Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V15_0/V15NO028.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1993-07-13 | 26KB

Date: Fri, 24 Jul 92 05:00:12
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V15 #028
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Fri, 24 Jul 92       Volume 15 : Issue 028

Today's Topics:
                  2nd (last)  RFD sci.space.planets
            Antimatter (was propulsion questions) (2 msgs)
                      Antiproton-boosted fission
          Current Galileo status                   (2 msgs)
                        DSN Update - 07/23/92
                       Facility Tours (4 msgs)
                   first man on moon date and time
                         FTL drives (2 msgs)
            GE AstroSpace Hightstown - mail contact wanted
              If the sun went out-how long life survive?
                        If the sun went out...
                      message from Space Digest
                         Propulsion questions
     SETI Articles from the Electronic Journal of the ASA (EJASA)
     Star Trek and public perception of space/science/engineering
           Testers for Astronomy Lab: NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS!!!
                         Whales and Dolphins

    Welcome to the Space Digest!!  Please send your messages to
    "[e-mail]", and (un)subscription requests of the form
    "Subscribe Space <your name>" to one of these addresses: listserv@uga
    (BITNET), rice::boyle (SPAN/NSInet), utadnx::utspan::rice::boyle
    (THENET), or [e-mail] (Internet).
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 15:11:46 GMT
From: David Knapp <[e-mail]>
Subject: 2nd (last)  RFD sci.space.planets
Newsgroups: sci.space,news.groups,sci.astro

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ilana Stern) writes:
>I would just like to point out that David Knapp appears to have either
>gotten me confused with someone else (partially) or mis-edited an article
>I followed up, as he has credited me with a few words I did not write.
>His quotes of my email and articles are basically correct, except I
>did not say:
>
>>"...I agreed to withdraw my objection
>>if (1) an effort be made to allow access by non-Usenet people (comparable to
>>SPACE Digest), and (2) Earth be excluded from discussions involving politically
>>hot topics like ozone depletion and global warming, not because these topics
>>are unworthy, but so this won't become yet another fiery political group."
>
>He has correctly stated my basic position (that I would only support
>sci.space.planets if it would not duplicate sci.geo.meteorology).
>
>--
>/\        Ilana Stern DoD#009 | Whoever first said, "Things are seldom as they
>  \_][    [e-mail] | seem," was wrong.  Things are usually as they
>      \_______________________| seem.  Otherwise, they wouldn't seem that way.


My most *humble* of apologies! I *hate* when that happens. That quote can
be correctry attributed to [e-mail].   (hopefully)

Again, sorry for the egregious error.


--
David Knapp                                      University of Colorado, Boulder
Highly Opinionated, Elderly and                      [e-mail]
Perpetual Student of Chemistry and Physics.
            Write me for an argument on your favorite subject.

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

Date: 23 Jul 92 15:50:34 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Antimatter (was propulsion questions)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Andrew Haveland-Robinson) writes:
>Does it follow that from an "anti-perspective", matter would
>have the same properties as anti-matter from our perspective?
>Why haven't I heard of anti-energy?  Is there such a thing?
>Would anti-matter have anything to do with anti-gravity by any chance?

To the best of current knowledge, possibly disregarding fussy details of
interest only to particle physicists :-), antimatter behaves exactly the
same as ordinary matter in all ways except for the charges of the individual
particles.  There is no anti-energy; energy doesn't take sides in this
one :-).  Antimatter is believed to have positive mass and behave normally
with regard to gravity, although the jury is still out on this one:  if you
believe in general relativity, it should, but some of the more weird and
wonderful theories in recent times predict otherwise, and there are folks
pursuing experimental tests.  Weighing an antiproton is not simple.
--
There is nothing wrong with making      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
mistakes, but... make *new* ones. -D.Sim|  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 15:53:38 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Antimatter (was propulsion questions)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Andrew Haveland-Robinson) writes:
>>... It's hot hydrogen.  The Sun pumps out billions of tons
>>of hot hydrogen every second.
>
>But that's on the Sun, not in the Earth's atmosphere!

The Earth's (outer) atmosphere is in contact with the Sun's (outer)
atmosphere.

And in case you hadn't noticed, the current talk of antimatter is for
*in-space* propulsion, not Earth-to-orbit launches.

In any case, hot hydrogen in Earth's atmosphere is a hydrogen flame,
which ends up as water vapor in short order.
--
There is nothing wrong with making      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
mistakes, but... make *new* ones. -D.Sim|  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: Thu, 23 Jul 92 15:42:33 GMT
From: Dave Jones <[e-mail]>
Subject: Antiproton-boosted fission
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John Roberts) writes:
>
>-From: [e-mail] (Blake Philip Wood)
>-Subject: Antiproton-Boosted Microfission (was: Antimatter ...)
>-Date: 22 Jul 92 13:05:55 GMT
>
>-All the postings so far have missed the most realistic application of
>-antimatter to space propulsion:  antiproton-boosted microfission.
>-This is being investigated by a number of folks at Penn State, in
>-collaboration with some people at Phillips Lab in Albuquerque.
>-The Penn State lead is R.A. Lewis.  The reference I happen to have
>-on hand is from Nuclear Science and Engineering, (109) p.411 (1991).
>-The basic idea is that hitting a U235 or Plutonium nucleus with an
>-antiproton makes it so unstable that you get an average of 16 neutrons
>-out of the resulting fission, as opposed to the usual 2-3.  This means
>-that the critical mass which can be completely fissioned is very
>-small.
>-The article above quotes
>-results from another paper which suggests that fissioning one
>-70mg Plutonium pellet per second in this fashion, each event requiring
>-only 2e8 antiprotons, could yield 5GW of power in a complete propulsion
>-system with a specific mass of only 0.07 kg/kW.
>
>Great! Now we can build hand-held tactical nuclear machine guns. (One shot
>destroys a building several miles away.)  :-(  (Another E.E. Smith idea,
>this time from the Skylark series.)
>
>Maybe they ought to be careful of who gets hold of the technology.
>
You missed out a few details: the trick involves inertial confinement
(ICF in the original posting) so you need megawatt lasers as well as
the 10 Gev accelerator that makes the antiprotons.  I suppose you could
use ion beam ICF and make the accelerator do double duty.  Hardly a
portable weapon though.


--
||))) If you build it                          )))))))))))))))))))))))))))))|
||))) They will cancel it   - Field of Dweebs. )))))))))))))))))))))))))))))|
||))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))|
||Dave Jones ([e-mail]) | Eastman Kodak Co. Rochester, NY   |

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

Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 22:48:00 +0000
From: Rupert Goodwins <[e-mail]>
Subject: Current Galileo status
Newsgroups: sci.space

Apologies if this has been answered in the past few months, but my sci.space
access has been a bit limited lately.


What is the current status on Galileo and its comms problems? I assume that
it still looks most likely that it'll end up at Jupiter with nothing but the
low-gain antenna working, and that nobody's come up with a sensible scheme to
circumvent very low data rate working. If anyone has better news I'd be *so*
happy to hear it...


Also (hey, this is my annual post. Let's really go to town), are the Voyagers
still plugging away? What science is being done with them?

If this is all old hat, then please email me...


Rupert Goodwins ([e-mail], the country of dying science)

>>>MATRIX version  1.20d

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

Date: 23 Jul 92 18:27:34 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Current Galileo status
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>What is the current status on Galileo and its comms problems? ...

No change on the spacecraft situation; hope is fading although not yet gone.
People have been working madly on data compression etc, and it looks feasible
to fly a good bit of the mission without the big antenna.

>... are the Voyagers
>still plugging away? What science is being done with them?

They're still out there and in reasonable shape.  They're reporting
fields-and-particles data, and doing a bit of ultraviolet astronomy.
(They have small far-ultraviolet telescopes that are currently the
best available in space in that wavelength range.)
--
There is nothing wrong with making      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
mistakes, but... make *new* ones. -D.Sim|  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 23:33:54 GMT
From: Ron Baalke <[e-mail]>
Subject: DSN Update - 07/23/92
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro

                         Deep Space Network Status Report
                                July 23, 1992

     The 70 meter antenna at Goldstone (near Barstow in California) returned
to operations early this morning, supporting the Galileo mission with no
problems.  The antenna has been down since June 28 when the two large
earthquakes damaged its subreflector.
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | Most of the things you
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | worry about will never
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     | happen.

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

Date: 23 Jul 92 10:42:31 GMT
From: "Steven X.S. Bauer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Facility Tours
Newsgroups: talk.politics.space,sci.space

As Mary pointed out, tours are free of charge
(here at Langley), but you do need to coordinate
the tour through the public affairs office at
[phone].  Let them know where you
would be interested in touring and they will
contact the necessary people to arrange a
tour for you.  Or you can come to our open
house in October (we are celebrating Langley's
75th anniversary).

Steven X.S. Bauer                      /[e-mail]
NASA-Langley Research Center  /all opinions are my own and do
Hampton,VA 23665                    /not reflect those of NASA

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

Date: 23 Jul 92 14:31:13 GMT
From: Jim Dumoulin <[e-mail]>
Subject: Facility Tours
Newsgroups: talk.politics.space,sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Theodore Wadsworth) writes:
> Does anyone know the charges for tours of the various NASA facilities
> (Huntsville Space Center, "Space Camp", ...)?
>

    The visitor center at the Kennedy Space Center is free of charge
    and is open from 9:00am to 7:00pm everyday except Christmas and
    some launch days.  Bus tours of the KSC and CCAFS launch complexes
    are available for a nominal cost (around $4) as well as some IMAX
    movies.  The visitor center contains a large display of Space hardware
    and a "Rocket Garden" consisting of many of the vehicles launched from
    KSC.  A full scale walk-thru mockup of the Space Shuttle is also
    available.   Contact Spaceport USA Visitor Information Center at
    [phone] for more information.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Jim Dumoulin                      INTERNET: [e-mail]
   NASA / Payload Operations      SPAN/HEPnet: KSCP00::DUMOULIN
   Kennedy Space Center
   Florida, USA  32899



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

Date: 23 Jul 1992 12:05 EST
From: WENDY WARTNICK <[e-mail]>
Subject: Facility Tours
Newsgroups: talk.politics.space,sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Mary Shafer) writes...
>On 21 Jul 92 06:24:38 GMT, [e-mail] (Theodore Wadsworth) said:
>
>T> Does anyone know the charges for tours of the various NASA facilities
>T> (Huntsville Space Center, "Space Camp", ...)?
>
>Dryden's tour is free, although a reservation is required.
>--

Same with Lewis (we're in Cleveland for those of you who have never heard
of NASA-Lewis).

            wendy

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

Date: 23 Jul 92 17:32:31 GMT
From: Richard Spear <rspear@sookit>
Subject: Facility Tours
Newsgroups: talk.politics.space,sci.space

jpl is free but tours should be arranged with the public information
office


--
richard
[e-mail]
all disclaimers apply

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

Date: Thursday, 23 Jul 1992 13:17:54 SET
From: "Mike M. Skala" <[e-mail]>
Subject: first man on moon date and time
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Phil G.
Fraering) says:
>
>Everyone should know the date: July 20, 1969.
>

Of course everyone knows the right date: 21.7.1969 02:56 GMT

mike :)

And I still have the 8mm my father took from the TV Screen !

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

Date: 23 Jul 92 16:36:00 GMT
From: WENDY WARTNICK <[e-mail]>
Subject: FTL drives
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Shari L Brooks) writes...
>I never saw the original request, so am unsure if you have this...In Vonda
>McIntyre's _superluminal_, they traveled along hyperdimensional axes (the
>higher the dimension, the farther you went).  This travel was incompatible
>with rhythms and pilots had to replace their hearts with mechanical, non-
>beating pumps.
>
>Also, in another McIntyre book, the ship uses a solar sail to get to a
>magnetic cosmic string, grabs the string with magnetic claws, rotates around
>it to end up elsewhere in the galaxy.

funny you should mention this...I just finished this "other" book, it was
called "Starfarers".  Not a bad book!

            wendy

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

Date: 23 Jul 92 19:21:08 GMT
From: Rob Jarman <[e-mail]>
Subject: FTL drives
Newsgroups: sci.space

Actually, In the books Dune they didn't actually "fold" space. They looked
the future along a certain time line and plot the safest most direct course
toward their destination. In the movie they calle dit folding space, but the

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

Date: 23 Jul 92 13:06:46 GMT
From: Steve Masticola <[e-mail]>
Subject: GE AstroSpace Hightstown - mail contact wanted
Newsgroups: sci.space

Does GE AstroSpace have Internet access? If so, please reply. I have
some friends on the Mars Observer project there who'd like to get Ron
Baalke's MO status reports, but am now forced to relay them through a
Bitnet address at Princeton.

Thanks,
- Steve Masticola ([e-mail]).

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

Date: 23 Jul 1992 11:49 EST
From: WENDY WARTNICK <[e-mail]>
Subject: If the sun went out-how long life survive?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (FRANK NEY) writes...
>
>If memory serves me correctly, a SF short story was written on this
>premise and was made into a show during the 'Golden Age' of radio.
>
>I forget the author, but the title was "A Bucket of Air."

Don't know about the radio part, but Orson Scott Card wrote a short story
about all this.

                wendy

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

Date: 23 Jul 92 16:52:52 GMT
From: Ed Faught <[e-mail]>
Subject: If the sun went out...
Newsgroups: sci.space

I remember reading this as a possible explanation for the low neutrino rate
from the sun's core. The theory was that the sun IS out, the visible and lower
wavelength radiation is coming from the photospere but is not being fed from
the core any more. It'll take 10,000 years to cool. Anyone else read this one?
--
Ed Faught  WA9WDM  [e-mail]
 Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory

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

Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 17:35:03 GMT
From: Bob Martino <[e-mail]>
Subject: message from Space Digest
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>To Anyone on this list who would enjoy answering my question about outer
>space:
>   I am an artist and independent producer. I am going to the Space and Rocket
>Center in Huntsville, Al. this Thursday to videotape people's answers to my
>question. I am also collecting written answers which I may incorporate in my
>narrative on the video. I begin putting all this together in post-production
>the week of July 27th.
>   The question is:
>   The year is 2010. This is your last day on earth. Tomorrow you leave with
>the first civilian crew hand-picked by NASA to colonize the moon. NASA
>prepares your OFK - Offical Flight Kit - with all you need to survive
>physically on the moon. You are also allowed to take your PPK - Personal
>Preference Kit. It is the size of a traveler's shaving kit and must weigh no
>more than a pound. In it you must pack whatever you need to sustain you
             ^^^^^                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>emotionally and spiritually in outer space.
 ^^^^^^^^^^^     ^^^^^^^^^^^
>   What will you choose??

     You're kidding, right??

     I'd take a small ceremonial knife from some far away eastern
nation so that I could slit my wrists and/or throat.
If ONE POUND is all that I was allowed for personal effects,
including entertainment and spiritual comfort, I'd go absolutely
bonkers inside of a couple of months.  Same would be true for
any normal human.

     Sorry to rain on your parade, but the question might need
adjustment.

_________________________________________________________________________
                                    | "...for since the creation of the
      - that Bob Martino guy -      |  world His invisible attributes,
 [e-mail] |  His eternal power and divine
                                    |  nature, have been clearly seen,
   God invented science.  so there. |  being understood through what
       ^^^^^^^^                     |  has been made        -Romans 1:20
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 "That's the whole problem with science.  You've got a bunch of
  empiricists trying to describe things of unimaginable wonder."
                                                  -Calvin

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

Date: 23 Jul 92 11:21:17 GMT
From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Subject: Propulsion questions
Newsgroups: sci.space

-From: [e-mail] (Steinn Sigurdsson)
-Subject: Re: Propulsion questions
-Date: 22 Jul 92 21:35:23 GMT
-Organization: Lick Observatory/UCO

-[Black hole drive]

-Penrose mechanism. Can't remember actual number but you recover
-about 30% of rest mass energy. Main problem is that minimum stable
-mass is uncomfortably heavy - particularly if you want a primordial
-black hole that's been around a Hubble time - that's if Hawking's
-right.
-    Of course if he is, and you can _create_ a  m < m_HubbleBH
-black hole you recover almost 100% of the rest mass as it evaporates
-;-)

Though maybe a little quicker than you'd like. :-)

Interesting system - you have to keep feeding it, whether you need the
drive or not, or it keeps heating up until it blows your ship to
smithereens. :-)

John Roberts
[e-mail]

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

Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 15:51:39 GMT
From: Larry Klaes <[e-mail]>
Subject: SETI Articles from the Electronic Journal of the ASA (EJASA)
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space,sci.misc

        In response to Tord Malmgren's and others questions about SETI
    (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence), I am offering to E-mail
    upon request the following related SETI articles from the Electronic
    Journal of the Astronomical Society of the Atlantic (EJASA), which I
    have been Editor of since its founding in August of 1989.

        The EJASA appears each month on USENET's sci.astro, sci.space,
    sci.space.news, and sci.misc newsgroups.

        SETI articles from the EJASA -

         "Does Extraterrestrial Life Exist?", by Angie Feazel - November 1989

         "Suggestions for an Intragalactic Information Exchange System",
           by Lars W. Holm - November 1989

         "Radio Astronomy: A Historical Perspective", by David J. Babulski
           - February 1990

         "Getting Started in Amateur Radio Astronomy", by Jeffrey M. Lichtman
           - February 1990

         "A Comparison of Optical and Radio Astronomy", by David J. Babulski
           - June 1990

         "The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) in the Optical
           Spectrum, Parts A-E", by Dr. Stuart A. Kingsley - January 1992

         "History of the Ohio SETI Program", by Robert S. Dixon - June 1992

         "New Ears on the Sky: The NASA SETI Microwave Observing Project"
           by the ARC and JPL SETI Project - July 1992


        If anyone requires further assistance in regards to the EJASA
    and SETI, please let me know.

        Regards,

        Larry Klaes  [e-mail]
             or - ...!decwrl!verga.enet.dec.com!klaes
                 or - [e-mail]
                     or - [e-mail]

             "All the Universe, or nothing!" - H. G. Wells

        EJASA Editor, Astronomical Society of the Atlantic

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

Date: 23 Jul 92 17:44:48 GMT
From: Bob Martino <[e-mail]>
Subject: Star Trek and public perception of space/science/engineering
Newsgroups: sci.space

     About the terra-forming thing, and someone saying we shouldn't
do it unless we're *SURE* we're not killing any strange life forms...

     unless someone is first willing to define "life", this
discussion borders on meaningless.  Now don't look at me, I
wouldn't begin to even try to formulate such a definition.

     Just so we all are aware of limitations here.

_________________________________________________________________________
                                    | "...for since the creation of the
      - that Bob Martino guy -      |  world His invisible attributes,
 [e-mail] |  His eternal power and divine
                                    |  nature, have been clearly seen,
   God invented science.  so there. |  being understood through what
       ^^^^^^^^                     |  has been made        -Romans 1:20
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 "That's the whole problem with science.  You've got a bunch of
  empiricists trying to describe things of unimaginable wonder."
                                                  -Calvin

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

Date: 23 Jul 92 16:02:54 GMT
From: "David L. Cox" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Testers for Astronomy Lab: NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS!!!
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms,comp.windows.ms.programmer,comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,sci.astro,sci.space,sci.edu

|> >To: uunet!edoc9!erict
|> >Subject:Re: Beta Testers Needed for Windows 3.X Astronomy Program
|> >- ---------
|> >In sci.astro you write:
|> >
|> >>*** Beta Testers Needed for Windows 3.X Astronomy Program ***
|>
|> Name: David Cox
|> US Mail Address: 6726 NW 70th Ave, Tamarac, Fl 33321
|> E-Mail Address: [e-mail]
|> Version of MS-Windows: 3.1
|> Version of MS-DOS: 5.00
|> CPU: 80386sx/20
|> Math Coprocessor (not required): N/A
|> Memory: 5 Mb
|> Graphics Card: sVGA
|> Printer:  old dot matrix (panasonic something or other)

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

Date: Thu, 23 Jul 92 11:51:20 BST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Whales and Dolphins

> I don't doubt you're right, but other less intelligent animals will
sometimes
> do this too, particularly the "bachelor groups" as you describe.
I've heard of
> groups of male lions attacking a dominant male to get territory or
mates,
> then fighting among themselves. There are extensive studies of
possible
> evolutionary incentives to form specific behavior patterns.
>


There is a difference. You are talking about a group breaking up in a

free for all. Dolphins are the only other society in which GROUP A

gets support of GROUP B against GROUP C for a specific project but
when the situation changes, GROUP A will double cross GROUP B with

the assistance GROUP C. The groups are basically stable. I do not
remember enough details of the paper to say whether they are kinship

groups or not. The situations do not appear to be random accident,
but much more sophisticated plotting of actions. Probably closer to

the relations between feudal lords than to a gang of hoods who fight
for the loot among themselves after cooperating to get it...




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

End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 028
------------------------------