Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V15_5/V15NO504.TXT

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Date: Fri,  4 Dec 92 09:58:40
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V15 #504
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Fri,  4 Dec 92       Volume 15 : Issue 504

Today's Topics:
                             DC-X status?
    HST black hole pix *or* Hubble Hype? (Was: HST black hole pix)
                       NASA employement outlook
NASA has 5 hand grenades still on the moon from Apollo missions (2 msgs)
                         physiology in zero-G
                             Pop in space
                        Rush Limbaugh says ...
    Rush Limbaugh says problems with HST are a DoD hoax! (2 msgs)
                            Saturn V fates
                           shuttle downtime
                     Shuttle replacement (2 msgs)
                      Space probe to pass Earth
       Terminal Velocity of DCX? (was Re: Shuttle ...) (2 msgs)
             Voyager's "message"... What did it *say*?!?

    Welcome to the Space Digest!!  Please send your messages to
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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 4 Dec 92 03:28:13 GMT
From: "Michael V. Kent" <[e-mail]>
Subject: DC-X status?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Rich Kolker) writes:

>TJ told me flight
>test should begin in late March/early April.

According to Bill Gaubatz, program manager for SSTO, DC-X is on schedule for
an 8:00 am launch on 23 April 1993.

Mike

--
Michael Kent                                   [e-mail]
Flight Test Engineer                           Tute-Screwed Aero '92
McDonnell Douglas                              Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
These views are solely those of the author.    Apple II Forever !!

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

Date: 4 Dec 92 02:17:13 GMT
From: Gerry Santoro - CAC/PSU <[e-mail]>
Subject: HST black hole pix *or* Hubble Hype? (Was: HST black hole pix)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro

Is this image available on  any ftp site in GIF form?  It would make an
excellent startup screen on my mac.  Ranking right up there with the
Gaspra image from Galileo.

My congratulations to the HST team for a most *excellent* picture --
whatever it is.

gerry santoro
academic computing/speech communication
penn state university

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

Date: Fri, 04 Dec 92 11:13:42 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: NASA employement outlook

Is there everyone who knows the conditions under which a belgian aeronautic
engineer can aplicate to NASA ?
What jobs can he involve?

Thanks in advance for him

Christofer

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* AIESEC WAROCQUE MONS (BELGIUM)  *  EARN/BITNET : EAIESEC2 AT BMSUEM11      *
*                                 *  INTERNET    : EAIESEC2 AT vm1.umh.ac.be *
*         Joel CROQUET            *                                          *
*       Christofer DUMONT         *                                          *
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Thu, 3 Dec 1992 23:38:40 GMT
From: Dillon Pyron <[e-mail]>
Subject: NASA has 5 hand grenades still on the moon from Apollo missions
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] ("Phil G. Fraering") writes:
>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.
>>
>\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

SET MYTH_DESTRUCT/ON
That's odd.  We had quite a bonfire at 22000 ft. in Nepal (above base for Cho
Oyu).  Or is Nepal too backwards to know?

And I guess my Glock really didn't go off in 10 ft of water.  BTW, muzzle
velocity if much higher if the barrel is full of water.  Bullet doesn't have to

break the surface tension.
SET MYTH_DESTRUCTION/OFF
>
>How did the mortars work, then? Heavy boots to hold down an atmosphere?
>
>Phil
No, silly, they poured liquid air in.  Or was it that they were really on a
stage in New Mexico??????
>
--
Dillon Pyron                      | The opinions expressed are those of the
TI/DSEG Lewisville VAX Support    | sender unless otherwise stated.
[phone] (when I'm here)     |
[phone] (when I'm home)     |"Pacts with the devil are not legally
[e-mail]          |binding!"
PADI DM-54909                     |-Friar Tuck   _Robin Hood:The Hooded Man_

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

Date: 2 Dec 92 23:37:13 GMT
From: Bob Noble <[e-mail]>
Subject: NASA has 5 hand grenades still on the moon from Apollo missions
Newsgroups: sci.space

Gunpowders don't use air.  (Think about it:  there's not enough air in
that little brass capsule to make all that hot smoke.)  A necessary part
of any propellant is the oxidizer in its chemical makeup.

Solid rocket boosters (from Estes Industries to the STS-SRBs) don't need
air.  Many solid rocket fuels are just dilute (slower burning)
"gunpowders", anyway.

On the other hand, lubricants would probably sublimate (boil off in the
vacuum) in space, and exposed metal parts of conventional firearms would
eventually cold weld as they wear against each other (oxygen keeps this
from happening on Earth).  In any case, I would not want to be on the
wrong end of a firearm on the Moon any more than anywhere else.

A bigger problem might be having them go off spontaneously.  Daytime
temperatures on the Moon may be hot enough to set off some powders.

                   ,,,
                  (o o)
 -------------oOO--(_)--OOo-------------
|  Bob Noble                            |
|  Hewlett-Packard                      |
|  Loveland Div.                        |
|  t679-3803                            |
|  fax [phone]                     |
|  [e-mail]             |
 ---------------------------------------
~
~

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

Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1992 03:12:00 GMT
From: Dave Michelson <[e-mail]>
Subject: physiology in zero-G
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Steve Derry) writes:
>>|> Bear in mind, also, that Gemini flew missions up to 14 days long with no
>>|> sanitary facilities at all.  They used diapers.
>>
>>... Mike Collins describes usage of an apparatus
>>to measure and sample urinary output...
>
>Wups, my mistake:  what I meant was "no facilities for solid wastes".  Urine
>disposal they did have, but it wasn't until Apollo that even the stick-on
>baggies became available for bowel movements.

You're not kidding, Henry.  You did make a mistake...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
NASA SP-121
GEMINI MIDPROGRAM CONFERENCE Including Experiment Results

Manned Spacecraft Center
Houston, Texas
Feb. 23-25, 1966

p 68

Food, Water, Waste, and Personal Hygiene System

...

   Defecation System

   The defecation system consisted of individual plastic bags with adhesive-
   lined circular tops.  Hygiene tissues were provided in separate dispensers.
   Each bag contained a disinfectant packet to eliminate bacteria growth.
   Use of the bags in flight required considerable care and effort.  Adequate
   training and familiarization enabled the crews to use them without
   incident.

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

There is no detailed summary as to who used the bags and when... However,
another NASA SP summarizing Gemini EVA results indicates (in a long table)
that the defecation bags were carried aboard GT-12, a flight of relatively
short duration.

I just couldn't imagine the flight surgeon allowing astronauts to sit around
in "dirty diapers" for several days anyway...

--
Dave Michelson
[e-mail]



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

Date: 4 Dec 92 00:23:09 GMT
From: Michael Ellis <[e-mail]>
Subject: Pop in space
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (Tor Houghton) writes:

>
> Hi,
>
>
> I have been wondering about something for a long time, and I just got
> the idea of posting it here.
>
> 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?
>

 Maybe it would become and expanding blob of pop as the bubbles form but
stay roughly where they formed in the liquid. I don't know for sure, but
I'd hazzard a guess that you wouldn't want to open a can of Coke in a
weightless enviroment. :)

ME

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

Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1992 03:37:40 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Rush Limbaugh says ...
Newsgroups: sci.space

  > The popular American radio personality Rush Limbaugh stated today that
  > the problems with HSTs mirror are a Department of Defense hoax.  He says
  > that the DoD took over control of the HST program ...

I am an astronomer who has worked daily in the Observation Support System of
HST Operations since launch.  We monitor every operation of HST, and we look at
and evaluate every image that comes down.  In order to make proper evaluations
of what we see we must have some familiarity with every program that is being
executed.  Two of the programs already executed are my own as scientific
Principal Investigator as well as employee in HST Operations.

I can assure you that the spherical aberration is in the images exactly as
described, and that all of the programs are pure astronomy, nothing at all to
do with DoD.

  > Rush has over 13 million listeners ... I don't think that he would make
  > such a statment without a reason to believe it is true ... how come nobody
  > else said anything about this??

There is no law against telling a lie on radio, television, or in the news-
papers.  That's called freedom of the press.  But there ARE laws against
calling someone a liar in public.  That's called libel or slander.

Maybe Mr. Limbaugh should give us a call (410-338-4700).  We would be happy
to give him a tour and let him watch the data actually come in.

Ben

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

Date: 4 Dec 92 04:51:18 GMT
From: Mary Shafer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Rush Limbaugh says problems with HST are a DoD hoax!
Newsgroups: sci.space

On 4 Dec 92 01:38:31 GMT, [e-mail] (Ryan Korniloff) said:

R> The popular American radio personality Rush Limbaugh stated today that the
R> problems with HSTs mirror are a Department of Defense hoax. He says that
R> the DoD took over control of the HST program so they could study a strange
R> radio source that could possibly be another civilization's radio
R> emmisions. And that the DoD cooked up the story of the faulted mirror to
R> cover up there actions.

Not that I know anything specific about this, but how in the world
would you use a _light_ telescope to look at _radio_ waves?

There's no way that the frequencies of interest could be imaged with
a telescope--visible light and radio have vastly different ranges.

You can't see radio waves, can you?  How would Hubble do so?

Yes, I know that Hubble has other, non-visible-light experiments but
the reason we all know about them is because they were working so well
while the mirror was being checked out.  Obviously the military hadn't
preempted them, which is another piece of evidence against this theory.

R> Rush has over 13 million listeners and has may connections into the goings
R> ons of many behind-the-scenes happenings. I don't think that he would make
R> such a statment without a reason to believe it is true.

Yeah, and I'm Marie of Rumania.  Did you know that "gullible" isn't
in the dictionary?

R> Could some NASA insiders shed some light on this!?

I'm a NASA flying qualities engineer, which makes me one kind of
insider, but probably not the one you're looking for.  Still, I think
it's a bunch of hooey.


--
Mary Shafer  DoD #0362 KotFR NASA Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA
[e-mail]                    Of course I don't speak for NASA
 "A MiG at your six is better than no MiG at all."  Unknown US fighter pilot

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

Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1992 05:14:15 GMT
From: David Knapp <[e-mail]>
Subject: Rush Limbaugh says problems with HST are a DoD hoax!
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ryan Korniloff) writes:
>
>
>The popular American radio personality Rush Limbaugh stated today that the
>problems with HSTs mirror are a Department of Defense hoax. He says that
>the DoD took over control of the HST program so they could study a strange
>radio source that could possibly be another civilization's radio
>emmisions. And that the DoD cooked up the story of the faulted mirror to
>cover up there actions.

The Hubble PI in our department will be interested to hear this. He seemed
to be thinking that he was doing science with it.

>Rush has over 13 million listeners and has may connections into the goings
>ons of many behind-the-scenes happenings. I don't think that he would make
>such a statment without a reason to believe it is true.

Oh, I'll bet he could.

>Could some NASA insiders shed some light on this!? This is a rather
>radical statement.

Not unlike ol' Rush though.

>I have followed the developments closely enough to know
>that there is a repair mission due next year and an instrument will be
>replaced with COSTAR to correct the mirrir flaw. And what about the
>investigations into the contractor who made the mirror? Was NASA wsting
>it's time!? This can't be and with 13 million listeners how come nobody
>else said anything about this??



How many optical telescope designs do you know that double as radio
telescope designs?


--
David Knapp                                      University of Colorado, Boulder
Perpetual Student                                   [e-mail]

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

Date: 4 Dec 92 06:05:09 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Saturn V fates
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle,sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Brian Stuart Thorn) writes:
>   Finally, I can't imagine that NASA paid to have the Apollo 19 booster
>   shipped to KSC when they knew that it would never fly. I doubt even
>   Apollo 18 would have made the barge-ride.

Bear in mind that they didn't *know* it would never fly, at the time.
That decision wasn't made until the mid-70s, when they decided that the
shuttle modifications to KSC would not preserve Saturn compatibility.
Until then, there was some possibility that the remaining Saturn Vs
might get used for something if funding could be found.

According to Stages To Saturn (NASA SP-4206), as of June 1975...

SA-513, originally for Apollo 18, had been used to launch Skylab, except
that its third stage, unused, was in storage at KSC.

The first stages of SA-514 and SA-515 were in storage at Michoud.  It
appears that neither had ever been to KSC, as of that date.

The second stages of SA-514 and SA-515, and the third stage of SA-514,
were in storage at KSC.

The third stage of SA-515 was at Marshall, having been used to build
the backup Skylab.  (The primary Skylab was a rebuilt Saturn IB second
stage, not a Saturn V part.)  (Specifically, it came from SA-212.)

The instrument units (guidance sections) of SA-514 and SA-515 were in
storage at Marshall.

Finally, to add further confusion, bear in mind that the second set of
Apollo cancellations scrubbed not Apollos 18 and 19, but Apollos 15
and 19.  The Saturn Vs were used in sequence even so, but the Apollo 15
CSM was used for Apollo-Soyuz and the Apollo 15 LM never flew.
--
MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s.      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
              -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)|  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 4 Dec 92 04:18:54 GMT
From: "Michael V. Kent" <[e-mail]>
Subject: shuttle downtime
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:

>If you're willing to accept data from other programs as indicative, the USAF
>figures that large solid rocket motors generally have a 1-2% failure rate,
>which would give a shuttle loss rate of 1 in 25-50 (two SRBs, remember) if
>everything else was perfectly reliable.  (There is definite evidence that
>shuttle landings should not be considered perfectly reliable.)  You might
>want to discount that some on the grounds of greater redundancy and more
>attention given to the shuttle SRBs in particular.

Wouldn't Castor IV-A's count as solid rocket boosters?  Delta II is 31 for 31,
and it uses 9 Castors a launch.  That's 279 for 279 on the Castors.  Come to
think of it, they're even built by the same people who make Shuttle SRBs.

Mike

--
Michael Kent                                   [e-mail]
Flight Test Engineer                           Tute-Screwed Aero '92
McDonnell Douglas                              Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
These views are solely those of the author.    Apple II Forever !!

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

Date: 4 Dec 92 02:11:01 GMT
From: Mary Shafer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Shuttle replacement
Newsgroups: sci.space

On 4 Dec 92 01:04:38 GMT, [e-mail] (Hugh Emberson) said:

[Reference to flight costs of $10 million per hour]

Hugh> A ordinary jet fighter doesn't cost that much, but how about a SR-71
Hugh> or a B-2?  Both of those planes are fairly radical, the SR-71 needed
Hugh> special handling, almost like a space craft.

The SR-71 is to be referred to in the present tense, thank you very much.

Dryden's entire budget for the last fiscal year was about $100 million
and out of that we supported the F-18 HARV, the F-15 HIDEC, three
SR-71s, two X-31s, the AFTI/F-16, the NB-52B, two F-16XLs, the X-29,
the F-104G, the CV-990, a T-38, and six support F-18s plus simulators
for the research aircraft and some others, a water tunnel, a lot of
institutional support, and afair amount of research not tied to any
of these listed aircraft plus brought a significantly-sized integrated
test facility on line.

I'd estimate that we flew well over fifteen hundred hours on the
various aircraft, including research, chase, and proficiency flights.

I'm pretty sure that the SR-71s flew at least 20 hours.

So, I'd say they're not all that expensive.

(I should mention that we were not the sole support of the X-31s, the
AFTI/F-16, and the X-29, though.)

Hugh> I wouldn't be surprised if a DC-1's operating costs are within an
Hugh> order of magnitude of those of a SR-71 or a B-2.

I would be.  The SR-71 represents mature technology and it's just not
all that expensive to fly.  Maybe when DC-1 is 25 years old....

It just occurred to me to wonder how you're going to define operation
time.  Does time on orbit count?  My inclination is to count only time
under power.  Obviously, including on-orbit time will drive the hourly
costs down but on-orbit time isn't very significant in the life cycle
costs.  (In airliners, for example, it's pressurization _cycles_ that
are important, not length of time pressurized.)

I went to the DC-X PDR (Preliminary Design Review) and I'm sorry to
say that the first thing that popped into my mind when they showed me
the mission profile was "Up like a rocket, down like a stick".

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

Date: 4 Dec 92 04:12:18 GMT
From: "Michael V. Kent" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Shuttle replacement
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pat) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Michael V. Kent) writes:

>we'll have to wait for the DC-X.

DC-X, even if successful, will do nothing to reduce the uniqueness of the
Shuttle.  It will prove some important concepts for the SSTO program and will
hopefully pave the way for a full-scale manned prototype, but it will not
replace the Shuttle.

What I'm trying to say here is that the SSRT program is doing some get-your-
hands-dirty engineering the way it used to be done in this country -- by
building X-planes to do the impossible.  It desperately needs to be done.
But when you have all of your eggs in one basket (like the Shuttle) you don't
throw away that basket, even if someone shows you a picture of a real pretty
basket meant to replace it.

>>>NASA hasn't reduced the cost of access to
>>>space in 30 years.

>>Maybe not, but it did make it 8 times more reliable and an order of magnitude
>>more frequent.  Guess you have to walk before you can run.

>I dont know,  while we went distance x with shuttle,  the russians
>using their aging protons and those goofy soyuzes went 10X.

Oh?  That is very much a debatible point.  The Russians launch a LOT of rock-
ets, which is good if you're a rocket scientist.  But what do they accomplish?
Their satellites last weeks to months, while ours (Western) last years to
decades.  They have a space station with a permanent two-man crew.  We have a
Shuttle flying eight 10-day missions per year with a seven-man crew.  It's
two different approaches, really.  Many simple things vs. a few complex, and
there are benefits and drawbacks to each.

Which approach is better?  Well, they've gone head-to-head twice.  The first
was Apollo, the second was Desert Storm.  Draw your own conclusions.

(The Iraqis had some very top-of-the line Soviet equipment, including T-72
tanks and MiG-29's.  They also had a numerical advantage of 6 to 5 and the
advantage of holding the territory in dispute.  (Traditionally, an invading
army needs about a 3 to 1 advantage to be successful.))

>who holds the records for manned spaceflight.  who has the record
>for spacewalks.

The Russians, on both, for total time.  But considering 70% of everyone who
has ever gone to orbit has done so in the Shuttle, the Americans have
certainly put more people up more times.

>who understands more LEO lifescience.

The Americans.  Mir is not very useful for life science research, other than
for sitting around and breaking records.  The medical data from Mir has been
of very low quality.  NASA learned more life science on one Shuttle mission
(SLS 1) than the Soviets did during four years of Mir operations.

As I understand it, however, Mir does good work in the materials research area.

>We took one path, the stuck to the old one.  i bet they think they
>made the better choice.

They do (as far as aerospace is concerned :) )  A few months ago a delegation
from Russia (aerospace professionals) were given a tour of some American
facilities.  They were surprisingly unimpressed with our computational and
manufacturing capabilities.  It's not that they could do better, it was that
they just didn't think it was very useful.

Mike

--
Michael Kent                                   [e-mail]
Flight Test Engineer                           Tute-Screwed Aero '92
McDonnell Douglas                              Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
These views are solely those of the author.    Apple II Forever !!

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

Date: 3 Dec 92 19:52:28 GMT
From: Bruce Watson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space probe to pass Earth
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]| [e-mail] (Josh 'K' Hopkins) writes:
|[e-mail] writes:
|
||In article <[e-mail]|, phoenix.Princeton.EDU!carlosn (Carlos G. Niederstrasser) writes...
|||missing a few zeroes?  I mean, at 190 miles I would expect air resistance
|||(considering the high speed) to be quite detrimental.
|
|but lets take that a little farther fellas.   190 miles is low, but not _that_
|low.  Sattelites can stay up there for a while.  In addition, we know that

A satellite in a circular orbit at 306 km (190 miles) will stay up for months.

|Galileo will be moving fast ('cuz that's the whole point of a planet swingby).
|We can therefore assume that Galileo will be down that low for a very short
|amount of time (I'm guessing tens of minutes below a given moderately low

Minutes, if not seconds.

--
Bruce Watson (wats@scicom) Bulletin 629-49 Item 6700 Extract 75,131

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

Date: 4 Dec 92 00:04:10 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Terminal Velocity of DCX? (was Re: Shuttle ...)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:
>The proposed DC *is* a rocket, it *is* a low margin system as any
>SSTO has to be, and it has exactly *zero* flight history. It will
>use throttleable engines with variable geometry *based* somewhat
>on RL-10 technology at first, but radically new and never flight
>tested. Later it intends to use aerospike engine designs that have
>*never* been tested, even on the ground. It will be difficult for
>it to live up to rocket standards of reliability, much less airliner
>standards of reliability. This is radically new engine and control
>technology being pioneered on a very marginal flight article. The
>cost and reliability levels being bandied about have no basis other
>than wishful thinking.

Gary, why do you insist on confusing the experimental prototype (DC-Y)
with the hoped-for commercial spaceship (DC-1)?  By the time people are
seriously interested in certifying this thing as an airliner, there
will be *lots* of flight experience with the technology, we will know
whether payload margins are sufficient to allow adequate safety margins
(as others have pointed out, these are two different things), and the
engine and control technology will not be new.  Nobody is suggesting
airliner-level certification of DC-Y.

The whole point of building DC-X and DC-Y is to move the concept out
of the paper-concept stage and into the hard-engineering-data stage.
Nothing less than functioning prototypes will suffice, given the novelty
of the approach.
--
MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s.      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
              -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)|  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 3 Dec 92 23:43:10 GMT
From: Dave Michelson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Terminal Velocity of DCX? (was Re: Shuttle ...)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>
>The FAA, which legally defines "airliner" for purposes of US aviation,
>reportedly disagrees.

Details, please, Henry!  Did you see this in AW&ST?

--
Dave Michelson
[e-mail]

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

Date: 4 Dec 1992 01:31:27 GMT
From: "David M. Palmer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Voyager's "message"... What did it *say*?!?
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space

[e-mail] (Rick Miller, Linux Device Registrar) writes:

>Does anyone know (or know who knows, or where to find out) what the heck
>the "message" on Voyager's gold plate was supposed to 'mean'?  In case I'm
>naming the wrong vehicle, I'm talking about a rectangular plate on which
>is inscribed a man, a woman, a simplification of the vehicle itself, a
>chart of our solar system showing the vehicle's flight-plan, and a couple
>other things.


A full translation of the Pioneer plaque is as follows:

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

            HUNGRY?           NEED WOMEN?

Come to beautiful planet Earth for the best in munchables and abductables.

        Thirsty? We've got Oceans Galore!

    Hey you parasites out there!!! We are great hosts!

Or just assume our forms and replace us one by one
                ...as Thousands have done already!

    Get your picture taken with Nessie, Bigfoot and Elvis.

    Feel like a little excitement?  Why not a trophy hunt?
        (Just watch out for the guy with the BIG muscles.)

And best of all, our puny weapons are no match for your superior intellects.

        So stop on by, third planet from The Sun.
           (sector zed-zed-9, plural zed-alpha)
    Just scan for I Love Lucy reruns and follow the transmissions.
               Parking is available on the White House lawn.

--
        David Palmer         [e-mail]

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

End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 504
------------------------------