Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V13_7/V13_734.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #734

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 13 : Issue 734

Today's Topics:
            SPACE Digest V13 #617
                 Dark matter
        UHF TV All over the Dial (Solar Flare)
               Re: Freedom Cost
           Re: Regular postings of Sky + Telescope
                  Re: (none)
            Grandiosity == Vulnerability?

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: Thu, 13 Jun 91 13:51:16 EDT
From: [e-mail] (John Sahr)
Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #617

   From: [e-mail]
   Newsgroups: sci.space
   Date: 8 Jun 91 05:55:45 GMT
   Reply-To: [e-mail]
   Distribution: world
   Organization: The Internet

>   Re : Future of energy and materials (was asteroid mining)
>
>   >There are multiple possibilities in the wings for new energy sources
>   >when the oil runs out (various forms of nuclear and solar power
>   >have nearly unlimited potential; obstacles of cost can be
>   >confidently predicted to be overcome if a strong incentive is there).
>
>Quite idyllic, if untrue.
>
>SOLAR ENERGY, besides being inefficient (on Earth, but then, who's
>going to build solar-energy collectors in space witout asteroids?) are
>dependent on clouds, lack of space, and night.  Very good for passive
>use, but then, solar will never power cars, trucks, planes, heat (and
>cool) large builidngs, toast bread, run refridgerators, refine metal,
>etc, on Earth.

Solar power (I assume you mean photovoltaic power) has been used to
power cars, refrigerators, and there isn't any reason it couldn't be
used to "toast bread."  PV does require a shift in thinking; because
the power source is expensive, it behooves one to look for energy
efficient uses.  Only a fool considers electric baseboard heat a good
use of energy, for example.  Heat pumps, "waste" heat, better
insulation, and heat storage systems are much better ways to heat
buildings.  For simple commuting purposes, PV power makes a very
elegant car possible.  Granted, you can't get in the car, hit the
freeway, and go 350 miles at 100 kph, but you can get in, and cross
town 2 or 3 times a day, at lower speeds.

>        HYDROELECTRIC has already been exploited, in the U.S.
>to it's fullest extent, unless one advocated wholesale destruction of
>living space (for people, too) by putting multiple dams on a river,
>creating the dreaded Bloated Locks look.

Actually, there is quite a bit more hydro power available,
unfortunately it is from streams which are quite variable, which
complicates turbine design and management.  The Columbia River has
been "damned" from the Canadian border to the Pacific, except for one
small stretch near the Hanford Reserve.  There is no hydropower being
generated on most of the _already_ dammed rivers on the east slope of
the Cascades, including the Yakima, Tieton, Naches, American,
Wenatchee, and Cle Elum Rivers.  These rivers are dammed for provision
of irrigation water, and as a rule, the water is taken out well
_below_ the dam, so that the entire head is available for power.  It
seems a shame to dam these rivers and flood their valleys without
taking power at the same time.  We are talking multi GW of capacity
for these small-medium size rivers.

>  WIND is
>a great energy source.  In windy areas.  Few and far between, when you
>add in the necessary inefficiencies of kinetic-to-electric conversion.

What electric power source _isn't_ kinetic to electric?  Hydro power
turbines are actually pretty efficient, for example.

The only area of the United States with a significant lack of wind
power resource is the American South.  The northern plains states
would all be substantial exporters of electricity if they relied
exclusively on their wind resource.  North Dakota alone has four times
as much wind power available as its own electric consumption.

>OIL, is of course, limited.  Current arguments seem to be "We don't
>look for reserves we don't need, and when we had to look, they were
>always there."  Admittedly, this is fortunate, but hardy proof that
>"It always will be there" And, for the 'developing nations' to
>develop, they will need industry, which requires high-density-energy
>(oil), so the demand will only increase.
>
>Just because these sources are in the wings doesn't mean they will
>ever leave the wings.
>
>Are there other long-term energy sources that can compete with oil
>that I've forgotten?

Well, yes.  Conservation is the single largest "new" energy source
available to the United States.  The effective generation potential
due to conservation is huge, and dwarfs the energy that is supposed
to exist in the proposed Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Tune into sci.environment and sci.energy...

-john

John Sahr,                   | Electrical Engineering - Space Plasma Physics
[e-mail] | Cornell University,         Ithaca, NY  14853

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

Date: 11 Jun 91 16:52:04 GMT
From: uupsi!cci632!ritcsh!ultb!ritvax.isc.rit.edu![e-mail]  (Scott W. Davis)
Subject: Dark matter

I was just wondering...

        What's the latest news on astronomy's continuing search for the
nature of dark matter? I've heard all kinds of wild theories;from brown dwarves
to black holes to massive neutrinos. Has perhaps the IRAS data conclusively
revealed the existance of brown dwarves? Have the WIMP's finally been found?
Or are there supermassive black holes at the center of most galaxies?

    Comments please...


__________________________________________________________________________

Scott W. Davis
Rochester Institute of Tecnology
e-mail in%"[e-mail]"

Semper Paratus!    --Coast Guard Motto
__________________________________________________________________________

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

Date: 14 Jun 91 04:18:06 GMT
From: usenet.ins.cwru.edu!bgsuvax![e-mail]  (Bruce Klopfenstein)
Subject: UHF TV All over the Dial (Solar Flare)

I was working in my home office and turned on the portable TV,
no cable around midnight 13/14 June in Bowling Green, OH.
I was picking up UHF TV stations on virtually EVERY channel.
Incredible.

--
Bruce C. Klopfenstein          |  [e-mail]
Radio-TV-Film Department       |  [e-mail]
318 West Hall                  |  [e-mail]
Bowling Green State University |  [phone]; 372-8690
Bowling Green, OH  43403       |  fax [phone]

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

Date: 12 Jun 91 20:15:56 GMT
From: ogicse!sequent!muncher.sequent.com![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Freedom Cost

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Dani Eder) writes:

An analysis of Fred costs, including:

>Life Cycle Cost
>    Program Funding    $68B
>    Launch costs (160 shuttle launches
>        @ $340M each=$54.4B
>    NASA personnel costs @ 20% of above
>        = $25B
>    Total                    $147.4 billion

The Shuttle cost is way off.  A Shuttle flight costs $900 million.
This gives us a total life-cycle cost of $237.4 billion.
By comparison, total life-cycle costs for Apollo were $120 billion
in 1990 dollars.  It looks like even the GAO is making a gross
underestimate, and NASA is blatantly lying.

It is truly sad that 4 astronauts in an Earth-hugging 28 degree orbit
cost more in the 1990s than putting astronauts on the Moon did in the
1960's.  Far from giving us leadership, NASA and its space station
have become a symbol of American mediocrity.   Please, NASA, wake
up and cancel this monstrosity now!


--
Nick Szabo                [e-mail]
"If you understand something the first time you see it, you probably
knew it already.  The more bewildered you are, the more successful
the mission was." -- Ed Stone, Voyager space explorer

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

Date: 13 Jun 91 14:48:09 GMT
From: cis.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!uwm.edu!caen!sdd.hp.com!mips!bridge2!molehill.ESD.3Com.COM![e-mail]  (Michael McNeil)
Subject: Re: Regular postings of Sky + Telescope

[e-mail] writes:

>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
>(Tom McWilliams) writes:
>> Re: Sky and telescope postings
>> This thought just occured to me.
>>
>> Would anybody be interested in regular factoids from Sky + Telescope
>> magazine, similar to what Henry does with AW&ST?
>>
>> BTW, does any one know the legal situation of such an idea?  (assuming
>> anyone's interested, of course).

>    Yes Please.
>    No idea on the legal aspects (too nice a guy to be a lawyer :-).

Shouldn't it be posted in sci.astro?

>Pete Smith

--
Michael McNeil            Mail: [e-mail]
3Com Corporation        News: [e-mail]
Santa Clara, California        Work telephone: [phone] x 5-208

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

Date: 13 Jun 91 18:32:40 GMT
From: elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!sdd.hp.com!think.com!rpi!crdgw1!gecrdvm1![e-mail]
Subject: Re: (none)

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (David
Lowe) says:
>
>     Later Mr. Rubin states:
>
>> A single American billionaire attempted to build an
>> ecologically sound, and eventually to be profitable, enterprise
>> on a part of Brazil, where the Jary River flows into the
>> Amazon.
>
>     On the Jari River, Daniel Ludwig cleared--largely by
>burning--250,000 acres of ecologically diverse virgin rainforest
>and replaced it with a huge cellulose and rice farm.  This was
>ecologically sound?  Remember that description the next time you
>hear a libertarian decrying government interference.  Do we want
>to trust these people to knock large pieces of comets and
>asteroids around near-earth space?  For more information on
>Ludwig's environmental disaster see _The Invisible Billionaire_
>by Jerry Shields.
Didn't he also give up after years of trying to make a successful
business?
Of course, there's also the amazingly successful (ha ha) twin
attempts of Ford to create rubber plantations in the amazon.
Then again, this sort of failure is not limited to private
enterprise, as witnessed by the Brazilian government's efforts
on the trans-amazon highway.

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

Date: 13 Jun 91 23:46:44 GMT
From: tristan![e-mail]  (Loren Petrich)
Subject: Grandiosity == Vulnerability?


    There was a very remarkable historical precedent that may
well indicate what will work well and what will not in space
exploration. I forgot where I saw it discussed; can anyone help me?

    It is the exploration of distant lands in centuries past. More
specifically, about 500-700 years ago. Compare two separate groups
exploring distant lands by traveling across the broad ocean.

    The first of them was China, which sent a "Treasure Fleet" of
some fairly big ships to most of the accessible world, from India to
Japan. I remember the name of the eunuch admiral Cheng Ho in this
connection. They traded in a wide range of expensive goods -- precious
metals, precious stones, pearls, spices, fine cloth, you name it. But
then, one day, the whole operation was shut down. A new dynasty had
come to power, whose leader was heavily influenced by the more puritan
of Neo-Confucians and who evidently had no taste for extravagant
luxuries. Many of their sages had come from relatively poor
backgrounds; one way of demonstrating worthiness was to write a long
essay, a task which does not require great wealth. Thus, a certain
distaste for wealth. China would no longer rule the waves, and would
even become dominated by foreigners in the centuries to come.

    The second of them was Europe, which was growing stronger and
stronger and which was more than recovering from the collapse of the
Western Roman Empire.It was, however, divided into antagonistic
powers, which would fight each other incessantly. Several strong
national monarchies had emerged, notably in England, France, Spain,
and Portugal. Even the Western Christian Church, which carried on the
Roman Empire's ideal of a centralized government, was soon to be split
by the Reformation.

    The Portuguese were the first big explorers, hoping to find
some alternative route to India and China. So, they painstakingly
tried going farther and farther around Africa until they made it
around. The Spaniards, not wanting to be outdone, tried a daring move.
Some daredevil navigator named Cristoforo Colombo had the idea of
going westward to reach India and China. Though the idea was sound in
theory, as was known even then, there would still be a vast stretch of
unknown territory to pass through. But Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain
wanted to compete with the Portuguese, and they let this navigator
have the pick of the local prison population. They voyaged outward,
and discovered what they thought was India. In fact, it was a
previously unknown continent. Unlike the case of China, the various
expeditions of trade, conquest, and colonization had several
supporters, many of them private individuals or corporations (the
joint-stock corporation was invented at about this time). It was
evident that no change of regime could put an end to all the efforts
to trade with and dominate India and China, or to conquer and settle
the New World. Although Spain, Portugal, and even Holland, eventually
went downhill, this process did not affect the other colonizing
nations, or even the colonies themselves, one of which grew to be as
powerful as several European nations put together.

    I think Paul Kennedy discussed something similar in his _Rise
and Fall of the Great Powers_(?).

    And how does this lesson relate to space exploration? So far,
there have been only two big space-exploring nations, the United
States and the Soviet Union, though the two are now starting to feel
competition from a coalition of European nations and from China. Japan
may not be very far behind. The nature of the various
space-exploration efforts and the support they have received are what
is critical here. We may make a distinction between unmanned and
manned space programs, since unmanned ones do not require the effort
needed to keep astronauts alive and to recover them. All except the
largest of unmanned missions are smaller and cheaper than any typical
manned mission.

    Unmanned space efforts have been pursued ever since the
beginning of space exploration, and they fall into the following
principal categories:

Research
    Earth's magnetosphere
    Deep space
Surveillance
    Weather
    Earth resources
    Intelligence gathering
Communications
Navigation

With the possible exception of research, all of these are continuing
concerns, and there is a broad base of customers for many of them.
There is already a large number of satellites in geo-synchronous orbit
serving as communications relays, for example. The United States has
competition in its Earth-resources program from France with its Spot
program.

    Since unmanned satellites are usually small, their launchers
are also relatively small, making it relatively easy for a company to
enter the launch business. Some private companies have started to do
just that, and the Pegasus system in particular has attracted a lot of
interest. Someone I know is hoping to get a test payload aboard a
Pegasus because of a much smaller lead time compared to the Shuttle
and much less margin of safety being necessary, since there are no
astronauts to be endangered.

    Manned programs are rather different. Both the United States
and the Soviet Union got into their manned programs as an effort to
acquire political prestige. The Soviets were first, scoring a series
of successes: first satellite, first passenger (a dog), first
astronaut, first group of more than one astronaut, first woman. Soviet
successes in outer space were such a humiliation that John F. Kennedy
announced an effort to land a man on the Moon before the end of the
decade. Thus was born the Apollo program, which actually accomplished
that goal. The Soviets also aimed for that goal, as James Oberg's
researches have made clear, though they did so in secret and they
later claimed to have had no interest in landing a man on the Moon.
The Apollo program scored success with the landing of Neil Armstrong
and Edwin Aldrin on the Moon in 1969. It was cut short by three
missions, the last being Apollo 17 instead of Apollo 20; extra Moon
landings probably seemed superfluous from a prestige standpoint. It is
claimed by some that Richard Nixon, who was President during Apollo's
successes, had a grudge against JFK and his pet project; he had lost
the Presidential election of 1960 to JFK. Nixon had come from a poor
family and had gone to a small college; he had a life-long resentment
of the privileged folk who had gone to places like Harvard and Yale.
JFK had come from a glamorous and aristocratic family; they were
practically professional celebrities.

    The next step was to try to establish a quasi-permanent manned
presence. The Soviets have done that, fairly quietly, for the last
couple decades with their Salyut and Mir space stations. Though these
are rather small and uncomfortable affairs, these have made it
possible to study the problems of living in zero-g for several weeks.
Skylab was a similar effort, but it did not last very long. NASA had a
grand proposal as its next step, a space station with a space shuttle
to supply it. But in the mid 1970's, NASA only got the money to build
the Shuttle, which it advertised as cheap access to outer space.
Unfortunately, it proved to be not-so-cheap and without a "real"
mission. Its need to carry astronauts has been an actual impairment;
the powerful Centaur upper stage never got the go-ahead for the
Shuttle cargo bay because of safety concerns, for example. Thus, the
Galileo spacecraft has had to go on a loop-the-loop trajectory to
Jupiter. The Challenger explosion was a very severe setback; for over
a year, the Shuttle was out of service.

    And what of the space station, Freedom (Fred, for short)? Its
estimated cost is about $100 billion or thereabouts, though if it is
ever built, the cost may well go much higher than whatever the initial
estimate was. But its design was saddled with problems. It jiggled too
much for microgravity experiments and astronomical instruments, and it
produced too much gas for high-vacuum experiments. And it was
estimated to need a LOT of maintenance, which would require LOTS of
spacewalks. The shrunken design ("Ed"?) now proposed is a bare-bones
design with little by the way of experiments. Without any good reason
to exist, it is perhaps fortunate that part of Congress voted to cut
it outright.

    There is a clear lesson: a big program done out of prestige is
vulnerable to a change in political power. If the new administration
does not like the trappings of the old one, then the big program is
doomed. That was apparently the case for the Chinese "Treasure Fleet"
and for the Apollo program. Both the Neo-Confucians and Richard Nixon
may have been resentful of others' great wealth and glamor. Resentment
of extravagant prestige programs has been an objection to the space
program expressed by many others, however, and Richard Nixon may not
be alone :-).

    The most successful programs to date are relatively small
ones, the unmanned ones mentioned earlier. Like the early European
explorations, these have had an abundance of long-term supporters, and
individual failures or political misfortune have had relatively little
overall effect. Difficulties with the Shuttle have led commercial
satellite companies to seek out other launch vehicles, like the
Ariane. They are also relatively invisible politically, seldom
becoming a big issue like the Shuttle or the Space Station.

    The Shuttle has been a big disappointment, and the Space
Station is turning out to be a total dud. However, smaller-scale
launch services, like the Ariane and Pegasus, are doing well, and many
private companies have been proposing space systems, like the Iridium
one. When is the next launch of Pegasus, and what customers are lined
up for it?

    Any comments?


$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster: [e-mail]

Since this nodename is not widely known, you may have to try:

[e-mail]

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

End of SPACE Digest V13 #734
*******************