Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V16_6/V16NO651.TXT

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Date: Mon, 31 May 93 05:24:10
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V16 #651
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Mon, 31 May 93       Volume 16 : Issue 651

Today's Topics:
    Comet Shoemaker-Levy, Possible Collision With Jupiter in 1994
                      Let's Build a Space Ship!
                     Mining on the Moon? (2 msgs)
                      Space Marketing -- Boycott
    Voyager Discovers the First Direct Evidence of the Heliopause
                   Why a far side Science station.

    Welcome to the Space Digest!!  Please send your messages to
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    (THENET), or [e-mail] (Internet).
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 07:17:28 GMT
From: 21012d <[e-mail]>
Subject: Comet Shoemaker-Levy, Possible Collision With Jupiter in 1994
Newsgroups: sci.space

   It might be good for someone to consider radio frequency observations
during and after the possible collision.   Interactions of the
magnetosphere and possible plasma jets would both provide additional
unique information.  L DeGroff  ([e-mail])

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

Date: 30 May 1993 18:43:07 -0400
From: Bradley Gould <[e-mail]>
Subject: Let's Build a Space Ship!
Newsgroups: sci.space

    Hi. I was hoping that title would catch your attention.  Yes, I do
propose that we build a spaceship.  And not just a more powerful rocket,
(fusion or otherwise).  I'm talking about a balls-to-the-wall, full-bore,
maximum overdrive, rip up the spaceways, rock-n-roll-it-ship!

    I'll tell you right now I have no qualifications for my participation
in this "project", other than a rabid curiosity and a deep sense of faith
in humanity's destiny as a star-faring race.  If you share that curiosity
and conviction, read on...

HISTORY:

    This idea has grown out of my fascination with UFOs.  I have spent a
number of years quietly compiling a body of facts regarding sightings,
dating back as far as 1549.  I have expressly avoided association with
MUFON, CUFOS, etc., to keep my research as unbiased as possible.  (I
must admit, however, that one of my prized posessions is a picture I
took of J. Allen Hynek in Brewster, N.Y. shortly before he died.)

    I believe our planet HAS been, and continues to be, visited by space-
craft from other races.  I further believe that these races have varying
degrees of technological expertise.  Some are dirtier (more radioactive),
than others.  Some prefer robotic investigations; others seem to prefer
the "personal touch".  (Although even these may be alien "androids",
bioengineered to avoid the danger of direct contact, and/or to present
a more "humanoid" and thus, less threatening form.)

    I only have a peripheral interest in CE3K issues, though.  Like an
Iron-Age Ox Cart driver confronted by a time traveller in a 68' GTO,
what I'm REALLY interested in is sitting behind the steering wheel of
that sucker!  If that means I have to humor the guy with the ignition
key, well...


THE GUY WITH THE IGNITION KEY ISSUES:

    Obviously, we don't have E.T. standing before us, dangling a key-
chain.  However, we DO need to consider those to whom such a project
represents a clear and unacceptable loss of control.  I don't believe
the reduction in manned spaceflights has been due solely to budgetary
constraints.  It's simply a matter of logistics.  America exists solely
because it was too costly in the long run to subjugate economically.
Our government and business leaders realize that a guy on Mars might
not exhibit the same respect for Authority that an Earth-bound citizen
with nowhere to run would.  Forget someone on Epsilon Eridani IV.

    Each participant to this endeavor must be in it for the jazz.  However,
I know there will be property issues at stake here.  We therefore need to
establish some legally airtight method of individual recognition for any
technologies which come out of this project.  I think we need to look
beyond the US Patent Office.  The big-boys have that whole office in their
pockets.

    I also realize we're talking about technologies with obvious weapons
applications.  We need to establish a secure method of communications to
protect this project from the "nihilistic set".

    I wish we lived in a more just and sane world, but unfortuately we
still have to look out for the parasites and sociopaths in high places.


ASSUMPTIONS:

While we iron out how to proceed, surrounded by the "pragmatists" described
above, I think I can suggest some directions in exploring the technologies
which have brought these craft to our little blue marble...

Based upon the fragments found in Las Cruces, NM I would say we have quite
a few technical issues to resolve before we can go a-wanderin'.  This is
why you will find this same message repeated in a large number of news

groups detailed below.

    The most interesting UFOs to me, exhibit incredible speeds and
maneuverability.  (The GTOs of the spaceways, if you will.)  I
believe that these particular UFOs manage to generate a "bubble of
relative space/time" different from ours.  This explanation would allow
the craft to be "relatively" stationary to a given set of space/time
coordinates, yet accelerating at incredible velocities relative to
another set.

    By creating such a bubble, two problems are solved simultaneously.
First, how do you protect a spacecraft's occupants at high speed from
G-forces and cosmic debris impact?  Secondly, how do you overcome the
inertial mass/energy penalties inherent in velocities approaching and
exceeding the speed of light (C)?

    The only way I can see to create such a bubble is to "suggest" to
local sub-atomic entities that they're really somewhere/when else in
relative space/time; to "con" them, if you will, into believing they
are relative to a completely different set of space/time coordinates.

    This "suggestive" approach to sub-atomic manipulation is a key premise
of Greg Bear's SF novel 'Anvil of Stars'. Greg postulates that there is a
"data exchange" which occurs between elemental entities along priviledged
channels which may not even exist within our universe.  In his book, he
approaches the subject from the perspective of communications and weapons
systems.  I have always thought of it in terms of propulsion systems.

    How would one generate such a relativity bubble?  I think, by looking
at this problem as a "perceptual" one.  I've always found the Heisenberg
uncertainty principle fascinating.  I also find Schroedinger's cat-in-the-
box problem very interesting.  If we could design a self cognizant computer
of such positional precision and certainty about it's own coordiates that
it could actually influence the Heisenberg plot of subatomic relationships
in a local radius large enough to encompass a spacecraft...

    This "relativity box" would have to be something very different from
any other computer developed to date.  It would need the ability to so
accurately simulate "being" somewhere/when else, that local phenomena
are forced to doubt their priveledged channel positional messages and
rewrite their own messages to conform to the simulation.  It would have
to be able to perform this subatomic slight-of-hand with absolutely no
human perceptual intervention.  The cat MUST stay in the box at all times.

      Were I a theorist (which I'm not), I would look at achieving a
multi-dimensional array of Permanent Standing Wave (PSW) functions to
simulate the local relational matrix and then apply another complete set
of coordinates for a totally different matrix.  I would, furthermore,
look at a "holographic" model to describe this matrix.

    I don't know of a computer capable of coercing sub-atomic phenomena
into rewriting their positional data streams, but I DO feel that this
is a key technology to achieving the sort of vehicular performance
reported by UFO sightings; in the same sense that contemporary computers
control the flight surfaces of high-performance jet aircraft; aircraft
which would otherwise drop out of the sky like stones.

(Please note that the Las Cruces UFO appeared to have crashed during a
lightning storm.  Could this have been due to computer overload?)

    Here are the news groups in which this message is repeated:

    alt.activism                            alt.cyberpunk
    alt.cyberpunk.tech                      alt.dcom.telecom
    alt.alien.visitors                      alt.fractals
    alt.hackers                             alt.individualism
    alt.privacy                             alt.rock-n-roll
    alt.security                            alt.sci.physics.acoustics
    alt.sci.physics.new-theories            alt.security.pgp
    alt.society.civil-liberty               alt.society.futures
    alt.society.revolution                  comp.ai
    comp.ai.genetic                         comp.ai.neural-nets
    comp.cog-eng                            comp.security.misc
    comp.society                            comp.software.licensing
    comp.specification                      comp.theory.dynamic-sys
    comp.theory.self-org-sys                misc.activism.progressive
    misc.entrepreneurs                      misc.int-property
    misc.legal.computing                    sci.astro
    sci.bio.technology                      sci.cognitive
    sci.cryonics                            sci.energy
    sci.engr.biomed                         sci.engr.control
    sci.fractals                            sci.geo.fluids
    sci.geo.meteorology                     sci.materials
    sci.math.symbolic                       sci.nanotech
    sci.optics                              sci.philosophy.meta
    sci.philosophy.tech                     sci.physics
    sci.physics.fusion                      sci.physics.research
    sci.psychology                          sci.skeptic
    sci.space                               talk.politics.space

P.S.

    PLEASE do not send me any E-Mail on CE3K unless you know of an E.T.
with detailed blueprints for what we're trying to achieve here.  Do NOT
send me anything you value as an intellectual property until the legal
and security issues have been resolved.

    If you, or someone you know, is in Public Relations, the media, etc.,
this could be very helpful in keeping the McCarthy wannabe's opening Coke
bottles with their butts instead of molesting honest, hard-working, space
cowboys like us.

    If you know how to set up an alt.newsgroup for this venture, please
let me know.

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

Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 01:57:48 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Mining on the Moon?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Bruce d. Scott) writes:
>|> >- what are the type and extent of the mineral resources on the moon?
>|>
>|> Essentially nothing is known about this.  Ore deposits are, almost by
>|> definition, rare events...
>
>Except that titanium is so abundant in lunar surface material that it
>has been said to qualify as medium to high-grade ore by terrestrial
>standards...

Depends on which material we are talking about.  Some of it does have
a noticeable percentage of titanium.  But so do quite a few Earthly
minerals.

As has been pointed out repeatedly in this group, titanium is *not* a
rare metal, on Earth or elsewhere.  Titanium dioxide is routinely used
as a pigment in white paints.  Titanium's limited use and high-tech
reputation, as a metal, arises from the extreme difficulty of refining
and working with it, not the rarity of titanium ores.
--
SVR4 resembles a high-speed collision   | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
between SVR3 and SunOS.    - Dick Dunn  |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 06:48:24 GMT
From: Nick Janow <[e-mail]>
Subject: Mining on the Moon?
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:

> Titanium's limited use and high-tech reputation, as a metal, arises from
> the extreme difficulty of refining and working with it, not the rarity of
> titanium ores.

That difficulty disappears on the moon (and elsewhere in space), since there
won't be any annoying oxygen or nitrogen to contaminate the titanium.  :)

Of course, the vacuum has its own problems as far as metals go.  Which of the
common metals on the moon would have the least trouble with vacuum welding?
What treatments (alloys, oxide, nitride, or carbide coatings, etc) will
reduce or enhance vacuum welding?  Luckily, these issues can be resolved in
labs on Earth.  Zero-g problems can only be researched properly in Earth
orbit or beyond.

--

[e-mail]

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

Date: 31 May 1993 03:36:44 -0500
From: "I am an android.." <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Marketing -- Boycott
Newsgroups: sci.environment,misc.invest,sci.astro,talk.environment,talk.politics.space,sci.space,misc.headlines

Pardon my trimming of newsgroups..

In article <1t4elk$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Roger Lewis) writes:
]The major danger of Space Marketing is all the bullets that will rain down
]upon the earth from all the good ole boys firing at it when I buy the
]message "No shooting allowed within sight of this sign". :)

Must be some HUGE buckshot being sold in them hills.. ;)

]--
][e-mail]    I'm the NRA *AND* the ACLU.   Power to the PEOPLE!
                                                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
                                                      AC or DC? :)


--
|Pat Chester       (aka: claypigeon)         [e-mail]|
|People's organizations rarely stay that way... or even begin as such. |
|I only speak for myself. If I *did* speak for UT, would anyone listen?|

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

Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 02:48:39 GMT
From: Kevin Moore <[e-mail]>
Subject: Voyager Discovers the First Direct Evidence of the Heliopause
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (the Smooge) writes:

>What is the mechanism for the generation of the 2-3 kilohertz
>frequency. It isnt blackbody radiation, nor would it seem to be
>bremstralung. Any help would be appreciated, as I am quite interested
>in the subject.

As a guess (from a former plasma physicist) it would be something along the
lines of a streaming instability, or perhaps a pressure-driven instability.

In a streaming instability a beam of energetic particles travels through a
plasma (solar wind through interstellar medium) so that different species of
particles have drifts relative to each other. The drift energy can excite
waves in some circumstances. (reference: Francis F. Chen Introduction to
Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion pp211-214) This will occur for
sufficiently long wavelengths, provided the drift velocity is large w.r.t.
the thermal velocity, which should be the case for the heliopause.

In a pressure driven instability, the wave energy comes from the expansion
of the interplanetary plasma being confined by the interstellar medium.

Both of these mechanisms lead to low frequency oscillations, so to pick
which it is, would require more information than we were given in the press
release.

Any comments from REAL astrophysicists? (Which I certainly don't claim to be)
Someone from NASA?

Kevin Moore
[e-mail]

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

Date: 31 May 93 00:13:19 GMT
From: Morgoth the Mad <[e-mail]>
Subject: Why a far side Science station.
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <1u8asv$[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Pat) writes:
>
> Simple solution..  Just put the science station on the near side
> and  spin the moon up with gyros, so that the stastion is on the
> far side:-)
>
>

I thought there already was a post card by the Far Side Cartoon people??

Or am I to jacked in to notice?

 Morgoth the Mad lives in Rogue AIs everywhere!

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

End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 651
------------------------------