Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V16_5/V16NO596.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1993-07-13 | 32KB

Date: Thu, 20 May 93 05:19:38
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V16 #596
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Thu, 20 May 93       Volume 16 : Issue 596

Today's Topics:
                               1993 FW
                        Back to the Moon Bill
                     Billboards in Space (2 msgs)
              Catalogue of Cometary Orbits (8th Edition)
                           murder in space
             No. Re: Space Marketing would be wonderfull.
                     Over zealous shuttle critics
                                 R101
                 Space Marketing -- Boycott (2 msgs)
            Space Marketing would be wonderfull. (5 msgs)

    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: 19 May 1993 18:00 UT
From: Ron Baalke <[e-mail]>
Subject: 1993 FW
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro

According to IAU Circular 5796 dated May 18, 1993, Brian Marsden has further
refined the geocentric distance of 1993 FW to range from 39 to 48 AU.  The
new calculations were possible due to three CCD images obtained on May 17
by O. Hainaut and measurements taken by R. West.  1993 FW is the second
of a suspected Kuiper Belt object that is beyond the orbit of Pluto.
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | Never laugh at anyone's
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | dreams.
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     |

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

Date: 19 May 93 12:44:00 PST
From: "RWTMS2::MUNIZB" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Back to the Moon Bill

I received the following today:
************************************************************************
From:    ISC::WINS%"[e-mail]" 19-MAY-1993 07:36:43.67
Subj:    NSS Alert on Return to the Moon

The NSS is calling an alert on the Return to the Moon legislation.

Currently the situation is that Robert Walker will include the legislation in
his annual Space Omnibus bill.

We are asking everyone to contact George Brown, chair of the subcommittee on
space, to introduce the Return to the Moon legislation.  You may telephone
Brown at [phone].  You may write to Brown at the House of
Representatives, Washington, DC 20515.

Please do so by the close of business Wednesday the 26th.

Thank you for your help.

--
Chuck Divine
************************************************************************
Ben Muniz, President, Organization for the Advancement of Space Industrial-
ization and Settlement (OASIS)/ Greater L.A. chapter-National Space Society
Internet:[e-mail]                Voicemail:[phone]

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

Date: Wed, 19 May 1993 17:14:45 GMT
From: "Dale M. Greer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Billboards in Space
Newsgroups: sci.space

Concerning the orbiting billboard idea,

John De Armond sez:
>The panty-wetters think they should have power over anything they don't like.

And Fred McCall sez:
>Hey, if you don't like it that much, don't get up until after sunrise
>and eat dinner around sunset.  You'll pretty much miss them entirely.

So, tell me, who are the panty-wetters here.  Sounds like the pro-billsat
people are trying to tell everybody else to live their lives so as not to
interfere with what THEY want.

Then Lazlo sez:
>Is that what this country has been reduced to?  The planetary equivalent of
>a guy who gets his penis out at parties?

Of course we are!  We're humans for heaven's sake, and 98.4% of our genes
are identical to those of chimpanzees!

Here are a few more observations on this space billboard thing.

1) If I were going to put a billsat up, which I never would (hint: I don't
   throw trash in my neighbor's yard either), I would put it into a sun-
   synchronous orbit.  Such orbits are inclined at greater than 90 degrees
   and have the advantage of maintaining a constant solar local time.  This
   means you could put it into orbit along the terminator and it would stay
   in sunlight throughout its life.

   So for a month or so, anybody who wanted to enjoy a beautiful sunset
   would have a good chance of being accosted by this piece of trash
   floating by.  It would most likely be in a 90 to 100 minute orbit,
   during which time a point on the Equator would move about 1500 or
   1600 miles, so sometimes you'd see it twice per evening, but other
   times only once.  You'd be able to read it for 50 to 100 seconds,
   depending on how close you were to its ground track.

2) The surface of the Moon has about the same reflectivity as tar, so it
   wouldn't take much for this billsat to be extremely bright.  In fact,
   if I were going to do it, which I never would (hint: I don't accost
   neighbors and fellow motorists with loud music either), I would use
   some relatively dark material, else it might be too bright to read.

3) Mao Tse Tung said: "Political power comes out of the barrel of a
   gun."  There seem to be more anti-billsat people and they seem to be
   willing to make great sacrifices to fight against billsats.  I doubt
   that the pro-billsat people are willing to fight as hard for their
   point of view.

_____________
Dale M. Greer, whose opinions are not to be confused with those of
  The Center for Space Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas
   UTSPAN::UTADNX::UTDSSA::GREER or [e-mail]
"Let machines multiply, doing the work of many,
               But let the people have no use for them." - Lao Tzu

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

Date: Wed, 19 May 1993 18:03:01 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Billboards in space
Newsgroups: sci.space

Michael C Voorhis ([e-mail]) wrote:
: [...] How many miles long/high
: would a billboard have to be to be seen from orbit, anyway?  I can't
: imagine how large a billboard would have to be to be legible from
: geostationary orbit...

A very, very small spacecraft with a bright, rhythmically flashing
light qualifies as a space billboard if accompanied by a conventional
ad campaign which links that little flashing light with the company's
product or service.

Picture a Motorola television commercial advertising their new
satellite-based personal communication system, Iridium, which is
composed of dozens of satellites in low Earth orbit.  If each satellite
included a flashing beacon, everybody who looked at the night sky would
see them.  This, coupled with some good, conventional advertisement
(radio, TV, newspaper, magazine) would instantly increase the public's
awareness of the service.  If the lights caused some problems, they
could be turned off by remote control, either permanently or
temporarilly (maybe on weekends so that amateur astronomers can have
some unmolested telescope time).

Picture a Clarke-orbit satellite, flashing to the rhythm of the
well-known advertising jingle which is hyped on radio and/or TV.

Picture another spacecraft (orbital or sub-orbital) which releases
chemicals which cause different temporary atmospheric displays.
Red, white and blue streaks across America for Independece Day.
Crimson fills the skies of Russia in October.  Green over Chicago
on St. Patrick's day.

Don't think of space-based advertising as terrestrial advertising
moved into orbit.  Use your imagination.  Then make it real.

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

     "Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is
      engineering that changes the world."
        -- Isaac Asimov

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

Date: 19 May 1993 17:48 UT
From: Ron Baalke <[e-mail]>
Subject: Catalogue of Cometary Orbits (8th Edition)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro

This is from IAU Circular 5792.

Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams
INTERNATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL UNION
Postal Address: Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.

CATALOGUE OF COMETARY ORBITS 1993
     By popular request, a new edition - the eighth - of the Cata-
logue of Cometary Orbits is now available, little more than a year
after its predecessor.  The 102 pages contain orbital elements (in
the J2000.0 system) for 1392 cometary apparitions through April
1993.  Greater efficiency in printing now allows the names of the
comets to appear together with the orbits.  The new catalogue sells
at the same price as the seventh edition: $20.00, although sub-
scribers to these Circulars can purchase it for $10.00 and have
their accounts debited by this amount.  The main part of the cata-
logue and the table of 'original' and 'future' 1/a values for the
289 long-period comets with orbits of the highest quality can be
supplied by e-mail for $50.00; they are also available on an MS-DOS
diskette (5.25-inch or 3.5-inch) for $100.00, this including a fa-
cility for extracting individual orbits and computing ephemerides.
Checks accompanying orders (or in cases where there is insufficient
credit in the accounts for these Circulars) should be made out to
"Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams" and mailed to the
postal address given above.

     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | Never laugh at anyone's
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | dreams.
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     |

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

Date: Wed, 19 May 1993 16:55:40 GMT
From: Jim Cobban <[e-mail]>
Subject: murder in space
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Marvin Batty) writes:
|>
|> I presume that if the murder took place aborad a craft or station, the
|> country that owned the vessel would have juresdiction over the killer.
|> In 2010, A. C. Clarke has the Russians prohibited from boarding Discovery
|> on the grounds of it being US government property. Presumably, the government

Governments, particularly the US government, tend to write in special
provisions for themselves.  I don't have a copy of "2010" handy so I don't
recall the detail referred to here.  Presumeably if the Discovery had been
a commercial vessel the laws of salvage would apply.  That is if a vessel is
abandoned by its crew then ownership of the vessel is lost.  However you
could argue that HAL was the captain of the Discovery and that therefore the
entire crew had not abandoned the Discovery.

On another point it was claimed that the British government enforced its laws
on the territory of the United States in the lead up to the War of 1812.
What the British government asserted was its rights with respect to its own
citizens, indeed of employees of the British government, who were travelling
on vessels of another nation in international waters.  The interceptions of
American, and other nations', vessels were to search for deserters from the
Royal Navy.  Britain did not assert that it had any rights within the territory
of the United States, nor within its territorial waters.  Jefferson chose to
take this, for political reasons, as a casus belli.  It is strange that the
US did not so forcefully object to the much more invasive actions of the
Royal Navy in interdicting the slave trade.  In that case the British
government asserted the right to stop vessels of any nation on the high seas, not to intervene on behalf of British subjects, but on behalf of african
natives most of whom did not even come from regions over which Britain claimed
authority.

One specific example of US government interference in the commerce of other
countries is in its extension of the Trading with the Enemy Act to apply to
foreign subsiduaries of American corporations.  In particular the Canadian and
British governments have had to repeatedly intervene to tell the US government
to butt out when it has tried to interfere in legal commerce with Cuba and
Vietnam.

--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Cobban   |  [e-mail]                        |  Phone: [phone]
BNR Ltd.     |  bnrgate.bnr.ca!bcars5!jcobban         |  FAX:   [phone]

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

Date: Wed, 19 May 1993 17:45:23 GMT
From: Frank Crary <[e-mail]>
Subject: No. Re: Space Marketing would be wonderfull.
Newsgroups: sci.environment,misc.consumers,misc.invest,sci.astro,talk.environment,talk.politics.space,sci.space,rec.backcountry,misc.rural,misc.headlines,k12.chat.teacher

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Tim Conrow) writes:
>   Sorry, it seems quite clear to me: If you object to such things, you
>   are wasting your time worring about one minor aspect of the problem.
>   Either openly oppose growth in general or accept its consequences.

>Either we must allow advertisers to impose themselves on our lives in
>any way they desire, or we must forego economic growth? Is that it,
>Frank?  That's what's known in the rhetoric business as a false
>dichotomy. There are other options available. Reasonable restraint
>such as we might expect of neighbors, for example.

Let's see: My neighbor habitually plays loud music at 3:00 AM. Expecting
"reasonable restraint" doesn't seem too realistic to me. The
dichotomy isn't a false one, because the other options don't work:
There are alot of ways that _seem_ to both allow economic growth
and satisfy esthetic desires, like the appearance of the night sky.
But really, they just slow both growth and the esthetic harm. The
harm isn't prevented.

>...I would think a
>reasonable person -- such as you clearly pride yourself on being,
>based on the wording of the paragraph above -- would have a somewhat
>less self-centered approach to such problems.

I'm not sure how "self-centered" got into it: I haven't invested
in any billboard companies, and I don't stand to gain from putting
such things on orbit.

>...Perhaps the appearence
>of the night sky is of no concern to you...

Actually, it is. But I don't think banning orbital billboards will
help the matter.

                                              Frank Crary
                                              CU Boulder

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

Date: Wed, 19 May 1993 16:41:30 GMT
From: fred j mccall 575-3539 <[e-mail]>
Subject: Over zealous shuttle critics
Newsgroups: sci.space

In <1tb1re$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pat) writes:

>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Phil G. Fraering) writes:
>>The shuttle will share another with the R-101.

>What's teh R-101.

There were a pair of airships built by the British.  One was a private
concern, was built, and flew well.  The competitor was the government
built R-101, which was a disaster.



--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[e-mail] - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.

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

Date: Wed, 19 May 1993 18:22:38 GMT
From: Del Cotter <[e-mail]>
Subject: R101
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <1tb1re$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pat) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Phil G. Fraering) writes:
>>The shuttle will share another with the R-101.
>
>What's teh R-101.

Jesus.  Look, do I have to post this file *again*?

Read 'Slide Rule', by Nevil Shute.  The R101 was an airship that crashed.
No reason you should have heard of it, it was built by foreigners (those
ignorant of history are condemned to repeat it, Pat).

It's a long, sad tale, heartbreakingly similar to the Shuttle story,
leading up to the events of 28/1/86 (I don't need to go to any reference
for that date).  I will just give the final paragraphs of Shute's
account:

          "They told me that the new outer cover for R101 had
     been doped in place upon the ship.  When it was finished,
     it was considered that it ought to be strengthened in
     certain places by a system of tapes stuck on the inside,
     and for the adhesive they had used rubber solution.  The
     rubber solution had reacted chemically with the dope, and
     produced this terrible effect.
          There was nothing that he or I could do about it.
     I said, 'I hope they've got all this stuff off the ship.
          He smiled cynically.  'They *say* they have.'
          Two points in this incident deserve some notice.
     Firstly, Cardington was a department of the Air Ministry
     and had immediate access to the whole of government
     research organisation.  There was undoubtedly somebody at
     Farnborough who could have told them at once that rubber
     solution and dope do not agree; undoubtedly the dope
     manufacturers could have told them.  I think that at that
     stage, three weeks before the R101 disaster, they were
     floundering, making hurried and incompetent technical
     decisions, excluding people from their conferences who
     could have helped them.
          The second point is this.  R101 made one short test
     flight on October the 1st in very perfect weather; during
     this flight she made no full speed trials because the oil
     cooler of one engine failed.  She started for India on
     October the 4th, and met some very bad weather over
     France.  She crashed at Beauvais, and the initial cause
     of the disaster was almost certainly a large failure of
     the outer cover on top of the ship near the bow.  It
     seems to me very probable that some of this rotted fabric
     had been left in place, but nobody will ever know that
     for certain."

--
 ',' ' ',','  |                                                |  ',' ' ',','
   ', ,','    |      Del Cotter      [e-mail]      |    ', ,','
     ','      |                                                |      ','

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

Date: 19 May 1993 17:27:59 GMT
From: Chris Best <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Marketing -- Boycott
Newsgroups: sci.environment,misc.consumers,sci.astro,talk.environment,talk.politics.space,sci.space,rec.backcountry

> According to the person I talked to, the proposed "billboard"
> will be too small to resolve with the naked eye -- so small
> and visually unimportant...
>
>   Anyway, he suggested that the
> visual impact would approximate that of a jumbo jet
> at 45k feet (12km) altitude.

----------

Are you sure he didn't tailor his comments according to what he guessed
you wanted to hear?  In other words, LIE?  Think about it - what good
would a billboard do for an advertiser if nobody can see it?  Who would
advertise, telescope companies?  Pretty narrow audience here.

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

Date: Wed, 19 May 1993 17:34:47 GMT
From: Frank Crary <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Marketing -- Boycott
Newsgroups: sci.environment,misc.consumers,misc.invest,sci.astro,talk.environment,talk.politics.space,sci.space,rec.backcountry,misc.rural,misc.headlines,k12.chat.teacher

In article <1tc9kj$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Walker Andrew John) writes:
>>>...Annoying little species, aren't we?

>>More than just annoying: venal, arrogant, greedy.  Oh, well...

>    We've destroyed most of the Earth, can't we at least leave something
>alone?We are supposed to be the most intelligent species, but sometimes
>you have to wonder.

We've destroyed the Earth? It was still there last time I looked. I
think "arrogant" is a trait we can agree on. We've _changed_ the
Earth, in some places quite radically. But suggest we've even
come close to destroying it (i.e. made it uninhabitable to all forms
of life) is probably the most arrogant thing I've heard in a
long time.

                                            Frank Crary
                                            CU Boulder

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

Date: 19 May 1993 17:19:35 GMT
From: "Jeffrey L. Cook" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Marketing would be wonderfull.
Newsgroups: sci.environment,misc.consumers,sci.astro,talk.environment,sci.space,rec.backcountry,misc.headlines

In a previous article, [e-mail] (Lazlo Nibble) says:

>[e-mail] (Jeffrey L. Cook) writes:
>
>> This object would not interfere with anyone's enjoyment of the night sky
>> (it would be invisible at night), nor would it have any significant
>> impact on astronomical observations.  I suspect there must be some kind
>> of underlying agenda coming to the surface when, in spite of this, people
>> are so quick to shrilly denounce and condemn something that would so
>> vividly demonstrate the strength of Western capitalism.
>
>Buying Lichtenstein and paving it over with ground glass would also
>"demonstrate the strength of Western capitalism", but that doesn't make it
>a particularly attractive idea.

Hmm, if someone's got the money to buy Lichtenstein, and the owners are
willing to sell, I suppose he could do whatever he wants to with it.
However, would you please explain why any capitalist would want to pave
it over with ground glass?  I'm sure this wouldn't give him much of a
return on his investment.  That's not how capitalism works.  Sounds more
like a socialist make-work program.

>Is that what this country has been reduced
>to?  The planetary equivalent of a guy who gets his penis out at parties?

Another strange analogy.  We're talking about one company freely
contracting with another company to put its advertisement into orbit.
The role of this country should be to stay out of the way and let the
enterprise financially sink or swim on its own merits.

Jeff Cook                            [e-mail]

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

Date: 16 May 1993 21:57:53 GMT
From: Matt Kennel <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Marketing would be wonderfull.
Newsgroups: sci.environment,misc.consumers,misc.invest,sci.astro,talk.environment,talk.politics.space,sci.space,rec.backcountry,misc.rural,misc.headlines,k12.chat.teacher

[e-mail] (Frank Crary) writes:
: While I'm sure Sagan considers it sacrilegious, that wouldn't be
: because of his doubtfull credibility as an astronomer. Modern,
: ground-based, visible light astronomy (what these proposed
: orbiting billboards would upset) is already a dying field: The
: opacity and distortions caused by the atmosphere itself have
: driven most of the field to use radio, far infrared or space-based
: telescopes.

Hardly.  The Keck telescope in Hawaii has taken its first pictures; they're
nearly as good as Hubble for a tiny fraction of the cost.

: In any case, a bright point of light passing through
: the field doesn't ruin observations. If that were the case, the
: thousands of existing satellites would have already done so (satelliets
: might not seem so bright to the eyes, but as far as astronomy is concerned,
: they are extremely bright.)

I believe that this orbiting space junk will be FAR brighter still;
more like the full moon.  The moon upsets deep-sky observation all
over the sky (and not just looking at it) because of scattered light.

This is a known problem, but of course two weeks out of every four are
OK.  What happens when this billboard circles every 90 minutes?  What
would be a good time then?

:                                              Frank Crary
:                                              CU Boulder

--
-Matt Kennel          [e-mail]
-Institute for Nonlinear Science, University of California, San Diego
-*** AD: Archive for nonlinear dynamics papers & programs: FTP to
-***     lyapunov.ucsd.edu, username "anonymous".

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

Date: Wed, 19 May 93 17:54:39 GMT
From: Steve Waddell <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Marketing would be wonderfull.
Newsgroups: sci.environment,misc.consumers,misc.invest,sci.astro,talk.environment,talk.politics.space,sci.space,rec.backcountry,misc.rural,misc.headlines,k12.chat.teacher

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Phil G. Fraering) writes:
|> [e-mail] writes:
|>
|> >What a waste of resources when they can't even get the space station going!
|> >===============================================================
|>
|> Destroying that project wouldn't pay for another water cooler at
|> Reston. This project would pay for itself at a very small fraction
|> of what Space Station is taking from the gubbimint every year and
|> not getting built....
|> --

Maybe they should put the billboards on the space station!  :)

____________________________________________________________________________
  Steve Waddell                                        [e-mail]
  Bellcore                                             [phone]
____________________________________________________________________________

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

Date: Wed, 19 May 1993 17:54:03 GMT
From: Frank Crary <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Marketing would be wonderfull.
Newsgroups: sci.environment,misc.consumers,misc.invest,sci.astro,talk.environment,talk.politics.space,sci.space,rec.backcountry,misc.rural,misc.headlines,k12.chat.teacher

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Rob Dobson) writes:
>>compute the period of a 108 mile orbit. But assuming 90 minutes
>>is a reasonable guess, and a circular orbit and assuming the
>>Earth's own rotation will keep the thing in view a bit longer,
>>the billboard will only be visible for about four and three
>>quarter minutes per orbit, or 38 minutes per twelve hour night.

>>This doesn't sound like a nuisance or an abomination to me.


>Look, while Im glad to see someone doing such calculations, the situation
>is like this:

>1) If the advertising is not large enough, and visible long enough, for
>people to read and notice it, it will not be any good as advertising.

People could notice and read it in five minutes, around dawn or
dusk.

>2) If the advertising is large enough and visible long enough to
>be good advertising, it will certainly be a nuisance to those who
>do not wish to see this advertising in the night sky.

>So the thing cant NOT be a nuisance, or else it wont work.

Is five minutes a night a "nuisance"? And how, exactly, would
a dawn event have anything to do with the _night_ sky?

                                                    Frank Crary
                                                    CU Boulder

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

Date: Wed, 19 May 1993 18:11:36 GMT
From: Frank Crary <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Marketing would be wonderfull.
Newsgroups: misc.consumers,misc.headlines,misc.invest,sci.astro,sci.space,sci.environment,rec.backcountry,misc.rural,talk.environment,talk.politics.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jurkat) writes:
>What makes you think that mirrors is all they'll use.  Seems to me an
>advertiser wouldn't want to waste the night and just stick in a nuclear
>battery to power some way-cool visual eye-catching super-duper special
>effects...

The power requirements: To be "as bright as the Moon" requires about
500 Megawatts of power. At 1.4 kilowatts of reflected sunlight per
square meter, that's possible. I haven't even seen published
papers _imagining_ 500 Megawatts of power available on orbit. I don't
think anything using over 100 kW has ever been launched.

>...Isn't that how most satelites are powered....

No, on Earth orbit, solar power is far more efficient unless you
need huge amounts of power. For the few hundred watts typically
used by satellites, solar panels are the best option. Nuclear
power is only used for military radar satellites (Soviet, and
they haven't launched any in about three years), lunar probes
(which spend 14 days in the Lunar night) and deep space
missions going farther from the sun that Mars (where solar power
becomes too weak.)

>...Even solar batteries
>could work for the el-cheepo advertisers.

How? At 20% efficiency (the best you can get), you'd need five time the
area a simple mirror would require. That doesn't even consider
the batteries you would need to store the power collected during the
day.

                                                Frank Crary
                                                CU Boulder

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


Path: crabapple.srv.cs.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!news.sei.cmu.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!pathfinder!vmp
From: Vincent Pollmeier <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: sci.space,jpl.general,la.general
Subject: AIAA - SGV to have DCX speaker in Pasadena
Date: 19 May 1993 17:15:10 GMT
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA/Caltech
Lines: 32
Distribution: world
Message-Id: <1tdpuu$[e-mail]>
Nntp-Posting-Host: 137.79.86.4
Sender: [e-mail]
Source-Info:  Sender is really [e-mail]

The San Gabriel Valley Section of the AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics
and Astronautics) will hold its bi-monthly dinner program at the Peppermill restaurant in Pasadena on Thursday May 20th and the public is invited to attend.
The program follows:

                    Delta Clipper:  Single Stage to Orbit

Dr. William Gaubatz,  Program Manager for SSTO Programs at McDonnell Douglas
in Huntington Beach, CA will be speaking on  the Delta Clipper program and on
the current status of the DCX a third scale flight prototype currently
undergoing testing.  The Delta Clipper is being planned as a re-usable
single stage launch vehicle which is being designed to make flight operations
as simple as possible.  McDonnell Douglas is using an innovative approach of
design the launch vehicle to be maintained like more like a commercial airplane
than the current Space Shuttle.


    Location:    Peppermill Restaurant
                 795 East Walnut Ave
                 Pasadena, CA
    (the Peppermill is located a block west of Lake Avenue and 2 blocks south
     of the 210 Freeway)

    Date:         Thursday May 20, 1993
    Time:         Social Hour:  6:00 - 7:00
                  Dinner and Program 7:00-8:30

    Cost:        $17.00 for AIAA members with reservations
                 $20.00 for non-members and members without reservations
                 $10.00 for full-time students (with ID)

           for more information and to make reservations contact
           AIAA Western Region Office at (800) 683 - 2422

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

End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 596
------------------------------