Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V15_2/V15NO265.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1993-07-13 | 40KB

Date: Thu,  1 Oct 92 05:00:21
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V15 #265
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Thu,  1 Oct 92       Volume 15 : Issue 265

Today's Topics:
                        Disney's Man in Space
                           Military funding
                            Monetary Magic
             Russia's OPERATIONAL Starwars Defense System
                   Socialist myths about investment
               Space and Presidential Politics (2 msgs)
         Wealth in Space (Was Re: Clinton and Space Funding)
                            What is this ?

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

Date: 30 Sep 92 12:46:46 GMT
From: Thomas Clarke <[e-mail]>
Subject: Disney's Man in Space
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Bruce Watson)
writes:
>
> _Man in Space_ [Shown on the Disney cable channel last Sunday, September
> 27, 1992 at 2:00 pm MDT] begins with the history of rocketry and explores
> how humans might react in space. It ends with brilliant animation of a
> manned orbital mission using a derivitive of Von Brauns multi-staged
> rocket. The film aired on 9 March 1955 [a Wednesday evening--my Boy Scout
> troop meeting night--I caught hell from my father for not attending.]
> and viewed by nearly 100 million. Among the viewers was President
> Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was so impressed that he called
> Disney and asked to borrow a copy which he showed to officals at
> the Pentagon over the next couple of weeks. On 29 July 1955,
> Ike announced that as part of the upcoming International Geophysical
> Year (IGY, 1957-58), the US would launch an earth satellite.
>
Bummer.  I don't get Disney channel.  I've been looking for this program
for a while now, but no video rental/sales places seem to have it.

I remember this show fondly also.  It is a major reason for
my nostalgia toward Saturn and discontent with the Shuttle.
Saturn is a proper (Disney) rocket, whereas the Shuttle is not :-)

--
Thomas Clarke
Institute for Simulation and Training, University of Central FL
12424 Research Parkway, Suite 300, Orlando, FL 32826
[phone], FAX: [phone], [e-mail]

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

Date: 30 Sep 92 12:30:28 GMT
From: Brad Wallet <[e-mail]>
Subject: Military funding
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Tom) writes:
|> >As I stated in my previous post.  Until the programs are set up to
|> >orderly divert the money to another R and D effort, it should stay in the
|> >military budget where at least it is going some good.
|>
|> This is plain silly!  The only good the (extraneous) military budget does
|> is to pay people to work.  We might as well pay them to bury rocks one
|> day, and dig them up the next.
|>
|> Cut the general tax burden by the amount cut, and the companies that
|> would love to hire technically educated people will have the means
|> to hire them.  They don't right now, because the tax burden is too high.
|>
|> Also, once the people in the military are making wealth (rather than
|> things like weapons, which don't get used in peacetime, and are there-
|> for, not wealth) the general prosperity of the country will improve.
|>
|> This extra wealth could easily cover the R&D the military does,
|> especially if you buy the argument that military R&D is not as
|> valuable as, say, car R&D or VCR R&D.

What would a VCR look like if it was built using vacuum tubes?  Why was
the IC developed?  To make computers fit into ICBM's and SLBM's.  How
much did the first, very simple IC's cost?  Over $1000 dollars a piece.
That was a lot of money back then.  Only the defense of our nation could
justify such outlays.  But, imagine where we would be if the IC had been
abandoned because of cost.  Would it have been developed if the demands
for national security hadn't required it?  Someone out there will surely
say yes, but I am sure that the true answer is probably no.

Fact is that the technical challenges faced as a part of military R&D are
the most difficult taken on in today's society.  Top dollar is payed to
do RDT&E of these systems because the results of failure can be the
destruction of our society.  Insane spending turns out to be sound economic
policy.

Truth is the R&D you talk of rarely pushes the extremes of technology
and therefore does an order of magnitude less to futher mankind.
Someone last week stated that the computer on every desktop was the major
computer innovation of the last decade.  This was merely applying and
improving technology which was develop for military (and to some degree
space) usage.  Biomolecular computing, now that is innovation.  Will it
be immediately available to the public?  Does the public have an immediately
need it?  No, but one day society will.  Will it be available?  Only if
the military is not decimated by politicians.

Can the R&D be done outside of the military?  I don't think so.  The military
has the advantage of having to solve problems.  We do research, but we have
a focus.  Program offices want to know what your research is going to do
to benefit their program.  Believe it or not, those of us doing military
R&D are very proud of our systems.  We want to make them better.  We are
not simply burying rocks and dig them up.  We are solving problems and
developing technology which will one day be commonplace is our society.

Research done for research-sake is good.  It is very good.  I support it.
I think we don't do enough.  But, military research, because of the drive
to solve practical, real-world problems, is going to be less risky and
most likely to lead to the everyday man's life being bettered.  Perhaps,
it is fair to say military research feeds off of the discoveries of purer
research.  So, we could hypothesize a pure to military/space to business to
household model of the passing of technology.

Could the military research and develop systems but not field them?  I used
to favor this method.  You get the R&D benefits of the military.  You decide
that the current ability of the military can meet the current threat.  You
work to ensure that when a new threat arises, we will be ready.  But, I see
three problems with this.  Fielding systems leads to the price dropping to
the point where businesses can afford to invest (see the IC), true feedback
and therefore tasking only really comes from the use of the system in the
field, and the current capabilities are not able to meet the current threat.

-------------------------------------------------
Brad Wallet                 Mathematician
[e-mail]   Naval Surface Warfare Center
[phone]               (AVN)249-4950
DSMAC - "Tomahawk's Eyes"
"I can neither confirm nor deny that these opinions
are entirely my own and may or may not reflect those
of the US Navy."

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

Date: 30 Sep 92 12:43:42 GMT
From: Thomas Clarke <[e-mail]>
Subject: Monetary Magic
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer)
writes:
> The way to handle this is to think capitalist, not socialist.  Sell the
> Pershings at a competitive market price for sounding rockets of that size.
> Use the revenues to fund a one-time-only launch-grant program for the
> experimenters:  show your payload ready for launch, get a voucher good
> for $XXX toward one launch, first come first served, until the money from
> the Pershings runs out.  Same net result, but without the destructive
> side effects on the industry.

Run that by a little slower.
A sells to B.  A gives money to C.  C buys from B.
B has net near zero (buys and sells).
C has net near zero (receives and buys).
A has net near zero (gives and sells).
Amazing.  Of course the taxpayer paid for the item in
the first place.  But then the taxpayer received good value
in the form of military security :-?
--
Thomas Clarke
Institute for Simulation and Training, University of Central FL
12424 Research Parkway, Suite 300, Orlando, FL 32826
[phone], FAX: [phone], [e-mail]

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

Date: 29 Sep 92 13:14:36 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Russia's OPERATIONAL Starwars Defense System
Newsgroups: sci.space



                 RUSSIA'S OPERATIONAL STAR WARS DEFENSE SYSTEM

               In February 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin
          proposed to the United States and the United Nations a global
          defense shield (with "Star Wars"-type weapons) BASED ON
          RUSSIAN TECHNOLOGY.

               Some people might wonder what the "backward" Russians
          could possibly have that would be of value for the S.D.I.
          research and development program.

               The little-known TRUTH is that the Russians started
          deploying an OPERATIONAL "Star Wars" defense system in
          September 1977, and it has greatly grown and improved since
          that time.  It is a SPACE TRIAD built around CHARGED-PARTICLE
          BEAM and NEUTRON PARTICLE BEAM WEAPONS.

               In this article I will describe the Russian system as it
          developed from 1977 to 1983, and give several examples of how
          it was used during that period.  But first I will try to
          convince readers of the credibility of my main source of
          information about it.

               My main source is articles published in a weekly
          legislative newspaper, WISCONSIN REPORT (WR), of Brookfield,
          Wisconsin, (P.O. Box 45, zip 53005), written by the late Dr.
          Peter David Beter, a well-respected Washington, DC attorney,
          Doctor of Jurisprudence, and expert and consultant in
          international law, finance, and intelligence, who received
          much of his information from associates in the CIA and other
          intelligence groups of other countries who disapproved of
          many of the things happening or being planned behind the
          scenes.  They believed that at least limited public exposure
          might delay and ultimately prevent the worst of those things,
          such as NUCLEAR WAR and NATIONAL DICTATORSHIP, from taking
          place.

               Dr. Beter started appearing on local radio and TV talk
          shows, but soon found himself being BANNED from them, as a
          result of government THREATS to cancel broadcast licenses.
          So he started producing monthly one-hour cassette tapes and
          sending them to a growing list of subscribers.  From June 21,
          1975 until November 3, 1982 he recorded eighty "Dr. Beter
          Audio Letters" plus eight "Audio Books" and three special
          topic tapes.  On September 1, 1977 Wisconsin Report started
          publishing transcripts of those tapes.

               Based on information from his sources, Dr. Beter
          PREDICTED the bombing of the Marines in Beirut A FULL YEAR
          BEFORE IT HAPPENED, WARNING that the U.S. Pentagon and the
          Israeli Mossad were CONSPIRING TO DELIBERATELY ARRANGE IT in
          order to try to get Americans angry at the Arabs and generate
          public support for PLANNED military action against them.  He
          reported the impending assassination of Anwar Saddat of Egypt
          SIX DAYS BEFORE IT HAPPENED.  And Dr. Beter predicted what he
          called the "retirement" of Leonid Brezhnev one week before
          Brezhnev officially "died" (note that the word "retirement"
          was used for the TERMINATION OF REPLICANTS in the 1982 movie
          "Blade Runner"), and his quick replacement with Andropov
          which occurred only three days after the "death" of Brezhnev,
          to the surprise of all government and media analysts.
          Subscription application and renewal forms for Dr. Beter's
          tapes would usually say, "Subscribe to the Dr. Beter Audio
          Letter and watch the news start making sense."



          RUSSIA'S SPACE TRIAD OF STAR WARS WEAPONS

               In September 1977 the Russians started launching MANNED
          killer satellites, called "COSMOS INTERCEPTORS", armed with
          CHARGED-PARTICLE BEAM weapons, into earth orbit, (12-15-77
          WR). By April 1978 there were about THREE DOZEN of them, and
          they had FINISHED DESTROYING all American spy and early
          warning satellites, (5-18-78 WR).

               On September 27, 1977, in what Dr. Beter called "THE
          BATTLE OF THE HARVEST MOON", a Cosmos Interceptor in Earth
          orbit used a NEUTRON-PARTICLE BEAM to wipe out a secret
          American laser-beam base nearing operational status in
          Copernicus Crater on the Moon, (11-3-77 WR).  The Russians
          quickly deployed their own military bases on the Moon, the
          second leg of their space triad, starting on October 4, 1977,
          with seven EXTREMELY POWERFUL charged-particle beam weapons
          BASES on the near side of the Moon and three support bases on
          the far side, (2-9-78 WR).

               The first test of the Moon base weapons occurred on
          November 19, 1977, ironically at about the same time as the
          release of the first "Star Wars" movie with its "death star"
          weapon.  The Russians were aiming at the eye of a cyclone
          near India.  But they miscalculated the deflection of the
          beam by the Earth's magnetic field, and the beam struck the
          ocean too close to the shore causing a TIDAL WAVE that killed
          many people, (2-9-78 WR).  A blast of charged-particle beams
          from two or more of the Russian Moon bases fired in quick
          succession would create the DESTRUCTIVE EFFECT OF A HYDROGEN
          BOMB on its target.

               The third leg of Russia's triad of space weapons is the
          "COSMOSPHERES".  The first-generation Cosmospheres were
          weapons platforms that were ELECTRO-GRAVITIC (could hover
          against gravity), ATOMIC POWERED, horizontally positioned by
          rocket thrusters, somehow invisible to radar beyond about 40
          miles (perhaps from a radar-absorbing coating), armed with
          CHARGED-PARTICLE BEAM weapons (at least a hundred times less
          powerful than those in the Moon bases), equipped with
          "PSYCHO-ENERGETIC RANGE FINDING" (PRF) which tunes in to the
          actual ATOMIC SIGNATURE of a target or object and canNOT be
          jammed, and some of them were also armed with microwave
          BRAIN-SCRAMBLING equipment.

               In late 1977 and early 1978, there was a strange rash of
          giant AIR BOOMS along the east coast of the United States and
          elsewhere.  These air booms were NEVER satisfactorily
          explained, by either the government, the scientific
          establishment, or the news media.  They could NOT be
          positively identified with any particular Super Sonic
          Transport plane (SST) or other aircraft, and indeed they were
          MUCH LOUDER than aircraft sonic booms.  The giant airbooms
          were actually caused by Russian Cosmospheres firing CHARGED-
          PARTICLE BEAMS down into the atmosphere in a DEFOCUSED MODE
          (spread out) for the purpose of announcing their presence to
          the WAR-MONGERS in the United States Pentagon, (2-9-78 WR).


               The main purpose of any "Star Wars" defense system is to
          protect a country against nuclear attack.  During the weekend
          of January 20, 1980, Russian Cosmospheres accomplished such a
          mission.  A NUCLEAR FIRST STRIKE against Russia by the then
          BOLSHEVIK-CONTROLLED United States was being started with a
          total of 82 special secret aircraft that can sneak up to a
          country's shoreline under water, surface, change
          configuration, take off, and fly at treetop level to their
          targets.  Dr. Beter describes part of the action in his Audio
          Letter #53, recorded on January 21, 1980: "At that point the
          real action got under way, in the Caspian Sea and off
          northern Norway.  The Subcraft, with Israeli pilots, were on
          their way.  They were traveling under water on the first legs
          of their attack missions....

          "Late Saturday night, Washington time, a coded signal was
          flashed to the Subcraft to continue as planned.  By that
          time, the northern contingent of Subcraft were in the White
          Sea.  The southern contingent had reached the north end of
          the Caspian Sea.  It was already daylight, Sunday morning,
          the 20th, for the Subcraft contingents.  Their orders were to
          wait out the day under water, out of sight; then, after
          nightfall, they were to continue their steady approach to get
          close to their targets.  The Subcraft were maintaining strict
          radio silence.  They were also deep enough under water to be
          invisible from the air to either the eye or radar, yet they
          were also hugging the shoreline in water too shallow for
          Russian sonar to pick them up.  And their infrared signatures
          were negligible as the result of extensive development.  In
          short, by the standards of Western technology, they were
          undetectable.  But in AUDIO LETTER No. 42 I revealed Russia's
          master secret weapon.  It is called "Psycho-energetic Range
          Finding" or PRF.  It is unlike sonar and similar techniques.
          PRF tunes in to the actual atomic signature of a target, and
          there is no method known by which PRF can be jammed.

               "By deploying their Navy to the Arabian Sea, the
          Russians are pretending to be fooled by the Bolshevik
          distraction with the aircraft carriers.  In this way they
          encouraged the Bolsheviks to launch the Subcraft toward their
          targets.  They waited until the Subcraft were far away from
          their bases and out of sight of the Bolsheviks, who are
          directing the American first-strike operation.  But the whole
          time they were being tracked by Cosmospheres overhead using
          PRF, and shortly after 1:00 A.M. yesterday morning Eastern
          Standard Time the Cosmospheres began firing their Charged
          Particle Beam Weapons.  There were 10 Subcraft in the White
          Sea.  Each disappeared in a blinding blue white water spout
          of steam, smoke, and fire.  In the north end of the Caspian
          there were 19 Subcraft--they, too, met the same fate.", (2-7-
          80 WR).

               The 3rd-generation Russian JUMBO COSMOSPHERES were first
          deployed in April 1981, in parallel with the first U.S. Space
          Shuttle mission.  They significantly interfered with that
          MILITARY mission, in ways which were successfully covered up
          by NASA using techniques similar to those shown in the movie
          "Capricorn I", (5-7-81, 5-14-81, and 5-21-81 WR).

               Jumbo Cosmospheres are much larger than the 1st-
          generation models, and use ELECTROMAGNETIC PROPULSION instead
          of rocket thrusters to move around.

               For about two years after Dr. Beter stopped recording
          his Audio Letters in November 1982 (because of heart
          trouble), his distributor, Audio Books, Inc., published some
          newsletters titled "NewsALERT", using information passed on
          to them by Dr. Beter or received directly from his sources.
          A special supplementary issue, dated March 26, 1984,
          describes how Russian Jumbo Cosmospheres captured two
          communication satellites right after launch from U.S. Space
          Shuttle Mission #10, found anti-satellite (ASAT) missiles
          mounted on one of them, and dumped both satellites into
          useless orbits.  NASA had fun TRYING to explain two-in-a-row
          failures of a highly reliable PAM-D satellite booster.

               Russia's offer to share their "Star Wars" defense system
          with the rest of the world might also extend to SCIENTIFIC
          SPACE EXPLORATION.  For example, the United States is
          planning to send two unmanned flyby and sample-return space
          missions to a comet.  These missions would cost BILLIONS of
          dollars, take fifteen years from now to complete, and could
          FAIL in DOZENS of ways.  A Russian Jumbo Cosmosphere could
          complete a MANNED version of such a mission in a matter of
          MONTHS, if they have not already done so, since these
          Cosmospheres can accelerate continuously.

               Note that the United States has announced a deal to
          purchase at least one SPACE REACTOR from Russia.  Now you
          know what the Russians originally developed and used them
          for.



               UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this
          IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED.

                                   Robert E. McElwaine
                                   B.S., Physics and Astronomy, UW-EC



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

Date: 30 Sep 92 07:50:12 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: Socialist myths about investment
Newsgroups: sci.space,misc.invest,alt.politics.marrou,alt.politics.libertarian

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Nick Szabo) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:
>
>>Chevron, and other utilities and quasi-utilities do make long range
>>investments, but the overall risks are low and well understood.
>
>They are well understood, for the most part.  They are not low, as
>you yourself note the high rate of dry holes -- sometimest whole fields
>end up dry.  There are also less-well understood risks, such as the
>political climate in Russia.  (Or in the U.S.!)

The risks are low. The ratio of dry holes to producing wells is well
understood, and getting better with time. Meanwhile the value of a
producing well continues to increase. For a single wildcatter, drilling
wells is risky, but for a large company drilling lots of wells, the
statistical risk becomes very low that they will incur greater drilling
costs than they will recoup from producing wells. Political issues are
a separate case. Multinationals spend large sums attempting to control
and dominate local political situations in order to minimize these
risks.

>This doesn't stop them when the product they are after is useful,
>people will be it, and they'll make money.  It should stop
>them when there is little desirable product or service, like the projects
>you are promoting.

The oil exploration business was a wildcatter's nightmare up until the
1950s when the exploration business matured. You're trying to equate the
risks involved in a mature industry with one that is in it's infantcy.
Better examples are the transcontinental railroads and land grant
universities. Seed support from the government was required because the
benefits of the operations were diffused amongst a large population
that was not directly involved in operations. This decoupling of risks
and benefits is common in the start up phase of large industries.

>>When the risks of space exploitation reach similarly low and well understood
>>levels, there won't be a problem with investor owned utilities working
>>in space. Comsats have already reached that point.
>
>Were comsats at that point in 1962, when AT&T had invested over $300
>million ($92) of its own money, and Hughes a big chunk of its own
>money, before NASA stepped in and claimed credit and Congress forced
>AT&T out of the business?  One wonders why comsats reached that
>point so quickly, while we've spent $100's of billions on astronaut
>projects and space stations that never have.  It must be "short-term
>thinking" to spend money wisely and do something useful.

Your distorted view of comsats and manned space is well known. Those
interested can refer to the archives. I'll only note here that the
tiny sums you list rode on the back of many billions of government
investment in military and civilian launcher technology and electronic
miniaturization technology. These expenditures, many of which returned
no profit to the government, were necessary before the pittances you
mention could leverage any advantage. The initial infrastructure
investment required for space exploitation is large, and the initial
investors often see little or no return. As with other large enterprises,
the pioneers often go broke and it is those who stand on their shoulders
who profit. You are like someone belittling Goddard because it was
Von Braun who capitalized on his work. The government has served as
the pioneer in space exploration so that others can come along later
and stand on the shoulders of that work to reach profitability.

>>Nowhere has anyone yet hit a gusher in space that justifies
>>a lot of dry holes.
>
>In fact, we are learning about the Jupiter-family comets, which will
>be the oilfields of the 21st century, fueling the cargo rockets
>plying between the planets major and minor.  It's just that
>NASA and most space fandom is living back in the 1960's,

So you claim. Show us the gusher. List it on a profit and loss sheet.
Your space development claims are paper airplanes. *If* and when
someone hits the gusher, it will likely be government funded because
there is no track record of success on which a wildcatter can base
his investments.

>when socialism was the utopia and the space program the epitomy of
>the glories of socialism, and who gave a damn if it was useful.
>Too many still live under the delusion that NASA is providing a
>rational vision for space development.  It should be commerce, or at
>least an applications and business orientation, providing the leadership,
>not a washed-up "vision" of yesteryear that has already squandered
>$100's of billions from our treasury.

Oh blah blah blah. We've heard this tired old tune from you over and
over. It's still nonsense. Show us *any* private alternative that
has shown a profit that didn't ride the back of government investments
in space. Your private space utopias have no counterparts in reality.
The government has paid for the first steps of every viable space
technology and enterprise. Where were you complaining about government
funding of Atlas and Titan launchers? Where were you complaining about
government funding of IC development? Where were you complaining about
Vanguard launches? None of those showed a profit for the government.
Yet all of them were necessary for commercial comsats of today to show
a profit. 20/20 hindsight shows cheaper and faster alternatives to some
of those approaches, but no one knew that at the time. That's why it's
called research. So all of the government's investments in space haven't
shown profits yet, so what, they're not supposed to show a profit. They are
the necessary first steps to gaining the experience that will allow later
investments to show profits. The industries that will spin off of today's
manned space experiments will be the comsat industries of tommorrow. No
one can accurately forcast exactly *what* those industries will be.
Perhaps they will be robotic manufacturing facilities benefitting from
the manned research done on materials processing. We don't know, and
can't know, without making the investments and doing the research. Your
short term fixation would guarantee that we miss at least some of the
opportunities sure to develop in space exploitation. Your viewpoint is
like that of the buggy whip manufacturer making Kevlar buggy whips while
missing out entirely on the automotive revolution. Current business
knowledge doesn't scale into a future dependent on new technologies,
and the entry costs are too high for speculative investment on the
necessary scale by anyone other than the government. Manned research
is still the most productive approach to exploring new processes and
techniques. Until robots are developed with the capabilities of a man
on the spot, they will remain so. Once research is done, automated systems
can often be realistically designed for the routine exploitation of the
research results, but the first steps are essential to the success of
the latter effort.

Gary

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

Date: 30 Sep 92 06:46:29 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: Space and Presidential Politics
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
>writes:
>> As has been said before, the sum total of everyone's special
>> interests is the public interest, NOT what the political pundits
>> claim is the public interest. For some on this news group space
>> (read: the future) IS the defining issue. That is their right and
>> perogative. Who gives a damn what the Washington Post says anyway?
>
>The problem with this is that I've met some space enthusiasts
>over the years who would vote for Adolf Hitler if they thought
>he would support a strong space program.  Almost ANY issue has
>to be put in perspective, and balanced off against others. A
>candidates view of space explorations is ONE issue by which I
>judge the candidate.  You can argue about whether it should be
>one of the most important ones or one of the minor ones, but it
>certainly should not be the ONLY one.

Single issue voting has a long and distinguished history. It *is*
true that the public interest is the sum of everyone's special
interests and single issue voting is the best way to express
that. I'm certainly not going to vote for a candidate who opposes
my special interests any more than I expect others to do so.
*I'm* not the public interest. *I* can't speak for the public
interest. Only the *sum* of individual voter interests can do
that. Attempting to play statesman in the voting booth is a
sure way to let the media and campaign advertising dominate
the election process as voters base their votes on what they
are *told* rather than on what they *know*. I say stick to the
issues you know when making up your mind about whom to vote
for or against, and let others do the same. The result will be
a true expression of the public's interests.

Gary

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

Date: 30 Sep 92 12:03:32 GMT
From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space and Presidential Politics
Newsgroups: sci.space

-From: [e-mail] (Mark Goodman)
-Subject: Space and Presidential Politics
-Date: 27 Sep 92 23:52:00 GMT
-Reply-To: [e-mail]

-This newsgroup has recently contained some rather absurd opinion
-and speculation about the effect of a Clinton/Gore administration
-on the space program.  The simple facts are that neither party has
-said much about what they would do

Actually, both the Bush and Clinton space platforms have been posted.
The observation that most people apparently don't read them before posting on
the subject (or else make comical "translations" and insist on regarding
only those) is a separate issue.

-and that the issue is rightly peripheral to the campaign.

In practice that has been the case because the two platforms are so similar
that there's not a whole lot to discuss. Either Clinton or Bush could have
written the numerous speeches at the World Space Congress on what directions
the space program needs to take.

-Others have followed the bizarre chain of logic that 1) Clinton
-wants to spend a little bit of money on what appear to be sensible
-things, 2) he will have to cut something else and 3) NASA is the
-only game in town (ever hear of agricultural subsidies?), so 4)
-Clinton will clobber NASA.  Another chain of logic seems to go
-like this 1) Clinton wants to cut military spending a tad more
-than Bush does, 2) a lot of defense is aerospace, 3) NASA is
-aerospace, so 4) Clinton wants to cut NASA.

I would call these examples of the popular game of "The Candidate Said".
Somebody makes up a statement or position and attributes it to a candidate,
then everybody else holds the candidate responsible for that statement or
position, because "the candidate said it". Almost all of the hundreds of
political analyses posted to sci.space have been of this type.

Any comments on the political situation are my own opinions/interpretations,
and are not intended to be campaigning or an endorsement of any party
or candidate.

John Roberts
[e-mail]

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

Date: 30 Sep 92 08:27:23 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: Wealth in Space (Was Re: Clinton and Space Funding)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,talk.politics.space,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] writes
>>
>>Basic laws of supply and demand. More goods, prices drop.
>>
>>I dunno, maybe everyone could have gold-plated fixtures in their bathrooms? :)

>Check out your chemistry books. platinum is one of the best if not the best
>chemical catalyst in existence. We use a little in every Catalytic converter
>on every car in the first world.  A Brinks truck comes into a factory near
>Huntsville every week with a shipment of platinum for the catalytic converters
>made here.  Platinum is used in many industrial processes. (Some smart
>researcher here should give us a breakdown). It would be wonderful if the
>price of platinum would drop by a factor of 10. Then there would only be
>100 billion dollars worth on the asteriod BUT consumption would go way up and
>some industrial processes would become more efficient due to the new cost
>effectiveness of using the lower cost patinum.  Therefore demand would
>increase greatly, while lowering the cost of our overall industrial process.

Actually, catalysts aren't consumables by definition. There doesn't really
look like a viable demand for a tenfold increase in catalyst use in the
chemical industry even with a tenfold price decrease.

>If this were an American enterprise, this could put our basic industries
>that rely on platinum based catalytic processes to become more cost
>competitive on a world basis, which would help ease our balance of payments
>burden and begin to bring terrestrial wealth back into this nation. Not a
>bad deal actually.

Only going to sell to Americans eh? What about the reduced world demand
for Earth bound supplies of platinum as the US leaves the terrestrial
market? Won't that lower the price for our foreign competitors too?

>What about gold? Well if the price dropped by a factor of ten, there would
>only be nine billion dollars worth of gold. Well that puts gold at a price
>in the $30-$40 dollar range. This would bring much more demand for gold,
>especially in electronics packaging which is where the majority of gold
>is used today.  This lowering of cost, if an American enterprise would make
>our electronics industry more competitive on a global basis, therefore
>bringing more wealth into this nation, creating jobs for the educated, and
>providing money for needed social services as well as for the bread and
>circuses crowd in Congress.  Not a bad deal actually.

Same problem. *World* prices drop, no competitive advantage. Meanwhile
all those folks with gold jewelry see their investments dwindle.

>I haven't mentioned the Nickel and Iron that makes up the vast majority of
>the asteroid.  There is probably a couple of trillion tons of smelter grade
>nickel/iron (read steel) available on that one asteriod.  What would this
>do? It would effectively end all iron importation to the United States,
>(We mine very little these days ourselves). This would help in our
>balance of payments.

Most imported iron ore comes from our friends to the north. We already
have a trade surplus with them. They might be very unhappy with us and
stop buying our goods.

>Also, the vast quantity of material could be used
>in places where it is not cost effective to do so today, such as in the
>primary structures of bridges and buildings. Stainless steel, which this
>material basically is, would last five hundred years between needed replacement
>on bridges in the Northeastern US and Europe, vastly lowering maintance
>and replacement costs for our interstates. (Remember that a recent estimate
>placed this cost in the 200 billion dollar range in the next 20 years).

2,000 year old stone Roman bridges are still in daily use. It's amazing
how good engineering can make non-stainless steel things last. We use as
little iron in our bridge designs as we can for the simple reason that other
methods and materials are better. Stainless steel really isn't corrosion
free, nor is it fatigue free. Making bridges from it won't make them
last 500 years unless the entire bridge is *designed* to last 500 years.
We know how to do that now. The *Romans* knew how to do that, and *did* do
that. It's just not cost effective to do it in most cases, even if stainless
steel were free. Materials cost are a small fraction of construction costs,
and welding stainless is a bitch.

>This of course would free up billions to be used for bread and circuses as
>well as to buy back our country from the Japanese and other foreigners. Not
>a bad deal for ONE asteroid.
>
>Then after all of these goodies, a much larger fraction of the American
>people would have the wealth to buy gold plated bathroom fixtures.
>
>Not a bad deal really

Show us a way to *deliver* the materials of the asteroid to the Earth's
surface in *ready to use* form for less than 109 billion dollars. Those
gold and platinum *estimates* aren't in nice pure lumps. They're spread
throughout that couple of trillion tons of stainless steel ore. Now we're
talking $20 a ton material that will need hundreds of dollars an ounce
worth of processing to get at that platinum and gold. Makes a big difference.
Don't pull another dinosaur killer in the process.

Gary

PS We already have an asteroid supplying us with nickel iron. It's
convienently located at Sudbury. You can reach it by *train*. You
can even *walk* to it if you like. No need for expensive "astronaut"
programs. :-)

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

Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 14:58:31 MET
From: [e-mail]
Subject: What is this ?

Henry Spencer writes (29 Sep 92 19:38:03 GMT):

>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>>Have the U.S. some kind of RPV with such performances ?
>
>If so, it is secret, so why bother asking?

Because here in Western Europe, we don't like behavior in the KGB style,
especially when it's over our heads... Well, maybe it was the Russians ?
"If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and craps like a duck, I
call it a duck."

J. Pharabod

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

End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 265
------------------------------