Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V13_5/V13_583.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #583

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 13 : Issue 583

Today's Topics:
      Re: Fred vs. Exploration: head-to-head competition
            Space bicycles anyone?
              Myopic Government
               Re: Saturn V and the ALS
               Re: Saturn V and the ALS
           Re: Gravity! What is Gravity? Try This!
             Re: R-100 and R-101
      Re: CD-ROM archive of radio images being collected

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
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Date: 17 May 91 16:23:11 GMT
From: swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Fred vs. Exploration: head-to-head competition

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>>Has it not occurred to you that no space
>>projects will ever see that funding if Fred dies?
>
>Congress said NASA wants X billion this year, we are only going
>to give them Y.  What do we cut?  SIRTF and AXAF?  Or Fred?  They
>chose Fred.  So yes, indeed, two quite valuable space projects have
>gotten their funding due to the death of Fred ...

Nick, one reason why I usually ignore your postings is that any debate
with you is full of these non-sequiturs and unannounced changes of topic.
The "funding" to which *you* were referring was the hypothetical $10G
peak Fred budget.  I stand by my comments:  no space project will ever
see that money if Fred dies.
--
And the bean-counter replied,           | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"beans are more important".             |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 17 May 91 09:42:39 GMT
From: fernwood!uupsi!sunic!news.funet.fi!fuug!funic!nntp.hut.fi!cs.hut.fi![e-mail]  (Harri Pasanen)
Subject: Space bicycles anyone?

I was just bicycling home yesterday and fighting the gravity on a modest
rise when this though grossed my mind.

Has anybody ever proposed space bicycles?

As to implementation, I don't know yet. Perhaps pedalling to operate some
spray pump for propulsion. More than half of the energy should probably
be stored for braking purposes - maybe the poor bicycling astronaut is
so tired after his trip he doesn't have the strength to slow down :-).

Anyone for some theoretical calculations?  (Attainable acceleration?)


Harri Pasanen

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Date: 17 May 91 06:30:13 GMT
From: agate!stanford.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!spool.mu.edu!sdd.hp.com!news.cs.indiana.edu!noose.ecn.purdue.edu!en.ecn.purdue.edu![e-mail]  (/dev/null)
Subject: Myopic Government


Freedom cancelled.  I am angry.

I hope Congress in their great wisdom has another plan for the
infrastructure of space that will see completion before I am dead
...

--
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Cogito ergo sum...|  Brent Irvine     ([e-mail])    |
| Bibio ergo sum... | These opinions are mine...as if they counted! :)  |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: 17 May 91 13:51:40 GMT
From: iggy.GW.Vitalink.COM!widener!hela![e-mail]  (Allen W. Sherzer)
Subject: Re: Saturn V and the ALS

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Doug Mohney) writes:

>>>Do you have any clue? Let me give you a few hints here: A) Translating the
>>>documentation and technical specs into English

>>The wife of a friend of mine could do it in a couple of weeks. There is
>>also no shortage of Soviet engineers who speak english to help when needed.

>Oh? Less manuals than the Apollo? Nice. Convenient.

Yes it is convenient. Of course if she is having problems, my parents
next door neighbor who is a professor of Russian can help out. We also
have an engineer here where I work who speaks it rather well.

Now that we have that problem out of the way...

>Since the Soviets haven't put a price tag on Soyuz or the engineers, I
>can't see how you can.

You should stay more current. I have spoken with the president of the
company which markets Soviet hardware in the US. Soyuz is available and
can be had for $50M each (presumably less in quanity).

>>Nobody said you can just stap your fingers. All anybody said is that
>>it can be done. As to support, ideas very much like this are indeed
>>finding support in Congress.

>The astronaut corps will fight it tooth and nail.

So we get new astronauts. Soyuz has an excellent operational record and
I don't see why a few astronauts should be allowed to strangle the
US space program.

>I don't blame them. Soyuz has
>poor orbital manuvering capability, no robot arm, no workspace.

Who cares? All we need it for is transport to the station. It has
shown itself to be very good at that task.

>We didn't think
>about rescueing satellites with Apollo tin cans. We couldn't with Soyuz.

Any satellite rescued by the Shuttle for return to Earth lost money.
We are better off keeping them there. As for repair, for about 40%
of the third year savings from an approach like this we can build the
OMV to get satellites. Then they can be repaired in a orbital dry dock.
This will save the taxpayers money instead of costing them money like
we do now.

>Rockwell International and Lockheed will sit idly by while you propose this
>money saving concept? Bahahah. Got some news for you. Their PR budgets are
>bigger than yours and Joe Penny-Pinching Congressman.

Sounds like we don't have a problem. If they transfer their PR budgets
to their development departments then they can build the hardware we
need.

As to Congress, you are correct; if we all sit here then we won't see
anything change. On the other hand, if we all push for an effective
program we can get it.

>I can't see DoD running SDI research in a Soviet tin can, for some odd reason.

Even as we speak the DoE is doing work using a Soviet military reactor.
They bought it form them. If SDIO doesn't want to use the available
hardware then let them build their own. They aren't worth holding up
everybody else.

>>Titan IV is compatable wiht the Shuttle. Some we can modify, some dock with
>>the space station. I'm sure some will be cancled but it will be worth it
>>since we will get orders of magnitude more science for orders of magnitude
>>less money.

>Compatable, compatable, compatable HOW? Volume and mass, yes. Manned research?
>No. Power for experiments, no. You need something to hook it to.

The Titan is just for transport. Experiments get power from the space
station. Crews go up on another Titan. If we have a HLV then both can
go up at the same time.

>Which space station are you docking with? The LLNL gasbag or Fred? You want to
>burn a couple of billion dollars worth of associated hardware along with the
>Shuttle, apparently.  Everything that has been designed for the shuttle
>bay, all the current MANNED labs.

There are no current MANNED labs. There are however lots of designs for
simple labs. Skylab is an existance proof that it can be done.

>Sure. You're going to ask people who were put on hold for close to 3 years
>post-Challenger to go back to the drawing board.

In some cases, yep.

>I want to see you say that to
>the grad students and professors you end up screwing over to save a few bucks.

You may consider billions 'a few bucks' but I don't. As to the professor,
it is HE who owes the explanation to me. He is the one spending my money
and holding up our efforts in space at the same time.

>Somehow, scrapping what we have debugged and starting from scratch and
>expecting a "Happily Ever After" Scenario is kinda bogus.

Since 90% of this plan uses off the shelf hardware I don't see how you
can justify this.

  Allen
--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Allen W. Sherzer |        Allen's tactics are too tricky to deal with      |
|   [e-mail]   |             -- Harel Barzilai                           |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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Date: 17 May 91 13:54:58 GMT
From: iggy.GW.Vitalink.COM!widener!hela![e-mail]  (Allen W. Sherzer)
Subject: Re: Saturn V and the ALS

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Frank Crary) writes:

>You mean "Put a Soyuz on an Atlas" the Soyuz (as well as the Progess
>unmanned resupply craft) masses only 7 tonnes.

I thought Soyuz was just a tad bit too heavy for Atlas. Thanks for the
correction; that will save another $100M per launch.

  Allen

--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Allen W. Sherzer |        Allen's tactics are too tricky to deal with      |
|   [e-mail]   |             -- Harel Barzilai                           |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: 17 May 91 14:48:36 GMT
From: agate!bionet!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!aurora.physics.utoronto.ca![e-mail]  (Christopher Neufeld)
Subject: Re: Gravity! What is Gravity? Try This!

I didn't know whether to send this email or post, but maybe we can avoid
a flurry of postings pointing out the same things.

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
> [ description of an experiment involving current flow through mercury
>   globes on a balance scale deleted          ]
>
>Has any one ever taken a ballon and rubed it in your hair and placed it
>next to lots of little cut up pieces of paper.  What happens to all the
>little pieces of paper?, they stick to the ballon.  If Earth was like a
>big balloon in space, and  was charged when it was formed it would have
>no way to discharge in the vaccume of space.
>
   It could still discharge. Atoms and ions leave the vicinity of the
Earth all the time. Those which have opposite charge to that of the
Earth would be more tightly bound, and would be less likely to escape
to infinity than those which have the same charge as the Earth. The net
effect of this is to reduce the charge on the Earth.

>Assume now that the Earth
>has a constent charge of massive proportions and that the heavy metals
>at the Earths core would pull all the lighter materials, dirt, sand, water,
>and me and you towards the center of the Earth.  Much like the little
>pieces of paper, these lighter materials are drawm torwds the heavy core
>of the Earth, But the charge of Earth is many millions of times more
>powerful than the charge of the balloon.  If you were to say take and
>reverse the charge of one of these particals, it would then repel away
>from the surface of the object it was previously attracted to!
>
   The electric field near the surface of the Earth is known. It's about
100V/m, and can be measured with an extremely high impendance voltmeter.
This field is not sufficient to polarize and attract macroscopic objects
with the observed force of gravity, and even were the effect strong
enough it would certainly not be dependent only on the mass of the bulk
object. Different objects have different polarizabilities, and this
would manifest itself as an inequivalence between inertial and
gravitational masses.

>Charged
>particals also have established magnetic fields, and so does the Earth.
>
   No, charged particles do not have associated magnetic fields in their
own rest frames. They have associated electric fields. Anyway, that's
not really the point. Diamagnetic "gravity" would be even smaller than
electrical polarization "gravity", and would be directed in the wrong
direction. Things would tend to "fall" towards the poles of the planet
if their susceptibility were of one sign, and towards space if it were
of the other sign (and there are examples of objects in both
categories).

>For all you research buffs out there, have fun with this experiment!
>I think you might find its resaults very interesting!?!
>
   But do it in a shielded room because that current flowing through the
mercury spheres is going to produce a slight Lorentz force in the
vertical direction because of the Earth's magnetic field. Also, be
careful of the mercury fumes. I can think of more interesting experiments,
or simpler ones to refute the claim given here.

>Newton was close when he said gravity was a constent force, but he never
>told what that force was.  Maybe if had only known Ben Franklin!
>
   That would have been a neat trick, as they were not contemporaries.
Now, can you explain how a many body system such as our solar system can
be consistent with observation (all planets and the Sun attract each
other) using electric charges, which, being mediated by vector bosons,
result in repulsive forces between like charges?

   Followups to sci.physics.


--
 Christopher Neufeld....Just a graduate student  | There no place like $FC58
 [e-mail]    Ad astra! | They're $FF69-ing my
 cneufeld@{pnet91,pro-cco}.cts.com               | every word! Send for a
 "Don't edit reality for the sake of simplicity" | free $A56E.

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

Date: 17 May 91 18:21:12 GMT
From: csus.edu!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: R-100 and R-101

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Clive D.W. Feather) writes:
>>... this flagship of socialist progress crashed
>>on a hillside in France with no survivors.
>
>There are several ex-R101 crew members who would be surprised to hear
>that...

Oops, my mistake.  There were a handful of survivors.
--
And the bean-counter replied,           | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"beans are more important".             |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 17 May 91 19:30:45 GMT
From: haven.umd.edu!uvaarpa!polaris.cv.nrao.edu!polaris.cv.nrao.edu![e-mail]  (Don Wells)
Subject: Re: CD-ROM archive of radio images being collected

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Daniel
Briggs) writes:

   ...The NRAO is currently collecting digital images of radio sources to
   be archived and distributed on a CD-ROM...  If you've got an image
   that you'd like to submit for the archives, send mail to Jim Condon
   ([e-mail]) for details on how to submit it...

You don't need to bother Jim with a query, because you may submit your
data via FTP. Just do anonymous FTP to fits.cx.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]
and then do 'cd radio-cdrom' followed by 'dir'. At the moment this
directory shows:

-r--r--r--  1 ftp      vlb        279360 Apr  1 18:33 3C405.VLBI
-r--r--r--  1 dwells   vlb          1703 Apr  1 18:46 3c405.tex
-rw-r--r--  1 dwells   vlb          1703 Apr  1 18:46 cdform.tex
-rw-r--r--  1 dwells   vlb          2866 Mar 13 13:57 readme.tex

The readme.tex says approximately what Daniel said in his posting; you
don't need it. Fetch the file cdform.tex. This is a form which gives
NRAO permission to distribute your data. The form is already filled
in, with entries which document the 3C405 (Cygnus A) image file which
is in the directory, a good example of what such a form should say
(incidentally, those of you who would like to have a 256^2 VLBI image
to play with could fetch the FITS file if you like).  Change the name
from 'cdform.tex' to something like '3c405.tex'.  Delete the JPL VLBI
information and substitute information which is appropriate for your
dataset. Now use the FTP 'put' command to copy your form into this
directory (yes, you will have write permission into this particular
subdirectory of the anonFTP server). Issue the 'binary' command to
switch to binary mode, and then copy your FITS file(s) into the
directory, with a command like 'put myfitsfile myobject.fit', where
'myobject' is something like '3c405'. Finally, send Email to Jim
Condon ([e-mail]) to inform him of your submission, and please
CC me ([e-mail]) in your message.

At the moment I have about 65_MB free in this partition, so if you see
that the directory has a significant fraction of that amount already
in it please alert me via Email ([e-mail]), so that I can move
the files to another place.  If you want to submit two or more
unrelated datasets (please do!), submit multiple forms so that the
PIs, textual explanations and literature references can be kept
separate.

NRAO will accept any FITS files of the radio sky which PIs deem to be
likely to be of general interest to the astronomical research
community.  If you have a dataset which you think is suitable, but it
is not in FITS form, and you feel unable to convert it to FITS, don't
despair. Send an Email message to me ([e-mail]) with an
explanation; I will consider whether I could convert it for you. If
your dataset is *BIG*, once again, don't despair. Send Email, and Jim
and I will consider it.

--

Donald C. Wells             Associate Scientist        [e-mail]
National Radio Astronomy Observatory                   [phone]
Edgemont Road                                     Fax= [phone]
Charlottesville, Virginia 22903-2475 USA            78:31.1W, 38:02.2N

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End of SPACE Digest V13 #583
*******************