Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V16_1/V16NO112.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1993-07-13 | 35KB

Date: Wed,  3 Feb 93 05:06:43
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V16 #112
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Wed,  3 Feb 93       Volume 16 : Issue 112

Today's Topics:
                             Atlantis...
                          Challenger Tragedy
           Clinton's Promises (space) in Charlotte Observer
               Goals for year 2000. Bread and Circuses
               Meteor Riding/Netting (lets go fishing)
                    Mir/SSF(Fred) Combo Mission..
  Non-Profit Space Exp: What would you do with $125M/year? (2 msgs)
                          Precursors to Fred
                           Solar sail Nits
                      Space Education/News/Adds
                    Space Guns, Iraq/Priorities..
             Space Station Freedom Media Handbook - 2/18
                         Units and Star Trek
                                Well..

    Welcome to the Space Digest!!  Please send your messages to
    "[e-mail]", and (un)subscription requests of the form
    "Subscribe Space <your name>" to one of these addresses: listserv@uga
    (BITNET), rice::boyle (SPAN/NSInet), utadnx::utspan::rice::boyle
    (THENET), or [e-mail] (Internet).
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 2 Feb 93 16:01:18 GMT
From: Mary Shafer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Atlantis...
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle

On Sun, 31 Jan 93 15:44:17 PST, [e-mail] (Brian Stuart Thorn) said:

>One question here-  Where is the shuttle Atlantis at the moment?  (Most of
>the schedules and such I've seen talk of Discovery, Columbia and Endeavour.)
>
>Is Atlantis in refit at the moment?

Brian>   Yep, Atlantis is at Palmdale (Downey? I've heard both and don't know
Brian>   which is correct...)

There has never been a Shuttle in Downey and there probably will never
be. Downey doesn't even have a runway long enough to get the
SCA/Shuttle combination into the airport.

Shuttles are built and refit at USAF Plant 42 in Palmdale.  The
facility is on the north side, on Ave M, fairly close to Sierra
Highway.  It was obviously used for something else originally, as you
can see where they added a high bay for the vertical stabilizer.  I've
forgotten, if I ever actually knew, any more of the building's
history.

--
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, 2 Feb 1993 18:12:31 GMT
From: Nick Haines <[e-mail]>
Subject: Challenger Tragedy
Newsgroups: sci.space

I think my attitude to the Challenger accident, and the gulf between
myself and many of the others who have posted here, can be explained
by the fact that I am English. I did not have any nationalistic pride
riding on NASA and the shuttle then, and I don't now. Americans had
(more-or-less) recovered from the perceived blow to their dignity in
Vietnam, and the Challenger thing punctured them again. So it was a
national tragedy, I guess, connected more with the self-perception of
Americans than with the objective facts of the case. It was not a
`great tragedy' in British eyes, because we had no enormous media
involvement with the Shuttle (launches were still shown on live TV
then, but not every one, and there was no great shakes about Teacher
in Space, etc.etc., such as has been mentioned by others here).

I am a space enthusiast, and I realized it would be a blow to the
American space program, but I didn't know how large and prolonged a
blow. The magnitude of the reaction was, of course, a result of the
injury to American self-image. Witness Pournelle's comments about
astronauts/test pilots, and the suggestions (here and elsewhere) that
humanity's position in space was threatened (dismissing the Soviet and
other programs).

(I would go on to defend my description of, say, the Azerbaijan
earthquake as a `tragedy', but all this is rather off sci.space).

Nick Haines [e-mail]

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

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 93 12:11:21 GMT
From: Jerry Szopinski Mfg 4-6983 <[e-mail]>
Subject: Clinton's Promises (space) in Charlotte Observer
Newsgroups: sci.space

Bruce F. Webster ([e-mail]) wrote:
: In article <[e-mail]>
: [e-mail] writes:
: > In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Edward
: V. Wright) writes...
: > >In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (rabjab)
: writes:
: > >
: > >>>        B. Support completion of the space station Freedom.
: > >
: > >>Looks like Clinton is going to make some rather severe cuts in space
: > >>projects.  And "supporting completion" doesn't mean actual completion.
: > >
: > >You don't understand.  NASA doesn't *want* Space Station Freedom
: > >completed.
: > >
: >
: > No you don't understand and your statement is a prime reason people like
: > you are not listened to at NASA. Even looking at the proposition from a
: > pragmatical political perspective, this statment of yours is false. Why?
: >
: > If NASA drags their feet and does not finish the station costs soar and
: > nothing gets done.
:
: Space Station Freedom was originally proposed in what? 1982?, was supposed to
: be on orbit and operational in 1992, and was supposed to cost a total of $8B.
: It is now 1993, not a single actual piece of Fred has been built (much less
: placed on orbit), and the estimated total cost is $40B and rising. Q.E.D.
:
: I used to work for NASA (as an employee of Singer/Link, the former contractor
: on the Space Shuttle Flight Simulator at JSC) and also worked at the Lunar and
: Planetary Institute next door. I have friends who are still heavily involved in
: the space industry at various levels. I happen to think that the best thing
: Clinton could do would be to kill SS Fred and offer $10B, tax-free, to the
: first US corporation or consortium to put a station on orbit and keep it
: staffed by at least X people for a year and day. He should also offer $5B to
: the second corporation/consortium to do the same thing. The government would
: spend less, create more jobs, and built an 21st century industrial base.
: ..bruce..
:
: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
: Bruce F. Webster             |  We hackers linger by our leading edge
: CTO, Pages Software Inc      |  Forgetting what is pending in the cache
: [e-mail]           |  Till practice hurtles past us, and we crash.
: #import <pages/disclaimer.h> |            -- Jeff Duntemann
: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
:
:

--

I agree, to some extent, with Bruce.  Major industries/consortiums should
be the prime movers behind development of a space station, but I don't
think NASA should be excluded, not with its experience and database.  If
it's going to be an open competition, with the government awarding a cash
prize to the first space station up and running, then everyone with an
interest should have a shot.

With the R&D possibilities that a space station (or bases on the moon,
asteroids, Mars, etc.) can produce, the benefits to industry and this country
are worthwhile.  The actual jobs in space may not be that many but the
support needed from down here would be great.

Has anyone read any of Allen Steele's books?  He deals with events in the near
future and pretty well describes what it would be like to be out there in
space working on space stations, powersats and moon bases.  He advocates
industries and consortiums developing, operating and maintaining these facil-
ities.  If anyone's interested the titles that I can remember righrt now are
"Orbital Decay" and "Clark County, Space".  Very interesting sci-fi, IMHO.




=======================================================================
Jerry Szopinski
I have an agreement with my employers:  I won't speak for them, and they
won't cut-off my cookie supply.

"It riles them to believe that you perceive the web they weave and keep on
thinking free!"  --  Moody Blues

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

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1993 03:43:50 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Goals for year 2000. Bread and Circuses
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:
> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>>How about this for a Goal. SSTO, SSF, Mars Mission to Mars and Solar Sail
>>Race to the Moon or ?  By the year 2000, its not that far off..
>>
>>So far what I have seen of NASA and the discussions here, no one has a combined
>>plan of what is going on and what our goal is.. I think we need to maybe have
>>the dream of Kennedy to have all the above and maybe more by the end of the
>>millenia...
>
> What we don't have is the funding a Cold War space race could command.
> There's no way Clinton/Gore are going to get Congress to fund those
> ambitious goals in a climate of deficits and debt where *social* programs
> are being neglected (in the liberal view). For that matter, the *voters*
> aren't going to stand for it. Aside from us fanatics, the average voter
> thinks we're "throwing away" money in space that should be kept down here
> on Earth to meet more pressing problems. (They don't grasp that we don't
> ship money into space, it stays right here in worker's pockets.)
>
> 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     |                     |



Basically what is going on is "Bread and Circuses". Anyone who know about Roman
Imperial history might understand that reference.. I love to read H. Beam
Pipers books... Basically the barbarians are makeing policy without knowing
what they are making policy about.. Read "Space Viking" by H. Beam Piper to
understand what I am refering to..

==
 Michael Adams, [e-mail]
 Im not high, just jacked

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

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1993 04:54:11 GMT
From: Josh Hopkins <[e-mail]>
Subject: Meteor Riding/Netting (lets go fishing)
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] writes:

>Here is an idea, maybe made more clear..
>You don't have to cut [catch?] up with the meteor, you just have to put a
>net in its way. Namely the net would be attached to a probe
>using some form of shock absorber attached to the line between the net
>and the Probe.

Take a look at your favorite video of high performance fighters going fast.
Pick one that shows them going as fast as possible at low altitude so you get
the full effect.  Now imagine they're battleships going that fast.  Now imagine
you're in a jet heading straight at them at full speed.  Now speed up everybody
by about 100 times.  Now picture yourself throwing a net in front of one of the
hypersonic battleships.  That's what you're talking about.

I hesitiate to say it's impossible to lasso a moving asteroid but it sure makes
chemical propulstion look safe and comfortable.  Given the number of easier
methods of propulsion I think we can safely assume asteroids won't be used for
delta V in such a direct manner.


--
Josh Hopkins                                          [e-mail]

Q:  How do you tell a novice from an expert.
A:  A novice hesitates before doing something stupid.

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

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1993 03:53:25 GMT
From: Dave Michelson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Mir/SSF(Fred) Combo Mission..
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>
>This myth keeps coming up & it's not correct.  You take only an order 15%
>payload hit to launch to Mir's inclination from the Cape.  More significant,
>SSF modules would need much heavier radiation shielding at high inclination
>because of passage through the South Atlantic Anomaly and generally higher
>rad fluxes, especially during solar *minimum*.  The shielding would add about
>5 metric tons to each module, if I correctly recall our net discussion on
>this topic last summer.

On a related topic...

Recently, there has been much talk about launching satellites into polar
orbit from near the poles (Poker Flats, Alaska or Ft. Churchill, Manitoba)
in order to maximize the payload to orbit.  I checked out my usual sources
(Introduction to Space Dynamics and Fundamentals of Astrodynamics) but
couldn't find anything concerning the effect of launch site latitude
and desired orbit inclination on the maximum payload...

How big is the "payload hit" if one were to launch into polar orbit from
the equator rather than from, say, the North Pole or perhaps the Arctic
Circle?  I wouldn't have thought it was that big but some people give the
impression that it is.

Can someone refer me to a text that deals with this matter?  Surprisingly,
I couldn't find one in the library here at UBC :-(  Thanks, in advance!

---
Dave Michelson                             University of British Columbia
[e-mail]                                  Antenna Laboratory

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

From: Herman Rubin <[e-mail]>
Subject: Non-Profit Space Exp: What would you do with $125M/year?
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Sender: USENET News <[e-mail]>
Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1993 14:47:15 GMT
Lines: 27
Source-Info:  Sender is really [e-mail]
Source-Info:  Sender is really [e-mail]

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jon Leech) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Brian Yamauchi) writes:
>|> 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.

>    Not to come down too hard, but obviously such numbers of people do
>not exist. Readers of this group undoubtedly have a disproportionate
>percentage of contributors relative to the population as a whole, and
>I haven't seen any evidence over a decade of reading that as much as
>.5% of the sci.space readership contributes anything signficant to
>any non-profit. SSI has perhaps a few thousand senior associates, and
>it probably has a greater funding base than any similar group.

I disagree on both counts.  The number of those willing to contribute
is probably much greater, and the amount much greater.  But at this
time I see no appropriate place to contribute.  Biospheres, launching
small experiments, etc., look to me like a waste of effort.  This is
one place where thinking big enough to actually get far more than
tiny stations up even in the medium range is necessary.  The corner
mechanic is not going to produce transportation.
--
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: 2 Feb 1993 04:54:31 GMT
From: Jeff Foust <[e-mail]>
Subject: Non-Profit Space Exp: What would you do with $125M/year?
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

    Unfortunately, the $125M/yr figure seems unrealistic.  I doubt the
combined membership of NSS, TPS, SSI, USSF, etc. comes to 1.25 million, and
most members of these organizations contribute little beyond membership dues
(plus a lot of people are members of > 1 organization).  Convincing 1,250,000
people to part of $100 a year would be a daunting task, to say the least.

    However, what if, through donations from the public, corporations
and foundations, you were able to raise $12.5M a year (10% as much)?  What
could you do with that?  Over serevarl years, could you put together a lunar
resources mapper?  A near-Earth asteroid flyby mission?  Other missions?
And, how do you afford the potentially steep launch costs?

--
Jeff Foust                        Senior, Geophysics/Planetary Science, Caltech
[e-mail]                       [e-mail]
       Final score of the Interstellar Space        Deep Space 9
      Station Championship Softball Game:        Babylon    5

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

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1993 15:35:06 GMT
From: "Allen W. Sherzer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Precursors to Fred
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] ("RWTMS2::MUNIZB") writes:

>Trying to do too much with SSF has been one of its problems, IMHO...

>However, it was probably done since NASA felt they couldn't get enough
>people to support the program if it had more restricted objectives.

The ends justifies the means? It's OK for NASA to lie to get what it
wants?

><Except for why in hell it takes twice as long and costs three times
><what it is supposed to...

>I guess I'll also have to respond to your earlier post of 'One Small Step
>for a Space Activist... (vol 3 no 12)' when you said:

><overruns, Work Package 02 now weighs in at $4.9 billion -- A 250%
><increase during a time when funding and design for Freedom was
><relatively stable.          **********************************
> *****************

>SAY WHAT???  The program has undergone numerous re- and re-designs and
>has never received the full NASA request for funding.

This overrun happened during a time when there where no redesigns and
NASA got at least 80% of its request. Explaining an overrun of this
magnitude because you didn't get 20% of the funding just doesn't cut it.

><Congresses' fault? Not this time.

>WHAT ABOUT ALL THE OTHER TIMES??

I don't think there are any times where Congress gets more than half
the blame.

>(Sorry, but this is a pet peeve of
>mine).  Every year the people working on the program go through the
>"rites of spring" as we watch the news about the congressional budget
>hearings to see if we'll still have a job, or if the requirements
>dictated by that well-spring of engineering experience, the U.S.
>Congress, will mandate another redesign.

Those redesigns where the direct result of NASA either overselling
Freedom or genuine problems in the design. In internal NASA report
for example, said that ther need for logistics flights was "growing
out of control" before the last redesign. Of all the designs we have
seen, the current one is the only one done which could possible be
built.

>When McDonnell-Douglas and
>Rocketdyne had to go to the Pre-Integrated Truss concept, the structural
>design had to start from scratch.

They had to go to the pre-integrated truss because the old design
*COULDN'T BE BUILT*. The question here isn't why Congress forced
a redesign. The question is why McD wasted years of time and billions
of $$ on a truss which couldn't be built.

The answer to the question is obvious BTW. NASA pays more for desings
that don't work than for ones which do.

    Allen

--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves        |
|  [e-mail]     |  nothing undone"                                       |
+----------------------133 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+

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

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1993 05:03:44 GMT
From: Josh Hopkins <[e-mail]>
Subject: Solar sail Nits
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (Tom) writes:

>>>Yep ... you simply turn it around and use it to capture the *outward* solar
>>>wind of your destination star to slow you down.

>>Solar sails do NOT use the solar wind.  They run on light pressure.

>Further nit:  If light has momentum and protons have a wavelength,
>how do you classify one as wind and not the other?  They are both
>"stuff emitted from the sun at supersonic velocities" after all.

>(Yes, I know the light gives greater momentum, and that the def. of
>solar wind is "Protons from the sun".  But it is a rather arbitrary
>def., isn't it?)

Contrary to what Vanna White may think, photons and protons differ by
substantially more than one letter.  If your breed of physics is more soplistic
than mine I'll settle for pointing out that in my universe the solar wind
produces 3 or 4 orders of magnitude less momentum then photons.  Calling the
two the same is a little like spraying gamma rays around when you want a
flashlight.  "Hey, it's all light, right?"

--
Josh Hopkins                                          [e-mail]

Q:  How do you tell a novice from an expert.
A:  A novice hesitates before doing something stupid.

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

Date: Mon, 1 Feb 93 11:36:40 GMT
From: Jerry Szopinski Mfg 4-6983 <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Education/News/Adds
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] wrote:
: Sounds liek what is needed is to convince the US population that Space is where
: we need to go.. Sounds like NASA needs to spend more on Public Relations.
:
: Maybe get a news network involved. maybe have them do some mnor sponsorship of
: some space related high profile TV programs/Cable to. Such as Star Trek
: (TNG/DS9). I am finding that if a major news netowrk is on your side, you can
: do alot of things.. REF: Clinton.. and somewhat Perot.. I know of other third
: party candidates who can't get to square one, but Perot comes out of obscurity
: to where people want to know what he ate for breakfast..
:
: Maybe also try to have some space/science programs on mainlien TV..
: Also start or help local quality TV organizations, namely cause of what I have
: seen the basic bent for modern TV is a prime help for the lack of science in
: the current crop of students..
: Im not talking violence, Im talking about who is cool and who is not..
: Scientists many times are not cool, they are egghead, nerds, geeks and such..
: Bumbling social idiots.. (I might be wrong)..
:
: ==
: Michael Adams alias Ghost Wheel/Morgoth [e-mail]
:


What we really need is something to light peole's imaginations again.
Mercury lit the flame that burned all the way through Apollo and the moon
landings.  It almost flickered-out after that, but the Space Shuttle
brought it back to life.  Then the Challenger snuffed it out.  Today
Shuttle missions go up barely noticed.

The government is funding the programs but there is no public excitement.
There's no feeling of challenge, no brave young men daring catastrophy in
the face, risking their lives to explore the great unknown.  The Shuttle
goes up and comes back down with everyone onboard safe and sound (yawn!).

What the Space Program has to do is start reaching beyond the limits of
the Earth and Moon.  It has to fire the imagination of the public for
exploration of this solar system and beyond.  Sure, there are projects
for Mars exploration, but does the public know about them?  Not unless
they watch PBS or catch an article in a magazine or newspaper.

The Space Program suffers from a very negative image right now.  The
public knows all about the Challenger disaster and the Hubble space tele-
scope; are they aware of all the successful experiments that have been
done on the Shuttle?  Hardly.  My cable company gets the NASA channel and
I saw an amusing and very interesting experiment done with magnetic marbles.
But not every cable company broadcasts the NASA channel, not everybody
has access to a newsnet computer.

The Space Program has to re-light that fire of imagination, get people
interested again in WHAT'S OUT THERE.  They have to get the people to push
their imaginations, push their realms of existance past our tiny little
world and into the vast unknown of space.  Our future is out there; we
have to want to go get it.


=======================================================================
Jerry Szopinski
I have an agreement with my employers:  I won't speak for them, and they
won't cut-off my cookie supply.

"It riles them to believe that you perceive the web they weave and keep on
thinking free!"  --  Moody Blues

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

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1993 03:57:03 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Guns, Iraq/Priorities..
Newsgroups: sci.space

Space Gun. Its interesting to note that the Super Gun the Iraqis were building
was actually designed to be a launch platform for "small" orbit/sub-orbital
devices.. Anyone seen/read "King Davids Spaceship" (I think this was the
title).
What is the possibility of using a space gun to send payloads into space? How
about a pulse rocket? Just thinking of more than the standard ways to get
payloads into space..

We need a priority and set some form of ideas on what payloads can be best sent
into orbit and by what mean.. A device into orbit the size of the old Sputnik
might be better put up by a "space Gun" or a missle from a F15 or like
airplane.. versus sending it up by a shuttle..

==
 Michael Adams, [e-mail]
 Im not high, just jacked

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

Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1993 15:07:11 GMT
From: Bruce Dunn <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Station Freedom Media Handbook - 2/18
Newsgroups: sci.space

From NASA SPACELINK:

"6_10_2_3.TXT" (7318 bytes) was created on 10-06-92

The Case for Space Station Freedom: A Statement of Purpose

Why a Space Station?
All seven space stations in history--one American, six Soviet--have
been built and lofted to orbit for one basic purpose: to enable
exploration. The space station NASA is building for the 1990s is first
and foremost a means to that end.

Space Station Freedom embodies ideas first cast into the 20th
century, on three different continents, by the founding fathers of
modern rocketry: Oberth, Tsiolkovsky and Goddard. It fulfills the
guiding principles written into the preamble of the National
Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, the law which created NASA and
charged it to expand human knowledge, improve airplanes and
spacecraft, and learn how to fly equipment, supplies and, most
importantly, life from the planet Earth, in space. NASA's charter was
to learn what technical and scientific benefits could be gained on the
new ocean of space, to cooperate with other nations, and to marshal
America's technical, industrial and scientific talents to explore the
space frontier.

NASA's space station is, as President George Bush said, a "critical next
step in all our space endeavors." Skimming along 250 miles above
the cloudtops of Earth, Space Station Freedom is essential for
advancing the human exploration of space. Continued progress in the
human exploration of space requires the development of a
permanently manned space station for multi-year studies of human
adaptation, testing of life support systems and experience in
building, maintaining and operating a large manned space system.
Freedom also will serve as a permanent Earth-orbiting laboratory. It
will allow humans the time and capability to routinely study,
develop and employ the resources and potential of space. Aboard
Freedom, scientists and engineers will do work and research in the
microgravity environment of space for prolonged periods of time.
Freedom's mission is three-fold. First, it will provide a permanent
outpost where we will learn to live and work productively in space.
Freedom will be an orbiting research base with essential resources of
volume, power, data handling, and communications to accommodate
experiments for long-duration studies of human physiology and
well-being in space, research that is required before the nation can
embark on achievable, long-range human exploration goals. We need
years of experience in space, not just days or weeks or even months.
Second, Freedom will provide an advanced research laboratory to
explore space and employ its resources for the benefit of humanity.
Space Station Freedom will be a permanent, multi-purpose research
laboratory and outpost in space unsurpassed in equipment and
capabilities with the constant presence of a hands-on crew for
learning how to use the unique microgravity environment of space,
enabling the study of new materials, new medicines and new
technologies. And finally, Freedom will provide the opportunity to
learn to build, operate and maintain systems in space. Space Station
Freedom will be an engineering testbed, located in low Earth orbit
where we will perfect our ability to live and function, to allow
development of the systems, the logistics, the knowledge and the
talents required for the full-scale utilization and exploration of space.

The Next Logical Step
Of all the challenges inherent in space flight, perhaps the most
difficult is rising up out of our planet's gravity well. And one of the
earliest precepts in NASA's philosophy of space operations was the
realization that most of the risk and much of the cost associated with
space flight is tied to climbing out of this well and reaching Earth
orbit. That is why a space station has been seen--for decades--as a
logical development in the enterprise of space travel. A space station
will allow the U.S. and its international partners to end what the
1986 report of the National Commission on Space called "our visitor
status in space." No longer limited to brief sorties, the U.S. will be
able to capitalize on the expense and risk of leaving the Earth and
maximize the four absolutely critical spacefaring resources: time in
orbit, power, volume and crew.

The Waypoints of Exploration
During the Age of Discovery, explorers capitalized on past experience
and built upon the voyages of those who went before them. In
American history, the frontiers moved steadily westward as
explorers crossed each of the natural barriers in turn, and the
waypoints of exploration moved westward with them. On the space
frontier, the first natural waypoint is low Earth orbit, the modern
equivalent to the river junction, the oasis, the island or the railhead
of old. Earth orbit is a natural center of activity for space travelers, a
resting place before moving on across the deep ocean of space.
Earth orbit is the logical place to build a permanent outpost, to try
new things, to learn about space after an arduous trip across the
gravity barrier. Still within the sheltering arms of Earth's magnetic
field, which offers protection from the harsh radiation of deep space,
it is close to the home planet, a relatively easy vantage point from
which to depart in the event of an emergency. There is no better
location in all of the Solar System than low Earth orbit to perfect our
ability to live and function in this new environment, to allow
development of the systems, the logistics, the knowledge and the
talents required for the full-scale utilization and exploration of space.
An orbital station is the natural extension of America's spacefaring
enterprise, a fertile and accessible waypoint along an outbound trail,
a logical next step in our travels above the skies of Earth.

Why Now?
Space Station Freedom is a sound design, the product of years of
planning and preparation. It builds upon the momentum and
experience of 30 years of U.S. manned space flight experience. To
stop now would be to lose that momentum, to steer U.S. manned
space flight to a technological dead end just as the conditions are ripe
for a fundamental next step in space travel.

That next step represents an investment in the future. The
investment NASA is proposing is one which stretches well into the
next century, and one which will only become more difficult to
realize in practical terms, and more costly the longer we wait.
Leadership abandoned is leadership lost, in other words, and that
would be a high price to pay over the long-term for the short-term
gain of less than one-tenth of one-percent of the U.S. government's
annual budget.

The issue, however, goes even deeper than that. It goes to the heart
of how a great nation chooses to invest in its own future, of the kind
of legacy the present generation plans to leave for those who will
follow. It goes to the heart of accepting a challenge and
acknowledging risk versus gain.

If we are to achieve anything of lasting significance in space, we
must be willing to experiment, to learn from our mistakes and our
successes, and to move on to the next challenge. Space Station
Freedom is about expanding the human presence in space. If we wish
to achieve that goal, now or in the future, then we should proceed.

Richard H. Kohrs
Director, Space Station Freedom



The material above is one of many files from SPACELINK
A Space-Related Informational Database
Provided by the NASA Educational Affairs Division
Operated by the Marshall Space Flight Center
On a Data General ECLIPSE MV7800 Minicomputer

SPACELINK may be contacted in three ways:

1) Using a modem, by phone at 205-895-0028

2) Using Telnet, at spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov

3) Using FTP capability. Username is anonymous and Password is guest.
Address is 192.149.89.61.



--
Bruce Dunn    Vancouver, Canada   [e-mail]

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

Date: Tue, 02 Feb 93 13:40:56 EST
From: Tom <[e-mail]>
Subject: Units and Star Trek

From: Otto Maddox <[e-mail]>

>     How long would it take a ship traveling at Warp 1 to get to a
>planet that is 60 light years away?

I'm afraid I can only work in MKS or CGS.  Can I get some units on 'warp'?

-Tommy Mac
------------------------------===========================================
Tom McWilliams               |Is Faith a short '  `      '   *.;     +%
[e-mail]       |cut for attaining    +    .      '
[phone] -or- 353-2986 |  . knowledge? ;"'       ,'    .   '     .
a scrub Astronomy undergrad  |      *     ,    or is it just  .       .
at Michigan State University |   ';   '        * a short-circuit?   ,
------------------------------===========================================

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

Date: 2 Feb 1993 00:29:09 -0500
From: Michael Y Ko <[e-mail]>
Subject: Well..
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.misc,rec.arts.startrek.tech

Well, since Warp 1 is c, the speed of light, it should take a ship traveling
to a planet 60 light years away 60 years. Pretty basic...

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

End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 112
------------------------------