Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V13_6/V13_659.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #659

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 13 : Issue 659

Today's Topics:
            Re: Latest Scoup on Dead Fred
             Re: Help for science writer
            What is erythropoetin?
            Re: New launch dates?
            Re: NASA and Criticism
             Re: Babies in Space
         Re: Self-sustaining infrastructures
           Re: Rational next station design process
      Re: Fred vs. Exploration: head-to-head competition

Administrivia:

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

Date: 30 May 91 12:37:04 GMT
From: cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!ox.com!hela![e-mail]  (Allen W. Sherzer)
Subject: Re: Latest Scoup on Dead Fred

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jim Bowery) writes:

>... a prominent has-been, probably George Brown

For those of you who are new to the net, a 'has-been' is somebody who
espouses views Mr. Bowery doesn't like.

BTW, didn't you work for Mr. Brown's election last year? A friend
of mine said he saw you running a phone bank in Mr. Brown's HQ just
before the election last year.

>Here is where it gets cute:  They'll take the $1.5 billion from
>space science instead of Fred.  By acting in conference, they
>can do it by fiat and off the record so no one can see who did what
>to who.

This is not correct. The conference may well agree to what Mr. Bowery
says but it will not be off the record. The resulting bill will go
to another vote in both houses; it will not be by fiat.

   Allen
--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Allen W. Sherzer |   DETROIT: Where the weak are killed and eaten.         |
|   [e-mail]   |                                                         |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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Date: 30 May 91 18:18:05 GMT
From: unmvax!uokmax![e-mail]  (Robert W Murphree)
Subject: Re: Help for science writer

[e-mail] (Kenneth Holden Chang) writes:

>This summer I'm taking leave of my regular persona of physics graduate
>student to be a science writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. I'd like
>some help from net people about possible article ideas as well as general
>comments about the state of science journalism. More specifically:

>1) Do you know of neato-keen areas of research that haven't been
>reported widely? If so, please a) tell me what it is, b) tell me who
>to talk with and and c) tell me the relevant journal articles.

>2) If they let me, I want to do a science column about simple things
>that 99% of the people on this planet never think about, such as
>how do you convince yourself that the Earth is indeed round and that
>it's not actually one big practical joke? Any ideas for such columns
>gratefully welcomed.

>3) What do you think about the media's coverage of science? Most
>people I know regard as pretty mediocre (I've generally heard
>favorable things about only Science News and Scientific American.)
>Science people complain journalists don't really understand what's going
>on and report something only if it is a "possible cure for cancer" or
>promises "to revolutionize our lives." I'd appreciate it if people
>could cite examples of good and bad science journalism. (Citations
>are sufficient; you don't have to send me the article.)

>Please reply through e-mail. If you do post, be sure to edit the
>header down to the relevant groups. (Sorry about the mass crossposting,
>but I did want to cover all of the fields.)


 >And thank you for your help.

 In reading through your last entry, I came up with the perfect idea
for an interesting subject for you to cover.  As an experiment in physics
and specifically momentum, line people up in a line each approximately
150 lbs each -three feet apart in a line 2000 feet long.  Find an
automobile weighing 2000 pounds and bring it up to 60 miles per hours
and when you strike the first person in line take your foot off the gas.
Figure your stopping distance and be sure to take into account the fact
that someone may get caught in your wheel well and figure in the friction
caused.  good luck!

My friend robert posted this for me.  I am totally responsible for posting
this.

signed
Mark McMillan, junior

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

Date: 31 May 91 04:23:52 GMT
From: cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!rex!rouge!pc.usl.edu![e-mail]  (Phil Fraering)
Subject: What is erythropoetin?

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

\The folks who put McDonnel Douglas/Johnson & Johnson out of the
/erythropoetin electrophoresis business in the mid-80's by coming up
\with a method for producing the stuff in bulk via genetic engineering.
/Previous to Amgen's breakthrough, purifying erythrpoetin in microgravity
\was considered promising, and prototypes were flow on the Shuttle by
/McDonnel Douglas.  Erythropoetin is as estimated $2 billion/year market.

Okay, let's go one step further:

What is erythropoetin?

Is it something to do with treating diabetes?

Phil Fraering || Usenet (?):[e-mail] || YellNet: 318/365-5418
Standard disclaimer, whatever a disclaimer is, applies.
''It hardly mattered now; it was, in fact, a fine and enviable
madness, this delusion that all questions have answers, and nothing is
beyond the reach of a strong left arm.`` - Larry Niven and Jerry
Pournelle, _The Mote in God's Eye_

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

Date: 30 May 91 08:34:59 GMT
From: zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!reed!glacier!thebox![e-mail]  (Dean Adams)
Subject: Re: New launch dates?

[e-mail] writes:

> The current launch date for ERS1 is 17th July 1991 at 03:46:41.00 C.E.T with
> a proviso retry date of 27th July at the same time.
>
> p.s. How do you intend to record the live coverage?

Thanks for that info!  Arianespace always provides a live satellite
feed for the U.S. for their launch activities...  Recently they have
been using either Westar-4 or 5, but it jumps around alot.  I always
like to record these things, it's usually pretty interesting.

I missed another one today though!  I've been trying to find the launch
time for the Delta/Aurora II flight, and instead I got to see a 5 second
reply 3 hours late on CNN.  Anybody know a good source for the U.S.
commercial launch dates & times?  I could really use that info...

BTW, NASA has finally rescheduled another Joust-1 launch attempt for
Wednesday, June 5, at 07:00am (EST).  Just like the last time, this
should be taking place during a shuttle mission...

-{ Dean Adams }-


--
TheBox Public Access Xenix - Gresham OR
[phone]  [phone]

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

Date: 31 May 91 04:07:29 GMT
From: sugar!taronga![e-mail]  (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: NASA and Criticism

[e-mail] (Jeff Lanter) writes:
> That's a good point.  However, I would have to imagine it's difficult for the
> planners at NASA to set big (or "good") goals for themselves, when their
> finantial backing can change like the shifting winds.

I think you have it backwards. They have lost their financial backing because
with no goals they haven't any way to sell their projects. If they couldn't
sell the real shuttle system, they should have dumped it and re-oriented
themselves rather than trying to get bits of it by lying about the relative
performance of rockets and a crippled fragment of the shuttle system.

> Despite what goals Reagan might
> have claimed to set for NASA, his followup in the funding department was
> less than adequate.  Bush is proving to be even worse.

Why should the president be setting these goals? Is he even aware of the
difference between what is possible and desirable? The only president
since Kennedy to have the foggiest clue has been Carter, and Kennedy only
seems to have managed it by deliberately looking for supercompetant
advisors.
--
Peter da Silva.  `-_-'  Taronga Park BBS  [phone]/n/8/1
 Taronga Park.    'U`       "Have you hugged your wolf, today?"

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

Date: 31 May 91 18:10:09 GMT
From: brunix![e-mail]  (Curtis Yarvin)
Subject: Re: Babies in Space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ron Carter) writes:
|In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Curtis Yarvin) writes:
|>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ron Carter) writes:
|>>A fetus floating in amniotic fluid is already experiencing nearly zero-G
|>>conditions, and has to resist no gravitational loads.
|>Balls.  Buoyancy is not antigravity.
|
|I never said it was.

Sure looked like it.

|
|>When you drop a wrench in a submarine, does it fall to the deck?  Or does it
|>just hang there?
|
|(I ought to flame you properly for getting the question completely wrong.)

Huh?  I was pointing out that the gravitational force on a child in an
amniotic sac, and the gravitational force on a child on a waterbed, are the
same.  Although buoyant force supports the outside of the body, completely
evenly, it does not support the inside.  Thus, bones, organs, etc. are
pulled into a normal configuration for Earth's gravitational field; like a
wrench in a submarine, they descend, because they are denser than the
material around them.

Babies in amniotic sacs do not suffer the calcium loss, rush of blood to
the head, or displacement of organs, experienced by astronauts.

|If I raise my arm and drop it when I'm in air in 1 G, it falls
|very quickly, and the bone takes significant linear and torsional
|stresses while supporting the arm.

Balls again.  If you drop your arm at 1G in air, the bone experiences no stress at
all - it's in free fall.  Until it hits the dissecting table.

|>A baby in the amniotic sac experiences the same gravitational load as a baby
|>lying in a parking lot.  The difference is that, in the former case, the force
|>which opposes gravity is buoyancy, which is well-distributed over the body
|>surface and thus causes minimal stress.  The same effect could be achieved
|>by immobilizing the critter and placing it on an ideal contour couch.
|
|Immobilizing someone is not under consideration, and would have
|effects of its own.

It's an ANALOGY, dink.  If I told you that anesthetizing someone has the
same effect on their consciousness as smacking them upside the head with a
spanner, would you think I'd proposed firing all anesthesiologists and
replacing them with wrench-trained auto mechanics?

Look.  We both seem to know the physics here, even if neither of us can get
it across to the other.  And nobody knows anything else; it's all just
huffing and puffing and academic speculation.  Let's cut this thread where
it stands, until someone does some experiments and we have some real data to
pontificate on.

c

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

Date: 27 May 91 16:32:03 GMT
From: usc!cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Self-sustaining infrastructures

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Frank Crary) writes:
>>Kind of dubious, since their useful lifetime usually *is* limited by fuel.
>>They need it for precision station-keeping.
>I had thought component failures were also a major factor in the lifetime
>of a geostationary satellite. Is this not, as well as station-keeping fuel,
>an issue?

It's an issue, but fuel is often the limiting factor.  Note that there was
some excitement a couple of years ago when Comsat Corp. developed and
patented a new stationkeeping technique that reduced fuel consumption
and hence lengthened satellite life a bit.

>>Another issue here, by the way, is that satellites fuelled by hydrazine also
>>suffer from slow degradation of the catalysts they use to break it down in
>>their thrusters.  So just refuelling them has limits.
>I would think this would limit the length of time the fuel could be stored.
>A small tank, frequently re-filled, would not be storing the fuel for long.

No, the problem is in the *thrusters*, not the tanks.  The engines themselves
wear out.  You'd have to replace the whole attitude-control system eventually.

>>>... Can anyone comment on the viability of a
>>>for-profit Low Earth orbit infrastructure for the purpose of re-fueling
>>Minimal.  It's always in the wrong orbit...
>Even a one-shot re-boosting craft might be viable, I would think. For
>example, a very small craft, launched on a Pegasus booster...

Yes, I am inclined to agree.  But stationing it in orbit is not useful.

>As far as deliberately-established constellations go, it was my impression
>that some of these (NavStar/GPS for example) required alot of station keeping

I don't have numbers, but would be somewhat surprised.  The Navstar birds are
far enough up that they shouldn't suffer much from air drag.

>>Refuelling geostationary comsats would be much more promising.
>Yes there might be a market, but would you not also have the problems of
>flying quite close to other communications satellites...

A concern, but not a terribly serious one.  There are satellites in transit
along Clarke orbit fairly frequently, since launch constraints often make
it easier to launch a bird into a spot that bears no particular relation
to its operational location, and then move it.

>>...The low-orbit birds are usually specialized, and often would
>>be of little value to anyone other than their owners...
>I can think of several Soviet generals who would pay alot for close up
>photographs of and/or small parts from a salvaged USAF reconisance
>satellite.

I can think of a lot of US generals who would make sure that your salvage
mission never got off the ground.  Remember that the Office of Commercial
Space Transportation can veto any US launch that is not "in the national
interest".  (You thought they could stop launches only for safety reasons?
Ho ho.)  Regardless of where you operate from and who supplies your launches,
I can think of few more effective ways to commit commercial suicide, glasnost
or not.

>Also, what's wrong with reactivation an abandoned satellite and
>selling it back to its owners (assuming no one else wants it?) ...

Low-orbit satellites aren't standardized enough that the owners could just
put it back into production.  When it was abandoned, the team running it
will have been dispersed, and even the facilities may not exist any more.
You'd really have to do this by prearrangement to have any hope of making
much money off it.
--
"We're thinking about upgrading from    | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
SunOS 4.1.1 to SunOS 3.5."              |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 28 May 91 12:46:56 GMT
From: cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!hela![e-mail]  (Allen W. Sherzer)
Subject: Re: Rational next station design process

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (George William Herbert) writes:

>...I don't know if it's feasable to handle lab animals for that long purely
>by machinery.  Reinserting IV test lines etc. by teleoperation is an (as far
>as I know) untested idea... I'd count this as of questionable practicality.

I'm sure Nick would volunteer to be the test subject given his confidence
in the field. Anybody want to stick a needle in Nick by remote control?

:-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-)

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

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

Date: 28 May 91 17:18:04 GMT
From: mojo![e-mail]  (Doug Mohney)
Subject: Re: Fred vs. Exploration: head-to-head competition

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Herman Rubin) writes:

>We need diversity, and not direction by bureaucrats or ignorant Congress-
>people.  The funding should not come from taxes, but from those who wish
>to invest or donate to the cause.  There will be cooperation between the
>various groups, as there is now, and there will not be the problem of
>trying to get majority support, or even convince politicians.

Thanks, but I'd prefer not to add space zeleots <sp> to the other junk mail and
phone calls I get.

The system we have now ain't perfect, but it, in a fashion, works. And I can't
see any private set of individuals gathering up $1 billion for two
Voyager-class probes, nor maintaining infrastructure for 15+ years to collect
all the data.

Some projects are going to need governmental support and funding, and the
knowledge which results should go into the public domain. I think it would be
unseemly to have Corporation XYZ putting out bids for the TV rights to the
landing of the <privately financed> Mars Rover. Access to the data? Sure.
Can your University come up with the $50,000 access fees?

     Signature envy: quality of some people to put 24+ lines in their .sigs
  -- >                  [e-mail]                        < --

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

End of SPACE Digest V13 #659
*******************