Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V13_4/V13_437.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #437

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 13 : Issue 437

Today's Topics:
              Re: Why the space station?
   Proposals requested for Technology Transfer Centers (Forwarded)
           Re: Uploading to alpha Centauri
         NASA Headline News for 04/19/91 (Forwarded)
          MAJOR SOLAR FLARE ALERT - IMPACT EXPECTED
           Archive for Solar Flare Alerts?

Administrivia:

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

Date: 22 Apr 91 00:03:20 GMT
From: unmvax!uokmax![e-mail]  (Robert W Murphree)
Subject: Re: Why the space station?

Dear reader:

There is an article by James Van Allen, the almost always ignored by space
fanatics discoverer of the earth's radiation belt, in January 1986 or so
Scientific American on the merits and demerits of the space station.  read it.
The space station is practically useless for astronomy becase it 1) gives off
noxious gases and glows 2) it wiggles everytime a persons heart beats too much
for sub arc second pointing.  People have suggested free flyers  to patch this
up but basically you have to ask "why have a person in the loop in the first
place.  Some designs of the space station emphasize microgravity.  I have yet
to see that crystal growing or anything like it is of vital national interest.
The average time for a materials science project to go from first proposal to
flying time is probably over 5 years for the space shuttle and presumably the
space station.  If you've ever read much about materials science you realize
that 1 year is a very long time in this competitive science.  The augustine
report that came out last year recommended that the space station be descoped
and aimed at life sciences-a very long term investment.  Some people expect
NASA to give lip service to the report and then continue merrily along with
the status quo.

Actually the German physics association has condemned the space station.
Politically the space station is a necessity.  It is imposssible to get
elected president without the Texas-California aerospace vote.  NASA has a
vested interest in enormous (tens of billions of dollars) decade long projects
with men in them that cannot be backed out of by Congress once they are launched
A lot of people like it who are science fiction-space buffs because they
1) like to imagine themselves as astronauts 2) think that somehow the space
station is necessary to get the research done to allow people to one day
collonize the solar system and evenually the universe  or 3) think that even
though its useless scientifically its necessary to lie to the public in order
to recieve their political support for other more worth space ventures.
Basically alot of space scientists hate it-its basically a white elephant
as far as space science goes(my opinion).  As far as national competiveness
goes, its really hard to think of something, short of digging ditches and
filling them up, that when compared with materials science or manufacturing technology that is as usless as the  space station. Hope for the best (the
dismemberment of the space station project) but don't hold your breath.n

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

Date: 22 Apr 91 01:21:28 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Proposals requested for Technology Transfer Centers (Forwarded)

Barbara E. Selby
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
(Phone:  [phone])
April 16, 1991

RELEASE:  91-55

PROPOSALS REQUESTED FOR TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER CENTERS

      NASA has issued a request for proposals to establish six
Regional Technology Transfer Centers (RTTC), each funded at about
$1 million annually, to replace 10 Industrial Applications Centers
(IAC), whose contracts expire this year.

      The deadline for receiving proposals is June 17.  Selections
for negotiation for contract awards is targeted for late summer,
with the RTTCs expected to become operational early in 1992.

      The restructuring of the IAC program represents an effort by
NASA's Office of Commercial Programs, Headquarters, Washington,
D.C.,  to upgrade and revitalize the current network and is
intended to accomplish several objectives:

      * Broadening the geographical coverage of the network to
include all the contiguous states by establishing a regional
structure similar to the six Federal Laboratory Consortiums for
Technology Transfer (FLC);

      * Forming linkages with state and local government technology
transfer activities to leverage NASA's resources and avoid
duplication of effort;

      * Inclusion of all federal laboratories within the FLC in the
agency's technology transfer effort;

      * Establishing close ties with NASA's Centers for the
Commercial Development of Space in their respective regions, as
their technology "marketing" agent;

      * Providing a "full-spectrum" of services by all of the
network participants; and

      * Encouraging partnerships or consortia of universities and
state organizations within a designated region to represent that
region as one of the new RTTCs.

      Additionally, it is anticipated that the new regional
approach will align the centers closer to the needs of particular
industries, local businesses and entrepreneurs, and by establishing
a "presence" in each state in each region, be able to reach
prospective clients and market federally developed technology more
effectively.

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

Date: 20 Apr 91 09:30:31 GMT
From: sample.eng.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!uwm.edu!ogicse!intelhf!agora![e-mail]  (Carl Fago)
Subject: Re: Uploading to alpha Centauri

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Dani Eder) writes:
>
>The ultimate in apparent time dilation would occur if you travel to another
>star at the speed of light.  Now, how does one do this?  Imagine an improved
>scanning tunneling microscope that can tell you what atoms it is seeing.
>Freeze the crew solid, and scan their entire bodies atom by atom.  Then
>send a radio message reading "carbon,oxygen,hydrogen,hydrogen..." to a
>receiving station at the destination.  There a set of drexler-style
>nano-machines build a copy of the crew atom by atom.  Finally, you unfreeze
>the crew.
>
If one could pull this off over any distance (one inch to one mile or whatever)
it would have profound philosphical effects.  Namely that all we are is the
individual arrangement of atoms.  From that one could study the arrangement
to determine what makes for a person to be "alive".  Quite interesting!

--
+---------------------------------------------+------------------------------+
| *-=Carl=-*  INTERNET - [e-mail] |  A generation which ignores  |
|             DELPHI - WULFGAR                |  history has no past ---     |
| Carl Fago   Portland, OR                    |        and no future.        |

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

Date: 22 Apr 91 01:29:31 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Headline News for 04/19/91 (Forwarded)


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

  Friday, April 19, 1991    Audio Service: 202 / 755-1788

This is NASA Headline News for Friday, April 19, 1991 . . .

Final preparations for the STS-39 Department of Defense mission
aboard Discovery are nearly complete at the Kennedy Space Center.  The
launch team "call to stations" goes out tomorrow morning at 8:15, with the
actual countdown process beginning at 8:45 am tomorrow.
Commander Michael Coats and his six crewmates arrive at Kennedy's
Shuttle Landing Facility tomorrow evening at 6:30 pm.  Discovery's
payload bay doors will be closed for flight on Sunday.  Launch is
scheduled for 7:05 am, Tuesday, April 23.  This will be the ninth
shuttle mission with seven crewmembers.  STS-39 is scheduled to last 8
days and just over seven hours.

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

Goddard Space Flight Center flight controllers report that the Gamma
Ray Observatory is performing nominally with all onboard systems
fully functional.  The Burst and Transient Source Experiment and the
Oriented Scintillation Spectrometer Experiment now are both operating
continuously with their high voltage supplies turned on.  Controllers report
that both these experiments are performing normally.  The Energetic
Gamma Ray Experiment was activated with its high voltage supply for a
brief period yesterday.  The Imaging Compton Telescope is to be activated
with its high voltage power supply today.  Instrument calibration is
still scheduled to begin April 22 and to be completed in early May.
Goddard reports that solar array performance is better than expected.

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

Jet Propulsion Laboratory flight controllers are continuing their
detailed analysis of the problem which occurred when Galileo executed
the high-gain antenna unfurling sequence.  The sequence began at 3:50 pm
EDT on April 11, and was to have taken ten minutes to complete.  Data
received by the flight team suggest that the antenna is only partially
deployed.  JPL flight management emphasizes, though, that the
deployment difficulty poses no immediate problem for the spacecraft,
which is otherwise functioning perfectly.  Project management has
indicated another unfurling attempt could occur as early as next week.
Galileo is today 38 million miles from Earth and moving at a heliocentric
velocity of 61,000 miles per hour.

JPL Ulysses flight controllers report all systems continue to
function well on that spacecraft.  Ulysses is now closer to Jupiter than
it is to Earth.  On April 14 it passed the halfway mark in the first leg of the
journey toward its solar polar orbit.  Ulysses is now configured in a lower
data transmission rate to improve the quality of its signal during this leg of
the journey.  The spacecraft is now 253 million miles from Earth and
only 231 million miles from Jupiter.  It is moving outward at a heliocentric
velocity of 52,200 miles per hour.

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


NASA announced yesterday that the Ames Research Center and Terra-
Mar Resource Information Services, Inc., Mountain View, Calif.,
will jointly develop a system to allow firefighters to merge elevation
and vegetation data with live pictures of forest fires thereby enabling the
firefighters to see through a smoky forest fire and be able to plan
their fire fighting strategy.  Under this agreement, the data will be
available to firefighters in a matter of minutes, compared with the  6-to-12
hours it now takes.  The digital image of the fire will be transmitted from
an airplane flying over the fire to a mobile ground station near the fire
lines. The system will give firefighters a picture of the fire intensity and
borders, overlain with drawings of roads, water sources and map
coordinates. The 3-year project calls for NASA to expand existing
remote sensing technology and for Terra-Mar to develop portable
computer work stations and software.  NASA's Office of Commercial
Programs is funding the $600,000 project.  The agreement also provides
funding for the State of California to develop data bases on the state's
vegetation, roads and water sources.  The U.S. Forest Service Forest Fire
Laboratory will coordinate system testing and use during actual fires.

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.

Friday, 4/19/91
    approx. 12:00 pm    Replay of Senate Subcommittee on Science,
          Technology and Space (Albert Gore, D-Tenn, chairman) hearing on
          NASA Fiscal Year 1992 budget request and findings of the Advisory
          Committee on the Future of the U.S. Space Program.  NASA
          Administrator Richard Truly, other senior NASA Headquarters
          officials, and advisory committee chairman Norman Augustine are
          witnesses.
    approx. 3:00 pm    Possible replay of STS-37 flight crew post mission
          press briefing (taped from 10:00 am, 4/19/91).

Saturday, 4/20/91
    6:30 pm    STS-39 crew arrival at Kennedy Space Center.  Will be taped
          for replay on Sunday, 4/21/91.

Sunday, 4/21/91
    9:00 am    STS-39 launch countdown status briefing, live from KSC.
    9:15 am    Replay of STS-39 flight crew arrival at KSC, taped from 6:30
          pm, 4/20/91).

Monday, 4/22/91
    9:00 am    STS-39 launch countdown status briefing, live from KSC.
    9:30 am    Department of Defense STS-39 payload briefing, live from
           KSC.
    11:00 am    STS-39 pre-launch press conference, live from KSC.
    2:30 pm    Project and science teleconference on Hubble Space Telescope's
           first year since launch, live from the Goddard Space Flight Center
           (note:  this is audio only).

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: Sun, 21 Apr 91 02:38:28 MDT
From: oler <@BITNET.CC.CMU.EDU:[e-mail]> (CARY OLER)
Subject: MAJOR SOLAR FLARE ALERT - IMPACT EXPECTED
X-St-Vmsmail-To: st%"[e-mail]"

                        --  MAJOR SOLAR FLARE ALERT  --

                                APRIL 20, 1991

                              Flare Event Summary
                          Potential Impact Assessment


                                    --------



MAJOR ENERGETIC EVENT SUMMARY

     A large, long-duration flare ripped out of decaying Region 6583 on 20
April.  The flare began at 09:37 UT, peaked at 10:31 UT and ended at 11:24 UT
on 20 April.  The event reached a class X1.0/3N rating and was associated
with a long-duration 2,300 s.f.u. tenflare lasting for 69 minutes.  A
moderate to high-intensity Type IV sweep was observed with this event.  No
confirmed reports of HF SWF's have been received yet, although this is likely
due to a lack of coverage.  The flare occurred from Region 6583 at a location
of N08W50, a fairly sensitive location quite capable of producing terrestrial
impacts (see below).

     This flare was a very big surprise.  Although Region 6583 has maintained
complexity, it has not been flare-active and has actually been decaying.  A
major flare from this region was not anticipated, although a Potential Major
Flare Warning was still active at the time (and remains active), since this
region maintained a configuration capable of producing major flares.


POTENTIAL TERRESTRIAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT

     A terrestrial impact IS EXPECTED from this latest major flare.  No
significant protons have been observed from this event, although the
duration, intensity and size of this event is expected to produce a minor to
major geomagnetic storm.

     A magnetic SSC is expected to be observed coincident with the
interplanetary shock arrival, sometime near or after 21:00 UT on 21 March or
early on 22 March (UT time).  A minor to major geomagnetic storm is expected
to develope several hours thereafter.  Estimated planetary A-indices are 7
for 18:00 UT on 21 April, 16 for 00:00 UT on 22 April, and 40 for 18:00 UT on
22 April.  These are only rough estimates.  The actual values could exceed 60
if the storm materializes and is more intense than predicted.  However, if
the storm occurs as predicted, the intensity almost certainly won't exceed
the major storm which occurred one month ago in late March.

     A LOW LATITUDE AURORAL ACTIVITY WARNING has been issued for 22 and
possibly 23 April.  Auroral activity is expected to become high over the
northerly middle and high latitude regions.  The intensity of the activity
could be sufficient to produce visible auroral activity over the lower
latitudes, particularly after the moon sets in the early morning hours.  If
the storm materializes as expected, the auroral activity should be much more
impressive visually, than the major storm of last March due to the phase of
the moon.  The best views will be possible from a dark location away from
city lights and after the moon sets.

     Geomagnetic activity over the middle and high latitudes could be
sufficient to produce geomagnetically induced currents.  Organizations which
might be affected should be aware of the increased potential which will exist
on 22 and possibly 23 April.

     HF propagation conditions are expected to become degraded late on 21 or
early on 22 April in response to the arrival of the flare shock and the
accompanying induced geomagnetic and auroral activity.  Conditions are not
expected to be as poor as was observed in late March, although similar
conditions over many paths are possible.  No significant widespread HF
blackouts are expected, except possibly over the high and/or polar latitudes.
DX should still be possible, although to a limited and more localized extent.
However, expect possibly severe degradation in signal quality when attempting
DX on 22 and/or 23 April.

     There is a very good possibility for VHF auroral backscatter
communications on 22 and possibly 23 April.  Middle and high latitudes will
experience the highest probabilities for VHF communications on these days,
although the southerly middle and low latitudes could also experience VHF
auroral backscatter communications, particularly in the late afternoon and
near local midnight (use low-angle northerly-directed transmissions).

     Major flaring is not expected from Region 6583, although M-class flaring
will remain possible.  This region is not expected to be able to regenerate
itself to produce another major flare for at least another 24 to 48 hours (if
it regenerates at all).

     Watch for a potential Geomagnetic Storm Alert late on 21 or early on 22
April.


**  End of Alert  **

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

Date: 20 Apr 91 13:38:11 GMT
From: eru!hagbard!sunic!mcsun!ukc!harrier.ukc.ac.uk!hobby.ukc.ac.uk![e-mail]  (M.D.J.Bowyer)
Subject: Archive for Solar Flare Alerts?


Could someone tell me if the Solar Flare Alerts are held
on an archive.  If so, what is FTP or e-mail address.

Thanks.

--

Mark Bowyer, University of Kent at Canterbury.
E-mail: [e-mail]

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

End of SPACE Digest V13 #437
*******************