Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V16_1/V16NO106.TXT

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Date: Mon,  1 Feb 93 05:04:05
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V16 #106
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Mon,  1 Feb 93       Volume 16 : Issue 106

Today's Topics:
                     ** INTERSTELLAR HYDROGEN **
             Active Space Research/Home Sewage Recycling+
                        Challenger transcript
                       Color scheme on the VAB
                    CROSSPOSTING:  ENOUGH ALREADY!
                      Magellan Update - 01/29/93
       Non-Profit Space Exp: What would you do with $125M/year?
                          Precursors to Fred
                          Precursors to SSF
The State of the Russian Space Program (was Re: An 'agitator' replies)
                    Using off-the-shelf components

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

Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1993 08:52:29 GMT
From: PFENNIGER Daniel <[e-mail]>
Subject: ** INTERSTELLAR HYDROGEN **
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Jack Coyote) writes:
|> In sci.space, [e-mail] (Jason Cooper) writes:
|>
|> >Does anybody here know what the state of interstellar hydrogen is?  IE,
|> >is it molecular or atomic?
|>
|> From fair to hazy recollection of my ISM class:
|>
|>     Phase                 T(K)      Density (#/cc)       Composition
|>    "Hot" ISM              10^6         .01  (?)          Ionized H  (H II)
|>    "Warm" ISM             10^4      .1 - 1               H II
|>    "Cool" ISM             100        1 - 100             Atomic H  (H I)
|>    Dark Cloud            3 - 10     10^3 - 10^6          Molecular H2
|>   In general, these can be thought of as non-mixing types.  The central cold
|> cloud of molecular hydrogen condenses a "cool" shell, which condenses a "warm"
|> shell from the general "hot" ISM.
|>
|>   Space filling is approx:
|>   Hot:    50%
|>   Warm:   30%
|>   Cold:   19%
|>   Other:   1%
|>
|>   Again, all of this is from memory. For accurate numbers, try _Astrophysics II:
|> Interstellar Matter and Galaxies_, Bowers & Deeming, (Jones & Bartlett),1984
|> ISBN 0-86720-047-2, or _Physical Processes in the Interstellar Medium_, Spitzer,
|> (Wiley & Sons), 1978, ISBN 0-471-02232-2.
|>
|>                     Michael Kellen
|> --

From these numbers one deduces that most of the mass (~density*volume)
is cold, the cold mass dominating the hotter forms by a factor between
~100 and ~10000.

    Daniel Pfenniger

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

Date: 1 Feb 93 02:20:19 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Active Space Research/Home Sewage Recycling+
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:
> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>>
>>One benefit of space research is a possible self recycling of home sewage.. Why
>>must the home send all its sewage farther than its own sewage recycling tank..
>>Where most or all the water is pressed out, and the solid waste is then taken
>>away.. The water being used again.. Or am I to wierd..
>
> Not weird, you just described a home septic tank system, though instead
> of pressing out the water, gravity is allowed to do the separation. The
> solids remain in the settling tank and the liquid is recycled as lawn
> fertilizer via the drain field. No moving parts, low cost, low tech,
> and there were millions in use before the first space shot. Every few
> years you have the settling tank pumped out by a truck and the residue
> carted away for use as farm fertilizer.
>
> 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     |                     |

What I mena is if you can recycle sewage in space, why notr do the same at the
local home level..

==
Michael Adams alias Ghost Wheel/Morgoth [e-mail]

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

Date: 1 Feb 93 02:07:03 GMT
From: "David L. Albert" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Challenger transcript
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John F Carr) writes:
>
>Can someone who does not insist on remaining anonymous comment on the
>credibility of this?
>
>I won't comment on the alleged tape transcript, but I thought the crew
>capsule hit the water at far less than the claimed 2000 mph.  3 minutes
>should be long enough to reach terminal velocity, which I would expect to be
>subsonic.
>
>
>
>--
>    John Carr ([e-mail])

 There is an order of magnitude error here.  Terminal velocity for an
object like the crew compartment would be about 200 mph.  Perhaps a typo.
As for the credibility of the transcript, I personally find it VERY
disturbing.  Although I am a srtrong supporter of our 1st ammendment
rights, I think that the feeling of the people more personally involved
should be given much more weight.

D


=================================================================

        David L. Albert   PP-ASEL/IA

[e-mail]        [e-mail]

Tufts University            Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Box 2 - Physics Dept.            Mail Stop 169-506
Medford, MA  02155            Pasadena, CA  91109
[phone]                [phone]

"Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
   and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings..."

=================================================================

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

Date: Mon, 1 Feb 93 01:19:02 EST
From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Subject: Color scheme on the VAB

-From: [e-mail] (Frederick A. Ringwald)
-Subject: Color scheme on the VAB
-Date: 28 Jan 93 03:19:49 GMT
-Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

-What I was wondering was, this Christmas break, on my usual trip to
-Florida to visit my parents, I made my usual trip to KSC, and thought I
-noticed something odd. Maybe it was just that I was there in late
-afternoon, but - could it be? - did they change the color scheme on the
-VAB?

-It seemed dark grey on light grey, as opposed to black on white, as it
-used to be, with the red-white-and-blue added in 1976. Again, maybe it
-was only the lighting?

How close did you get? I've been there several times, and I've noticed that
on murky days, the contrast goes down significantly. That's particularly
noticeable on the VAB, because it can be seen from such a great distance.

Sunlight near sunset can be very dramatic too. The first time I watched
a Shuttle launch was right before sunset, with the sun behind me as I looked
toward the Shuttle across the water from near Titusville. I'd have to
consider that just about optimum lighting conditions.

John Roberts
[e-mail]

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

Date: 31 Jan 93 22:03:25 EDT
From: Ruth Ginzberg <[e-mail]>
Subject: CROSSPOSTING:  ENOUGH ALREADY!
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.bio,soc.culture.usa,sci.psychology

There has been way too much crossposting to sci.med recently.  PLEASE look at
the distribution list(s) for your post(s) and remove sci.med if the discussion
is no longer on the topic of medical science.  Thank you.

------------------------
Ruth Ginzberg <[e-mail]>
Philosophy Department;Wesleyan University;USA

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

Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1993 06:12:31 GMT
From: _Floor_ <[e-mail]>
Subject: Magellan Update - 01/29/93
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ron Baalke) writes:
] 4.  The Project continues its systematic archiving of science data.  A
] complete validated catalog of data from the first 243-day mapping
] cycle has been delivered to the Planetary Data System Central Node at
] JPL and to the PDS Geosciences Node at Washington University.
                                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yeah! It's nice to finally get mentioned in one of these updates - a touch
of prestige :-) Thanks, Ron!

  _____    "But you can't really call that a dance. It's a walk." - Tony Banks
 /  ___\  ___  __ ___   ___      _____________   [e-mail]
 | / __  / _ \ | /   \ / _ \     |  physics  |   [e-mail]
 | \_\ \ | __/ |  /\ | | __/     |racquetball|   [e-mail]
 \_____/ \___/ |_| |_| \___/     | volleyball|   [e-mail]
 Gene Van Buren, Kzoo Crew(Floor), Washington U. in St. Lou - #1 in Volleyball

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

Date: 1 Feb 93 10:01:09 GMT
From: Brian Yamauchi <[e-mail]>
Subject: Non-Profit Space Exp: What would you do with $125M/year?
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

One of the perennial debates on this newsgroup is that of government
vs. commercial funding for space exploration.  We all know the
problems with government funding -- politics, bureaucracy, waste,
inefficiency.

The problem with commercial funding is that with the exception of
near-Earth unmanned satellites, most of the potential profit seems
very long-term.  Asteroid mining, comet mining, and solar power
satellites may all be possible, but I don't think they will actually
become profitable for quite a while -- and He3 mining seems to be
really grasping at straws when we can't even get D-T fusion to work
effectively...  (Space tourism might be an exception, but that's a
subject for another posting.)

So what about a third alternative -- space exploration by non-profit
organizations?  The Planetary Society (Mars balloon snake, Mars
microrover), Space Studies Institute (lunar prospector), and the World
Space Foundation (moon/Mars solar sail) have all made valiant first
efforts, but I'm thinking about something on a much larger scale.

The conventional wisdom is that only governments and multinational
corporations have sufficient resources -- but is this necessarily
true?  Space exploration may not be a top priority for the majority of
American citizens, but there do seem to be a lot of people -- from all
walks of life -- who do share a strong interest in space.  Suppose
that 1 out of every 200 Americans is sufficiently interested in space
exploration to be willing to donate $100/year to a non-profit space
exploration organization -- 0.5% x 250 million x $100 = $125 million.

What could we accomplish with a $125 million/year budget and no
government bureaucracy, no Byzantine procurement regulations, and a
willingness to take calculated risks?  (Assume, for the sake of
argument, that our organization is sufficiently well-connected to
obtain waivers for the more unreasonable regulations on private
launches.)
--
_______________________________________________________________________________

Brian Yamauchi            Case Western Reserve University
[e-mail]    Department of Computer Engineering and Science
_______________________________________________________________________________

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

Date: 1 Feb 93 01:58:21 GMT
From: "Allen W. Sherzer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Precursors to Fred
Newsgroups: sci.space

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

>> [I said NASA should fly more flights to test construction methods]

>   That all sounds like a very good idea, and I hope NASA expands its
>   current pre-Station shuttle tests.


Actually I ment in the past tense. It is far far too late in the design
process for this.

>   More spacewalks are already on the schedule, with three still to
>   come this year, on top of the STS-61B and STS-49 EVA construction
>   tests (neither of which produced potential show-stoppers.)

The very small amount of testing done is hardly enough. A test where you
use another astronaut as something to lug around isn't going to tell you
much.

   Allen
--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves        |
|  [e-mail]     |  nothing undone"                                       |
+----------------------135 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+

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

Date: 1 Feb 93 02:09:35 GMT
From: "Allen W. Sherzer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Precursors to SSF
Newsgroups: sci.space

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

>[This is really more of a response to Allen's statements in the context of
>your question - "what is being done in orbit that's expected to be useful
>for SSF?" I thought the subject was worth mentioning, separate from the current

>They seem to be doing a lot of it already. And not just the experiment setups
>that Dennis Wingo gives a very good description of - they also have done or
>have scheduled tests that should give information on station fabrication
>and assembly techniques.

Playing on a toy car for a few hours and lugging an astronaut around the
payload bay aren't my idea of good tests.

They ought to fly some empty modules weighted with sand and see if they can
stick them together. They should then try and connect up a piece of the
pri-integrated truss. This dhould have been done years ago. These very
important tests shouldn't be tacked on when there is nothing better to
do but should be critical experiments run at high priority.

The lack of integration testing makes this even more imperative.

>I'd like to see them test the structural interfaces - send up two dummy
>"ends" of SSF modules on a single Shuttle mission, fasten them together,
>pressurize them, then test them for susceptibility to various combinations..

EXACTLY!

    Allen

--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves        |
|  [e-mail]     |  nothing undone"                                       |
+----------------------135 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+

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

Date: 1 Feb 93 01:26:15
From: Brian Yamauchi <[e-mail]>
Subject: The State of the Russian Space Program (was Re: An 'agitator' replies)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Matthew DeLuca) writes:

>>At the height of the Soviets' power, it would have
>>been a great propaganda victory for them to have a bustling space activity

>They had (and have) the world's only operational space station. They have
>a facility on orbit to produce commercial semiconductor materials. Their
>rookies spend more time in space then our experts. I would say they have
>a bustling space program.

They certainly _had_ a extremely successful space program, but it
now seems to be in deep trouble...

There's a good article on the state of the Russian space program in
the current (March 93) issue of Smithsonian Air and Space magazine.

From the article:

"I visited Moscow almost a year after the disintegration of the union
to ask scientists, engineers, and officials who had devoted their
careers to the space program whether they thought they could continue.
I found most of them languishing in poverty and wondering what would
happen next."

Of course, this isn't the fault of the Soviet scientists and engineers
themselves -- I'm sure NASA would have difficulty coping with the
collapse of the Federal Government and the breakup of the United
States into a half dozen independent nations...

>>while the Americans limped along in their Shuttle...

>Since they pay less than $1,000 per pound to fly their microgravity experiments
>and Dennis spends ten times as much to fly his I would agree that we are
>indeed limping.

We may be limping, but the Russians seem to be staggering toward the
abyss -- which is all the more reason to buy any Soviet space hardware
that would be useful for our own space program.  If we wait too long,
the engineering teams and production facilities may cease to exist.

One of the interviews is with a former test pilot/aerospace
industrialist who has converted a factory that used to build EVA suits
and MMUs to build vegetable slicers:

"The MR 500 slices, it dices, it will cut 500 kilograms per hour of
any vegetable you wish into any geometric shape you need."

One of the more interesting interviews is with the former chief rocket
scientist of the Soviet space program who worked on the Soyuz, Proton,
and N1 launchers.  He's now working on a "truly reusable launch
vehicle".  He says "the world needs a $10 million launch system".

The article includes a photograph of a Soyuz launcher bearing a Sony
logo.  I suppose if we can't convince NASA to buy Soviet hardware, we
could always try to convince Shimizu...
--
_______________________________________________________________________________

Brian Yamauchi            Case Western Reserve University
[e-mail]    Department of Computer Engineering and Science
_______________________________________________________________________________

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

Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1993 02:58:04 GMT
From: Jeffrey J Bloch <[e-mail]>
Subject: Using off-the-shelf components
Newsgroups: sci.space

This thread may be interested in an article that we have
submitted for publication:

"The ALEXIS Small Satellite Project:
    Better, Faster, Cheaper Faces Reality"
    by Priedhorsky et al.

To be published in IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science.

I'm sorry but I don't know the volume number or
publication date yet.

This article describes our good and bad experiences at Los Alamos
building a 225 pound mini-satellite on a faster, cheaper
timescale. The satellite will perform an X-ray astronomy
and an VHF ionospheric experiment. It will (hopefully)
be launched on Pegasus one of these days......

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

Newsgroups: sci.space

From: "Allen W. Sherzer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: An 'agitator' replies (was: Clinton's Promises...)
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Organization: Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1993 01:50:03 GMT
Lines: 59
Sender: [e-mail]
Source-Info:  Sender is really [e-mail]

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Matthew DeLuca) writes:

>Claims like this make me wonder: we hear from certain agitators on this
>group

That's the first time I have ever been called that. :-)

>how if we only were to use cheap Soviet hardware, we could do more in
>space than we do now for only a fraction of the cost.

I think I have documented it pretty well. But I point out that of the
$2.5 billion yearly cost of my alternative Freedom logistics approach only
$200M (less than 10%) is composed of Russian hardware. It is hardly extensive
use.

Even the proposals to use Energia only have 5% or so of their cost in Russian
hardware.

>If this is true, why didn't the Soviets do it?

They did.

>At the height of the Soviets' power, it would have
>been a great propaganda victory for them to have a bustling space activity

They had (and have) the world's only operational space station. They have
a facility on orbit to produce commercial semiconductor materials. Their
rookies spend more time in space then our experts. I would say they have
a bustling space program.

>while the Americans limped along in their Shuttle...

Since they pay less than $1,000 per pound to fly their microgravity experiments
and Dennis spends ten times as much to fly his I would agree that we are
indeed limping.

>instead, we saw the
>Soviets restricted to the same tin-can technology they've been using since
>1961.

Guess what, if you can't get Uncle Sam to pay your way and you need to
find a cheap way to get to space you will find yourself restricted to
the same tin-can technology *WE* have been using since 1961.

>Something tells me it's just not as cheap and easy as certain people
>like to make it seem.

Let me get this straight, our system costs ten times as much as theirs
and only gives 20% of the time in space. Yet you think it is more advanced?

To quote Corporal Hudson: "I don't know if you have been keeping up with
current events pal but we just got our butts kicked!".

   Allen
--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves        |
|  [e-mail]     |  nothing undone"                                       |
+----------------------135 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+

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

End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 106
------------------------------