Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V16_3/V16NO356.TXT

Text File | 1993-07-13 | 33KB | 732 lines

Date: Wed, 24 Mar 93 05:00:06
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V16 #356
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Wed, 24 Mar 93       Volume 16 : Issue 356

Today's Topics:
                            Aluminum, Gold
                      Aurora spotted ? (2 msgs)
                           Bullets in Space
                         Canada Space Program
       Clueless Szaboisms (Was Re: plans, and absence thereof)
                           FLOX and methane
                              Grand Plan
                          Life in the Galaxy
     Predicting gravity wave quantization & Cosmic Noise (2 msgs)
          Rocket clones: reduce risk of introducing new tech
                            Space markets
                     SR-71 Maiden Science Flight

    Welcome to the Space Digest!!  Please send your messages to
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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 93 17:32:25 EET
From: [e-mail] (F.Baube[tm])
Subject: Aluminum, Gold

From: The Master <[e-mail]>
> Subject: Alumnium was available in Elizabethan times?
>
> Funny how at the time it would have cost an enormous amount
> of money and now it's so cheap.  It's almost like thinking
> of people drinking out of gold Coke cans in the future :)

Another POSSIBILITY is elemental TRANSMUTATION !

Calling DR MACELWAINE !!

--
* May '68, Paris: It's   "[In conjunction] with the present means of
*  Retrospective Time !!  long-distance mass communication, sprawling
* * * * * * * * * *       isolation has proved [to be an] effective
* Fred Baube (tm)   *     method of keeping a population under control."
* [e-mail]   *   -- Lewis Mumford, "The City in History"

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

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 93 07:17:28 GMT
From: Dean Adams <[e-mail]>
Subject: Aurora spotted ?
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] writes:
 >Probabilities are definitely in favor of Aurora. However:
 >1) There is no final proof.
There rarely is for really Black programs, until DoD decides to uncloak.

 >In particular, the few visual observations reported in AW&ST
 >are dubious and inconclusive.

The most significant "visual observation" is the one made in the
North Sea, and I would hardly call that at all "dubious".

 >2) There is at least one inconsistency: if Aurora were that excellent,
 >why does it need to fly at rather low altitude and supersonic speed

WHERE is the "inconsistency", and what does being "excellent" (?)
have to do with anything?

 >over the Los Angeles area?
Nothing remotely inconsistent.  It is all a matter of aerodynamics.
For example, the SR-71 flying at Mach 3+/85,000 ft. normally took
about 200 miles to decelerate/decend when coming in for a landing.
What we are talking about is a vehicle that flies TWICE as fast.

 > "Airquakes" seem not pleasant.
It does not seem to be that much of a problem.

 >Common sense suggests that Aurora has some major flaw or drawback,
 >otherwise it would avoid these airquakes.

Heh... yes, it has the "flaw" of having to cope with the laws
of aerodynamics and flight.  Sorry if you don't like that. :->
I guess by that "common sense", ALL aircraft are flawed.

 >There are pending questions: had the sonic booms over the East Coast
 >in 1977-1978 something to do with Aurora?

WAY too early.  Any "Aurora" type vehicle would have most
likely been developed during the mid-to-late 80s.

 >More likely, was Aurora the cause of the boom over
 >the Netherlands on August 19, 1992?
Who knows.  What does it matter?

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

Date: 23 Mar 93 07:57:02 GMT
From: Aaron Ray Clements <[e-mail]>
Subject: Aurora spotted ?
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] writes:

>>BUT, a Mach 6 spy plane is VASTLY less extraordinary than "alien invaders".
>>This is a good example for using common sense.  That same common sense,
>>combined with logic and various evidence, says there very likely *IS* a
>>high-mach SR-71 follow-on vehicle operating. And NONE of that is anthing
>>even remotely connected with "UFOs".
>>Dean Adams (Sat, 20 Mar 93 14:21:41 GMT)

>This sounds very good. Probabilities are definitely in favor of Aurora.
>However:
>1) There is no final proof. In particular, the few visual observations
>reported in AW&ST are dubious and inconclusive.
>2) There is at least one inconsistency: if Aurora were that excellent,
>why does it need to fly at rather low altitude and supersonic speed
>over the Los Angeles area? "Airquakes" seem not pleasant. Common sense
>suggests that Aurora has some major flaw or drawback, otherwise it
>would avoid these airquakes.
>3) There are pending questions: had the sonic booms over the East Coast
>in 1977-1978 something to do with Aurora? More likely, was Aurora the
>cause of the boom over the Netherlands on August 19, 1992?

>J. Pharabod

Admittedly, there is no definitive proof till the USAF comes out and says
"we have the damn thing".  The "airquake" thing you mention is misleading.
What is actually happening is that the sonic boom is transferred to a
seismic wave by bouncing off of all the buildings in LA.  (You cause the
buildings to shake, you cause the ground to shake.)  The folks over in
the seismo lab here have gotten very good at picking out Mach aircraft
based on the wave signature.  This effect is small at best, but large
enough to be detected by sensors.

As a coincidence that I don't know if anyone has pointed out, and the
piece of evidence that pretty much puts the nail in the coffin as far
as the debate of the Aurora's existence goes, remember that the AF
decommissioned the Blackbird in '89-90, and there's _no_ way that
intelligence would depend solely on satellites.  (Satellites' orbital
schedules are easy to scope out, and satellites are dependent on weather.
Airplanes are not as limited in some of these respects.  Too valuable
a tool to give up.)

aaron
[e-mail]

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

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1993 02:24:05 GMT
From: Frank Crary <[e-mail]>
Subject: Bullets in Space
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [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.

Actually the period does change: The bullet's angular momentum is unchanged
but its energy increases, and orbital period depends only on energy.

                                                   Frank Crary
                                                   CU Boulder

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

Date: 22 Mar 93 21:39:45 MDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Canada Space Program
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Joel Semeniuk) writes:
> I need information about the Canadian Space program.  Does anybody know where
> I can obtain information pertaining to jobs in the space program.  If anyone
> has any information that they can give me about who or where I can contact I
> would really appreciate it.  Thanks.
>
> Joel Semeniuk
> Computer Science III
> University of Manitoba
> Winnipeg, MB.
>
>

Read the latest issue of "FINAL FRONTIER"  There is a whole article on the
Canadian Space Program.

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

Date: 23 Mar 1993 03:33:50 GMT
From: Shari L Brooks <[e-mail]>
Subject: Clueless Szaboisms (Was Re: plans, and absence thereof)
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

In article <[e-mail]>
[e-mail] writes:

>This is why I post about a plan an a lack thereof. With one exception by
>a poster that is not a regular, all I have heard is the regurgitation of
>peoples pet plans with no consideration on how these plans fit in with the
>larger realm of mankind. Give Allen credit, at least his plan does add to
>what is a larger plan. Even Nicks plan has a place in the overall pie. BUT
>neither of you consider what you are doing leads to within the context
>of HOW this will benefit all mankind.

I do not have the technical expertise that a lot of you all have but
I can see how Peter Glaser's work can have a lot to do with what you mean,
Dennis.

>Leaders of an earlier age did this. Edison wanted light to banish the night
>and free mankind from being a slave to the night. Tesla's dream was to
>power the machines that would free mankind from drugery and manual labor.
>Mr. Boeing and Lindberg and all the avaition pioneers saw clearly how the
>aeroplane would revolutionize travel and trade for the world (and make a buck
>too!) Von Braun and the others of his ilk were the same. The central problem
>of this day and this age and this net is that no one is putting forth the
>dream and then going forth and working on it.

Another thing is the lack of a charismatic, high publicity spokesman.  There
really is no one to inspire public support.  *events* like the Challenger
tragedy can only serve in ambiguous roles at best, for some people will
conclude that it was positive and some negative.  But when someone the
public likes and trusts starts sounding a trumpet call (yes, this is a bit
heavy on the rhetoric but that's what garnering public support is all about)
in support of something that sounds reasonable and which appeals to the
public and gives us a bit of national pride (it is unfortunate but until
they become commonplace acheivements in space will always be a fount of
nat'l pride, no matter what the nation), then things will start happening.
The person to put forth the dream must be someone who is *heard*.

--
If you blow fire against the wind, take care to not get the smoke in your eyes.
      Big & Growly Dragon-monster        |        [e-mail]
   --------> shari brooks <--------      |    [e-mail]
                      The above opinions are solely my own.

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

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1993 04:13:24 GMT
From: Bruce Dunn <[e-mail]>
Subject: FLOX and methane
Newsgroups: sci.space

> Dave Michelson writes:
>
> I finally got around to reading Jim Oberg's "Mission to Mars" this
> weekend.  On page 46, he mentions that in a definitive 1967 Mars mission
> study headed by G.S. Canetti of North American Rockwell, the ascent system
> of the proposed Mars Excursion Module (MEM)
>
>    was powered by a combination of FLOX (fluorine and liquid oxygen)
>    and methane, two propellants chosen for their safe storability
>    over nearly a year in space before engine firing.
>
> I would have thought some sort of non-cryogenic/hypergolic propellant
> would have been preferable.  Can anyone shed light on what I'm missing?


       FLOX and methane are probably hypergolic (FLOX and kerosene certainly
are).  None of the common non-cryogenic propellant combinations have a
specific impulse as high as FLOX and methane (I am ignoring exotic
combinations such as burning N2H4 with N2F4 or ClF5).  By sun-shielding and
radiative cooling, it is possible to keep tanks at temperatures around 100 K
indefinitely in space.  There is thus no problem in storing LOX, F2, or FLOX,
or liquid methane.  Liquid hydrogen (approximately 20K) is too cold to keep
without evaporation losses or power input in the form of reliquifiers, hence
it is less desirable for long term storage.
       If propellant tanks are next to one another in a vehicle, it is handy
to have them at approximately the same temperature so they can share the same
temperature control system.  Thus it would not be convenient to use a
cryogenic oxidizer and a non-cryogen fuel (which at cryogen temperatures
would freeze solid).  F2 is a high energy oxidizer which leads to dense
propellant combinations.  However, it performs poorly with fuels which have
carbon in them (the carbon remains unburnt).  The natural fuels for F2 are
thus H2, NH3, and hydrazine (N2H4).  H2 is ruled out because its boiling
point is too high for space storage, while NH3 and N2H4 freeze at liquid
fluorine temperatures.  To get a space storable propellant using fluorine,
the trick is to use a hydrocarbon fuel, and add just enough LOX to the F2 to
burn the carbon to CO (the hydrogen is burned to HF with the fluorine).  If
you pick liquid methane as your fuel, its storage temperature is roughly
compatible with that of the FLOX oxidiser (several other light hydrocarbons
are also temperature compatible, but have a poorer H to C ratio than CH4).

        An alternative to FLOX is OF2 -  its performance advantage however is
slight, and it is a much more expensive oxidizer.

        I don't have performance figures handy for FLOX and CH4, but some
idea of the potential of FLOX is given by its performance figures for
kerosene (essentially CH2).  LOX and kerosene under one reference condition
(1000 psi chamber pressure, equilibrium expansion to 14.7 psi) have a
specific impulse of 300, while FLOX and kerosene have a specific impulse of
343.  For comparison, LOX and LH2 have a specific impulse under these
conditions of approximately 390.

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

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

Date: 23 Mar 1993 05:58 UT
From: Ron Baalke <[e-mail]>
Subject: Grand Plan
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes...
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ron Baalke) writes:
>>
>>   "if Congress had fully funded both spacecraft, they could have been
>>    completed on time for the original price tag, but the savings of
>>    designing a single frame for two spacecraft were lost when the comet
>>    mission was cut".
>
>That is Fisk's opinion, not necessary widely shared.

Actually, this is a well established fact.  Fisk, being in charge of
NASA's science budget, is in a position to know such facts.
Congress did cut CRAF/Cassini's budget in 1991 to save money in the
short term, but ending up costing more in the long term.  It doesn't make
any sense to me either.

>(For those who don't
>read Space News, the article was about Fisk's promotion to a non-management
>post, and about the question of whether he'd done a good job as management
>or not.

It was an interesting article, with mixed reviews for Fisk with
both high praise and criticism.

>I'd also note that CRAF was attempting to "stay within budget" by shedding
>pieces as the overruns mounted.  For example, the penetrator got dropped
>from the mission to save money.

The penetrator was dropped in 1990 (the same year Congress approved
CRAF/Cassini) because it was determined the penetrator by itself can
cost up $120 million.  It was really disappointing to see the penetrator
dropped.  But like you said, CRAF stayed within budget.  It was also a pity
CRAF was cancelled.  In addition to a comet rendezvous, CRAF would of flown by
two asteroids and Mars, and its trajectory was already worked out that
it was known that it would of also flown within 1000 km of both Deimos and
Phobos.
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     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: Tue, 23 Mar 93 16:21:46 MET
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Life in the Galaxy

From "Nature", Vol 362, 18 March 1993 (p. 204):

Anybody there?

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) may have more chance of
success than those engaged on the project say (J.F.Kasting, D.P.Whitmire &
R.T.Reynolds, Icarus 101, 108-128; 1993). For a planet to sustain life, it
must be not so near the parent star that its water content is boiled and
photolysed away; but nor should it be so far away that atmospheric carbon
dioxide (necessary as a greenhouse gas) condenses to form clouds, shading
the surface. With these twin conditions, the authors estimate the size of
habitable zones around various types of star (fortunately, Venus and Mars
fall outside the limits for the Sun). Hotter 'F' stars evolve too quickly
for life to develop, but planets around cooler 'M' stars become tidally
locked on their orbits, so that one hemisphere always looks out to cold
outer space. K stars, however, seem to be even more favourable than the
Sunlike G-stars, currently targeted by the SETI project, and should be
included in the search, the authors argue.
(end of article)

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

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1993 01:35:31 GMT
From: Cameron Randale Bass <[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:
>
>>
>>[e-mail] (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:
>>      The crucial point in my sentence above was unfortunately deleted.
>>      The beginning was along the lines 'if the wave travelled
>>      instantaneously'.  The sentiment was something like 'If a wave
>>      travels at infinite wavespeed, where's the wave?'
>>      Your ears are going to have a difficult time decomposing that
>>      oscillation.
>>
>>      You aren't suggesting that 'gravitons', whatever
>>      they may be, are propagated instantaneously are you?
>
>No I am not suggesting that. But I am saying that the wave that they are
>trying to detect is _not_ a graviton. Gravitons are something that will
>have to be detected in a particle accelerator the size of the solar system.
>They are _very_ high energy physics. They were probably the first particles
>produced out of the big bang, before 10^-40 seconds. Because of it's very
>high energy, it has a very short wavelength. So I really don't think that
>is the type of wave they are trying to detect with the spacecraft, which
>is suited for waves millions of kilometers long.

     It seems what we have here is a failure to communicate.
     You mentioned gravitons.  I was talking about the propagation
     speed of gravitational waves.

     I don't even know what gravitons are in this context since we're
     talking about a classically-defined and classically-run
     phenomenon (where classical is defined as non-quantum).

>How are you defining gravitational waves? The wavelength of the graviton?
>The frequency of emmited gravitons or what?

      No, there is apparently a weak gravitational disturbance
      with a wave structure that is emitted by such things as
      collapse to a black hole involving substantial mass.
      Again, I think it's probably not fruitful to discuss
      gravitons in this context since they seem to be unnecessary
      (and I do not know of an accepted quantum theory of gravitation)
      References were recently provided by several posters for
      definitions and discussions of gravitational waves.

>I was thinking more along the lines of gravitational waves being oscillating
>gravitational field strength (i.e. not a particle). The field does not travel
>at all. It's just the 'topology' of space. Granted, changes in the field are
>not carried through it instantaniously.

      That's what I thought we were talking about.  My point was that
      it seems difficult to propagate a wavelike disturbance
      instantaneously and call it a wave.  So the fact that there is
      (or is assumed to be) a wavespeed seems crucial in the phenomenon.

>Again, what exactly do you mean by the wave packet (just so we're speaking
>the same language).

     Loosely, a wave comprised of various different wavelength excitations
     that hang around together in a spatially-localized region.

>>>If a gravity wave travels between the spacecraft, and the receiver on the
>>>Earth, it will curve space and increase the distance between us and the
>>>spacecraft. If they time the pulses from the ground to the spacecraft,
>>>and back to Earth they should see a slight increase in distance between the
>>>spacecraft, and the Earth (accounting for the spacecraft's velocity of course)
>>>And they will have to  accurately account for the time it takes the spacecraft
>>>to proccess the signal, and send it back. If it takes a constant amount of
>>>time to do this, then you can just ignore it.
>>
>>     But time is the rub.  While the wave is playing around with space,
>>     it's also playing around with time.  It's also coinciding with
>>     the 'return' signal in various configurations.
>>
>Right. The wave bends space, which increases the distance between us, and it
>also distorts time, which doubles the effect by making it take that much
>longer. So the effect is not cancelled out, it is doubled. It's the same thing
>Einstein predicted when stars apparent positions were displaced by the sun's
>gravity that was observed during a solar eclipse. The effect was doubled by
>the time distortions.

     So you increase the wavelength and decrease the frequency.
     It would also seem to me that in such a situations clocks run slow
     'within' the gravitational disturbance.  The two disturbances
     (gravitational and electromagnetic) fly back to the detector,
     and the gravitational disturbance slows the 'clocks' at
     the receiver to effectively increase the frequency
     and cancel the effect.

     The big difference seems to be the possibility of the gravitational
     interaction occuring at all points local to the electromagnetic
     interaction we're using to detect it.  But, since I understand
     almost nothing about the putative phenomenon, I'm probably missing
     something.

                           dale bass

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

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1993 02:00:36 GMT
From: Cameron Randale Bass <[e-mail]>
Subject: Predicting gravity wave quantization & Cosmic Noise
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,sci.physics

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Matt McIrvin) writes:
>[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.

     Yes, I was trying to point out that we are not
     looking for the gravitational analogue of the redshift he
     was talking about (i.e. the wave frequency behavior of
     an object collapsing to a black hole while moving away from us).
     However, that might be a pretty interesting
     measurement had we a) detailed spectral information from the
     gravitational source, b) the ability to obtain detailed
     spectral information about the wave itself.  I don't expect
     we'll have such in my lifetime, to say the least.

     And I was under the impression that the radiation from a binary
     pulsar system would not be detectable here under the most
     optimistic of detector situations (unless, of course, we were
     sitting on one).

>* 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.

      No, but it would seem to doppler shift the frequency of the
      gravitational excitation if the object chose that moment for
      a massive fiery collapse.

                            dale bass

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

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1993 08:34:00 GMT
From: Nick Szabo <[e-mail]>
Subject: Rocket clones: reduce risk of introducing new tech
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:

>(There is also the small matter that no
>other Western launcher *could* have launched Galileo, it being too heavy
>for the then-operational Titans...)

Not only is this not a small matter; it may be the biggest matter.
NASA, using its monopolistic powers, dictated a whole fleet of spacecraft
that could be launched only on STS, and cancelled just about everything
else (and a few STS payloads besides) to cover STS's budget overruns.
Even worse, the U.S. military followed suit, and ignored upgrading the
Titan as an alternative launcher for this oversized class of payloads
until it was too late.

Thus the heart of my rocket clone proposal: when introducing new
rocket technology, use it to launch current payloads.  When
introducing new classes of payloads, use existing rocket technology.
With this strategy, if it was necessary for the military to have
such a large class of payloads, they would have upgraded Titan 3
to Titan 4 first, then transitioned to STS, making sure STS and
Titan 4 could launch the same payloads.  NASA would have
designed the Mariner Mk. II series (Galileo, CRAF, Cassinni) for the
Titan 3 or 4 (if available), with the option of launching on STS.
With rocket cloning, we avoid the fiascos where an entire proprietary
rocket/payload infrastructure goes crashing down in flames.  With the
greatly lowered risk of this approach, we can increase the pace of
introducing risky new technology.

This approach could work even better in the private sector.  For
example, an MX-derived Delta clone, or an Amroc-engine based Delta
clone, could have taken the space program by storm during the 80's.
But the MX-derivative and Amroc folks placed the importance of engineering
optimization ("that size payload just wouldn't fit our scheme")
over making things easy for the customer, over the importance of
a fungible market.  Too bad these startup rocket companies didn't
have any actual experience in commercial cargo transport, instead
borrowing their strategies from the defense-contracting world.
Of course, DoD is a dominant customer and much of the blame lies
there (eg favoring payload upsizing of Atlas & Delta instead of
cheaper launchers). On the other hand, Ariane was able to successfully
apply rocket cloning, launching payloads originally destined for the Atlas
with inexpensive mods. "Commercial" is more than just a name, folks: it's
a very different way of thinking.

Alas, I recognize the political improbability of this approach
at NASA, and how deeply it goes against the grandiose central-planning
mindset that permeates both NASA and the space program in general
(hopefully Goldin et. al. can turn around NASA).  Another good
argument in favor of Tom McWilliam's "NASA balkanization" scheme.


--
Nick Szabo                     [e-mail]

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

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1993 05:27:56 GMT
From: Eric H Seale <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space markets
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <1ojfi4$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pat) writes:
>>The movie the Last Action Hero  will be a sticker on an upcoming
>>Delta Launch.

>Actually, it's on the Conestoga launcher for Comet 1, I believe.

Maybe they're covering all the bases -- I think I saw a picture of their
logo on a Delta as well...

Eric Seale
#include <disclaimer.std>

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

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 93 19:04:14 GMT
From: Bob Combs <[e-mail]>
Subject: SR-71 Maiden Science Flight
Newsgroups: sci.space

>cess.digex.com (Pat) writes:
>
>>Has anyone considered which is more fun to ride along on while
>>running science gear?  I'd rather hop in the back seat of the 71
>>and run the science gear, as opposed to dangling in a balloon.
>
>Pat, it seems incredibly unlikely that the participating scientists would ride
>in either one. They are superfluous and very difficult to accommodate on either
>vehicle.
>

So are Congressmen, and other high level beauracrats.  When
I was stationed at Beale Air Force Base working on the SR-71
as an electrician,  There was a list of congressmen and
other beauracrats that took a ride in the SR-71.  AT
$1,000,000 a shot!!! The list had about 30 people on it.

Besides, the Rear Seat Occupant (RSO) has the responsibility
for operating the instruments.  I'm sure the scientists
are riding.  It wont be an empty seat!  They'll need
a lot of training, but if NASA is like the air force,
they will have their scientists up there!.



--
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Traditions are the living faith of dead people.
[e-mail]
Bob Combs

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Date: Tue, 23 Mar 93 17:22:16 EST
From: [e-mail]

Press Release Nr.15-93
Paris, 23 March 1993

Spacelab D2 crew back in Houston

As announced by NASA, the Shuttle Columbia has had an
aborted launch on Monday 22 March and it is presently
expected that the countdown for the Spacelab D2 mission will
not be resumed before three weeks.

The following measures being carried out on the Shuttle
illustrate the complexity of the inspection procedures that have
begun :
The external tank has already been emptied, and the cooling
units for the biological samples in the orbiter have been set to
"zero".
On Tuesday 23 March, (local time at Cape Canaveral in
Florida), the servicing gantry has been brought back alongside
the Shuttle, and the biological experiments and experiment
racks have then been removed from the mid-deck.
The orbiter will then be reconnected to external supplies, and
on Tuesday 23 March in the evening NASA's servicing teams
will be draining the supercooled fuels from their various tanks.

On Wednesday 24 March, the suspect valves will be removed
from the propulsion system for inspection, and on Thursday
25 March the Shuttle's ignition mechanisms will be
dismantled. Maintenance work will also be done on the
Spacelab module.

On Monday 22 March in the evening, the entire crew was
flown back to Houston, where they will remain in readiness
for a continuation of the mission and the Space Shuttle system
is now fully secured.

This Spacelab flight- the 7th for the ESA developed manned
orbiting laboratory- is carrying 92 experiments, 32 of them
being developed with ESA funding. The responsibility for the
complete scientific programme is in the hands of DLR- the
German Aerospace Research Establishment.

The ESA facilities onboard Spacelab include mainly
Anthrorack and the Advanced Fluid Physics Module (AFPM),
(see ESA Release Nr 11-93).



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End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 356
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