Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V13_4/V13_433.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #433

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 13 : Issue 433

Today's Topics:
           Commercial Space News ( 3 of 6)
            Commercial Space News (6 of 6)
            Why the space station?
              Re: Why the space station?
          Re: Government vs. Commercial R&D
             Re: NASA & Executive branch
             Re: Laser launchers
        Voyager pic's on the CD-ROMS at ames.archives

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]

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Date: 20 Apr 91 06:05:24 GMT
From: agate!bionet!uwm.edu!caen!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!zardoz.cpd.com!dhw68k!ofa123![e-mail]  (Wales Larrison)
Subject: Commercial Space News ( 3 of 6)

LOCKHEED WINS CONSTRUCTION CONTRACT FOR IRIDIUM SATELLITE SYSTEM
   It was officially announced Lockheed Missiles & Space Co. will
build the Iridium satellites for Motorola.  Apparently, Motorola had
selected LMSC back in January, but the letter of intent leading to a
formal arrangement to build the satellites was not signed until a
week or so ago.  This delay in the signing of a letter of intent was
reportedly driven by intense negotiations between the two firms to
establish relative roles and the LMSC participation in the program.
   LMSC will send a team of designers to Motorola's Satellite
Communications site in Chandler, AZ to begin the Iridium spacecraft
design and start planning for the production of the system.  LMSC
has committed to a new facility to be co-located in Chandler to
support the Iridium program, and which will work like a "skunkworks"
in developing the satellite.  While conflicting data has been
reported, it is believed the baseline Iridium satellite bus will be
produced at LMSC's existing facility in Sunnyvale, CA and the
Chandler facility will be used to do final assembly of modular
satellite components - including parts produced by Motorola and a
yet-unnamed communications payload subcontractor.
  Key factors for the LMSC win of this contract were given to be
Lockheed experience in rapid product development from the company
"skunkworks" operations, modular construction and other
manufacturing techniques developed for the LMSC "Frugal-sat"
spacecraft bus, and a willing of LMSC to act more as a partner than
a traditional subcontractor. Lockheed will commit at least $50 M to
this venture, but will share in any future profits. At the Lockheed
annual shareholder meeting, Lockheed Chairman Daniel Tellep claimed
participation could bring in up to $1 B in 1994-1999 revenues.
  [Commentary: The first shoe has dropped on the Iridium deal.  As
was rumored, LMSC got the satellite construction contract.  Next
will be the satellite antenna contractor, then the launch contractor
for launch of the 77 satellites in the Iridium constellation.  Rumor
is McDonnell-Douglas will get the initial launch contract, but this
is on hold until the LMSC/Motorola contract is finalized.  OSC has
been claiming they think they won this contract, but the betting
money is on McDonnell-Douglas for their ability to launch multiple
Iridium satellites with a single launch.
  As I've previously stated, this is a big win for LMSC, since it
gets Lockheed into the commercial satellite business in a big way.
The significance Tellup placed upon the venture at the Lockheed
shareholders meeting and in later discussions with financial
analysts surprised me. He claims Iridium alone increases the
percentage of Lockheed's non-defense revenues from about 25% to
almost 42% by the end of the decade.  A big impact on Lockheed.
  LMSC is also pushing for the Small ELV contract with a system
derived from their experience with ICBMs.  If they succeed there as
well, they can offer a "one stop" service for small satellites and
launch services - with a very strong market position to offer this
service to their existing DoD customers.
   But the Iridium program still has a lot of risk in it - primarily
from the need to still get the required compatible frequencies and
get operating licenses for a global cellular communications system -
and the establishment of an international consortium or organization
to fund and operate the constellation.  I have not seen any recent
activities here, and this is the most difficult and critical area
for the Iridium concept.  Actions at the upcoming WARC will be
critical and should provide more insight into the viability of the
Iridium venture.]




--
Wales Larrison
Internet: [e-mail]
Compuserve: >internet:[e-mail]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Date: 20 Apr 91 06:09:43 GMT
From: agate!bionet!uwm.edu!wuarchive!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!zardoz.cpd.com!dhw68k!ofa123![e-mail]  (Wales Larrison)
Subject: Commercial Space News (6 of 6)

NOTES TO READERS (THANKS FOR COMMENTS!)
  Many thanks to the folks who responded to my request for
suggestions on how to improve these postings. I got 25-30 replies,
which I figure is about 2500-3000 readers (at a typical readership
poll response rate of 1%). I'm trying to incorporate as many
suggestions as feasible. (If I don't incorporate it, I'm probably
still trying to figure out a way to do it easily...)
  The comments included:

"Add a blank Line between paragraphs to improve readability"
    - will try to comply - within message length limits.

"Make it shorter (more info, fewer words)"
    - Agree.  Unfortunately, I may plead Mark Twain's comment here
      ("I apologize I didn't have the time to make it shorter...")

"Fewer, but longer postings (multiple articles in each posting)"
"More posts, with shorter topics (single articles in each posting)"
    - Hmm.... will try to limit number of postings at any one time
to a half-dozen or less.  Am also investigating ways of getting
around the 60 line limit at my tie-in node.  If I can get around
this, then I will post one medium-length single posting with news.
If I can't get around this, I'm forced to stick with a half-dozen or
so postings at one time.  Still working on this.
  For a short term fix, the message tagged "1 of N" has an index -
and if it is read first, it gives a map to the rest of the messages.

"More info on microgravity and materials research - need to find
other markets"
    - Agree.  I'll try to dig up more information on topics other
than comsats and launchers. But they are 90% of the current market
and much of the available info only covers these...  I'll see what I
can do.

"More focus on investment and finances"
    - I'll try.  This is an area I've been struggling with due to
my limited available time to dig out, grind the numbers, and come up
with a coherent analysis.

"Try not to spilt paragraphs and sentences across message pieces"
    - Agree.  Will try to comply, but may still have do it
occasionally, if I can't lick the 60 line per message limit.

   Thanks to all those who responded. (:D)

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Wales Larrison                          Space Technology Investor
grosse tete et peu de sens




--
Wales Larrison
Internet: [e-mail]
Compuserve: >internet:[e-mail]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Date: 21 Apr 91 00:04:36 GMT
From: sdd.hp.com!news.cs.indiana.edu!ariel.unm.edu!triton.unm.edu![e-mail]  (John Prentice)
Subject: Why the space station?

Below is a cut down version of the weekly "What's New" column from
the American Physical Society.

> WHAT'S NEW, Friday, 19 April 1991                  Washington, DC
>
> 2. PRIORITY SETTING WAS THE THEME OF A SENATE HEARING ON THE SSC.
> Senator Wendell Ford (D-KY) mercilessly browbeat Allan Bromley,
> the White House Science Advisor, in an attempt to elicit relative
> priorities among science initiatives.  Bromley never flinched; he
> insisted that all Administration programs should be fully funded.
> Nico Bloembergen was under no such restraint.  Testifying for the
> APS, he reaffirmed the APS position that SSC funding should not
> come at the expense of individual investigator support--but then
> he went on to propose how both could be funded: take it from the
> manned space station.  That, he said, would not be a setback for
> science.   [additional stuff deleted (not relevant to this)]
>
> 3. SPACE STATION FREEDOM WAS DESCRIBED AS "A GIANT STEP NOWHERE,"
> by Bruce Murray of the Planetary Society, which supports manned
> space exploration.  In a Senate hearing, he said Freedom puts
> humans at risk for mundane purposes, fails to meet user goals and
> portends financial disaster for the US civil space program.
>
> Robert L. Park  [phone]      The American Physical Society.


The American Physical Society is the main professional organization
for physicists in the U.S. and is not exactly a minor player.  Judging
from the reactions to the space station that I have heard out of
physicists, I would have to say that there is a wide spread feeling
that the space station is a boondoggle (alot of them feel the same
way about the SSC by the way).  The segment from the Planetary
Society suggests the same thing.  I am curious what arguments supporters
of the space station have to counter these objections.

To expand on the comments in the "What's New" segment, some of the
objections of the scientific community are 1) the space station serves no
significant scientific purpose and 2) at a time that scientific
researchers are experiencing severe funding shortfalls, while
American science and technology continues to slip is relation to
our trading partners, and while education in the U.S. is an
uncontested failure, why are we willing to spend enormous sums on
a space station which will not address these problems except in
the most oblique of ways?  I have wrapped a bunch of objections
together in the second statement, but these are the sorts of comments
one hears.  So, comments?

John

P.S. - I would prefer people post their comments.  I don't really
want to get into e-mail debates.  Besides, I don't wish to *debate*
the merits of the space station at all, I just want to hear
arguments in support of the space station which talk specifically to
the concerns of the scientific community (such as those I have paraphrased
here).

I apologize if this hashs old ground, I don't regularly follow this
newsgroup.  If it is old ground, just ignore the posting.
--
John K. Prentice    [e-mail] (Internet)
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA
Computational Physics Group, Amparo Corporation, Albuquerque, NM, USA

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

Date: 21 Apr 91 02:20:03 GMT
From: usc!rpi!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Why the space station?

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John Prentice) writes:
>> 3. SPACE STATION FREEDOM WAS DESCRIBED AS "A GIANT STEP NOWHERE,"
>> by Bruce Murray of the Planetary Society, which supports manned
>> space exploration...

"Supports" is a thundering half-truth if there ever was one.  The Planetary
Society supports unmanned exploration very strongly, but the only manned
project it likes is Mars Or Bust.

(Actually, Mars And Bust would be a better description.)
--
And the bean-counter replied,           | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"beans are more important".             |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 18 Apr 91 15:13:41 GMT
From: wuarchive!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!unix.cis.pitt.edu!pitt!nss![e-mail]  (Paul Blase)
Subject: Re: Government vs. Commercial R&D

To: [e-mail] (Herman Rubin)

>> >> NS> If understand your point, it is that government money is
>> >> NS> needed, not necessarily government lab work.
>> >>
>> >>More than just government money, rather a market for the first product
>> >>from a technology.

 HR> There is a third source, which USED to be very important.
 HR> Private research efforts, and non-government non-profit
 HR> funding, constituted a major part of the research effort in
 HR> this country before WWII, and this should be done again.  We
 HR> must get rid of governmental control of research, and
 HR> government funding has provided government control in too many
 HR> areas.

The basic problem is that the development costs are so high that no private
sector agency can afford or (more realistically) desires to take the risk.
Private sector operations prefer to operate with known technologies, or
at least with those technologies that promise a fairly quick commercial
payoff.  Look at superconductors as a good example.  For years, nobody did
much work on them, they were too expensive to use.  Now that the new
ceramic compounds promise large commercial payoffs, there is a lot of
private-sector work going on (as well as a lot of government-funded work).

 HR> Instead, we are getting government limitation and government
 HR> disincentives into the private sector, and government direction
 HR> of research.  I do not even think the government should do much
 HR> interfering with development, but neither government
 HR> bureaucrats nor anyone else should try to direct research. --

Please don't forget that I was distinguishing between basic research and the
application of that research to a usable product.  BTW, why shouldn't
government agencies direct research? They are the ones that will be paying
for the results.  (I think that what you meant is that they shouldn't be
interfering in research with which they are not directly associated, either
as a client or a sponser - and I do not see very much of this, except in the
areas of environmental and safety regulation).

--- via Silver Xpress V2.26 [NR]
--
Paul Blase - via FidoNet node 1:129/104
UUCP: ...!pitt!nss!Paul.Blase
INTERNET: [e-mail]

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Date: 19 Apr 91 17:42:55 GMT
From: mintaka!think.com!linus!philabs!ttidca![e-mail]  (Reid Kneeland)
Subject: Re: NASA & Executive branch


Of course I know how our government works.  We have a system of
"checks" and "balances".  This means that the government can write
huge "checks" against negative "balances".

Ob-Space:
The pertinence to this newsgroup should be obvious.

=====================================================================
Reid Kneeland
[e-mail]  (that's MISTER [e-mail] to you!)
{csun,retix,philabs,psivax,pyramid}!ttidca!reid
Transaction Technology Inc., Santa Monica, CA [phone] x2499
The opinions expressed above do not necessarily etc etc...

Never trust a man who can count to 1,023 on his fingers.

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

Date: 20 Apr 91 07:22:37 GMT
From: wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!unixhub!slacvm![e-mail]  (Jon J Thaler)
Subject: Re: Laser launchers

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:
>* Rocket fuel is primarily used to lift rocket fuel, not payload.
>  Given this, rocket fuel turns out to be much less than 10% efficient.

I don't think this is correct.  Over a big range of payload mass fractions
about 50% of the chemical energy is turned into final payload kinetic energy.

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

Date: 20 Apr 91 15:26:38 GMT
From: swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ub!ubvmsc.cc.buffalo.edu![e-mail]  (Mark A Wieczorek)
Subject: Voyager pic's on the CD-ROMS at ames.archives


    Has anyone been viewing the pictures on the CD-ROMS in
ames.arc.nasa.gov? I'm trying to find out how to convert
the format of the browse pictures (which is .IBG) to GIF. Has anyone
been able to do this. One of the posts to this news group said to
uncompress the full resolution pictures into FITS format and
then convert this to whatever you want using pbmplus. Well how do
you uncompress these pictures to FITS. If anyone has the source code,
knows where to get it, or has any ideas on getting IGB to GIF
please Email me.

Thanks,
Mark Wieczorek
v096my2q@ubvms

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End of SPACE Digest V13 #433
*******************