Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V13_7/V13_777.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #777

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 13 : Issue 777

Today's Topics:
               ESA Press Release No.22
              Re: anti-gravity?
         NASA Headline News for 06/19/91 (Forwarded)
         NASA Headline News for 06/18/91 (Forwarded)
      Re: Excavating (minig) gold in the space by NASA.
      Re: Excavating (minig) gold in the space by NASA.
             Re: Access to Space

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

Date: Fri, 21 Jun 91 09:59:33 SET
From: [e-mail]
Comment: CROSSNET mail via MAILER@CMUCCVMA


Subject: ESA Press Release No.22


  ESA Press Release No.22; Paris, 19 June 1991

  METEOSAT-2: TEN YEARS IN ORBIT

  19 June 1991 marks the tenth anniversary of the  launch of Meteosat-2,
  the second in the series of European Weather Satellites.  Designed for
  a 3-year  life in  space, Meteosat-2   remarkably is   still producing
  imagery perfectly after more than three times as many  years in orbit.
  It will actually be able to take a "10th-Birthday" and final image.

  Launched on 19 June 1981, at precisely  12:32:59 U.T.   on an Ariane-1
  launcher,  Meteosat-2 was  already eagerly   awaited by   the European
  meteorologists, who had  been using  the services  of the experimental
  Meteosat-1, launched in November 1977.

  Meteosat-2  began service  on 12  August 1981  and it  was the primary
  satellite for   exactly seven   years, until   11 August   1988,  when
  Meteosat-3  took  over.   In  the  last  three  years,  three Meteosat
  satellites have been launched:  Meteosat-3 in June 1988, Meteosat-4 in
  March 1989 and Meteosat-5 in March 1991.  The latter two were financed
  and are   owned by   Eumetsat, the   European organization   for  thel
  exploitation of meteorological satellites.

  Meteosat images are know to hundreds of millions of Europeans, who are
  used to seeing them  every day  on their  televison weather forecasts.
  The images sent to the ground every thirty minutes have been used from
  the very beginning to derive each day "meteorological  products", such
  as sea-surface temperature  maps and  cloud coverage  data.  These and
  other products  are now  routinely fed  into the   meteorological data
  networks.

  The Meteosat satellites measure  2.1 metres  in diametre  and they are
  3.2 metres high.  6ft.11in.  x 10ft.6in.  - mmsY  Spin-stabilized and
  of a mass, in in-orbit, of 320 kilogramme 700 pds.  -  mmsY, they all
  have been built by a European industrial  team headed  by Aerospatiale
  (France).

  Meteosat-2 will be de-orbited in a few weeks,  liberating its position
  in the crowded geostationary orbit for another spacecraft,  and ending
  the life of one of Europes's longest living satellites.

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

Date: 20 Jun 91 04:02:39 GMT
From: aunro!alberta!ubc-cs!van-bc!rsoft!mindlink![e-mail]  (Ed Meyer)
Subject: Re: anti-gravity?

> [e-mail] writes:
>
> Msg-ID: <[e-mail]>
> Posted: 18 Jun 91 22:57:59 GMT
>
> Org.  : MIT AI Laboratory
> Person: Marvin Minsky
>
> In article <[e-mail]>
> [e-mail] (Brett Kottmann) writes:
> >
> >       A researcher in Scotland has developed a device that harnesses
> >gyroscopic energy to lift a device against gravity--antigravity...
> >
> >       In demonstrations, the apparatus lifts against gravity (it is
> balanced
> >beforehand with an equal weight via balance arm).
>
> Well, this is good for a contest.  Balances are easy because one can
> make the required lift arbitrarily small.  So you can use
>
>    a surreptitious airflow
>    how 'bout running current through an electromagnet fied along the
> balance arm.  this will produce torque in the earth's field.  (Called
> a "dipping needle".
>    simply putting a few KV of DC between the hardware and the balance
> is almot sure to deflect the beam one way or the other, unless the
> environment is symmetrical.

Marvin, it seems to me that a long time ago there was a clamor about something
called (I believe) a "Dean Drive."  It was supposed to use derivatives of
acceleration (and higher derivatives) to do its non-reactive accelerations ...
or something like that.  Well, the last I heard about it was just before they
were going to try the device on a ballistic pendulum.  Guess what, ....   :-)
So, maybe the good-ole ballistic pendulum-type test should be tried on this
device.

   Ed Meyer

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

Date: 22 Jun 91 01:11:53 GMT
From: att!pacbell.com!news.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Headline News for 06/19/91 (Forwarded)


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

  Wednesday, June 19, 1991      Audio Service: 202 / 755-1788

This is NASA Headline News for Wednesday, June 19, 1991 . . .

Atlantis was rolled from the orbiter processing facility to the
vehicle assembly building early this morning.  Stacking of
Atlantis onto its external tank is presently underway.  Rollout to
launch pad 39-A is expected to occur by Monday, June 24.  Atlantis'
payload, the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite-E, is already on the
pad, in the payload changeout room, and will undergo a health
check tomorrow, and will be fueled on Friday and Saturday.

Pad A will be the only shuttle launch facility for the remainder of the
year as Pad B has been taken off line for a series of needed repairs and
refurbishment, including upgrades to the pad environmental control
system and the hypergolic servicing system.  The work is estimated to
cost $3.3 million, and is timed to coincide with the period when
Columbia will be back at Rockwell's Palmdale facility for its upgrades.
Columbia is presently expected to arrive at KSC's shuttle
landing facility by the weekend, pending enroute weather, for post-
landing servicing.  It will be ferried back to Palmdale around August
for the Rockwell refurbishment.

Following Atlantis' TDRS mission, the next NASA payload scheduled
for launch is the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, which is
presently undergoing baseline functional testing at KSC.  As
part of the tests, UARS technicians have deployed the high gain
antenna boom and will be checking its motion today.  Tomorrow,
technicians plan on installing the high gain dish and testing the
ensemble.  UARS is currently set for launch aboard Discovery in
September.

The flight director, mission manager and flight crew briefings for
Discovery's upcoming STS-43 mission will be held next
Wednesday and Thursday at the Johnson Space Center.  The TDRS
briefing will be at 9:00 am EDT, Wednesday, June 26 and will be
followed by the crew briefing at 9:30 and then round-robin crew
interviews.  The flight director and other payloads briefings will occur
on Thursday, June 27, beginning at 9:00 am.

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

Shortly after 7:34 am EDT yesterday, and only 25 seconds into the
flight of the Prospector/Joust-1 mission, the Eastern Test Range safety
officer destroyed the vehicle after the Prospector deviated from its
planned trajectory.  A statement from  the University of Alabama-
Huntsville payload team, issued this morning, said recovery efforts
for the Joust-1 payload will not be renewed.  The payload was
apparently destroyed upon impact into the Atlantic Ocean after
separating from the Prospector rocket during the launch attempt.
Small pieces of debris determined to be part of the payload were
retrieved by a recovery ship.  An Orbital Sciences Corp. review
board has begun an investigation into the cause of the mishap.
OSC was contracted by UA-H to provide the launch vehicle and launch
services.

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

The STS-40 post flight crew press conference will occur next
Friday, June 28, at 2:00 pm, at the Johnson Space Center.  The STS-
40 crew will present film highlights of their pace-setting life sciences
experiments mission and will also describe the post-flight medical
protocol which four of the crew will have recently completed.


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.
indicates a program is transmitted live.

Wednesday, 6/19/91
          1:00 pm Magellan Sciences Seminar from Jet Propulsion
          Laboratory, taped last week.

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
3960 megaHertz, audio is offset 6.8 MHz, polarization is
vertical.

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

Date: 22 Jun 91 01:06:19 GMT
From: att!pacbell.com!news.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Headline News for 06/18/91 (Forwarded)


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

  Tuesday, June 18, 1991        Audio Service: 202 / 755-1788

This is NASA Headline News for Tuesday, June 18, 1991 . . .

Shortly after 7:00 am EDT, and only seconds into the flight of the
Prospector/Joust-1 mission, the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
range safety officer destroyed the vehicle when the Prospector launch
vehicle began to wobble.  It was undetermined if the Joust-1 payload, a
nosecone with 10 materials and biotechnology experiments, was
successfully jettisoned and is recoverable.  A briefing on the mishap
and subsequent investigation was to have begun at 11:30 am from the
Kennedy Space Center press site.

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

Meanwhile, KSC orbiter technicians are getting ready to roll Atlantis
from the orbiter processing facility later tonight to the vehicle
assembly building for stacking.  Atlantis' payload, the Tracking and
Data Relay Satellite-E, is already at launch pad 39-A awaiting arrival
of the vehicle.  Work on Discovery is also progressing toward that
orbiter's planned launch this September to deliver the Upper
Atmosphere Research Satellite into orbit.

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

The flight director, mission manager and flight crew briefings for
Discovery's upcoming STS-43 mission will be held next Wednesday and
Thursday at the Johnson Space Center.  The TDRS briefing will be at
9:00 am EDT, Wednesday, June 26 and will be followed by the crew
briefing at 9:30 and then round-robin crew interviews.  The flight
director and other payloads briefings will occur on Thursday, June 27,
beginning at 9:00 am.

The STS-40 post flight crew press conference will follow on Friday,
June 28, at 2:00 pm, again originating from JSC.  The STS-40 crew will
present film highlights of their pace-setting life sciences experiments
mission and will also describe the post-flight medical protocol which
four of the crew will have recently completed.

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

The Ames Research Center reports that tests are currently underway
on an F/A-18 fighter aircraft in the 80-by-120-foot wind tunnel at
Moffet Field.  This is the first full-scale aircraft to be tested in the
world's largest wind tunnel.  The research activities are seeking to
understand how the fighter performs at very high angles of attack and
is part of the NASA aeronautics program's High Alpha Technology
activities.  The High Alpha Technology program integrates
supercomputer capabilities, ground-based experiments using wind
tunnels and flight simulators, and flight tests of a specially equipped
F/A-18 fighter.  The wind tunnel tests on the F/A-18 are scheduled to
run for 12 weeks using the Navy-supplied fighter.

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

Ames also reports that more than 35 media pursued the "asteroid
hitting Yucatan" story through the center's facilities and staff.  Ames
and Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists had shown, earlier last
month, that there was strong evidence pointing to a giant meteorite or
asteroid impact in the northwestern Yucatan peninsular area about
the time of the disappearance of the dinosaurs.  The evidence has been
published in appropriate scientific journals and has created a rather
large media following.

Ames also reports that their educational programs officers visited more
than 30 schools in western states last month and hosted several score
of students at Ames facilities as part of their Aerospace Encounter
program.  The center also presented programs to more than 780
individuals at the annual Children's Fair in Portland.

The Stennis Space Center reports that it hosted nearly 3,000 visitors
last week and conducted a Summer Reading program for 70 youngsters
at the West Biloxi library.

Stennis also reports they have provided economic and general program
information about Stennis activities to the Hancock Chamber of
Commerce for a report the Chamber is compiling for the Mississippi
Department of Economic Development.

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.
indicates a program is transmitted live.

Tuesday, 6/18/91
          11:30 am      Joust-1 press briefing with Orbital Sciences Corp.
            officials, from KSC.


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
3960 megaHertz, audio is offset 6.8 MHz, polarization is
vertical.

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

Date: 20 Jun 91 12:00:05 GMT
From: mcsun!news.funet.fi!hydra![e-mail]  (Arto Wikla)
Subject: Re: Excavating (minig) gold in the space by NASA.

Remember what happened to the economy of Spain after
they had found the gold of America!
(There was a gold-inflation, which ruined the economy and finally
was the end of super-power Spain.)

Arto Wikla, Helsinki, Finland

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

Date: 20 Jun 91 15:03:08 GMT
From: swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!IRO.UMontreal.CA!matrox!altitude!elevia![e-mail]  (W.A.Simon)
Subject: Re: Excavating (minig) gold in the space by NASA.

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (W.A.Simon) writes:
> [ ... ]
>    I would see some kind of preprocessing done in space (thank
>    you SPS), and the ingots would be placed in a very high orbit
> [ ... ]

    The iron and the nickel could stay in space, to be used for
    industrial development, which would be financed by the sale
    of precious metals on the ground.

    Nice bootstraps you have there fellow!

> [ ... ]


--
William "Alain" Simon
                                                   UUCP: [e-mail]

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

Date: 20 Jun 91 23:48:21 GMT
From: eagle!data.nas.nasa.gov!mustang!nntp-server.caltech.edu![e-mail]  (Steinn Sigurdsson)
Subject: Re: Access to Space

In article <[e-mail]>, ccoprmd@prism (Matthew DeLuca) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer) writes:
>>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Matthew DeLuca) writes:
>
>>>From the perspective of the companies launching the satellites, the (IMHO
>>>the appropriate point of view) the satellites are indeed 'self-sustaining'
>>>(is this another term for profitable?)
>
>>No, self-sustaining is not the same thing as profitable. Suppose Boeing
>>decided to halt all product design. That would make them a lot more

>>This may or may not be true. At this time nobody who buys a launch
>>pays the entire cost of that launch. No matter who launches your
>>satellite there are huge costs associated with building the infrastructure
>>and launcher not paid by satellite users.
>
>Well, once the original investment has been paid off, all the user really
>should be paying is the incremental cost anyway.  In the case of launching
>facilities and research paid for by the government in years past, this
>cost can be pretty much written off as a government investment that doesn't
>need to be repaid or recouped.

    Actually the government does recoupe cost+ - in increased
revenue both from the comsat firms themselves, multiplier effects
(eg Insat VP buys a Jag and pays luxury tax, plus sales tax plus
income tax on Jag dealer), and the tax on the added wealth created
by the increased efficiency (presumed) of wealth creators serviced
by such companies... ultimately that would seem to be a significant
part of the justification for government involvment in pure research
and infrastructure development, but such benefits are _very_ hard to
quantify - I think it is clear that corporate profit tax of satellite
companies has not paid post WWII rocket research or KSC facilities,
but the indirect benefit almost certainly has and then some.
    It seems clear that this involment has paid off so far, _on_
_average_, picking the right development to support is hard and it can
be argued that alternative uses of the revenue would have done even
better.

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

End of SPACE Digest V13 #777
*******************