Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V15_0/V15NO093.TXT

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Date: Tue, 11 Aug 92 05:00:18
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V15 #093
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Tue, 11 Aug 92       Volume 15 : Issue 093

Today's Topics:
                  Adelaine UFO incident, lab test ?
           Energiya's role in Space Station assem (4 msgs)
                Historical records of NASA (selected)
          Historical records of NASA (selected) [continued]
                          Home made rockets
                More TSS information from NASA Select
                            Soyuz as ACRV
                                 SPS
        SPS feasibility (WAS: SPS fouling astronomy) (2 msgs)
                        SPS fouling astronomy
                           Target Tracking
               Weird circle-like things on shuttle map
                         Whales and Dolphins
                          What is the ASRM??

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

Date: Mon, 10 Aug 92 00:14:55 GMT
From: Stefan Hartmann <[e-mail]>
Subject: Adelaine UFO incident, lab test ?
Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors,alt.paranormal,sci.space

Subject: Re: Egg shaped craft down under (3-4 years ago)
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jamie Paul CURMI) writes:

>[e-mail] (Rod Beckwith) writes:

><a little bit of stuff deleted...>

>>I also have a question for you folks DOWN UNDER.(That's AUSTRAILIA for
>>those of you who don't know where down under is.) I recall that about 3-4
>>years ago that
>>an egg shaped craft buzzed a family in a car on some highway down there. As
>>I recall there was some material released by the craft & it was retrieved
>>by the occupants of the vehicle. The material was brought in for analysis &
>>that was the last I ever heard about it. I think a fishing boat offshore
>>also reported
>>seeing the craft about an hour later. There was quite a bit of news on the
>>incident back then, but as most  news stories go , the press never really
>>follows up.

>Hi!

>Yeah, I followed this story very closely at the time.  It happened just as
>Hinch started his new show on 7 (Hinch at 7, on 7 ;-), and Hinch quickly
>organised interviews with the entire family.

>The car had some really good dents and scrapes on it I believe.
>It was reported that the silvery/black material found on and in the car was
>analysed...and after an awful long time the lab people said it was dust from
>their brakes or something similar due to their brakes.


Hmm, this sounds to be a very dull answer.

Can't somebody over there check this lab report more precise ?

Has somebody on the net the test-results-papers ?

How could the brakes deliver some ashes, that it all over the top of
the car ?


>This whole thing seemed a little weird (not the story, but the analysis &
>the way everything went really strange and quiet about this incident).  I'm
>not trying to imply a coverup (ok...maybe I am   \(^_^)/  ), but this
>poor family got treated like shit soon after they told their story.

>A number of weeks later (possibly months even) the family were once again
>interviewed (well, more like a very brief chat).  The mother said that since
>the incident people had harrased her, and called her a lier, and treated
>the whole family pretty badly.  She said she wished she had never told
>anyone this story, and was visibly upset by the whole affair.  That was
>the last I heard.

>Local Oz Scientists suggested they were hit by lightning, and the usual
>scientist type response to anything unusual (oh...it was ball lightning,
>a weather balloon, you imagined it all...etc).  I don't know what it was..
>it may well have been something quite natural....but the family said the
>UFO grabbed the car, and tried to lift it off the ground, and that they
>could see a glowing egg shaped thingy, bashing against the roof.


>By the way, a number of ufo reports came in from Queensland last night...
>a light in the sky, moving from the west (?), hovering above, then moving
>back from where it came.  One person described it as a flying camp-fire
>(that's a new one....hard to imagine....perhaps a Grey Boy Scout :-).
>Anyone else hear about this report.

>It seems a lot of UFO's are being reported down under lately.  Have the
>Greys only just discovered Australia? (bit like you Americans....NO.. there
>are NO kangaroos jumpin' around my back garden, or in my street!!!!  ;-)

>Jamie
>--
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------            Jamie P. Curmi  ([e-mail], [e-mail])                      Department of Computer Science,   Department of Mathematics                     The Un
>iversity of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>                    *** Mutate NOW - avoid the rush! ***

Best regards Stefan Hartmann.
email to: [e-mail]

--

*************************************************************
*  Stefan Hartmann       This is how to contact me:         *
*  EMAIL: [e-mail]                          *
*  Phone : ++ 49 30 344 23 66      FAX : ++ 49 30 344 92 79 *
*************************************************************

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

Date: 10 Aug 92 13:20:48 GMT
From: "Allen W. Sherzer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Energiya's role in Space Station assem
Newsgroups: sci.space

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

>>But if you use Energia, mass isn't a problem anymore. The internal NASA
>>report on using Energia has it up with four Energia and Shuttle flights;
>>that leaves plenty for whatever you want.

>>In addition, since you needn't worry nearly so much about mass, the cost and
>>risk of the entire program goes down quite a bit.

>Considering the operational record of Energia and its Cyclone Boosters I would
>have grave misgivings about putting a fourth of the space station on Energia.

Let's analyze that risk. Scenario A uses the Shuttle for everything. It takes
30 flights. Scenario B uses four flights of both Energia and Shuttle
(although it may be doable in three). Scenario A costs $15 billion (30 flights
at $500M each). Scenario B costs about $4 billion (eight flights at $500M
each). A savings of $11 billion.

Now suppose an Energia blows up? Let's assume the average payload can be
replaced for $4 billion and a replacement launch costs nothing (since this
is a commercial procurement and we only pay for success). Let's also assume
that the Energia blows up half the time (which seems a worse case to me).
This means we need to pay an additional $8 billion for the launch as the
worse case which raises the cost of Scenario B to $12 billion.

So now we have a Scenario A which costs $15 billion (assuming no failures)
and a Scenario B which costs $12 billion (assuming half the flights fail).

Which would you prefer?

>Much better would it be to put it on the Saturn which was a zero failure
>system.

Using Saturn would be about twice as expensive as using the Shuttle.

>Also has anyone even looked at the dynamics of the vibration
>environment?

I don't know. I got an idea, before we damn the idea, let's see if it
will work.

>Bet you would have to do a lot of beefing up to get station
>elements on Energia from a structural standpoint.

You don't know that. Your guessing.

>So there is a trade off in program risk here Allan not a reduction.  That risk
>at this time would seem to be rather large.

The numbers above don't bear out that conclusion. You also ignore the huge
reductions in cost and risk which will happen when the weight limits are
taken off. Engineers can then design to meet the requriements of space and
not worry if it will fit in a Shuttle.

    Allen

--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer | "If they can put a man on the Moon, why can't they     |
|  [e-mail]     |  put a man on the Moon?"                               |
+----------------------256 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+

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

Date: 10 Aug 92 13:27:56 GMT
From: "Allen W. Sherzer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Energiya's role in Space Station assem
Newsgroups: sci.space

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

>That is one reason why I am
>cynical about Allen's presto bango approach to answering all of the questions
>about HLV's and Soyuz's.

Presto bango? Don't be foolish. This is based on assessements by chief
engineers at McDonnell Douglas and Martin who where designing rockets
when your idea of fun was wetting your diapers. I have posted enginnering
and cost assesments using real numbers. All we hear from you is 'presto
bango' and 'maybe pogo will be a problem'.

Now why are you right and those engineers wrong?

>he still has not answered the assertion
>that the Shuttle will become more and more important as the transfer of
>payload becomes a two way event becomes more and more common.

Yes I have. I have posted several alternatives ranging from Soyuz to
a DC-X derived return vehicle. Your only reply has been to ignore it.

  Allen

--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer | "If they can put a man on the Moon, why can't they     |
|  [e-mail]     |  put a man on the Moon?"                               |
+----------------------256 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+

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

Date: 10 Aug 92 15:18:29 GMT
From: Matthew DeLuca <[e-mail]>
Subject: Energiya's role in Space Station assem
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer) writes:

>Now suppose an Energia blows up? Let's assume the average payload can be
>replaced for $4 billion and a replacement launch costs nothing (since this
>is a commercial procurement and we only pay for success). Let's also assume
>that the Energia blows up half the time (which seems a worse case to me).
>This means we need to pay an additional $8 billion for the launch as the
>worse case which raises the cost of Scenario B to $12 billion.

>So now we have a Scenario A which costs $15 billion (assuming no failures)
>and a Scenario B which costs $12 billion (assuming half the flights fail).

>Which would you prefer?

Scenario A, of course, since a failure in Scenario B results in the loss of
a third or a half of the station hardware, resulting in a multi-year delay
of the station, if not the complete abandonment of the project.

Allen, why won't you understand that there is more involved than simple
finance here?  You can 'save' $3 billion, but you better be happy spending
that $3 billion on social welfare programs, because it sure as hell won't be
spent in space.
--
Matthew DeLuca                      "I'd hire the Dorsai, if I knew their
Georgia Institute of Technology      P.O. box."
Office of Information Technology                - Zebediah Carter,
Internet: [e-mail]              _The Number of the Beast_

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

Date: 10 Aug 92 15:32:08 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Energiya's role in Space Station assem
Newsgroups: sci.space

In <[e-mail]> Matthew DeLuca writes:
>Allen, why won't you understand that there is more involved than simple
>finance here?  You can 'save' $3 billion, but you better be happy spending
>that $3 billion on social welfare programs, because it sure as hell won't be
>spent in space.
 Without wishing to buy into US politics, I will merely point out
that you are being pretty free with other people's money here. There is
no requirement that any savings be spent elsewhere, as I understand that
the US has a significant budget deficit which could do with a bit of
help.
 -----------------------------------------------------------------
               ** Of course I don't speak for IBM **
Greg Nicholls ... [e-mail] or [e-mail]
                  voice/fax: [phone]

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

Date: Mon, 10 Aug 1992 10:09 MDT
From: Tony Wickersham <[e-mail]>
Subject: Historical records of NASA (selected)

The following item might be of interest to anyone doing space history
research.  It is taken from "News From The Archives" by the National
Archives and Records Administration, winter/spring 1992 (pp. 37, 40):

                                 DECLASSIFICATION

     _National Archives, Washington, D.C._

     RECORDS DECLASSIFICATION DIVISION

          The Records Declassification Division systematically reviews
     security classified documents accessioned by the National Archives.
     Under the terms of Executive Order 12356 on "National Security Information,"
     effective August 1, 1982, and the implementation directive issued
     by the Information Security Oversight Office, classified information
     accessioned by the National Archives will be reviewed when it
     becomes 30 years old. [...]

          Researchers should address any questions about the records to
     the unit holding them and should bear in mind that other restrictions
     may prevent the release of some records even though they have been
     declassified.

          Material from the following record groups, arranged numerically,
     has been declassified this quarter:

     [...]
     _Records of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration,_
     (Record Group 255, 24 cubic feet).  Classified Correspondence and
     Report Files, 1942-55.  Contact Suitland Reference Branch
     [phone].

Happy (info) hunting...

Tony Wickersham            [e-mail]
American Heritage Center
University of Wyoming
Laramie, Wyoming

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

Date: Mon, 10 Aug 1992 10:39 MDT
From: Tony Wickersham <[e-mail]>
Subject: Historical records of NASA (selected) [continued]

Oops! I just found more entries.  These records were _not_ classified,
but have been accessioned and (probably) cataloged.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES - SOUTHEAST REGION
1557 St. Joseph Avenue
East Point, GA 30344
[phone]

     _Records of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration_
(Record Group 255, 637 cubic feet).  From Marshal Space Flight Center,
Alabama.  Skylab Project Research and Development Case Files, 1962-74.
Saturn Rocket Project Research and Development Files, 1961-72.  Research
and Development, High Energy Astronomy Observatories Case Files, 1970-79.
Materials open.

(ibid., p. 73.)

NATIONAL ARCHIVES - GREAT LAKES REGION
7358 South Pulaski Road
Chicago, IL  60629
[phone]

     _Records of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration_
(Record Group 255, 4 cubic feet).  Speeches and papers, 1960-61, and
Project NERVA records, ca. 1960-73, from the Lewis Research Center,
Cleveland, OH.  Materials open.

(ibid., p. 75)


NATIONAL ARCHIVES - SOUTHWEST REGION
501 West Felix Street, P.O. Box 6216
Fort Worth, TX  76115
[phone]

     _Records of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration_
(Record Group 255, 7 cubic feet).  Reference files on Projects Mercury
and Gemini maintained by the Crew Support Division, Johnson Space Flight
Center, 1961-67.  The records include flight plans, working papers, and
technical reports.  Materials open.

(ibid., p. 78)


[end citations]

Tony Wickersham             [e-mail]
American Heritage Center
University of Wyoming
Laramie, Wyoming

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

Date: Mon, 10 Aug 92 10:30:32 BST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Home made rockets

> What you describe doing is amazingly dangerous. If you persist in
it, I
> hope you do get caught and arrested, as you are a public menace, if
> you're still alive to read this post!
>


Ah, the wonder of american cultural assumptions.... The poster who
asked for advice was not in the USA. The equipment you discuss may or
may not be readily available or even legal.

I think I got into this discussion once before. There are different
purposes for doing rocketry. If the purpose is to build hobbyist
rockets, and the appropriate "safe" materials are available, they
should be used.

There are, of course, other reasons for building rockets. Once long
ago I and some friends started on the design of a small LH2/LO2
rocket. Due to the weight of my engineering courses we never got a
chance to build it though.

I also know someone who has been experimenting with Al/H20 engines
and a Li igniter.  Static engine testing was done in a farm field in
<location deleted> on the East Coast of the USA. He has built some
fairly large engines, probably capable of a few 100 miles travel if
launched rather that testbedded. I have heard of others who have
worked on similar projects. There is the Pikes Peak L5 group that was
working on the Hummingbird project with a very unusual fuel
combination. So unusual that I'd have to go digging to remember
exactly what it was. I do remember that it required heating to keep
it liquid at room temperature.

The purpose in these cases was NOT model rocketry. They are genuine
experimentation and proof of concept for novel ideas.

So my response to the original poster is:

    a) If you just want to have fun and the equipment is
        available, do as Fred Ringwald says. It is good advice.

    b) If you are an engineer and understand the risks and have
       real ideas on propulsion to test, then go for it

       regardless of what the statists think. But do make VERY,
       VERY sure that you understand the dangers; that you

       minimize the risk as much as feasible and that you are
       gaining enough return of real knowledge to justify the
       risk to yourself. Not a justification to anyone else.
       To yourself alone. And above all, you should do it in such
       a way that in NO CIRCUMSTANCES are any innocent bystanders

       put at risk.

From the description of what you are doing, I suspect you belong in
category "a" for the time being, If you cannot acquire the materials
Fred suggested you may or may not choose to proceed with what you are
doing. Only YOU can judge how much personal risk you are willing to
accept in order to follow your personal interests. And the risk is
high.


                        Dale Amon
                an american Libertarian in Belfast


Individual Liberty; Individual Responsibility...
 - Russell Means at the 1987 Libertarian National Convention.

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

Date: Mon, 10 Aug 92 10:49:35 BST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: More TSS information from NASA Select

>    (It's undesirable when a failure on a first try discourages later
>    attempts, but that's often the case.) The fact that almost everything
>


Sad but true, and the end result of a government and bureaucracy full of
wimps and chickenshits.

Failure of engineering test articles is a necessary part of the design
process of innovative systems. If it works the first time it doesn't
necessarily mean you are good, but it could very well mean you aren't doing
anything significant. They fast (and cheap) way forward is to build it,
break it, and rebuild it until it works.


So my hat (if I wore one) is off to the Italians. THEY at least have some
engineers with balls. (a figure of speech and if you don't like, tough)


=======================================================================
Give generously to the Betty Ford  Dale M. Amon, Libertarian Anarchist
Home for the Politically Correct   [e-mail]
=======================================================================



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

Date: 10 Aug 92 07:30:34 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: Soyuz as ACRV
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (University Space Society) writes:
>>any delicate experimental result must also use shuttle due to the much milder
>>G environment than is possible with any type of ballistic trajectory be it
>>a tether or retropropulsion.
>
>Let's take a DC-Y shell and fill it with cargo instead of fuel. We teather it
>down and it lands with either parachute and/or a small engine. Since the
>DC-Y is designed to provide a ride at least as mild as shuttle this shouldn't
>be a problem.

The DC-Y *paper* rocket is supposed to land under power on it's tail. Banging
it down with a tether and parachute isn't in it's design spec for soft
landing. The Shuttle *glides* down on it's *wings* to a soft controlled
runway landing. A parachute large enough to soft land a DC-Y shell and
full cargo would take up a significant portion of said cargo space and
mass. This isn't even close to reality.

>Besides, in an earlier post you stated that ALL shuttle cargo's had to be
>certified to 10 G in the direction of motion and 6 or so transverse. Any
>capsule can do that easy.

Those are engineering *safety* margins. Operating at the outside edge
of the engineering envelope is never good engineering practice. One
wind gust against your parachute, and you've exceeded engineering limits.
Not acceptable.

>>It turns out that the only mass
>>that satisfys this requirement is the SHUTTLE. This will lower the costs of
>>Shuttle ops since the momentum transferred to the station will be subtracted
>>from the Shuttle allowing for a greater payload to be carried up on the
>>Shuttle per flight.
>
>I don't think so. An uncrewed logistics module can hang around if the
>teather breaks; a shuttle can't. For safety reasons the Shuttle will need
>to assume that the teather will fail and bring enough fuel to return with
>the OMS.

It's not the OMS fuel that's saved, it's the extra cargo capacity the
Shuttle gains from not having to carry up so much reboost fuel for Fred.
Of course with the track record of tethers, I'm not sure I'd want to
depend on them in any design being done *now*.

>I don't have those figures here but if your correct I will use my backup
>(as a good engineer I always have a backup) and go with Titan II or Titan
>III to launch. This will add about $300M to my costs (minus discount for
>buld purchase of Titan's). I'm still $3.5 billion per year below Shuttle.

Allen you should remember what Ev Dirksen used to say, "A billion here,
a billion there, pretty soon you're talking real money." As each of your
cost saving ideas are shot down, you throw more money at the problem.
That's how giant oaks from little acorns grow. Pretty soon your Rube
Goldberg plans start costing more than the proven and *flying* Shuttle
system. I think that if SSTO doesn't pan out, and there's a good chance
it won't, then we should be considering Shuttle II, a low maintenance,
low turnaround follow on vehicle to a proven system. Taking lessons
learned, and advances in aerospace technology over the 20 years since
Shuttle was designed, we should be able to make as large an incremental
improvement as the step from the 707 to the 767 in the Shuttle. This
would take advantage of existing, and *paid for*, facilities at the
Cape and at Rockwell while cutting ground servicing personel costs
sharply. That's what really drives Shuttle launch costs.

Gary

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

Date: 10 Aug 92 13:30:35 GMT
From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Subject: SPS
Newsgroups: sci.space

-From: [e-mail] (Frederick A. Ringwald)
-Subject: SPS feasibility (WAS: SPS fouling astronomy)
-Date: 10 Aug 92 00:46:25 GMT
-Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

-Again, kindly supply numbers and literature references. Otherwise, how
-can I tell if your arguments aren't just anecdotal?

If they had good solid numbers and the technology all figured out, they'd
probably have built it by now, or completely abandoned the idea. (Or they
might be waiting for a drop in launch costs, buildup of infrastructure
for use of lunar materials, etc.) SPS appears to be a range of proposals,
without much urgency to implement it.

-Laser transmission from the Moon takes care of sky brightness and radio
-static problems, but still leaves atmospheric heating open.

According to Steve Willner, if you choose 10.6um (handy because that's what
a CO2 laser put out), then the main absorption is by water vapor, at about
1% per millimeter equivalent. So it wouldn't heat the upper atmosphere
significantly, if you choose a high, dry site for reception there wouldn't
be much heating / energy loss overall, and in any event, there would be a
lot less heating than the large amounts of waste heat from equivalent power
generation on Earth, and a whole lot less heating than that presumably caused
by the greenhouse gases released by fossil fuel. Space-based solar power
would also heat the Earth much less than ground-based solar power generation.

-(It also
-dispenses with a traditional geostationary SPS advantage, perpetual
-power transmission, but this is relatively minor: power companies today
-store enormous amounts of reserve power by pumping water uphill.)

That is widely used for peak load demand, where the water is pumped overnight,
partly because water turbines can be brought online in just a few minutes,
much faster than coal or nuclear-driven generators. But that's only a few
hours a day - it takes a lot more water to provide power for 24 hours. And
except in mountainous areas (where the water can generally be used as a net
power source anyway), adding more dams would cause the loss of valuable river
bottomland. It might be workable, but there are still issues to be resolved.

-> All development of solar tech in the U.S. is carried out by SDIO and they
-> just got their throat cut by congress critters pushing bread and circuses
-> at the expense of the future.

-Did you say all? This is news to me.

AEC (before it became ERDA, then DOE) used to do a lot of research on solar
power. I don't know how much they do now. Incidentally, this summer I bought
a new foot-square photoelectric solar cell, rated for 14V @ a few hundred
milliamps, for just $23 at a hamfest. It was some black, amorphous-looking
substance. That's quite a bit cheaper than the traditional crystalline
silicon solar cells. (Could it be Ovshinsky's design?) They were also selling
licence-plate-size panels, with a frame, diode, power cord, and cigarette
lighter plug (for trickle-charging car batteries), for a little over $30.

-Even if
-you could import diamonds from the Moon, gold from the asteroids, or
-star sapphires from Mars, could you beat the transportation costs?

Gem-quality diamonds from the moon, probably so, and gold from the asteroids,
maybe, provided you didn't flood the market. Both of these would require at
least minor advances in current technology.

John Roberts
[e-mail]

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

Date: Mon, 10 Aug 92 14:49:36 BST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: SPS feasibility (WAS: SPS fouling astronomy)

> This assumes an end to the civil war there, which is largely an
ethnic
> conflict. If you can get these people to stop hating each other and
> peacefully coexist, more power to you.
>


And I thought it was a religious war between two Marxist sects. :-)

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

Date: 10 Aug 92 14:51:50 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: SPS feasibility (WAS: SPS fouling astronomy)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>And I thought it was a religious war between two Marxist sects. :-)
  Nah, you've confused them with the ANC ...:-)/2
 -----------------------------------------------------------------
               ** Of course I don't speak for IBM **
Greg Nicholls ... [e-mail] or [e-mail]
                  voice/fax: [phone]

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

Date: Mon, 10 Aug 92 12:08:45 BST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: SPS fouling astronomy

> _require_ lots of stray reflected light?  I have a telescope too.
Even
> though I'd like to see SPS a reality, I like to see the reality
that
> includes galaxies, nebulae and clusters, too :-)
>


For what it's worth, I suspect that in a world that can build a belt
of gigantic power stations in GSO, amateur astronomers will be
running space telescopes and recording their images on their personal
supercomputers. (I have a vision of the Edmund Scientific catalog for
2025... 6" Newtonian, launch included...) There was already one
project, the ISRG at RPI. I have heard nothing about it for several
years, so I don't know if they are still working on it or not.

When one extrapolates massive changes like this, other changes must
also be taken into account. And besides which, even without the
SPSS's the Terran based amateurs are going to be terribly jealous of
the Lunatic amateurs, particularly the farside ones...

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

Date: Sun, 9 Aug 1992 15:24:10 GMT
From: Student3 <[e-mail]>
Subject: Target Tracking
Newsgroups: sci.space

============================================================================

Dear Coleagues,

I would like to ask for your help for the following:

I am beginning my work in Particle Physics Research Field on a problems
related to:

  1. Multi-hypothesis tracking algorithms for target tracking.

  2. Using Hough-Transform for track-initialization.

Would you like please, to point out some of the most succesful
books, rewiev-papers and mostly Source-Code sources in any
algorithmic language (Fortran, Pascal, C etc.), because I have
to concentrate mainly on their application on a specific data
from our experiments.

I am posting for a first time, so please excuse me if this is not the
right group, but I really believ that this is multy-disciplinary
interest.

Any comments, advices and orientations are your best for a beginner
like me.

Your answers you can send to my E-mail address:

          [e-mail]

Sincerely thanks in advance.

Albena
============================================================================

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

Date: 10 Aug 92 14:09:24 GMT
From: Greg Moore <[e-mail]>
Subject: Weird circle-like things on shuttle map
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John Eisenberg) writes:
>>On the NASA channel, when they display the globe with the
>>shuttle moving around, there are all these cirlce-like things...
>
>>What are they and why are they shaped as they are?
>
>Those are called Crop Circles. Nobody knows what causes them.
>
    (Yes, I realize the humor here...) But, the cause has actually
been discovered.  Very mundane actually.  Two guys using a 2"x6" or something
that they would tread upon.  Oh well... so much for the exotic. :-)
    But I did love all the theories.

> Allen
>
>PS. :-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-)
>
>--
>+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
>| Allen W. Sherzer | "If they can put a man on the Moon, why can't they     |
>|  [e-mail]     |  put a man on the Moon?"                               |
>+----------------------259 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+


--
<------------------------------------------------------------------------->
Greg d. Moore                  |  [e-mail]
Green Mountain Software        |  "All that is gold does not glitter."
Carpe Diem                     |

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

Date: 10 Aug 92 09:18:57 GMT
From: Frank Teusink <[e-mail]>
Subject: Whales and Dolphins
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (John Roberts) writes:

[(a reaction on) a discussion on the intelligence of whales]

>John Roberts
>[e-mail]

To me, it seems rather pointless to discuss whether or not whales and
dolphins have "intelligence", because we just do not have a clear
enough understanding of what "intelligence" means. Our understanding
of human intelligence is somewhat better. If we look at the amount of
"human-intelligence" of whales, they seem to score rather low (beachings
and the like).  The problem with  this is most people feel that this
is not fair with respect to the  whales (I do). So, it seems interesting
to look for the reason why there is this difference between our
""objective"" understandig of intelligence and the "thing" whales seem
to have.

MHO,

Frank Teusinl
[e-mail]

P.S. Why is this thread in sci.space?

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

Date: Mon, 10 Aug 92 11:13:20 BST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: What is the ASRM??

> Perhaps we could put a saturn v on top of Serbia?


I think it would be more fun to drop it on the snipers outside of
Sarajevo. I'm sure the townspeople would *LOVE* the fire works
display. It'd be almost as much fun as the executions after the
Nuremberg trials. :-|

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

End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 093
------------------------------