducting 143 presentations which
reached a student audience of 21,909.  They also conducted seven
teachers workshops sessions with 70 teachers.


As a related piece of information, the majority of the NASA Field
Centers participated extensively in National Engineers Week in
February.  Overall, approximately 481 NASA employees spoke to
more then 31,000 students at 176 schools nationwide.


For everyone who's ever looked up at the sky and wondered:
Tonight on PBS, the six-part series, "Astronomers," premieres,
and will explore the heavens through the work of various
astronomers, including the "sidewalk stronomer," John Dobson, who
brings astronomy and his telescopes to people in the street.  The
series begins at 8:00 pm tonight and is on for the next five
Mondays.

Here's the broadcast schedule for Public Affairs events on NASA
Select TV.  All times are Eastern.  NASA Select TV is carried on
GE Satcom F2R, transponer 13, C-Band, 72 degrees W Long., Audio
6.8, Frequency 3960 MHz.


Monday, 4/15/91

              12:00 noon      Space Basics

               1:00 pm        STS-1 Anniversary Program
                              from KSC

               2:00 pm        STS-1 10th Anniversary
                              Roundtable Discussion
                              from JSC


All events and times may change without notice.  This report is
filed daily, Monday through Friday, by 12:00 pm, Eastern.  It is
a service of NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs.
Contact:  CREDMOND on NASAmail or at 202/453-8425.

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

Date: 17 Apr 91 07:16:52 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Headline News for 04/16/91 (Forwarded)


             Headline News
Internal Communications Branch (P-2) NASA Headquarters

  Tuesday, April 16, 1991    Audio Service: 202 / 755-1788

This is NASA Headline News for Tuesday, April 16, 1991 . . .

Jet Propulsion Laboratory Galileo flight controllers and project
management continue to examine data sent by the spacecraft
during its incomplete unfurling of its high gain antenna last
Thursday.  The antenna was commanded to unfurl, but JPL
controllers did not get indications in either the spacecraft spin rate,
which would have slowed, or in the antenna-deployment limit switches,
that the antenna properly opened.  There are several possible
causes under current investigation, as well as several possible
fixes.

                   * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

NASA management yesterday selected April 23 as the target
launch date for the STS-39 Department of Defense mission
aboard Discovery.  Discovery is on Pad 39-A and nearly ready to
support the flight.  Activity today includes cryogenic servicing for the
two major DoD payloads, AFP-675 and the Infrared Background
Signature Survey experiment.

Columbia's stack is ready for installation of the external tank today.
Following completion of the STS-40 stack, Columbia is expected to be
rolled to the Vehicle Assembly Building on April 24 and mated.
Rollout of Columbia to launch pad 39-B could occur as early as
MayJ4.

Atlantis is expected to leave Edwards Air Force Base by early
this afternoon.  It was to have been airborne earlier this morning but
was held up by a minor mechanical problem associated with a 747-
carrier aircraft mounting bracket.  The current flight plan calls for a
refueling stop at Kelly Air Force Base, San Antonio, and then on to
the Shuttle Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center, if weather and
time allow.  Atlantis could layover at Columbus, Miss., Air Force
Base if weather or time do not allow a direct flight to Kennedy from
Kelly.

                   * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Goddard Space Flight Center flight controllers report that the Gamma
Ray Observatory spacecraft is doing well in its 287 by 280 mile-
high orbit.  The observatory is in a normal, solar-array-to-the-sun
mode and all batteries are fully charged.  Command and telemetry are
reported to be excellent, as is the spacecraft's temperature.  Activity at
the Goddard Payload Operations Control Center this week is centered
around turn-on activities associated with GRO's instruments.
Instrument calibration is expected to begin by the end of the
month and to take two weeks to complete.

                   * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The STS-37 flight crew post-mission press conference will be
held this Friday, April 19, at the Johnson Space Center briefing
facility in Bldg 2.  Mission commander Steve Nagel and the other four
crewmembers will describe their mission and show video of their
deployment of the Gamma Ray Observatory and dual spacewalks.  The
briefing will be carried live on NASA Select TV on Friday at
10:00 am EDT.

                   * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Ames Research Center reports that their Education office conducted
21 teacher workshops in three states last month.  In addition to the
teacher activity, Ames also visited 63 schools in California, Utah
and Washington.  The office also provided the keynote speaker for a
young women's forum at San Ramon, Calif.  The forum focused on
future possibilities for America's young women and was entitled
"Expanding Your Horizons."


Here's the broadcast schedule for Public Affairs events on NASA Select
TV.  All times are Eastern.  NASA Select TV is carried on GE Satcom
F2R, transponder 13, C-Band, 72 degrees W Long., Audio 6.8,
Frequency 3960 MHz.

Tuesday, 4/16/91
    2:00 pm    Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space
          (Albert Gore, D-Tenn, chairman) hearing on Space Station
           Freedom.

    6:00 pm    Probable replay of Senate Subcommittee on Science,
          Technology and Space (Albert Gore, D-Tenn, chairman) hearing
           on ozone depletion.  Taped this morning at 9:00 am.

     approx. 8:00 pm    Probable replay of Senate Subcommittee on
          Science, Technology and Space (Albert Gore, D-Tenn, chairman)
           hearing on Space Station Freedom.


All events and times may change without notice.  This report is filed
daily, Monday through Friday, by 12:00 pm, Eastern.  It is a service of
NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs.  Contact:  CREDMOND
on NASAmail or at 202/453-8425.

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

Date: 17 Apr 91 16:18:37 GMT
From: agate!bionet!uwm.edu!caen![e-mail]  (Ken Sheppardson)
Subject: Re: SSF Micro-g

[e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer) writes:
>[e-mail] (Ken Sheppardson) writes:
>>
>>   For what 'politically unpopular design changes' did the micro-g
>>   community ask?
>
>You need to ask Nick that but I would guess he means the life science
>centrifuge. The micro-g people didn't like it and Congress cut funds for it
>last year.

  So how is that a 'politically unpopular design change'? 'Politically
  unpopular' with whom? (I'm asking Nick, of course, if that is indeed
  what he was talking about.) :)

>
>>   In what way did NASA tell the people who sign the checks to go to hell?
>
>The Appropriations Subcommittee which signs the checks for the station has
>said several times they wanted Freedom as a microgravity facility first and
>formost.

 Check.

>The current restructuring says it will be a microgravity platform
>for a few years until PMC and then it becomes life sciences.

 I wouldn't quite word it that strongly, but I agree that the emphasis
 will shift to life sciences. In particular, life sciences to support
 SEI.

 As you point out, micro-g folks tend not to appreciate things like
 centrifuges that disrupt their environment. Even having astronauts
 onboard all the time is going to disrupt the micro-g environment, which
 is why I said that by the time we get to PMC, most of the micro-g folks
 will probably have moved off to man-tended free flyers. It's not that
 as a result of restructuring they're no longer accommodated, and it's not
 that NASA has told the Appropriations Subcommittee to go to hell. It's just
 that a manned platform doesn't serve the micro-g communities needs as
 well as a man tended platform does (from a micro-g environment standpoint).

>It therefore is now life science first and formost with microgravity
>as available.

 In fact, it's a micro-g platform first and foremost, to be phased over
 to life sciences as the micro-g folks move off and as SEI starts asking
 for more data.

 Of course up to this point we've been talking about the phasing as
 planned to date. We may run into a situation, given the "go as you pay"
 approach, where we hold at MTC for an extended period. A few cuts in budget
 requests here, a few negative launch margins there -- not to mention another
 shuttle -- accident, and this whole discussion is irrelevant.

>   Allen

===============================================================================
 Ken Sheppardson                                  Email: [e-mail]
 Space Station Freedom Advanced Programs Office   Phone: [phone]
 NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton VA         FAX:   [phone]
===============================================================================

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

Date: 17 Apr 91 21:36:49 GMT
From: dog.ee.lbl.gov!hellgate.utah.edu!cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Earth/Moon formation

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Phil OKunewick) writes:
>   Several theories had been proposed about the earth/moon formation.
>The capture theory ... The moon-split-off-from-earth theory ...

Actually, the modern theory -- not universally accepted but rapidly gaining
ground -- is that the Moon is the result of a non-centered impact of a
Mars-sized object on Earth late in its formation.  The collision throws
out a huge splash of mantle material, some of which can easily end up in
orbit.  The orbit would start out quite elliptical, but tidal forces would
circularize it.  This explains why the Moon's composition resembles the
Earth's mantle closely, while being poorer in heavy metals than one would
expect from an independently-formed body.
--
And the bean-counter replied,           | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"beans are more important".             |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

End of SPACE Digest V13 #423
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