Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V16_4/V16NO420.TXT

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

Date: Mon,  5 Apr 93 05:07:36
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V16 #420
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Mon,  5 Apr 93       Volume 16 : Issue 420

Today's Topics:
                 Astro/Space Frequently Seen Acronyms
                         Atlas rocket questio
                        Atlas rocket question
                   lie low netters! UFO's want you!
                         NASA (dis)incentives
                            nuclear waste
nuclear weapons and power-reactor plutonium (was: Re: the call to space)
                    Portable Small Ground Station?
                    Prefab Space Station? (3 msgs)
                         pushing the envelope
            Sky Surfing Safety. What if you bite the wave!

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

Date: 5 Apr 1993 00:00:16 -0400
From: Mark Bradford <[e-mail]>
Subject: Astro/Space Frequently Seen Acronyms
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space,sci.space.shuttle,news.answers

Archive-name: space/acronyms
Edition: 8

Acronym List for sci.astro, sci.space, and sci.space.shuttle:
Edition 8, 1992 Dec 7
Last posted: 1992 Aug 27

This list is offered as a reference for translating commonly appearing
acronyms in the space-related newsgroups.  If I forgot or botched your
favorite acronym, please let me know!  Also, if there's an acronym *not*
on this list that confuses you, drop me a line, and if I can figure
it out, I'll add it to the list.

Note that this is intended to be a reference for *frequently seen*
acronyms, and is most emphatically *not* encyclopedic.  If I incorporated
every acronym I ever saw, I'd soon run out of disk space!  :-)

The list will be posted at regular intervals, every 30 days.  All
comments regarding it are welcome; I'm reachable as [e-mail].

Note that this just tells what the acronyms stand for -- you're on your
own for figuring out what they *mean*!  Note also that the total number of
acronyms in use far exceeds what I can list; special-purpose acronyms that
are essentially always explained as they're introduced are omitted.
Further, some acronyms stand for more than one thing; as of Edition 3 of
the list, these acronyms appear on multiple lines, unless they're simply
different ways of referring to the same thing.

Thanks to everybody who's sent suggestions since the first version of
the list, and especially to Garrett A. Wollman ([e-mail]),
who is maintaining an independent list, somewhat more verbose in
character than mine, and to Daniel Fischer ([e-mail]),
who is maintaining a truly HUGE list (535 at last count) of acronyms and
terms, mostly in German (which I read, fortunately).

Special thanks this time to Ken Hollis at NASA, who sent me a copy of NASA
Reference Publication 1059 Revised: _Space Transportation System and
Associated Payloads: Glossary, Acronyms, and Abbreviations_, a truly
mammoth tome -- almost 300 pages of TLAs.

Special Bonus!  At the end of this posting, you will find a perl program
written by none other than Larry Wall, whose purpose is to scramble the
acronym list in an entertaining fashion.  Thanks, Larry!

A&A: Astronomy and Astrophysics
AAO: Anglo-Australian Observatory
AAS: American Astronomical Society
AAS: American Astronautical Society
AAVSO: American Association of Variable Star Observers
ACE: Advanced Composition Explorer
ACRV: Assured Crew Return Vehicle (or) Astronaut Crew Rescue Vehicle
ADFRF: Ames-Dryden Flight Research Facility (was DFRF) (NASA)
AGN: Active Galactic Nucleus
AGU: American Geophysical Union
AIAA: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
AIPS: Astronomical Image Processing System
AJ: Astronomical Journal
ALEXIS: Array of Low Energy X-ray Imaging Sensors
ALPO: Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers
ALS: Advanced Launch System
ANSI: American National Standards Institute
AOA: Abort Once Around (Shuttle abort plan)
AOCS: Attitude and Orbit Control System
Ap.J: Astrophysical Journal
APM: Attached Pressurized Module (a.k.a. Columbus)
APU: Auxiliary Power Unit
ARC: Ames Research Center (NASA)
ARTEMIS: Advanced Relay TEchnology MISsion
ASA: Astronomical Society of the Atlantic
ASI: Agenzia Spaziale Italiano
ASRM: Advanced Solid Rocket Motor
ATDRS: Advanced Tracking and Data Relay Satellite
ATLAS: Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science
ATM: Amateur Telescope Maker
ATO: Abort To Orbit (Shuttle abort plan)
AU: Astronomical Unit
AURA: Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy
AW&ST: Aviation Week and Space Technology (a.k.a. AvLeak)
AXAF: Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility
BATSE: Burst And Transient Source Experiment (on CGRO)
BBXRT: Broad-Band X-Ray Telescope (ASTRO package)
BEM: Bug-Eyed Monster
BH: Black Hole
BIMA: Berkeley Illinois Maryland Array
BNSC: British National Space Centre
BTW: By The Way
C&T: Communications & Tracking
CCAFS: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
CCD: Charge-Coupled Device
CCDS: Centers for the Commercial Development of Space
CD-ROM: Compact Disk Read-Only Memory
CFA: Center For Astrophysics
CFC: ChloroFluoroCarbon
CFF: Columbus Free Flyer
CFHT: Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope
CGRO: (Arthur Holley) Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (was GRO)
CHARA: Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy
CIRRIS: Cryogenic InfraRed Radiance Instrument for Shuttle
CIT: Circumstellar Imaging Telescope
CM: Command Module (Apollo spacecraft)
CMCC: Central Mission Control Centre (ESA)
CNES: Centre National d'Etude Spatiales
CNO: Carbon-Nitrogen-Oxygen
CNSR: Comet Nucleus Sample Return
COBE: COsmic Background Explorer
COMPTEL: COMPton TELescope (on CGRO)
COSTAR: Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement
CRAF: Comet Rendezvous / Asteroid Flyby
CRRES: Combined Release / Radiation Effects Satellite
CSM: Command and Service Module (Apollo spacecraft)
CSTC: Consolidated Satellite Test Center (USAF)
CTIO: Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory
DCX: Delta Clipper eXperimental
DDCU: DC-to-DC Converter Unit
DFRF: Dryden Flight Research Facility (now ADFRF)
DMSP: Defense Meteorological Satellite Program
DOD: Department Of Defense (sometimes DoD)
DOE: Department Of Energy
DOT: Department Of Transportation
DSCS: Defense Satellite Communications System
DSN: Deep Space Network
DSP: Defense Support Program (USAF/NRO)
EAFB: Edwards Air Force Base
ECS: Environmental Control System
EDO: Extended Duration Orbiter
EGRET: Energetic Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope (on CGRO)
EJASA: Electronic Journal of the Astronomical Society of the Atlantic
ELV: Expendable Launch Vehicle
EMU: Extravehicular Mobility Unit
EOS: Earth Observing System
ERS: Earth Resources Satellite (as in ERS-1)
ESA: European Space Agency
ESO: European Southern Observatory
ET: (Shuttle) External Tank
ETLA: Extended Three Letter Acronym
ETR: Eastern Test Range
EUV: Extreme UltraViolet
EUVE: Extreme UltraViolet Explorer
EVA: ExtraVehicular Activity
FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
FAST: Fast Auroral SnapshoT explorer
FFT: Fast Fourier Transform
FGS: Fine Guidance Sensors (on HST)
FHST: Fixed Head Star Trackers (on HST)
FIR: Far InfraRed
FITS: Flexible Image Transport System
FOC: Faint Object Camera (on HST)
FOS: Faint Object Spectrograph (on HST)
FRR: Flight-Readiness Review
FTP: File Transfer Protocol
FTS: Flight Telerobotic Servicer
FUSE: Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer
FWHM: Full Width at Half Maximum
FYI: For Your Information
GAS: Get-Away Special
GBT: Green Bank Telescope
GCVS: General Catalog of Variable Stars
GEM: Giotto Extended Mission
GEO: Geosynchronous Earth Orbit
GDS: Great Dark Spot
GHRS: Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph (on HST)
GIF: Graphics Interchange Format
GLOMR: Global Low-Orbiting Message Relay
GMC: Giant Molecular Cloud
GMRT: Giant Meter-wave Radio Telescope
GMT: Greenwich Mean Time (also called UT)
GOES: Geostationary Orbiting Environmental Satellite
GOX: Gaseous OXygen
GPC: General Purpose Computer
GPS: Global Positioning System
GRO: Gamma Ray Observatory (now CGRO)
GRS: Gamma Ray Spectrometer (on Mars Observer)
GRS: Great Red Spot
GSC: Guide Star Catalog (for HST)
GSFC: Goddard Space Flight Center (NASA)
GTO: Geostationary Transfer Orbit
HAO: High Altitude Observatory
HD: Henry Draper catalog entry
HEAO: High Energy Astronomical Observatory
HeRA: Hermes Robotic Arm
HF: High Frequency
HGA: High Gain Antenna
HLC: Heavy Lift Capability
HLV: Heavy Lift Vehicle
HMC: Halley Multicolor Camera (on Giotto)
HR: Hertzsprung-Russell (diagram)
HRI: High Resolution Imager (on ROSAT)
HSP: High Speed Photometer (on HST)
HST: Hubble Space Telescope
HUT: Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope (ASTRO package)
HV: High Voltage
IAPPP: International Amateur/Professional Photoelectric Photometry
IAU: International Astronomical Union
IAUC: IAU Circular
ICE: International Cometary Explorer
IDA: International Dark-sky Association
IDL: Interactive Data Language
IGM: InterGalactic Medium
IGY: International Geophysical Year
IMHO: In My Humble Opinion
IOTA: Infrared-Optical Telescope Array
IOTA: International Occultation Timing Association
IPS: Inertial Pointing System
IR: InfraRed
IRAF: Image Reduction and Analysis Facility
IRAS: InfraRed Astronomical Satellite
ISAS: Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (Japan)
ISM: InterStellar Medium
ISO: Infrared Space Observatory
ISO: International Standards Organization
ISPM: International Solar Polar Mission (now Ulysses)
ISY: International Space Year
IUE: International Ultraviolet Explorer
IUS: Inertial Upper Stage
JEM: Japanese Experiment Module (for SSF)
JGR: Journal of Geophysical Research
JILA: Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics
JPL: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
JSC: Johnson Space Center (NASA)
KAO: Kuiper Airborne Observatory
KPNO: Kitt Peak National Observatory
KSC: Kennedy Space Center (NASA)
KTB: Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary (from German)
LANL: Los Alamos National Laboratory
LaRC: Langley Research Center (NASA)
LDEF: Long Duration Exposure Facility
LEM: Lunar Excursion Module (a.k.a. LM) (Apollo spacecraft)
LEO: Low Earth Orbit
LeRC: Lewis Research Center (NASA)
LEST: Large Earth-based Solar Telescope
LFSA: List of Frequently Seen Acronyms (!)
LGA: Low Gain Antenna
LGM: Little Green Men
LH: Liquid Hydrogen (also LH2 or LHX)
LLNL: Lawrence-Livermore National Laboratory
LM: Lunar Module (a.k.a. LEM) (Apollo spacecraft)
LMC: Large Magellanic Cloud
LN2: Liquid N2 (Nitrogen)
LOX: Liquid OXygen
LRB: Liquid Rocket Booster
LSR: Local Standard of Rest
LTP: Lunar Transient Phenomenon
MB: Manned Base
MCC: Mission Control Center
MECO: Main Engine CutOff
MMH: MonoMethyl Hydrazine
MMT: Multiple Mirror Telescope
MMU: Manned Maneuvering Unit
MNRAS: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
MOC: Mars Observer Camera (on Mars Observer)
MOL: Manned Orbiting Laboratory
MOLA: Mars Observer Laser Altimeter (on Mars Observer)
MOMV: Manned Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle
MOTV: Manned Orbital Transfer Vehicle
MPC: Minor Planets Circular
MRSR: Mars Rover and Sample Return
MRSRM: Mars Rover and Sample Return Mission
MSFC: (George C.) Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA)
MTC: Man Tended Capability
NACA: National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (became NASA)
NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NASDA: NAtional Space Development Agency (Japan)
NASM: National Air and Space Museum
NASP: National AeroSpace Plane
NBS: National Bureau of Standards (now NIST)
NDV: NASP Derived Vehicle
NERVA: Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application
NGC: New General Catalog
NICMOS: Near Infrared Camera / Multi Object Spectrometer (HST upgrade)
NIMS: Near-Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (on Galileo)
NIR: Near InfraRed
NIST: National Institute for Standards and Technology (was NBS)
NLDP: National Launch Development Program
NOAA: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
NOAO: National Optical Astronomy Observatories
NRAO: National Radio Astronomy Observatory
NRO: National Reconnaissance Office
NS: Neutron Star
NSA: National Security Agency
NSF: National Science Foundation
NSO: National Solar Observatory
NSSDC: National Space Science Data Center
NTR: Nuclear Thermal Rocket(ry)
NTT: New Technology Telescope
OAO: Orbiting Astronomical Observatory
OCST: Office of Commercial Space Transportation
OMB: Office of Management and Budget
OMS: Orbital Maneuvering System
OPF: Orbiter Processing Facility
ORFEUS: Orbiting and Retrievable Far and Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrometer
OSC: Orbital Sciences Corporation
OSCAR: Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio
OSSA: Office of Space Science and Applications
OSSE: Oriented Scintillation Spectrometer Experiment (on CGRO)
OTA: Optical Telescope Assembly (on HST)
OTHB: Over The Horizon Backscatter
OTV: Orbital Transfer Vehicle
OV: Orbital Vehicle
PAM: Payload Assist Module
PAM-D: Payload Assist Module, Delta-class
PI: Principal Investigator
PLSS: Portable Life Support System
PM: Pressurized Module
PMC: Permanently Manned Capability
PMIRR: Pressure Modulated InfraRed Radiometer (on Mars Observer)
PMT: PhotoMultiplier Tube
PSF: Point Spread Function
PSR: PulSaR
PV: Photovoltaic
PVO: Pioneer Venus Orbiter
QSO: Quasi-Stellar Object
RCI: Rodent Cage Interface (for SLS mission)
RCS: Reaction Control System
REM: Rat Enclosure Module (for SLS mission)
RF: Radio Frequency
RFI: Radio Frequency Interference
RIACS: Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science
RMS: Remote Manipulator System
RNGC: Revised New General Catalog
ROSAT: ROentgen SATellite
ROUS: Rodents Of Unusual Size (I don't believe they exist)
RSN: Real Soon Now
RTG: Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator
RTLS: Return To Launch Site (Shuttle abort plan)
SAA: South Atlantic Anomaly
SAGA: Solar Array Gain Augmentation (for HST)
SAMPEX: Solar Anomalous and Magnetospheric Particle EXplorer
SAO: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
SAR: Search And Rescue
SAR: Synthetic Aperture Radar
SARA: Satellite pour Astronomie Radio Amateur
SAREX: Search and Rescue Exercise
SAREX: Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment
SAS: Space Activity Suit
SAS: Space Adaptation Syndrome
SAT: Synthetic Aperture Telescope
S/C: SpaceCraft
SCA: Shuttle Carrier Aircraft
SCT: Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope
SDI: Strategic Defense Initiative
SDIO: Strategic Defense Initiative Organization
SEI: Space Exploration Initiative
SEST: Swedish ESO Submillimeter Telescope
SETI: Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence
SID: Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance
SIR: Shuttle Imaging Radar
SIRTF: Space (formerly Shuttle) InfraRed Telescope Facility
SL: SpaceLab
SLAR: Side-Looking Airborne Radar
SLC: Space Launch Complex
SLS: Space(lab) Life Sciences
SMC: Small Magellanic Cloud
SME: Solar Mesosphere Explorer
SMEX: SMall EXplorers
SMM: Solar Maximum Mission
SN: SuperNova (e.g., SN1987A)
SNR: Signal to Noise Ratio
SNR: SuperNova Remnant
SNU: Solar Neutrino Units
SOFIA: Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy
SOHO: SOlar Heliospheric Observatory
SPAN: Space Physics and Analysis Network
SPDM: Special Purpose Dextrous Manipulator
SPOT: Systeme Probatoire pour l'Observation de la Terre
SPS: Solar Power Satellite
SRB: Solid Rocket Booster
SRM: Solid Rocket Motor
SSF: Space Station Fred (er, Freedom)
SSI: Solid-State Imager (on Galileo)
SSI: Space Studies Institut
SSME: Space Shuttle Main Engine
SSPF: Space Station Processing Facility
SSRMS: Space Station Remote Manipulator System
SST: Spectroscopic Survey Telescope
SST: SuperSonic Transport
SSTO: Single Stage To Orbit
STIS: Space Telescope Imaging Spectrometer (to replace FOC and GHRS)
STS: Shuttle Transport System (or) Space Transportation System
STScI: Space Telescope Science Institute
SWAS: Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite
SWF: ShortWave Fading
TAL: Transatlantic Abort Landing (Shuttle abort plan)
TAU: Thousand Astronomical Unit (mission)
TCS: Thermal Control System
TDRS: Tracking and Data Relay Satellite
TDRSS: Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System
TES: Thermal Emission Spectrometer (on Mars Observer)
TIROS: Television InfraRed Observation Satellite
TLA: Three Letter Acronym
TOMS: Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer
TPS: Thermal Protection System
TSS: Tethered Satellite System
UARS: Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite
UBM: Unpressurized Berthing Mechanism
UDMH: Unsymmetrical DiMethyl Hydrazine
UFO: Unidentified Flying Object
UGC: Uppsala General Catalog
UHF: Ultra High Frequency
UIT: Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (Astro package)
UKST: United Kingdom Schmidt Telescope
USAF: United States Air Force
USMP: United States Microgravity Payload
UT: Universal Time (a.k.a. GMT, UTC, or Zulu Time)
UTC: Coordinated Universal Time (a.k.a. UT)
UV: UltraViolet
UVS: UltraViolet Spectrometer
VAB: Vehicle Assembly Building (formerly Vertical Assembly Building)
VAFB: Vandenberg Air Force Base
VEEGA: Venus-Earth-Earth Gravity Assist (Galileo flight path)
VHF: Very High Frequency
VLA: Very Large Array
VLBA: Very Long Baseline Array
VLBI: Very Long Baseline Interferometry
VLF: Very Low Frequency
VLT: Very Large Telescope
VMS: Vertical Motion Simulator
VOIR: Venus Orbiting Imaging Radar (superseded by VRM)
VPF: Vertical Processing Facility
VRM: Venus Radar Mapper (now called Magellan)
WD: White Dwarf
WFPC: Wide Field / Planetary Camera (on HST)
WFPCII: Replacement for WFPC
WIYN: Wisconsin / Indiana / Yale / NOAO telescope
WSMR: White Sands Missile Range
WTR: Western Test Range
WUPPE: Wisconsin Ultraviolet PhotoPolarimter Experiment (Astro package)
XMM: X-ray Multi Mirror
XUV: eXtreme UltraViolet
YSO: Young Stellar Object


#!/usr/bin/perl
# 'alt', An Acronym Scrambling Program, by Larry Wall

$THRESHOLD = 2;

srand;
while (<>) {
    next unless /^([A-Z]\S+): */;
    $key = $1;
    $acro{$key} = $';
    @words = split(/\W+/,$');
    unshift(@words,$key);
    $off = 0;
    foreach $word (@words) {
        next unless $word =~ /^[A-Z]/;
        *w = $&;
        vec($w{$word}, $off++ % 6, 1) = 1;
    }
}

foreach $letter (A .. Z) {
    *w = $letter;
    @w = keys %w;
    if (@w < $THRESHOLD) {
        @d = `egrep '^$letter' /usr/dict/words`;
        chop @d;
        push(@w, @d);
    }
}

foreach $key (sort keys %acro) {
    $off = 0;
    $acro = $acro{$key};
    $acro =~ s/((([A-Z])[A-Z]*)[a-z]*)/ &pick($3, $2, $1, ++$off) || $& /eg;
    print "$key: $acro";
}

sub pick {
    local($letter, $prefix, $oldword, $off) = @_;
    $i = 0;
    if (length($prefix) > 1 && index($key,$prefix) < 0) {
        if ($prefix eq $oldword) {
            $prefix = '';
        }
        else {
            $prefix = $letter;
        }
    }
    if (length($prefix) > 1) {
        local(*w) = substr($prefix,0,1);
        do {
            $word = $w[rand @w];
        } until $word ne $oldword && $word =~ /^$prefix/i || ++$i > 30;
        $word =~ s/^$prefix/$prefix/i;
        $word;
    }
    elsif (length($prefix) == 1) {
        local(*w) = $prefix;
        do {
            $word = $w[rand @w];
        } until $word ne $oldword && vec($w{$word}, $off, 1) || ++$i > 10;
        $word = "\u\L$word" if $word =~ tr/a-z/A-Z/;
        $word;
    }
    else {
        local(*w) = substr($oldword,0,1);
        do {
            $word = $w[rand @w];
        } until $word ne $oldword && $word =~ tr/a-z/A-Z/ == 0 || ++$i > 30;
        $word;
    }
}


-- Mark Bradford ([e-mail]) <> To err is human, to moo bovine.
                  "It's an ill wind that gathers no moss."

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

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1993 00:28:45 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Atlas rocket questio
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>HS>This is what you get when you really lean on rocket engineers to make
>HS>a lightweight rocket stage, instead of having them build a heavy-duty
>HS>tank with rocket engines attached.  Which is why Atlas made it into
>HS>orbit on 1.5 stages in 1958, a performance unequalled to this day.
>
>What would it take in materials technology to make an Atlas into a SSTO
>with return to Earth capability; i.e., where could weight be saved?


You might not need very much to recover the orbital part, if you used
one of the ballute/plume aerobraking schemes rather than a brute-force
reentry, and then made a vertical landing.  The stainless-steel tank
is pretty durable.

Getting into orbit without dropping pieces on the way up is a bit harder.
But there is this peculiar myth that we need lots of sexy modern materials
technology to save weight for SSTO.  The fact is, we don't.  The Atlas
might be a bit difficult to retrofit, but let's look at another piece of
historical hardware:  the S-II, the second stage of the Saturn V.

When you look at the numbers on the S-II, something interesting emerges:
this thing was an SSTO-capable vehicle!  It had the thrust to do a
vertical launch, and the mass ratio to take itself and a few tons of
payload all the way into orbit.  The takeoff acceleration would have
been a bit low, and you might have wanted to either soup the engines
up a bit or add some small solid strap-ons... but the basic level of
performance that the belittlers say is oh-so-difficult was achieved
in an operational, production stage 25 years ago.

There were proposals to adapt the S-IVB, the Saturn V third stage, for
recovery, using nose-first reentry stabilized by ballutes, ablative
thermal protection, and parachutes plus crushable honeycomb.  I imagine
you could do the same with an S-II.
--
All work is one man's work.             | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
                    - Kipling           |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1993 00:16:21 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Atlas rocket question
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <1pkiv1$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pat) writes:
>I always thought the nozzles were the combustion chambers.
>Is this a semantic difference, or does it vary in engine
>design.

They're two separate parts of the engine, by normal usage.  The combustion
chamber is the part where almost all of the combustion occurs, at quite
low velocity.  Below it is the throat, which belongs to either chamber or
nozzle depending on who you're talking to; the exhaust reaches Mach 1 as
it passes the throat.  Below that is the nozzle, where the gas gets faster
and thinner quickly as internal energy is converted to kinetic energy.

In the combustion chamber, aerodynamics are fairly unimportant -- the
velocities are too low -- and combustion behavior and cooling dominate
design concerns.  The nozzle is an aerodynamic device above all, although
cooling remains an issue.

>The SRB's for SHuttle are one giant CC,  but i thought in liquid
>fueled engines,  the combustion started at teh top of teh nozzles.

No, the combustion is essentially complete by then.  One of the standard
approximations for combustion-gas behavior -- "frozen flow" -- assumes
no chemical reactions whatsoever after leaving the combustion chamber.
That isn't realistic, but the numbers that come out are not that far off
the truth.  (The usual first-cut method is to compute that case and the
"shifting flow" case, where the gas is in chemical equilibrium at all
times, and assume that the right answer is in between, since the actual
reaction rates are neither zero nor infinite.  Those two cases are not
usually very far apart.  I'm told that assuming shifting flow to the
throat and frozen flow after that is often a very good approximation.)
--
All work is one man's work.             | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
                    - Kipling           |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 93 00:08:36 GMT
From: "Donald H. Locker" <[e-mail]>
Subject: lie low netters! UFO's want you!
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Martin Connors) writes:
>... Banesh Swura, research
>director, claims that monitoring computer networks allows aliens to target
>individuals with knowledge or talents which interest them. ...

AHA!!  Now I know why lurking is so popular!  Safety in silence.

>Swura has found cases of people who stop participating
>for a period of time and then return. In many cases, he claims, there is
>no valid reason for this and an abduction is suspected.

I noticed that Tom van Flandern was absent for a while.  How about it,
Tom?  Will you tell us about it in your book, or is that too far
afield for the current tome?  (BTW, how is your book coming?)

>===
>This news leaves me shaking at my keyboard. I have been having strange
>dreams recently. Has anyone noticed if my posts were unexplainedly
>interrupted for a while?

'Scuze me; someone at the door ... gotta go.  Back in a few weeks :)

>--
>Martin Connors         |
>Space Research         | [e-mail]  [phone]
>University of Alberta  |


--
Donald.                                            Speaking only for myself.

FREE! Well-behaved, housebroken, .sig file to good home. Contact [e-mail]

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

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1993 02:29:58 GMT
From: "Phil G. Fraering" <[e-mail]>
Subject: NASA (dis)incentives
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

[e-mail] writes:
>Nick Szabo writes:
>>...
>>lobbyists, there is no group of space activists that come anywhere close to
>>meeting these lofty demands, and thus no effective way of holding NASA
>>responsible for failures, or rewarding it for successes.
>>
>>
[Boring "send-up" by wingo deleted, except for]
...
>postulation. However when private industry that is doing cometary resource
>utilization work is contracted the entire solar system benefits? Why, you the

Actually, it looks like a lot of it's being done by the DOE. One of
these weeks I'll be able to do (MAYBE) a writeup on the comet workshop
that was just held at USL, which was full of DOE people. I don't think
DOE's private enterprise...
[sample of wingorant included for reference]
>gentle reader may ask?  Because it is clearly evident to even the most
>casual observer that the government could never ever figure out the difference
>between black and white. At most the question will devolve into one of how
>white is black and how black is white? At most this will become a grey
>area of study.

>It is a given however that NASA nor the military, whose competence in
>differentating black from white is well known (remember the black and
>white paint on the Saturn V rocket?) That nothing will occur here either.
>When black and white are used by congress, who cares nothing for results,
>just more money for pork barrel jobs brought about by the black/white
>controversy.  Also this is good for NASA and its contractors who by the
>look of things could turn this into the technology development of the
>century thereby helping the Clinton administration in its bid to
>develop new technology to fight the incursion of the Japanese and their
>grey area tactics.

>Note: This makes as much sense as the first part of this post.

Both parts made more sense than a lot of your previous posts.

Nick was being nice. He went to a special effort to be polite
while posting. To be cognent while posting. I even suspect
he sobered up. What do you do? Make fun of him. Do you think
you could try replying to his specific points instead of
mumbling on Distribution:world?

Because you are probably capable of responding. And you seem to
have the time to... if you have time to write the above...

>Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville

--
Phil Fraering         |"Seems like every day we find out all sorts of stuff.
[e-mail]|Like how the ancient Mayans had televison." Repo Man

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

Date: 5 Apr 93 07:15:46 GMT
From: William Reiken <[e-mail]>
Subject: nuclear waste
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>
> 'It has been proposed' by *who*?  Sounds like someone need s a science
> lesson or three if they think that is feasible -- or does having the
> magic initials in it (SDI) somehow make it workable contrary to
> physical constraints?
>

    It is in one of my data sheets I will look it up.

                        Will...

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

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 93 04:14:04 GMT
From: Jonathan Thornburg <[e-mail]>
Subject: nuclear weapons and power-reactor plutonium (was: Re: the call to space)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer)
writes:
| reprocessed
| power-plant plutonium, [...] is *not* generally a good bomb material
| due to contamination with higher isotopes.

I hate to correct a net.god :-), but I think Henry may have left an
incorrect impression here re the usability of power-reactor plutonium
for nuclear weapons.

Plutonium of *any* isotopic content can be used to build a militarily
useful nuclear weapon.  Due to greater predetonation problems caused
by higher spontaneous-fission neutron background rates, engineering
such a weapon becomes more difficult as the plutonium is made less
isotopically-pure Pu-239, and the weapons become larger and heavier
and thus militarily less-ideal, but the engineering problems remain
tractable even for power-reactor plutonium.  Essentially, modern
(chemical) high-explosive technology suffices to assemble a core fast
enough to beat predetonation even with large non-239 isotope fractions.

This topic is discussed in detail, with actual numbers for critical
masses, spontaneous-fission neutron background rates, and a first-cut
treatment of the required core-assembly rates, in

    Amory B Lovins
    "Nuclear Weapons and Power-Reactor Plutonium"
    Nature 283, 817-823 (1980)

(Unfortunately, this paper contains a number of typographical errors,
but I can't find my reference to the errata published a few months
later :-( ...)

- Jonathan Thornburg
  <[e-mail]> or <[e-mail]>
  [until 31/Aug/93] U of Texas at Austin / Physics Dept / Center for Relativity
  "One million Americans have two homes; four million Americans have no homes."

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

Date: 4 Apr 1993 23:21:29 -0400
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: Portable Small Ground Station?
Newsgroups: sci.space

If you want to watch TV, you can get a 5 Meter,  elliptical segmented
antenna  on a trailer (C-Band)  for a few hundred dollars a day rental.

add a receiver and you can channel surf anywhere  assuming you have some
batteries.

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

Date: 4 Apr 1993 19:57 CDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Prefab Space Station?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer) writes...
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:
>

> Both Martin Marrettia and McDonnell douglas have
>proposed Titan and Delta variants easilly developed for far less than
>Shuttle. We could build and operate BOTH these options for Freedom
>assembly and save billions.
>
>  Allen
>--

Uhhh may I point out that the current Heavy lift launch vehicle by one of the
above vendors spends so much time on the pad that they have to hire extra
people just to clean the rust off.

Seriously Allen I am convinced that the SSTO way is the way to go IF and this
is a big IF, the technology can be scaled above that projected for DC1.
Titan IV launches ain't cheap and if you take the middling Shuttle cost
marker, which is appropriate due to the infrastructure that is required then
the costs are a wash NOW with STS. With heavy lift we might as well go with
the baby Saturn and get some labor savings.

Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville

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

Date: 4 Apr 1993 23:29:38 -0400
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: Prefab Space Station?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer) writes:
|First of all, Shuttle is so expensive that a Shuttle-C using brand new
|SSME's would still be much cheaper than Shuttle. Even doubling the cost
|of Shuttle C would still result in multi-billion $$ savings for Fred
|construction.



Of course,  allen  you are missing the details of acctng.  Hating
to disagree with you,  but Shuttle-C  missions are serious dollars.

NASA drops 4 Billion  for 8 STS  missions,  most of that is fixed costs.

very little is variable costs.  Wingo  keeps shouting how it only costs 27
million for a mission.  He's right, in that's the fuel's and consumables
costs.

To do a C  launch,  you need to buy 3 engines  @ 100 million per.
Build an airframe  200 Million  lets say,  and then still do all
the operations of a typical  STS mission.

Now even assuming you don't de-manifest  an orbiter mission,  you are
talking about adding 500 Million into the Shuttle Ops budget per
shuttle C mission.

The problem is the first shuttle mission essentially costs  about
3.9 billion dollars.  that gives us 8 missions,  maybe 10.  although
given the current  performance, id say 8 is about max.

SHuttle C is not a win for NASA.  for that money, we could manifest
4 Energiya launches.

pat

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

Date: 4 Apr 1993 23:31:18 -0400
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: Prefab Space Station?
Newsgroups: sci.space

  Why does Baby Saturn,  save Labor?

pat

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

Date: 4 Apr 1993 18:26:25 GMT
From: CLAUDIO OLIVEIRA EGALON <[e-mail]>
Subject: pushing the envelope
Newsgroups: sci.space

> A friend of mine and I were wondering where the expression "pushing
> the envelope" comes from.  Anyone out there know?


If you have the opportunity, try to look at a Pilot's Operating Handbook
of any aircraft. In the case of a CESSNA 152 for instance,  Section 6 of the
Handbook discusses the weight and balance limits of the aicraft. For
instance, if you plot the loaded airplane weight against the location of its
 Center of Gravity, you will find  that it is safe to fly the airplane only
within a certain region in the graph. This region in the graph has the
resemblance of an envelope and flying outside it may be unsafe. So
"pushing the envelope" means to increase the region within this graph
where it is still safe to fly the airplane. The same applies whenever you
plot the loaded airplane weight against the loaded airplane moment.

[e-mail]

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

Date: 4 Apr 1993 23:36:28 -0400
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: Sky Surfing Safety. What if you bite the wave!
Newsgroups: sci.space

It's probably not a good idea to take a dog on the space shuttle.
He might stick his head out the window during re-entry and his
face might burn off

Jack Handy

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

End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 420
------------------------------