Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V15_4/V15NO484.TXT

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Date: Wed,  2 Dec 92 05:03:58
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V15 #484
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Wed,  2 Dec 92       Volume 15 : Issue 484

Today's Topics:
                  Angle Of Attack -- a quick review
                 Cola rockets (was Re: Pop in space)
                             DC-X status?
                         Environmental group
  Environmental group to sue NASA to stop rocket motor fuel testing
                            hand grenades
    HST black hole pix *or* Hubble Hype? (Was: HST black hole pix)
   NASA has 5 hand grenades still on the moon from Apollo missions
     Seeking info on Tours of External Tank factory in Louisiana
                     Shuttle replacement (6 msgs)
         Soyuz escape system (was:  Re: Shuttle replacement)
             Spaceborne Artificial Intelligence, Anyone?
                             tech project

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

Date: Tue, 1 Dec 1992 22:44:36 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Angle Of Attack -- a quick review
Newsgroups: sci.space

Folks may have noticed that I've been relatively quiet the last few days;
I've been ill.  I will catch up. :-)  Meanwhile, one thing I've done is
to read Mike Gray's "Angle Of Attack:  Harrison Storms and the Race to the
Moon".  Since it's been mentioned several times in the group lately, I
think it apropos to review it briefly.

Summary:  disappointing.

I sort of pondered for a while about why I disliked the style of the book,
the very *way* it was written, and eventually it came to me.  This is not
a book.  It is a novelization of a screenplay.

This approach may just be the result of the author's movie background --
I had somewhat the same feeling about Beirne Lay's "Earthbound Astronauts",
and he has the same sort of background -- or it may be a deliberate plan
with book publication intended purely as a preliminary to a movie sale.
For whatever reason, the book shows all the signs of a Hollywood movie.
It's not really a biography; Storms' history before and after his Apollo
role is barely mentioned.  Much is made of dramatic issues like overwork
and personality clashes.  The coverage is carefully one-sided:  the NASA
people are the villains (mostly; von Braun himself is more or less exempted,
and it's mostly the faceless bureaucracy that gets blamed) and the North
American Aviation people are the heroes.  When Storms replaces Bill Parker
with Bob Greer as head of S-II development, much is made of what a nice
guy Parker is and there's a strong implication that unfair NASA pressure
is mostly responsible for the decision... and the narrative barely mentions
Greer's own retrospective opinion that Parker's group was a disorganized
mess that desperately needed better management.  When NASA overrules NAA
in favor of a pure-oxygen atmosphere for the spacecraft, there is heavy
foreshadowing of the fire, an airy brush-off of the safety problems of
the complex two-gas system, and no mention at all of the technician who
died in an early Mercury test because that capsule did *not* use pure
oxygen in ground tests at the time (an accident that played a large part
in forming NASA's view that mixed-gas atmospheres were tricky and
dangerous).  And so on.

While there are interesting tidbits here and there, and seeing things
from North American's side does shed a new light on incidents like the
S-II structural failure, the overall information content isn't even as good
as the NASA History books' chapters on the same subjects.

In particular, some people have described this book as a technical history.
Dead wrong.  I have the same complaint about this as about the NASA History
books -- too much emphasis on people and organizations, not enough on the
technical problems -- only more so.  Worst of all, when I did know details
of what went on, I noticed errors in the book.  Gray hasn't taken the
trouble to arrive at more than a superficial understanding of the technical
issues, so it's probably just as well that he didn't try to cover them in
detail.

The book is worth reading, once.  It's a new viewpoint on a number of major
events, and like a lot of the recent spate of Apollo books, it does have
interesting moments.  Just not very many of them.
--
MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s.      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
              -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)|  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 1 Dec 92 16:36:37 -0600
From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey <[e-mail]>
Subject: Cola rockets (was Re: Pop in space)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (David Toland) writes:
> [e-mail] (Tor Houghton) wrote:
>> If a blob of, say Coke, was floating weightlessly in space (inside a
>> spaceship - normal air pressure), would the "fizz bubbles" go from the
>> centre to all directions?
> [and someone else, I lost the name, discussed nucleation]
>
> An interesting picture that comes to mind is if the drifting blob of
> beverage drifts up against a suitable piece of grit.  The fizz is
> concentrated at that point on the surface, and the blob goes whizzing
> off in the opposite direction, especially if the grit is held by surface
> tension for a while.
>
> I don't claim this is anything but idle speculation...

Hey, Dave, good idea for a Getaway Special experiment!

When cosmonaut Anatoly Artsebarski visited Chicago last summer I
learned that he had tested soda pop aboard Mir.  I gather that he
didn't like it much, but he didn't talk about specifics.

Talk about making history... I was present for the first attempt to
launch the first soda pop into space, at the height of the Cola Wars
in July 1985.  Pepsi and Coke had both designed special containers
that were to be tested aboard *Challenger*.  I was in the VIP
bleachers  at the Cape, near the garbage dump.  (Since I was a guest
and on my best behavior I resisted the temptation to go
dumpster-diving for space hardware.)  Enterprising Pepsi promoters
were giving away free cans of soda and free T-shirts.  The Pepsi was
in special commemorative cans that said:

                       A GIANT SIP FOR MANKIND

I kid you not.  I still have the can.

The countdown came, the main engines ignited, they shut down again and
the launch was aborted.  The giant clock stopped. The crowd groaned.
Then the roar of the engine startup began, having traveled the five
miles from Pad 39A, and grew to a mighty thunder.  It was eerie.

They finally did get the thing launched a couple weeks later.  I was
back in Chicago and missed it.  I consoled myself with the notion that
lots of people have seen a Shuttle launch-- but how many have been
privileged to witness a pad abort?


     O~~*           /_) ' / /   /_/ '  ,   ,  ' ,_  _           \|/
   - ~ -~~~~~~~~~~~/_) / / /   / / / (_) (_) / / / _\~~~~~~~~~~~zap!
 /       \                          (_) (_)                    / | \
 |       |     Bill Higgins   Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
 \       /     Bitnet:     [e-mail]
   -   -       Internet:  [e-mail]
     ~         SPAN/Hepnet:      43011::HIGGINS

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

Date: 2 Dec 92 03:24:41 GMT
From: Matthew Kaiser <[e-mail]>
Subject: DC-X status?
Newsgroups: sci.space

if you couldn't tell..

duhh..

what's the status on the DC-X and Y?

thanks

matthew
[e-mail]

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

Date: 2 Dec 92 00:42:03 GMT
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: Environmental group
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John Roberts) writes:
>>NASA and its contractors have been testing SRMs for a long time. I had
>>presumed that at least some of that was done at Stennis.
>
>Nope.  The SRM tests are entirely done at Thiokol facilities in Utah,
>I believe.  For some strange reason, those aren't available to non-Thiokol
>projects. :-)
>

You would think that NASA would own the testing facilities at UTAH.  given the

fact that thiokol mostly builds DOD and NASA rockets.  or you would
think thiokol would bid to lease out their test range.  snit or no snit
thiokol would want the money from the testing program.
>>(They're not planning to test *beryllium* fuel, are they?)
>
>No, the ASRMs have nothing so exotic.  But Stennis tests have been entirely
>liquid-fuel rockets, as far as I know.
>--
>MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s.      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
>              -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)|  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 2 Dec 92 03:18:52 GMT
From: Matthew Kaiser <[e-mail]>
Subject: Environmental group to sue NASA to stop rocket motor fuel testing
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space,talk.environment

[e-mail] (Ken Arromdee) writes:

>In article <[e-mail]> phoenix.Princeton.EDU!carlosn (Carlos G. Niederstrasser) writes:
>>>     ``Each test, according to NASA, will emit over 350 tons of
>>> particulates which release two major gases which we consider highly
>>> toxic,'' he said. ``They are hydrogen chloride and aluminum oxide.''
>>>     Fontana said NASA has claimed these gases will escape into the
>>> atmosphere and will not descend to earth. However, he said his group's
>>> studies have shown that hydrogen chloride when mixed with water or
>>> moisture forms hydrochloric compound which is highly toxic.

>They're nuts.

>You know, sodium chloride is toxic too.  Let's ban the Atlantic Ocean.
>Unless the group has some reason to believe that it will be concentrated
>enough for the acidity to have some effect--in which case they would _say_
>so, instead of obliquely referring to concentrated acid and implying it
>without actually saying it--they must think that chloride ions are toxic, in
>which case we should ban the Atlantic Ocean anyway.

>Aluminum oxide, of course, is not even a gas.

>Sadly enough, there are enough people who will believe anyone who says that the
>government is lying.
>--
>"the bogosity in a field equals the bogosity imported from related areas, plus
>the bogosity generated internally, minus the bogosity expelled or otherwise
>disposed of."  -- K. Eric Drexler

>Ken Arromdee ([e-mail], [e-mail])

the only thing wrong with this arguement is that during the Apollo launches
photographers were allowed to get closer to the launch than the Shuttle launches
because, when they retrieve there cameras from where they want a shot
the camera is pitted and scarred from the HCl and Al2O.

That NEVER happened during an Apollo launch

besides...

the Russians use liquid fueled boosters with no problems
why don't we? it's better in the long run and you just can't
turn off a solid rocket once it's started. when Challenger blew
they waited till the solid rockets began turning towards the coast
before they auto-destructed them. solid's are just stupid and lazy.
would you use a flammable solid fuel in your car? no, of course not.

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

Date: Wed, 2 Dec 92 01:00:22 EST
From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Subject: hand grenades

-From: [e-mail] (Edmund Hack)
-Subject: Re: NASA has 5 hand grenades still on the moon from Apollo missions
-Date: 1 Dec 92 16:02:48 GMT
-Organization: Lockheed ESC, Houston

-In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] () writes:
->What are 5 hand grenades doing on the moon and why would NASA
->send them up with the astronauts???

-The "hand grenades" ar probably the small mortar rounds from the active
-seismic systems that were sent up.  They had a few mortar rounds that
-were fired off (after the crew left, I think) to produce shock waves for
-analysis.  Similar charges are used in oil exploration, except they are
-emplaced in holes drilled in the ground.

I don't know about mortars, but Apollo 16 had a hand-held device roughly
the size and shape of a pogo stick, used to set off small charges pressed
against the ground.

John Roberts
[e-mail]

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

Date: 2 Dec 92 00:16:16 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: HST black hole pix *or* Hubble Hype? (Was: HST black hole pix)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro

In article <[e-mail]>,
[e-mail] (Gerald Cecil) writes:

> In article [e-mail], [e-mail] () writes:
>>Well Craig, I've no idea what you saw on TV but there IS a public domain
>>image of something that looks a lot like an accretion disk around a
>>(suspected -- with pretty good reason) black hole.
>
> Hey people, stop listening to the Hubble Hype for a moment and *look* at
> the image!  You will *not* see an accretion disk.  You *will* see a bright
> ring that ends 170 parsecs (= 1 arcsec for a more reasonable distance of
> 35.1 Mpc [Nearby Galaxies Catalog, Tully]) from a bright smudge in the
> center.
[remainder of good explanation deleted.]
> Gerald Cecil [e-mail]  919-962-7169
> Physics & Astronomy, U of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3255 USA

I'd like to make it quite clear that I wasn't propogating any "Hubble Hype"
and that I consider the insinuation to have been impolite.  I work in the
HST Operations division, and I'm as aware as anyone around here of the
instruments' limitations.

What I said, and what I'll reiterate, is that the image had not been processed
using any unusual "computer enhancement" techniques as a previous poster had
suggested.  Interpretation of the image is left to the user.  It is, as I've
said before, public domain.  If anybody wants to dispute the claim that it
"represents a cold outer region which extends inward to an ultra hot accretion
disk within a few hundred million miles of the suspected black hole" then
please address those questions to Walter Jaffe and Holland Ford.  It's their
data and their interperetation.

-Bill Gawne,  Space Telescope Science Institute

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

Date: 1 Dec 92 19:57:22 -0600
From: [e-mail]
Subject: NASA has 5 hand grenades still on the moon from Apollo missions
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>,
[e-mail] (Bradford B. Behr) writes:
> In article <[e-mail]>
[e-mail] (Dave Jones) wrote:
>>Wasn't there an Urban Legend to the effect that Armstrong & Co. were
>>issued .45 automatics just in case?
>
> Just in case of bug-eyed moon monsters or giant mutant space goats or
> secret Nazi bases? Not likely. It is quite possible that they had
> sidearms in the command module in case they splashed/crashed down in
> the wilderness somewhere and had to hunt for food or defend themselves
> from ravenous but terran beasts.
>
>   Bradford B. Behr                   [e-mail]
>      Sacramento Peak National Solar Observatory, Sunspot NM 88349

Ordinary firearms wouldn't work in a vacuum anyhow.
The gunpowder couldn't burn. The same might be true at high
altitudes on the Earth's surface, as I've heard that in a
particular South American city (I think it was La Paz, Bolivia),
there's not enough oxygen in the air for them to really require
a fire department.

--KB

--
*.x,*dna**************************************************************
*(==) Ken Barnes, LifeSci Bldg.                                      *
* \'  [e-mail]                                    *
*(-)**Memphis,TN********75320,[e-mail]**********************
"When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President;
I'm beginning to believe it."--Clarence Darrow

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

Date: Tue, 1 Dec 1992 22:26:51 GMT
From: "Karl R. Stapelfeldt" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Seeking info on Tours of External Tank factory in Louisiana
Newsgroups: sci.space

    I'll be down in Mobile AL visiting the folks for the Xmas holidays
this year.  I've already been to MSFC, NSTL (now Stennis), the Naval
Aviation museum, and the battleship Alabama military park.  One space
facility in the central gulf coast I haven't been to is the Michaud
assembly facility where the Saturn 1st stage was built and where shuttle
external tanks are now built.  I checked the sci.space FAQ and there was
no info there.  So I'm wondering -

    Are tours of the ET assembly line offered ?
    Are they interesting ?  What do you get to see ?
    How to I get to Michaud ?
    Do I need to write ahead for arrangements ?

Thanks in advance to anyone on the net who can help.

  +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
  |  Karl Stapelfeldt                        Astronomy Department          |
  |  [e-mail]                 University of Massachusetts   |
  +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
--
  +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
  |  Karl Stapelfeldt                        Astronomy Department          |
  |  [e-mail]                 University of Massachusetts   |
  +------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: 1 Dec 1992 22:34:19 GMT
From: steve hix <[e-mail]>
Subject: Shuttle replacement
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Bruce Dunn) writes:
>>
>>For a more accurate comparison with a DC-1 landing, consider that you will be
>>landing on a huge flat area which has been cleared of all personnel and
>
>Well, of course, Bruce, I know this. It's Allen/Henry claims of helicopter
>style touchdowns at ordinary airports I'm trying to debunk. Landing at
>White Sands or Edwards is a totally different issue with a much larger
>margin for error and much less serious consequences in case of disaster.
>As long as the DC series sticks to this, I have no complaints. Putting it
>down routinely on a small concrete pad in the middle of a metropolitan area
>is a totally different thing.

I don't know if you fly or not (as a pilot), but it's getting harder and
harder to *find* an operational airport in the middle of a metropolitan
area.

I think you're both right: I doubt if anyone is seriously planning on landing
a DC-1 in the midst of Chicago, and I also doubt if anything on the order of
Kennedy Space Center's facilities or Edwards' isolated acreage will be
required to qualify a DC-1 landing field.

Does everyone get this tense every December?














--
-------------------------------------------------------
| Some things are too important not to give away      |
| to everybody else and have none left for yourself.  |
|------------------------ Dieter the car salesman-----|

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

Date: 1 Dec 92 23:09:41 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Shuttle replacement
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Mary Shafer) writes:
>If the DC-X is going to be so safe, why are they testing it at White
>Sands instead of, oh, say, John Wayne Airport? ...

Mostly because it is being treated as a missile, not an aircraft.  That
is probably appropriate for the first flight of a radically new unmanned
demonstrator.  With any luck, once experience builds up and the bigger
(more redundant) vehicles start being manned, it will become possible to
convince the bureaucrats to start treating them as aircraft.  We're never
going to have cheap, routine spaceflight if fault-tolerant spaceships
continue to be subject to the safety rules appropriate to military missiles.
This issue worries me, especially since some of the experts who will be
consulted about the matter would appear to have a vested interest in the
failure of the DC series -- their careers are bound up with vastly more
expensive and much less effective launch systems.

>I think that Allen is the only one who doesn't think there's any risk.

I doubt that Allen thinks that.  Myself, I'd be satisfied if I could board
a DC-1 with no more than the same twinge of concern I feel when I've got a
window seat on a DC-10 and I see one of the wing engines wiggling around
in the turbulence... especially when it's an American Airlines DC-10...
--
MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s.      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
              -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)|  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 2 Dec 92 02:22:02 GMT
From: Greg Moore <[e-mail]>
Subject: Shuttle replacement
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Brian Stuart Thorn) writes:
>
>Amounts to the same thing. Most of the Shuttle flights which have ever been
>scheduled have been cancled. That's not reliable service.
>

    This comment bears a little explaining I think.  What exactly has
beed cancled that has actually been scheduled.  Granted, the shuttle
isn't flying 20-30 times a year... but those flights weren't exactly
scheduled either.

You may argue taht before Resuem to Flight there were several commercial
flights scheduled that were canceled.  However, this was a political
decision, not a technical.

>>I believe that Shuttle's performance as an Earth
>>satellite launch system was at least as good as any of the expendables
>>(again, we aren't talking cost here.)
>
>Read this again and thing about it. You agree that service A and service
>B work just as well. Yet service A costs three times as much. I assert
>that makes service A not as good.
>
    Here I would disagree with the first quote.  On pure cost,
the Shuttle loses.  Reliability is a tad higher, though not arguebly so.
However, if something DOES go wrong, or for some reason you want a
person on sight, then the shuttle wins.  For something like Hubble, or
some other unique satellites, I'd prefer the Shuttle.

I'll agree with you that the shuttle isn't the end all and be-all, but
I do disagree that it doesn't CURRENTLY have its place.

>Again, if it where YOUR money which would you pick?
>
>>In reference to your point that we could have put the satellites on
>>expendables and *made* money, I agree! Well, mostly agreee. GD, Mc-D, and
>>Martin have yet to make a profit with their expendables.
>
>Maybe if they hadn't been forced to compete with the US government who
>was happy to spend OUR money providing subsidies they would be doing
>better. At any rate, at least the commercial providers aren't spending
>MY money and the money they are spending is REDUCING costs.
>
    Allen, they haven't made a profit in 6 years (since Challanger).
For a new company that might be ok, but for an established company that
is essentially building the same product, I would begin to wonder.

>
>But what would have happened if we developed a commercial based infrastructure
>back in 1980? Much furthur I'll bet.
>

    And what would have happend if we had proceeded with the ML1a (?)
lifting body back in the 60's? or if we had or if we had.. etc.  Let's
argue today, not the past.

>
>  Allen
>--
>+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
>| Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves        |
>|  [e-mail]     |  nothing undone"                                       |
>+----------------------146 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+

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

Date: 2 Dec 92 00:28:50 GMT
From: Edmund Hack <arabia!hack>
Subject: Shuttle replacement
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>
     [e-mail] (steve hix) writes:
[munch]
>I don't know if you fly or not (as a pilot), but it's getting harder and
>harder to *find* an operational airport in the middle of a metropolitan
>area.

Off the top of my head: Chicago Midway, LaGuardia in NYC, Logan in
Boston, Newark, DFW (sort of), Houston Hobby, Dallas Love, LAX, Orange
County, SFO, Oakland, San Jose, Washington National.  Admittedly, not all
are open to General Aviation, but all handle 737s and some "heavy"
aircraft.  In fact, DFW might be large enough to handle an operational DC-1.

The Houston city council (or at least a few members) asked NASA to land
a shuttle at Houston Intercontinental, so they could rename it Houston
Interplanetary or Houston Spaceport.  NASA declined, although the main
runway might be long enough.

>Does everyone get this tense every December?

Sometimes - probably has to do with the shortening days and finals
approaching. Maybe the phase of the moon.

--
Edmund Hack - Lockheed Engineering & Sciences Co. - Houston, TX
[e-mail] - I speak only for myself, unless blah, blah..
"You know, I think we're all Bozos on this bus."
"Detail Dress Circuits" "Belt: Above A, Below B" "Close B ClothesMode"

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

Date: 2 Dec 92 00:37:29 GMT
From: Pawel Moskalik <[e-mail]>
Subject: Shuttle replacement
Newsgroups: sci.space

USSR shuttle Buran did fly !  Only once, unmaned. It perrformed automatic
landing. Flight was repoortedly succesfull.

Pawel Moskalik

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

Date: 2 Dec 92 02:48:32 GMT
From: Greg Hennessy <[e-mail]>
Subject: Shuttle replacement
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <qg#[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Greg Moore) writes:
#Granted, the shuttle
#isn't flying 20-30 times a year... but those flights weren't exactly
#scheduled either.

Well, off the top of my head, ASTRO was scheduled to fly six times. It
will fly twice. Nothing like a 66 percent cut.

--
-Greg Hennessy, University of Virginia
 USPS Mail:     Astronomy Department, Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475 USA
 Internet:      [e-mail]
 UUCP:        ...!uunet!virginia!gsh7w

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

Date: 01 Dec 92  14:22:48
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Soyuz escape system (was:  Re: Shuttle replacement)
Newsgroups: sci.space

Nyet - the 1983 Soyuz launch accident took several minutes to develop - the
rocket started burning some time before liftoff, and it took Mission control a
painfully long time to finally decide to ignite the escape system, and then to
figure out how to ignite the system given that many communications cables had
been burned through.

The 1986 Titan 34-D accident occurred within a little less than 1/30th of a
second - in one movie frame the rocket was intact, in the next frame, the
entire rocket was a fireball. Nothing near that rocket would have survived.
The second Slick 4 pad, almost a mile away, was severly damaged. A manned
capsule on top of that rocket would have been demolished.

However, your Delta Clipper doesn't use solids, so this thread is rather
pointless.

--- Maximus 2.00

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

Date: 2 Dec 92 00:04:11 GMT
From: Kenrick Mock <[e-mail]>
Subject: Spaceborne Artificial Intelligence, Anyone?
Newsgroups: comp.ai,sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Eric A. Raymond) writes:
>
>... I am
>interested in news of other space related AI projects.
>

Our group is working on FANSYS (Failure ANalysis SYStem), a system
which is capable of reasoning about failures dealing with the Data
Management System of Space Station Freedom.  It's currently in the very
preliminary stages, but we're tackling parsing issues (the input is
natural language, English) and memory representation issues using some
case based reasoning and parsing techniques.


--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GEnie : K.MOCK                 Net : [e-mail]
"Don't worry about the world ending today, it's already tomorrow in
 Australia..."                            - CMS

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

Date: 2 Dec 92 03:57:07 GMT
From: sean taylor <[e-mail]>
Subject: tech project
Newsgroups: sci.space

Hello, Hows it going???
        I am a student at DeVry taking electronic engneering technology,
and I am looking for something to do for a tech project. The reason I am
asking here is because I would like to work in the AeroSpace field, and
I need something which would look good when I go for a job interview.
        Throw me any idea.

        Thanks Rob.

        Please send me some mail at [e-mail]
--
Canada Remote Systems  - Toronto, Ontario
World's Largest PCBOARD System - 416-629-7000/629-7044

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


From: Edmund Hack <arabia!hack>
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Two stage DC-1
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Date: 1 Dec 92 22:05:27 GMT
References: <[e-mail]>
Sender: arabia!"Edmund Hack"
Organization: Lockheed ESC, Houston
Lines: 65
Source-Info:  Sender is really [e-mail]
Source-Info:  Sender is really [e-mail]

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>An excellent design for an inexpensive launch vehicle!

Where I come from, we call this a concept (or conceptual design).  A
design has blueprints/CAD drawings, systems engineering studies, etc.
>
>I believe that the Space Echo has proven that the folks here can come
>up with better launch vehicles designs than *anyone* at NASA has to
>date.
Perhaps, but the NASA (and private and DOD) launchers actually have put
payloads in space.  No SSTO has flown yet.  Hopefully, one will in a few
years.

> Unfortunately, all too many space activists spend more time
>designing imaginary launch vehicles than creating the environment for
>these vehicles to come to pass.

True.
>
>The inexpensive space launch systems that will allow reliable, safe
>and affordable access to low earth orbit will be:
>
>Financed by folks with lots of money
>Built by rocket engineers
>Designed by rocket engineers

O.K., but in the wrong order. See later in the post.
>
>Who will only be motivated to do so if there is a financial incentive
>to perform. That financial incentive can only exist in the form of
>a market for the space launch service they provide.

True.
>
>Space activists won't fund the launcher, they won't build the rocket,
>and they won't design the system. They can, however, help create
>the market that motivates these folks to do the job.

I don't know about you, but I don't have Megabucks (or even 1/10
Megabucks) lying around for purchase of launch services.  There seems to
exist exactly 3 current markets that a launch provider can service:
  - Science payloads, paid for by governments
  - Military payloads, paid for by governments
  - Communications payloads, paid for by Telcos, consortia and
governments.

If launch prices were low enough ($10k a passenger or so), tourism might
be a market in the future.

None of these markets will be enlarged by space activists acting alone.
In fact, many schemes for the next leap forward in space travel have
foundered and died by depending on space activists for funding.

A good analysis is in the current (Nov 23, 1992) issue of Space News,
page 15, in an Op-Ed piece by the CFO of Spacehab.  He shows that the
usual model by space activists (get some great idea, get funding from
friends, do a design, go broke because no bank will fund them) is the
wrong way to go.


--
Edmund Hack - Lockheed Engineering & Sciences Co. - Houston, TX
[e-mail] - I speak only for myself, unless blah, blah..
"You know, I think we're all Bozos on this bus."
"Detail Dress Circuits" "Belt: Above A, Below B" "Close B ClothesMode"

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End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 484
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