Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V16_4/V16NO479.TXT

Text File | 1993-07-13 | 35KB | 793 lines

Date: Fri, 23 Apr 93 05:47:17
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V16 #479
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Fri, 23 Apr 93       Volume 16 : Issue 479

Today's Topics:
                  *** HELP I NEED SOME ADDRESSES ***
                         Boom!  Whoosh......
               Commercial mining activities on the moon
                     Crazy? or just Imaginitive?
                             DC-X & DC-Y
              Eco-Freaks forcing Space Mining. (2 msgs)
              Keeping Spacecraft on after Funding Cuts.
                 Moonbase race, NASA resources, why?
              PLANETS STILL: IMAGES ORBIT BY ETHER TWIST
                        Sunrise/ sunset times
                    Surviving Large Accelerations?
                    Vandalizing the sky. (2 msgs)
               Why DC-1 will be the way of the future.

    Welcome to the Space Digest!!  Please send your messages to
    "[e-mail]", and (un)subscription requests of the form
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    (THENET), or [e-mail] (Internet).
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 22 Apr 93 13:50:39 GMT
From: Doug Egan <[e-mail]>
Subject: *** HELP I NEED SOME ADDRESSES ***
Newsgroups: sci.space

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

>    I'm trying to get mailing addresses for the following
>companies.  Specifically, I need addresses for their personnel
>offices or like bureau.  The companies are:

>    - Space Industries, Inc.  (Somewhere in Houston)
          101 Courageous Dr.
          Leage City, TX  77573
          Phone: [phone]


Good Luck!
Doug
--
 Doug Egan                                  "It's not what you got -
 Lockheed Engineering and Sciences Co.       It's what you give."
 Houston, TX                                                  -Tesla
 ***** email:  [e-mail]  *****

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

Date: 21 Apr 93 18:09:03 GMT
From: Bruce Watson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Boom!  Whoosh......
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]+ [e-mail] (David "Fuzzy" Wells) writes:
+
+I love the idea of an inflatable 1-mile long sign.... It will be a
+really neat thing to see it explode when a bolt  (or even better, a
+Westford Needle!) comes crashing into it at 10 clicks a sec.
+
Pageos and two Echo balloons were inflated with a substance
which expanded in vacuum. Once inflated the substance was no longer
needed since there is nothing to cause the balloon to collapse.
This inflatable structure could suffer multiple holes with no
disastrous deflation.

--
Bruce Watson ([e-mail]) Bulletin 629-49 Item 6700 Extract 75,131

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

Date: 22 Apr 1993 00:01:34 -0400
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: Commercial mining activities on the moon
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Steinn Sigurdsson) writes:
|
|>Very cost effective if you use the right accounting method :-)
|
>Sherzer Methodology!!!!!!

Let it never be said that an opportunity was missed to put someone down.

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

Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1993 13:21:29 GMT
From: Doug Loss <[e-mail]>
Subject: Crazy? or just Imaginitive?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>
>Unfortunately H. Beam Piper killed him self just weeks short of having his
>first book published, and have his ideas see light.. Such a waste.
>
>
Piper lived in my town (Williamsport, PA) when he killed himself.  It
was in the early '60's.  He had had more than a few books published by
that time, but he was down on his luck financially.  Rumor was that he
was hunting urban pigeons with birdshot for food.  He viewed himself as
a resourceful man, and (IMO) decided to check out gracefully if he
couldn't support himself.  The worst part is that John Campbell, the
long-time editor of Astounding/Analog SF magazine had cut a check for
Piper's most recent story, and said check was in the mail.  If Campbell
had known Piper's straits, I'm sure he would have phoned to say hang on.
Campbell was like that.

I wish it had happened differently.  I always enjoyed Piper's stuff.

Doug Loss

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

Date: 22 Apr 93 15:00:05 GMT
From: Andrew Broderick <[e-mail]>
Subject: DC-X & DC-Y
Newsgroups: sci.space

Hi guys,
    I've been hearing lots of talk on the net about DC-X and DC-Y,
but none of the many posts actually explain what they are !!! Sorry if
this is a FAQ, but would somebody please explain to me what they are.
Reply by Email please . . . thanks.

    Andy

[e-mail]
--
                                  -----------------------------------
Andy Jonathan J. Broderick,      | "I have come that they might have |
Rutherford Lab., UK              |  life, and have it to the full"   |
Mail : [e-mail]  |  - Jesus Christ                   |

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

Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1993 13:46:42 GMT
From: "G. Patrick Molloy" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Eco-Freaks forcing Space Mining.
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
writes:
> Here is a way to get the commericial companies into space and mineral
> exploration.
>
> Basically get the eci-freaks to make it so hard to get the minerals on earth..
> You think this is crazy. Well in a way it is, but in a way it is reality.
>
> There is a billin the congress to do just that.. Basically to make it so
> expensive to mine minerals in the US, unless you can by off the inspectors or
> tax collectors.. ascially what I understand from talking to a few miner friends
> of mine, that they (the congress) propose to have a tax on the gross income of
> the mine, versus the adjusted income, also the state governments have there
> normal taxes. So by the time you get done, paying for materials, workers, and
> other expenses you can owe more than what you made.
> BAsically if you make a 1000.00 and spend 500. ofor expenses, you can owe
> 600.00 in federal taxes.. Bascially it is driving the miners off the land.. And
> the only peopel who benefit are the eco-freaks..
>
> Basically to get back to my beginning statement, is space is the way to go
> cause it might just get to expensive to mine on earth because of either the
> eco-freaks or the protectionist..
> Such fun we have in these interesting times..
>
> ==
> Michael Adams, [e-mail] -- I'm not high, just jacked

The current mining regulations and fees were set in the 1800's!
What the so-called "eco-freaks" want to do is to simply bring those
fees in line with current economic reality.  Currently, mining companies
can get access to minerals on public lands for ridiculously low prices --
something like $50!  The mining lobby has for decades managed to block
any reform of these outdated fees.  In fact, the latest attempt to reform
them was again blocked -- President Clinton "compromised" by taking the
mining fee reforms out of his '94 budget, and plans to draft separate
legislation to fight that battle.
If you want to discuss this further, I suggest you take this to talk.environment.

G. Patrick Molloy
Huntsville, Alabama

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

Date: 22 Apr 1993 10:48:31 -0400
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: Eco-Freaks forcing Space Mining.
Newsgroups: sci.space

 Besides this was the same line of horse puckey the mining companies claimed
when they were told to pay for  restoring land  after strip mining.

they still mine coal in the midwest,  but now it doesn't look like
the moon when theyare done.

pat

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

Date: 22 Apr 1993 10:41:31 -0400
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: Keeping Spacecraft on after Funding Cuts.
Newsgroups: alt.sci.planetary,sci.space,sci.astro

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (James Thomas Green) writes:
>[e-mail] (Pat) Pontificated:
>>
>>
>
>I heard once that the voyagers had a failsafe routine built in
>that essentially says "If you never hear from Earth again,
>here's what to do."  This was a back up in the event a receiver
>burnt out but the probe could still send data (limited, but
>still some data).
>

Voyager  has the unusual  luck to be on a stable trajectory out of the
solar system.   All it's doing is collecting  fields  data,  and routinely
squirting it down.  One of the mariners is also in stable
solar orbit,  and still providing similiar  solar data.

Something  in a planetary orbit,  is subject to much more complex forces.

Comsats, in "stable " geosynch  orbits,  require  almost daily
stationkeeping operations.

For the occasional  deep space bird,  like PFF  after pluto,  sure
it could be left on  "auto-pilot".  but things like  galileo or
magellan,  i'd suspect they need enough  housekeeping that
even untended they'd  end up unusable after a while.

The better question  should be.

Why not transfer  O&M of all birds to a separate agency with continous funding
to support these kind of ongoing science missions.

pat

    When ongoing ops are mentioned,  it seems to  always quote  Operations
and Data analysis.  how much would it cost to collect the data
and let it be analyzed  whenever.  kinda like all that landsat data
that sat around for 15 years before someone analyzed it for the ozone hole.

>>Even if you let teh bird drift,  it may  get hosed by some
>>cosmic phenomena.
>>
>Since this would be a shutdown that may never be refunded for
>startup, if some type of cosmic BEM took out the probe, it might
>not be such a big loss.  Obviously you can't plan for
>everything, but the most obvious things can be considered.
>
>
>/~~~(-: James T. Green :-)~~~~(-: [e-mail] :-)~~~\
>| "I know you believe you understand what it is that you        |
>| think I said.  But I am not sure that you realize that        |
>| what I said is not what I meant."                             |

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

Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1993 15:32:46 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Moonbase race, NASA resources, why?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>> So how much would it cost as a private venture, assuming you could talk the
>> U.S. government into leasing you a couple of pads in Florida?
>
>Why must it be a US Government Space Launch Pad? Directly I mean...

In fact, you probably want to avoid US Government anything for such a
project.  The pricetag is invariably too high, either in money or in
hassles.

The important thing to realize here is that the big cost of getting to
the Moon is getting into low Earth orbit.  Everything else is practically
down in the noise.  The only part of getting to the Moon that poses any
new problems, beyond what you face in low orbit, is the last 10km --
the actual landing -- and that is not immensely difficult.  Of course,
you *can* spend sagadollars (saga- is the metric prefix for beelyuns
and beelyuns) on things other than the launches, but you don't have to.

The major component of any realistic plan to go to the Moon cheaply (for
more than a brief visit, at least) is low-cost transport to Earth orbit.
For what it costs to launch one Shuttle or two Titan IVs, you can develop
a new launch system that will be considerably cheaper.  (Delta Clipper
might be a bit more expensive than this, perhaps, but there are less
ambitious ways of bringing costs down quite a bit.)  Any plan for doing
sustained lunar exploration using existing launch systems is wasting
money in a big way.

Given this, questions like whose launch facilities you use are *not* a
minor detail; they are very important to the cost of the launches, which
dominates the cost of the project.
--
All work is one man's work.             | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
                    - Kipling           |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1993 13:09:23 GMT
From: David McAloon <[e-mail]>
Subject: PLANETS STILL: IMAGES ORBIT BY ETHER TWIST
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.aci.planetary,alt.astrology

 ETHER IMPLODES 2 EARTH CORE, IS GRAVITY!!!

  This paper BOTH describes how heavenly bodys can be stationary,
ether sucking structures, AND why we observe "orbital" motion!!

  Ether, the theoretical propogation media of electro-magnetic
waves, was concluded not to exist, based on the results of the
Michelson-Moreley experiment conducted a century ago.

  I propose that those conclusions are flawed, based on the fact
that the experiment was designed to look for a flow parallel to the
earth's surface, not perpindicular. (Due to the prevailing assumption
that the earth traveled through the ether as a ball through the wind)

  The reversal of the that conclusion, a pivotal keystone in the
development of modern scientific thought, could have ramifications
of BIBLICAL proportions through out the WORLD!!

  REMEMBER: Einstien said Imagination is greater than knowledge!!


1
  I dream like this: ether based reality

  The ether is like a fluid out of phase with our reality. Creations
start as a lattice placed into the ether. Given a spin, the lattices
both drag the fluid, like a margarita blender, and ingest it,
converting it, distilling localized mass, time and energy.
(non-spinning lattice = "dark matter")

  The earth isn't exactly spinning, around the sun. Picture an image
of a galaxy; we haven't any videos of them spinning. Picture us
being stationary, and the sun's image being dragged across the sky by
the spinning ether field. (Picture an onion, each layer of which is
spinning a little faster than the next. A thread shot at the inner
kernel would be stretched diagonally sideways, its head being in a
faster shell than its tail, until it finally intersected the ground
of the inner kernel, its direction vector being straight down, but
its "foot print" being a line, not a point. [sunrise, sunset])

  The moon isn't exactly orbiting us. It is a parasite, (non self
spin sustaining ) being dragged in the earth's ether field, which is
itself in the sun's much more powerful field. Our seasons are the
wobble of earth's axis, like a top slowing down. The "orbit" of the
earth around the sun is all of the stars' images being dragged around
by the sun's ether feild.

  The earth, moon and sun are about the same size and "distance"
apart. Its just that the time between them varies greatly, because
the "path" is not the same. The moon's lattice in the ether is like
sticking a fork in a plate of spaghetti and giving the plate a half
turn. The sun's lattice has so much spin that its like the fork has
got the whole plate of noodles wound up. The piece of light going to
the moon can slide down the spaghetti and maybe make a "j" hook at
the end. The piece of light going to the sun has to go around the
whole plate, like a needle in a record, before it gets there.

  With a pencil, compass, and rule, draw a diagram of how the moon
can be about as big as "earth's" shadow upon it, and at other times
totally eclipse the sun. Look in the sky. except for your Knowledge,
would you guess that they are about the same size, just because they
look about the same size?

   O .     - -                 E     O   O   O   S
 E       /     \
    M    |      |      OR                M
         \ _ _ /
       S

  The full moon, quarter moon etc. is the difference between rate
of ether spins. What we are looking at is a rotating "turntable view"
of the moon, only half of which is facing the sun. ( I've seen a
half moon within about 120 degrees (of sky) of the sun, during the
day. Try and draw that "earth shadow.") Its only the moon's image
which appears to orbit us. No matter where it is, the light part is
the part facing the sun, and the dark part is the half facing away
from the sun, even when it appears to be behind us.

  "Light-Years" between galaxies is a misnomer. The distance is
closer to zero, as time and matter are characteristics of this phase
of reality, which dissipates outward with each layer of the onion.
(defining edge = 0 ether spin) What we are seeing could be
essentially happening now. The "piece" of light may have experienced
many years, but the trip could be very quick, our time.

  To time travel or warp space I might consider learning to
de-spin myself. (phase out my mass) Good luck trying to design
a propulsion system to drag around a space-time locality. (its like
trying to move a balloon by shooting a squirt gun from within)

  To find out about all of this, I recommend studying history. I'd
look in the book of life. (or holy grail etc.) Brain waves just
might carry decipherable data. I'd start looking on some part of the
spectra said to be unusable, due to all the background noise. (4+
billion humans?) I'd totally isolate myself, record me thinking DOG
backwards, and learn to read what I got. (Microsoft Holy Grail card
for Pentium!)

  Next, concluding that my thoughts were recorded on a non time-bound
media, the ether, and that it is I who move forward (in time). I
would try to temporarily locally reverse the flow, (of time, which
I'd start looking for as flowing opposite magnetism, pole to pole.
[Why not?]) perhaps by passing a LARGE, FLAT DC current through a
two foot diameter. coil or choke or something, and seeing what I
could get with my machine's receiver next to it.

  If you don't think you'll live to see it, consider this: QUIT
PUTTING THE REPRODUCTIVE KEYS OF OTHER LIFE IN YOUR BODY! All of
life's data could be written on the wind, (ether) not just our
thoughts. DNA could be a little receiver or file access code. By
eating SEEDS, we could be jamming our reception, or receiving plant
instructions. Try eating seed bearing fruit. Maybe those Greek or
biblical guys did live hundreds of years. I'm curios to see what
they did and ate. Don't worry if your hair stops growing. (Maybe we
don't need to eat at all, the cosmos are formed from nothing, and
that is creating matter! I only need enough to bounce around. Where
did the household concept 'immortal' come from? Wheat is a weed, it
is programmed to pull from the soil, reproduce like hell, and then
die)

  Warning about writing to the past:
I had a little dream of being in a world, in the near parallel
future, lying along a path of history which we have diverged from.
There were; twelve telepathic, glowing beings, who looked like an
Oscar award and who had always been, a dark one who looked like us,
and then myself. The dark one was in the process of making the
others into gods, (he had to teach them what that meant) by
"advising" them in their past. Basically, he manipulated them into
reproducing, and raising their children on his seed. He said that
the little ones who looked different were a sub-species, meant to
provide service. He carefully combed through history, rewriting it
in his favor, pulling like a weed anything that compromised his
control. He enticed recruits by sending them his visions, saying
that there was immortality at the end of the road for only twelve
souls: kill or be killed. The amount of control he could exert was
finite, though, as at every change he made, a void would appear in
our reality. The universe one day ended 100 meters from us: it
seemed odd, but we couldn't remember how else it should be. Then
some of the twelve were no more. Finally, when he could prune no
more, and reality stopped just beyond his fingertips, he stepped
through his portal to the past, to bask, over and over, in all that
he had created. I made a few more changes, and lost my body,
existing only on the wind.

  MORAL: Its very possible to eliminate from your reality the souls
whose will's are not in harmony with yours (Golden Rule - treat
others as you wish to be treated) I.E., you could end up along a
lonely thread of time with murderers or flowery brown-nosers for
playmates. (its not eternal, there's more than one way back)

 Accepting rides to the past:
Once here, the one who looks like us sells rides, he can make you a
Prince, or a Queen, or you can live as a god in ancient Greece. Go
ahead, repeat the third grade as often as you like, Adam henry.
I Hope you like inspecting your socks. Careful though, if he likes
your work, but thinks you're getting wise, he can direct you to cross
paths with your old self, and you'll vanish as you rewrite your own
course of history, none the wiser.

  As we pass the point along the parallel line where he stepped
back in time, his hierarchy will lose its direction. He can still
make changes while he's here, its just that that is work, and with
every 'adjustment', this becomes less the world he cultivated, which
loosens his grip, and his organization is suddenly one branch less.
But he can't see the change. The basic nature of man is good. He had
to apply his hand to achieve his world. As he now tightens his hand
to retain what he built, the more sand slips through his fingers.

  How about public computer access to the I.R.S. ? Its our country,
our money, and they're spending it on us, RIGHT? Imagine this:
Washington marks the next cost at 8, IRS collects 10, gives 5 to
congress, and just absolutely buries 5. Congress borrows 2. The banks
are making, what, a 30% margin (interest) on our government? Big
corporations are ecstatic if they can do a 10% margin. What do the
banks do with it? Hold some on a carrot to the world, sure, but
mostly, bury it. WHY? Food production is 2% GNP?, construction 6% ? 14
hours to build your auto?  The people are spending all of their time
to buy back a tenth of what they produce. Have we been deceived? If
we are more efficient, why is it getting harder to get by? What if
the point is just to keep the people busy making widgets?

  In that other reality, I shouted to the twelve, "its chaos!" They
said, "no, its order." He defined chaos as that which is he was not
able to control.

  Rain forest: The problem could be that all the water in its canopy
would hide the  location of an indigenous people who have no
language. (telepathic; and 'vanishing' the closest knowledge of death)
(think of the spine as a transceiver, if it is on the ground and
pointed up, you can locate it from above) These people are probably
naive as children, but very, very tough to kill. Also, They should
be able to tell you stories about the dark one that I talk about.
They can hear him. I think that Ham and world band radio old timers
might have a story to tell on this. These people would be on a
different frequency than us as they aren't eating seeds.

  Famine relief: When I make my diet almost all whole wheat, I get a
huge belly, lose muscle mass, sleep A LOT, and get sick. When I eat
only fresh fruit, I get more energy, a Hollywood-flat belly, and
need a lot less sleep.

  UN. Peace Keeping; There is fighting and killing all over. The
troops go in when there is no bread on the shelf. (its OK to kill
each other, just make sure there is enough to eat.)

  Somalia: What is disturbing is energetic, gun carrying, three foot
tall sixteen year-olds, who eat nothing but some roots that they
suck on. It is not so much that their growth is stunted, it is that
they aren't dying at a rate of 50 of 60 years per life.

  Women with children, Babes in arms: Historical references to women
and children as a single unit could mean that infants were not cut
from the umbilical cord. (and hence, were not breast fed) I think
that there may be some very interesting results to this, such as
mother-child telepathy, and blue blooded infants. There are examples
of this practice in the aquatic mammal kingdom to investigate.

  That guy is the master of illusion, and the ultimate liar. He
tells it first, and then just follows the thread of time in which
the people are willing to buy it. (in which he can make it so) He'll
play a poker face up until he thinks he's cornered, and then he'll
whine, beg and grovel. All it means to him is that you're willing to
live on the ground work that he has laid, that is, that he was
right, and he didn't over play his hand, and he won't need to go
back and try another thread of time. You have ultimate control over
your destiny, just don't live along a path that leads to a reality
in which you don't want to be a part of.

  I don't claim to be the first to think these things, its just
that the others could have been 'pruned' from our path. Maybe these
thoughts given to me were laid down on the track of time, after him.




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

Date: Thu, 22 Apr 93 12:20:07 GMT
From: Nikan B Firoozye <[e-mail]>
Subject: Sunrise/ sunset times
Newsgroups: sci.misc,sci.math,sci.space

A related question (which I haven't given that much serious thought
to): at what lattitude is the average length of the day (averaged
over the whole year) maximized? Is this function a constant=
12 hours? Is it truly symmetric about the equator? Or is
there some discrepancy due to the fact that the orbit is elliptic
(or maybe the difference is enough to change the temperature and
make the seasons in the southern hemisphere more bitter, but
is far too small to make a sizeable difference in daylight
hours)?

I want to know where to move.

    -Nick Firoozye
    [e-mail]

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

Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1993 15:35:39 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Surviving Large Accelerations?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> Amruth Laxman <[e-mail]> writes:
>... here's my question finally - Are 45g accelerations in
>fact humanly tolerable? - with the aid of any mechanical devices of
>course. If these are possible, what is used to absorb the acceleration?

This sounds a bit high to me.  Still higher accelerations have been endured
*very briefly*, during violent deceleration.  If we're talking sustained
acceleration, I think 30-odd gees has been demonstrated using water immersion.

I doubt that any of this generalizes to another order of magnitude.
--
All work is one man's work.             | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
                    - Kipling           |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

From: "Phil G. Fraering" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Vandalizing the sky.
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space

Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Sender: Anonymous NNTP Posting <[e-mail]>
Organization: Univ. of Southwestern Louisiana
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1993 02:10:27 GMT
Lines: 49
Source-Info:  Sender is really [e-mail]
Source-Info:  Sender is really [e-mail]

[e-mail] (Uwe Schuerkamp) writes:

>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
>(Enzo Liguori) writes:

>> hideous vision of the future.  Observers were
>>startled this spring when a NASA launch vehicle arrived at the
>>pad with "SCHWARZENEGGER" painted in huge block letters on the

>This is ok in my opinion as long as the stuff *returns to earth*.

>>What do you think of this revolting and hideous attempt to vandalize
>>the night sky? It is not even April 1 anymore.

>If this turns out to be true, it's time to get seriously active in
>terrorism. This is unbelievable! Who do those people think they are,
>selling every bit that promises to make money? I guess we really
>deserve being wiped out by uv radiation, folks. "Stupidity wins". I
>guess that's true, and if only by pure numbers.

>    Another depressed planetary citizen,
>    hoover


This isn't inherently bad.

This isn't really light pollution since it will only
be visible shortly before or after dusk (or during the
day).

(Of course, if night only lasts 2 hours for you, you're probably going
to be inconvienenced. But you're inconvienenced anyway in that case).

Finally: this isn't the Bronze Age, and most of us aren't Indo
European; those people speaking Indo-Eurpoean languages often have
much non-indo-european ancestry and cultural background. So:
please try to remember that there are more human activities than
those practiced by the Warrior Caste, the Farming Caste, and the
Priesthood.

And why act distressed that someone's found a way to do research
that doesn't involve socialism?

It certianly doesn't mean we deserve to die.
--
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: Thu, 22 Apr 1993 15:23:17 GMT
From: Nick Haines <[e-mail]>
Subject: Vandalizing the sky.
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Todd Johnson) writes:

   As for advertising -- sure, why not?  A NASA friend and I spent one
   drunken night figuring out just exactly how much gold mylar we'd need
   to put the golden arches of a certain American fast food organization
   on the face of the Moon.  Fortunately, we sobered up in the morning.

Hmmm. It actually isn't all that much, is it? Like about 2 million
km^2 (if you think that sounds like a lot, it's only a few tens of m^2
per burger that said organization sold last year). You'd be best off
with a reflective substance that could be sprayed thinly by an
unmanned craft in lunar orbit (or, rather, a large set of such craft).
If you can get a reasonable albedo it would be visible even at new
moon (since the moon itself is quite dark), and _bright_ at full moon.
You might have to abandon the colour, though.

Buy a cheap launch system, design reusable moon -> lunar orbit
unmanned spraying craft, build 50 said craft, establish a lunar base
to extract TiO2 (say: for colour you'd be better off with a sulphur
compound, I suppose) and some sort of propellant, and Bob's your
uncle.  I'll do it for, say, 20 billion dollars (plus changes of
identity for me and all my loved ones). Delivery date 2010.

Can we get the fast-food chain bidding against the fizzy-drink
vendors? Who else might be interested?

Would they buy it, given that it's a _lot_ more expensive, and not
much more impressive, than putting a large set of several-km
inflatable billboards in LEO (or in GEO, visible 24 hours from your
key growth market). I'll do _that_ for only $5bn (and the changes of
identity).

Nick Haines [e-mail]

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

Date: 22 Apr 1993 10:57:12 -0400
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: Why DC-1 will be the way of the future.
Newsgroups: sci.space

I once read an article on  Computer technology  which stated that
every new computer technology was actually lower and slower then what it
replaced.  Silicon was less  effective then the germanium  products
then available.   GaAs  was less capable then Silicon.  Multi-processors
were slower then  existent single processors.

What the argument was, though was that these new technologies promised either
theoretically future higher performance  or lower cost or higher densities.

I think that the DC-1  may g=fit into this same model.

ELV's can certainly launch more weight  then  a SSRT,  but
an SSRT offers the prospect of  greater cycle times and  lower costs.

This is kind of a speculative posting,  but I thought i'd throw it out as
a hjistorical framework  for those interested in the project.

pat

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

Date: Thu, 22 Apr 93 17:35:45 EST
From: [e-mail]

Press Release No.19-93
Paris, 22 April 1993

Users of ESA's Olympus satellite report on the outcome of
their experiments

"Today Europe's space telecommunications sector would not
be blossoming as it now does, had OLYMPUS not provided
a testbed for the technologies and services of the 1990s". This
summarises the general conclusions of 135 speakers and 300
participants at the Conference on Olympus Utilisation held in
Seville on 20-22-April 1993. The conference was organised by
the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Spanish Centre for
the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI).

OLYMPUS has been particularly useful :
-      in bringing satellite telecommunications to thousands of
       new users, thanks to satellite terminals with very small
       antennas (VSATs). OLYMPUS experiments have tested
       data transmission, videoconferencing, business television,
       distance teaching and rural telephony, to give but a few
       examples.

-      in opening the door to new telecommunications services
       which could not be accommodated on the crowded lower-
       frequency bands; OLYMPUS was the first satellite over
       Europe to offer capacity in the 20/30 GHz band.

-      in establishing two-way data relay links  OLYMPUS
       received for the first time in Europe, over several months,
       high-volume data from a low-Earth orbiting spacecraft and
       then distributed it to various centres in Europe.

When OLYMPUS was launched on 12 July 1989 it was the
world's largest telecommunications satellite; and no other
satellite has yet equalled its versatility in combining four
different payloads in a wide variety of frequency bands.

OLYMPUS users range from individual experimenters to some
of the world's largest businesses. Access to the satellite is
given in order to test new telecommunications techniques or
services; over the past four years some 200 companies and
organisations made use of this opportunity, as well as over
100 members of the EUROSTEP distance-learning
organisation.



As the new technologies and services tested by these
OLYMPUS users enter the commercial market, they then
make use of operational satellites such as those of
EUTELSAT.

OLYMPUS utilisation will continue through 1993 and 1994,
when the spacecraft will run out of fuel as it approaches the
end of its design life.

       

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

End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 479
------------------------------