Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V15_4/V15NO418.TXT

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

Date: Fri, 13 Nov 92 05:04:54
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V15 #418
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Fri, 13 Nov 92       Volume 15 : Issue 418

Today's Topics:
                             Apollo fire
                 Automated space station construction
                     Lunar "colony" reality check
             Lunar "colony" reality check and Apollo fire
                     lunar construction materials
                        Magellan Atlas Program
                    Mars Simulation in Antarctica
                        Metric again (2 msgs)
              NASA Space Life Sciences Training Program
                              newsgroups
                     Pioneer 6 Update - 11/11/92
             Study says: Space research spinoffs marginal
         Ten embarrassed questions about the moon (very long)
                        Water and Moon Rocks?
              What kind of computers are in the shuttle?
                Where are Pioneer and Voyager Headed?
               Where are shuttle research publications?

    Welcome to the Space Digest!!  Please send your messages to
    "[e-mail]", and (un)subscription requests of the form
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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 12 Nov 92 17:52:59 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Apollo fire
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Bill Collins) writes:
>One of the main reasons that the fire was so devastating was the fact
>that at the time Apollo capsules had 100% oxygen atmospheres at normal
>atmospheric pressure (14.7 lbs./sq.inch).  That's a lot of oxidizing
>agent to help with combustion!  After Apollo was allowed to fly subsequent
>to the Apollo1 fire the pressure was dropped to 5.3 lbs/sq. inch (am I
>right, Henry?).

Not really.  Having checked some references...

The Apollo spacecraft, like Mercury and Gemini spacecraft, ran on about
5psi of pure oxygen in space; it was designed that way from the start and
this was not changed after the fire.  The fire hazard in that atmosphere
is not significantly worse than in 14.7psi air, and in any case, the lack
of convection in free fall greatly reduces fire risk (which is nice of it,
since it also reduces the effectiveness of fire extinguishers).  A one-gas
life-support system is a good deal simpler and lighter than a two-gas
system, the lower pressure reduces structural loads, and prebreathing for
spacewalks would have been very awkward for Apollo.

The problem was that the capsule had to be pressurized to 14.7psi, or
preferably slightly more, while on the ground; it was not built to stand
external pressure exceeding internal pressure.

Now, that pressurization didn't have to use pure oxygen.  In fact, Mercury
used normal air for ground pressurization, although I believe the astronaut
breathed pure oxygen at all times.  However, it turned out that there were
risks in this approach:  a technician was killed in an accident which would
not have happened with pure oxygen.  (I don't have details, but I would
guess a pressure-chamber test went awry and he ended up breathing air at
low pressure.)  It was decided to use pure oxygen for ground pressurization
as a result.  Nobody noticed that this greatly increased the fire hazard,
partly because the fire-prevention philosophy at the time was to ensure
that there were no ignition sources to start a fire.

In the wake of the Apollo fire, this was all re-assessed.  It became clear
that there had been many potential ignition sources in the capsule, to the
point where there was no possibility of determining which caused the fire.
While a lot of this was due to sloppy manufacturing, it was decided that
the basic philosophy would have to change:  presence of ignition sources
would henceforth be taken for granted, so fires would have to be contained
rather than prevented.  A much more determined effort was made to exclude
flammable materials from the cabin, but it proved impossible to make it
fireproof for 14.7psi+ of pure oxygen.  Max Faget suggested using a mix
containing some nitrogen, as a compromise between avoiding the bends and
reducing fire hazard, and the final ground atmosphere was 60% oxygen and
40% nitrogen.
--
MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s.      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
              -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)|  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 12 Nov 92 20:29:09 GMT
From: "Allen W. Sherzer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Automated space station construction
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:

>Military COBOL and Intel processors, FRED IS DOOMED. :-) :-)

Oh I don't know about that. After all, the Terminator used COBOL and
8080 assembly language and it worked pretty good.

  Allen

--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves        |
|  [e-mail]     |  nothing undone"                                       |
+----------------------163 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+

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

Date: Fri, 13 Nov 92 00:01:08 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Lunar "colony" reality check

> bias and not the state of knowledge in this area. Also underground water and
> volatiles are a definite possiblity. What about carbonaceous meteor impact

> areas? Would this not enrich the surrounding area and the underground where
> the meteor penetrated with voliatiles or even water in the case of a comet?
>


Dennis... Have you considered lava tubes? They are old, they are permanently
dark. If they are deep enough to get below the "permafrost" depth for the moon,
we might well find volatiles in some extremely useful places. Right on your
doorstep if you think like the Oregon L5 people. :-)

I do not remember ever reading this idea in print. If it hasn't been then I
want primacy on it. One problem I see is that the high thermal conductivity of
the lunar surface. It might cause significant temperature swings even in
permanently dark caverns.

But if the temperature is right, there is nothing different between the
proposed mechanism for volatiles to freeze out in polar craters. Cometary
volatiles form a temporary atmosphere after an impact and most of it escapes
except the small amount that happens to float into a cold trap. So could a good
deep lava tube act as such a cold trap?

This seems like a very, very interesting possibility.

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

Date: 12 Nov 92 16:58:48 GMT
From: Curtis Roelle <roelle@uars_mag.jhuapl.edu>
Subject: Lunar "colony" reality check and Apollo fire
Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.sci.planetary

[e-mail] (Tim Harincar)  writes:

>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (John P. Mechalas) writes...
>>
>>I have not heard of that book.  Who was the author?

>_Carrying The Fire_ was written by Michael Collens (CM pilot on Apollo 11).
                                            ^^^^^^^
>Its sort of a autobiography of his life as a test pilot then astronaut.

Spelled "Collins".  He was also the first Director of the Smithsonian
Air and Space Museum when it opened circa 1980.  To best of my knowledge
he is still working for LTV Corporation in the Washington, D.C. area.

Curt Roelle
[e-mail]

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

Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 12:16:28 MST
From: "Richard Schroeppel" <[e-mail]>
Subject: lunar construction materials

In a slightly different context, John Roberts & Henry Spencer write ...

JR> >... Here's the composition for the Apollo 11 site: SiO2 (42.04%),
    >TiO2 (7.48%), Al2O3 (13.92%), FeO (15.74%), MgO (7.90%), CaO (12.01%),

    >Na2O (0.44%), K2O (0.14%), P2O5 (0.12%), MnO (0.21%), Cr2O3 (0.30%).
    >(There are also tables for overall highland and maria composition.) Does
    >anything in there sound like it would be flammable...

HS> Note, straight oxides.  One or two of them could add a bit more oxygen,
    but overall this is *not* a flammable mixture.  Some of them would react
    a bit with atmospheric water vapor to form hydroxides.

This raises a potential problem with some desirable uses of Lunar regolith
for construction materials.  We'd like to just fuse a bit of the regolith
and use it as construction stone.  But several of these minerals *want* to
pick up water.  In their present setting, they are "dry as dust".  But in
the interior of any human-occupied environment, they will pick up water
from the air.  This will lead to a change in volume, and the material will
corrode, probably flaking.  (It will also act to keep the humidity down,
which might be either good or bad.)  Even outside a human habitation, there
will be stray water vapor, from the airlock, from the surface of anything
that was inside, waste dumps, maybe occasional spills, etc.

Given "water to burn", mixing regolith dust with water might make a good
cement, although we'd have to worry about it drying out.

A possible way to look for hidden water (subsurface ice?) would be to look
for spectral signatures of hydrated minerals.

Rich Schroeppel  [e-mail]

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

Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 00:57:31 GMT
From: Ron Baalke <[e-mail]>
Subject: Magellan Atlas Program
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary,alt.cd-rom

                             ==========================
                               MAGELLAN ATLAS PROGRAM
                                 November 12, 1992
                             ==========================

     An updated version of the Magellan Atlas program has been released by the
Magellan project.  This program was designed to be used with the Magellan
CDROMs.  This program will do the following:

         o Find the latitude/longitude of named features on Venus
         o Given a latitude/longitude, find the mosaics which lie atop
       that point and the Magellan CDROMs on which they are found.
         o The named feature descriptions includes a short description
       of the meaning (origin) of the name, and adds the diameter and
           crater type information listing in Schaber's "JGR - Planets"
           article of August 25, 1992.  Diameters for some coronae are also
           listed.
         o Find all the named features (numbering 824) which lie in (or on) a
           specific mosaic has been added, in order to help those who wish to
           work with a specific CD-ROM or mosaic.  (This should be helpful
           to teachers, who may have only a limited set of CD-ROMs.)
         o The atlas now includes CDROMs up through Volume 66 including the
           newly released CD-ROMs.
         o A new capability has been added to find named features inside a
           chosen latitude/longitude rectangle.

     The new feature of finding named features inside an arbitrary
latitude/longitude rectangle is intended to show whether a feature which has
been located on a mosaic possesses a name.  The rectangle can be a single
latitude/longitude "point" - features whose maximum and minimum coordinates
overlap the point will be found.  The rectangle can also wrap around the 360
longitude boundary.  For example, to find all features near 0 longitude, one
could search for latitude between +90 and -90 and longitude between 355 and
365.  Features near the equator could be found by searching latitude from
+5 to - 5, longitude from 0 to 360.

     There is both an IBM PC and Macintosh version of the Magellan Atlas
program.  The programs are available using anonymous ftp at:

        ftp:      ames.arc.nasa.gov (128.102.18.3)
        user:     anonymous
        cd:       pub/SPACE/SOFTWARE
        files:    magellan.zip (IBM PC version -> PKZIP)
                  magellan.sit (Macintosh version -> STUFFIT, MacBinary format)
                  magellan.hqx (Macintosh version -> BINEX -> STUFFIT)

     The database files used by the Magellan Atlas program are also available.
A description of each field is included at the beginning of each file.
The underlying databases include the center latitude/longitude given in
Schaber's article also, but they are not displayed by the atlas program to
avoid confusion.  Also, two new data fields have been added, the first and last
orbit numbers included in a mosaic.  The capability of finding products by
orbit number is not available in the "Magellan" program itself, but the data
is available in the database files.  The database files are available at:

        ftp:      ames.arc.nasa.gov (128.102.18.3)
        user:     anonymous
        cd:       pub/SPACE/MAGELLAN
        files:    names.txt (ASCII)
                  midr.txt  (ASCII)
                  mgn-dbf.zip (2 DBase files -> PKZIP)
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     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: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 17:58:43 GMT
From: "Don M. Gibson" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Mars Simulation in Antarctica
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article [e-mail], [e-mail] (Ron Baalke) writes:
>FIRST STEPS TO MARS TAKEN BY SIMULATION IN ANTARCTICA
>
>    Scientists from NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF) are
>taking the first steps to Mars this winter in the most unearthly place on the
>planet -- Antarctica.

whose winter?  Dec-March or June-Sept?
>
>    NASA and NSF researchers are conducting several unique science and
>technology projects developed under a joint effort called the Antarctic Space
>Analog Program.  The program uses the harsh, frigid conditions of the
>Antarctic continent to test technology and techniques for future missions to
>the moon and Mars.
>
>    "Our current work stresses exploration by robots and tests of the
>equipment needed to support humans in a remote environment.  We're also
>studying how humans interact with those technologies," said Dr. John D.
>Rummel, NASA Program Committee Co-Chairperson.

this plan always seemed like a boondoggle to me.  can anyone tell me
exactly why this stuff couldn't be done by locking folks into a
trailer in Houston?  or maybe taking a trip to Minn.  or Alaska or
Canada for the field trials of the equipment.  we know those places
aren't exactly like mars, but neither is Antarctica.  does the greatly
inflated expense justify the difference at this stage?

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

Date: 12 Nov 92 18:58:51 GMT
From: C R Francis <[e-mail]>
Subject: Metric again
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Steve
Linton) says:
>My main beef about NASA metrication concerns precision. How often have you
>seen
>"This tiny widget, only about 1 inch (2.54cm) across"? If the diameter is
>given
>as "about 1 inch" the implied precision is about +-25%. As such, the proper
>metric form is "two or three centimeters" or "a couple of centimeters". 2.54cm
>implies a precision that just isn't there.

You are right.

This kind of lunacy happens because people may _use_ SI, but don't yet
_think_ SI.  It will come, over years, and then mental unit conversions
will stop being necessary, and things will make sense when you read
them.

-------------------------------------        Richard Francis
Internet: [e-mail]        European Space Research and
Bitnet  : [e-mail]                Technology Centre (ESTEC)
SPAN    : ESTERS::FRANCIS
smail   : C R Francis, OEE/JWP, ESTEC, Keplerlaan 1, 2200AG NOORDWIJK NL

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

Date: 12 Nov 92 19:27:28 GMT
From: C R Francis <[e-mail]>
Subject: Metric again
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <sturges-091192110833@158.185.20.239>,
[e-mail] (Jim Sturges) says:
>
>From the society for the preservation of purity in language.....
>
>ALL measuring systems are "metric." What we're talking about is the
>difference between SI and English?
>

Strangely enough the system you call English is not used in England.  The
system slowly being phased out in the UK is called Imperial, and is slightly
different from the US 'English' system (eg some units of volume have the same
name but different size).

-------------------------------------        Richard Francis
Internet: [e-mail]        European Space Research and
Bitnet  : [e-mail]                Technology Centre (ESTEC)
SPAN    : ESTERS::FRANCIS
smail   : C R Francis, OEE/JWP, ESTEC, Keplerlaan 1, 2200AG NOORDWIJK NL

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

Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 16:16:25 GMT
From: SLSTP <[e-mail]>
Subject: NASA Space Life Sciences Training Program
Newsgroups: sci.space

***** ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY *****
      American Undergraduates

1993 Space Life Sciences Training Program
A Summer Program at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida

Sponsored by NASA, Bionetics Corporation, Florida A&M University


The Space Life Sciences Training Program (SLSTP) is an investment in
tomorrow. It is an intensive six-week training program at the Kennedy
Space Center in Florida for college students interested in Life
Sciences, Pre-Medicine, Bioengineering or related fields. The program
will allow students to participate in the conceptualization,
preparation, preflight and postflight testing, data analysis, and
report preparation phases of space flight experiments and NASA life
sciences research.

The program is scheduled for mid-June through the end of July 1993.
After the successful completion of the program, five semester hours
of tuition free college credit will be offered to each student through
Florida A&M University, which is also responsible for program promotion,
student recruitment, selection, travel, housing, program evaluation,
and academic consultation.

The purpose of SLSTP is to attract college students interested in research
germane to the NASA field of Space Life Sciences. Participants will gain
insight into how space life sciences flight experiments are conducted as
well as explore future research opportunities in space life sciences.
After completion of this program and subsequent professional training,
the end result should be a pool of talented research scientists employed
in universities, industries, and NASA with practical experience in the
flight of life sciences experiments in space.

The six week SLSTP curriculum will involve morning lectures by leading
research scientists, managers, engineers, and astronauts from NASA Centers,
distinguished universities, and industry. Tours of the KSC shuttle and
payload facilities will provide students firsthand knowledge of the
processes involved between arrival of a life sciences flight experiment
at KSC and final integration of that experiment into the shuttle. In the
afternoons, students will be actively involved in the planning and
execution of experiments that span the range of life sciences research
of current interest to NASA. These experiments have been chosen to provide
the trainees with experience in as many aspects of flight experiment
development as possible - from experiment conception and design to timeline
development, protocol testing, and actual flight operations. Evening
and weekend activities will be scheduled to include informal discussions
with visiting lecturers and astronauts and work on special projects. The
curriculum will emphasize the unique features of experiments conducted
in the spaceflight environment which include weightlessness, space
limitations, and issues of compatibility with other on-board experiment
requirements.

Some of the potential flight experiments in which the students may become
involved include plant studies, animal development projects, human studies
of sensory conflict, and environmental studies related to spaceflight.
Student activities will include the opportunity to participate in
development and testing of operational protocols, performance of ground
based control experiments, direction, analysis, and evaluation of
postflight testing sessions, as well as participation in the implementation
of actual shuttle flight experiments when possible. Students will be
divided into groups of 9 to 10 and work in a rotating schedule on each
of the experiments, with opportunity for additional emphasis in at least
one project.

Students will receive round trip transportation between their home and
the Orlando International Airport in Florida, free accommodations in the
Cocoa Beach area near Kennedy Space Center, and local transportation to
and from the space center. Students will also receive a daily meal
allowance which should also cover other expenses. This program costs
nothing to the student - there is no registration fee.


***** HOW TO APPLY *****

Student enrollment is limited to 36 to 40 currently enrolled undergraduate
college students:

-> Eligibility is limited to currently enrolled undergraduate students who
are pursuing their first undergraduate degree.

-> A minimum cumulative GPA of 3.00 or higher at the time of application
is required.

-> Graduating seniors (those students who complete their senior year
prior to the start of the program in mid-June are not eligible to apply.
Fourth year seniors going to their fifth year are eligible.

-> Minimum age requirement is 16 years old

-> United States citizenship is mandatory. There are no exceptions.

-> Eligible majors include: Animal Sciences, Biochemistry, Biology,
Biophysics, Biostatistics, Chemistry, Computer Science, Ecology,
Engineering, Geology, Life Sciences, Mathematics, Pharmacy, Physics,
Plant Sciences, Pre-Medicine, Psychology.

If you have a question about the eligibility of your major, please call
the program office at 904-599-3636.

-> Previous SLSTP participants are NOT ELIGIBLE FOR A SECOND EXPERIENCE.


Application materials include:

-> A completed SLSTP Application form filled out in BLACK INK

-> An official transcript from every college or university attended up to
and including Fall 1992. Transcripts in the possession of the applicant
will not be accepted.

-> A SLSTP postcard on which you will write you address. It will be
sent back to you when all of you application materials have been received
in our office.

-> A 500 word typed double spaced essay which will be used to evaluate the
applicant's experience and written communication skills. The essay should
relate to the classroom, laboratory and research experiences of the
applicant in the sciences. Moreover, the career goals of the applicant
should be concisely stated. Print you full name on each page of the essay.

-> Three completed reference request forms from persons familiar with
you academic record. This is very very important.


Application requests should be sent to:

Program Director, SLSTP
Florida A&M University
College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences
106 Honor House
Tallahassee, FL 32307

or call [phone]


The following application materials must be post-marked no later than
January 31, 1993 and be sent to the same address. ALL necessary credentials
must be on file before an application will be processed.

Applicants will be notified of their acceptance or non-acceptance no
later than March 31, 1993.

This is a worthwhile experience. Most of the students that participate
in SLSTP regard it best educational experience of their lives. If you
have any interest in space, please apply. I was a student in 1990 and a
staff member in 1992. If you have any questions regarding the program
(that are not of an application nature), you can contact me at
[e-mail]

For questions regarding the application, contact the program office.

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

Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 16:21:59 GMT
From: Herman Rubin <[e-mail]>
Subject: newsgroups
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John Roberts) writes:

>-From: [e-mail] (David Knapp)
>-Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.sci.planetary
>-Subject: Edit your newsgroup header, please  was Re: Lunar "colony" reality check and Apollo fire
>-Date: 11 Nov 92 05:46:46 GMT
>-Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder

>-There is no reason to have a thread going exactly and totally into two
>-different newsgroups. If you see this happening, please edit your headers
>-so we can limit the thread to one group or the other.

>Keeping the non-planetary stuff out of alt.sci.planetary is good, but
>please don't try to keep the planetary stuff out of sci.space/SPACE Digest.

It is not inappropriate to have a discussion going on with the articles
jointly posted to many newsgroups, if it is relevant to all of them.
It IS inappropriate to post the same article separately to more than
one newsgroup.

It takes little more net resources for the transmission of an article.
How much more disk space, etc., it takes on the local installation depends
on how it is handled.
--
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: [phone]
[e-mail] (Internet, bitnet)
{purdue,pur-ee}!snap.stat!hrubin(UUCP)

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

Date: 12 Nov 92 17:55:25 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Pioneer 6 Update - 11/11/92
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John D. Boggs) writes:
>Where is Pioneer 6 now?  Is that the one that passed Pluto's orbit some
>time back? ...

No, Pioneers 6-9 are in solar orbits relatively near the Earth's orbit.
Their mission was fields-and-particles measurements in interplanetary
space.
--
MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s.      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
              -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)|  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 12 Nov 92 17:43:42 GMT
From: Brent Buckner <[e-mail]>
Subject: Study says: Space research spinoffs marginal
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.econ

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gregory Aharonian) writes:
>
>    Chance spin-offs are not a good enough reason for investing in space
>research, reports Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation
>Research, the ISI, in Karlsruhe.  The ISI's analysis of patent citations
>concludes that space research produces no more - and perhaps fewer - advances
>in earth-bound technology than other areas of research.
>    "Politicians have used spin-offs to justify funding for manned space
>flight", says Ulrich Schmoch, who led the project.  "But the study's results
>mean they must now rely more heavily on direct, scientific arguments for space
>flight, like its usefulness in observing the Earth or repairing satellites".

The research quoted does not support the lead statement.
Chance spin-offs may well have sufficient economic value to justify
space research spending.  Briefly, it may well be the case that
research is on the whole underfunded (with respect to generating
spin-off benefits) but space research is less badly underfunded.

This strikes me as an argument for how to allocate a fixed number
of dollars, not for deciding on the number of dollars in the
first place.

--
at Bell-Northern Research
voice:        [phone]
Canada Post:  P.O. Box 3511, Station C, Ottawa, Canada, K1Y 4H7
I do not claim that BNR holds these views.

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

Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 23:27:32 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Ten embarrassed questions about the moon (very long)

> You don't see these phenomena on the Earth, because over the long run it
> behaves pretty much like a flexible crust floating on a liquid interior,
> so any local area of high density tends to sink down, and any region of
low
> density tends to bob up, so out at the distance of Earth orbit, the

> anomalous effects tend to cancel out - in other words, the Earth is in

>


John: A slight difference of opinion. Although what you say is true to an
extent, there are some gravity differences on Earth. In fact, a good laser
altimeter can read off major underwater features from the differences in
ocean hieght. Sea level is a relative term. In some places water is
actually going "up hill" and "down hill" in sync to the gravitational
anomalies caused by subsea massifs and such.

There are also some differences on land. Although the isostatic
equilibrium you name is certainly real, it doesn't always track rapid
changes, so there can be highs and lows to some extent.

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

Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 16:44:19 GMT
From: Charles Pooley <[e-mail]>
Subject: Water and Moon Rocks?
Newsgroups: sci.space

Bruce, they cheated.  The idea was to use hydrogen form the earth, to
chemically reduce the mix of various oxides in the regolith somewhat.
The product of this is, of course, water vapor.  Hydrogen is almost
nonexistant on the moon (unless it turns out that subsurface H2O does
exist in polar area).
--
Charles Pooley                  [e-mail]    GEnie  c.pooley
EE consultant, Los Angeles, CA

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

Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 12:58:31 -0500
From: Lawrence Curcio <[e-mail]>
Subject: What kind of computers are in the shuttle?
Newsgroups: sci.space

Back in '78, when I worked for SCI at Goddard, the computer hardware was
11 years old. Seems the government bought the stuff and had to
depreciate it. Anyway, we used, primarily, IBM 360 hardware. The largest
piece was a 360-95, which thought it was a 360-91. (Or was it the other
way around?) The machine was specially built (only 2 of them were ever
made, as I recall), and had no decimal arithmetic hardware (unusual for
an IBM machine, but consistent with its scientific role).

The 95 was fast, but unreliable. It crashed every day because of
hardware failures. Some of these took awhile, and that was no good,
since the machine was responsible for attitude control on satellites.
Rumor had it that SKYLAB fell because the 95 went down for several days.
During that time, SKYLAB's batteries ran dry, and didn't have enough
juice to get its paddles oriented when the 95 came back up. The
resulting coning supposedly contributed to orbital decay. - Don't know
if its true, but it makes as much sense than the official explanation of
sunspots.

Rumors and news releases both sound like Science Fiction Theater to me,
but the bottom line is that government accounting has changed little in
the meantime. I expect the computer situation hasn't either.

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

Date: 12 Nov 92 17:57:55 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Where are Pioneer and Voyager Headed?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Nick Haines) writes:
>... AC +79 3888 must be sqrt (1.5^2 + 1.65^2) = 2.23 ly from
>the sun, according to the Pioneer figures, and sqrt (2.2^2 + 1.64^2) =
>2.74 ly from the sun according the the Voyager figures. Not only are
>these numbers very different from each other, they're also much less
>than the correct distance to AC +79 3888.
>
>Doing the same calculation for Ross 248 gets us a distance of 3.5 ly
>(correct figure is 10.3), and for Sirius 26.8 ly (correct figure is
>8.7 ly).

Bear in mind that the stars are moving, in many cases at rather higher
velocities than the spacecraft.
--
MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s.      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
              -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)|  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 17:08:51 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Where are shuttle research publications?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Choy) writes:
>
>Where can I find publications on research and work done with the shuttle?

Formal scientific papers which document research done on the Shuttle
are published in a wide variety of scholarly journals.  There isn't one
journal which publishes or summarizes all of the research being done
with the Shuttle.  Many of the papers don't even have the word
"Shuttle" in their titles or abstracts.

You might try Human Factors.  It is a peer-reviewed journal which runs
quite a bit of material on manned space flight.

-- Ken Jenks, NASA/JSC/GM2, Space Shuttle Program Office
      [e-mail]  [phone]

     "Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
      Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men
      with talent.  Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a
      proverb.  Education will not; the world is full of educated
      derilicts.  Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
      The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the
      problems of the human race."  -- Calvin Coolidge

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End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 418
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