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Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #494

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 13 : Issue 494

Today's Topics:
         NASA Headline News for 05/01/91 (Forwarded)
           Launch Advisory for 05/01/91 (Forwarded)
             Re: Government Laboratories
                Shuttle Costs
               Re: Gas Guns and Tethers
              Re: SPACE Digest V13 #476

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: 1 May 91 17:34:25 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Headline News for 05/01/91 (Forwarded)


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

  Wednesday, May 1, 1991    Audio Service: 202 / 755-1788

This is NASA Headline News for Wednesday, May 1, 1991 . . .

Discovery's Blue and Red team, working together, this morning
successfully deployed the Shuttle Pallet Satellite at 4:17 am
EDT.  This SPAS is an improved version of the deployable and
retrievable satellite which was first used on STS-7 in 1983.  Discovery
thruster plume observations, to be made from the SPAS satellite,
have been rescheduled for later today as a result of the SPAS
having gone into a sensor-protection attitude following its deployment
this morning.  That maneuver protected the subsatellite's instruments
from inadvertent damage which might have been caused by their
pointing at the sun.  The thruster observations are required to be
performed while both teams are up, so they will occur later this
afternoon after the Blue Team wakes up.  Discovery is presently
about six miles behind SPAS.  SPAS systems and all the
instruments are performing properly.

Air Force and NASA flight controllers have been successful in
returning the Arizona Imaging Spectrograph to a fully-
functioning status.  The instrument, which is part of the Infrared
Background Signature Survey package mounted on the SPAS, had
experienced a switch failure and consequently couldn't tell where it
was pointed.  The experiment flight controllers were able to restore
the instrument by rewriting a portion of its software.

The Cryogenic Infrared Radiance Instrumentation experiment,
CIRRIS, has completed its series of high-priority observations.
Investigators concluded their CIRRIS experiments last night with
observations of the atomic oxygen phenomenon known as "shuttle
glow."  CIRRIS was calibrated following the last observation and is
now powered down.  The CIRRIS experimenters reported again on
the very high quality of the data being returned.

Orbiter systems performance continues to be exceptional, with
no anomalies reported by either the crew or the mission control team.
Discovery is scheduled to land at 2:57 pm EDT Monday, May 6,
at Edwards Air Force Base.

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

Columbia will be rolled out to launch pad 39-B just after
midnight tonight in preparation for its STS-40 flight.  The STS-40
terminal countdown demonstration test is now set for next Monday
and Tuesday, May 6 and 7.  The flight readiness review for the STS-
40 Spacelab Life Sciences mission will be held at the Kennedy Space
the following week, May 13 and 14.

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

Endeavour is expected to leave California, en route to
Kennedy, tomorrow.  The spacecraft, riding atop the new NASA 747
Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, will layover at Ellington Field, near the
Johnson Space Center.  JSC officials have invited the press and
public to examine both new vehicles tomorrow afternoon while
they are on the ground at Ellington.  Endeavour will arrive at
Kennedy's Shuttle Landing Facility on Friday, May 3, just before noon.
Endeavour's departure from California, arrival in Houston and arrival
in Florida will be covered on NASA Select TV.


Here's the broadcast schedule for Public Affairs events on NASA
Select TV.  Note that all events and times may change without notice,
and that all times listed are Eastern.

Wednesday, 5/1/91
    All day    Payload and crew flight deck activities, live from Discovery
          and flight controller activities, live from Johnson Space Center.
    1:15 pm    Magellan-at-Venus status briefing, live from Jet
          Propulsion Laboratory.
    2:00 pm    Flight director change-of-shift briefing, live from JSC.
    8:30 pm    Playback of STS-39 flight day 4 activities, from JSC.
    11:00 pm    Flight director change-of-shift briefing, live from JSC.

Thursday, 5/2/91
    All day    Payload and crew flight deck activities, live from Discovery
          and flight controller activities, live from Johnson Space Center.
    2:48 am    Playback of thruster plume observations, from Discovery.
    7:00 am    Flight director change-of-shift briefing, live from JSC.
    7:30 am    Playback of STS-39 flight day 4 activities, from JSC.
    10:00 am Departure of Endeavour atop shuttle carrier aircraft, live
          from Air Force Plant 42, Palmdale, Calif.
    3:00 pm    Arrival of Endeavour at Ellington Field, Houston, and
          arrival ceremony coverage, live from Ellington Field.
    3:56 pm    Payload bay views of Earth, live from Discovery.
    4:00 pm    Flight director change-of-shift briefing, live from JSC.
    4:33 pm    Payload bay views of Earth, live from Discovery.
    7:15 pm    Discovery thruster plume observations, live from SPAS
          satellite.
    9:00 pm    Playback of STS-39 flight day 5 activities, from JSC.
    11:00 pm    Flight director change-of-shift briefing live from JSC.


This report is filed daily at noon, Monday through Friday.  It is a service of
NASA's Office of Public Affairs.  The contact is Charles Redmond, 202/453-
8425 or CREDMOND on NASAmail.  NASA Select TV is carried on GE
Satcom F2R, transponder 13, C-Band, 72 degrees West Longitude,
transponder frequency is 3954.5 megaHertz, audio is offset 6.8 MHz,
polarization is vertical.

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

Date: 1 May 91 20:41:49 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Launch Advisory for 05/01/91 (Forwarded)

Barbara Selby
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                         May 1, 1991
(Phone:  [phone])

Rick Mould
University of Alabama-Huntsville
(Phone:  [phone])


JOUST 1 LAUNCH ADVISORY


    The launch time of Joust 1, a commercial suborbital rocket
carrying 10 materials and biotechnology experiments, has been
reset to Monday, May 6, at 7 a.m. EDT from Launch Complex 20 at
the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.

    A preflight press briefing will be conducted at 9:30 a.m. EDT
on Friday, May 3, at the Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39
News Center.  Both the briefing and launch will be available via
NASA Select TV, SATCOM F2R, Transponder 13, 72 degrees west
longitude.

    The Joust 1 mission is sponsored by the University of Alabama
in Huntsville's Consortium for Materials in Space (UAH CMDS), a
NASA Center for the Commercial Development of Space.  Orbital
Sciences Corp's Space Data Division, under a contract with the UAH
CMDS, will provide the rocket and launch services.

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

Date: 24 Apr 91 16:11:57 GMT
From: mips!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!unix.cis.pitt.edu!pitt!nss![e-mail]  (Paul Blase)
Subject: Re: Government Laboratories

To: [e-mail] (Nick Szabo)

 NS> In article <[e-mail]>
 NS> [e-mail] (Paul Blase) writes:
>>How many commercial markets were there <initially>
>>for rockets, aircraft, or radar?

 NS> First, let's define terms -- _market_ how the end
 NS> product/service is used, not the method used to produce the
 NS> product/service.

You seem to be forgeting that the government is <itself> the primary
market for the technologies produced by the government labs - primarily
the DoD and NASA.  These labs don't directly produce things for the
commercial markets, they release the results of their work for private
industry to use.

 NS> Government
 NS> attempts to invent 200 ton ball bearings and try to find a
 NS> market for them would be an extremely inefficient use of R&D
 NS> funds, since the market experts, private industry, have not
 NS> asked for such capability.

But, if the M1A2 tank requires a 200 ton capacity ball bearing, and there
is no such bearing commercially available, then the government had better
develop such a thing.  Especially if, assuming there is no commercial need
for such a beast, the private R&D facilities don't want to spend their
precious funds on something with such a small potential initial market.
(although, after it IS developed, commercial application have a tendency
to magically appear).

 NS> The statistics show that government
 NS> R&D has produced too many 200 ton ball bearings and not enough
 NS> of what private industry needs.

Again, the US R&D labs are not in the business of providing what private
industry needs - they are in the business of providing what the government
wants.  In some cases, primarily NASA, the government is in the business
of doing research into high-risk technologies that commercial facilities
cannot afford (I am primarily refering to the Aeronautics portion of 'NASA'
here, i.e. the ultra-high-bypass fanjet engines, laminar flow skins, and
fly-by-wire avionics that they have been developing).

 NS> If government were to
 NS> understand, through listening to private industry, what the
 NS> markets are and what improvements are most needed, government
 NS> R&D labs could justifiably say that they help the economy
 NS> through spinoffs.

Go check the definition of spinoff.  (nit-pick: if the government were
developing the technologies directly for the commercial sector, then they
wouldn't be spin-offs, would they).

 NS> Rocketry was always military or scientific until satcoms, but
 NS> clearly mail, passenger transport, civilian airplane tracking,
 NS> and speeding law enforcement are commercial markets.

The postal service is a government agency, as is the FAA.
[...]

 NS> One suggestion I have is to take several labs -- Ames, Sandia,
 NS> LLNL, and Lincolon Lab come to mind, but we could also create
 NS> new ones -- and place them under control of the Department of
 NS> Commerce.  There would be no side agenda; the sole purpose of
 NS> these labs would be creating new technology for industry.

 BUT where would you do the research that these laboratories currently do
 now?  Also, not a trivial point, who would determine the agenda for these
 labs?  BTW, although the labs that you mentioned do military work, they
 also do basic-science type stuff also.

Again, don't confuse doing basic research with the process of turning
the products of that research into a usable product.  The former requires
a fair amount of money and a good scientist.  The latter requires a LOT
of money, a good engineer, and a need. If these laboratories were working
on technologies for the commercial marketplace, they would be developing
KNOWN technologies for EXISTING problems (finite resources; infinite
number of problems).  There would be little incentive to persue those
technologies that have no visible current application.

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

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

Date: 28 Apr 91 22:50:17 GMT
From: unisoft!fai!sequent!crg5![e-mail]  (Nick Szabo)
Subject: Shuttle Costs

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>>The shuttle costs less per pound to orbit in adjusted dollars that the Saturn.
>
>Can we have some numbers, instead of flat (and frankly, somewhat unbelievable)
>statements?

"Unbelievable" is probably an understatement.  Here are the numbers derived
from _Space Mission Analysis And Design_, Wertz & Larson eds., Kluwer
Academic Publishers, 1991:

Total STS program costs as of December 1990: $36,000 million
Total STS flights as of December 1990: 38
Mean cost/flight:  $950 million
Max. payload/flight (fleet mean): 23,090 kg
Mean cost/max kg: $41,000
Mean cost/max lb: $18,700

A more accurate computation would amortize the costs over the STS
flights, instead of using a zero time cost of money as I have done here.
This would produce a slightly higher figure.   For comparision, Arianespace
makes money from Ariane 4 charging the GTO equivalent of $3,000/max lb.
to LEO.  Incremental and operational STS costs are also much higher than
normal for launchers, as Allen Sherzer has pointed out.

Do there exist any solid Saturn V figures?


--
Nick Szabo                [e-mail]
"Living below your means allows you to live better than living above your
means." -- Dave Boyd    The above opinions are my own and not related to
those of any organization I may be affiliated with.

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

Date: 3 May 91 02:59:13 GMT
From: jacobs.CS.ORST.EDU![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Gas Guns and Tethers

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>
>Theoretical problem 2) Remember my "Summary:" line about no boostrapping?
>As the shuttle climbs the tether, the space-station+tether descend a bit.
>Since we're dealing with a closed system, the centre-of-mass must remain
>in the same orbit.
>
>     The theoretical problems are where many "perpetual-motion machines"
>trip over reality. It takes X joules of work to lift a specific payload
>to a specific orbit. TANSTAAFL... There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free
>Lunch. Rather than a tether, how about a "Tower of Babel", reaching up
>to GEO ? Technologically impossible, but good for a sci-fi story or two.
>At least in the stories, you could take an elevator to the top. Where
>are you when we need you Monsieur Eiffel ?

How about this: the center of mass of a really *really* big two strand
grain elevator is located at geosynchronous orbit.  Mass sent up the
stalk is matched by mass coming down.  The outward end, I think, might
come close to swinging around with enough velocity to chuck things at
the moon.  Dense metals and zero-G/vacuum produced products come down,
supplies and colonists go up, matching masses.  I know, I know, the
structural problems are "insurmountable" and it has probably been
thought of before, but...

O (outer end)
 \\
  \\
   \\
    \\
     \\
      \\
       \\
    O (geosychronous)
     \\
      \\
       \\
        \\
         \\
          \\
           \\
        O (lower end)

                                  [e-mail]

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

Date: 3 May 91 14:28:12 GMT
From: sdd.hp.com!caen!news.cs.indiana.edu!maytag!watmath!watdragon!watyew![e-mail]  (James Davis Nicoll)
Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V13 #476

Tommy Mac wrote:
   Subject: Laser Launchers (summary).

   Dave wrote:
[somebody else wrote:]
   >> Get an ice cube (well, a big ice cube).  Hit it on one end with a
   >> laser.  The top millimeter or so undergoes a process sometimes
   >> called Laser Induced Detonation.  It more or less explodes ... []

   So in other words - We'd have a steam-powered rocket!

   So much for blasting the Satrun V for being 'old' technology  ;-}

    Hey, be nice to steam! Steam engines are a very useful tool
(Up there with the lever IMHO), and they'll probably be with us for the rest
of our technological lifespan (for sufficiently loose definitions of
'steam engine').

                            James Nicoll

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

End of SPACE Digest V13 #494
*******************