Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V16_3/V16NO342.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1993-07-13 | 32KB

Date: Sat, 20 Mar 93 05:10:48
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V16 #342
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Sat, 20 Mar 93       Volume 16 : Issue 342

Today's Topics:
                           Aurora spotted ?
                         CD for Pluto Mission
                              Grand Plan
                      How to cool Venus (2 msgs)
               Just a little tap (was Re: Galileo HGA)
   LPI, UAz, and ET resources (was Re: plans, and absence thereof)
                          Luddites in space
   Lunar Arctic, pressure, antifreeze (was Re: Lunar ice transport)
                         Lunar ice transport
                     Need address info / Germany
             Our Universe not a party Universe? (2 msgs)
         Predicting gravity wave quantization & Cosmic Noise
Small Expendable Deployer System Launch Advisory (was Re: Launch Windows
                 SSTO: A Spaceship for the rest of us
           Szabos on Spaced [was -- Re: Luddites in space]
                  Why use AC at 20kHz for SSF Power?
                        will dust cool Venus?

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

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 13:10:13 -0500
From: Lawrence Curcio <[e-mail]>
Subject: Aurora spotted ?
Newsgroups: sci.space

From: [e-mail]

>>Lawrence Curcio writes (Wed, 17 Mar 1993 15:52:29 -0500):
>>
>>How do you know this isn't an ordinary extraterrestrial UFO ?
>>
>>-Larry
>>
>>P.S...... :)
>
>Because, up to the present time, extraterrestrial UFOs are extraordinary.
>This is what the philosophers call "Occam's razor". I am not very fond
>of philosophy, and don't understand much in it (but is there much to
>understand ?). However, this Occam's razor principle sounds good. If
>I understand correctly, its application can be summarized as follows:
>when there are an ordinary and an extraordinary explanation for the
>same phenomenon, always choose the ordinary one...
>
>J. Pharabod

Well, since the smiley was ignored, it's a good opportunity to be
candid. A Mach 8 spy plane is certainly not ordinary either. UFO reports
are - that was my original point. It strikes me that the
evidence/arguments for the AURORA are no stronger than those for UFO's,
yet UFO's are (rightly or wrongly) dismissed out of hand, and the AURORA
is (rightly or wrongly) embraced - by the same group of individuals. In
fact, now we have a rule that says:

1) If a sighting can be a UFO sighting or an AURORA sighting, it's an
AURORA sighting;

2) If the sighting cannot possibly be an AURORA sighting, dismiss it.

Don't mistake me for a UFO advocate; I am merely impressed by the social
dimension of what passes for common sense. IMHO, we should be
consistently skeptical of *ALL* sightings noises and rumors, but allow
room in our philosophies for extraordinary things - even Mach 8 spy
planes.

-Larry C.

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

Date: 19 Mar 93 19:22:49 GMT
From: Arthur Chandler <[e-mail]>
Subject: CD for Pluto Mission
Newsgroups: sci.space

  Someone refresh my memory: what was in the last "message in a bottle"
spaceship (I seem to recall a diagram of the solar system, drawings of a
man and a woman, etc.), and what form (paper, record, videotape, etc.)
did it take?

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

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 17:59:18 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Grand Plan
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Tom) writes:
>>>Astronaut should be used if/when necessary,
>>>but should not be considered the central goal of the space program.
>>I agree with you and there is nothing in the Grand Plan that contradicts
>>this.
>
>What about cancellation of CRAF?  Delay of Galileo?

CRAF was cancelled because it had overrun its budget massively, and Congress
was giving clear signals that this would not be tolerated.  This had nothing
to do with the manned/unmanned wars.

The delay of Galileo was because its launch vehicle was down for bug fixes.
The delay was much longer than it needed to be because of safety hysteria,
but note that Galileo wouldn't have made its launch window even if it had
been on a different launcher -- most of the West's major launchers were
grounded in late spring 1986.  (There is also the small matter that no
other Western launcher *could* have launched Galileo, it being too heavy
for the then-operational Titans...)
--
All work is one man's work.             | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
                    - Kipling           |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 18:04:01 GMT
From: Eric H Seale <[e-mail]>
Subject: How to cool Venus
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (Nick Haines) writes:

>The alternative is to get rid of the CO2 some other way. Chemically,
>the best thing to do with it is to turn it into carbonate ions (CO3).
>If you bond a carbonate ion with pretty much anything you get a solid
>(much of the Earth's crust is formed of carbonate rocks). The easiest
>way to get carbonate ions is to get the extra oxygen from water, but
>the alternative is to manage some sort of nCO2 -> mCO3 + pC process. I
>don't know if this is energetically possible.

The really fun part is getting the solid to stay solid (if I'm not
mistaken, Venus' current surface temperature is high enough to bake the
CO2 back out of carbonate rocks...).

My $0.02

Eric Seale
#include <disclaimer.std>

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

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 14:12:19 EST
From: Callec Dradja <[e-mail]>
Subject: How to cool Venus
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, TMakinen says:
>
>
>This removing of carbon from primordial atmosphere as a byproduct of the
>chemical processes driven by living organisms is a minor cause to present-
>day lack of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. The main deposit of carbon
>dioxide in our planet lies in the carbonate rocks which contain some
>100,000 times more CO2 than the atmosphere. CO2 is recycled through
>plate tectonics and volcanism.

>Teemu Makinen / Finnish Meteorological Institute
>[e-mail]

What you say about the carbonate rocks makes sense but what I do not
understand is why the Earth has carbonate rocks and Venus does not.
Are carbonate rocks created by some sort of geological process? Both
Earth and Venus seem to be geologically active so why the lack of
carbonate rocks on venus?

It also seems to me that just because most of the carbon dioxide on
Earth is bound in carbobate rocks does not mean that this also must
be the case on Venus. Perhaps some sort of organic process would still
be best. In fact, there are many organisms on earth that produce
calcium carbonate, maybe through genetic engineering we could create
an organism that produces LOTS of calcium carbonate. I can imagine some
sort of dry land coral reef.

There is still the problem of water. The choice is either to import
water or hydrogen. Both of these options have their disadvantages.
Hydrogen, I feel, is the best choice for many reasons. First of all,
it has far less mass than water and is thus much easier to transport
around the solar system. The next issue is from where we would get
the hydrogen and water. With orbits, physical distance is not really
the issue, what we need to look at is how close is the water and hydrogen
gravitationally? The water, as far as I know, is located in the oort
cloud in the form of ice. The orbit of the oort cloud is very different
than that of Venus so it would take a great deal of Energy to move
the ice to Venus.

The hydrogen, on the other hand, is found in the gas giants. I truely
do not know which would take less energy to transport. The hydrogen
is in a much closer orbit to Venus than the water is but it is also
stuck in a pretty deep gravity well. Is there someone out there who
can do some math off of the top of their head to figure out which
requires less energy, the water of the hydrogen?

Another advantage of the hydrogen over the water is that the hydrogen
is convenietly found in large quantities all in the sane spot (i.e. a
gas giant). The water cannot be so easily collected in that it is
whizzing all over the place in the oort cloud.

Finally, I prefer the idea of importing hydrogen because it solves
some of the problem with the atmosphere. Even with all of the carbon
removed from the atmosphere, there is still too much oxygen. Turning
this oxygen into water seems more elegant way of solving the problem

I would also like to address the solution that one person offered
of using nuclear devices to blast the atmosphere out into space. This
idea sort of frightens me because such large forces seem sort of
difficult to control. I would be afraid that too much of the atmosphere
might be blown away. In addition, maybe my thinking is wrong but it seems
to me that in the future, if we really start using the resources of
our solarsystem, there may one day be a shortage of oxygen. It makes
more sense to keep it there in one relatively accessible place than to
blast it out into space where it will disperse and be much harder to
recover.

I am curious to hear what the net readers think of these ideas.
Gregson Vaux

********************************************************************
* If all we do is live and die,           *  Gregson Vaux          *
* then tell me about the birds that fly.  *  Penn State University *
* If all we did was die and live,         *  Semitics & English    *
* would springtime be there to forgive?   *  [e-mail]  *
********************************************************************

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

Date: 19 Mar 93 06:07:21 GMT
From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey <[e-mail]>
Subject: Just a little tap (was Re: Galileo HGA)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Nick Haines) writes:
>
> I fail to understand why people are so _desperate_ to get the HGA
> open.

Because it's a factor of 10,000 in performance!  How hard is that
to understand?

> Certainly it's insane to suggest jeopardizing the mission merely
> in order to get a few more pictures (e.g.  the recent suggestion of
> an aerobrake manouevre at Jupiter to stress the HGA).

It's not insane, just over-eager.  JPL's conservative approach is
sound: "Let's not risk breaking anything *else* on the spacecraft,
because the much-degraded mission we can perform with the LGA alone is
well worth doing."

Submarines, flying boats, robots, talking         Bill Higgins
pictures, radio, television, bouncing radar       Fermilab
vibrations off the moon, rocket ships, and        [e-mail]
atom-splitting-- all in our time.  But nobody     [e-mail]
has yet been able to figure out a music           SPAN:  43011::HIGGINS
holder for a marching piccolo player.
                     --Meredith Willson, 1948

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

Date: 19 Mar 93 12:22:34 -0600
From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey <[e-mail]>
Subject: LPI, UAz, and ET resources (was Re: plans, and absence thereof)
Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.sci.planetary

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Pat) writes:
> In article <[e-mail]| [e-mail] (Nick Szabo) writes:
> |[e-mail] (Pat) writes:
> |JPL, Caltech, and universties that work closely with it such
> |as U. of Arizona, are chuck full of planetary scientist/geologists.
> |There are dozens of quite talented planetary geologists who work
> |in the oil and mining industries.  JPL and the planetary science
> [szabo deleted on Prospecting, plasma science...]
>
> Wouldn't the lunar and Planetary science institute at JSC be a better
> site for this stuff.  They already have all the Data on the planets.
> And texans know all about drilling for oil.   Besides they have been
> looking for a mission since apollo ended.

Indeed LPI has been involved in "prospecting" for quite some time.
(They have organized some workshops where this is one of the topics,
and published some relevant material in their books and bulletins.)
Your suggestion is good, but Texas planetary scientists are already
doing it to a modest extent.

The next big event in this field will be the publication of a big
thick book summarizing knowledge of extraterrestrial resources and
their uses.  John Lewis and Mildred Shapley Matthews are cooking it up
right now at U. of Arizona Press, and they're almost done.  When it
comes out we will all have to buy it.

Bill Higgins, Beam Jockey              | What I want to be
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory  | when I grow up:
Bitnet:           [e-mail]  | "Charismatic Leader
Internet:       [e-mail]  | of a Heavily Armed
SPAN/Hepnet:           43011::HIGGINS  | Religious Cult"

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

Date: 19 Mar 93 19:04:15 GMT
From: Steinn Sigurdsson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Luddites in space
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Nick Szabo) writes:

   [e-mail] (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:

   >I prefer sending people to sending toasters.

   Typical Luddite comment. The $billions in technology are

What use is a toaster if there is no-one there to eat the bread?

|  Steinn Sigurdsson    |I saw two shooting stars last night        |
|  Lick Observatory    |I wished on them but they were only satellites    |
| [e-mail] |Is it wrong to wish on space hardware?        |
| "standard disclaimer"    |I wish, I wish, I wish you'd care - B.B. 1983    |

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

Date: 19 Mar 93 08:26:35 GMT
From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey <[e-mail]>
Subject: Lunar Arctic, pressure, antifreeze (was Re: Lunar ice transport)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Josh Hopkins) writes:
> [e-mail] (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes:
>
>>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:
GC>>> I was suggesting a system that is *self pumping*. The solar heating of
GC>>> the pipe during lunar daytime boils the water and the system "percolates"
GC>>> via a set of one way check valves toward the equatorial base.
>
BH>>Cute idea, Gary, but if it could be made to work, it would work
BH>>only six months a year at best.
>
JH> First I want to clear up one thing that might be confusing.  The problem is
JH> with standard night/day cycles (in which the days add up to six months)
JH>rather
JH> than a single six month night as you would expect at a terrestrial pole.  I'm
JH> sure Bill know's this but other readers might be confused.

You credit me with more subtlety than I deserve, Josh.

The Moon's "Arctic Circle" is very small since its inclination to the
ecliptic is only 1.5 degrees.  Nevertheless there *is* a small region
where it'll be night  six months at a time.  And this happens to be
where the ice is coming from.  And it happens to be the place in
Gary's system where he needs the most pressure and energy.

This is not insurmountable but it screws up the elegance of Gary's
idea.

> Secondly, I don't think it should be too hard to isolate the pipeline from
the
> surface to drastically cut down on the heat loss at night.  The pipeline is
> then essentially radiating to vacuum.  Given the high heat capacity of water,
> and
> the two phase changes you'd have to go through before the water would freeze,
> it seems to me that you could keep the pipeline running for at least part of
> the Lunar night.

Good point, but there is a flip side to your argument-- we gotta wait
until some time *after* dawn for the pipes to warm up again!  Thus
there is a corresponding time at the beginning of the day when you
can't operate.

Remember Henry's assertion that the temperature is a constant 255 K
underground?  That nice steady thermal environment is mighty
attractive.

>If I had more spare time I'd pull out my steam tables and
> plug a few numbers.

I looked at my office copy of the CRC (36th edition, 1954-55.  Hey, it
was cheap!).  The melting point of ice is depressed to 253 K by a
"pressure" of "2042 kg/cm^2."  This was in the happy carefree days
before people cared about getting their units straight.  Let's see...
I guess this is 9.8 N/cm^2 times 2042, eh?  Just over 20kN/cm^2, or
2E8 N/m^2... is this a Pascal?  Oh, here's a conversion table... 2042
kg/cm^2 is 2110 atmospheres.  Wow. This is a gauge pressure, too, so
better throw in an extra 1 atm for the Moon.  (-:

I was going to suggest lowering the melting point of the water in the
pipeline by operating it at a high pressure.  I think this is a bit
*too* high, though.  (Homework problem:  what is the total stored
energy in 0.25 Moon circumference of pipeline at 2111 atmospheres?
Lunar radius is 1738 km at the equator. Let's say the pipe radius is
10 cm.  Problem 2:  How thick do the walls have to be for an iron
pipe?  For aluminum?)

Lowering the melting point with an antifreeze solution is a better
idea.  What would be a suitable antifreeze we could derive from lunar
materials?  You're allowed to use CO2, CH4, and other stuff in comets,
since we are assuming we've found a lunar water-ice deposit and these
chemicals would be mixed in.

Bill Higgins, Beam Jockey              | Comet Swift-Tuttle is
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory  | Mama Nature's way of
Bitnet:           [e-mail]  | saying it's time to
Internet:       [e-mail]  | get off the planet.
SPAN/Hepnet:           43011::HIGGINS  |   --Dale Amon

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

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 18:08:55 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Lunar ice transport
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Russ Brown) writes:
>>We only have a few data points, but they're all within a degree or two
>>of 255K.  The variation is from site to site -- the temperature at any
>>particular site is absolutely constant at that depth.
>
>Usenet works!
>
>Keihm and Langseth reported (1973 Apollo 17 data) a mean temperature of
>256K at 1.3 metres; little variation would be expected at that depth...

Usenet works to the extent that it is backed by good information. :-)
It's not an accident that the number is spot-on:  I looked it up in Lunar
Sourcebook before posting.  L.S. has graphs of temperature and variation
versus depth for all the Apollo heat-flow probes.
--
All work is one man's work.             | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
                    - Kipling           |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 19 Mar 1993 14:57:14 -0500
From: "Michael K. Heney" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Need address info / Germany
Newsgroups: sci.space

I'm working on a project for SpaceCause, and I need to get some address
information for two individuals associated with the German space industry.
What I need is a title (if known), business address (correct to get mail
from US to Germany), and phone numbers (again, assume US calling point.)

The names I need info for are:

      Jorgen Blum
      DLR
      Cologne

and

      Hans Hoffman
      ERNO (or its successor organization?)
      Bremen


Replies via e-mail would be appreciated.  Thanks much.

----
Mike Heney                |   Senior Systems Analyst and     |  Reach for the
[e-mail]   |  Space Activist / Entrepreneur   |  Stars, eh?
Kensington, MD (near DC)  |     * Will Work for Money *      |


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

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 02:12:01 GMT
From: Jeff Bytof <[e-mail]>
Subject: Our Universe not a party Universe?
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space,sci.physics

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Dave Palmer) writes:

>Those of us who grew up reading science fiction have become comfortable
>with the idea of rapid space travel via some sort of "space warp." That

>is, a technology for warping space or passing through wormholes,
>hyperspace, or whatever. I think we've just tended to assume that someday
>we will discover how to do this. But what if no such mechanism is
>possible? Or, if it is, but requires impractical energies, or has some
>other practical limitation?

Maybe if space warps and wormholes are discovered, that will naturally
lead to access to other "universes".  These other universes might be a
hell of a lot more interesting than this one, perhaps explaining the
lack of "party life" in this one.

-rabjab

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

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 17:49:16 GMT
From: "John S. Neff" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Our Universe not a party Universe?
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space,sci.physics

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jeff Bytof) writes:
>From: [e-mail] (Jeff Bytof)
>Subject: Our Universe not a party Universe?
>Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 02:12:01 GMT
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Dave Palmer) writes:
>
>>Those of us who grew up reading science fiction have become comfortable
>>with the idea of rapid space travel via some sort of "space warp." That
>>is, a technology for warping space or passing through wormholes,
>>hyperspace, or whatever. I think we've just tended to assume that someday
>>we will discover how to do this. But what if no such mechanism is
>>possible? Or, if it is, but requires impractical energies, or has some
>>other practical limitation?
>
>Maybe if space warps and wormholes are discovered, that will naturally
>lead to access to other "universes".  These other universes might be a
>hell of a lot more interesting than this one, perhaps explaining the
>lack of "party life" in this one.
>
>-rabjab
A practical problem, seldom covered in science fiction stories
about traveling at near the speed of light, is the radiation hazard.
If we assume v = 0.9c and N = 1 hydrogen atom per cc for an average
density in interstellar space the flux of ~ 100 MeV protons will
be about 2e10 per sq cm of effective area of spacecraft. Hardening
equipment to work under such conditions will be a big challenge, and
keeping people alive will be even more difficult.



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

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 17:48:22 GMT
From: "Thomas E. Smith" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Predicting gravity wave quantization & Cosmic Noise
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,sci.physics,alt.sci.planetary

>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]. (Thomas E. Smith) writes:
>> same time (I forget if gravity travels the speed of light, or is instantly
>> propagated)
>
>[e-mail] writes:
>Instantly propagated????? - Are you nuts?  :-)
>Then we wouldn't get waves and that would screw up the relativity theory!
>
>Volker

Ok, you're right about gravity travelling the speed of light, but I don't see
why that is required to produce the kind of gravity waves we're trying to
detect. What I think they are trying to detect are things like an extreamly
massive black hole being orbited by a neutron star, for example. If the black
hole is so much more massive than the neutron star, it will hardly move. So
this kind of thing happens:

    __NS__        ______          ______
   /      \      /      \        /      \
  |   BH   |    NS  BH   |      |   BH   |
   \      /      \      /        \      /
     ----          ----            -NS-





    Earth         Earth           Earth


    Weak          Medium         Strong
    Force         Force           Force


This would produce a weakening and strengthening of the gravitational
wave from the black hole & neutron star system. I chose the large masses so
that maybe they could be detected here. This is should produce the very weak,
and very long waves that they are trying to detect. It seems to me that if
they were trying to detect gravitons, those would be extreamly short. I do
agree with you that gravity travels the speed of light, but in this case, why
does it matter? In what case would it matter?


--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Living on Earth may be expensive,| Tom E. Smith               | ._________  |
| but it includes an annual free   | [e-mail]| |= (0_, \ \ |
| trip around the Sun.             |                            | |= |0 ` / | |

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

Date: 19 Mar 93 19:05:00 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Small Expendable Deployer System Launch Advisory (was Re: Launch Windows
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Nick Haines) writes...
>So what happened?
>
>Nick Haines [e-mail]

The Launch of the GPS Block IIR/ SEDS 1 experiment was postponed at 8:30 pm
last night due to excessive (40 mph) winds at ground level at the cape.
The launch has been re-scheduled for the same time (11:00) pm tonight.

I will post the results as soon as I know about them

Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville

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

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 18:04:46 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: SSTO: A Spaceship for the rest of us
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:
>Henry says that DC-Y will mass 800,000 pounds, and that 700,000
>pounds of that will be fuel. He further says that LOX is $5 a
>pound and represents the bulk of the weight. So ignoring the
>hydrogen's extra handling costs, fuel for a DC-Y flight costs
>$3.5 million dollars...

Gary, how do you ever run a successful business if you can't read any
better than this? :-)

First, and relatively minor, I never quoted any figure for DC-Y's mass.
If you re-read my writeup, you'll find that it uses that number purely
as an arbitrary example, when discussing the implications of mass ratios.

Second, and more serious, I quoted LOX at five **CENTS** a pound, not
five dollars a pound.
--
All work is one man's work.             | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
                    - Kipling           |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 18:27:02 GMT
From: fred j mccall 575-3539 <[e-mail]>
Subject: Szabos on Spaced [was -- Re: Luddites in space]
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Nick Szabo) writes:

>[e-mail] (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:

>>I prefer sending people to sending toasters.

>Typical Luddite comment. The $billions in technology are
>merely toasters, the engineers and techs who make them
>merely toaster-makers, and the only people that count
>are the people who have accomplished almost nothing
>for the space program, the astronauts.

I suggest you learn how to read and then look up the definition of
"Luddite", monkey boy.  I also suggest that if you elect to rant and
rave in the outrageous fashion that you do that you should expect a
certain amount of exaggerated rhetoric in return.  I further suggest that
if you want to engage in telling people what they think that you
should learn something about the process of thinking first.  If that
is your interpretation of what I said, I can see why you have the
opinions that you do.  Your problem is obvious.

If I want your stupid opinion, I'll read it in your entrails, Nicky.
As for your misinformed opinion about what I said (which strikes me as
pretty far from reality -- but that's nothing new for you), please
feel free to take your opinion and do something anatomically creative
and quite unlikely with it.

[Nothing like responding in kind to an idiot, hey, Mr Szabo?]

--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[e-mail] - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.

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

Date: 19 Mar 93 12:05:52
From: Steinn Sigurdsson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Why use AC at 20kHz for SSF Power?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Richard A. Schumacher) writes:


   Oh, nuts. So a 20kHz power system saves 2,000 pounds, huh?
   Assume it costs $3,000 per pound to launch. Spend $6M on
   the extra weight of a 400 Hz system, and 20 minutes later
   you're in orbit. Instead, NASA spent $20M and two years
   on 20 kHz system development, and has a lot of paper sitting
   on desks.

If it were to become standard and used on other systems
it would save a lot more weight in the long run.
When you're about to put up the first major piece
of infrastructure in space, one that might in principle be
expanded, it becomes sensible to consider the possibility of
whether a new standard for such things as power systems makes
sense in the long run.
One of the most frequent complaints here against NASA is that
they don't consider new technologies that might lower costs
in the long run and don't experiment with different concepts.
Yet, when they do and it doesn't work out they are chastised
(often by the same people) for wasting money when they could
have been using old and tried technology, and using the
magic of 20-20 hindsight it becomes "obvious" that the
new concept tried wouldn't work.
Pah!

   As for the difficulty of shielding scientific instruments
   from 400 Hz noise: some EE better go tell those poor
   fool astronomers who have been flying their instruments
   in U-2s for 20 years that they're doing it all wrong...
   (Oh no! Now they're doing the same thing in an SR-71!
   Stop them before it's too late!)

Those instruments are handbuilt at no small expense.

   20kHz power is a Boondoggle. A gold-plated, aerospace-
   contractor's-wetdream, engineering-porkbarrel boondoggle.

Yeah right, NASA should just stick with old and tried concepts,
tie swans to balloons, or use large cannon and capsules lit
with gas lamps. And people wonder why NASA has become afraid
to take risks and run experimental missions...

|  Steinn Sigurdsson    |I saw two shooting stars last night        |
|  Lick Observatory    |I wished on them but they were only satellites    |
| [e-mail] |Is it wrong to wish on space hardware?        |
| "standard disclaimer"    |I wish, I wish, I wish you'd care - B.B. 1983    |

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

Date: 19 Mar 93 19:55:55 GMT
From: Callec Dradja <[e-mail]>
Subject: will dust cool Venus?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In my original article, I talked about several ideas regarding
the terraforming of Venus. I saw some responses to the problem
of the dense Venusian atmosphere but no one responded to my proposal
of using dust to cool Venus. Will this proposal of putting dust
in orbit around Venus in order to cool the planet work? I am afraid
that over time, the dust will heat up and begin radiating infrared
light which may slightly help warm Venus. I don't think, however,
that this effect would be significant. Should I assume that because
no one responded to the dust proposal, that everyone thinks that
it will work?

Gregson Vaux


********************************************************************
* If all we do is live and die,           *  Gregson Vaux          *
* then tell me about the birds that fly.  *  Penn State University *
* If all we did was die and live,         *  Semitics & English    *
* would springtime be there to forgive?   *  [e-mail]  *
********************************************************************

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End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 342
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