Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V15_2/V15NO251.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1993-07-13 | 34KB

Date: Sun, 27 Sep 92 05:00:03
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V15 #251
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Sun, 27 Sep 92       Volume 15 : Issue 251

Today's Topics:
                                (none)
                       Clinto and Space Funding
                  Clinton and Space Funding (2 msgs)
                   Hypersonic test vehicle proposed
                    Lunar landing in 2002 (3 msgs)
                 Mariner Mark II vs smaller missions
                        Mars Observer Launched
             Mars Observer Update - 09/25/92 (Launch Day)
                            overpopulation
                    Self-genociding space colonies
            Space Platforms (political, not physical : -)
            STS-47 SAREX packet robot status, post-flight

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Date: 26 Sep 92 22:39:13 GMT
From: Eric Loeb <[e-mail]>
Subject: (none)
Newsgroups: sci.space

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

Date: 26 Sep 92 22:50:21 GMT
From: Nick Szabo <[e-mail]>
Subject: Clinto and Space Funding
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Doug Page) writes:
>
>Let's be careful how we define "technology".  Did the Japanese invent TV,
>the automobile, VCRs, transistors, ICs, radio, computers,
>microprocessors, microcomputers, microwave ovens, telephones, or even the
>quality programs that they implement?  No, they did not!  Do they have a
>technological edge in producing the products listed?  Yes, they do!  The
>Japanese understand what the customer wants and then make it for them.  Are
>they inovative?  Yes, but primarily in the areas of manufacturing and quality.

Very good points.  When talk about government R&D in support of
business, we often have very wrong ideas of what form that R&D should
take.  It's the basic engineering technologies -- making things
stronger, tougher, lighter, easier to make, and making the machine
tools more functional and automated -- that make the most difference.
Unfortuneately, government programs are almost never measured against
these basic engineering goals, even when done in the name of
engineering.  Instead, government tries to out-guess the market on
what the next big business will be (fusion, fiber, space manufacturing,
etc.) and inevitably fails in doing so.

>The problem in the US is that if a company gambles on a new technology and
>loses, it can put a major dent in that company's financial condition (if not
>break it).

The same is true in Japan.  That's why we have hi-tech mutual funds,
etc. to spread the risk, and why we need to stop taxing R&D.

>..Japan and Germany support
>civilian R&D programs.

Japan and Germany spend much less on public R&D than the U.S.  Many more
of their engineers and scientists are in the private sector, working on
stuff that people want and are easy to make, instead of dramatic
goals that bear little relation to human needs or ways to meet
them.

>...The advantage that Japan has is that the government underwrites
>gambles on technology and, thus, encourages long term thinking.

This is false.  Neither Sony nor Honda, the two most successful Japanese
companies in the U.S., got government support; in fact they got significant
opposition since they were post-WWII start-ups, not part of the
traditional keiretsu.  Even the keiretsu only get marginal, incompetent
support from the government, eg the Fifth Generation Project, which
joins the many U.S. public-sector civilian failures (Clinch River, fusion,
synfuels, etc.) on the trash-heap of history.


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

Date: 26 Sep 92 14:53:45 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: Clinton and Space Funding
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>
>rn11195@sage (Robert Nehls) writes:
>> Like it or not, the two main technology drivers for the
>> last 5 decades have been first the military and then the space
>>program.
>
>I'm not sure that's true anymore (or whether it's been true for
>a while now).  Parts of the computer industry are driven by the
>DoD, true. However, the real computer revolution has been
>driven by the business community demanding more computing power
>for less money.

Let's be careful to keep process and production engineering work
that is ramping along the mass production learning curve separate
from real research at the cutting edge of technology. Most of the
improvements driven by business demands on the computer industry
are simply mass production techniques and incremental upgrades applied
to a PC architecture first marketed in 1981. Slow $4,000 PCs with
limited memory and disk storage have become faster $2,000 PCs with
more memory and mass storage. But that hasn't involved any major
*research* breakthroughs, just good mass production engineering.

This kind of work is vitally important, and the Japanese are
masters at taking a product and engineering it for production,
see VCRs and autos, but it *is* a different order of activity from
the kinds of breakthrough research being done under military
guidance in programs like SDI, spysats, IR sensing, and underwater
acoustic reasearch. There, going up the learning curve for commercial
production isn't the focus. Instead, real breakthrough technologies
are being sought. That kind of work is never cheap, and hardly ever
100% successful in achieving mission goals. It does, however, serve
as a strong technology driver. That technology is then often turned
into the next generation of consumer products.

>> Billions of dollars have been cut from the defense budget. Where has this
>> money gone?  No one talks about that.  The deficit hasn't been cut, new jobs
>> haven't been created, and the country on the whole is worse off due to the
>> unemployment increase.  Do you really think that it is a coincidence that
>> the military and space budget cuts coincide with the Japenese gaining a
>> technological edge?
>
>Huh?  Seems to me the Japenese gained their technological edge
>in many fields because we were spending so much money via
>big governemnt (often defense-related) programs.  Perhaps
>if RCA, GM, Motorolla, Intel, etc. didn't have to pay so much
>in taxes to support gigantic governemnt defense contracts (and
>to pay for defending countries that aren't doing near as much
>to defend themselves) we'd regain our edge.

Two points. First, do the Japanese really have a technological edge?
In most cases the answer is no. They are masters of *production engineering*,
but most of the products that they produce so well were invented here.
Ampex has the basic audio and video recording patents that Sony, JVC, and
the like license in their VCRs. The auto was developed here. The IC was
invented here. In areas where they have tried to do research, the fifth
generation computer project that they have poured billions into is considered
a joke. Their space program, where the only *successful* projects have used
licensed US technology, is floundering. Where genuine *research* is required,
the Japanese lag the US in nearly every field. We'd do well to adopt their
production and marketing techniques. However, those techniques were taught
them by a GM engineer after WWII, so even here the Japanese are adapting
research done in the US. Research that we've ignored to our peril right
here at home.

Second, on taxing industry, the enormous *profits* that our companies
have reaped from military R&D have allowed them to *do* significant
R&D work. The taxes they pay are much more than just offset by the
contracts they hold. You don't *really* think that it's taxes on
corporations that has paid for the military buildup, or any other
government activity, do you? The vast bulk of government revenue
comes from taxing middle class *workers*. Workers who wouldn't
have well paying jobs without those government contracts. If economics
were a zero sum game, it would be more efficient for the government
to just pay those workers welfare. Fortunately, economics *isn't*
a zero sum game and multiplier effects do exist. Trickle down economics
is no joke, though the trickle is really a flood and most of it comes
from middle class worker's paychecks. The average aerospace dollar
passes through the local economy seven times before the government
reclaims it. Contrast that to the welfare dollar that only passes
through the economy twice as low income people concentrate on only
the essentials of survival. It's *discretionary* income that makes
the economic wheels spin.

Gary

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

Date: 26 Sep 92 23:14:46 GMT
From: Nick Szabo <[e-mail]>
Subject: Clinton and Space Funding
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,talk.politics.space,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:
>
>Let's see, ole Chris landed in the New World in 1492, the first viable
>colony landed in 1620. Apollo landed on the Moon in 1969. So we should
>expect private enterprise to land a commercial colony on the Moon about
>2097.

Sorry, Gary, back to the history books.  Columbus's first voyage was
financed by his uncle, who had made money on earlier Portugese voyages,
and a fringe religious group with large real estate holdings.
Spanish colonies were founded in the second and subsequent voyages,
which were underwritten by Isabel under the mistaken belief that Columbus
had found a new route to India.  The colonies were made possible in no
small part because air, water, food and energy were native, not
imported.  There were hundreds of thousands of people of primarily
Spanish descent living in the New World by 1629, along the the world's
largest gold & silver operations and some rather spectacular cathedrals.

Portugal really had found a route to India, and the cost of spices, a
significant chunk of the GNP in those days, dropped by a factor of five.
Portugal was raking in the bucks, and Spain wanted in on it.  The
Portugese-India trade was where the real action was, and why folks from
Columbus to Magellan took their voyages, until Spain started bringing back
the gold about 50 years later.

The reason commerce isn't colonizing the moon is quite simple really;
there isn't anything there to make one wealthy.  It's an obstacle, like
Death Valley was an obstacle to the 49ers -- the borax came later and
didn't convince very many people to live in Death Valley.

Meanwhile, it is useful to put comsats in GEO, and commerce has spent $10's
of billions on that; it is useful to keep watchtowers in space and
the military has spent $10's of billions on that.  Farther out beyond
Death Valley, the relatively unexplored parts of the solar system, like
asteroids and comets, could well provide the next big boost for commerce,
and both the funding and technology for truly self-sufficient space
colonies.


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

Date: 26 Sep 92 18:00:00 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Hypersonic test vehicle proposed
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Josh 'K' Hopkins) writes...
>I saw an interesting article on p 27 of the September 14 AW&ST.
>
>Apparently Ames has proposed a Mach 10 class manned research aircraft as a
>more conservative approach to building NASP.  The idea would be to collect data
>on hypersonic flight before trying to build a full orbital vehicle.
>
>The Hypersonic Air Launch Option (HALO) would be a piloted vehicle that would
>be launched from an SR-71 at Mach 3 and 70,000 ft.  It would use a LH2/LOX
>rocket to reach Mach 9, then test variations on a scramjet engine at speeds up
>to Mach 10-12.  It would be designed to fly 50-100 flights over a period of
>several years.
>
>Proponents say it is a more rational approach to building NASP and more
>fiscally acceptable.  Opponents say that it's an unnecessary sidetrack that
>will delay NASP and end up costing more money.
>
>Personal Opinions:
>   I tend to agree with the proponents.  I'm not sure if that's because it
>sounds like better engineering technique or becuase I like the idea of stapling
>a scramjet to the top of a Blackbird :-)  I don't know enough about the current
>state of the art in NASP technology to know if it's needed though.
>
>   Followers of "Black" programs should also note that the relative ease with
>which this could be done says a few things about what may have already been
>done.
>
>--
>Josh Hopkins                 Of course I'm a solipsist - Isn't everybody?
>[e-mail]

It has been done Josh. It was called the X-15. Just go pull one out of a
museum and add scramjet.  The wing attachments are identical to the ones
that are used for Pegasus or near enough I hear.

Dennis

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

Date: 26 Sep 92 15:11:24 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: Lunar landing in 2002
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Claus Tondering) writes:
>>A friend of mine recently told me that there are definite plans to
>>resume lunar flights around 2002 with the aim to establish a permanent
>>base on the moon.
>>Is this true?
>
>There are a lot of people *hoping* for something like that.  (Indeed, some
>of us think waiting until 2002 is stupid, since it could be done sooner.)
>Some of them have put a lot of effort into detailed proposals.
>
>Nobody, repeat nobody, has agreed to *fund* anything of the kind.
>
>Indeed, it is proving difficult to get funding for even the tiniest initial
>steps, because Congress is largely hostile to the idea.
>
>There is some hope for action on it if Bush gets reelected.  Nothing is going
>to happen on it for quite a while if Clinton replaces him.

Henry is right as usual. There are four powers who have a shot at going
back to the Moon. The US, of course, ESA, the ex-Soviets, and the Japanese.
We are all aware of the financial and political troubles of the ex-Soviets.
ESA is scaling back it's non-commercial space programs. The Japanese are
trying, but lag the other space powers in developed hardware and know how.
That leaves the folks who did it before, the US. President Bush has made
it official US policy that we are going back to the Moon, and this time
to stay. Unfortunately, the Democrat controlled Congress hasn't seen fit
to appropriate the money, they'd prefer to waste it on HUD, the VA, and
other welfare programs. Clinton/Gore have relegated the return to the
Moon to the status of just a dream. They propose to fund only Mission
to Planet Earth programs that fit their activist environmental agenda.
Mission from Planet Earth programs are to be squelched until we have
"excess" money available for them. Since Congress has never heard of
"excess" money, that will never happen. US private industry won't fund
a return to the Moon because the results won't show up in their bottom
lines in the less than six months timeframe that institutional investors
will allow them for venture investments.

Gary

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

Date: 26 Sep 92 20:36:23 GMT
From: Nick Szabo <[e-mail]>
Subject: Lunar landing in 2002
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

>>[FLO Apollo rerun]

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>Nobody, repeat nobody, has agreed to *fund* anything of the kind.
>
>Indeed, it is proving difficult to get funding for even the tiniest initial
>steps, because Congress is largely hostile to the idea.

True, nobody wants to shell out $270 billion to do an Apollo rerun, gaining
practically no revenue in return.  With the "camel's nose under the tent"
syndrome, we are again seeing how astronauts are a political liability to
government funding of space, not its prime motivator as has been commonly
believed.

>There is some hope for action on it if Bush gets reelected.  Nothing is going
>to happen on it for quite a while if Clinton replaces him.

Well, then, come on down and cast a vote for Bush! :-)
Or, perhaps you could get Canada to foot the bill.  There's the ticket!
After all, who's counting?   If we are going to spend orders of
magnitude more money on a single waterless, airless moon than is rational,
we might as well get it from someplace with an order of magnitude less to
spend.  :-)

Seriously, Bush can't do much without getting a Republican Congress,
but the Republicans are running on a plank of cutting the budget. Bush
probably won't be reelected, anyway.  The next Congress is going to be
looking for visible programs to cut, so they can claim to be fiscally
responsible.  If Clinton gets in, anything visible started by Reagan or
Bush (such as SSF and SEI) are prime targets.

When we fund something politically, it's got to be "cheaper, faster,
better" and get launched within the President's term.  Contrary to
popular belief, government is very poor when it comes to doing things
long-term.  It seems to be  poor at doing things in general, unless
people are shooting at it.

Independence for the Quebecious!  ;-)


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

Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 20:48:21 GMT
From: Nick Szabo <[e-mail]>
Subject: Lunar landing in 2002
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>>There is some hope for action on it if Bush gets reelected.  Nothing is going
>>to happen on it for quite a while if Clinton replaces him.
>
In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer)
writes:

>Or if DC-Y is built and works.

But the same politics apply here, alas: SDI is another highly visible
Reagan/Bush program.  If Clinton gets in, we'll have to hotfoot it
to get the program into NASA, perhaps combined with commercial
investment, before it's cut from SDI.  With any luck, we could make
it look like a new Clinton/Gore initiative!

[P.S. I am not partisan here: I loathe Clinton and Bush equally,
but I very much want to see SSTO fly].


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

Date: 26 Sep 92 21:19:55 GMT
From: Nick Szabo <[e-mail]>
Subject: Mariner Mark II vs smaller missions
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Anita Cochran) writes:

>...So one has to ask what is the next logical mission
>to a body such as Saturn?  Well, one could go back and study just the
>satellites or the rings or the atmosphere but the most important
>science comes from a study of the system as a whole -- the details
>of the bodies and the interactions of the different parts.  Also,
>once you are in the system, it pays to do a complete tour.  This
>conclusion on the most important science was elaborated in a document
>a number of years ago by the National Research Council's Committee
>on Planetary and Lunar Exploration.  I should note that this is not
>a NASA committee.

I can't quarrel with the scientific reasoning, but it assumes that
science is the only reason for doing such a mission.  With that kind of
motivation, it's hard to get funding for more than a few $1B+ projects,
shutting out most other, smaller scientific projects.  I suggest that
there are two other motivations for exploring space: technology
development in the present, and the promise of applications in
the future.  For example, take a comet sample-return misssion:
it is scientifically important, it can develop new technology
(specifically automation and electric upper stages), and it makes major
progress towards the long-term application of extracting native ices for
propellant.  If each group with an interest in space would work together
on such shared missions, instead of scientists doing pure science,
engineers doing pure engineering, etc. we could do quite a bit more.
For that reasoning, we can't really take the recommendations of
a purely scientific committe too seriously when it comes to planning
NASA funding; I'd much rather see a combined committee focused on the
needs of business, military, and pure science, and how the three can be
combined in the same mission.

I'd like to hold up SDIO's electric/Topaz project as explary in
this regard: it combines a science payload with a Topaz 2 and
Hall-effect plasma thruster, doing science and tech development for
military, commerce, and future exploration on the same, c. $400 million
mission.  If it works, BTW, the cost sending large payloads into deep
space could be dropped considerably; commercial and military satellites
also benefit.



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

Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 17:36:11 GMT
From: George Rachor <[e-mail]>
Subject: Mars Observer Launched
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (Steve Masticola) writes:

>        M A R S   O B S E R V E R   1 9 9 2   T O U R

>          Pasadena * Hightstown * Cocoa Beach * Mars


>- Steve ([e-mail]).

Sounds like a great T-shirt!

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

Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 16:51:28 GMT
From: Bruce Scott <[e-mail]>
Subject: Mars Observer Update - 09/25/92 (Launch Day)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary

I've been following all the detail in the run-up to this since about
June. You guys have persevered through a lot of bad luck, even without
to mention the hurricane coming through, but you fought it all and got
the job done anyway. Well done! And thanks for all the reports.

Best of luck now getting it to Mars.

Gruss,
Dr Bruce Scott                             The deadliest bullshit is
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Plasmaphysik       odorless and transparent
bds at spl6n1.aug.ipp-garching.mpg.de                 -- W Gibson

--
   The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of
     North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information
        Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service.
           internet:  bbs.oit.unc.edu or 152.2.22.80

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

Date: 26 Sep 92 23:26:57 GMT
From: Bruce Scott <[e-mail]>
Subject: overpopulation
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (Nick Haines) writes:
>Best guesses I've seen have been 8-10bn, actually. No serious
>demographers are talking about 16bn any more. Read some demography (I
>did, after the last time this went around here. I was a doomsayer
>before).

But this is just because the great die-off has started. Mind you, it
won't get like many DOOM sayers said (another depopulation, etc). Just
like the doom sayers say: population will stagnate as natural limits set
in. I expect it to level off pretty much at this level (8-10 bn), with
of order 100-200 million extra deaths/year due to war, famine, disease,
and natural disasters (how many noticed the carnage in Bangladesh last
year?). But remember, this was Malthus's scenario, too.

Gruss,
Dr Bruce Scott                             The deadliest bullshit is
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Plasmaphysik       odorless and transparent
bds at spl6n1.aug.ipp-garching.mpg.de                 -- W Gibson

--
   The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of
     North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information
        Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service.
           internet:  bbs.oit.unc.edu or 152.2.22.80

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

Date: 26 Sep 92 22:12:53 GMT
From: Nick Szabo <[e-mail]>
Subject: Self-genociding space colonies
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Dani Eder) writes:
>
>Of course, in any long term, you have to consider the effects of a
>sub-populations (like the Mormons) for whom large families are an
>imperative.  In the long run they will tend to overrun the rest of
>the population by producing more offspring.

But people can be talked out of their religion.  It's no coincidence
that pro-natal religions also try to isolate their children from the
outside world (eg with private schools); it's the only way the meme
can take advantage of the new minds.  They often do not succeed.
Every religion has to trade off natality vs. evangelism.  Nuns are an
extreme pre-birth-control example; Protestant cultures use birth control
to gain economic leverage and constitute a quite successful, anti-natal
symbiotic meme-set (a fancy term, here refering to religions and
their substitutes).

Also, while religions may provide good models, I think many of us would
like to find a non-religious motivation, since space fans are
disproportionately non-religious, and religions tendencies tend to
disrupt the scientific rationality needed for the task of developing
space.

>What if in 20 years automation has reduced the cost of supporting
>children and changes the equation again?

Perhaps, but technology has been decreasing the cost and increasing
the effectiveness of birth control faster, and our expectations for our
children rise as fast as the economy.  For example, nowadays many
middle class couples will delay having children until they can pay
for their college; an extremely high expectation in historical
and world-wide terms, but seemingly normal for us and probably
sub-normal is a space colony; they will want their children to
get PhD's.

>For example, housing is
>the largest single cost of raising a child

Is it a cost of raising children or a cost of something else?
We do have an inexpensive, effective housing technology,
manufactured homes.  Unfortuneately, their status is such that nobody
who is anybody wants to be caught living in one.  Most people
in our society will delay or cancel having children rather than
living in one.

>Another possibility is extended lifespans
>making having sequential children more affordable than having to
>have them all at once in your 20's and 30's.

This is extended fertility span; we have already extended lifespan well
beyond it.  I agree fertility tech will likely play an important
role in the solution to this problem, but so far it hasn't kept
pace with anti-fertility tech.

>Finally, in 40 years
>or so I expect human-capability computers to be in production.

This is entirely speculative, though; nobody knows how much
we have left to learn about human capability, especially in
terms of software.  It could be 40 years, or 4,000.  It could
turn out that the silicon forms, like us, have little motivation
to reproduce once they achieve the ability to control their own
reproduction.


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

Date: 25 Sep 92 16:29:29 GMT
From: ken bell <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Platforms (political, not physical : -)
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space,alt.politics.marrou,alt.politics.libertarian

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (alan l wendt) writes:
>From: [e-mail] (alan l wendt)
>Subject: Re: Space Platforms (political, not physical :-)
>Date: 21 Sep 92 16:08:59 GMT

>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Nick Szabo) writes:
>>
>>From memory, the Libertarian platform has two signficant statements on space:
>>
>>* Disband NASA, turning over science to the universities, R&D
>>  operations to commerce, and anything the military needs to the
>>  military.
>>

>In the back of their recent "Fallen Angels", Larry Niven & Co. argue that
>the cargo-carrying capacity of the shuttle could be achieved for about 1%
>of its current cost.   More specifically, in terms of # of employees per
>aircraft:

>        Commercial carriers:        135
>        R71B (Blackbird):            40
>        NASA Shuttle support ops:  5000

>They further claim that the fuel cost of low-earth orbit is about the same
>as that of North America to Australia.   100 miles vertical instead of
>2000 horizontal.  Sounds reasonable to me but they've done more study than I.

>Alan Wendt

Does the libertarian party support US withdrawl from the UN?
//////////////////////////////////////
/* Kenny  *   Welcome to Mind Wars! */
//////////////////////////////////////

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Date: 24 Sep 1992 17:26:28 GMT
From: Jay Maynard <[e-mail]>
Subject: STS-47 SAREX packet robot status, post-flight
Newsgroups: rec.radio.amateur.misc,sci.space,sci.space.shuttle

FROM: G.L.CARMAN

The final heard  list was saved on 09/19/92 at 22:48:11, SERHRD = 3785.
The final worked list was saved on 09/19/92 at 22:48:21, SERWKD = 6071.
The 6013 that I remembered was the serial number of the last station
that made the worked list (N5VSP).
6071 is just the total number of connects, whether or not an
acknowledgement of their serial number frame was heard on board or not.
Only 456 of those had their ack frame received and got on the worked list.
The heard counter (SERHRD) is incremented each time a frame is received
from a new callsign; new meaning not in the current tnc heard buffer of
the last 35 calls heard.  If a station call is received later after he
has been scrolled out of the heard buffer, he will cause the SERHRD
counter to increment again.  The 35 call heard buffer was captured to disk
each time the SERHRD counter changed by 30 IF the PGSC was connected and
the logging script was active (which I estimate was only for about 60%
of the total robot time).  There were 717 unique calls in all of the heard
lists captured.  Stations desiring a qsl card for making only the heard
list should also send in a copy of a received QRZ beacon with their call
in it, since the logging script may not have been running at that time.


G.L.CARMAN
--
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can
[e-mail]      | adequately be explained by stupidity.
    Vote for a REAL change on 3 November: Throw out the check-bouncing,
  tax-and-spend Democrat Congress! (obviously, not an opinion of UTHSCH)

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End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 251
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