Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V15_0/V15NO061.TXT

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Date: Sun,  2 Aug 92 05:03:19
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V15 #061
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Sun,  2 Aug 92       Volume 15 : Issue 061

Today's Topics:
                             Ariane V.52
                          Canadian comments
                         ET's, life in space
                        ETs and Radio (2 msgs)
    Food additive? (was Re: Antimatter (was propulsion questions))
             Great NASA board, but having logon problems!
                             Odds of Life
                     Phobos & Deimos Uncertainty
             Random Notes (Was Re: NASP, NLS, SSTO, etc.)
          ReEe: aA 12 mile tether that gernerates 5000v?
   Russian/French Soyuz TM-15 had problems docking with Mir station
                            Whales (SETI)

    Welcome to the Space Digest!!  Please send your messages to
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Date: 1 Aug 92 11:30:25 GMT
From: Dean Adams <[e-mail]>
Subject: Ariane V.52
Newsgroups: sci.space

ARIANESPACE FLIGHT 52

The 52nd Ariane launch is to place the TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite and two
auxiliary payloads, KITSAT-A and S80/T, into a quasi-circular 66 degree
inclined orbit using an Ariane 42P launch vehicle equipped with 2 solid
strap-on boosters (PAPs).  This will be the 2nd launch of an Ariane 4
in the 42P configuration.  It will be launched from the Ariane launch
complex ELA 2, in Kourou- French Guiana.

The launch vehicle performance requirement is 2,661 kg (5,868 lb), of which
2,502 kg (5,517 lb) represent the satellite mass.  The total vehicle mass
at liftoff is 320,587 kg.

Required Orbit Characteristics:
  Perigee Altitude ..... 1322 km
  Apogee Altitude ...... 1330 km
  Inclination ..........   66 degrees

The Ariane 42P lift-off for Flight 52 is scheduled on Monday August 10,
1992, as soon as possible within the following launch window:

     Kourou Time       GMT               Washington, DC
     20:08 - 20:53     23:08 - 23:53     19:08 - 19:53


Launch Vehicle:

Ariane 42P.  This is a three-stage liquid fueled launcher with solid fueled
strap-on boosters.  The first stage (L220) is built by Aerospatiale, and is
powered by 4 liquid fueled Viking V engines.  The second stage (L33) is built
by MBB Erno and is powered by a single Viking IV engine.  Both the Viking IV
and V engines are manufactured by SEP.  The first and second stages use a
biliquid UH25/N2O4 fuel.  The third stage (H10) is built by Aerospatiale,
and is powered by a cryogenic LH2/LO2 fueled HM-7B engine built by SEP.
The two strap-on boosters (PAP) are built by BPD and use a solid Flexadrine
propellant.  The fully assembled launch vehicle stands 55.2 meters high on
the pad.  It uses the Ariane Type 2 payload fairing.


Flight Profile:

+01:29  Solid strap-on booster jettison
+03:24  First stage separation
+03:48  Fairing jettison
+05:35  Second stage separation
+17:37  Third stage shutdown / orbit injection
+19:29  TOPEX/POSEIDON separation
+23:36  KITSAT-A and S80/T separation
+27:46  End of Ariane mission 52


Payloads:

TOPEX/POSEIDON is a cooperative program between NASA and CNES for studying
the ocean surface topography.  The satellite is built by FAIRCHILD SPACE
under contract to NASA/JPL.  For 3 to 5 years the altimeter payload will
survey the ocean circulation on a global scale.

  Total mass at lift-off .... 2,402 kg
  Dry mass .................. 2,185 kg
  On-board power ............ 2,140 W (end of life)
  Solar panel span .......... 8.7 m
  Orbital altitude .......... 1336 km

 Instruments:
   NASA altimeter and CNES altimeter (POSEIDON) for measuring ocean
     surface topography by radar.
   TMR (TOPEX Microwave Radiometer) to measure atmospheric water
     vapor for correcting altimetric data.

 Three systems of orbit determination to give precision
 satellite position:
   LRA (Laser Reflective Array)
   GPS (Global Positioning System)
   DORIS (Doppler Orbitography and Radio positioning Integrated from Space)

 In-flight operations:
   Deployment of solar panels .... about 3 minutes after separation
   Deploy of high-gain antenna ... about 8 minutes after separation
   Deployment of GPS antenna ..... about 11 minutes after separation
   Transition from DSN to TDRSS communications ... 16 minutes after separation
   Beginning of high-gain TDRSS operations ....... 25 hours after separation
   Beginning of maneuver to operational orbit .... about 7 days after launch


Auxiliary Payloads:

KITSAT-A uses the UOSAT platform built at University of Surrey (U.K.) for
the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.  It will be used
for store and forward communications and various experiments.

  Mass ...................... 50 kg
  On-board power ............ 21 W (end of life)
  Nominal lifetime .......... 5 years
  Satellite is 0.35 x 0.35m in size, with a 6m deployable mast

 Instruments:
   Two CCD cameras with 4 km and 400 m resolution
   Digital signal processing experiment
   Transponder for store and forward communications
   In-orbit radiation measurement experiment


S80/T is built by MATRA MARCONI SPACE for CNES, also using a platform of
the UOSAT type.  It will be used to study use of the VHF band for mobile
communications.

  Mass ...................... 50 kg
  On-board power ............ 26 W
  Nominal lifetime .......... 1 year
  Satellite is 0.35 x 0.35m in size, with a 6m deployable mast

 Payload:
   1 transponder- 148-149.9 mhz reception
                  137-138.0 mhz transmission


Launch coverage:

All Ariane missions are broadcast live via satellite from Kourou. Coverage
begins at 30 minutes before launch, and continues until all payloads have
been deployed.  NASA Select-TV will also broadcast this mission on F2/13.

-{ Dean Adams }-

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

Date: 31 Jul 92 22:06:19 GMT
From: Leigh Palmer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Canadian comments
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Derek
Kirkland) writes:

>The whole idea that "foreigners" should not comment on internal US
>politics is the most ridiculous statement I have heard in years.

It is evident that Mr. Kirkland has not lived in Canada recently.
Ridiculous statements are the principal product of the Canadian
political establishment.

I don't know how common this knowledge is, but many Canadian
citizens are also US citizens. Even those who are Canadian
residents may vote in US elections. To claim that *any*
sentient individual who cares enough to comment on any matter
discussed in a forum which is directed to him (and I receive
only those which are directed to Canada) should not do so is
absurd. Whether such a person is or is not a citizen should
have no bearing on his or her entitlement to comment on a
discussion he or she receives. If you don't want to hear from
Canadians please direct your comments elsewhere; we probably
won't miss them.

Leigh Palmer

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

Date: 1 Aug 92 09:50:58 GMT
From: Paul Dietz <[e-mail]>
Subject: ET's, life in space
Newsgroups: sci.space

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

|> You seem to have a hangup with this "non-trivial". If you stay with
|> that you have a tautology.
|>
|> The whole point many people are making is that the difference between
|> life and non-life (as we define it) is at somepoint where the
|> "trivial" chemical replication becomes complex enough to be definable
|> as your "non-trivial" replication.



Gary, there *is* a significant difference.  That is:  trivially reproducing
entities cannot undergo evolution by selection.  Nontrivial ones (in
which significant genetic differences exist, are propagated faithfully
and affect behavior) can.  Since evolution by selection is *the*
mechanism by which life has become complex, you can't just wave your hands
and say nonevolving entities became complex without specifying another
mechanism that made this happen.

BTW, one basic problem with any scheme for self replication is the high
fidelity required to preserve a message.  A mechanism with an error rate
of just 1% will not allow the survival of a genome with more than about 100
bits of information.  Cells today go to great lengths to error-correct their
DNA;  such mechanisms could not have been present at the beginning.  Breaking
this "error barrier" is a significant difficulty in any theory of
biogenesis, and has not been solved, to my knowledge.



|> Another point of interest. It has LONG been known that the ribosomes
|> are from an ENTIRELY separate evolutionary strain. They don't even
|> use the same genetic code. Eukaryotic cells are nothing but a
|> symbiotic relationship between independant organisms. It is thought

You mean mitochondria, of course.  Ribosomes don't code for anything,
and appear in all cells, not just eukaryotes.

    Paul F. Dietz
    [e-mail]

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

Date: 1 Aug 92 14:54:32 GMT
From: James Davis Nicoll <[e-mail]>
Subject: ETs and Radio
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>
>However, again I'd like to see references for the time scale.  Animal
>life based on oxygen has been extant and probably dominant for most of
>the history of life on Earth, I believe.  What took a long time was
>the transition to vertebrates, not to oxygen.  Superfically this doesn't
>change the line of argument much, since intelligent invertebrates don't
>seem very likely either.  The important difference is that we're now
>dealing with a transition whose timing doesn't seem to be constrained
>by fundamentals of physics.
>
>>... One of the greatest unknowns
>>is whether life bearing planets naturally evolve intelligent creatures,
>>or whether that's a rare accident. We don't have any data to support
>>either position very well.
>
>Agreed.  It took a while for vertebrates to become intelligent here.
>An unusually long while?  An unusually short while?  Open question.
>However, note that it happened to some degree on three parallel lines
>of development:  apes, whales, and elephants.  You have to really
>stretch the point to claim that it's inordinately rare.

    Don't forget octopi, which are pretty bright *and* invertebrates
to boot.

                            James Nicoll

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

Date: 1 Aug 92 09:09:17 GMT
From: Paul Dietz <[e-mail]>
Subject: ETs and Radio
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:

|> But you are still making a flawed assumption. The carbon chemistry of
|> complex organic molecules *dictates* that they must react in such a
|> way as to form self replicating structures.  Once that happens, the
|> self replicators quickly dominate all other processes. The only way
|> you can view life as an accident is if you view the chemical laws
|> as an accident. Given the laws of carbon chemistry, life *must* result
|> when conditions meet certain criteria of temperature, pressure, precursors,
|> and energetics. Given the intial conditions on Earth, life *had* to
|> form. There was no way the chemical laws could be broken any more than
|> light can travel faster than 300,000 m/s in vacuum.


Gary, you're spouting nonsense.  No one has demonstrated that life
is an inevitable consequence of carbon chemistry, not requiring some
very rare accident along the way.  That life is likely in the right
environment is a *working hypothesis* (without which origin-of-life
research would be pretty pointless),  but, absent observation of
ET life or recreation of life in the lab by the same kind of
processes, the hypothesis can't be regarded as confirmed.  There
are enough gaping holes in our understanding of biogenesis to
make any conclusion inappropriate at this time.

    Paul F. Dietz
    [e-mail]

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

Date: Sun, 2 Aug 1992 02:26:32 GMT
From: "Phil G. Fraering" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Food additive? (was Re: Antimatter (was propulsion questions))
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes:

>In article <rmartin.711835609@thor>, [e-mail] (Bob Martin) writes:
>> [e-mail] (Phil G. Fraering) writes:
>>
>> |BTW, Antimatter should also be rather stable at low temperatures.
>> |Some of the positrons should boil off and be annihilated, leaving the
>> |rest of the antimatter with a net negative charge. This should keep
>> |electrons away, while keeping enough positrons bound to the set of
>> |molecules to "screen" away protons and other positive nuclei...
>>
>> I'm beginning to think that this stuff is so stable that you could use
>> it as a food additive.  Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, where is the kaboom it
>> gives.

>Once I was in a bakery with another physicist.  The display cases
>incorporated mirrors.  Right next to a pile of brownies was another
>pile labeled "SEINWORB c55."

>That's when we conceived our diet book:

>                    THE AMAZING ANTIMATTER DIET:
>              Eat All You Want and *Still* Lose Weight!

>Alas, we got busy with other projects and never got around to writing
>it...

>Bill Higgins, Beam Jockey              | "I'm gonna keep on writing
>Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory  | songs until I write the song
>Bitnet:           [e-mail]  | that makes the guys in
>Internet:       [e-mail]  | Detroit who build the cars
>SPAN/Hepnet:           43011::HIGGINS  | put tailfins on 'em again."
>                                            --John Prine

My net access has been kinda chancy what with a wedding coming up
and the phone lines acting funny and both modems in the house
acting sick, but here goes:

My sister wants to have her wedding at my parents house; we
have some problems with the floors, wax buildup and a rubber
rug mat that got bonded to the floor. After a couple hours with a
commercial stripping machine, Dad and I were making jokes about
"A little universal solvent will get that off" which quickly
evolved into "A little antimatter will get that off"...

--
Phil Fraering [e-mail] where the x is a number from 1-5.
Phone: [phone]
"There are still 201969 unread articles in 1278 groups" - nn message
"57 channels and nothing on" - Bruce Springsteen

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

Date: 1 Aug 92 21:49:46 GMT
From: Ryan Hartwich <[e-mail]>
Subject: Great NASA board, but having logon problems!
Newsgroups: sci.space

    There is a great board run by NASA that is accessible to
all through telnet, it's address is

Spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov

I have had problems lately connecting to it, and if anyone knows of
a way that I can locate a sysop account on that board to email to I would
greatly appreciate it!!!, and if not, enjoy calling yourself...

Please email replys to


           /-------------------------------------------------\
           |            \       /------\                     |
           |   ===========>     | Ryan |    send email to:   |
           |            /       \------/                     |
           |           [e-mail]           |
           \-------------------------------------------------/

--

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

Date: 1 Aug 92 15:47:35 GMT
From: David Knapp <[e-mail]>
Subject: Odds of Life
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> David O Hunt <[e-mail]> writes:
>IF (big if) one assumes that the probablilty of life arising on earth is
>so small that it couldn't happen, then there are only 2 possiblities
>for our existance:
>
>1)  That life arrived from another place (accidentally or purposefully)

Unnecessary, but perhaps possible. Amino acids have been found in meteorites.

>
>2)  That "God" created us

Unverifyable. We'll use Occam's razor on that one. (whack)

>
>About 1) - this only delays talk, as SOMEwhere down the line life had to
>arise spontaneously...kinda like the "turtles all the way down [to what?]"
>argument.

Not that simple. Life doesn't need to form spontaneously. It can take a
goodly amount of time for the things that life requires (like proteins etc.)
to form.

Take a look at the highly unique character of your surroundings. Nice,
comfortable atmospheric pressure. Cozy low lattitude temperatures. Good
tanning rays. *Lots* of water.

It is *the* perfect environment for carbon based compounds to exist, namely,
amino acids.

Under lab simulations with atomic and fundamental sources for the consituents
of life (N2, CO2, H2O etc.) and a source to stir it all up (UV, Lightning)
amino acids can form *spontaneously*.  After that, things get messy, buty
the point is, the unique conditions over the long time period here, *favored*
the formation of life.


>About 2) - If we assume that the odds are impossibly small for life to
>have arisen anywhere, then this proves "God's" existence.

Oh, boy, we can call *anything* a proof, right? Have you ever discussed
evolution with a christian fundamentalist?  Ask them how they explain fossil
records. "God put them there to trick us."  Well, anything goes.

>But wait!  We've proven something that can't be proven.  And so God
>vanishes in a puff of logic (with apologies to D. Adams).

Proof, schmoof.

>Ergo, we aren't alive at all!  :P

Hey, "Cogito ergo sum." Don't know about you ,though.  :-o


>
>
>
>David Hunt - Graduate Slave | My mind is my own.          | Towards both a
>Mechanical Engineering      | So are my ideas & opinions. | Palestinian and
>Carnegie Mellon University  | <<<Use Golden Rule v2.0>>>  | Jewish homeland!
>============================================================================
>Email:  [e-mail]            Working towards my "Piled Higher and Deeper"
>
>Cthulhu for President!  Stop voting for the lesser evil!


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

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

Date: 1 Aug 92 13:10:34 GMT
From: Ronald Florence <[e-mail]>
Subject: Phobos & Deimos Uncertainty
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space

Tyler Brown writes:

   There appears to be no clear consensus on the meaning of "Deimos"!!! Also,
   several posters gave varying translations for "Phobos"!!!
   Curiouser and curiouser... All anyone can agree on is that they are named
   after a bad emotion... My favorite combo would be "fear and loathing"...;-)

This discussion reminds me of the story of the elementary school class
that finishes a morning period on democracy, voting, and majority
rule, then turns to their afternoon science period.  The teacher
brings in a rabbit and asks the class, "Is this a boy rabbit or a girl
rabbit?"  No one answers.  "How do we find out the sex of the rabbit?"
the teacher asks.  The students, remembering the morning lesson, shout
"Vote!"
--

                Ronald Florence
                [e-mail]

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

Date: 1 Aug 92 02:13:04 GMT
From: "John A. Weeks III" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Random Notes (Was Re: NASP, NLS, SSTO, etc.)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.aeronautics

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail]:
> I heard a rumor the congress is considering canceling NASP, SSTO and a few


While driving into the parking lot at the USAF Museum in Dayton on Monday,
I saw an X-30 mock-up departing Wright-Patterson AFB on the back of a
semi-truck.  It was painted white and blue with red trim.  Since the plane
was about 40 feet long, I suspect that it was a 1/3 scale mock-up.

There is a Soviet Space exhibit on display at the USAF Museum.  They have
a few space suits, models, several back-up spacecraft, and a one person
space capsule that actually flew in space.  The exhibit will be there
for the rest of the summer.  It is in the Modern Flight Gallery next to
the XB-70 (they moved the SR-71 to the annex, and the B-58 was also moved
to make room for the space exhibit).

The Valkarie is having some type of problem.  Workers installed a large
support pole under the Valkarie behind the cockpit and in front of the
front landing gear.  The skin is also buckled in that area.  It looks like
the nose section is sagging, and the support was installed to keep it from
breaking further.

-john-


--
==============================================================================
John A. Weeks III        [phone]            [e-mail]
Newave Communications, Ltd.                ..!uunet!tcnet!newave!john

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

Date: 2 Aug 92 03:43:26 GMT
From: Andrew Haveland-Robinson <[e-mail]>
Subject: ReEe: aA 12 mile tether that gernerates 5000v?
Newsgroups: sci.space

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

>The 5000 volts are induced by the Earth's magnetic field as the spacecraft
>orbits. The same principle in using magnets to enduce a voltage when you
>pass a magnet through a coil of wire.

I can see that this will work, though it's practicality may be limited
as it would start to slow down the shuttle if any serious power could
be drawn.

Could be modified to form a magnetic vacuum drag 'chute I suppose!

Andy.

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Haveland-Robinson Associates     | Email: [e-mail]         |
| Pine Cottage, Osea Island, Essex |        [e-mail] |
| CM9 8UH England.  0621-88756     | Also:  081-800 1708  081-802 4502    |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 16:25:09 GMT
From: Glenn Chapman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Russian/French Soyuz TM-15 had problems docking with Mir station
Newsgroups: sci.space

     Radio Moscow has revealed that a problem occured during the July 29th
docking of the Russian/French Soyuz TM-15 mission to the CIS (Commonwealth of
Independent States) Mir space station.  Cosmonauts Anatoli Solovyov, Sergei
Avdeyev and "spationaut" Michel Tognini were starting the approach to Mir
when the Kurs autodocking system failed.  Kurs (course in English) consists
of a radar antenna on the Soyuz, which does not require active transponders
on board the Mir complex.  Kurs makes initial contact with the space station
some 200 Km (125 miles) away, but begins to maneuver the Soyuz 20 - 30 Km
from MIr.  Kurs was introduced with the Soyuz TM-1 in 1986, but the older
system which requires more active action by the station was retained as a
backup.  A couple of years ago they also discussed experiments with a laser
docking system.  All that the report stated was that a backup system was
employed for the docking, not which one was used.  However, it should be
noted that the Progress M-13 also had docking problems during a July 2nd
attempt, and required a delayed docking until July 4th.
     Other reports stated that the work slated for Solovyov and Avdeyev over
the next few months would involve some of the most complex space walks the
CIS has ever attempted, starting with a detailed inspection of the 14 metre
tower built on the Kvant module in 1991.
     July 31 saw the start of a extensive set of biomedical tests on Mir
using equipment supplied by the French.  These are checking for changes in
the cosmonauts immune system due to space flight.  Having both long term
cosmonauts Alexander Viktorenko and Alexander Kaleri (up for 5 months) to
compare with the new crew should give some interesting results.

                                                        Glenn Chapman
                                                        School Eng. Science
                                                        Simon Fraser U.
                                                        Burnaby, B.C., Canada
                                                        [e-mail]

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

Date: 2 Aug 92 00:53:53 GMT
From: Charles Scripter <[e-mail]>
Subject: Whales (SETI)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(John Roberts) writes:

> Whales clearly lack some of the intellectual capabilities of humans (for
> instance, humans don't appear to be prone to mass beachings).

I thought this happened every spring in Florida....  ;-) ;-)

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Charles Scripter                   *      [e-mail]
Dept of Physics                    *
Michigan Technological University  *
Houghton, MI 49931                 *
-------------------------------------------------------------------
With your one remaining eye, please do NOT look back into the laser

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

End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 061
------------------------------