Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V15_6/V15NO602.TXT

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Date: Mon, 28 Dec 92 05:00:05
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V15 #602
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Mon, 28 Dec 92       Volume 15 : Issue 602

Today's Topics:
                   "Moonraker" -- fact or fiction?
                             Acceleration
                       asteroids beyond Jupiter
                         fast-track failures
     I thinI see our problem. (Was Re: Terminal Velocity of DCX?
                            Justification
             Justification for the Space Program (2 msgs)
                    Latest Pegasus news? (2 msgs)
                  Manhattan DISTRICT (not Pr......)
                    satellite costs etc. (2 msgs)
        Stupid Shut Cost arguements (was Re: Terminal Velocity
    Stupid Shut Cost arguements (was Re: Terminal Velocity of DCX?
                         University standards

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

Date: 27 Dec 92 14:35:55 GMT
From: BOUCHER DAVID <[e-mail]>
Subject: "Moonraker" -- fact or fiction?
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy,talk.politics.misc,sci.space.shuttle,sci.space,sci.astro

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Eidetics Int'l) writes:

[Stuff about how the James Bond books were really romans a clef trying
to warn the public about secret machinations of David Rockefeller (aka
Goldfinger) et al., deleted]

And we mustn't forget Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, Fleming's warning about the
eminent decline of the American auto industry, disguised as a children's
story about a flying jalopy.  I'm surprised too that Doctor Beter did not
mention the obvious connection between "Octopussy" and the current AIDS
epidemic.

- db


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

Date: 27 Dec 92 18:04:22 GMT
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: Acceleration
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (_Floor_) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John Roberts) writes:
>] That applies to things that are somewhat resiliant (like humans with their
>] limbs not locked), because if deformation continues throughout the period
>] of acceleration, then the entire body is not really subjected to the full
>
>Hmmm...you think maybe rigidity has something to do with this?
>If something is rigid, it is much more likely to break than something
>flimsy, which will bend.  Electronics certainly canot be built in
>a manner that will bend. Any flexing of the probe would have to
>be somehow accounted for in the design.
>

Certainly electronics can be built to be flexible,  it's just what degree
of flexibilty you desire.  Flex is a stress/strain relationship.
Steel is flexible, rubber is rigid.  you just need to define these terms
first.  besides, if you build with amorphous materials,  you can get
quite a flex out of silicons.

and i believe the designers understnad the material characteristics
of their probes quite well.


>] But other than that, and factors such as prolonged stress on human hydraulic
>] systems, the greater problem can be with rapid changes in acceleration, which
>] are of course associated with short bursts of acceleration. (I believe the
>] usual term for the time derivative of acceleration is "jerk".) These rapid
>]
>


Actually,  i think the term is Impulse.


>You're joking me if you think the Galileo probe will experience constant
>deceleration. There's going to be buffeting worse than we could imagine,
>I imagine (:-). Especially at speeds many times that of sound (which I'm
>sure will be different for the Jovian atmosphere)! So you're point is
>very applicable. Experiencing this jolting for milliseconds (as per
>a dropping watch) may not cause any damage. But if you dangled the watch
>from the ceiling and proceeded to place a jackhammer at its face,
>slamming into its face for a couple of minutes, liklihood is that
>the watch will no longer function! Ditto for an atmospheric probe.
>That thing is going to get one whale of a beating. You've helped me
>emphasize my point even more! Thanks :-)
>
>


Hopefully this kid will take a physics class.

I think he is mistaking  Work with Force and energy.

Work is force through a distance,  Energy is work*time, Force is mass*Accel
( boy i hope i got these right :-) )

It takes energy to achieve a momentum change.



A probe has high momentum hitting atmosphere.  it gets  a high acceleration,
on a small mass.  not a lot of force,  exerted through several miles of
atmosphere,  for a few minutes.

I think the kid is missing the fact that while the accelerations of dropping
a watch and hitting it with a sledge are the same, the work products are significantly  different.

Try this.   drop a timex.  work out the acceleration.

Now,  hang the timex from a string.   Let a pendular mass strike it, at low spe
ed.  work out the acceleration.  keep increasing the mass and speed.
continue until the timex dies.   I suspect you will be surprised at how
high you can go.

Halting a 5 lb sledge witha watch is a major momentum change, hence mucho
work in a millisecond.

Conducting momentum transfer via pendular masses, is much less work.
you can simulate this with that desk toy, using  pendular ball.
tape a timex on to one of the balls.  it should survive.

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

Date: Sun, 27 Dec 92 18:56:46 GMT
From: Joe Cain <[e-mail]>
Subject: asteroids beyond Jupiter
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>,
>[e-mail] (bill nelson) writes:
>
>> My definition of asteriod is: any body that orginated in the
>> "asteriod belt" (between Mars and Jupiter). etc etc

    Help! It would be useful to learn what are the "official" uses
of the words according the IAU (and IUGG?). I have a hard enough time helping
students try to keep meteor, meteorite, and meteoroid straight when
there seems to be general disagreement on the distinctions between the
meaning of the words asteroids, comets and, yes, planets. I posted
this question recently in sci.astro but so far no one has come to the
rescue.

    Is anyone willing to demote Pluto/Charon to asteroid status,
change Chiron from "asteroid" to comet, buck public sentiment to
avoid naming a body orbiting mostly a little beyond Pluto "Planet X", or
think about the use of the term "worlds" that some seem to favor for
large bodies even if not orbiting the Sun?








Joseph Cain        [e-mail]
[e-mail]        scri::cain

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

Date: 27 Dec 92 16:01:34 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: fast-track failures
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Edward V. Wright) writes:
>In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:
>
>>Today's overhead is horrible, but $100,000 1940s dollars is only about
>>$2 million 1992 dollarettes.... That's about 20 engineers in a Motel 6
>>for six months, no machine shops, hangers, mechanics, flight test equipment,
>>nada.
>
>You think a typical engineer earns $100,000 a year?
>
>I want to work for your company!

Ask your company's accounting department what they figure it costs to
keep a productive engineer on the payroll. $100,000 a year is on the
low side. Most companies figure it's closer to $250,000. That engineer
not only has salary, insurance, workmen's comp, and paperwork costs, he
also has to have office space and the tools of his trade, usually at least
a workstation. Plus there are the supporting secretaries, managers, janitors,
and of course the accounting department. Engineers aren't cheap to keep
around, even if their take home pay is low.

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     |                     | emory!ke4zv![e-mail]

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

Date: 27 Dec 92 16:24:59 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: I thinI see our problem. (Was Re: Terminal Velocity of DCX?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Edward V. Wright) writes:
>In <![e-mail]> [e-mail] (Greg Moore) writes:
>
>>    In reality it sounds more like you are talking about DC-10,
>>DC-12, etc.
>>    Unless you are saying that a 747 is the same plane as a DC-3
>>was.
>>    If your claims are about 50 years from now, or even 20
>>eyars from now, I'll buy them.
>
>I think it would do you a world of good to go out to your local
>airport and look around.
>
>Do you have any idea how many DC-3s are still flying?  After 50
>years?

Better ask how many Wright Flyers are still in operation. That's
a closer approximation of where we are in spaceflight relative
to aeronautics. And don't forget to check on how many DC-1s and
DC-2s are still doing scheduled flights.

To compare aviation and spaceflight, go back in aviation history
to where the total number of hours of powered flight of all aircraft
equal the total number of hours of powered flight for all launchers.
We're still at the sticks and string level. Actually, I'd claim we're
back with the Montgolfier brothers.

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     |                     | emory!ke4zv![e-mail]

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

Date: 27 Dec 92 18:29:45 GMT
From: Herman Rubin <[e-mail]>
Subject: Justification
Newsgroups: sci.space,misc.education

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

>>Has anyone had personal experience with magnet schools? I'm curious about
>>whether they provide any benefit.

>Well, I did not attend a magnet school, but I was part of a gifted/talented
>program in grades K-8.

>My only complaint was:  Some programs (such as the one I was subjected to)
>do not take into account that not all students will be interested in the
>same things.

>We were taught Spanish, we produced plays, we saw nature films.
>A friend of mine and I grew immensely bored with the material presented and
>spent our time in the library, reading books like Issac Asimov, etc.  I was
>never given a reason to WANT to learn Spanish, or to learn about nature, or
>to care about drama.

Is what is taught there of interest to anyone other than prospective
dramatists and others with a totally non-scientific approach?  You were
being taught trivia, not important content.  If you were taught linguistics,
so that you could get an understanding of the structure of language, rather
than memorizing vocabulary with no rhyme or reason, it MIGHT have been
worthwhile.  If you were given the mathematics, then the physic, and
then the chemistry, to understand nature, this might have been worthwhile.
But the garbage given in the gifted/talented programs is at a level far
below what the typical students were expected to be capable of before
those responsible for the attitude that "we teach children, not subject
matter" got in control.  What you were taught in these programs supposedly
for those who are capable of a first-class educations should have been
considered recreation, rather than education.

>I'm sure that magnet schools would fare better in this regard---they are
>aimed towards what some students WANT.

Fat chance!  This is the best the teachers are capable of.  There is nothing
in the nature of a curriculum designed to greatly increase the knowledge and
ability of the student.  The attitude that memorizing is education, and that
there is no structure, has effectively killed the system.  We can look things
up in dictionaries and encyclopedias, and on computers.  The good students
need to be exposed to structure and ideas, and they are capable of at least
five times what the typical teachers can handle.
--
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: [phone]
[e-mail] (Internet, bitnet)
{purdue,pur-ee}!snap.stat!hrubin(UUCP)

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

Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 19:20:31 GMT
From: Herman Rubin <[e-mail]>
Subject: Justification for the Space Program
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (I am a terminator.) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Herman Rubin) writes:
>> The US economy might be growing in dollar terms, but not in real terms
>|> per capita.  And one does not benefit if others catch up at one's
>|> expense.

>If others catch up, then they can work together with us instead of playing
>catch up. If others never made a single step to catch up, I suppose we would
>benefit?

For others to catch up, we have to stand still.  In nature, standing still
means death.  Also, for the others to catch up, there has to be enough "up"
to be caught.

>|> Academic salaries are lower in real terms now than 20 years ago, and
>|> the research which drives the future is being curtailed.  The emphasis
>|> on short-term practical results is a vain attempt to keep a reasonable
>|> position, and will soon backfire.

>I think people should be trained to make research results practical. Also,
>research reports should facilitate such efforts. Then those who are inclined
>to do research can get a chance to do research without having to worry so
>much about making their results practical.

THIS is what is, unfortunately, now being proposed.  But this will mean the
end of real innovative research.  It is true that the time between finding
basic results and applying them is shortening, but it will never vanish.

Without atronomy, it is doubtful if space exploration and travel would
ver have been done.  But apart from the calendar and predicting eclipses,
no practical applications have yet been made of the astronomical research.

Much of the mathematics and statistics being applied was studied as "pure"
research long before its applicability was seen.  Would the number theory
needed for work on cryptography have been created for that purpose?  No, it
was just pure research which led to it, without any idea that practical
consequences would occur years, and even centuries, later.  Probability
was studied as a means to better strategies for games of chance, and it
was only later that it was applied.  The same holds for analytic function
theory, group theory, and even linear algebra.

Did Darwin and Wallace have any applications for their observations in
mind when they made their studies and arrived at their conclusions about
evolution and natural selection?  Did Maxwell foresee radio and X-rays
when he derived his equations about the electromagnetic field, or even
dynamos and electic motors?  When Faraday was asked by the British Prime
Minister of what use was his discovery, I know of two answers in the
legendary literature, one, "Of what use is a baby?", and the other,
"You will find a way to tax it."

Radioactive decay and nuclear transmutation were discovered totally by
accident.  Nuclear fusion was deduced more from astronomy than anything
else.  And nuclear fission was only discovered by wondering why barium,
strontium, etc., were found in uranium deposits.

There is a search for more efficient superconductors for eminently practical
reasons.  But superconductivity itself was a surprise.

If we know what we will find, it is not research.  If we do not know, we can
only grope.  It takes the imaginative mind to see what is there, even when
groping.

>|> The US now has more government jobs than manufacturing.  The universities
>|> are catering to the ignoramuses coming out of the high schools, and standards
>|> are just about dead.

>I reflect on my public school. I think the teachers need to do much better.
>They are too afraid students won't work on their own. However, they offered
>little motivation to students to work. Students just followed rules to get
>marks. They didn't have their hearts in work.

>>Consider China.  The private sector there will grow more than 20% this
>>year, and exceed the size of the public sector; aggregate GNP growth
>>will be in double digits.  At current growth rates, China's GNP could
>>exceed the entire OECD's by the year 2010.  The per capita GNP could
>>reach current US levels within a generation, at current rates of
>>growth.

>|> Does the world have enough resources for this?

>We must wait and see. Be more efficient. That's an order.

Efficiency only goes so far.  Except for the insects, the great majority
of land animals are warm-blooded.  Warm-blooded animals are far less
efficient from the energy standpoint, often using more energy just to
maintain life than for all other purposes.  Man has raised his standard
of living by being far more wasteful of energy.

This group is concerned with space.  To get into space, we must use gobs
of energy.  But I believe that what we find there will be worth it; the
principle of serendipity is not over.
--
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: [phone]
[e-mail] (Internet, bitnet)
{purdue,pur-ee}!snap.stat!hrubin(UUCP)

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

Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 20:59:45 GMT
From: Paul Dietz <[e-mail]>
Subject: Justification for the Space Program
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Herman Rubin) writes:

> For others to catch up, we have to stand still.

Perhaps after remarks like this, Herman will be less strident in his
criticisms of the innumerate.

    Paul F. Dietz
    [e-mail]

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

Date: 27 Dec 92 16:42:47 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: Latest Pegasus news?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Steve Hastings) writes:
>>What are the Pegasus folks up to right now?
>
>The third launch is slated for January.  If that works out okay, they hope
>to ramp things up very quickly in 1993.  There's a backlog of payloads
>waiting for the second-launch problems to be solved.
>
>(Yes, problems plural:  apparently they had both a first/second-stage
>separation problem, and a fairing-separation problem.)  (Yet more proof
>that God did not mean us to build rockets that shed parts on the way up. :-))

And to think, it was only last year that Pegasus was the net's darling
that was going to bring the cost of space travel down to nil. These
bandwagons are not only crowded, they also seem to be short lived. It's
funny that the flaws only show up when something actually flies.

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     |                     | emory!ke4zv![e-mail]

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

Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 20:33:27 GMT
From: "Allen W. Sherzer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Latest Pegasus news?
Newsgroups: sci.space

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

>And to think, it was only last year that Pegasus was the net's darling
>that was going to bring the cost of space travel down to nil.

I think you will be very hard pressed to find anybody who thought
Pegasus was going to bring the cost of space travel to nil. That wasn't
its goal.

>bandwagons are not only crowded, they also seem to be short lived. It's
>funny that the flaws only show up when something actually flies.

We may all be thankful that the people at OSC are willing to try things
to see if they will work. Left to you, nobody would ever try anything
since everything which doesn't exist today, in your view, can't be done
and won't work. Progress is never made by pesismist.

  Allen
--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves        |
|  [e-mail]     |  nothing undone"                                       |
+----------------------118 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+

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

Date: 27 Dec 92 18:24:53 GMT
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: Manhattan DISTRICT (not Pr......)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Dave Michelson) writes:
>Actually, I thought it was the Manhatten Engineering District.  I don't



Um,  i heard in Los ALamos it was called United States Engineering District.
IT caused some trouble for the scientists, cuz when they were moved their
they were given housing already furnished.  all the furniture was stamped
"U.S.E.D."  Their wives were a little unhappy with the idea of used furniture
bedding etc.

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

Date: 27 Dec 92 16:39:35 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: satellite costs etc.
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:
>>... A ten year life zero defects
>>GEO comsat like K2 is much cheaper than a 1 year life package
>>that costs 20 times less. That's because most of the investment is
>>not in the satellite, it's in the Earth based terminals that use it.
>
>I don't grasp this argument.  It's the same Earth-based terminals either way.
>If you're providing a service, you plan to do so over more than one satellite
>lifetime, either way.  Twenty years of service is cheaper with mass-produced
>short-life satellites, even with your (fairly unfavorable) assumptions.
>
>>... Since the satellite represents a single point failure node...
>
>This is your assumption, not a self-evident fact.  Communications networks
>normally have redundancy to cover predictable single-point failures.
>Even today's gold-plated satellite networks do, despite the expense.

It's the network reconfiguration costs that get you. When NBC had to
reconfigure from K2 to SBS 3 due to a control failure on K2, it cost
NBC $150,000 a *minute* for 4.5 hours until the major ground systems
were re-aimed. Smaller markets didn't get back on line for over 8.5
hours. That was only 223 ground stations that had to be repositioned.
For many large corporate data networks, the number of terminals to be
re-aimed climbs into the thousands. Most ground stations are manually
pointed and require service personnel to visit the site and re-align
the dish.

Now *scheduled* transfers can be handled in off peak times, but still
require those personnel to visit all those sites. Doing that 10 times
instead of 1 get's expensive fast. Doing it *unscheduled* because of
a failure of the cheapsat, can be really expensive if it only happens
once.

>>... and since for most orbits
>>the satellites aren't retrievable or repairable, and DC won't change
>>that...
>
>Again, your assumption, not a self-evident fact.  Cheap launches change
>almost everything, including the feasibility of retrieval and repair.

I wasn't aware that DC was planned to have a GEO capability, or a large
enough cargo bay to retrieve a major comsat.

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     |                     | emory!ke4zv![e-mail]

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

Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 20:27:14 GMT
From: "Allen W. Sherzer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: satellite costs etc.
Newsgroups: sci.space

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

>I wasn't aware that DC was planned to have a GEO capability, or a large
>enough cargo bay to retrieve a major comsat.

Why do you always limit your thinking so Gary? First of all, the DC-Y
payload bay is almost the same size as Atlas. A production DC would have
a payload bay of whatever size the market needs. Second of all, you aren't
thinking of how lower costs will affect operations. Maybe a modified
DC-1 is used as an OTV to get payloads where they are returned to LEO for
repair (and not brought back to Earth). Maybe you use lower costs to fly
redundant satellites, each less relaible. When one breaks, it uses a
high efficiency electric engine to come back to LEO where it is repaired,
refueled, and returned. Maybe we abandon comsats in GEO and place them in
LEO. I can think of lots of alternatives.

   Allen

--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves        |
|  [e-mail]     |  nothing undone"                                       |
+----------------------118 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+

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

Date: 27 Dec 92 20:43:10 GMT
From: "Allen W. Sherzer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Stupid Shut Cost arguements (was Re: Terminal Velocity
Newsgroups: sci.space

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

>>Correct. But Shuttle is now flying at or very near its maximum rate.

>   No, I disagree here. NASA has never had four working shuttles in
>   service at the same time

A few years ago I saw some figures on the amount of overtime needed to
process a Shuttle. It was horendous. Adding more Shuttles will just tax
the groundcrew even more. Adding staff to eliminate this bottleneck will
only increase costs.

>   In 1992, all four orbiters flew twice, but Discovery was offline
>   from February to November, Columbia offline from January to May,
>   and Atlantis offline from August to December. Take away those
>   downtime periods and you can add three more flights.

Your assuming that orbiter availability is the only bottleneck.

I'm sure they could add one or two flights a year. But so what? all that
means is that instead of spending three times what we need we are 'only'
spending 2.75 times what we need to. I don't consider that much of a
victory.

>   This is all
>   moot, since NASA apparently does not want to push its luck prior
>   to SSF assembly, but it does show that the launch rate is lower
>   than it could be.

No because those are factors. The bottom line is that NASA cannot fly
many more missions per year than they are now.


    Allen

--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves        |
|  [e-mail]     |  nothing undone"                                       |
+----------------------118 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+

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

Date: 27 Dec 92 20:50:05 GMT
From: "Allen W. Sherzer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Stupid Shut Cost arguements (was Re: Terminal Velocity of DCX?
Newsgroups: sci.space

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

>In military procurement, the development costs are charged against
>the prototypes, X, Y, etc, and the operational vehicles of the procurement
>are charged at "flyaway" cost.

Which I suspect is done largely to hide the true cost. I point out that if
the contractors in question ran their accounts this way they would all be
in jail and out of buisness.

>Following this model, Enterprise ate the
>development costs, and it's retired. Current Orbiters are only liable for
>their $1.5 billion flyaway cost and their operational costs.

But why should we follow that model? Hiding costs like you advocate only
encourages waste and inefficiency. How can we possibly make access to space
cheap if we make it impossible to identify those costs and reduce them?

That approach simply has not and will not get us anywhere.

    Allen

--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves        |
|  [e-mail]     |  nothing undone"                                       |
+----------------------118 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+

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

Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 8:13:42 -0600 (CST)
From: [e-mail] (Patricia Reiff [phone])
Subject: University standards

In SD 15.600, Brad Porter writes:
]I tend to feel it's the univerity's standards that are lower,
]not those of the public schools.  If the professors at Purdue have this
]low of an opinion of the students, I'm going to have to reconsider Purdue
]as a possible school for me.

The problems nowadays are twofold (in my opinion):  the talent is there,
but the "best and brightest" are going for the gold (i.e. law, etc) rather
than science/engineering; and, yes, the preparation may be inadequate (and/
or) the counselors don't encourage their students to pursue a technical
career.  On the other hand, we at Rice have never had any trouble filling
our undergrad SE slots with extremely talented students (we have a 10/1
ratio of applicants to slots), so we get the very best.  In graduate school
the problem is a little different: here the problem is the perception that
faculty and research jobs are very tight and so why torture yourself with
years of grad school?  Again, we at Rice have been fortunate to have very
strong graduates who have generally not had major difficulty landing very
good jobs.  Recognizing the tightness of the funding recently, we have cut
back on the number of grad students we admit each year.

Bottom line:  we'd love to have you come to Rice, but you'd better be good
to make the cut! We'll work you hard, but you'll end up with a degree
that's worth something.

------                                                         ^
                                                             /   \
From the First Space Science Department in the World:       /     \
                                                    :      / _^ ^_ \
     Patricia H. Reiff                              :     / / O O \ \
     Department of Space Physics and Astronomy      :    /  \  V  /  \
     Rice University, Houston, TX 77251-1892        :   /  / ""R"" \  \
     internet:  [e-mail]  (128.42.10.3)    | \ ""U"" / |
     SPAN:      RICE::REIFF                         :    | _/|\ /|\_ |
                                                        /             \
"Why does man want to go to the Moon? ...  Why does Rice play Texas?"
   ....JFK, Rice Stadium, 1962

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End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 602
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