Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V15_2/V15NO289.TXT

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Date: Tue,  6 Oct 92 05:04:14
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V15 #289
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Tue,  6 Oct 92       Volume 15 : Issue 289

Today's Topics:
                       another sad anniversary
                   Controversy over V-2 anniversary
Don't forget  Other Guy(was Re: Von Braun -- Hero, Villain, or Both?)
                              EASTER.BAS
                     Errors in reporting "firsts"
                       galileo antenna status?
                          Laser Space Mirror
                       Mars Observer trajectory
                            MYSTERY OBJECT
                   Pioneer Venus (Re)Entry (2 msgs)
                       Revised FAQ on Launchers
                       Switching ALSEP back on

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

Date: 6 Oct 92 01:48:00 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: another sad anniversary
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] writes...
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes...
>>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>>>
>>>The dowlink path loss is -278 db from the moon.
>>
>
>>Anyone willing to spend a couple of thousand dollars could receive
>>a 1 watt signal from the Moon with sufficient margin to decode digital
>>data, or copy analog voice. An EME grade station is probably still
>>required to pick up video, or high bandwidth data.
>>
>>Gary KE4ZV
>
>Gary my figure if from the Lunar Observer mission baseline published at JPL
>in 1991.  This is the baselne for all future missions and the link margin
>is discussed extensively in there.  What is your source? I will look it up
>in the ARRL hanbook just to see what they have.
>
>Dennis
>
>KD4ETA former WB4KSF


Oh well I went back to check up on my sources and it looks like I was off
by 100 db.  The real figure for the path loss at 2.4975 Ghz is 177.2 db. I
am reading this and it is for a 7500 km path. I know I have a document s
somewhere that shows the path loss of 278 db. Oh well. If I find it I will
post the link margin parameters.

The book i was referring to is:

Lunar Observer:
A Comprehensive Orbital Survey of the Moon
Mission and System Definintion Summary

April 15, 1991
JPL D-8607

Thats for you Bill

Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville

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

Date: 6 Oct 92 04:54:52 GMT
From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Subject: Controversy over V-2 anniversary
Newsgroups: sci.space

-From: [e-mail] (Mary Shafer)
-Subject: Re: Controversy over V-2 anniversary
-Date: 4 Oct 92 15:41:56 GMT
-Organization: NASA Dryden, Edwards, Cal.

-On Sun, 4 Oct 1992 03:33:00 GMT, [e-mail] said:

-> If you really want to press the point and be so high and mighty about it
-> then why did we use the rocket team to build our rockets? Krafft Erike
-> was instrumental in the Atlas design and the Von Braun Team were instrumental
-> in the development of the Redstone, Jupiter, Saturn I and Saturn V.  The
-> rocket team was a spoil of war that we took from the Germans.

-I certainly wouldn't have treated them like mythic heroes, the way we
-did.  This is a perfect example of the end being used to justify the
-means, with the spectre of the vile godless commies sweeping like a
-red tide over the peace-loving peoples of the free world.  (Oops, I
-think peace-loving peoples are commies--I may have gotten my propaganda
-mixed up.)

I can see that you feel very strongly about this matter, and certainly would
not want to offend you. However, I would point out that a large number of
people could use the same exact argument about the perception among Americans
of US military aircraft. The basic functionality of high-performance military
aircraft is to kill, and such killing must be considered to some extent an
offense against humanity. We justify the means of killing by the end of
protecting ourselves and others from the vile militant nations, but we do
much more than that - we glorify the planes and their pilots, and gloat
over every kill. Some might argue that the planes are perhaps a necessary
evil, but that there's no moral justification in glorifying them - we should
be no more proud of them than a riverboat gambler is of the gun that he keeps
hidden under the table. (That's not *my* point of view - as an engineer,
I admire their capabilities and the skill that went into building them,
and Americans can be proud of the courage and talent of their pilots, though
I'd prefer it if they never actually had to be used in combat.)

-That still doesn't make it right.  Not persecuting people for crimes
-against humanity because they may be useful to you is wrong.  Period.

But if everybody felt that way, what would the "Bild-A-Government" folks
do for a living? :-)

-Furthermore, I think this attitude of yours that nobody's hands are
-clean so people can't be criticized without an understanding of their
-history is in large part responsible for the decline of modern
-morality.  You have to step up and take responsibility for your actions,
-no matter what--you can't wuss out with an unhappy childhood or a mean
-mommy or "everybody's doing it".  If it's wrong, it's wrong.

I think you make a good point, but a very common practice nowadays is to
go too far in the other direction - for instance, slavery and racism are
certainly considered wrong by today's morality, yet some people go so far
as to condemn Samuel Clemens because some of the characters in "Huckleberry
Finn" voice opinions that would be considered racist nowadays (ignoring
the fact that these opinions are generally being ridiculed by the author),
and Thomas Jefferson because he owned slaves (ignoring his efforts to end
slavery, and the legal and economic difficulties in freeing slaves in those
days). I don't think that most people want to excuse Hitler and the people
who ran the concentration camps, but to condemn all the positive
accomplishments of people who may have had only peripheral involvement in
misdeeds might be a little extreme. To judge by "The Right Stuff" and
Yaeger's autobiography, many of the early test pilots and astronauts didn't
exhibit a whole lot of what a fundamentalist would call "morality". Does
that mean we should discount their accomplishments? Perhaps the concept of
"hero" needs to be redefined - we can acknowledge people's positive
accomplishments without condoning their misdeeds.

I can sympathize with the German government's view that
the use of slave labor in production of the V-2 and the extensive
targeting of civilian targets would dampen enthusiasm for a celebration.

I don't recall the extensive V-2 display you mention seeing at the NASM -
is that near the missile?

John Roberts
[e-mail]

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

Date: 6 Oct 92 08:00:16 GMT
From: Brian Yamauchi <[e-mail]>
Subject: Don't forget  Other Guy(was Re: Von Braun -- Hero, Villain, or Both?)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (University Space Society) writes:

>> I happen to know a number of the surviving Germans and each and every one
>> of them have worked far beyond their retirements to continue to work for our
>> planet having a space faring civilization.  [...]

>I am sure there are those behind the Rust Curtain who answer the same
>description.  I for one would like to know more of their story.

There is a good book on the Soviet space program in general, and
Korolev in particular, titled _Russians_in_Space_.  The author's name
is something like Evgeny Riabchoff.  (I'm undoubtedly mangling the
spelling...)
--
_______________________________________________________________________________

Brian Yamauchi            Case Western Reserve University
[e-mail]    Department of Computer Engineering and Science
_______________________________________________________________________________

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

Date: 4 Oct 92 06:33:17 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: EASTER.BAS
Newsgroups: sci.space

Courtesy of Sky & Telescope magazine:


10 REM    EASTER
12 REM
14 INPUT "YEAR ";Y
16 IF Y<1583 THEN 14
18 Y1=Y/19
20 A=INT((Y1-INT(Y1))*19+.001)
22 B1=Y/100: B=INT(B1)
24 C=INT((B1-INT(B1))*100+.001)
26 D1=B/4: D=INT(D1)
28 E=INT((D1-INT(D1))*4+.001)
30 F=INT(((B+8)/25)+.001)
32 G=INT((B-F+1)/3)
34 H1=(19*A+B-D-G+15)/30
36 H=INT((H1-INT(H1))*30+.001)
38 C1=C/4: I=INT(C1)
40 K=INT((C1-I)*4+.001)
42 L1=(32+2*E+2*I-H-K)/7
44 L=INT((L1-INT(L1))*7+.001)
46 M=INT((A+11*H+22*L)/451)
48 N1=(H+L-7*M+114)/31: N=INT(N1)
50 P=INT((N1-N)*31+.001)
52 N$="APRIL"
54 IF N=3 THEN N$="MARCH"
56 PRINT "EASTER IS ON ";N$;P+1
58 INPUT "ANOTHER (Y OR N) ";Q$
60 IF Q$="Y" THEN 14
62 END



Leonard Abbey, F.R.A.S.
Georgia Tech Research Institute
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
[e-mail]

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

Date: 6 Oct 92 05:18:08 GMT
From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Subject: Errors in reporting "firsts"
Newsgroups: sci.space

-From: [e-mail] (Chris Jones)
-Subject: Re: NASA Daily News for 10/02/92 (Forwarded)
-Date: 4 Oct 92 21:23:06 GMT
-Organization: Kendall Square Research Corp

-In article <[e-mail]>, henry@zoo (Henry Spencer) writes:
->In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Peter E. Yee) writes:
->>(On Wednesday, Daily News erroneously reported
->>MacLean would be the second CSA astronaut to fly.)
->
->Okay, now it's Marc Garneau's turn to be annoyed by botched NASA reporting.
->Maybe on the third try they'll get it right.

-I grew up tremendously impressed by NASA as a can-do, nearly super-humanly
-competent organization.  Seeing this, and the error-riddled press release
-"honoring" John Young from several days ago, and various other official
-releases which garble reality brings home quite clearly that this NASA is not
-that NASA.  It's both sad and infuriating.

Perhaps it's not such a bad thing that NASA doesn't devote its best effort
toward remembering the trivia of the past. :-) I'd be much more worried
about an error in reporting an upcoming mission.

Actually, there's an easy fix - require all official press releases to
be passed by a review board - NIST does that. Of course, if a thorough
review is mandated, there may be a month or more delay in getting a
release approved. For fast-breaking space news reports, I'd generally
prefer to get them quickly, and put up with an occasional error.

John Roberts
[e-mail]

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

Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 00:06:09 GMT
From: Frank Crary <[e-mail]>
Subject: galileo antenna status?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>I have been off the net for 6 weeks.  What is currently happening with the
>attempts to unstick the Galileo antenna ?  I haven't heard anything about
>it in the papers so I assume it is still stuck.

Unfortunately, but my advisor (who is involved with the plasma team) got
some new information on the subject last week and seems quite hopefull
(compared to her earlier, might-as-well-be-hopeless, view...)

>Has there been any success with the heating/cooling treatment?  What happened
>with the attempts to use the deployment motors?  Last I heard was that there
>was a small amount of movement when they were pulsed.  Has this been retried?

It has been retried, and apparently turned 20 deg before stalling (six full
revolutions are required for deployment, so that's only ~3% of the way.)
They apparently think it will turn further if the spacecraft is warmer,
and once it has warmed up to ~30 or 40 C (around the next perihelion)
they plan to "hammer" it by repeatedly running the motor until it stalls.
This, of course, a brute force approach, and assumes the motor will
withstand a few dozen stalls, without failing. (I'm also not sure if
"stall" is the correct term for this sort of motor...) I should also
say that "hopefull" opinions from involved scientists (in general)
seems to mean there is _some_ as opposed to _no_ chance of deployment.

                                                   Frank Crary

                                                   CU Boulder

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

Date: 6 Oct 92 01:14:03 GMT
From: "D.S.C. Yap" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Laser Space Mirror
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (Doug Mohney) writes:

>>New Scientist this week (No 1841, 3 October 1992) reports that next month a
>>crewless Progress spacecraft will open a space mirror after resupplying Mir
>>at an altitude of 350 km.

>This different from the solar sail experiment they were going to do on another
>Progress?

Yup, I think the solar sail experiment they were planning was intended to
test the viability of using a solar sail for attitude control.  I haven't
seen the New Scientist article or (more importantly) any pictures but
I have a suspicion that their sail/mirror design has a lot in common
with the 2m diameter test rig that I'm doing dynamic tests on in the
lab.  The company that originally got me interested in my Ph.D. topic
had some very high level discussions with the Russians about possible
collaboration, but then something happened...

It occured to me two years ago that a very large solar sail could be
used as a giant bill-board in the nighttime sky.  At $50 million
dollars (excluding launch) you'd probably get some takers and still
make a profit.  It was a silly notion (I'm sure greenpeace would
concur), but if anyone has some venture capital - I'm free come
one year's time... :-)

BTW, cyclically periodic structures, with very high flexibilities
behave in _very_ interesting ways.  350km is too low, I can't see
their space mirror lasting very long.

Davin


          .oO tuohtiw esoht fo noitanigami eht ot gnihton evael Oo.
      Davin Yap, University Engineering Department, Cambridge, England
                       -->  [e-mail]  <--

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

Date: 6 Oct 92 03:31:27 GMT
From: Steve Collins <[e-mail]>
Subject: Mars Observer trajectory
Newsgroups: sci.space

I have some information on the Mars Observer trajectory.
The nav guys I have talked with indicate that the transfer trajectory
is optimized to minimize the total required spacecraft delta-v.
That is the delta-v after the TOS burnout. The largest component is the
delta-v for injection into Mars orbit (MOI). The out and back arises
mostly from this optimization, and from the fact that Earth and Mars's
orbits are not quite coplanar.
The project is also considering a plan called the "power in" option.
This plan retargets our last TCM and MOI to change the arrival orbit
plane's orientation to the sun. Power in will get us to our desired
mapping orbit earlier than the the nominal plan, and may be selected
when we see how we are doing on propellant when we get farther along in
cruise.
Now for the data. I snagged the latest trajectory and have the
the following spacecraft state information:
Epoch: 10/5/92 00:00:00 UTC
Position: 1.46030475e8 3.16372935e7 1.30237608e7   km
Velocity -7.02799688e0 3.00312953e1 1.22052289e1   km/sec
relative to the sun in the J2000 coordinate frame.
I belive (but am not sure...) that this is relative to the center of the
sun rather than the solar system barycenter for orbit types...

The vector from Earth to MO at that same epoch is :
-7.84913829e-2 9.79318425e-1 1.86479291e-1
also in J2000 and referenced to the center of the Earth.

These can be expressed as classical elements about the sun, but I am
not familiar with the nomenclature that the available software uses.

This state will be valid till saturday when TCM 1 occurs (hopefully) I
will post the state again after we get a good post TCM track next week.

Hope this is of interest and use to folks. Feel free to transform this
info to whatever format (eg RA and DEC) that people might be able to use.
I unfortunately don't have time to do it myself...

Off to design snap rolls for Mag calibration
           steve collins MO Spacecraft Team (AACS)

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

Date: 6 Oct 92 02:28:12 GMT
From: Mike McCants <[e-mail]>
Subject: MYSTERY OBJECT
Newsgroups: sci.space

The latest packet from Goddard came today and object #20961 was
listed as having reentered on Sep 30.

Object 20961 was a Navstar GPS booster rocket.  Its designation was
90 103C.  The Navstar GPS 2A-01 was launched on Nov 26, 1990.  This
booster rocket is listed in the RAE tables as being 2.3 meters long and
1.5 meters in diameter.  It is called a PAM-D.

Its inclination was 34.4 degrees.  The last orbital elements are
from about 23 hours before your observation.  They indicate a passage
a few minutes later than what you report, but the increasing drag
over the intervening 23 hours would have caused the object to be
earlier than predicted.

Here are the NORAD elements with an epoch of Sept. 30, 1992 at 2:37UT:

1 20961U 90103  C 92274.10889461  .15285251  00000-0  51254-3 0  4682
2 20961  34.3807 231.2465 0291741  53.7944 308.9984 15.83745672 66522

Mike McCants

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

Date: 6 Oct 92 02:28:28 GMT
From: John McDonald <[e-mail]>
Subject: Pioneer Venus (Re)Entry
Newsgroups: sci.space

I read in the weekend paper that they had determined that
the Pioneer Venus orbiter had run out of fuel to maintain
an orbit.  They predicted that it may enter Venus' atmosphere
this week.  Is there any news on this?  Ron Baalke, perhaps?

Thanks in advance!

john

begin 664 signature.uu
M:F]H;E\M7U\M7U\M7U\M7U\M7U\M7U\M7U\M7U\M7U\M7VUC9&]N86QD"@E!
M<G1I<W1S(%!R;W9O:V4@06QI96YS"E]?+5]?+5]?+5]?+5]?+5]?+5]?+5]?
M+5]?+5]?+5]?+5]?+5]?+5]?+0IC96YT97(@(" @("!F;W(@(" @("!E=78@
2(" @("!A<W1R;W!H>7-I8W,*

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

Date: 6 Oct 92 11:40:13 GMT
From: Ron Baalke <[e-mail]>
Subject: Pioneer Venus (Re)Entry
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (John McDonald) writes...
>
>I read in the weekend paper that they had determined that
>the Pioneer Venus orbiter had run out of fuel to maintain
>an orbit.  They predicted that it may enter Venus' atmosphere
>this week.

It looks like the spacecraft will enter the atmosphere on October 7
(Wednesday) and burn up on October 8 (Thursday).  Ames Research Center is
collecting science data from the spacecraft as it passes over the top of
the atmosphere.
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | Einstein's brain is stored
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | in a mason jar in a lab
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     | in Wichita, Kansas.

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

Date: 6 Oct 92 00:51:24 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Revised FAQ on Launchers
Newsgroups: sci.space


Josh 'K' Hopkins writes:
>I've been working on a revisions of the FAQ on launch services.
>I'm including it here to get some feedback on the format - you're
>welcome to point out anything that looks like a typo too.  ...
> ...
>The following data comes from _International Reference Guide to
>Space Launch Systems_  by Steven J. Isakowitz, 1991 edition.

Josh, two comments:
   First, don't use the cost data from IRGSLS.  It is typically
wrong.  Most of the data Steve used was from several years prior to
compiling the book, and was usually out of date.  Furthermore, the
cost data was quoted on different cost bases - differing year
dollars, differing launch services, differing customers (gov't or
commercial), and on different cost basis (single unit or block buy,
with/without upper stage, with/without necessary but payload
services etc.).  If you are going to quote a cost number, I would
recommend using the single flight, commercial customer price for a
payload to 150 (or 100) nmi.  Just be consistent and current.
   Secondly, same comments apply to reliability.  If you do quote a
reliability number, quote the time period, number of launches and
vehicle type the reliability is shown for.
   Thirdly, I would recommend modifying your format to a max of 72
characters in width.  This is the way it showed up on my display...
[Note: 72 characters is not a hardware limitation, but I've found it
seems to be about the best width for upload and download of tabular
information through this type of media.]

>Vehicle        |     Payload  kg  (lbs)   | Reliability | Price |
>Launch Site (nation)       |  LEO      Polar    GTO   |
>|       | (Lat. & Long.) ------------------------------------------
>--------------------------------------
> Ariane                                      35/40  87.5%
>Kourou (ESA)
>(5.2 N 52.8 W)
>  AR40          4,900     3,900    1,900    1/1           $65m
>             (10,800)  (8,580)  (4,190)
>  AR42P         6,100     4,800    2,600    1/1           $67m

   Decipherable, but rather hard to read ...

   As for launch vehicles listed, I would also recommend you not
list launch vehicles which have not yet flown or are not in current
inventory.  This would eliminate having to list data for Taurus,
Conestoga, and Orbital Express (International Microspace Inc) --
even though each of those firms have firm contracts for launch, and
are very real. Ditto for NLS, Saturn, some of the older ELV models
and some of the foreign launchers (H-2, MS-J, PSLV, GSLV, etc.)
You might make an exception for some near term launchers, but that
data should be shown as "projected".  I'd recommend this to avoid
showing comparative data between real operating systems and "paper"
future systems without having some real demonstratable data for
comparison (like demonstrated costs and performance).  At the
minimum, such data should be flagged as "speculative", or
"projected".  It would help reduce some of the flame wars here.
 ----------------------------------------------------------------
 Wales Larrison                         Space Technology Investor


--- Maximus 2.00

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

Date: 6 Oct 92 05:02:03 GMT
From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Subject: Switching ALSEP back on
Newsgroups: sci.space

-From: [e-mail] (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey)
-Subject: Switching ALSEP back on (was Re: another sad anniversary)
-Date: 5 Oct 92 16:12:08 GMT

-In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
-> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (FRANK NEY) writes:
->>Is there any way to turn ALSEP back on once we get the ground station
->>set up properly?  Or was it a no-return type of prodedure?
-> Such turnoff procedures are usually irreversible, I believe, to minimize
-> the chances of dying hardware later reversing them on its own.  I'm not
-> sure about ALSEP in particular.
-Oh, I don't know. Armed with a soldering iron, a wiring diagram, and a
-space suit, I imagine you'd find it pretty easy.

As I recall from the bus tour of KSC two years ago, the standard speech
included the comment that the transmitters could be turned back on if desired.
Has anyone taken the tour more recently?

-Was it a plutonium-238 RTG?  238Pu has a half-life of 86 years, but
-available power from RTGs seems to drop off at a faster rate than
-that, for reasons that aren't clear to me.

I've noticed that too. Maybe there's a fourth power of something in the
equation, having to do with heat flow.

John Roberts
[e-mail]

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

End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 289
------------------------------