Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V15_5/V15NO595.TXT

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Date: Fri, 25 Dec 92 05:00:05
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V15 #595
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Fri, 25 Dec 92       Volume 15 : Issue 595

Today's Topics:
                  asteroids beyond Jupiter (2 msgs)
                  ASTM, Saturn and MOL (Was Re: MOL)
                 cryptocraft photography, Re: Aurora
                           Depleted uranium
           EVA troubles (Was Re: ground vs. flight (2 msgs)
             funding for Lunar Prospector urgently needed
 Greek Science (was Re: Justification for the Space Program (2 msgs)
        I thinI see our problem. (Was Re: Terminal Velocity of
                              Lunar ice
                    Lunar Resource Mapper funding.
                 numerous/ 1:ASAT 2:Water 3:misquotes
    Stupid Shut Cost arguements (was Re: Terminal Velocity of DCX?
         Who can launch antisats? (was Re: DoD launcher use)

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

Date: 24 Dec 92 19:33:42 GMT
From: bill nelson <[e-mail]>
Subject: asteroids beyond Jupiter
Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.folklore.urban

[e-mail] (J. Furr) writes:
:
: I post this whole mess to sci.space and say "help" because it seems that
: one side in a.f.u. is arguing as follows: _all_ asteroids occur between
: the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.  Therefore Neptune, Pluto, etc. could not
: possibly have captured asteroids because asteroids don't go out that far.

Not quite. My definition of asteriod is: any body that orginated in the
"asteriod belt" (between Mars and Jupiter). I have made no claim as to
where they can orbit. Jupiter is large enough to cause significant perturbation
to their orbits.

However, it is a long way from Jupiter to Neptune. I am waiting for someone
to post a reference that states that there are asteriods (by my definition)
that orbit that far out.

Bill

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

Date: 24 Dec 92 22:20:32 GMT
From: "J. Furr" <[e-mail]>
Subject: asteroids beyond Jupiter
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban,sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (bill nelson) writes:
>[e-mail] (J. Furr) writes:
>: >: >
>: >Guess I will have to do some study of the recent research. Do you have some
>: >cites to simplify my astronomical task?
>:
>: Well, yes. I've been trying to get into a library to get actual books to
>: cite from, but they're all closed here at Va. Tech for the holiday.  You
>: claim that all true asteroids orbit between Mars and Jupiter.  Then, I ask
>: you, what about the asteroids that show up in the papers zooming past
>: Earth every so often?  Every year or so they tell us that another one came
>
>No - I never did make such a claim. My definition of asteroid is: any object
>that originated in the asteroid belt. I claim that such an object could not
>be captured by a planet - without undergoing a serious kinetic energy loss
>somewhere.
>
>: within a million miles.  Furthermore, although the name of the asteroid
>: class escapes me while I'm unable to get at books, there is a whole class
>: of asteroids that spends most of their time out around Saturn and beyond,
>: in highly elliptical orbits that infrequently bring them in nearer the
>: Sun.
>
>Ok, you now have asteroids that have been perturbed out to around the
>orbit of Saturn. Keep going, you have got 1/3rd the way to Neptune.
>
>:       Saturn and Jupiter now have so many moons verified as orbiting them
>: that it's not big news anymore.  Each has ten or so tiny rocks that used
>: to be asteroids orbiting way out.  From what I recall reading in astronomy
>
>Do you have some documentation for this? I suppose, for Jupiter and Saturn,
>it might be possible to capture an asteroid - since they have enough moons
>to possibly cause enough energy loss.  However, I am still cynical.
>
>: books, some of these will orbit their gas giant for a few million years
>: and then escape again.
>
>Where are they going to get the energy to do so?
>
>:                         Pluto's "moon", however, doesn't strike me as a
>: likely asteroid capture because Pluto just wouldn't have the gravitational
>: pull to snag something nearly as large as itself and keep it there.
>
>That is not the major problem - the problem is: where would sufficient
>energy be shed - the same is true for the supposition that Pluto was
>captured by Neptune.
>

Bill, I think it's time you take this to sci.space and out of a.f.u.  It
strikes me as more appropriate there.

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

Date: 24 Dec 92 02:53:00 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: ASTM, Saturn and MOL (Was Re: MOL)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Gary Hughes - VMS Development) writes...
>
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] writes...

[stuff deleted]

>Uh, no. The original Saturn C config was three stage, using Von Braun's Saturn
>booster as the first stage. The second stage (S-IV) was to have had 4 LR-119
>(may have that number wrong, it was to be a growth version of the RL-10, aka
>LR-115) engines. The third stage (S-V) was to have been powered by 2 RL-10
>engines. The S-V was NOT Centaur. They both were designed around a pair of
>RL-10s, but had very different avionics and structure.
>
>The S-IV evolved to use 6 RL-10s, thus avoiding the cost of developing a new
>engine.

I can buy the four engines and 6 engine bit, but according to document I
have found here and the Book "Rocket Scientist" and Medaris's " Cound down
to Decision" These were desginated the Centaur, although I will go back and
look and make sure of this just in case.

>
>The 'C' designation was dropped somewhere along the way, with the Saturn C-1
>becoming simply Saturn 1. FWIW, the Saturn A and B proposals used conventional
>propellants in their second stages, and both had a third stage similar to the
>S-V.
>
According to Dr. Sthulinger and Konrad Dannenburg the C-1 designation was
dropped when the CSM was put on the stack. This is confirmed by the models
that I saw yesterday and the Museum piece out at the Arsenal that is
designated Saturn C-1. The Saturn 1 with an Apollo CSM is the one on vertical
display at the Alabama Space and Rocket Center. There is also an Saturn C-1
out at the Alabama State line at the vistor center.


>The first Saturn 1s flew with dummy second and third stages, and no fins. The
>first block 2 Saturn 1 flew with a live S-IV stage and a dummy S-V (and tail
>fins). Subsequent block 2 Saturns had dummy Apollo CSMs instead of the dummy
>S-V.
>

I can buy this.

>The original intent was to fly the two stage Saturn 1 for LEO and the three
>stage variant for lunar/planetary missions (unmanned of course). Remember that
>the Saturn program predates Apollo. It was originally intended to produce a
>family of general purpose ELVs.
>

This is of course before the Air Force crammed Titan and Atlas down everyones
throats.

>>Finally there is the famous Saturn 1B that carried the manned Apollo CSM/LM to
>>orbit. This configuration also carried the Saturn V, SIVB stage, which is the
>>third stage of full up Saturn V. This combination was able to boost the
>>full Saturn V payload to LEO altitude of 105 nautical miles.
>
>The Saturn 1B, aka Uprated Saturn 1, was developed to meet the increasing mass
>of the CSM. As you said, the CSM grew beyond the original Saturn 1 LEO
>capability. The Saturn 1B could lift the CSM or the LM, but not both (i.e. it
>could not carry the full Saturn V payload to LEO).
>

From my information this was always the program intent of the Saturn 1B. This
helped to lower the costs for the test program of the full Saturn V by flying
most of the Saturn V hardware before the big bird was ready. According to
folks here at MSFC the 1B could lift that weight. The models that are on display
at both the Alabama Space and Rocket Center and in the Headquarters building
at Marshall show the full Saturn V payload on the 1B stack.


>>This is the booster
>>that was used for the Apollo 7 mission. I forget whether it was used for
>>Apollo 9 or whether that was a full up Saturn V.
>
>The only manned Saturn 1B flights were Apollo 7, Skylab 2,3,4 and ASTP.
>
Remember that the ASTP payload was the full up CSM as well as the docking
adaptor and the launch was to a 51 degree inclination orbit. This easily
equals the weight of the Lunar Module in a 28.5 degree orbit.

Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville

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

Date: 23 Dec 92 19:40:34 GMT
From: Bruce Watson <[e-mail]>
Subject: cryptocraft photography, Re: Aurora
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]# [e-mail] (Bob McGwier) writes:
#
#From NE by N down to SW by S is <NOT| retrograde.  This is the descending
#half of a normal orbit with inclination less than ninety degrees.

Wrong. If the object is in a low earth orbit with this motion it would
have an orbit whose inclination is about 113 degrees. If the motion had
been from NNE by N to SSW by S the inclination would be about 101 degrees.

Had the motion been from NW by N to SE by S the motion would be prograde
at an inclination of about 68 degrees.

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

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

Date: 24 Dec 92 18:53:16 GMT
From: "Dr. Norman J. LaFave" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Depleted uranium
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> John Roberts,
[e-mail] writes:
>The antimissile Phalanx guns on warships use uranium slugs. I don't know
>about other weapons.

Also used by the Gau-8 Anti Tank Gun.

Norman

Dr. Norman J. LaFave
Senior Engineer
Lockheed Engineering and Sciences Company




When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro
                               Hunter Thompson

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

Date: 24 Dec 92 17:40:23 GMT
From: Greg Moore <[e-mail]>
Subject: EVA troubles (Was Re: ground vs. flight
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <=[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Greg Moore) writes:
>
>The platform being unstabilized actually had little to do with it, aside
>from dictating a relatively early end to the exercise when Collins's
>various forces exerted on it started complicating its motion to the
>point of unpredictability.  The problems were general issues of EVA,
>not particular to the nature of the Agena.  NASA hadn't fully realized
>the difficulties of free-fall maneuvering in spacesuits at the time.
>
    That's partly what I was refering to, the exertiion of forces
taht leads to unpredictability.  However, at that stage in the progrm
I'msure just general EVA problems were a bigger problem.

>>    Also, given that the bottom of the shuttle is covered with
>>tile, can the orbiter exert a Y+ (i.e. vertically up) translation?
>
>There aren't any RCS nozzles on the orbiter's belly, but both the forward
>and aft RCS systems have nozzles angled down so that they can (somewhat
>inefficiently) thrust upward.
>
    Ok, taht's what I thought.  So I'd assume you'd want to do as
little Y+ translations as possible.  Anyone know the approach path
for the orbiter?  Will it approach cargo bay first, or will it attempt
to do a partial "flyby" where it approaches nose first (i.e X+ translation).
I'd assume the latter, to safe fuel, and to allow it to "float by' if
something goes wrong.  With a Y+ translation if an 'up" thruster
(to stop the Y+ movement) fails, you risk running the shuttle into the
orbiter.  With the X+, if something fails, you just float on by.  If
it works, you simply stop 15'-20' away and let the arm pull oyu in the
rest of the way.

>>>As far as I know, the success rate for grapple fixtures is 100%.  They've
>>>sometimes had to proceed slowly and carefully, but I don't think they've
>>>ever had to abandon a grabbing attempt.
>>
>>    Didn't they ahve to manually slow down a rotating satellite
>>since the arm couldn't grapple the fixture fast enough? (Solar Max?)
>
>On Solar Max, originally Pinky Nelson's backpack was to take the spin
>off the satellite so it could be grabbed by the arm.  Didn't work because
>the fancy grappling gadget he was equipped with -- unrelated to the one
>on the arm -- didn't work.  He did try to do it manually, but that wasn't
>properly planned and it didn't work either.  Nobody really expected a
>direct grapple attempt with the arm to work, although they did try it.
>Eventually they decided to gamble, slowed the spin down a lot with the
>satellite's on-board systems, and *then* the arm got it.
>
    Ok, this may or may not have been what I was thinking of. Not sure.

>On the Palapa/Westar retrieval, the next generation of fancy gadgets didn't
>work either, but that time they had a manual backup plan, which was used.
>(Like Intelsat, these birds had no grapple fixtures, so the arm couldn't
>be used until *something* was grappled to them by other means.)  On the
>Leasat repair, the hardware was kept very simple and the astronauts'
>arms did almost all the work.  (How quickly they forgot these lessons...)

    I don't recall what Leasat was.  Could you give me some private email
sometime to jog my memory?
    It seems like a good argument for satellite manufacturers to include
a grapple point.  That way Shuttle, DC-? or whatever will be able to
effect a dock easily.
    I don't want to re-open the can of worms about this (since we
debated once before) but two points: Granted: it adds weight, and most of
the time would be a waste.  But, Is the weight loss that big of a deal.
And, sure, most of them will be in GEO which Shuttle can't make.  But,
if DC-1 works, we're more likely to have a OMV which CAN get to them.

>--
>"God willing... we shall return."       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
>       -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 24 Dec 92 19:42:18 GMT
From: Mark Littlefield <[e-mail]>
Subject: EVA troubles (Was Re: ground vs. flight
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <j6v2=m#@rpi.edu>, [e-mail] (Greg Moore) writes:
|> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
|> >In article <=[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Greg Moore) writes:
|>
|> >>    Also, given that the bottom of the shuttle is covered with
|> >>tile, can the orbiter exert a Y+ (i.e. vertically up) translation?
|> >
|> >There aren't any RCS nozzles on the orbiter's belly, but both the forward
|> >and aft RCS systems have nozzles angled down so that they can (somewhat
|> >inefficiently) thrust upward.
|> >
|>     Ok, taht's what I thought.  So I'd assume you'd want to do as
|> little Y+ translations as possible.  Anyone know the approach path
|> for the orbiter?  Will it approach cargo bay first, or will it attempt
|> to do a partial "flyby" where it approaches nose first (i.e X+ translation).
|> I'd assume the latter, to safe fuel, and to allow it to "float by' if
|> something goes wrong.  With a Y+ translation if an 'up" thruster
|> (to stop the Y+ movement) fails, you risk running the shuttle into the
|> orbiter.  With the X+, if something fails, you just float on by.  If
|> it works, you simply stop 15'-20' away and let the arm pull oyu in the
|> rest of the way.

First off, as a data point, "Y+" is not "vertical up".  There are two
coordinate systems that both the shuttle and SSF use:  LVLH and
vehicle body.  LVLH, or Local Vertical, Local Horizontal is a
coordinate system has X in the direction of flight, Y to the right of
the direction of flight, and Z toward the center of the earth.  This
is different from the orbiter or SSF body coordinate systems.  For the
orbiter the body coordinate system is X along the nose, Y out the
right wing, and Z out of the bottom.  For SSF it's X out of the US
lab/hab side, Y to the right solar panels, and Z to form the right
hand coordinate system  Also note that the SSF body coordinate system
is nominally oriented with LVLH.

The orbiter can, in fact, thrust in the -Z "body vertical" direction.
Not working in orbiter systems I don't have the details handy.
However, there are a set of RCS jets on the orbiters nose that point
at about Z+-30 degrees.  When these jets are fired, it pitches the
orbiter (positive Y rotation).  If I am not mistaken there are also Z
pointing thrusters near the tail.

As far as docking/berthing the orbiter to SSF.  As of ~March 1992
(when I took a set of SSF orientation classes), the decision to dock
or berth the orbiter had not been made.  At the time things seemed to
be leaning to berthing (that is, moving the orbiter close to SSF and
letting the RMS move the orbiter to attach to SSF, rather than just
letting the orbiter slide up and mate like Apollo).  My guess is now
that with the studies of the Russian androgynous docking adapter, that
may change.  If anyone has heard anything new, let me know.

--
=====================================================================
Mark L. Littlefield              Intelligent Systems Department
internet: [e-mail]
USsnail:  Lockheed Engineering and Sciences
          2400 Nasa Rd 1 / MC C-19
          Houston, TX 77058-3711
====================================================================

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

Date: 24 Dec 92 18:02:40 GMT
From: Graham O'Neil <[e-mail]>
Subject: funding for Lunar Prospector urgently needed
Newsgroups: sci.space

In <[e-mail]>   Dennis Wingo writes:

>Lunar Resource Mapper is not dead as of this time. Work is still
>progressing at the two contractors selected for the Phase A study.
>(Martin & Boeing) This at present is unfunded by NASA but indications
>are that money will be available for the studies in the spring. So
>don't count LRM dead yet.

    Note what Dennis is saying is that if work is being performed
on LRM, it is company profits that are being used.  Over the last 20
years, there have been many years where, US funding would be available
in the spring for lunar science missions.  However I would not count
LRM as dead, even if funding does not materialize in the spring of 93.

>Also there are other Lunar missions that are NASA supported and under
>consideration. One is the Lunar Geophysical Explorer sponsored by
>JPL.  There i s also another private effort waiting in the wings if
>these NASA supported mission do not come off. No I won't give any
>information on the private effort yet. It will not go forward unless
>the NASA efforts clearly are not going to be funded. This effort is
>not in any way connected to Lunar Prospector however and is guaranteed
>to cost less and already has significant aerospace support.

    There are and have been many NASA supported [and even funded]
studies and Phase A projects for Lunar missions.  JPL's LGE is at
present NASA supported but not NASA funded.

    I guess the real question is where this unnamed private effort
will go forward from.  How much system engineering has been done,
mission planning, infrastructure for scientific data acquisition,
analysis and archival, design maturity...?  Even if this project
doesn't come to fruition, I would like to see the details on how it
will cost less than Lunar Prospector.  There are sure to be many
lessons learned from that information.

If it costs less, how much science will be on it? And what does
significant aerospace support really mean?  For instance, the
University of Colorado mission [Hanson and Humble] has imaging as a
priority, but few science instruments as a payload.  I suspect they
have even less money than LRM, LGE, or LEI, but they certainly have
significant aerospace support. And that might be a different community
than space science support, or SEI precursor mission support.

And then in <[e-mail]>, where Dennis seemingly
misunderstands Henry's point

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

>>The $30M in question was first-year funding to get Griffin's entire effort
>>started; this was to include the beginnings of the mapper project, which
>>would end up costing $30M or so for the spacecraft proper.
>>
>>Griffin didn't get it.

>The money is coming from JSC internal funds as well as left over
>funds from other operations at Griffin's code. I repeat the project
>is not dead as of this time.

    Stop work orders on this have been issued from both Building 1
[carryover, discretionary] and the Nova building [other money pots
related to SEI, or code SL].  While I wouldn't call it dead, employees
on both government and contractor sides are being Approved For
Reassignment [AFRed] or worse.  Indeed any NASA centers discretionary
funding can only go so far.

>This money also does not affect the Lunar Geophysical Explorer which
>is not part of SEI.  It seems that you can get money as long as the
>SEI tag is not attached. Heck there is 5 million dollars this year for
>the Lunar power beaming project and money is being spent even now for
>the Lunar far side telescope project.

It may seem you can get money if SEI is not tagged along, but lets
look for money for real hardware, money for launch, and money for
mission operations... Help me, I can't find the line item for those
elements of a Lunar mission in the NASA budget, or the Center budgets.
Maybe Marshall has some discretionary money for this that you've seen?

Meanwhile LEI is working to get Prospector off the ground, with or
without US government funds and in a timely fashion.  Checkout the
archives at ames in /pub/LEI.

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: 24 Dec 92 15:53:02 GMT
From: Robert Rubinoff <[e-mail]>
Subject: Greek Science (was Re: Justification for the Space Program
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Greg Moore) writes:
>It's interesting to listen to how people believe that Columbus proved
>the world was round.  Actually, he and most people he argued with didn't debate that point.  His claim was that the earth was about 12,000 miles in diameter.
>Most people believe he was way off and they were right.

umm...12,000 miles in *circumference*.  The Earth is actually about 8000 miles
in diameter, 24,000 miles in circumference -- just about twice what Columbus
thought.

   Robert

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

Date: 24 Dec 92 17:29:31 GMT
From: Greg Moore <[e-mail]>
Subject: Greek Science (was Re: Justification for the Space Program
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Robert Rubinoff) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Greg Moore) writes:
>>It's interesting to listen to how people believe that Columbus proved
>>the world was round.  Actually, he and most people he argued with didn't debate that point.  His claim was that the earth was about 12,000 miles in diameter.
>>Most people believe he was way off and they were right.
>
>umm...12,000 miles in *circumference*.  The Earth is actually about 8000 miles
>in diameter, 24,000 miles in circumference -- just about twice what Columbus
>thought.
>
>   Robert

    Umm, gee... yeah. Sorry. my mistake. :-)

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

Date: 24 Dec 92 14:21:14 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: I thinI see our problem. (Was Re: Terminal Velocity of
Newsgroups: sci.space

How many Vostoks are still flying?

Lots - one landed outside of Seattle a few weeks ago.

--- Maximus 2.01wb

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

Date: 24 Dec 92 14:14:10 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Lunar ice
Newsgroups: sci.space

The Lunar Resources Data Purchase Act does not specify which frequncies in the
spectra should be obtained by the government from private vendors; an
interagency group will determine what we need to determine if there is water
ice at the poles of the Moon.

However, video of the Moon is relatively expensive, and should be avoided if
we are to afford a mission any time soon.

There are instruments that are much more effective in locating water ice than
video, than at a much lower cost.

However, I believe that it is possible for a vendor to mount a mission to the
Moon, return the specified data to the government and carry a video camera to
return detailed lunar data for re-sale to virtual reality companies in the
late 1990's - there be a market down the road for that stuff.

--- Maximus 2.01wb

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

Date: 24 Dec 92 21:42:26 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Lunar Resource Mapper funding.
Newsgroups: sci.space

Well, I for one, am going to send them some of MY money.

            John.

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

Date: 23 Dec 92 19:17:33 GMT
From: tffreeba@ivax
Subject: numerous/ 1:ASAT 2:Water 3:misquotes
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Daniel Burstein) writes:
> A few points related to recent discussions:
>

        [Some interesting stuff deleted]

> 3) Mis-quotes:
>
> a) Just being a stickler for accuracy here, but if any group should
> get this one right, it would be a science-oriented discussion
> like this one.  Numerous people have made reference to the
> program that developed the first nuclear weapons by the
> United States during World War two.
>
>    Contrary to popular belief, the actual name for this
> was the "Manhattan District." (I won't print the wrong one)
>                    ^^^^^^^^

I am looking at my nuke 'em 'til they glow hat, and attached to it is a pin
given to the scientists involved with the Manhattan whaterver after the war.
It says "Manhattan Project."  It would seem that this newsgroup is not the
only place people got confused. Could you expand on this?   T. Freebairn

> Yours in Fussbudgetness...
> Danny Burstein
>
> <[e-mail]>

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

Date: 24 Dec 92 02:37:00 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Stupid Shut Cost arguements (was Re: Terminal Velocity of DCX?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer) writes...
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Steinn Sigurdsson) writes:
>
[stuff deleted]

>The fact remains however that we did spend $34 billion to develop Shuttle
>and that cost should be accounted for. If we are going to pick and choose
>what costs we include and which we don't then why not say Shuttle is
>free?
>

The numbers that I have seen from the Congressional budget office are 8.8
billion dollars in 1974 dollars. Are you saying that we have had 400 percent
inflation from 74 to 86?

>>I thought you quoted a (Pike?) study saying $500 M per flight
>>charging all costs to shuttle, $750 M if (sunk) development costs
>>were included. Apologies if it was Dennis...
>
>That was Dennis misquoting Pike. Pike said that if you add up all the
>manned costs you get a figure of ~$750M. I claim the cost of a Shuttle
>flight to be $500M plus the then year development costs amortized over
>say, 20 years. I don't remember what that comes to but it is easially
>over a billion.
>

No what I said was that only if you included every single item that could
possibly related to *any* US manned space program, would you get a number
greater than 500 million dollars. This is what Pike did. A great portion
of these costs would be there no matter what system it is that is flying
men in space. This includes maintaining the test stands at Marshall and at
Stennis and at Edwards and at Simi valley where the RL-10's are tested.
This also includes buildings at Edwards where Shuttle work is done and at
Rockwell Downey and other things that only very tangentally support the
manned space program. This also includes the hangers at 501 Bolsa Avenue
in Huntington Beach (McDonnell Douglas Space Systems Plant) where the
DC would be built.

>This is the formula American uses to sell most tickets so I think
>Shuttle should do the same. I also insist on DC doing the same, I'm
>not giving it a free ride.
>
>>   could amortize DC-Y development, DC-X development, and DC-1 development
>>   and it STILL comes out cheaper than the operational costs of Shuttle
>>   (~$6,000 per pound for DC vs $10,000 per pound for Shuttle). All three
>

[more stuff deleted]

>I just looked up the exact numbers. At 10 flights per year (roughly 80%
>the US MLV market) a DC-1 should (if it works) cost $2700 per pound. This
>is a third the cost of Shuttle and about 25% less than existing expendables.
>If flight rate goes to 12 a year then costs drop to about $2300 per pound.
>This assumes a $3B (twice McD's estimate) DDT&E cost over 10 years.
>
>Now if we amortize over 25 years we get $1890 (10 flights) to $1658 (12
>flights) per pound. Again, this compares to $3900 for Titan III and
>$10,000 for Shuttle. This still leaves plenty of room for error.
>
>After development is amortized (which can happen with the existing market)
>costs drop to $100 to $500 per pound.
>

Allen did you include the $9.9 billion dollar (1960 dollar) cost of the
development of the Titan? This number is from General Medaris and was one
of the things he was peeved about, due to the fact that the Saturn 1 could
lift an order of magnitude more payload than the early Titans. It was an
Air Force program so they got money and Saturn was turned over to NASA. BTW
I saw a film of the first static firing of the Saturn C-1 booster. It was
in April 1960. Also the Titan SRM's are direct developments from the
Shuttle program. You gonna include the R & D for the Shuttle SRM's in
your Titan cost accounting?

Creative accounting does wonders when you sin by omission. As for some earlier
commets of your about the shuttle being at maximum flight rate, it is obvious
that NASA can launch one per month. They do it in stretches all the time using
only three orbiters. The only increase in cost would be the 37 million
marginal cost that you dismissed as being irrelevant for some reason. I also
agree with some other poster that NASA may be keeping the flight rate down
below max in order to stretch the odds somewhat.

Also for your comment that the Shuttle can't handle more than 50 launches, I
would love to hear your references for that. According to structural
Engineers who did the work that refitted Columbia for the EDO package, they
found no problems that would keep the orbiters from doing their 100 missions
and more. The only problem that was found was some water corrosion around
the Elevon interfaces. This they fixed and as the orbiters come in for
updating they will all get this fix.

I still support the DC program even with all the ranting and arm flapping.

Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville

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

Date: 24 Dec 92 02:24:40 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: Who can launch antisats? (was Re: DoD launcher use)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:
>>I think that any nation that can put an object in a precision orbit has
>>the capability to knock down satellites in LEO.
>
>Reasonable.
>
>>Only the US and the former
>>USSR have demonstrated that capability, but in principle it's not an extremely
>>difficult job, and there's really no defense against a cloud of debris in
>>your spysat's path.
>
>Only the US and the former USSR?  I think ESA, ISAS, NASDA, and Great
>Wall, Inc. might disagree with you.  They might also point out that
>Israel and India have launched satellites on multiple occasions, and
>ask you how you define "precision orbit."  France, Britain, and Italy
>are kind of retired from the launch business, but they are ESA
>partners.  Brazil is coming up fast as a contender here.

Only the US and the former USSR have demonstrated knocking out orbital
satellites. Those other nations have the ability to achieve precision
orbits, so they should be able to do the same, but they haven't attempted
to do so.

Gary

--
Gary Coffman KE4ZV          |    You make it,     | gatech!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary
Destructive Testing Systems |    we break it.     | uunet!rsiatl!ke4zv!gary
534 Shannon Way             |    Guaranteed!      | emory!kd4nc!ke4zv!gary
Lawrenceville, GA 30244     |                     | ke4zv![e-mail]

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End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 595
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