Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V16_3/V16NO302.TXT

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Date: Fri, 12 Mar 93 05:11:01
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V16 #302
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Fri, 12 Mar 93       Volume 16 : Issue 302

Today's Topics:
                           Aurora (rumors)
                                Bazea
                     Big Business Bucks in Space?
                      Galileo Update - 03/10/93
                         Lunar Ice Transport
                    Moons rotation period question
                      My DCX .sig and DCX update
                            NASA and gold
                 plans, and absence thereof (2 msgs)
      Retraining program for obsolete NASA managers & engineers
        Soviet Energia: Available for Commercial Use? (2 msgs)
                    SSF Status Report from Aldrich
         Student Design Project (was Re: Lunar Ice Transport)
                       The courage of anonymity
                    Voting on the Anonymity Issue

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

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 93 14:40:47 GMT
From: Dean Adams <[e-mail]>
Subject: Aurora (rumors)
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (Bob Combs) writes:
 >Is there a confusion about the advantage of speed?
 >I don't think it is to necessarily get accross the
 >target quickly,

That can be a VERY important advantage!   In the past it has been the
difference between life and death.  One example being all the U-2 pilots
who were shot down before the A-12/SR-71 went into operation.

 >but to get _to and from_ the target quickly.
Not nearly as critical.

 >The SR-71 was never acknowledged to overfly the USSR,
Chances are it didn't, but some early A-12 missions may have.

 >although it is supposed to have overflown Korea and other countries.

The SR also spent a LOT of time over North Vietnam, during a certain war.
Yet another example when SPEED was a VERY important advantage.  Would you
prefer to be over Hanoi with a skyfull of SAMs looking for you, flying at
Mach .85 or at Mach 3.35?  (I know which one i'd pick... :)   A lot of
guys doing .85 found themselves staying at the "Hilton" (or worse),
but *none* of the M3+ crews had such a fate...

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

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 93 16:42:21 MET
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Bazea

Has anyone on this list heard of David Bazea, who is said to be an
astronomer working in Chile (maybe at ESO)? If yes, does anyone
know his e-mail address? I should have posted that in sci.astro,
but it seems that sci.astro has no BitNet sub-distribution list,
and I am only on EARN/BitNet.
                                                       J. Pharabod

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

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1993 10:37:02 GMT
From: Nick Szabo <[e-mail]>
Subject: Big Business Bucks in Space?
Newsgroups: talk.politics.space,sci.space,alt.sci.planetary

[e-mail] (Robert J. Hall) writes:

>Mineral Exploration - correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the Earth
>  has a big advantage in this area. The biology of the planet has functioned
>  to concentrate specific minerals, making it easier to collect them on this
>  planet.

Biology has played a role in some cases, but the primary drivers are
volcanism and water, which were both present on early Mars (& an
a tiny chance life was there too).  Heavy metals segregated into
cores and exposed cores (nickel-iron asteroids) contain abundant
Pt-group elements.  Some meteors contain metal regolith with Pt-group
concentrations greater than any native Earth ore.  The up-front costs
of metal separation (probably carbonyl process) equipment are great
and the Pt-group market only $3 billion/yr, though.  Gold is
>$10B/yr, that would be very nice to find.

Within a few decades we may be able to pull off some of the biological
stunts with our own special-design organisms...

>  On the other hand, I wonder how the cost of
>  installing massive solar panel arrays compares to the price of building new
>  nuclear plants. Anybody know?

100 GW of nuclear generators -- $100B
100 GW of natural gas generators -- $70B (+ $10B/yr fuel costs)
100 GW of SPS (built from asteroid materials) & receivers/real estate:
    -- $1,000B

Not a winning proposition, I'm afraid.  The up-front costs are several
orders of magnitude higher than any other new-tech energy effort,
and there are no significant cost savings. For He-3, the extraction
costs per kilowatt are much higher than the price of electricity, and
up-front costs are also high, though not as high as for SPS.  There
is an outside chance of using kilometer-scale gossamer structures
to extract He-3 out of space plasmas (eg artificial comet tails)
for very cheap, but space fans are too fixated with lunar bases
to care about this possbility.  Alas most space fans are out to feel
good, not to make money or meet other people's needs.

>  I believe that the additional
>  variables of microgravity, a near-perfect vacuum, and unlimited space will
>  eventually make Earth manufacturing obsolete.

The microgravity is only of major benefit to a small number of
processes, and the vast majority of these are bulk processes that
require raw materials costs orders of magnitude lower than today's.
So this industry won't really take off until we start using native
materials.

>Other? - there's probably a bunch I haven't mentioned.

The biggest funder of our last big frontier, the New World,
was recreational drugs.  Spy sats know no borders; meteors
know no border gaurds...$100's billion/yr market, c. $10
billion/market startup (cf. my posts on ice mining &
chemical microreactors) if it can be pulled off in this military
dominated arena... IRR 40%/yr, I've got the spreadsheet
if anybody's interested... :-)

There may be vast potential in using the plasma/gas gradient
to separate and react materials instead of the gas/liquid
systems used by our current chemical industries...basically
we would be mimicking the chemical processes in interstellar
clouds and comet tails...

But hell, we already _have_ a rapidly growing commercial
industry, communications satellites.  $4 billion/yr (already
bigger than the asteroid platinum mining market) and growing
10-20%/year.   The fact is private enterprise is growing great
guns in space and the astronaut groupies and NASA bureacrats
can do nothing but snipe at it and rob the best space engineers
to work on useless pork barrel crap. So, if you want big business in
space don't just lobby big government; either change its
vision to match that of industry or shut it down so it will
stay out of industry's way and stop leading it off on stupid
wild goose chases like "shuttles", "stations", ad nauseum.

Nick Szabo                [e-mail]
--
Nick Szabo                     [e-mail]

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

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1993 12:53:35 CET
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Galileo Update - 03/10/93
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary

Will we see any pictures of "Ida" after the Galileio-flyby, or is the low-
gain-antenna not powerful enough to send them back to earth ?

  Herbert

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

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1993 14:04:21 GMT
From: Dave Stephenson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Lunar Ice Transport
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] writes:

>Ross  Borden ([e-mail]) wrote:
>:     In all the Lunar ice transportation proposals that I've seen,
>: nobody has mentioned what would be, on Earth, the most obvious: overland
>: hauling.
>:     To maintain high through-put, a continuous stream of vehicles
>: would haul ice from the polar ice mines to the equatorial processing
>: plants, and then dead-head back (unless there was some return cargo.)

>The extremely tenuous Lunar atmosphere offers another "overland hauling"
>possibility: ballistic delivery.  Put a fast conveyor belt at one end,
>and a large bucket at the other:


>           ice on conveyor    ballistic ice

>               i  i              -=i         \_
>           ccccccccccccccc                     \___
>          c  conveyor     c                     _  |   Intake to hopper
>           ccccccccccccccc                    _/ | |
>                                    ______   /   |i|
>        ________________------------       --------------_____
>                             lunar surface

>This has the same effect as overland hauling, but eliminates the
>vehicles, the dead-heading, and centrallizes the motive power source
>and all of the moving parts in one location -- a definite plus from a
>maintenance viewpoint.

>Of course, you wouldn't want to stand too near the intake hopper.  Or
>be downrange (or uprange) of the conveyor if the belt breaks.  But it
>sure beats a fleet of Toyota diesels slogging back and forth.

>(Oh yeah?  Who said they'd be from Detroit?  And what's wrong with
>diesel, anyway?)

>-- Ken Jenks, NASA/JSC/GM2, Space Shuttle Program Office
>      [e-mail]  [phone]

>     "...back to the moon, back to the future,
>      and, this time, back to stay." -- George Bush

Oh Dear, I can not resist this, but I wrote this for L5 News back in
1986. (L5 died before it was published). Zubrin of Martin Marietta has
also published on ballistic transport on the Moon.

It would make the Moon like a cosmic baseball diamond, but with one
difference:
If there is a catching error...... It will be the FIELDING side that
GETS THE RUNS!!!!!!
--
Dave Stephenson
Geodetic Survey of Canada
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Internet: [e-mail]

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

Date: 11 Mar 1993 09:38:10 GMT
From: Aaron Ray Clements <[e-mail]>
Subject: Moons rotation period question
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] writes:

>I have a question.
>Why does the Moon's rotation period exactly match its
>revolution period such that it always presents the
>same face to the Earth? (...and we end up with a
>darkside.)  What is the physical mechanism that
>has caused this?
>Is this common for moons around the solar system?

>-Bret-

This is actually a relatively common feature of planetary
geology and is referred to as tidal locking.  The force
of gravity exerted by the earth on liquid portions of the
moon (i.e., tides) is expended against the solid portions,
slowing the rotation period.  This happened on the moon
considerably in the past (during its cooling period, though
with a liquid core it still happens to some extent.)

This mechanism is the same reason that the earth's rate of
rotation is declining; the tides caused by the moon act
on earth's oceans and seas; this force is transferred to
the surface by the tidal action (and is particularly effective
in narrow, shallow sea beds where the gravitaional force on
the water can be transferred more efficiently to the earth's
solid crust).  Conservation of angular momentum then dictates
that the moon must absorb the momentum lost by the earth;
the moon therefore moves farther away from the earth.  The
moon will continue to recede until the earth is tidally
locked with the moon.

Note that this applies to bodies that are in part fluid.  I
believe it is rather difficult for solid bodies (eg Phobos
or Deimos) to become tidally locked.

Hope this helps.

aaron
[e-mail]

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

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1993 04:08:56 GMT
From: Dave Michelson <[e-mail]>
Subject: My DCX .sig and DCX update
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>Allen W. Sherzer ([e-mail]) wrote:
>: The NRC recently visited the DCX hanger and came away very impressed. Last
>: year they where mildly critical of the effort but seeing actual hardware
>: being built so quickly and efficiently has changed some [minds].
>
>I missed an acronym.  The NRC?  Nuclear Regulatory Commission?  Surely not.

I assume Allen means the National Research Council.

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

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

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1993 04:07:27 GMT
From: Dave Michelson <[e-mail]>
Subject: NASA and gold
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Ron Baalke) writes:
>
>Also, gold is an excellent reflector of sunlight.  For thermal control
>reasons, you often see gold on the outside of spacecraft that have to go
>within 1 AU of the Sun.

Or as a thin coating on spacesuit helmet visors...

However, all that glitters is not gold.  The gold coloured foil on the
descent stage of the lunar module (among other places) is actually
aluminized Kapton (a polyimide film which is similar to mylar but
more resistant to heat and radiation).  The aluminum appears yellow-orange
because Kapton (a trademark of DuPont) upon which it is sputtered is
yellow-orange...

(It's surprising how few people know that...)


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

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

Date: 11 Mar 1993 04:17 UT
From: Ron Baalke <[e-mail]>
Subject: plans, and absence thereof
Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.sci.planetary

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes...
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ron Baalke) writes:
>>...  Henry's emphasis is more towards the Moon.  My preference
>>is more towards the balance across the entire solar system.
>
>No missions to the Moon of any kind for two decades is "balance"?!?
>(Especially when there are still no plans for any...)
>--

We are overdue for another lunar mission.
JPL has proposed Lunar Observer.  It wasn't funded.  SEI proposed
two other lunar missions.  They weren't funded.  The intent is there,
but not the funding.  (And not the nitpick, but Galileo did make two
flybys of the Moon and collected some valuable data the last couple of
years.  Cassini will also collect additional data on its Earth flyby.
Clementine will be launched and orbiting the Moon in about a year).

Also, I think the Moon race of the 1960's have hurt subsequent lunar missions.
We've sent more spacecraft to the Moon than any other object in the solar
system.  It's the only place where we've physically set foot on.  We did
it at such an accelerated pace, that landing a man on the Moon by 1969 was
simply amazing.  On the same token, a lot of people thought we were done
with the Moon, so Apollo was cut short, and the Moon has pretty much been
abandoned since then.
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | It's kind of fun to do
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | the impossible.
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     | Walt Disney

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

Date: 11 Mar 1993 08:52:06 GMT
From: Mike Courtney <[e-mail]>
Subject: plans, and absence thereof
Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.sci.planetary

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Nick Szabo) writes:
>[e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>
>are mostly hubristic jerks sitting in their own corner thinking
            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Wow, you must REALLY be sore about getting canned from JPL...

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

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1993 09:49:21 GMT
From: Nick Szabo <[e-mail]>
Subject: Retraining program for obsolete NASA managers & engineers
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

>>[Does NASA's charter say it is]  a welfare agency for engineers and
>>MIS managers? I must've lost that page.

>It isn't.  But it's a fact of life, like it or not.
>Go work the numbers.  So what are you supposed to do with these people, have
>them flip burgers?

This raises a really good point.  Here we have a very sad story,
thousands of managers and engineers who have been working on obsolete
projects in an political climate where, contrary to capitalist economics,
greater costs bring greater revenues, and a cult(ure) where
narrow goals like prestige, "man in space", and "pure science"
have been elevated to lofty thrones completely divorced from people's
needs.

In many ways, this is similar to the problem of privatizing Russian
industry.  And look at what hell the Russians are going through.  Look
at their pathetic attempts to market their rockets, for example.  Similar
to NASA's sad efforts to find a use for the space station.  (At
least some of Russia's rockets are potentially useful; their problem
is only the marketing).

I really feel for these people.  If you had this stuff on your
resume, you wouldn't have a comet's chance in the sun's core
of your resume landing anywhere but the trash:

* manager, SSF: raised project cost from $8 billion to $100 billion
* engineer, SSF: responsible for 5 or so redesigns, cut out most
functionality.
* accountant, Shuttle: cooked books to make >$1 billion/launch cost
look like $150 million/launch so we could call it "commercial".
Exceeded initital cost projections by only two orders of magnitude.
* tester, Hubble space telescope mirror, Galileo antenna, etc.
* astronaut, NASA: Modelled spacesuits for CNN, did $10 million
    repair jobs at a cost of $600 million.
* planner, NASA: responsible for SSF, SEI, JPL's efforts to
rescue planetary exploration, and similar works of political genius.

I'm no fan of Bill Clinton, but he has one good idea,
and that's retraining programs for obsolete workers.  No offense
to the fine ladies & gentleman working at NASA, but at no place
in the U.S. is retraining more needed.  I suggest a program for
retraining NASA managers and engineers in commercial aerospace skills,
such as:

* Designing craft that are _really_ reusable, such as the Boeing
7*7 line.
* Designing automated spacecraft to serve people's needs at low
cost, instead of pathetic political ideals and obsolete "visions"
and "Grand Plans" translated into pork.
* Train engineers in space science, and space scientists in
engineering.  End the cultural ghettos.
* How to engineer with the goal of minimizing costs, instead of
raising them.
* How to engineer to meet people's needs, instead of pathetic
obsolete "visions"
* Economics, finance, and marketing (marketing involves
    much more than advertising or "PR", BTW)

If NASA engineers & managers balk at this retraining program,
I suggest we recruit Russian engineers instead, much cheaper.
If these victims of bureacracy don't realize their plight
and take the effort to bring themselves up to date, we as
private sector taxpayers must reluctantly conclude that the
remainder of our quickly-dwindling pocketbooks should be
used making sure these poor ex-NASA cases don't burn the hamburgers.

Wish this could be :-).....


--
Nick Szabo                     [e-mail]

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

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1993 23:32:52 GMT
From: Dennis Newkirk <[e-mail]>
Subject: Soviet Energia: Available for Commercial Use?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Simon E. Booth) writes:
>My question is how would payloads be mated to an Energia?  The Buran shuttle
>is of course attached the same way the US shuttle is mated to its fuel tank,

The attachment is much simpler since there are no LH or LOX connections and
less forces are involoved since the Buran does not provide thrust to the
stack during launch.

You might be interested in a proposal shown for launching Freedom parts on
an Energia in an Aerospace America issue last year.

>This seems cumbersome, unless perhaps the module itself is designed to function
>as some sort of unmanned orbiter rather than simply a launch shroud.

It's pretty much a launch shroud with an upper stage for
circularizing the orbit or boost to higher orbits.

>BTW- are we to assume that Energia evolved out of the N-1?

Why should anyone assume that? There's less in common between the N-1
and Energia than the Saturn V and the Space Shuttle. Much of the N-1
development was done outside the Ministry of General Machine Building due
to political and personal reasons. That Ministry is traditionally
responsible for big rocket design and manufacture. After Glushko took over
Korolev's old bureau in 1974 and formed Energia NPO, the work on the Energia
was carried out mainly within the Ministry of General Machine Building (much
of Buran development was done by the Ministry of Aviation. The result is
that N-1 engine development was virtually abandoned among other design aspects.

So more to the point, in 1974 Glushko started over with a clean sheet of
paper. This was no accident, it was again done for political and personal
reasons.

The only piece of the N1/L3 plan to live on was the Block-D stage which is
used on the Proton (But, only because Korolev won the L1 (Zond) mission away
from the Chelomei bureau after Chelomei fell behind schedule. Chelomei had
developed the Proton for his own L1 mission plan which did not utilize a
Proton with a 4th stage. Korolev's bureau grafted the Block-D and Zond onto
the already developed Proton to finially perform the unmanned circumlunar
missions.). A few peices of N-1 boosters are also used as storage sheds, water
tanks, etc. at the cosmodrome.

Dennis Newkirk ([e-mail])
Motorola, Land Mobile Products Sector
Schaumburg, IL

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

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1993 05:28:13 GMT
From: "Simon E. Booth" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Soviet Energia: Available for Commercial Use?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Simon E. Booth) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Simon E. Booth) writes:
>>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pat) writes:
>>
>>Problem with energiya, is there is alimited test base for the rocket.
>>it hasn't gone through a full qualification program.
>>
>>Some of the big Com Sat proposals could use a big ELV,  and a lot
>>of other programs could use something like it,  but it needs to be demonstrated
>
>
>My question is how would payloads be mated to an Energia?  The Buran shuttle
>is of course attached the same way the US shuttle is mated to its fuel tank,
>but I recall seeing an illustration of Energia just prior to its first
>flight in early 1988 (minus Buran of course). This diagram showed a
>payload module attached to where a shuttle would normally be positioned.
>
>This seems cumbersome, unless perhaps the module itself is designed to function
>as some sort of unmanned orbiter rather than simply a launch shroud.
>
>BTW- are we to assume that Energia evolved out of the N-1?
>
>Unless I'm mistaken, N-1 was supposed to exceed the launch thrust of the
>Saturn V, something like 9 or 10 million pounds of thrust vs. the Saturn's
>7.5 million.
>
>One last comment- A while back I read an article in Omni written by, and
>along with the article was a rough design for a Mars spacecraft.
>This hypothetical craft was desgined for launch by an Energia.
>
>Direct-ascent interplantary flight?
>
>Interesting concept!
>
>(now if we could only get that with a DC-variant- no need for the Energia!)
>:-)
>
>Simon
>
>
>
I need to add, the article I mention was written by Micheal Collins.
The editor ate that part of the original message.
Sorry about that! :-)

Simon

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

Date: 10 Mar 1993 12:26 EST
From: "David B. Mckissock" <[e-mail]>
Subject: SSF Status Report from Aldrich
Newsgroups: sci.space

Mr. Aldrich, in his statement before the Subcommittee
on Space on March 2, included some words about the
Space Station Freedom accomplishments this past year.
I thought the readers of sci.space might be interested
in this. Mr. Aldrich is the Associate Administrator for
the Office of Space Systems Development (he reports
directly to Mr. Goldin).

Accomplishments:
As we have gone through these recent {cost} reviews, we
have continued to make progress in the development program.
The primary objective of 1992 and the first half of 1993 is
to meet all program milestones leading to CDR and we are on
schedule to do that. We expect to finish the remaining
incremental system CDRs on schedule leading to full program
level CDR for the MTC configuration in June of this year. We
have continued development of extensive flight hardware and
test hardware, including main bulkheads, truss structure for
the first several flights, and solar cells for the first
solar array.

Work Package 1, managed by MSFC, completed a number of
important reviews, simulations, and element and system tests
this past year. Some of the significant accomplishments made
last year by WP1 and its prime contractor, Boeing, include:
 - Completing the International Standard Payload Rack
   Neutral Buoyancy Simulations
 - Successfully testing the Detailed Test Objective WP1 single-
   rack foot restraint on STS-50 Space Shuttle flight
 - Completing fabrication of Cupola Phase IV test hardware
 - Completing restraint age forming of four of eight Node
   Structural Test Article (STA) aft cylinder skin panels and
   all four Node STA Radial port skin panels
 - Completing Environmental Control & Life Support System
   (ECLSS) Flight Experiment preparation and shipped to KSC
   (scheduled for Spacehab flight in May 1993)
 - Beginning ECLSS Life Testing
 - Completing stage 7 ECLSS Water Test
 - Completing 10 subcontractor CDRs

Work Package 2, managed by JSC, has also had a year of solid
progress. Some of the accomplishments WP2 and its prime
contractor, McDonnell Douglas, have achieved this past year
include:
 - Delivering 13,733 of the total 16,783 design drawings required
   for CDR
 - Beginning production of early assembly flight hardware
 - Beginning procurement for additional flight hardware material
 - Establishing build and flow plans for production phase
 - Producing over 400 pieces of development hardware
 - Keeping development hardware testing on schedule (50% complete)
 - Developing 50% of operating system software required for MTC
 - Developing detailed application software specifications for
   Space Station systems that will be utilized to start detailed
   software design
 - Completing modifications for all major manufacturing facilities

Work Package 4, managed by LeRC, also had a solid year of progress
in 1992. Among the accomplishments WP4 and its prime contractor,
Rocketdyne, made this past year include:
 - Completing 75% of the flight solar cells for one solar array
 - Completing key development testing of solar array panels and
   solar array mast
 - Conducting battery cell testing
 - Completing tests for breadboards of all electrical hardware and
   delivering for system testing
 - Completing major tests of end-to-end electrical power system
 - Completing environmental, hypervelocity impact, robotic and
   neutral buoyancy testing to aid the design and development
   process
 - Establishing key facilities to support testing, manufacturing
   and assembly

As you can see, we have a number of major scientific activities
either completed or underway. The program continues to make
progress toward First Element Launch.

We have also developed an express payload integration process and
initiated an EXPRES payload/carrier concept (EXpedite the
PRocessing of EXperiments to Space Station) that enables payload
integration to occur in a few months rather than several years as
experienced in previous concepts and programs. We developed a
streamlined payload data distribution system that is expected to
save several hundred million dollars over the earlier designs,
and significantly reduces the agency cost for payload data
distribution.

Finally, we conducted an Operations Phase Assessment activity
which we believe will reduce our yearly operations costs
significantly. The assessment proposed consolidating sustaining
engineering support to a single contractor; centralizing the
logistics management activity at the KSC; and focusing utilization
and operations control center team manning by adopting a "safe
mode" concept similar to that used by major robotic satellite
programs.

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

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 93 03:10:20 GMT
From: Ross Borden <[e-mail]>
Subject: Student Design Project (was Re: Lunar Ice Transport)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (J DARRINGTON) writes:
>> Ross  Borden ([e-mail]) wrote:
>> :     In all the Lunar ice transportation proposals that I've seen,
>> : nobody has mentioned what would be, on Earth, the most obvious: overland
>> : hauling.
>> Sorry, but I must have missed out on the lead up to this thread - why do
>> we want to put/move ice on the moon??????
>
>You did.  A professor at the University of Cincinnati has assigned a
>design project to a bunch of engineering students.  Several of the
>students have been asking sci.space readers for advice.
>
>The project's assumptions include:

>
>1. A source of water ice at the poles of the Moon.
>[This is scientifically plausible; evidence does not yet rule it out.]
>
>2. It must be moved to a lunar base at the lunar equator for
>processing into rocket propellant (and perhaps other useful
>products?). [This is completely senseless; obviously the processing
>should be done at the poles, near the "ice mines."]
>
>Since the object of the game is to teach young designers to work to a
>customer's specifications, I see nothing inherently wrong with
>assumption 2.  It's a shame, though, that their scenario isn't more
>realistic; if it were, they could present their results at technical
>conferences.
>
    If you had an established base at the equator with
permanent housing, life support and power for a large number of people,
and, presumably, industry and research for them to do there, and THEN
discovered ice deposits at the poles, it might be reasonable.
    Of course, we should know if there is ice at the poles long
before we have a permenantly manned presence there.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  I shot a man just to watch him die;    |     Ross Borden                   |
|  I'm going to Disneyland!               |     [e-mail]            |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1993 14:27:20 -0500
From: Nicholas Kramer <[e-mail]>
Subject: The courage of anonymity
Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.privacy,comp.org.eff.talk

Dave [e-mail] writes:
> >That doesn't mean that they don't have anything valid to
> >say on other topics.
> And, of course, that means that they cannot change...in terms
> of your conception of their viewpoint.

 Then again, that newsgroup that I didn't like a few months ago may have
changed by now. Perhaps we should simply lump Usenet into a single
newsgroup? Scott Chase's description is the best so far--We don't have
time to read every last thing that is written, so we have to make
choices.

 Now, speaking as someone who doesn't have or want a killfile, I STILL
don't think that using anonymity to dodge kill files is appropriate. The
person who has the kill file obviously does not wish to hear from you;
it's their loss.


                        Nick

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

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 93 11:17:03 GMT
From: Rick Watson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Voting on the Anonymity Issue

I've been on this list for just over two months now and I'm not sure how
long the issue of anonymity has been posted back and forth. I'm no
rocket scientist (yet) but I do have a networkong background and I have
been raised in a democratic nation. I think I might have a solution to
the wasted space on this and other lists. Let's "vote" in the following
manner.
1. Create a second list that does not post items from anonymous authors.
   This would not take extra disk space. It would, for the duration of
   the test, take extra administrative duties.
2. Post the name of the new list, and have people subcribe to only one
   of the lists.
3. After some (posted) transitional time period, announce which of the
   lists has the most subcribers, subscribe the users of the losing list
   to the winning list, delete the losing list, and lets get on with
   using this list for SPACE RELATED ISSUES. It doesn't matter which
   list wins. Let's vote on what the majority of us wants and drop it.
   In the long run, this will save resouces (disk space, network
   traffic, and human: we won't have to read non-Space related arguments
   over and over.

Rick Watson
URRAW@NYUCCVM

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End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 302
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