Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V15_5/V15NO585.TXT

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Date: Wed, 23 Dec 92 05:05:17
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V15 #585
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Wed, 23 Dec 92       Volume 15 : Issue 585

Today's Topics:
      Air ops vs. space ops (was Re: DC vs Shuttle capabilities)
                          Biosphere 2 update
                           Breeder Reactors
             Justification for the Space Program (3 msgs)
                     Lunar Prospector White Paper
       Terminal Velocity of DCX? (was Re: Shuttle ...) (3 msgs)

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Date: 22 Dec 92 11:31:57 -0600
From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey <[e-mail]>
Subject: Air ops vs. space ops (was Re: DC vs Shuttle capabilities)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Greg Moore) writes:
> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>>In-orbit operations resemble
>>on-ground operations more than in-flight operations:  the environment
>>is simple and predictable and you can take your time.
>
>     Let's handle baggage transfer.  On the ground, you have gravity
> and the surface.  You can walk/carry/drive between two planes.  In
> air, you have to somehow manevour.  As you point out, the air itself
> makes this tricky.  But in space, you don't have something nice like
> the ground to use.  So, the astronauts have to use MMU's or make
> blind leaps between the three crafts.

See *2010*.  The first cosmonaut across uses an MMU.  She brings a
rope with her.  Subsequent transfers are straightforward (if the
engineers have done their jobs on handling of this tethered system!).

Crew transfers between aircraft in flight have been done.  See the
career of Ormer Locklear, the greatest wingwalker of all time.  I
believe the first aerial refueling (and if this story is not true, it
damn well *ought* to be) was accomplished when a wingwalker strapped a
jerrycan to his back and climbed from one DH-4 to another.  (DH-4s are
another proud product of the Canadian Aerospace Industry.)

Given proper equipment and training in both cases, an in-space
transfer or refueling operation *is* less dangerous than the
equivalent in mid-air.

>     I'm not saying it can't be done, or that it won't be done.
> Simply that some thought and PRACTICE will have to go into it.

Right.

Bill Higgins, Beam Jockey         | "I'm gonna keep on writing songs
Fermilab                          | until I write the song
Bitnet:      [e-mail]  | that makes the guys in Detroit
Internet:  [e-mail]  | who draw the cars
SPAN/Hepnet:      43011::HIGGINS  | put tailfins on 'em again."
                                            --John Prine

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

Date: 22 Dec 92 16:58:53 GMT
From: Dave Jones <[e-mail]>
Subject: Biosphere 2 update
Newsgroups: sci.space

Nathaniel Polish ([e-mail]) wrote:
> I realize that there has been much debate concerning the seriousness of the
> science of Biosphere 2.  However the problems posed are still fascinating.
> If indeed this is to be viewed as a prototype space colony then I have a
> problem with the review just posted from a crewmember.
>
The problem seems to be in seeing it as an all-or-nothing proposition.  It
isn't.  It's a test bed to explore the problems of maintaining a closed
ecosystem.  That's why several ecosystem models are present in B2.  You
wouldn't do that if you were really trying to create a colony model, because
you wouldn't want to include, say, desert and rainforest (unless you had
so much capacity you could afford to do things just for the heck of it).

> There was much made of the wide variation in sunlight causing variation of
> CO2 uptake by plants.  Further we have all seen discussions of the somewhat
> uncomfortable drop in O2 level.  I would presume that any space colony would
> have a reasonably abundant source of electric power (nuke or solor collectors).
> This renders the issue of variable sunlight level moot as light is one thing
> that we can easily create.  Also, one would not expect the sunlight levels
> in Tuscon to be available on other planets.

Well, using solar electricity to run lights is a tad inefficient, for a
start.  Much better to use the light directly.  Nucular power (let's spell
it the way folks say it!) is something you'd use if you had to.  You need to
trade off the constancy of light against the maintenance of the artificial
lighting system.  As for sunlight levels, I think you would tend to choose
colony planets with good lighting.

--
||------------------------------------------------------------------------
||Dave Jones ([e-mail])|Eastman Kodak Co. Rochester, NY  |

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

Date: 22 Dec 1992 12:10 CST
From: IGOR <[e-mail]>
Subject: Breeder Reactors
Newsgroups: sci.space

>Plutonium that the reactors "breed" and not on the safety of the
>reactors.  The nuke power industry was trying to sell them as the answer

well it is my impression that there is also a fear due to the sodium fires
which was finally what made the french governement stop super-phoenix
for a while.....



>
>It should be noted that Japan is pursuing breeders agressively.  I believe

France too. At least it was. What bugs me in the whole story is that
after spending 10 billion US$, they just cut the project.... ah those
evil-worshiper-anti-nukes....

>the shipment of fuel they are getting now goes toward a reactor that is
>a breeder but I am not sure.
>
>Grant Anderson
>[e-mail]

what about going back to space and forget about those
 anti-technology people :-).



Igor
Department of Nuclear Engineering
Texas A&M University

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

Date: 22 Dec 92 17:32:18 GMT
From: Paul Dietz <[e-mail]>
Subject: Justification for the Space Program
Newsgroups: talk.politics.space,sci.space

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

> We have been through this little discussion here before. Mining, versus
> planetary geology is the study of the abundance of desirable minerals in
> concentration, not percentage of planetary mass. If you look at any
> statistical survey of the concentration, or in economic terms, economically
> justifiable available resources, you will find that there are very
> few left.

We have been through this before, but that's not the conclusion.  The
experts (some of whom I have quoted) are of the opinion that there
will be no near term exhaustion of any non-fuel mineral.  The minerals
we use in the largest quantities are available in essentially
unlimited amounts, and the opportunities for substitution on the rest
are pretty good.

 >in the US or Iron mines for that matter anymore. Even though Iron is one of
 >the most abundant metals known in the universe, the problems of extraction
 >from sulfer based ores make it unattractive to commercially mine.

This is completely nonsensical.  Most iron in the earth's crust is in
oxide or silicate form, and the lower grade taconites (of which there
are many thousands of years supply available) are iron oxide deposits.
Sulfur is rather rare in the crust, in comparison.

If we judge deposits on a commercial basis, we must, in all fairness,
compare putative space resources on the same basis.  The answer you
get is that space deposits are not competitive by multiple orders of
magnitude.  Now, if you assume massive technological change allowing
space mining, you must also (in all fairness) allow the much more
modest technological change here on earth that would allow mining of
lower grade ores (a factor of a few lower for iron).

 >Take a look around you my friend, read this very news group. Technology is
 >being sacrificed on the holy grail of defict reduction due to the fact that
 >the consitutancy is small relative to the bread and circuses that keep
 >Congress critters in office. Expect to see cuts also in medical research that
 >are disguised as "cost cutting" and "unnecessary expenditures".

You are confusing the private R&D that actually makes things go with
the government R&D that often has little commercial justification.

The world is getting richer, more productive and more competitive.
Globally, the world will innovate at a faster rate as large
populations (like China's) industrialize.

 >Ad hominum attacks aside, I submit that your thesis here is incorrect. I know
 >what fission is and one of the largest plants of that type are within a few
 >miles of my present location. Unfortunately the contractor scum that built
 >it for TVA's nuclear program did such a poor job that it took over a billion
 >dollars just to straighten out all of the defects (Browns Ferry).

Not ad hominem, just a simple taunt.  Anyway, your logic here is
bizarre.  Since when does one instance of a poorly managed project
prove the infeasibility of a technology?  Would you like the same
logic applied to, say, reusable launch vehicle technology?

The US nuclear industry has been hobbled by a poor regulatory
environment, and, more importantly, a fragmented utility industry.
The average utility in the US serves 1 million customers.  In Japan,
the figure is 10 million; in France, 50 million; in both countries
nuclear has worked much more smoothly.  US utilities got stuck near
the beginning of the learning curve.

Fortunately, things are changing here.  A new generation of
standardized, simplified reactors is being designed.  These reactors
are projected to have construction costs of < $1.5/W.  Utilities are
also learning to operate their reactors at higher capacity factors,
and with less exposure of workers to radiation.  It looks like nuclear
reactor availability approaching 80% will be achieved within a few
years.

> of living. Ever been to Taiwan Mr. Dietz? Well it is a wonderful place but
> it smells, pollution is terrible. The Taiwanese people are paying a price
> for their industrialization.

Sure, just like we did.  Pollution peaks at a per capita GNP of around
$5000.  It then declines, as countries find it worthwhile to invest in
cleaner technologies.  This breakpoint will likely be shifting
downward in the coming years, as pollution control technologies get
cheaper.

 >former Soviet Union. There are whole tracts of the breadbasket of Asia
 >where children learn of birds and trees from videos and books because the
 >radiation from your fission plants has rendered outside living impossible

There are regions where scandalously poor disposal practices of
military reprocessing waste have rendered areas uninhabitable.  This
has nothing to do with commercial use of nuclear power, nor is it
any reason to think fission power is unworkable.

 > leave a teaser like that to get a response. What if we in the US want
 > to increase our own energy consumption? Face it fossil fuels are not
 > going to last forever.  Pollution in many American cities is so bad
 > that the sky is brown for most of the year instead of blue, (Can you
 > say Los Angeles?) Governments are mandating that we begin to switch to
 > electrical power for our automobiles.

Well, we use cleaner methods.  Like nuclear, or fossil fuels reformed
to hydrogen with the CO2 sequestered in the oceans, or...  There are
lots of possibilities.

On the other hand, if you want to clean up cities in the next century,
expected space to have anything to do with it is rather silly.

  > [ 700 nuclear powerplants ]

You stuck in the bogus cost figures here.  Realize that if we build this
many, we'll be well down the learning curve.  We will also be able to
exploit economies of scale in regulation.  Using the $1.5/W figure
(although at this level, some sort of breeding would be required),
this would cost about a trillion dollars.  This seems like a lot, but
remember that reactors last 30 years or more.  The continuous
investment comes to some $35B/year.  A bit over 2 NASA budgets.

  > No there is no law of nature that says chemical pollution cannot be
  > reduced.  The law against this is one of economics.

Apparently a law of Wingo Economics is that technology is fixed
for "dirtball" technology, but orders of magnitude improvements in
the economics of space-based operations can be justified with a wave
of the hand.

In actuality, pollution control technology is constantly improving,
enabling us to reduce pollution to lower levels at less cost.  The
ultimate limits set by thermodynamics are surprisingly far away.

 > We have a so-called glut of energy today because Arabs have enough brains
 > not to repeat the mistakes of the 1970's oil shocks. All they have to
 > do is keep the marginal costs of oil slightly below the costs of alternative
 > energy sources and they keep us hooked on the habit of fossil fuels.

Very Interesting!  So you are admitting that the alternatives do
exist, and at prices only slightly above that of today's fossil fuels.

Now, as for renewables...

  > Geothermal is of limited use and very polluting.

Wrong.  The potential for geothermal is enormous, and it need not be
especially polluting.  You are confusing open-cycle steam sources like
at The Geysers -- which are rather limited -- and "flash" hot water
plants (dirty), with other forms, in which deeper and larger deposits
are tapped to drive closed cycle generators (the fluids being
reinjected.)

Geopressued brines in the Gulf of Mexico, for example, are estimated
to contain some 11,000 exajoules of thermal energy (in sandstones),
with some ten times that in shales.  Total US primary energy use is <
100 EJ/year.  Accessible hot dry rock with temperature > 125 C within
6 km of the surface of the US is estimated to contain about 1 million
EJ of thermal energy.  Accessible magma resources in the US are
estimated to contain between 100,000 and 1 million EJ of high grade
thermal energy.

  >Wind power also is of limited use
  >and confined to areas with high wind velocity.

With turbines on 50 meter towers, and with the most recent turbines,
wind becomes competitive over a surprisingly large part of the US.  It
is limited more by power storage, but the increasing move to
combustion turbines opens the possibility of integrated compressed air
energy storage with these turbines.

 >Alcohol production for
 >energy consumption is more expensive and energy intensive than simply
 >using more oil.

Alcohol production from corn starch, yes (although most of the energy
input there is coal, not oil), but other sources, such as single-step
fermentation of lignocellulose, are estimated to have an energy
payback ratio of up to 5.  Hybrid systems aimed at producing methanol,
using auxiliary heat input (say, from a nuclear thermal source), would
produce still more fuel per unit biomass.

 >Well let me inform
 >you that there are no solar R&D efforts outside the aerospace industry.
 >Those are faring badly at this time as well. Boeing has halted work on the
 >37% efficiency concentrator cell. We are the only ones, at this time, keeping
 >the 26% efficient planar technolgy alive, and we are doing for space
 >applications!

Wrong.  There are a dozen or more commercial PV module makers in the
US, and all are working to improve the efficiency and reduce the cost
of their products.  High efficiency, high cost cells, so beloved of
satellite makers, are not the only, or even the best, way to use solar
energy on earth.  Lower efficiency, low cost panels are more advanced,
and have sales growing 20-30%/year.

Do you classify DOE as part of the aerospace community?  EPRI?
Electric utilities?  All are funding work on PV and solar-thermal
projects.

  >>The most important driver of wealth creation is accumulation
  >>of *knowledge*.  Economies can and do grow, and people get
  >>wealthier, in the absence of increases in resource exploitation.

  > [ long section deleted ]

The part deleted there ended by saying the US is falling behind
because it is not creating new technology.

Yippy!  Right, Wingo.  Lack of resources has *little* to do with it.
Creation of new technology -- i.e., creation of knowledge about how to
manipulate and organize matter -- is what we need.  This doesn't
have much to do with space, except insofar as space is an arena where
new technology is needed.  But this doesn't imply that space technology
is essential, or would even be particularly valuable.


 > The answer that a third world person would give you to that is that
 > the west does not provide the right type of help. It is ok to feed
 > people overseas. It does much to make Westerners feel good about
 > themselves and how they are helping the starving masses. What is
 > lacking is teaching those people how to help themeselves. There is no
 > way to accumulate capital if it is being exported by the corporations
 > that exploit the countries natural resoruces.

This is muddle-headed nonsense.  The main form of exploitation in
the third world is of people by their own governments.  Corporations
are a convenient scapegoat.  In countries where the government is
not a kleptocracy, foreign corporations can do what comes naturally:
make mutually beneficial arrangements that leave all parties better off.

For example, consider Botswana.  It has rich diamond deposits that are
being mined and marketed in cooperation with DeBeers.  Sounds like
exploitation, no?  No -- because Botswana has an unusually responsible
government for Africa, with little corruption.  Over the eighties,
Botswana had the fastest (relative) growth rate of any country in the
world.

On the subject of specific resources...

 > What about copper? Yes yes I know that we can substitute aluminum for
 > copper in most cases but aluminum is only 90 as efficient as copper at
 > carrying electricty This translates into a 10% decrease in the net
 > efficiency in most of our power generating and distribution system. If
 > copper were cheaper (more abundant) then we could save billions per
 > year just in this area.

Copper has a higher conductance than aluminum, yes, but this only
matters in places where volume is restricted, like in generators and
motors.  These use a relatively small amount of copper, compared to
other uses like (say) pipes.

For most of the distribution system, aluminum is actually superior, as
it has a higher conductivity/density ratio than copper.  The one drawback
was for use of aluminum wire in buildings, where corrosion caused
hot spots and fires.  This is hardly an insurmountable problem, though.

 >What about stainless steel? This has been commented on here before but I'm
 >gonna bring it back up. If the cost of stainless were 1/100 of what it is
 >today, we could build bridges with it that would last for centuries rather
 >than for decades.

Stainless steel 1/100 the cost of what it is today.  What are we going
to do, have aliens deliver it to us by telekinesis??  Of course if you
can posit arbitrarily large cost reductions in space activities, then
those space activities can reduce costs.  Are such large reductions
reasonable?  I think not -- your figure there would amount to
stainless steel at a few pennies per pound, vs. a transportation cost
(today) from the asteroids of perhaps 7 orders magnitude higher (give
or take a few orders of magnitude).  This is even more outrageous than
your lunar titanium mines.

    Paul F. Dietz
    [e-mail]

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

Date: 22 Dec 1992 17:47:22 GMT
From: David Toland <[e-mail]>
Subject: Justification for the Space Program
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Paul Dietz) writes:

>Yes, that's right.  The problem is that when space is actually
>compared with more mundane ways of creating wealth on earth, it
>doesn't look all that good.  Sure, there are some niches, like
>communications (soon to face strong competition from fiber optics) and
>position location.  But schemes for energy or material mined in space
>are just too expensive, speculative, poorly justified and long term
>for an investor to take seriously.

Agreed.  Mining space doesn't look all that attractive, unless we
find something useful out there that just doesn't form right under
terrestrial conditions, or unless we can harvest large quantities
cheaply once we're there (e.g. if we could send asteroids into earth
orbit using solar energy and materials within the asteroid, such as
sequestered volatiles, to provide the delta-V.  I have no idea whether
that would be practical or even possible, but I'll toss it out
to float or sink as it will).

>More generally, raw materials costs are a rather small and shrinking
>fraction of GNP.  Focusing on them is to ignore the real driver of
>competitive advantage, productivity.  We don't make better and cheaper
>cars or computers by cramming more steel and coal into the factory; we
>do it by being smarter in how we design and manufacture them.
                ^^^^^^^
Yes, this is the real key.  The primary payback of the space program in
the 60's was the knowledge we developed simply to answer the challenge.
We developed breakthrough technologies in electronics, medicine and medical
instrumentation, metallurgy, plastics, ceramics, nutritional science,
computer design, and many other fields.

Other ambitious challenges could conceivably yield similar results, but
it's difficult to imagine anything else of a similar scale that would
seize the enthusiasm and imagination of John Q. Taxpayer in quite
the same way.


--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
All opinions are MINE MINE MINE, and not necessarily anyone else's.
[e-mail]   |  "Laddie, you'll be needin' something to wash
                           |  that doon with."

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

Date: 22 Dec 92 18:05:02 GMT
From: David Toland <[e-mail]>
Subject: Justification for the Space Program
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

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

>We WILL end up off-planet. However, this process will be a series of small
>evolutionary steps, rather than Absolutely-Positively-Overnight URGENCY
>which Dennis insists IS necessary.
>
>Let's cut the crap here, and speak frankly. IF we needed to run out to the
>Great Beyond to save our butts, we COULD do it.

Do you *really* believe this?  If we had 12 months notice, we could
remove enough people for a self-sustaining colony to another body,
even the moon, before a comet-earth collision?

>We don't NEED to do it. And we can do a whole hell of a lot more in improving
>the quality of life for all mankind in our own backyards before we step up and
>off the planet.

Do you have 20-20 premonition?  I'm not going to claim that we have 50
years, no more and no less, or lose the chance forever.  But there are
large chunks of matter flying through the solar system.  Not all of them
have been mapped yet.  And from time to time, big pieces do hit other
big pieces, including the earth.  It could be a million years or more
until we get hit by one large enough to send civilization back to cave
dwellers or worse, or it could happen next year.  Our sun could produce
a major killing flare, or a star in this section of the galaxy may have
already gone supernova,and we're just waiting for the wavefront.

Now we could sit on our collective butts and wait for a crisis (maybe
even create one ourselves), or we could struggle to spread our species
far enough that no one disaster will eliminate us.  I for one dislike
gambling, and the stakes in this case are terrifying.  The sooner
we start, the better our chances.

I also maintain that a working space program would introduce new
technologies and generally stimulate a lackluster economy, to the
benefit of all.


--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
All opinions are MINE MINE MINE, and not necessarily anyone else's.
[e-mail]   |  "Laddie, you'll be needin' something to wash
                           |  that doon with."

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

Date: 22 Dec 92 04:51:53 GMT
From: Graham O'Neil <[e-mail]>
Subject: Lunar Prospector White Paper
Newsgroups: sci.space

Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space,sci.geo.geology
Subject: Lunar Prospector White Paper
Summary: Program and science goals, experiments, mission profile
Followup-To: sci.space
Distribution: world
Keywords: Lunar Resource Mapping, Experiments, Instruments, Mission Operations

[In response to several E-Mail requests, I am posting some background
on what Lunar Explorations Inc. is attempting on the Lunar Prospector
Mission with background on instruments, goals for data acquisition,

and members of the research teams].

                  LUNAR PROSPECTOR WHITE PAPER

1  Introduction

The Lunar Prospector Project is being conducted by Lunar Exploration,
Inc. (LEI) of Houston, Texas.  There are four major goals of the
Project:

    1) To provide NASA with lunar orbital, global mapping data
needed for the planning and execution of the lunar phase of the Space
Exploration Initiative (SEI).

    2) To demonstrate the utility of small, simple Spacecraft
which carry out a limited number of experiments at low cost and in a
short time.

    3) To create public and congressional support for the SEI by
having a highly visible lunar mission, the first lunar mission since
the end of Apollo.

    4) To promote international cooperation for space exploration
by having the Russians provide the launch for the mission and by
involving other nations in the Project.

LEI is a non-profit, tax-exempt corporation relying on volunteer
support and donations of equipment and services to keep the costs of
Lunar Prospector low.  LEI was formed in 1989 to provide the
scientific and engineering expertise required for the Lunar Prospector
Project and consists of a volunteer group of experienced Houston area
aerospace engineers and the science teams.  The scientists conducting
the experiments have decades of experience on numerous NASA lunar and
planetary missions.

The Lunar Prospector science payload was chosen from the list of
candidate experiments proposed for lunar mapping missions.  Lunar
Prospector carries six experiments, chosen because of their high
science value and because they could be flown on a simple, spin
stabilized Spacecraft.  These experiments are:

Gamma-Ray Spectrometer, Principle Investigator - Dr. Brad Roscoe of
LEI.  The Gamma-Ray Spectrometer is a more advanced system than was
flown on the Apollo missions and provides global maps of the surface
composition of the Moon.

Neutron Spectrometer, Principle Investigator - Dr. Bill Feldman of the
Los Alamos National Laboratory.  The Neutron Spectrometer determines
if there are deposits of water ice in the lunar polar regions.  The
spectrometer has a water ice detectability limit of better than 0.01%.
Because of this sensitivity, the mission will provide a timely answer
to the critical water ice question which is so important to the
planning of the SEI.  In addition, the experiment is so sensitive that
it detects the solar wind hydrogen implanted in the regolith.  By
mapping the regolith hydrogen abundances, the experiment indirectly
maps the lunar 3He distribution and gains information required for the
future terrestrial utilization of this extremely important lunar
resource.

Alpha Particle Spectrometer, Principle Investigator - Dr. Alan Binder
of LEI. The Alpha Particle Spectrometer is an advanced version of the
experiment flown on Apollo 15 and 16.  It determines the locations and
frequency of radon gas release events, events which may also release
large quantities of N, CO, and/or CO2.  If this is the case, then
potential sources of these important life support gases will have been
found.

Magnetometer, Principle Investigator - Dr. Lon Hood of the University
of Arizona and

Electron Reflectometer, Principle Investigator - Dr. Bob Lin of the
University of California at Berkeley. These two experiments, in
tandem, map the lunar magnetic fields.  The equipment for these two
experiments are identical to the Mars Observer magnetic experiments
and produces the same quality of data as that NASA mission.

Doppler Gravity Experiment, Principle Investigator - Bill Sjogren of
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.  The experiment provides the first
complete gravity map of the Moon.  Because no earlier mission was in a
low polar orbit, NASA does not have an adequate lunar gravity model
for the planning the follow-on unmanned and manned lunar missions.
Thus Lunar Prospector will again provide timely, critical data for
planning the SEI.

The Lunar Prospector Spacecraft is a small, simple, reliable, spin
stabilized Spacecraft with a fully fuelled mass of only 299 kg.  It is
a 1.42 m diameter, 1.42 m tall drum with solar cells mounted on its
outer surface.  Its basic design is that of a small comsat bus so well
developed by commercial companies.  The scientific instruments are
mounted on three booms; isolating them from the bus and simplifying
the Spacecraft-instrument interfaces.  The design of the Spacecraft
was completed in June of 1990 by OMNI System, Inc., the Project's
Spacecraft Contractor.

NPO Energia of Russia has offered to launch Lunar Prospector for a
nominal fee.  The participation of Russia in the Project will help
pave the way for future cooperation with NASA in the SEI.

The mission will begin with the launch provided by NPO Energia. The
flight to the Moon takes five days, during which two midcourse
maneuvers occur, the boom are deployed and the science instruments
collect calibration data both in the undeployed and deployed
conditions.  Once the Spacecraft has reached the Moon, it performs
three separate Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) burns.  The first LOI burn
puts the Spacecraft into a 24 hour, elliptical orbit.  Twenty-four
hours later, the second LOI burn puts the Spacecraft into a 4 hour
elliptical orbit.  Finally, 24 hours later, the third LOI burn puts
the Spacecraft into its 118 minute, 100 km altitude, polar mapping
orbit.  At that point, the Spacecraft begins its nominal one year
mapping mission.  During this phase, periodic orbital maintenance
maneuvers are made to keep the Spacecraft in its proper orbit.  If the
fuel usage is less than the worst case planning estimates, the mapping
mission will be extended beyond this nominal one year and will end
when the fuel necessary for orbital maintenance is depleted.  Shortly
thereafter, the Spacecraft will impact the Moon, ending the mission.

Mission operations are carried out by the volunteer engineers of LEI
at the Mission Control Center in Clear Lake, Texas.  Tracking and data
reception are carried out by a world-wide tracking network of
antennas.

The total cost of Lunar Prospector is 16 million
dollars plus launch costs.  The costs are so low because:

    1) The small, simple Spacecraft, the science instruments and
the ground support equipment are constructed using existing technology
and off-the-shelf hardware.  There are no development costs associated
with the Project.

    2) The majority of the the Project is being done by volunteers.

    3) The LEI administrative costs are very low because this
institution is very small and has very low overhead.

The Lunar Prospector Project has gained support from various
government and NASA officials, the Stafford Committee and the National
Space Council, all of which see this effort as helping to gain support
for the SEI.  Lunar Prospector is viewed by these individuals and
committees as being the type of innovative, space exploration
alternative called for by both the Augustine Committee and the
Stafford Committee.

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graham
--
Graham O'Neil    [e-mail]      GONEIL@nasamail
Lockheed  2400 NASA RD 1 Houston, TX 77058  [phone]
----------------------------------------------------------
Practice Random Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty

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

Date: 22 Dec 92 16:37:17 GMT
From: Doug Mohney <[e-mail]>
Subject: Terminal Velocity of DCX? (was Re: Shuttle ...)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>
>>>For what we have spent on Shuttle we could have built two Freedom
>>>space stations
>
>>without shuttle, you might not have ONE Freedom space station.
>
>Nonsense. The Russians have no problems building space stations without
>their Shuttle.

Nevermind Allen. It was too politically subtle for you to catch.

Try again, after the tone.

                    I have talked to Ehud, and lived.
  -- >                  [e-mail]                        < --

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

Date: 22 Dec 92 17:51:41 GMT
From: Mary Shafer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Terminal Velocity of DCX? (was Re: Shuttle ...)
Newsgroups: sci.space

On Tue, 22 Dec 1992 16:07:15 GMT, [e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer) said:

AS> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Brian Stuart Thorn) writes:

>>NASA spends over a billion dollars on each Space Shuttle flight. I think
>>you've indulged in some creative accounting.

> The Space Transportation budget this year was about $5 billion, if
> memory serves. NASA flew 8 Shuttle missions this year.

AS> This number does not include NASA overhead, amortization of the orbiter,
AS> amortization of Shuttle development costs, and a host of other costs. Adding
AS> those in puts the cost at well over a billion per flight. Hell, interest
AS> costs on development alone adds over a quarter billion per flight (BTW,
AS> this interest is not a sunk cost since it is part of the national debt and
AS> we are paying for it even now).

>You have done the 'creative accounting' here, I'd say.

AS> No, it's NASA who is being creative by ignoring billions in cost. BTW,
AS> if a private company ran their books the way NASA does they would be
AS> thrown in jail for fraud.

Like Air France and British Airways?  Writing off the development
costs of the Concorde so that they could show a profit?

--
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: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 18:11:58 GMT
From: "Allen W. Sherzer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Terminal Velocity of DCX? (was Re: Shuttle ...)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Mary Shafer) writes:

>>You have done the 'creative accounting' here, I'd say.

>AS> No, it's NASA who is being creative by ignoring billions in cost. BTW,
>AS> if a private company ran their books the way NASA does they would be
>AS> thrown in jail for fraud.

>Like Air France and British Airways?  Writing off the development
>costs of the Concorde so that they could show a profit?

No because the books for Concord balance out. No effort was made to hide
what they where doing and make it impossible to account for costs. Not so
for NASA which constantly changes its estimates on what a flight costs and
hides costs accross a range of line items.

  Allen

--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves        |
|  [e-mail]     |  nothing undone"                                       |
+----------------------123 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+

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

End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 585
------------------------------