Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V16_5/V16NO553.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1993-07-13 | 28KB

Date: Tue, 11 May 93 05:17:11
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V16 #553
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Tue, 11 May 93       Volume 16 : Issue 553

Today's Topics:
                  "365 days of the Shuttle flights"
                         Boom!  Whoosh......
                       Commercials on the Moon
                  Grad schools NASA looks at wanted
                        Life on Mars. (5 msgs)
                    Philosophy Quest.  How Boldly?
                         test - please ignore
    U.S. Government and Science and Technolgy Investment (2 msgs)
                         Vandalizing the sky

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

Date: Mon, 10 May 1993 18:27:51 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: "365 days of the Shuttle flights"
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pawel Moskalik) writes:
>... I think it would be interestin to compare these numbers with
>the numbers for the Soviet manned space program. I take into account only
>the Soyuz flights which took place since 1981, that is during the time of the
>shuttle program. That covers the last residency in the SALUT 6 station,
>whole SALUT 7 program and ongoing MIR program.

Why did you leave out the Progress freighters?  They're an integral part
of the Mir program and of Soviet/Russian manned spaceflight in general.
--
SVR4 resembles a high-speed collision   | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
between SVR3 and SunOS.    - Dick Dunn  |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: Mon, 10 May 1993 13:48:19 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: Boom!  Whoosh......
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Bruce Watson) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]+ [e-mail] (Simon E. Booth) writes:
>+
>+Now, with the talk here about this mile-long space balloon, one thing I'd
>+like to know is just how they would manage to pack something that huge into
>+the payload shroud of a rocket or into the payload bay of a shuttle?
>+And exactly what would it look like from the ground?
>
>The Echo I balloon launched in 1960 was 100 feet in diameter and fit
>uninflated into a 28-inch diameter package and weighed 132 pounds.

If the scaling held, we'd be looking at a 123 foot diameter package
weighing 3.5 tons for a 1 mile in diameter Echo style balloon. The
mass is managable, but the payload shroud might be another matter.

The more serious problem would be finding the hanger for painting
on the logos before launch. Echo was inflated in a blimp hanger,
but a one mile high hanger might be harder to find. :-)

Gary

--
Gary Coffman KE4ZV          |    You make it,     | gatech!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary
Destructive Testing Systems |    we break it.     | uunet!rsiatl!ke4zv!gary
534 Shannon Way             |    Guaranteed!      | emory!kd4nc!ke4zv!gary
Lawrenceville, GA 30244     |                     |

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

From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: Commercials on the Moon
Newsgroups: sci.space

Reply-To: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Organization: Destructive Testing Systems
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Mon, 10 May 1993 13:44:17 GMT
Lines: 32
Sender: [e-mail]
Source-Info:  Sender is really [e-mail]

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Author) writes:
>[e-mail] (Hans Erik Martino Hansen) writes:
>> I have often thought about, if its possible to have a powerfull laser
>> on earth, to light at the Moon, and show lasergraphics at the surface
>> so clearly that you can see it with your eyes when there is a new
>> moon.
>> How about a Coca Cola logo at the moon, easy way to target billions of
>> people.
>
>Well this is about the worst idea I've come a across sofar, lighten up
>man not everything is commerce.
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>[e-mail] (Author)                      Stycx BBS [phone]
>The responsibility for chance...lies within us. We must begin with ourselves,
>teaching ourselves not to close our minds prematurely to the novel,
>the suprising, the seemingly radical.                        -Alvin Toeffler

Uh, Peter, take a page from your sig. A laser system capable of projecting
advertising on the Moon would make a dandy laser launcher, or even make
Star Wars defense systems real. Commerce is a driver for innovation. I'd
put up with ads on the Moon for a working laser launcher. If Coke did it,
Pepsi wouldn't be far behind. And we'd see a laser power race like never
before.

Gary

--
Gary Coffman KE4ZV          |    You make it,     | gatech!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary
Destructive Testing Systems |    we break it.     | uunet!rsiatl!ke4zv!gary
534 Shannon Way             |    Guaranteed!      | emory!kd4nc!ke4zv!gary
Lawrenceville, GA 30244     |                     |

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

Date: Mon, 10 May 1993 16:15:22 GMT
From: "C. Taylor Sutherland III" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Grad schools NASA looks at wanted
Newsgroups: sci.space

I'm a senior in physics and Clemson University in South Carolina
and I'm looking to get my hands on a list of schools that NASA
normally looks at for future employees (if NASA exists by the time
I graduate  :) ) so that I might get some information about and
apply to them.

email them if possible.

Thank you



--
[e-mail] | "I" before "e" except after "c",               +
 Amiga          | And when sounding like "ay" as in "neighbor" and "weigh", |
   Rules        | And on weekends and holidays and all throughout May,      |
     Supreme    + And you'll always be wrong no matter WHAT you say!        +

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

Date: Mon, 10 May 1993 16:34:09 GMT
From: Frank Crary <[e-mail]>
Subject: Life on Mars.
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.bio

In article <1sk847$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Robert Clark) writes:
>  In the June 1993 issue of _Final Frontier_ there is an interview with
>Dr. Gilbert Levin who designed one of the life detection experiments on
>the Viking missions.
>  He's of the opinion that the data from his experiment is indicative of
>life on Mars.

If I'm thinking of the same experiment, then this is very debatable:
If life was detected, it thrived for the first few minutes of the
test and then died.

>He gives several reasons for this:
> 1.) His experiment was the most sensitive of the detection methods.

His opinion on the subject is rather biased.

> 2.) The three experiments were designed to detect different kinds
>     of life so it should be expected that his gave the only repeated
>     life signs.

They were designed to detect life in different ways, not different
kinds of life. _If_ you assume any hypothetical Martian life was
radically different from terrestrial life, then this might be a
valid point, but that isn't a trivial assumption.

> 4.) In some of the images of martian rocks, there are seasonal changes in
>     their coloring similar to moss growing on terrestrial rocks.

Which I believe can be explained by the known water and carbon-dioxide
seasonal cycles and/or seasonal changes in ultraviolet light exposure
and photochemistry.

>   His detector is known as the Labeled Release Experiment. He claims
> that in numerous tests of his detector on terrestrial soil samples
> he never once got a false positive or false negative response.

He never tested it on soil baked with UV light in a 7 mbar carbon
dioxide environment.

>   Before I read this article I wasn't aware that any of the experiments
> gave repeated life signs. Another thing that surprised me was that after
> all these years there still hasn't been a symposium convened to discuss
> the data returned by the Viking life experiments.

The subject has been discussed many times at general planetary science
symposiums, so it isn't as if the matter were being ignored.

The experiment basically gave positive results (i.e. the sugars
added to the sample was converted into carbon dioxide and something, as
they had been metabolized) for a short time but then ceased
to do so. The general consensus is that the Martian soil contains
highly oxidized, normally unstable, chemicals as a result of UV light,
and if you add moist carbon compounds, it will react with them vigorously
releasing carbon dioxide. Of course, this will only continue for
a short time before all the oxides are consumed.

                                                    Frank Crary
                                                    CU Boulder

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

Date: Mon, 10 May 1993 12:18:35 EDT
From: Larry Zibilske <[e-mail]>
Subject: Life on Mars.
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.bio

I dont know that the results have completely excluded the possibility of life
on Mars.  I have been trying to find the biodata for the Viking missions to
examine myself.  I am a soil microbiolgist and my interests include very low
level microbial activity detection.  I see, for instance, very low but definite
 metabolic activity in very environmentally extreme conditions (temperature,
moisture) and someone mentioned that the data show a pattern similar to that
seen in the Viking data....but I cant find the Viking data.  Does anyone know
where this might be obtained?  (not the polished public press stuff; but the
journal article level or orginal pub data)?

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

Date: Mon, 10 May 1993 17:48:06 GMT
From: Richard Ottolini <[e-mail]>
Subject: Life on Mars.
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.bio

New experiments by an international consortium of scientists are planned
for the 1994 Russian "lander".
These experiments are intended to resolve some ambiguities from the
Viking experiments.
I heard in particular about the American oxide experiment at JPL last
week.  It will cleverly test whether the soil is oxidizing enough
to cause some the results seen in Viking.

P.S. The term "lander" might be more accurately called "bouncer".
To save costs, both the Russian and 1997 American probes are not
going to have landing rockets, but drop the probes in airbags from
a parachute a couple hundred meters up.  (Can't have the parachute
fall ontop of the lander.)

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

Date: 10 May 1993 18:28 UT
From: Ron Baalke <[e-mail]>
Subject: Life on Mars.
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.bio

In article <1sk847$[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Robert Clark) writes...
>
>
>  In the June 1993 issue of _Final Frontier_ there is an interview with
>Dr. Gilbert Levin who designed one of the life detection experiments on
>the Viking missions.
>  He's of the opinion that the data from his experiment is indicative of
>life on Mars.
>

The results of Viking's search for life on Mars have been inconclusive.
Some of the experiments did give positive results. However, the experiments
were unable to clearly differentiate that the results were due to a life form
or to some peculiar chemical reaction.  The suspicion by the majority of the
Viking scientists was that a strong oxidizing element was present in the
Martian soil which caused the strange results.  However, no chemical reaction
has been presented that can explain the strange results from the Viking
experiments.  This is basis of Dr. Levin's claim: since
there is no known chemical reaction capable of explaining the results from
his experiment, then Viking must of detected life after all.
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | Once a year, go someplace
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | you've never been before.
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     |

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

Date: Mon, 10 May 1993 18:53:12 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Life on Mars.
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.bio

In article <1sk847$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Robert Clark) writes:
>  He's of the opinion that the data from his experiment is indicative of
>life on Mars...

The Viking life-detection results are best described as "confusing".  There
were some indications for and some against -- while there were positive
results in some tests, the overall pattern was not what would have been
expected from life.  The devastating blow was the failure of the GCMS
experiment to find any organic molecules at all in the soil; it would
give positive results even on Antarctic soil, but it came up negative
on Mars.  The simplest explanation does seem to be some kind of highly
active surface chemistry.  Somewhat unorthodox forms of life remain a
possibility that can't be ruled out.

Levin is pretty much the last holdout for positive Viking results.  The
farthest most of the other people involved will go is to concede that
the matter isn't fully settled.  There apparently were comments, even
beforehand, that Levin wasn't taking a particularly objective approach
to the question.
--
SVR4 resembles a high-speed collision   | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
between SVR3 and SunOS.    - Dick Dunn  |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 10 May 1993 12:33:46 -0400
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: Philosophy Quest.  How Boldly?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jim Kissel) writes:
>
>I would speculate that "they" will be upright and bi-laterally symmertic


Symetry seems to be a natural principal of chemistry,  but why
upright?  whales and dolphins would never be considered  up
right by any means.

also  lots of clever mammals  are barely off ground level.

don't be primo-centric.  you hand biased,  thumb promoting bigot :-)

pat

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

Date: 10 May 1993 16:24:46 GMT
From: "F.A. Ringwald" <[e-mail]>
Subject: test - please ignore
Newsgroups: sci.space

Test - can I really post to this thing from here? It's raining here in
England (not surprising), with thunder (surprising).

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

Date: Mon, 10 May 1993 16:42:08 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: U.S. Government and Science and Technolgy Investment
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space,sci.research,talk.politics.misc,talk.politics.libertarian,misc.education

I've finally gotten time to respond to this nonsense.

In sci.space, I wrote:
: >>People who criticize "big Government" and its projects rarely seem to
: >>have a consistent view of the role of Government in science and
: >>technology.

Posting to every newsgroup he could think of, Jim Hart ([e-mail])
wrote:
: Your view, on the other hand, is perfectly consistent -- I want my
: pork, and I want it now.   You have the gall to use our tax money
: to sit here and lecture us on how stupid you think we are,
: and you can't even even tell the difference between your fetid
: bureaucracy's propaganda and history.  In actual history, the the
: U.S. govnt. went into R&D with World War II (Manhattan
: Project) and the Cold War (H-bomb, ICBMs, etc.) in response to
: military threats from National Socialist Germany and the Union of Soviet
: Socialist Republics.   No knowledgeable person ever tried to pretend
: this was going to help the economy.  In fact, countries that concentrated
: their R&D in the private sector (eg Japan) kicked our ass economically
: in the latter half of the Cold War as rigor mortis set in.  Japan
: now outnumbers the U.S. in patents over 2:1, and dominates the world
: in electronics, autos, etc. despite being a small little island
: country and late-comer to the industrial revolution.

: At first U.S. govnt. R&D was able to borrow the habits of private R&D to
: create large productive organizations, but due to lack of incentive to do
: anything but whine for pork, they gradually deteriorated to the level of
: miserable selfish complainers like yourself. Through the misplaced
: hysteria over Sputnik we got your agency, which started off well, but
: now spends $10's of billions on PR and props for shows on CNN, and
: apparently now for idiotic posts by stuck-up jerks pretending to tell
: us masses how ignorant we are to question the wisdom of your pathetic
: attempts at technology development.  Like that wonderful incredibly
: shrinking space station you keep pretending you're going to build,
: for purposes you keep pretending are so all-important.  Your PR is
: good though; any PR that convinces people to spend $2 billion a year
: on blueprints for a "space station" has to be pretty clever, even if
: those people are Congressmen.

: Established in order to *fight* socialism, the military-industrial
: complex now seems to have delusions of *becoming* socialist!  Your agency
: persists in the delusion that it can make history.  You persist
: in the delusion that you can lecture us on history.  In fact you are
: just a miserable little side-effect of this unfortunate history.  Your
: posts are so blatantly self-serving, it's truly sad, like
: seeing a beggar in the streets.

: Jim Hart
: [e-mail]

Obviously, you have some strong feelings about this subject.  But
history isn't the question, here; it's interpretation of history and
the motives of the people who made it.  We all pretty much agree what
the facts are.  (But you'd support your argument better if you got your
data right.  "$10's of billions on PR and props for shows on CNN"
indeed.  That's almost as bad as pretending that NASA's spent "$2
billion a year on blueprints for a 'space station.'")

There have been many motives behind the U.S. Gov't's role in investing
in science, research and development.  You seem to contend that "In
actual history" (as opposed to Government propoganda, I suppose) the
sole motivation for U.S. Gov't spending on science and technology has
been the war with communism.  This is not the complete truth, and
you know it.

Your comments about Japan reveal more ignorance about the true reasons
behind technology development.  Nobody knows all of the reasons, but
Japan has some good ideas, and we would do well to emulate some aspects
of Japanese technology development.  Maybe you hadn't heard about it,
but most of the industrialized world is already working on that.

Our government works with taxes collected unequally from everyone, but
directed by our elected officials, usually in manners which will help
them get re-elected.  This has inevitably given rise to our system of
pork-barrel politics for helping our government decide which projects
to fund (like the Space Station Freedom Program and the Superconducting
Super-Collider) and which to dump.  Government agencies like NASA and
DOE lobby for or sometime against various projects, but it's the
Congresscritters who really decide which projects to fund and which to
can.

NASA is making history.  But if everything worked the way I'd like it,
NASA's role in space travel would change.  NASA has been as a service
provider and major customer of launch services.  NASA has been
exploring space, and taking "baby steps" in developing the basic
technologies necessary to explore the rest of the Solar System.  But I
feel that NASA should take on a role in space exploration more similar
to its role in civil aeronautics research: that of advisor and an
assistant to industry, rather than the source of funding that keeps the
business alive.

We have a long, long way to go before the commercial sector will have
enough of a technology base to start developing the really profitable
applications of space technology, like solar power satellites, asteroid
mining, self-sustaining lunar colonies, terraforming other planets, and
space billboards.  For now, NASA's role in space exploration is
developing this technology, since the commercial sector does not have
the short-term return on investment necessary for them to invest in
this kind of research.  Several far-seeing companies are investing
internal R&D funds in space exploitation, but it takes a very large
investment, and the potential pay-off is a long time in the future.

NASA is indeed making history, but it should be helping the commercial
sector make the future instead.

Character slurs make amusing reading in Usenet, but they rarely add
to the message content, so I won't address them.  Please be more
civil; impolite postings detract from your arguments.

-- Ken Jenks, NASA/JSC/GM2, Space Shuttle Program Office
      [e-mail]  [phone]

     "Posting to Usenet is like blabbering in the town square."
        -- Steve Yelvington, [e-mail], in alt.culture.usenet

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

Date: 10 May 1993 17:58:04 GMT
From: Gregory McColm <[e-mail]>
Subject: U.S. Government and Science and Technolgy Investment
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space,sci.research,talk.politics.misc,talk.politics.libertarian,misc.education

In article <1slv7a$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pat) writes:
>In article <1sh1hn$[e-mail]> [e-mail]. (Gregory McColm) writes:
>>
>|In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jim Hart) writes:
>|>Socialist Republics.   No knowledgeable person ever tried to pretend
>|>this was going to help the economy.  In fact, countries that concentrated
>|>their R&D in the private sector (eg Japan) kicked our ass economically
>|>in the latter half of the Cold War as rigor mortis set in.  Japan
>|
>|Much of Japanese R & D success is actually American failure of initiative.
>|A number of innovations, from VCRs to fuzzy logic, were American, but
>|American corporations were not interested.  If American had not supported
>|the basic R & D, then the whole world would have suffered, because the
>|woefully inadequate Japanese R & D would not have filled the gap.
>|
>|Incidentally, American support for pure research goes back almost to
>|the colonial era.  Some presidents, like Jefferson and J Q Adams, strongly
>|supported it.  In this century, during the first half, there was a lot
>
>
>Until the 1900's the US didn't even do research in CHemistry.
>
>SUre during the colonial era we had franklin  who was marvelously
>productive,  but mos tof the serious universities were in
>europe.  In the late 1800's we started to make serious
>contributions to electrical science,  but a lot of the big names
>were still in europe.
>
>A major advantage the US had was WW1 and 2.  by winning both wars we
>were able to steal all of germanys patented processes.  that brought us
>aspirin,  dye chemistry,  gas chemistry,  rocketry,  numerous electronic
>devices....
>
>also,  because of NAZI persecution, a number of  Top german scientists
>fled  to the US  bringing their skills.
>
>essentially if you look at it,  the  40's 50's and 60's  were
>more influenced by the spoils of war then by  american commitment
>to research.  the 70's  and 80's were more typical.   what was
>the advantage, which was unique to america, was that having room
>for mavericks,  independent thinkers were able to develope research
>outside of any system.
>
>pat

I must give way to temptation ...

1.  Science nowadays is BIG science, and I mean bigness far beyond
subsidizing ocean voyages like that of HMS Beagle.  A vast number of
technological doodads have arisen out of this, and bureaucrats love
the whole charade, but it is not clear how much progress (of the sort
that will impress people 500 years hence) is being made.  Nevertheless,
in the current game, we are winning the Nobel prizes while Japan is
making the money.

2.  Continuing in this line, CMFair has suggested that the 20th
century is the Silver Age in science, while the 19th was the Golden
Age:  the idea is that we are running on inertia.  I posted this
suggestion in sci.math, and got some chewing out --- but I still get
the feeling that for mathematics at least, there is an uncomfortable
amount of truth in this (the decline seems more noticeable in the
visual arts, music, literature, and philosophy).  Comments or
flames, anyone?  The greatest scientists of the 19th century were
Gauss and Darwin, of the 20th, Hilbert and Einstein.  Comparisons?

3.  I didn't know that we got much out of WWI.  During that war, a
chemist applied to the army, and was told that the army already had
a chemist.  TAEdison was brought into the effort, but the big
innovations (eg, sonar) were made by pointy-headed university types
(of course, as all lone-genius purists know, TAEdison was merely the
director of a large institution that developed products to which he
attached his name ...).  My impression was that the preference for
social science spending continued right into WWII, when there was
a sharp change as a result of the promises of radar, atom bombs,
etc.

Snide comment:  If America was the home of the hardy individualists,
then why were most of the major scientists European?  Because science
has always been a hobby of the middle class --- the lower class
doesn't have the time, the upper class doesn't have the patience (I
was going to say "brains", but I remembered that we shouldn't get
nasty on Usenet) --- and the American middle class is imbued with too
many upper class values.

-----Greg McColm

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

Date: Mon, 10 May 1993 16:58:25 GMT
From: Ken Arromdee <[e-mail]>
Subject: Vandalizing the sky
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>Similarly, if space billboards are eventually launched, there
>will be methods for avoiding them.  The simple expedient is to take a
>field trip to a higher orbit, which may be made possible by cheaper
>access to space.

Space billboards would be far worse than earthly ones in this sense.  You're
right, I can get out of my car and walk past a billboard, to see the landscape.
It may be possible to go to a higher orbit to see past the "space billboards".
But this would require far more of my time and resources to do than walking
past an earthly billboard.  Even if we have commercial space travel, it's as
if whenever I wanted to see past an Earthly billboard, I had to take a trip to
Alaska.
--
"On the first day after Christmas my truelove served to me...  Leftover Turkey!
On the second day after Christmas my truelove served to me...  Turkey Casserole
    that she made from Leftover Turkey.
[days 3-4 deleted] ...  Flaming Turkey Wings! ...
   -- Pizza Hut commercial (and M*tlu/A*gic bait)

Ken Arromdee ([e-mail])

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

End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 553
------------------------------