Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V15_3/V15NO397.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1993-07-13 | 35KB

Date: Sun,  8 Nov 92 05:10:45
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V15 #397
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Sun,  8 Nov 92       Volume 15 : Issue 397

Today's Topics:
            A solution to "NASA Coverup"? (long) (2 msgs)
            Automated space station construction (2 msgs)
                           Comet Collision
                         Drop nuc waste into
                            Dyson Spheres
                          Man in space ... )
                   Mars Observer Update - 11/06/92
                     More on the lunar questions
                            NASA Coverup
                       Need Specific NASA Image
    Ten embarrassed questions about the moon (very long) (3 msgs)
                      Uranium abundance on Earth

    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: Sat, 7 Nov 92 22:39:59 EST
From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Subject: A solution to "NASA Coverup"? (long)

-From: [e-mail]
-Subject: NASA Coverup
-Keywords: More sources for 43,000 mile figure
-Date: 6 Nov 92 01:18:00 GMT

-     Generally the objections fall into seven categories:
-...7.   I ,snarfy , have an impolite, beligerent,  obnoxious  and  generally
-     bad attitude, and my error in transposing terms in the equation 180/6 =
-     30 indicates that I am also stupid  and  unqualified  to  address  this
-     newsgroup.

I think the attitude is part of it. Unfortunately, it's fashionable these
days to seek glory by claiming that some revered scientist is guilty of
fraud - often these claims have little or no foundation. When you accuse
the tens of thousands of people who worked on Apollo of fraud, it's natural
that many people will tend to put you in that category, whether that's
accurate or not. It's not necessary to be belligerent about a discrepancy
in calculations. I occasionally come up with results in my calculations
that are different from the accepted values, and when that happens, I post
a question on it and try to get independent verification. Usually it turns
out that I made a mistake or left out some important factor, but once in a
while it appears that the results are confirmed - for instance, I have not
yet found any problems with my calculations showing that a 1AU Dyson sphere
would be too hot to live on, and that for a comfortable temperature, radius
must be increased to at least 1.75 AU. (I wish someone would check that -
I've found an error in the unrelated calculation of internal photon pressure
of a reflective sphere, which still needs to be fixed.)

The other problem is the degree to which a claim varies from the accepted
state of affairs, and the degree to which people would have to change their
world view to accommodate the claim. The greater the degree of change required,
the stiffer the standards for validation. You might post an argument that
aluminum alloy would have been a better choice than titanium for the legs of
the lunar lander (or vice versa), and you might get some replies arguing to the
contrary, but you wouldn't expect a heated exchange over it (except perhaps
for a few crazed metallurgists), and if it turned out that your opinion
was the result of reading an article in Popular Science rather than years
of research on metal alloys, nobody would be particularly angry about it.
On the other hand, when you make the spectacular claim that the moon's
surface gravity is nearly four times the accepted value, and extrapolate
that to claims of fraud, then people are going to be very insistent on
knowing your sources and your calculations. When it turns out that your
sources are more or less popular accounts (with nary a differential
equation among them), then they will justifiably "request" that you seek
out better sources. (I occasionally make spectacular claims based on
popular accounts, but I try to make it clear that the popular accounts
are the source, and that I'm ready to accept correction from those who
know more on the subject.)

-                  Ok, back to work:

OK, let's look at the source of your dilemma:

-   Let me here define "Neutral Point" :

-   The  neutral  point  is  that  point  in a lunar spacecraft's trajectory,
-   measured by the straight line distance from the moon's center  in  miles,
-   where the force of gravitational influence in the direction of the moon ,
-   measured  in  pounds of "pull" on the spacecraft,is equal to the force of
-   influence toward the direction of the earth, also measured in  pounds  of
-   "pull".

By the way, I think you'll be much happier in the long run if you do your
calculations in SI (metric) units. I often do simple calculations in standard
units, but the tough problems are much more easily handled using SI.

-   I believe that the direct quotation from the July 25,1969  Time  magazine
-   article would be helpful here:

-   "At  a  point 43,495 from the moon, lunar gravity exerted a force [on the
-   spacecraft] equal to the gravity of the Earth , then some  200,000  miles
-   distant."

-   In "Project Apollo: Man to the Moon" by Thomas J. Alexander  (Harper  and
-   Row , 1964 ) ,the author states:

-   "At  a  point  some  40,000 miles from the Moon ,when the craft is poking
-   along at about 2000 mph, it crosses THE LINE  where  the  moon's  gravity
-   exceeds  that  of  the  earth . That's the second part of the trjectory."
-   (caps mine).

It appears that you're assuming that the spacecraft spends its journey
moving along a straight line between the center of the Earth and the center
of the moon. Orbital maneuvers are a very complex field of study, and I
don't know most of the details (I can only do the very simple calculations),
but it seems to me that that's a very unlikely course for the spacecraft
to take. After firing to escape low earth orbit, the spacecraft is moving
in nearly a parabolic or hyperbolic (probably parabolic, but I'm not sure -
it depends on velocity) trajectory, which gradually changes to a (probably)
hyperbolic trajectory about the moon, as the moon's gravitation becomes
predominant. Remember that the moon is orbiting about the Earth at a
velocity of around 1023 meters per second (avg) - if it takes the spacecraft
several days to get from Earth orbit to the moon, the moon will have traveled
a tremendous distance "sideways" during that time. So it makes sense to
"lead" your shot - aim the spacecraft toward where the moon will be when
the spacecraft gets to the moon's orbit. (Actually, since the objective is
not a lunar impact but a lunar orbit, you want the spacecraft to be where
the moon's gravity will whip it around the moon, thus minimizing the amount
of fuel you have to burn to get into lunar orbit. The calculations for that
are extremely complex, but I think this is a pretty fair simplification for
the layman.)

The net result is that as the spacecraft approaches the moon, it does so
at a very large angle with respect to the line between the Earth and the
moon, so you can't just subtract the spacecraft-moon distance from the
earth-moon distance and use that as the spacecraft-Earth distance. Note
that your sources don't say that the two forces *cancel* (which they would
do if the spacecraft were exactly on the line between the Earth and the
moon), just that the two forces are *equal*. I think this is the main
source of your discrepancy. (If this analysis is correct, I think you
owe those poor Apollo scientists an apology.)

(There are many points in space where the gravitational influence of
the Earth and the moon are *equal*, but they don't form a line or a
plane - I believe it's a complex curve surrounding the moon.

Another pitfall that is especially important to recognize in weighing
the influence of phenomena that tend to cancel one another out is the
sensitivity of the results to errors in the initial assumptions. For

instance, suppose you're using a value of 238000 miles for the distance
from the center of the Earth to the center of the moon. Suppose the actual
distance on that day was 236000 miles or 240000 (the distance varies from
about 225700 miles to 252000 miles) - what effect would that have on the
results of your calculations? For calculations where you just multiply this
in as a factor, the effect would be fairly insignificant - less than a percent.
when you square the value to work out the inverse square, the effect is
greater - nearly two percent. When you subtract one inverse square from
another inverse square, the error can be tremendously magnified. Remember
in your earlier post when the neutral point was said to have been stated
as 22100-25200 miles from the moon? Perhaps that doesn't mean they couldn't
make a more accurate guess - perhaps that means the value actually changes
over that range as the moon moves between perigee and apogee.

So it would appear that neutral point calculations are fairly sensitive to
errors in Earth-moon distance. Other factors may be similarly sensitive.
You can write a computer program to check the sensitivity of your initial
assumptions - vary each one up and down slightly, and record the effect that
each variation has on the outcome. (That's a little bit simplistic - in some
cases you may have to try variations in *combinations* of factors, but at
least it's a start.)

I worked out some calculations of my own, that seem to be fairly consistent
with the stated neutral point range, but which are quite different for the
posted distance of the Lagrangian point. This post is already long enough,
so I'll try to put them in a followup post.

John Roberts
[e-mail]

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

Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 05:03:27 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: A solution to "NASA Coverup"? (long)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John Roberts) writes:
>... After firing to escape low earth orbit, the spacecraft is moving
>in nearly a parabolic or hyperbolic (probably parabolic, but I'm not sure -
>it depends on velocity) trajectory, which gradually changes to a (probably)
>hyperbolic trajectory about the moon...

A lunar trajectory actually starts out as an ellipse with a very high
apogee; reaching parabolic velocity is not (quite) necessary.  It does
look like a hyperbola around the Moon once you get close enough, although
you really have to be pretty close for the Earth's effects to be negligible.

>...Remember that the moon is orbiting about the Earth at a
>velocity of around 1023 meters per second (avg) - if it takes the spacecraft
>several days to get from Earth orbit to the moon, the moon will have traveled
>a tremendous distance "sideways" during that time...

Whence my comment about it being better to ignore the Moon entirely than to
assume it is motionless.  There *is* an exact solution for the three-body
problem if you assume two primary bodies motionless with respect to each
other and a negligibly small third body -- it's called Euler's Problem Of
Fixed Centers -- but it's pretty useless in practice.
--
MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s.      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
              -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)|  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 8 Nov 92 06:42:56 GMT
From: Frank Crary <[e-mail]>
Subject: Automated space station construction
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:
>>But wouldn't the robots been discussed here be operated remotely by
>>ground based people.  This way, there is no need to program much AI
>>into the system.

>That isn't robotics, it's teleoperation. That's available now. The
>Shuttle has the Canadarm and so will Freedom. They're operated on
>site because the maximum 7 second communications delay through the
>relay satellites is too much for real time assembly from the ground.
>Robots have autonomy, at least of a limited kind.

Is anyone looking into robots with very limited autonomy? That is,
under direction from a human, but able to execute instructions on
their own for periods of, say, ten seconds?

                                         Frank Crary
                                         CU Boulder

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

Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 07:17:01 GMT
From: Steve Linton <[e-mail]>
Subject: Automated space station construction
Newsgroups: sci.space

|> I expect that improvements in routing statellite communications could
|> get the average control lag down to under 1.5 seconds. That would help
|> a lot. However, the lag is constantly changing due to the low Earth
|> orbit so I'd expect it to be a nightmare for the operator to compensate.

If we really wanted to we could get the lag down to almost zero, using large
numbers of ground stations connected by optical fibre (there are already
commercial  optical fibre cables under the Atlantic and Pacific). We could come
pretty close using relay satellites in a low-ish orbit and a smart rerouting
program (Iridium, in essence) or we could get down to 1/2 s using three ground
stations, three geostationary  relays and optical cables (cable to the right
ground station, satellite to target).

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

Date: 8 Nov 92 03:27:59 GMT
From: Mr N E Plum <[e-mail]>
Subject: Comet Collision
Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.sci.planetary

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Steve Linton) writes:
[ much discussion on changing the path of comets deleted ]
There is a well-written example of this is the book
'To the Heart of the Comet' by Gregory Benford and David Brin
which (although fiction) shows this kind of thing is at least
thinkable. The idea in the book is to colonise Comet Halley,
but the many techiniques relevant to changing any cometary path
are mentioned.

Nicolai

-- No-one has opinions like mine - I hope : [e-mail] --

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

Date: 7 Nov 92 09:36:55 GMT
From: Cameron Newham <[e-mail]>
Subject: Drop nuc waste into
Newsgroups: sci.space

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

 > Why not simply dump the stuff on Luna?  Less energy involved yet and
 > frankly it makes sense since at some date we will probably come up with
 > a need for the stuff.
 >

Oh, why not just dump the stuff on Swift-Tuttle as it flies by in 130 years
time.

:)

-cameron.

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

Date: 8 Nov 92 05:54:36 GMT
From: David Goldschmidt <ida@atomic>
Subject: Dyson Spheres
Newsgroups: sci.space

  One of the recurring problems in the Dyson-sphere debate is how to hold up the
poles, which won't be orbiting in any helpful way.  This problem doesn't come
up with Niven's ringworlds, even very wide ones (significantly wider than the
diameter of the sun)  What would a very wide ringworld look like?  If seen
from the same plane as the ring, it could look very much like a Dyson Sphere
(It would completely block the star).  One can assume that any civilization
would build such a thing in it's ecliptic plane.  The question then is: Does
our sun lie in the ecliptic of nearby stars.  It seems feasible to me that
most solar systems have parallel ecliptic planes (lined up with the plane of
the Milky Way), which would mean that all but the closest stars are essentially coplanar.
  Does anybody know the relationship between the ecliptic of our solar system
and the Milky Way?

  Another possibility to avoid collapsing poles:  have two or more ringworlds,
inside each other, at various angles.  Each spot on the outer world would
periodically go into the shadow of the inner one, but this shouldn't be a
prohibitive problem.  The mass of ringworlds would look very much like a
Dyson Sphere from a distance.

     Dave Patterson, guest on this account.

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

Date: 7 Nov 92 15:30:32 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Man in space ... )
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Andrew Haveland-Robinson) writes:
>
> In article <[e-mail]> you write:
>
>>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Andrew> Haveland-Robinson) writes:
>>>
>>> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>>>>   What will happen if the space suite of an austronaut gets ripped in space> ?
>>>
>>
>>Ever put your hand up against the nozzle of vacuum cleaner? Your skin
>>will hold about 1 atmosphere pressure nicely.
>>
>>The reason I'm writing, instead of just allowing the discussion to
>>peter out, is to mention that a suggestion of Hermann Oberth's:
>>Astronauts might wear spacesuits without gloves for delicate work!
>
> !!
>
> Ah well... I stand corrected...  Thanks for the explanation, it still
> sounds like a horrible way to go...
>
> I suppose after further thought, if one doesn't notice the 7psi or so at
> 35,000ft in an aircraft, 0 psi isn't going to make that much difference.
>
> The key is the uniformity of pressure - a vacuum cleaner could cause a
> slight bruise in time, but that's because of the 15 psi air pressure trying
> to squeeze you into the tube!  Reduce the outside pressure, and reduce the
> apparent suction.
>
--
Anyone who thinks you get 15psi of `suck' from a vacuum cleaner is
seriously in error.  A typical reduction in pressure (nozzle to atmosphere)
is about 2--4 inches of water: remember that one atmosphere is 32 feet of water
approximately.  You need a much larger diameter, and a much larger rotation
speed, to get a bigger pressure difference from a centrifugal pump for air,
as the density is so low. To get a decent vacuum from something
of a similar size you need a displacement-type pump (i.e. one with valves,
such as a diaphragm or rotary vane pump).

You can certainly plug up a hole about 1/4" diameter with your finger for at least
a minute -- I've done it (got a leak rate of about 10^-8 mb l/s) , but I wouldn't
advise trying a larger area for a long time as the skin isn't sufficiently
rigid.  I do remember a story of someone trying -- he was in
hospital for a long time.

Tim Kingsmill-Vellacott
Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics
University of Oxford, UK.
[e-mail]  preferred

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

Date: 8 Nov 92 12:03:50 GMT
From: Ron Baalke <[e-mail]>
Subject: Mars Observer Update - 11/06/92
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary

Forwarded from:
PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE [phone]

                  MARS OBSERVER MISSION STATUS
                        November 6, 1992

     The Mars Observer spacecraft team reports that all
spacecraft subsystems continue to perform well.  Instrument
payload and payload data checkouts are continuing as planned.

     The instrument calibration flight sequence currently under
way will continue through Nov. 17, 1992.  The Magnetometer and
Gamma Ray Spectrometer instrument teams are receiving early
cruise calibration data.  The Mars Observer Camera "bakeout" to
prepare the camera for operation will continue through Dec. 26,
1992.  New spacecraft activities are expected to be minimal over
the next several days.

     Today the spacecraft is about 12 million kilometers (7.5
million miles) from Earth, traveling at a speed of about 11,800
kilometers per hour (7,500 miles per hour) relative to Earth.
The spacecraft is traveling at a heliocentric velocity of about
111,000 kilometers per hour (72,000 miles per hour).

                              #####
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | Give people a second
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | chance, but not a third.
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     |

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

Date: Sun, 8 Nov 92 00:15:10 EST
From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Subject: More on the lunar questions

-From: [e-mail] (Josh 'K' Hopkins)
-Subject: Re: NASA Coverup
-Keywords: Ten Embarrassing Questions about the Moon
-Date: 7 Nov 92 23:42:20 GMT
-Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana

A few quotes from the text I mentioned before (Lunar Science: A Post-Apollo
View) relevant to two of the items you list:

[e-mail] writes:

->  6 . Is the core of the moon hot or cold ?

-"Scarfy" makes some strange comments here and a few logic leaps that lost me.
-The core of the Moon is solid.  This explains its weak and disorganized magnetic
-field and the lack of siesmic activity.  This also makes sense given the small
-size of the Moon - it would have cooled faster than earth.

[Structure of the lunar interior]
"1000-1738 km (The 'Asthenosphere')

"The announcement in November, 1972, that a portion of the interior of the moon
was partially molten ranks high among the many exciting discoveries about the
moon. The evidence came from the impact of a large meteorite (weighing about
1 ton) on the far side of the moon in July, 1972. P waves were transmitted,
with slightly lower velocities through the moon, but S (shear) waves, which are
not transmitted through liquids, were missing, indicating a central zone of
600-800 km radius at a depth of about 1000 km. Either the shear waves did not
propagate at all or were so highly attenuated as not to be recorded.

"The transition to the melting zone is gradual, not sharp. The P-wave
velocities decrease by 0.3 km/s, a slight drop compared with the mantle core
interface in the earth, where the P-wave velocity drops by about 5 km/s.
Thus this zone in the moon is neither completely molten nor a phase change.
The analogy is much closer to that of the "low velocity zone" in the earth's
upper mantle than with the core. This has led to the rather general use of
the term 'lunar asthenosphere'. The limits for an iron core, as noted earlier,
set by the density and moment of inertia are about 400km radius, much deeper
than the partial melting zone discussed here. An Fe-FeS core radius of 700 km
is permitted by the data." (pp. 291-292)

[Note that this is a 1972 finding, published in a book in 1975. It may not
be fully up to date on such a recent item. Also, this *doesn't* say that
the zone of partial melting necessarily extends all the way to the center.]

->  9. What are "mascons" and how did they get there?

-The mascons (mass concentrations) are
-the remains of large meteorites buried under the lunar maria.

"It is now clear that the mascons are near-surface features rather than
deep seated. They are most closely simulated by surface disk-shaped bodies
rather than deep-buried spherical bodies and show a good correlation between
surface area of the mare basalt fill and the size of the mascon." (p.279)

[In other words, it seems to be the lava rather than the material of the
impacting body that's the main contributor to the mascon.]

John Roberts
[e-mail]

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

Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 03:34:51 +0000
From: Andrew Haveland-Robinson <[e-mail]>
Subject: NASA Coverup
Newsgroups: sci.space

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

>   "At  a  point 43,495 from the moon, lunar gravity exerted a force [on the
>   spacecraft] equal to the gravity of the Earth , then some  200,000  miles
>   distant."
>
>   I would conclude from the inclusion of the distance remaining  to  go  to
>   the  moon (200,000 miles) that the author knew exactly which units he was
>   talking about .
>
>   I did a search for other sources which would help us analyse just what is
>   meant by " neutral point" , and where  it  might  be  located  along  the
>   flight path of the Apollo .
>
>   In "Project Apollo: Man to the Moon" by Thomas J. Alexander  (Harper  and
>   Row , 1964 ) ,the author states:
>
>   "At  a  point  some  40,000 miles from the Moon ,when the craft is poking
>   along at about 2000 mph, it crosses THE LINE  where  the  moon's  gravity
>   exceeds  that  of  the  earth . That's the second part of the trjectory."
>   (caps mine).
>
>   In  Buzz  Aldrin's  book, "Men From Earth" (1989)  , the author states on
>   page 231:
>
>   "After two full days into the mission we were 150,000  miles  from  earth
>   and   our  speed  was  less  than  3000  miles  an  hour.  The  moon  was
>   approximately 30 hours and 90,000  miles distant."
>
>   Here we have a "horse's mouth" space jockey's description of  his  ship's
>   situation well before reaching either of two postulated neutral points.
>
>    If  we  rule out the possibility that Apollo 11 was undergoing some kind
>   of  continuous  thrusting  which  would  keep  this  3000  mph   velocity
>   constant,we  are then left with the conclusion that the neutral point was
>   approximately 1/2 way between his position at  that  time  and  the  moon
>   which  was  90,000  miles  away.  Here again we arrive at a Neutral point
>   figure close to the 43,595 miles AS SPECIFIED BY TIME , VON BRAUN  ,  and
>   ALEXANDER.
>
>    I  repeat  again  this  is  data  from direct experimental evidence (the
>   actual moon flights) that  the  moon's  gravity  cannot  be  1/6  if  one
>   calculates the relative pulls of the earth and moon based on the proven
>   accurate  inverse square law . In pre - Apollo Astronomy , it is admitted
>   that the exact determination of the moon's mass , therefore the  position
>   of  the  neutral  point  could  not  be determined unless one was able to
>   observe the actual trajectories of lunar spacecraft.
>

As one working in the media as a typesetter typos are a statistical fact,
following the same lines as bugs in code - they are never eradicated, just
get less significant.

It is therefore reasonable to expect that out of the 1000s of articles on
the subject and the complexity of editorial processes errors will occur.
Some information will be inaccurate or completely wrong.

You cannot base a radical cover-up accusation based on a small anomaly, all
you can do is re-check the facts with other sources to corroborate.

Write to the authors concerned - we'd be very interested in their replies.

I appreciate your desire to question authority - that is healthy, and it
forces other netters to rethink their universes...

You've shown that you've listened to the postings, but have you accepted
them, and reconsidered your hypothesis?

Cheers
Andy.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Haveland-Robinson Associates   | Email: [e-mail]         |
| 54 Greenfield Road, London     |        [e-mail] |
| N15 5EP England. 081-800 1708  | Also:  0621-88756 081-802 4502       |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
> Some dream of doing great things, while others stay awake and do them <

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

Date: 8 Nov 92 05:44:00 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Need Specific NASA Image
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
 (Craig Fifer) writes...

I have the image in question on microfilm. Unfortunately my time quotient is
zero right now. If you can wait two weeks, I can scan it in at 600 dpi and
arrainge for you to ftp it from my computer.  Please reply to me by
direct email if you are interested.

Hey Mr Bill. Can you send me the rest of the Lunar stuff that you started
a few months ago? Right now would be a really good time. BTW remember the
drawing I showed you in DC? Well things are go again on the project.

I just love making people try to figure out what we are talking about! :)

Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville

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

Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 03:34:44 +0000
From: Andrew Haveland-Robinson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Ten embarrassed questions about the moon (very long)
Newsgroups: sci.space

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

>
>
>-From: [e-mail]
>-Subject: NASA Coverup
>-Keywords: Ten Embarrassing Questions about the Moon
>-Date: 6 Nov 92 23:37:31 GMT
>
>-   As promised ,here come the ...
>
>-                    TEN EMBARRASSING QUESTIONS ABOUT THE MOON
>
>I expect you'll get a tremendous number of replies - I'll try to answer some
>of the easier questions.

An excellent article!  I have a couple of questions...

What is the ratio of density of the mascons to the "masdeps" (depletions)?

Are the mascons responsible for the locked orbit? If so, then that would
explain why the Marias are dense and are only found facing the Earth.

References I've seen indicate that Earth's tides are responsible for
locking the moon's rotation to the orbit.

Andy.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Haveland-Robinson Associates   | Email: [e-mail]         |
| 54 Greenfield Road, London     |        [e-mail] |
| N15 5EP England. 081-800 1708  | Also:  0621-88756 081-802 4502       |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
>>>> Those that can, use applications. Those that can't, write them! <<<<
> Some dream of doing great things, while others stay awake and do them <

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

Date: 8 Nov 92 05:58:00 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Ten embarrassed questions about the moon (very long)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes...
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John Roberts) writes:
>>Henry will probably sneer.....
>Finally, there is a well-known and well-understood
>human tendency to remember the unusual and forget the mundane.  Yes, odd
>things sometimes happen at the full moon... but to draw any meaningful
>conclusions from this, you have to figure in the times when odd things
>happened without a full moon, or the times when nothing noteworthy happened
>during a full moon.  Coincidences do happen; to establish correlation, you
>have to look at the non-coincidences too.
>--
>MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s.      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
>              -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)|  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry


Poor Henry, a romantic you are not. :)

Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville

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

Date: 8 Nov 92 06:11:00 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Ten embarrassed questions about the moon (very long)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Andrew Haveland-Robinson) writes...
>
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>
>>
>>
>>-From: [e-mail]
>>-Subject: NASA Coverup
>>-Keywords: Ten Embarrassing Questions about the Moon
>>-Date: 6 Nov 92 23:37:31 GMT
>>
>>-   As promised ,here come the ...
>>
>>-                    TEN EMBARRASSING QUESTIONS ABOUT THE MOON
>>
>>I expect you'll get a tremendous number of replies - I'll try to answer some
>>of the easier questions.
>
>An excellent article!  I have a couple of questions...
>
>What is the ratio of density of the mascons to the "masdeps" (depletions)?
>
>Are the mascons responsible for the locked orbit? If so, then that would
>explain why the Marias are dense and are only found facing the Earth.
>
>References I've seen indicate that Earth's tides are responsible for
>locking the moon's rotation to the orbit.
>
>Andy.
>
>+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
>| Haveland-Robinson Associates   | Email: [e-mail]         |
>| 54 Greenfield Road, London     |        [e-mail] |
>| N15 5EP England. 081-800 1708  | Also:  0621-88756 081-802 4502       |
>+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
>>>>> Those that can, use applications. Those that can't, write them! <<<<
>> Some dream of doing great things, while others stay awake and do them <



Here are a couple of references that may help people on this subject. It isn't
as cut and dry as my friend John suggests.

Mascons: Lunar Mass Concentrations

P. M. Muller and W. L. Sjogren
SCIENCE 16, August 1968, Volume 161. pp 680-684

Lunar Gravity Via the Apollo 15 and 16 Subsatellites
W.L. Sjogren and R. N. Wimberly
Paper presented at the Lunar Science Institute conference on Geophysical
and Geochemical Exploration of the Moon and Planets, January 10-12, 1973

Reprinted in "The Moon 9 (1974) pp. 155-128

This is all for now, good luck on your research, the Moon is a wonderful
place and we WILL live there one day.

Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville

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

Date: Sun, 8 Nov 92 00:36:15 EST
From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Subject: Uranium abundance on Earth

-From: [e-mail] (Paul Dietz)
-Subject: Re: Ten embarrassed questions about the moon (very long)
-Date: 7 Nov 92 23:02:31 GMT
-Organization: Computer Science Department University of Rochester

-In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John Roberts) writes:
...
-> The total lunar abundance of uranium is thought to be about 60 ppb,
-> and thorium about 230 ppb. The only figure I could find for the Earth
-> was 2.7 ppb in the crust.

-The figure you have for terrestrial uranium is wrong: uranium is
-about 1000x more abundant than that in the earth's crust.

"About" understates the case - I read the number right from a table in the
CRC Handbook, where it was listed as "2.7 x 10^0 mg/kg". In the heat of the
moment, I stuck in an extra factor of 1000. Oops! There seems to be a lot
of this going around lately. So make that 2.7 ppm.

Thanks for the correction. (And boos and hisses to the editor who thought
that was a good way to set up an abundance table. :-)

John Roberts
[e-mail]

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

End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 397
------------------------------