Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V15_2/V15NO228.TXT

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Date: Tue, 22 Sep 92 05:00:59
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V15 #228
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Tue, 22 Sep 92       Volume 15 : Issue 228

Today's Topics:
                    Clinton/Gorey on Spaciness...
                                Ethics
                   Ethics, population, and all that
                Human Ignorance -- the Final Solution
                           Model ion engine
                     NASA working on Apollo rerun
           PLANETLIKE OBJECT SPOTTED BEYOND PLUTO (2 msgs)
                              Population
               QUERY: Apollo/Landing Module operations
                  Sayonara, Mariner Mark II (2 msgs)
                   Solar radiation and astronauts6
                            Space Agencies
                        Technology as Savior?
Using Electric Rockets for Science (was Re: Ion for Pluto Direct) (2 msgs)

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

Date: Mon, 21 Sep 92 10:00:45 -0500
From: [e-mail] (Phil G. Fraering)
Subject: Clinton/Gorey on Spaciness...

Dennis, nobly (is there any other way?) criticizing the Clinton/Gore
Space Plank, writes?

\Gimme a break. He is an engineer? No the loss of seven lives shook NASA so bad
/that the accountability he speaks of has increased the paperwork by many fold
\and help lead to errors such as on TSS and the extra bolts "just in case"

/I wish Henry would go at this again. He does a much better job.

I went at it when it was first published. I should have saved it;
I didn't know they were just going to repeat it and repeat it until
we get tired of rebutting and they can say we believe in it.

Let me see what I have archived. Hopefully I have something...

Phil


--
Phil Fraering [e-mail] where the x is a number from 1-5.
Phone: [phone] SnailMail: 2408 Blue Haven Dr., New Iberia, La. 70560
"NOAH!"
"Yes Lord?"                          - Bill Cosby
"HOW LONG CAN YOU TREAD WATER?"

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

Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1992 15:33:05 GMT
From: Frank Crary <[e-mail]>
Subject: Ethics
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (David O Hunt) writes:
>But if we terrafo0rm Mars KNOWING that there is life there, then we become
>a race of mass-murderers that Hitler and Stalin would be proud of...
>Or does the word "genocide" not burn your ears with shame?

Cheap emotional rhetoric: If causing a species to become extinct is "mass-
murder" and "genocide", then we are already guilty of it many times
over. (Both terms, by the way, refer to killing members of your _own_
species. I've never heard a hunter refered to as a "murderer" in a
rational discussion.)

                                                Frank Crary
                                                CU Boulder

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

Date: Mon, 21 Sep 92 10:24:28 PDT
From: "UTADNX::UTDSSA::GREER"@utspan.span.nasa.gov
Subject: Ethics, population, and all that

Tom McWilliams writes:

>>If you want to continue, try the aesthetics angle.

>Actually, the aesthetic angle was the gist of my post.  I called your
>arguments a "Procrustean formula" because you seem to be trying to
>measure every opposing argument against your "more life is better" theme
>whether it fits or not.  Your response reinforces this observation.

>'More life is better' was not my argument.  'Our life must be at least as
>good as any other' was.

That must be the problem here.  It's hard to hit a moving target.

>Please repost your aestheic angle, with an emphasis on how any aesthetic
>value of Mars can be higher than the person doing the valuing.

A) If you didn't get it the first time, it won't help to post it again.
B) The aesthetic value of Mars comes from the person(s) doing the valuing.

>Premises are either true or untrue.
>Conclusions based on valid forms and true premises are true.
>My premises:  Life is good, humans are as good as any life, Mars is T-formable.

If only we all could see things in such simple, black and white terms.


George F. McQuary quotes Paul Erlich:

>     "In the 1970's the world will undergo famines - hundreds of millions
>     of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs
>     embarked upon now ... in 1985, when it is calculated [under the most
>     optimistic scenario] that the major die-back will be over, ..."
>                       Dr. Paul Erlich, "The Population Bomb," 1968

This reminds me of the fable of the boy who cried wolf.  In the end,
there really was a wolf!


Thomas H. Kunich writes:

>Not that (as my messages have shown) I don't believe in population
>control -- but I don't think that this is a subject for discussion
>in the manner described here. This is a philosophic and ethical
>question.

He right!  I'm outta here.

_____________
Dale M. Greer, whose opinions are not to be confused with those of the
Center for Space Sciences, U.T. at Dallas, UTSPAN::UTADNX::UTDSSA::GREER
"Pave Paradise, put up a parking lot." -- Joni Mitchell

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

Date: 21 Sep 92 08:42:59 GMT
From: Nick Szabo <[e-mail]>
Subject: Human Ignorance -- the Final Solution
Newsgroups: sci.space

>
>Just another point..by the way... what happens if we start dumping on the
>sun and IT GOES OUT!!!  ok not very likely but I hope we know what we are
>doing.

What if we start terraforming Mars and the stuff comes back and
_attacks Earth!_.  Better not terraform Mars, we might not know
what we're doing.

But what if we change life on _Earth_ through our industry, and
it comes back to attack us, like in the old Native American
stories?  Better shut down industry, we might not know what
we're doing.

But what if we change life on Earth through our agricultural?
No other method of land use cuts more deeply into biodiversity.
We are much better suited to what we are genetically adapted
for, the hunter-gather economy.  Better turn back the neolithic
revolution, we may not have known what we were doing.

But what if the cave caves in?  After all, the ancient cavemen in
their wisdom didn't call them "caves" for nothing.  Better not stay
in caves, we might not know what we're getting into.

Their's only one solution left.  Self-genocide!  Tie your tubes!
Drink the kool-aid!  You first, of course -- I'm very bad at setting
a good example :-)


--
[e-mail]        Tuesday, November third  ##  Libertarian  $$  vote
Tuesday  ^^ Libertarian  --  change  **  choice && November 3rd @@Libertarian

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

Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1992 12:12:58 -0400 (EDT)
From: [e-mail] (DONALDO THE GREAT)
Subject: Model ion engine

    I saw a posting about a voltage multiplier to drive
a model ion engine in the SPACE Digest. I am very interested
in this and was wondering if the person could send me the details?
I tried sending email to the original poster but I cant get his
address to work. Thanks alot!


                    Don Platt
                    [e-mail]

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

Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1992 11:36:52 GMT
From: Nick Szabo <[e-mail]>
Subject: NASA working on Apollo rerun
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Edward V. Wright) writes:
>Actually, it "repeats" the advanced Apollo missions that
>were never conducted.

And why is that?  Why didn't the $120 billion NASA spent -- over
a thousand times as much as it's spent on asteroid exploration --
lead to commerce tapping all those "resources" you claim are on the
Moon, and that you claim commerce is eager to tap?  You blame
Apollo's ending on "politicians", but the commercial people you
expect to take over didn't spend one fat dime of their own money
trying to turn it into a commercial operation!  They didn't
even try to channel some of that $120 billion into such an effort.
They abondoned the moon like a ton of bricks, and even abandoned the
infrastructure built to get us there, in favor of economically sized
rockets like Delta and Atlas, stuff they could use without losing their
shirts.  Ed Wright likes the moon, and Ed Wright likes commerce,
but unfortuneately for Ed commerce does not like the moon.

>A 45-day stay by four men is significantly
>different from a few days' stay by two men.

How is this significant, in terms of commerce?  Other than
it costing more money.  FLO promises zero revenue, just like
Apollo provided zero revenue.  The only commercial tie-in
suggested that has any chance of glomming on to FLO is the
lunar knick-knacks, perhaps about $1 to $10 million in revenue,
based on the current meteorite market.  Compared to $270,000
million in costs.  Boy, commerce must just be chomping at
the bit for that business.  Of course all that "grass-roots",
"commercial" design work has nothing to do with the promise
of $270 billion in taxpayer-funded contracts, don't be
such a cynic.  :-)

>>The system requires -- get this -- a launcher 1.5 times the
>>size of Saturn 5!
>
>You make it sound like a launcher larger than the Saturn V is
>impossible, or a ridiculous idea.

It sounds like a ridiculous idea, because it is.  I didn't
have to make any special sounds, I just had to write it.  You
imbue great powers of wisdom and economic efficiency onto
private enterprise; last year you claimed that it could build
a lunar base ten times as large as NASA's for 1% of the price.
The same people in commerce with these Godlike powers have already
rejected Energia, Saturn, and even Titan IV with barely a glance,
the economics are so far out of whack.

(But of course, commerce can't reduce the cost of automated missions
very much at all, or it would spoil Ed's plan of how it all has
to happen, Just So.   Meanwhile, in the real world the cost of
a comsat circuit has dropped an order of magnitude in a decade,
while the cost of a space station has increased).

>>No production plants, no
>>mass driver, and no biosphere.
>
>Just as well.  The US government has had some success in exploring
>and opening up new frontiers, but government-run economic enterprises
>are pretty sure money-losers.

Lewis and Clark aside, most frontiers were historically explored
by private adventurers.  Including Columbus, whose first
voyage was financed by real estate owners and his merchant uncle,
not by Isabel, who did not hock the crown jewels even for
the ensuing voyages.  In fact, let's not put Lewis and Clark
aside -- the Hudson's Bay Company had scouted out the region well
before L&C, and was already setting up a very profitable operation.

If you don't trust NASA to do things commercial, why do you trust their
decision that the Moon is the best place for commerce to go and we should
ignore everything else?  Especially when the two biggest inputs needed
by private industry, air and water, are nonexistant on the moon?


>The industrialization andcolonization
>phase can, and must, be led by private enterprise.

Private enterprise works on plans for servicing a market at low
enough cost to provide a positive cash flow and high enough return --
business plans.  There are successful business plans for traditional
comsats, profitable looking business plans for DBS and phone cell sats
and remote sensing, and I'm cooking up some quite profitable business
plans for asteroid, Jupiter-family comet, Mars, etc. operations give
certain technological assumptions (eg a good electric rocket to get
equipment to comets, and automation of simple process and extraction
procedures).  What is the business plan that will pay off $270 billion of
investment in a place that lacks air and water, and even many of the very
elements needed to make air and water?  Let's see you present a cash flow
sheet with good return, otherwise cut the nonsense about private
enterprise to the rescue of an obsolete socialist technovision.

>But why do you need a biosphere, Nick?  Aren't you going to give
>us your usual line about how everything we need to do anywhere in
>space can be done by $14.95 robot that you can buy at Radio Shack?

Cute stereotype.  Point out that automated missions cost only a
tiny fraction of astronaut missions, ie _think like a businessman_,
and the guy who expects magical wonders out of businessmen starts
making up silly things that I never said.

I never pretended automation was easy. I have said it is the most
important technology we need to work on to industrialize space
and make it so _we_ can afford to go there, not just a few astronauts
spending $100's of millions each.  And not "robots" either, but
automation for the simpler, hi-thruput extraction processes, such
as Zubrin's design for manufacturing propellant from the Martian
atmosphere, or mine for extracting it from Jupiter-family comet ice.
Prototyping these things is far, far more important for both commerce
and those interested on travelling and living in space, than the
next round of $100 million spacesuit and $billion dollar capsule
designs.   NASA acts not at all like the businessmen to whom you ascribe
so much power, and neither do you, so the $$$ signs on the equipment
go right past y'all, and you _make fun_ of people who act like businessmen
and work on ways to save money!!!

>>[4-propellant lunar lander expensive kludge]

>...But developing the technology to store cryongenic propellents
>on the Moon for 45 days might be even more expensive.

But again, the fact that the operation itself is expensive, no matter
which way it is accomplished, just escapes notice!  Having been told
by the engineers that either way is expensive, the reasonable
businessman at this point starts looking for alternatives to the
entire operation -- ways to industrialize space that don't include
a lunar base.  Those merely following the traditional socialist prescription
for space development -- shuttle, station, lunar base, "logical
steps" all payed for by the government and with no other purpose then
being a "stepping stone" for the "next logical step" -- the people
following this infinite-taxpayer-revenue strategy rarely even blink
at such costs.   The difference between NASA and business is not
a wand that magically reduces the costs of whatever NASA has dictated
or space fans have traditionally rooted for by three orders of
magnitude.  The difference is a way of tackling problems, a way of
thinking that include technology, economics, and solving customer's
problems, using new information to rethink the entire problem when
the initial strategies prove untenable.

>They propose a monster rocket 1.5 times the capability of Saturn 5,
>>which would not be used by anybody outside NASA.
>
>Does your crystal ball tell you this,

No, the history of commercial and military indifference to Saturn 5 and
Energia  tells me this, and those who expect commerce to save money
should study this history, and the history of business in general,
and figure out why they do the things they do. It is silly to think
that a super-Saturn would cost so much less than the old Saturn 5 that
commerce would change their mind so drastically, that they could pay
off the $10's of billions of tooling, pad, assembly building, etc. needed
for such a monster.

As an object lesson, take Titan IV, a relatively straightforward
scaling up of Titan compared to this proposal.  It took a 50-launch
USAF order to justify the $billions of pad upgrades, new tooling, etc.
Now the USAF has cancelled half those orders, and the amortized cost
is above $400 million per launch.  There was no significant commercial
interest even at the initial $200 million pricetag, much less after that
fiasco.  And the USAF still has more to spend on such things than NASA.

>And how does that compare with the amount that governments,
>universities, mining companies, oil companies, etc. spend
>every year to study the geology of "one body?"

We spend $10's of billions on Earth exploration -- not on $270,000
million dollar 4-man capsules, but on rigs that explore all over
the world for a few $thousand to a few $hundred million per shot.
We can spend it because we have industry with an abundant supply of the
two most important industrial inputs, air and water, and most of that
exploration budget is spent for organic materials, fossil fuels, for
energy and industrial raw material.  A minority is spent to find metals
and other ores, but even those require huge inputs of air and water to
process.  The moon doesn't have those materials, or even the
building-blocks for them, but the comets and Mars do, as do the asteroids
taken as a whole, and perhaps nearby asteroids yet undiscovered.  Many
asteroids have concentrations of platinum-rich nickel-iron tens to hundreds
of times more concentrated than those on the moon.  To an industry-wise
businessmen looking for raw materials in space, the moon is not at all
the first choice; but to those following tradition, nearest means the
best --  no matter how much of a wasteland it has turned out to be, we
will explore no further, because it's not in The Plan.

> You can't play that kind of naive numbers game, Nick.

So now, the very method businessmen use, the businessmen Ed Wright
thinks can reduce the costs of a lunar base by three orders of
magnitude, that very method is a "naive numbers game".

If you want commerce to play a role in developing space, you're
going to have to do it by their rules -- which include cost
efficiency, serving the paying customer instead of some third
party's "vision", looking foremost for the material inputs that
sustain life and industry, and rethinking the plans and goals
of the socialist age gone by.  If you don't want to think
about those methods, if you're not willing to retool the mind
for a 21st century of free enterprise in space, then you are
stuck with political lobbyists and their $100 million per astronaut
flight Shuttles, their $150 billion Winnebago-sized space station,
and day-dreaming about the day when Cold War socialism will return
and provide funding for a $270 billion glorified rerun of Apollo.
That's the old way, and it may suit some people fine, but it's
not business's bailliwick.  They play their game their own way,
and, IMHO, in a better way, even if they can't magically
reduce the cost of lunar bases by three orders of magnitude.


--
[e-mail]        Tuesday, November third  ##  Libertarian  $$  vote
Tuesday  ^^ Libertarian  --  change  **  choice && November 3rd @@Libertarian

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

Date: 21 Sep 92 05:57:23 GMT
From: "John A. Weeks III" <[e-mail]>
Subject: PLANETLIKE OBJECT SPOTTED BEYOND PLUTO
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail]:
> In <[e-mail]>, by [e-mail]:
> > This was reported in IAU circular 5611. Marsden computed possible orbits,
> > one of which was as described above.

We need a new "Grand Tour" flight.  The Pluto direct flights should be directed
to fly past Chiron (I think thats the name of the thing discovered in the
neighborhood or Saturn), then Pluto, then past this new planet.  Perhaps a
few new objects will be sighted beyond Pluto in the mean time that can be
added to the mission.

Since you cannot get much of a direction change when flying past small
objects, would a flight like this be possible?  Do these objects line
up or are they even in the same plane?  Could one get gravity assists
from some of the larger planets in order to fly by these smaller objects?

> I think it's too early to be sure that 1992 QB1 is a Kuiper object, but
> it's real interesting whatever it is. [...]  It's nice to see a well thought
> out and planned experiment come to a successful fruition.

Has this new object been confirmed by anyone else?  Since this is such an
exciting discovery, I would sure hate to see it disappear (like the supernova
pulsar a few years back).

-john-

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

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

Date: Mon, 21 Sep 92 10:06:18 -0500
From: [e-mail] (Phil G. Fraering)
Subject: PLANETLIKE OBJECT SPOTTED BEYOND PLUTO

John Weeks writes:

\We need a new "Grand Tour" flight.  The Pluto direct flights should be directed
/to fly past Chiron (I think thats the name of the thing discovered in the
\neighborhood or Saturn), then Pluto, then past this new planet.  Perhaps a
/few new objects will be sighted beyond Pluto in the mean time that can be
\added to the mission.

/Since you cannot get much of a direction change when flying past small
\objects, would a flight like this be possible?  Do these objects line
/up or are they even in the same plane?  Could one get gravity assists
\from some of the larger planets in order to fly by these smaller objects?


You can't get gravity assist from the smaller objects, and the planets
prob. aren't in a conveinent position.

You need to use....


Ready now? Sitting down? Calm?

Ok, here it is...



Ion drive!!!!!!!



Gee! What a suprise!

--
Phil Fraering [e-mail] where the x is a number from 1-5.
Phone: [phone] SnailMail: 2408 Blue Haven Dr., New Iberia, La. 70560
"NOAH!"
"Yes Lord?"                          - Bill Cosby
"HOW LONG CAN YOU TREAD WATER?"

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

Date: 21 Sep 92 15:21:20 GMT
From: "Edward V. Wright" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Population
Newsgroups: sci.space

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (David Knapp) writes:

>>  Not the only person. A common theme that runs through all environmental
>>debate is that every other species is more important than Man.

>Perhaps you've been reading literature the rest of us haven't. I've never
>seen such a thing.

Oh?  You haven't even read about the spotted owl?  The environmentalist
position there is that the species must be saved regardless of how many
jobs are lost.  Now, there are certainly cases where a specific type of
environmental protection may be worth some job loss, and this may be one
of them, but that is not the environmentalist position.  Whenever
someone starts talking about cost/benefit analyses, the environmentalists
do not contest the costs and benefits involved -- they just yell bloody
murder.



>>ie. It is OK to completely ruin some peoples lives, provided you are
>>saving another species. (I might also point out here, that I have
>>_never_ heard an environmentalist offer to contribute out of their
>>own pocket to assist communities whose livelihoods they intend to
>>destroy)

>Do you think it is always appropriate to always give other species the
>short end of the stick if it inconveniences man? How about the other way
>around? I've never heard anybody favor either way.

Um, I notice you didn't answer his question.  Why don't you volunteer
to sacrifice *your* job, or give up part of *your* income, to avoid
"inconveniencing other species."


>If you find it necessary to frame things as 'how does it affect *me*?', then
>there you go.

Bingo!  What is wrong with someone worrying about how an environmental
decision affects people?  You environmentalists frame questions in terms
of how they affect every other species *except man.*

But, again, when was the last time you volunteered to eliminate your
job, instead of someone else's, to benefit the cause?



>You're right. Species do come and go. Which species,so far, has been
>responsible for the most species 'going'?

I give up.  Please tell us.  Hint: Most species that have gone
extinct did so long before your favorite devil, Man, appeared
on this Earth.

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

Date: 21 Sep 92 11:31:11 GMT
From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey <[e-mail]>
Subject: QUERY: Apollo/Landing Module operations
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (John Deane) writes:
>     I _REALLY_ enjoyed "The Space Shuttle Operator's Manual"
>  by Joels & Kennedy
> (Macmillan 1983, Ballantine 1982). Ever since then I've wanted
> something slightly
> similar for Apollo and the LM. Does anyone know if such a thing
> was ever published?

Such a thing was never published.  (Though you have a neat idea, John.)

I will leave it to Henry Spencer to tell you:

1) Of the available literature, what comes closest, and
2) What to read if you want to WRITE *The Apollo Operator's Manual*.


Bill Higgins                      | "[Theatregoers], if they did not
                                  | happen to like the production,
Fermi National                    | had either to sit all through it
Accelerator Laboratory            | or else go home.  They probably
                                  | would have rejoiced at the ease
                                  | of our Tele-Theaters, where we
Internet:  [e-mail]  | can switch from one play to
                                  | another in five seconds, until we
SPAN/Hepnet:      43011::HIGGINS  | find the one that suits us best."
                                  | --Hugo Gernsback predicts
Bitnet:      [e-mail]  | Channel-Flipping in
                                  | *Ralph 124C41+* (1912)

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

Date: 21 Sep 92 08:17:31 GMT
From: Nick Szabo <[e-mail]>
Subject: Sayonara, Mariner Mark II
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes:
>>         **  Cassini Redesigned -- [...]
>>         Key features of the re-designed mission include:  Cassini-unique
>> spacecraft with body-fixed instruments, and a lighter spacecraft permitting
>> the launch by a standard Titan IV vehicle.
>
>I guess this puts an end to the fiction of the Mariner Mark II
>"series," huh?


Mariner Mark II wasn't always a fiction.  It became so when the
planetary exploration budget was reduced by an order of magnitude, from
$3 billion per year ($92) in the 1970's to $300 million a year today, a
level over an order of magnitude less than the Shuttle budget.  There's no
such thing as a standard bus in this size range when we can only afford to
fly one  mission per decade of this size.  Not that I object to the size
cutback; I would rather see ten small missions than one big mission, and
I've lobbied for that for years. Unfortuneately, the choice has boiled down
to one small mission (per year) vs. no big missions.  ("Big" only relative
to other automated planetary missions, understand.  The old Mariner Mark
II missions would have each cost less than 1% of one astronaut project
to low earth orbit, SSF).



--
[e-mail]        Tuesday, November third  ##  Libertarian  $$  vote
Tuesday  ^^ Libertarian  --  change  **  choice && November 3rd @@Libertarian

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

Date: 21 Sep 92 13:44:39 GMT
From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey <[e-mail]>
Subject: Sayonara, Mariner Mark II
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Nick Szabo) writes:
> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes:
>>>         **  Cassini Redesigned -- [...]
>>I guess this puts an end to the fiction of the Mariner Mark II
>>"series," huh?
>
> Mariner Mark II wasn't always a fiction.  It became so when the
> planetary exploration budget was reduced by an order of magnitude, from
> $3 billion per year ($92) in the 1970's to $300 million a year today, a
> level over an order of magnitude less than the Shuttle budget.

Point taken.  I was saying, in a shorthand fashion, "to the extent the
SSEC plan was a good one, it's a shame it never got implemented, and
now the last bit of lip service to the Planetary Observer/Mariner Mark
II scheme has disappeared from NASA's pipeling."   It was a dumb name,
anyhow, too easy to confuse with Mariner II of Venus fame.

> Unfortuneately, the choice has boiled down
> to one small mission (per year) vs. no big missions.  ("Big" only relative
> to other automated planetary missions, understand.  The old Mariner Mark
> II missions would have each cost less than 1% of one astronaut project
> to low earth orbit, SSF).

"Small" only on the scale of planetary science, understand.  If
Fermilab had the 400-megabuck budget (I generously neglect launch
costs, as NASA always does in quoting costs) of the Pluto probe, we
could build our new Main Injector and still serve free champagne every
day in the cafeteria.  And we are "big science" by Earthly standards!

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

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

Date: Mon, 21 Sep 92 18:30:49 BST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Solar radiation and astronauts6

> The rate actually depends on the solar cycle also: For some reason
> cosmic rays are less intense during the solar maximum.
>


I seem to remember reading that the Earth-Moon system is effectively
inside a boundary layer controlled by the Sun. At other times the
boundary is sunwards and we are open to the bombardment from outside.
Probably one or both of the Solar magnetic field and solar wind
causing the exclusionary effect.

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

Date: Mon, 21 Sep 92 15:09:27 -0500
From: [e-mail] (Phil G. Fraering)
Subject: Space Agencies

\Does anyone know what ecaxtly the National Reconaissance Agency, who's
/existence was recently declassified, responsibe for?

Guess.

Seriously, they're responsible for reconaissance.

If they're responsible for anything else, it isn't public. I
suspect that they're responsible for
13245?@#$%@#$%!@#~
Service disconnected.
NO CARRIER

--
Phil Fraering [e-mail] where the x is a number from 1-5.
Phone: [phone] SnailMail: 2408 Blue Haven Dr., New Iberia, La. 70560
"NOAH!"
"Yes Lord?"                          - Bill Cosby
"HOW LONG CAN YOU TREAD WATER?"

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Date: 21 Sep 92 13:54:46 GMT
From: Paul Dietz <[e-mail]>
Subject: Technology as Savior?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <gdavis.717080613@griffin> [e-mail] (Gary Davis) writes:

> As for the moral implications of population control.. many of us see the
> reverse side of the coin. That is to allow uncontrolled population to
> erode the planet's environment is the upmost of immoral turpidtudes.

   "Clearly the worst thing we can do is send food . . . .
    Atomic bombs would be kinder.  For a few moments the misery
    would be acute, but it would soon come to an end for most of
    the people, leaving a few survivors to suffer thereafter."

        Garrett Hardin, 1969.


> The face of the UGLY American has finally come home to roost and its
> not pretty folk. No sir Ree!

  How true!

  The antipopulation-growth dogma is, I think, quite clearly in the
tradition of good ol' American racism and xenophobia (how dare those
gooks exist!).  A proposal such as Hardin's, when viewed in the light
of subsequent events (where so-called overpopulated countries like
India and China have made large increases in per-capita food
production, refuting the dire predictions of the doomsters), is a
rather chilling example.

    Paul F. Dietz
    [e-mail]

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Date: Mon, 21 Sep 92 18:55:09 BST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Using Electric Rockets for Science (was Re: Ion for Pluto Direct)

> The right thing is for NASA, or ESA, to get serious on proving
> electric propulsion (I mean for interplanetary purposes) by flying a
> serious mission that employs it... perhaps an asteroid rendezvous or
> multiple flyby.  But such missions can *also* be flown with chemical
>


Bill:

What I've been trying to say is: why don't we call an engineering test an
engineering test? Set up a mission whose purpose is to thoroughly shake down
an ion engine. Then, invite scientific instruments with the caveat that they
are simply along for the ride and will return data so long as they don't get
in the way of the primary mission. When the engineers are satisfied with
their baby, and when the scientists feel it is "off the shelf" THEN is can be
used in missions that are primarily science oriented.

The way we do things now is the worst of both worlds: let science be science
and engineering be engineering.


I can suggest a parallel to my own field. If I were designing a new super
computer and told you that you can test out your collider design code, but I
won't guarantee it will run to completion because I might have to pull the
plug to change boards or fix system software bugs ... but I'll try to be
polite about it if possible.

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Date: Mon, 21 Sep 92 18:57:21 BST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Using Electric Rockets for Science (was Re: Ion for Pluto Direct)

>   Maybe we
> need a new NASA flight program where technology development is first
> priority,  with science along for the ride?  This seems to be what
> SDIO is doing with Clementine.  In the long run, science would benefit
> greatly, because such missions would add more items to the "shelf"
> people always like to get their hardware from.
>


Whole hearted agreement. <APPLAUSE>

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End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 228
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