Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V13_7/V13_736.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #736

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 13 : Issue 736

Today's Topics:
              Re: SPACE Digest V13 #620
               Re: What's HUD?
               Re: What's HUD?
                   Re: Gold
      Re: Excavating (minig) gold in the space by NASA.
         GALILEO MISSION STATUS June 6, 1991
  MAJOR GEOMAGNETIC STORM UPDATE - LOW LAT. AURORAL UPDATE - 14 JUNE
               Re: Freedom Cost
               Re: What's HUD?

Administrivia:

    Submissions to the SPACE Digest/sci.space should be mailed to
  [e-mail].  Other mail, esp. [un]subscription requests,
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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 13 Jun 91 00:15:13 GMT
From: comp.vuw.ac.nz!waikato.ac.nz![e-mail]
Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V13 #620

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] writes:
> Re: processing in space
>
>>In the ice fragment
>>business scenario, most of the money needs to be spent not on the
>>capture itself, but on processing the comet material into various products
>>after it has already been delivered into earth orbit,
>  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> Is this the best way?  It's unsafe, for starters (Just becuase were off the
> Earth, did you think environmental problems don't exist? :-)
> And, presumably, you process this stuff because there are parts you don't
> want.  Why move the stuff you don't want, when there's no reason not to
> do the processing where you find it?
>
> Tom McWilliams
> Acknowledge-To: <18084TM@MSU>

    It's basically a question of economics (so are most things at some
level). Wether the costs (transport mining gear out, mine, transport good stuff
in) of transporting the mining equipement to the asteroid outways the costs
(transport asteroid in, mine, transport rubbish out).
    Transporting the mining geasr has costs in terms of time/ amount of
mining. The time to travel between asteroids will be a loss of money (options
include disposable mining gear or lots of mining gear). However the extra cost
of transporting the unwanted parts of the asteroid may exceed this (hence
choice would depend on the purity of the asteroid. The cost of mining at a
distance would also have to be concidered, teleoperation etc will be more
difficult at greater distances.
    The one other thought that occurs to me is that mining in earth orbit
will eventually pollute the space around our planet, thereby increasing the
problems in transit to and from it.

    This all of course pertains to a time when we have an established
mining infer structure. Before we can do this we need to learn the processes
involved and practice them. To practice them we need something to practice on.
This means we have two choices either practice on captured asteroids (ie.
develop the technology to capture these things to help us decide if this
technology is worthwhile) or on the moon. An experimental mine station on the
moon would be more useful if it was man-tended and as such a moonbase is an
obvious goal. I won't comment on the best method to establish this base here as
that is a seperate (and currently firey issue:-).

Pete Smith
Uni of Waikato (Y-cat-O)

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

Date: 13 Jun 91 00:26:33 GMT
From: hub.ucsb.edu!ucsbuxa![e-mail]  (Charles Frank Radley)
Subject: Re: What's HUD?



HUD is also the agency who accounting errors could fund the entire
Space Station program
:

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

Date: 13 Jun 91 00:29:50 GMT
From: hub.ucsb.edu!ucsbuxa![e-mail]  (Charles Frank Radley)
Subject: Re: What's HUD?



Before we privatise NASA, let's privatize VA.
The British National Health Service has started to massively
contract out its hospitals, it is saving a bundle.
  We already have the technology and capability to  build
privately funded hospitals, to be privately operated.
A much more viable proposition than privatizing NASA.

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

Date: 13 Jun 91 07:54:35 GMT
From: fernwood!csl!hercules.csl.sri.com![e-mail]  (William )
Subject: Re: Gold


>(closest point).  It apparently contains 10000 tons of gold and
>100000 tons of platinum, as well as 10 billion tons of iron and 1
>billion tons of nickel.  Its estimated worth was put at around 1
>trillion dollars.

Not to be negative, but this is about 0.0001% gold and .001% platinum.
Unless this is lying around in convient chunks (not very likely), the
fact that there is 20E6 miles of vacuum is only a small worry.  (similar
to the oft repeated fact that each cubic mile of seawater contains $$$$
in precious metals.)  Eventually (hopefully?) such rocks will be mined
primarilly for their nickel/iron content...

BillW

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

Date: 13 Jun 91 14:18:12 GMT
From: iggy.GW.Vitalink.COM!widener!dsinc!ub!uhura.cc.rochester.edu!rochester![e-mail]  (Paul Dietz)
Subject: Re: Excavating (minig) gold in the space by NASA.

[e-mail] (Kenneth J Meltsner) writes:

  >If you'd like some 1 ppm gold ore, I can probably get you some dirt
  >cheap right here on Earth.  In fact, while I don't have any specific
  >numbers handy, there's probably at least 1 ppm gold in sea salt.

The concentration of gold in sea salt is < .5 ppb.

[e-mail] (Fraering Philip) writes:

  Well, that's not quite it; when gold is mined from rock on earth,
  the gold is extracted from the rock, usually at a couple ounces per
  ton, and then the remaining ton of rock is thrown out.

  The process used to extract gold from nickel-iron would be the carbonyl
  process, and it may or may not be more efficient than some of the methods
  used here.

I expect that the terrestrial processes are actually cheaper.  The
process used on dilute gold ore, cyanide leaching, dissolves
submicroscopic gold specks out of a porous insoluble matrix.

In contrast, the carbonyl process removes the waste material, leaving
the valuable material behind.  The mass flow through the process is
much larger.

  Also, the residue from he process would be iron, not more useless
  rock. Any space mining done will have the bulk of the material used in
  space. Mining the rock referred to in the article would have the side effect
  of producing lots of gold.

This market does not exist, and won't exist for decades, if not
generations.  At 1ppm, you need to make a million tons of iron
to get 1 ton of gold.  This is orders of magnitude beyond
the mass launched into space so far.

An aside: it doesn't make sense to move an entire asteroid to earth
orbit.  In almost all terrestrial mining, it makes economic sense
to "beneficiate" ores at the mine before shipping.  This can be
as simple as crude processes based on density differences.

    Paul F. Dietz
    [e-mail]

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

Date: 13 Jun 91 14:59:09 GMT
From: infonode![e-mail]  (Jeff W. Hyche)
Subject: GALILEO MISSION STATUS June 6, 1991

GALILEO MISSION STATUS June 6, 1991

     The Galileo spacecraft is 68 million miles from Earth, making
the round-trip communication time 12 minutes, 9 seconds.  Speed in
orbit is down to 50,300 miles per hour, and the solar distance is
now 155 million miles.

     This week the sun moved to such an angle that Galileo's sun-
gate sensor once again could see the shadow of one of the antenna
ribs sweeping by as the spacecraft rotates.  This is how spacecraft
analysts originally estimated the position of the partially
deployed high-gain antenna; with indications from radio-signal and
other tests, this provides additional confirmation that the warming
maneuver conducted two weeks ago did not change the antenna's
position.  A greater degree of warming will be available in about
15 months; in the meantime, Galileo will cool gradually as it
recedes from the Sun.

     Otherwise, Galileo's health and performance are excellent. The
spacecraft is spinning at a little less than 3 revolutions per
minute and transmitting engineering telemetry data at 40 bits per
second.

                              #####
--
                                  // Jeff Hyche
    There can be only one!    \\ //  Usenet: [e-mail]
                               \X/   Freenet: [e-mail]

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

Date: Thu, 13 Jun 91 16:09:51 MDT
From: oler <@BITNET.CC.CMU.EDU:[e-mail]> (CARY OLER)
Subject: MAJOR GEOMAGNETIC STORM UPDATE - LOW LAT. AURORAL UPDATE - 14 JUNE
X-St-Vmsmail-To: st%"[e-mail]"

                       /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

                            GEOMAGNETIC STORM UPDATE

                       /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

                               22:00 UT, 13 June

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


STORM UPDATE INFORMATION:

     Major to severe geomagnetic storming has been observed over the past 12
to 18 hours (since approximately 07:00 UT on 13 June).  Storming intensified
after a second sudden magnetic impulse was observed at 06:52 UT on 13 June.
Activity since then has ranged from minor to severe storm levels.
Magnetopause crossings of several geosynchronous satellites was observed
between approximately 18:30 UT and 19:30 UT on 13 June, corresponding to a
major to severe geomagnetic activity period.  A Forbush decrease of between
10 to 15 percent has been observed with this disturbance.

     The A-indices for 13 June are at high-intensity major storm to
low-intensity severe storm levels (near 100).

     Geomagnetic activity is expected to begin subsiding later in the UT day
of 14 June, with a more complete return to generally active levels by 15
June.

     Auroral activity over North America on the evening of 12/13 June was
disappointingly low.  High levels of activity were observed over the
northerly middle and high latitude regions, but equatorward expansion and
luminosity of the auroral activity was insufficient to provide widespread
observations over the lower latitudes.  However, this may change on the
evening of 13/14 June.

     The Low Latitude Auroral Activity Warning remains in effect for the
local evening hours of 13/14 June (for North America, between approximately
04:00 UT and 12:00 UT on 14 June).  If the present disturbance persists long
enough, auroral activity over the lower latitudes may be possible.  This is
expected to be the last evening for a good chance to view auroral activity
over the lower latitudes.  The Low Latitude Auroral Activity Warning is
expected to be downgraded to a Watch (or possibly even cancelled) for 15
June.

     Ionospheric storming has strongly degraded HF radio propagation
conditions over the middle to low latitudes.  High and polar latitudes are
experiencing blackout conditions due to the ionospheric storming, and PCA
activity.  Conditions will gradually improve for the low and middle latitudes
later in the UT day of 14 June and throughout the entire day of 15 June,
while high latitudes will continue to experience fairly strong degraded
conditions.  A return to more normal ionospheric conditions is not
anticipated for the remainder of this week.


                       /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

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

Date: 11 Jun 91 13:54:24 GMT
From: ssc-vax!bcsaic!hsvaic![e-mail]  (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: Freedom Cost

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Matthew DeLuca) writes:
>
>Remember, Freedom was a <$10G program, too, when it started.  If EOS
>turns out to be more than that, does that mean you are a liar?  After all,
>you accused the NASA leadership of lying about Freedom costs back when
>they were calling it an $8G program.
>
>Alternately, can we consider the possibility that they made an honest
>mistake when they thought it was $8G?  Allen Sherzer just stated that
>EOS is a $30G program, so if he's right you'll need to make up your mind
>pretty quick.
>--

Having been on the Space Station Program from a month after Boeing
was awarded the Work Package 1 contract, and having been the person
responsible for the life cycle cost numbers at the time (I am no longer
with the Space Station program), Per haps I can shed some light on
this discussion.

The wide range of numbers quoted for the Space Station may all be
correct, because they refer to different costs.  Here are the
different types of cost:

Life Cycle Cost: The total cost of a program, including everything.
It is defined as Development Cost+Production Cost+Operations Cost.

Development Cost: All costs which are non-recurring, through the
first flight-ready unit.

Production Cost: Costs which recur on the 2nd through nth units.
Depending on the part of the space station, this varies in extent,
for example there will be about 200 equipment rack frames built,
so this item has lots of production cost, but the life sciences
glove box is a unique item, so it is all developmental, with no
production.

Operations Cost: Everything that happens after Development and
Production, i.e. launch, assembly in orbit, and use.  Most of
the life cycle is incurred here.

The above costs include everything associated with the program.
Now we come to costs which are defined by NASA accounting methodology
(i.e. which have no necessary connection with physical reality)

Program Funding: Those costs which appear as line items in the
NASA budget under the heading "Space Station".  This item excludes
NASA personnel salaries and costs of running the basic centers
(office realted costs).  Those costs appear under "Research and Program
Management".  This item also excludes the cost of launches, which
is under the "Space Shuttle" budget line.

Contracted Cost: This is the smallest number, it is the dollar value
of contracts let to prime contractors and support contractors
specifically for Space Station harware and services.  Contracted cost
is a subset of Program Funding, the difference being an internal
'tax' the NASA centers assess each program to cover the cost of
general purpose research and development equipment.  Examples of
such are: neutral buoyancy tanks, vacuum chambers, and test stands.
These items are used by multiple projects, so they are each assessed
a share in the cost of operating them.

Now for some examples:

Initial development cost quoted to Congress in 1984: $8 billion
Budgeted development cost in 1988, in 1984$:    $10 billion
Budgeted development cost in 1988, in
    then-year dollars (dollars spent
    in future years adjusted for expected
    inflation)                $16.5 billion
Program Funding over life of program
    (includes 30 years of operations)
    Development    $16.5B
    Production    1-2B
    Operations    $50B
    Total                    $68 billion
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

Percentage of total NASA budget attributable to Space
Station: $147.4/40years=3.685billion/year = about 25% of total
NASA budget (at present levels).

Dani Eder
Advanced Civil Space Systems

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

Date: 12 Jun 91 21:08:36 GMT
From: cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!ptimtc!nntp-server.caltech.edu![e-mail]  (Steinn Sigurdsson)
Subject: Re: What's HUD?

In article <[e-mail]>, aws@iti (Allen W. Sherzer) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>
>>>Not being a US citizen, I have no idea what HUD stands for. Could someone
>>>please enlighten me?
>
>>Department of "Housing and Urban Development".  These guys can build
>>2,000,000 houses on Earth for every one house NASA can build in space.
>

    Funny, I thought they concentrated on developing golf courses
in Palm Springs...




(recent local scandal - some wealthy town used HUD grants to develop a
golf course or functional equivalent thereof - not my idea of how to
spend tax dollars)

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

End of SPACE Digest V13 #736
*******************