Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V16_3/V16NO354.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1993-07-13 | 33KB

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 93 05:20:11
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V16 #354
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Tue, 23 Mar 93       Volume 16 : Issue 354

Today's Topics:
                           Bullets in Space
                         CD for Pluto Mission
                            DC-X (2 msgs)
                 Goldin's comment on Station (2 msgs)
                 How big will you're space colony be?
   Lunar Arctic, pressure, antifreeze (was Re: Lunar ice transport)
                      Magellan Update - 03/22/93
                      plans, and absence thereof
         Predicting gravity wave quantization & Cosmic Noise
                       Small Expendable Deploye
                     SR-71 Maiden Science Flight
                  Why use AC at 20kHz for SSF Power?
                            Without a Plan

    Welcome to the Space Digest!!  Please send your messages to
    "[e-mail]", and (un)subscription requests of the form
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    (BITNET), rice::boyle (SPAN/NSInet), utadnx::utspan::rice::boyle
    (THENET), or [e-mail] (Internet).
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 22 Mar 93 20:00:58 GMT
From: Henry Troup <[e-mail]>
Subject: Bullets in Space
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Tom A
Baker) writes:
|>In article <[e-mail]> Leigh Palmer
<[e-mail]> writes:
|>>In article <[e-mail]> Brandon France,
|>>[e-mail] writes:
|>>
|>>>What would happen if an astronaut was in a geostationary orbit and fired
|>>>a rifle directly toward the earth?  What path would the bullet take?

See the SF story "epicycle" by P.J. Plauger, Analog, a long time ago.

It comes right back and hits him/her about two orbits later.  Note that
the astronaut is also displaced in orbit.  But, as the delta v is indeed
through the centre of the earth, the period is not changed for either of them.

Henry Troup - [e-mail] (Canada) - BNR owns but does not share my opinions
             "Never" is usually about six months.  -- Charlie Gibbs

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

Date: 22 Mar 1993 23:08:50 GMT
From: Doug Mohney <[e-mail]>
Subject: CD for Pluto Mission
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Dave Jones) writes:
>FRANK NEY ([e-mail]) wrote:
>> Unless I had a news.hallucination, someone on the group mentioned that
>> there was a 300g allocation for some sort of commemorative device.
>> This would fall within the range of a CD-ROM.
>OK, now think of a CD-ROM with a data retention time measurable in millenia
>and we'll be all set.  Nobody right now will give you much past a decade or
>two before the errors on the disk become uncorrectable.

Oh, you mean like Photo-CD? *grin*

I was at a conference last year where they'd come up with a "Century" CD; a
glass plate with a gold backing (?).  Should last for 100 years, all things
considered.



    Software engineering? That's like military intelligence, isn't it?
  -- >                  [e-mail]                        < --

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

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1993 20:59:50 GMT
From: Douglas R Fils <[e-mail]>
Subject: DC-X
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Andy Cohen) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
>(John R. Manuel) wrote:
>>
>> Are there any articles in Aviation Week, or somewhere similar, about DC-X
>> that someone can refer me to? I'm curious to see the design of the thing
>> and in particular, how it will manage re-entry and still be re-usable.
>>
>
>If someone will tell me where I can be allowed....I will gladly upload a
>set of GIFs of vugraphs for the basic DC technology pitch........
>
>COME ON! Before the roll out!!!

    I don't know of any ftp sites (umich is a thought though).
But you could post them to alt.binaries.pictures.misc




--

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

Date: Monday, 22 Mar 1993 16:07:29 MST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: DC-X
Newsgroups: sci.space

This is regarding your article on march 13. I have been on break and I had
missed your article. But I have heard it was wonderful and I am a big DC-X
fan, could you please repost it. Thank you in advance.

                                              Joe Mirowski

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

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1993 19:55:55 GMT
From: Keith Mancus <[e-mail]>
Subject: Goldin's comment on Station
Newsgroups: sci.space

     "We could fight with each other, we could make fancy view graphs, we
could have leather briefcases, we could have patent leather shoes, we could go
rolling up to the Hill, we could make a lot of promises, we could get other
programs canceled, we could destroy careers. If you wear your corporate hat,
your center hat, if you wear a truss hat, if you wear a hat that has a solar
array, if you wear a hat that has your personal identification and ego on it,
you will destroy what we have. You'd better put on a baseball cap that says the
United States of America or we're not going to have a coherent space program."

                         - Dan Goldin in "Space News Roundup", March 15, 1993

  Given the infighting going on in this group, I'd say this is a timely
remark...

--
| Keith Mancus    <[e-mail]>                           |
|                 N5WVR                                                 |
| "Black powder and alcohol, when your states and cities fall,          |
|  when your back's against the wall...." -Leslie Fish                  |

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

Date: 22 Mar 93 23:31:37 GMT
From: INNES MATTHEW <[e-mail]>
Subject: Goldin's comment on Station
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Keith Mancus) writes:
>     "We could fight with each other, we could make fancy view graphs, we
>could have leather briefcases, we could have patent leather shoes, we could go
>rolling up to the Hill, we could make a lot of promises, we could get other
>programs canceled, we could destroy careers. If you wear your corporate hat,
>your center hat, if you wear a truss hat, if you wear a hat that has a solar
>array, if you wear a hat that has your personal identification and ego on it,
>you will destroy what we have. You'd better put on a baseball cap that says the
>United States of America or we're not going to have a coherent space program."
>
>                         - Dan Goldin in "Space News Roundup", March 15, 1993
>
>  Given the infighting going on in this group, I'd say this is a timely
>remark...

Given my understanding of the English language, I'd say this is gibberish.
What *was* that bit about solar-powered hats, anyway? 8-)
>
--
                        Matt Innes
                        <[e-mail]>

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

Date: 22 Mar 93 15:04:20
From: Al Globus <[e-mail]>
Subject: How big will you're space colony be?
Newsgroups: sci.space

Every once in a while I design an orbital space colony.  I'm gearing up to
do another one.  I'd some info from you. If you were to move
onto a space colony to live permanently, how big would the colony have
to be for you to view a permanent move as desirable?  Specifically,

How many people do you want to share the colony with?
    For example, 1000
What physical dimensions does the living are need to have?
    For example, 2x2 kilometers.


I'm not interested in any general theories about size or what you
think people should like.  I want to know
what you, personally, would require of an orbital colony for such a
life to be desirable.

Assume 1g living (the colony will rotate).  Assume that you can leave
from time to time for vacations and business trips.  If you're young
enough, assume that you'll raise your children there.

Thanx.  I'll summarize for the net if I get a response.

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

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 93 21:34:24 GMT
From: Ross Borden <[e-mail]>
Subject: Lunar Arctic, pressure, antifreeze (was Re: Lunar ice transport)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Josh Hopkins) writes:
>
>The big trouble with using antifreeze is that you need lots of it to fill a
>thousand kilometers of pipe and that to do things efficiently you need to be
>able to recycle it.  Unless you want to run two pipes or produce large amounts
>of it on site this would be very expensive.
>
I agree.  I think the solution is to preheat the pipeline with steam, and use
hot water.  The low thermal conductivity of the lunar regolith should keep
the water from losing too much heat.  Are there any firm numbers on the
conductivity of regolith?

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

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

Date: 22 Mar 1993 21:56 UT
From: Ron Baalke <[e-mail]>
Subject: Magellan Update - 03/22/93
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary

Forwarded from Doug Griffith, Magellan Project Manager

                       MAGELLAN STATUS REPORT
                           March 22, 1993

1.  The Magellan spacecraft continues to operate normally, gathering
gravity data in its fourth 243-day cycle of Venus.  All starcals (star
calibrations) over the weekend were successful.  There was a TWTA
(Traveling Wave Tube Amplifier) spurious shut-off earlier this morning,
which was corrected automatically.

2.  There was no commanding of the spacecraft since Friday, and none is
planned for today.  Tomorrow the high rate gyro biases will be
uplinked in the preparation for the high rate gyro calibration test
starting Wednesday.

3.  Magellan has operated using low rate gyro biases through most of
the mission to date, so it has not been necessary to calibrate the
gyros in high rate mode.  But the aerobraking experiment which will
start in late May has a moderate probability of pushing the attitude
control into the range where the high rate mode is needed.

4.  The 24th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston was
attended by several Magellan scientists who presented technical
papers.  The Magellan exhibit was of considerable interest to the
conference participants.

5.  A memorial session on the Geology of Venus was held on Monday in
tribute to Valery Leonidovich Barsukov, the late director of the V. I.
Vernadsky Institute in Moscow.  The session was chaired by J. W. Head
and R. S. Saunders.  Academician Basurkov was very active in promoting
international cooperation in planetary exploration and made possible
the sharing of Russian data on Venus exploration.

6.  Magellan has completed 7042 orbits of Venus since August 10, 1990.
Magellan is 64 days from the end of Cycle-4.
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | Don't ever take a fence
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | down until you know the
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     | reason it was put up.

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

Date: 22 Mar 1993 22:28:39 GMT
From: Doug Mohney <[e-mail]>
Subject: plans, and absence thereof
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Nick Szabo) writes:
>[e-mail] (Doug Mohney) writes:
>>I wasn't aware that your one penny of every dollar of tax money was
>> bigger than the one penny of every tax dollar Mr. Wingo pays.
>
>This is a truly stupid comment.  Wingo gets 100% of his paycheck
>from the IRS and pays back 20-30%.  BFD.

Nearly as stupid as your claim that your represent every taxpayer on God's good
earth.

Wingo isn't an indentured slave to the U.S. govenment.  He has the right to say
what he wants as a citizen of his country.

I realize this is hard for you to swallow, but working for the goverment does
not mean you surrender your rights under the Constitution, unless you're in the
military.



    Software engineering? That's like military intelligence, isn't it?
  -- >                  [e-mail]                        < --

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

Date: 23 Mar 93 00:33:47 GMT
From: Matt McIrvin <[e-mail]>
Subject: Predicting gravity wave quantization & Cosmic Noise
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,sci.physics

[e-mail] (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:

>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]. (Thomas E. Smith) writes:

>>But ignoring that, it sounds like the events you could detect would be
>>things like massive objects speeding toward or away from you. But according
>>to many articles on the subject, some of the things that would produce
>>gravity waves are neutron stars orbiting black holes, or super novae. These
>>don't have as much doppler shift as other things such as quasars, which have
>>huge red-shifts, or even galaxies as they spin.

>      Aren't you confusing E&M doppler effects with GR doppler
>      effects?  I guess that things moving away from us would
>      doppler shift emitted 'gravitational waves', but this would
>      seem to affect only the frequency of the wavepacket.  We seem
>      to be looking for the existence of the wavepacket.

When you think about what kinds of things would emit gravitational
waves, it's important to realize that gravitational waves are supposed
to be quadrupole radiation; in other words, the kinds of things that
ought to emit big gravitational waves are things with a mass distribution
whose quadrupole moment changes hugely and rapidly.  A pair of massive
objects has a big quadrupole moment*, so you'd expect to see gravitational
waves from things like binary pulsars where you have two really massive
objects orbiting each other at an enormous speed, or collisions between
black holes, or some such thing.

* It's not a dipole!  I've had an extraordinarily difficult time
convincing people of this in the past.  Note that the two objects
have masses of the SAME sign, unlike, say, the charge distribution
in a hydrogen atom.  So the mass distribution is positive at one end,
zero in the middle, and positive at the other end#, which (to low order)
is a monopole plus quadrupole term.  Of course, by putting the origin
somewhere else you can give it a dipole moment, but what oscillates
in a binary pulsar is the quadrupole moment.  If an object just moves
in one direction, what's changing is the dipole moment, and that won't
make gravitational waves in general.

# Would this be anti-Elkian? [sci.physics joke]
--
Matt McIrvin

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

Date: 22 Mar 93  08:59:02
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Small Expendable Deploye
Newsgroups: sci.space

U >The cost of this mission from 1983 till now has only been 10 million
dollars and it is significant to note that most of the work has been
done IN HOUSE with the exception of one contractor for the tether.

U >The moral of this story is to give NASA the money that they say a
project is going to cost and then leave them alone and let them do their
job. If there is an overrun then shoot the managers but cut out this
"you can really do with this much less money can't you" syndrome.

U >Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville



Let me get this straight - the SEDS tether experiment was mostly done
IN HOUSE, with the exception of the tether. I presume that what you
mean by the "tether" would also include the reeling mechanism, and

the sensors to determine whether the tether is being unreeled correctly.
Since the mission will use the US Air Force Delta second stage for
telemetry, power and attitude control, that means that NASA's role
in all of this is largely to pay the contractor to put the tether
together, something that NASA couldn't do correctly itself in its $100
million Tethered Satellite System.



___ WinQwk 2.0b#0

--- Maximus 2.01wb

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

Date: 22 Mar 93 13:25:58
From: Steinn Sigurdsson <[e-mail]>
Subject: SR-71 Maiden Science Flight
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Mary Shafer) writes:

   On 21 Mar 1993 12:30:03 -0500, [e-mail] (Pat) said:

   Pat> Has anyone considered which is more fun to ride along on while
   Pat> running science gear?  I'd rather hop in the back seat of the 71
   Pat> and run the science gear, as opposed to dangling in a balloon.

   The experimenters are NOT riding in the SR-71.  Only rated Dryden
   personnel ride in the SR-71s.  Actually there are precisely four

oh phooey, just for a minute there I seriously
entertained thoughts of switching to UV experimental
astrophysics...

|  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: 22 Mar 93 14:03:46
From: Steinn Sigurdsson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Why use AC at 20kHz for SSF Power?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <1oicaq$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pat) writes:

   In article <[e-mail]| [e-mail] (Steinn Sigurdsson) writes:
   |In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pat) writes:

   |   In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Steinn Sigurdsson) writes:
   |   >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

   |   >If it were to become standard and used on other systems

   |   If the idea were so hot,  then it would be used on other areas.

   |And by induction to all other areas we see that nothing new need
   |be developed...

   Gee Stein.  You must have graduated from the nick Szabo school of
   debate.  I never said  that progress should stop,  but How come
   Nobody uses it?  My local power utility is paying me to replace all

Pat, NASAs primary purpose, as I understand it, is to do the
leading edge innovation, not to wait for someone else to do it.
As I recall their primary purpose is to find out how best to
get objects and people into orbit, secondarily to put such
objects and people up there as the US government wants them
to and thirdly to tell others (in the US) how to.

 ...

   Space engineering should develope and fund those areas it has to, not
   serve as a pet slush fund for every pet boondoggle that comes ou;of someones
   ear.  Who funds Closed and semi-closed life support?  NASA, Why?  because
   they need it.  IF the Air FOrce were to,  that would be a boondoggle.

Gee, I suppose the Navy isn't allowed to either.

   Stein, you get so fascinated with someting being new,  you forget the
   utility value of money and the risk reduction.  The DOE national labs
   should be testing High Frequency power,  NASA should only leap on this
   when MASS becomes a crisis, and fat as FRED is,  it wasn't necessary.

NASA should research all areas that appear to be relevant to finding
the _best_ way of getting to and operating in space. If the Labs or
other agencies had done work on 20kHz AC power distribution then NASA
should look at it, if not, and they have reasonable cause to think
it might be of use then NASA should have the leeway to investigate it.
Same with materials, propulsion technologies, battery technology
and even food processing.

 ...

   |Look, NASA and others will hopefully over the next few decades
   |put a lot of power consuming items into orbit and chances are
   |we'll want to transmit most of the energy by electric currents.

   NASA had very few plans for SSF beyond it's 25 year life.  SSF
   was planned out as  a closed ended plan.  Any ideas beyond that are
   in your Imagination.  Down here, METRO is a closed end plan.

NASA has a lot of plans beyond SSF, none are funded and all
are speculation until the US government sets a plan. Hell, currently
NASA technically doesn't have a plan for SSF - they are waiting for
another government approval.

   Also, most of the packages flying will be small systems.  I imagine
   they will do what every other package does.  live on DC, with a 400 HZ
   AC system. I think galileo does that.

They use what is available, no one package can justify developing a
new system unless the existing systems won't do at all - that does
not mean the current system is optimal. Oh, and it is not a good idea
to always wait until you _need_ to deploy a new system before doing
any development on it.

   |Now, maybe the current systems are optimal for this, maybe it
   |would be better ab initio but with current power electronics to
   |have higher frequency AC - _but_ if you think in the long run
   |a new technology will be an improvement then the time to adapt it
   |is when you start putting big power hungry semi-permanent structures
   |into place. For space, that is now.

   No stein.  THe time to place new systems is after you have developed
   the technology and worked down the risk factors and  understood
   the system implications under all circumstances.

You just don't get it, you're never going to have the technology
and low risk factors and you certainly won't understand the
implications because no one ever deployed it because they have
accountants looking over their shoulders who think Harvard business
school depreciation schedules are natural law.

   Here is a simple case.  Composite materials are far stronger and
   lighter then metals.  In fact for large structures they are often
   cheaper, because they need not be Forged in giant presses or
   machined on giant lathes,  yert what is the pressure vessel design
   for Fred,  Aluminum?   WHY?

   Because aluminum is better understood in the Vacuum environment.
   Gee Stein, why aren't you bellowing for an all composite station?
   Ab inito, if htey weren't doing this, why then no-one would.......

By your argument the composites would never have been developed
because aluminium would always have been sufficient - so much
for the DC series then. Of course the development costs on the
DC composites have already been sunk by DoD and NASA which get derided
for wasting money while MD is applauded for applying this new yet
well understood technology...

   |   >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.

   Funny you mention standards.  When I suggested a metric standard,
   you moaned about english being fine, and who needs stnadards anyway.

I have never in my life advocated anyone using english or imperial
measures for any reason. I do think NASA should have gone metric,
the switch over would have been expensive but would have lead to
lower long term costs.

   |   You mean, the way most things are built upon previous knowledge base?
   |   Gee stein, you seem real positive over this technology,
   |   why don't you go and build some lab equipment that pulls this
   |   as prime power.

   |The point is not the 20kHz in particular, the point is that
   |_now_ is a good time to look into whether to make these kind of
   |changes - I don't know if the 20kHz is worth it, and I suspect that
   |the contemptuous dismissal of its potentials by you and other is
   |posturing bullshit fuelled by hindsight.

   It's not posturing bullshit, it's contemptous dismissal of an idea
   that is plainly ridiculous and a absolute waste of my tax dollars.
          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
In other words you only want research into systems that you know
will work ahead of time...

   |This is the whole problem your way of "accounting" produces.
   |What if over the next 150 years using 20kHz power were to save
   |2 trillion dollars? But, we'll never know, because at any one time
   |it was cheaper for that one project to stick with the old stuff.

   Sorry, Stein, nobody accounts for anything with more then a
   25 year lifespan.  If you need a 100 year payout, you are
   looking at  technological obsolesence.

Some people do. Some technological development has lead times
far longer then 25 years - of course in an accountants world
those technologies don't exist.

   All systems have to be based upon the expected working life,
   and technological obsolesence is a major factor.  look at how many
   computer technologies have died, in 10 years.

   And by the way, 2 trillion dollars over 150 years is petty change,
   we are talking about 15 billion dollars/year, and if you place any

Gee, that's just about NASA's current budget. Petty change indeed...

   sort of interest rate on the money, you are talking only 3-4 billion.
   Petty change in DC.  Stein,  you should study a little accounting,
   it would help you out.

3-4 billion is twice SSFs annual construction budget. You have
real funny idea of what matters.

   |You just don't get it, it's NASAs purpose to look into these
   |alternatives without having to worry about whether the immediate
   |benefit to that particular project provides a good return in the
   |next N quarters. I'm really glad people like you weren't in charge
   |of the Royal Society of London 150 years ago.

   Gee stein, you dont get it.
   Nasa doesn't look into new alternatives without worrying about
   immediate return for projects.   Every program manager works

They should.

   hard at risk reduction on his particular program because if the
   program goes south, he's out of a job.  A major complaint I and Henry have
   about NASA is they don't have an ongoing engineering research and
   testing program.

Well, how could they, they have to show return on all their programs
and god help them if one should actually not pan out, they'd get fried
for wasting your tax dollars on such obviously ridicilous ideas...

   It is the purpose of every project to succeed.  and gratuitous slurs
   about the Royal society are un-needed.  ANd if you knew more about
   history then about stars,  you'd know the brits were very big on
   tying innovation to existing technologies.

Oh, really, how long did it take for them to get a return on
electromagnetic induction? Did they manage to scrape in under
the 25 year deadline. Of course if the silly sods had just invested
the salary they paid Faraday in an interest bearing account they'd
be rolling in it now.

 ...

   |   No doubt, smaller then that for 20KHz.   Aren't most scientific
   |   devices hand built?  if it was production gear,  you'd get it at toys R us

   |well, if NASA had gone to 20kHz in 1963 and established a market
   |then it would probably be cheaper to use that now, maybe.

   And if pigs had wings, in 1954,  the first american on the moon
   would have oinked.  If the only defense you have for an argument is
   if it had been done before, it would be better,  then I suggest you
   stop working on astronomy and start working on a TARDIS.

I suppose now is a bad point to bring up the recent series of
papers by some relativist friends of mine on time machine design...
probably not cost effective anyway, they should be out there writing
accounting software.

   |And, yes, most scientific devices are handbuilt at some
   |level, especially in astronomy.

   Then if most devices are hand built,  then don't usse that as an excuse for
   your petty argument.

The point was that since they're handbuilt it is relatively easy
to make use of whatever is available, switching to a 20kHz power
supply is not that big a deal if that's what you get.

   |   and lots of stuff is production built for 400KHz.  Radars,  computers,
   |   Actually my simple acid test on 20KHz, is why Boeing doesn't use it.
   |They're probably waiting for NASA to switch to it and to provide a
   |market large enough that parts manufacturers will mass produce the
   |components cheaply - and have the database on in-flight safety.
   >After all, that's how they get a lot of their innovation.

   Gee stein, I hate to say this,  it must hurt your perfect little
   world,  but Boeing's commercial market is probably 2 orders of magnitude
   larger then NASA.  NASA spends about 1-2 billion/year on hardware,

Hot damn, Boeing's turnover is $trillion? I never appreciated they
made up 15% of the US economy...

   Boeing probably sells 15 Billion / year on aircraft.

Which, funnily enough is about the size of NASAs budget

   NASA buys about 10-12 rockets/ year.   Boeing sells 2-300 aircraft
   per year.
   Believe me,  THese guys have their own markets.  Some things they
   glom off NASA and AF programs, but this one they don't need to.
   And besides, stein, if 20 KHz was so hot, why aren't any other
   nasa programs pursuing it?

Oh, they've learned by now not to try anything new.

   >   If resonant inversion was such an efficient method,  and the weight
   >   savings were so high on motors, etc,  then 747's would be converted
   >   over to this standard,  or new boeing hardware would use this.
   >Why, if the cost of change over in the short run is too high, then
   >they'll never change over because by your accounting rules they're
   >not allowed to. Maybe somebody will do us a favour and bomb the
   >factories, then they can be rebuilt to produce whatever the best
   >current technology is rather than what was frozen in 50 years ago.

   Gee stein,  advocating terrorism.  Poor occupation for an astronomer.

It's a historical allusion. Refers to the fact that post-war
Germany and Japan modernised their plant and became rapidly
competitive, while for example Britain was stuck with outdate
plants.


|  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: 22 Mar 1993 22:37:14 GMT
From: Doug Mohney <[e-mail]>
Subject: Without a Plan
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Nick Szabo) writes:
>[e-mail] (Doug Mohney) writes:
>
>>[Comparing me to Dennis Wingo]
>>You've just got your hand out for money for a lot of politically unrealistic
>>projects.
>
>This is truly backwards.  Dennis Wingo is a bureaucrat working for
>NASA, and constantly posting with his hand out, begging money for
>obsolete projects costing $100's of billions.

Excuse me, what planet have you been reading postings from?

That's not quite the impression I have of Wingo.  And I haven't seen him "Beg
money" from anyone.

I guess he's the latest in the series of people who work with NASA that you've
chosen to burn at the stake.

> I volunteer part
>of my time designing space projects that _pay for themselves_ by
>meeting people's needs in the market,

Charity.  How nice.  Good to see in these rough economic times.

Now if they were any good, you'd be making money from them.

> while full time working in the
>private sector, producing things people want and need rather than what
>politicians think they want and need.

Fine.  Go to H. Ross Perot or any number of Fortune 500 companies and get them
to put up the money.  Venture capital, and all that.

> All I ask is that NASA use its budget more wisely,

Sure.  Now how do you kill Congress?

> and devote more of it to projects that
>are important to self-sufficient space development,

YOUR pet vision on how it should run.

> and be far more
>open-minded about the wide range of future possibilities for such
>development,

As open as yours is? Oh ho ho.

>instead of isolating itself in its own little world of
>pork & glory (aka "vision", aka "The Space Program") and demanding
>that everybody else to goose-step to their drum.

You have this weird idea that, so long as people goose-step to YOUR drum,
life is good.



    Software engineering? That's like military intelligence, isn't it?
  -- >                  [e-mail]                        < --

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End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 354
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