Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V17/V17NO017.TXT

Text File | 1993-08-13 | 23KB | 570 lines

Space Digest                Thu, 12 Aug 93       Volume 17 : Issue 017

Today's Topics:
                                 DC-X
                             funny space
 Henry Spencer in the Slow Zone (Re: Ghost Wheels & HenrySpancer_Zoo)
                 Hypothetical Clintonisms (was: DC-X)
                Looking for Info on the RH32 Processor
           Looking for routines to read space science data
                   man-made meteor storm? (3 msgs)
                     Mars Observer's First Photo
          Misc DC-X Updates and request for action (2 msgs)
                         Moon Rocks For Sale
                          Omnibus Space Act
                         Orbital Information
                      SE Michigan Perseid report
                      Starlite, Super Material?
                     Survive Challenger disaster?
                Why the Shuttle will never be popular.

    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: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 08:00:37 GMT
From: Jim Kissel <[e-mail]>
Subject: DC-X
Newsgroups: sci.space

fred j mccall 575-3539 ([e-mail]) wrote:
: In <Scott_Chisholm-110893111048@141.211.210.249> [e-mail] (Scott Chisholm) writes:

: >   Jeez! I make a little comment and the grammar police come out to play.
: >Sorry, I don't have a spell checker in my communications program. BTW,
: >wouldn't your time be better spent getting that shuttle thing back in space
: >instead of correcting bad spelling? I THOUGHT this was how my money was
: >being spent at NASA. It shows.

: God, *another* Freshman.

Yes, junior


Smilie ;-) supplied for the humor impaired.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Kissel                            Telephone [phone]
Siemens Nixdorf Information Systems                 344 850 461 (Direct line)
Systems Development Group             Fax       [phone]
Nixdorf House                         Domain     [e-mail]
Oldbury, Bracknell, Berkshire         UUCP       ....{ukc,athen}!sni!jlk
RG12 4FZ  Great Britain

Have you noticed that no one talks about Pavlov's cat?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: 11 Aug 93 20:37:03 EST
From: Jim Dumoulin <[e-mail]>
Subject: funny space
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Simon E. Booth) writes:
> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Windows NT: from the people who brought you EDLIN.) writes:
>>
>>
>>>TV for Tuesday, 16 April 1999, 8 pm, Ch. 9  LET FREEDOM WRING (Comedy/Drama)
>>>
>>> Frustrated and bored by the lack of a clear scientific goal, the eight, or
>>> possibly four, astronauts on Space Station Freedom set up a mock TV game
>>> show and take turns trying to guess the cost of various on-board
>>> components.  The monotony is broken by an order from OSHA requiring
>>> that a wheel-chair ramp be constructed on the docking port, or NASA may
>>> no longer accept Federal funds.
>
> I like this idea, but would NASA allow me to use my off-the-shelf wheelchair
> in space or would they require some ultra-exotic space-proven version? :-

  You laugh but I work for NASA at the Kennedy Space Center in a lab
 that is 20ft x 40ft with a 2ft raised floor.  We planned to do a
 room modification that added an additional door and OSHA required
 that any new construction to old rooms retrofit the facility to
 provide handicap access.   The rules were 10ft of length for every
 foot of rise and a 5ft landing zone at the top and bottom, plus a
 3ft clearance near any door.  This would have required us to put in
 a 36ft x 8ft ramp and would have reduced our remaining room to a
 narrow closet 12ft wide by 40ft long.  We ended up installing an
 expensive lift instead and all the requirements, hardware and
 electrical mods drove up the cost of our new door to over $20K
 dollars.  This mod ate up all our facility money for the room and
 halted plans for asbestos abatement that would have made the room
 less of a hazard to lung cancer.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Jim Dumoulin                      INTERNET: [e-mail]
   NASA / Payload Operations      SPAN/HEPnet: KSCP00::DUMOULIN
   Kennedy Space Center
   Florida, USA  32899               "America needs SPACE to grow"



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

Date: 12 Aug 1993 00:13:15 GMT
From: Tom Perrine <[e-mail]>
Subject: Henry Spencer in the Slow Zone (Re: Ghost Wheels & HenrySpancer_Zoo)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Phil G. Fraering) writes:

   [e-mail] (Christopher Neufeld) writes:

   >   Really? I was guessing that it was running in the Unthinking Depths.

   Has to be. We don't have a feed up into the Slow Zone.

We do.  But then, we consider anything less than a T-3 to be the "Slow
Zone" :-)

--
Tom E. Perrine ([e-mail])  | Voice: [phone]
San Diego Supercomputer Center |   FAX: [phone]
P. O. Box 85608                | Have you pinged your Cray today?
San Diego CA 92186-9784        |

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

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 00:02:13 PST
From: [e-mail] (John Hardin at home)
Subject: Hypothetical Clintonisms (was: DC-X)

Scott Chisholm sez:
} >As Bill Clinton promised on the campaign trail, "Every American
} > >should have above average income, and my Administration is going
} > >to see they get it."
}
}     Statistically impossible.
}

Well of course it's impossible. After all, demonstrating the speaker's
ignorance is the whole point of quoting something like that. What is much
more important is whether or not he actually *made* such a gaffe.

I have heard the same quote attributed to other politicians in earlier
elections. I would really like to know if this really happened.

[End-Of-Non-sci.space-Related-Digression]


--
----------------------------------------------------------------
 John Hardin
 [e-mail]   [e-mail]

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

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 12:22:00
From: Axel Ohmstede <[e-mail]>
Subject: Looking for Info on the RH32 Processor
Newsgroups: sci.space

One place to start looking is in recent issues of Popular Science Magazine.
A recent article gave numerous chips being developed by different companies
and different joint ventures. That might give you a lead. Think of it, a
200mHz chip for a PC. Hope this is of help.

Axel Ohmstede
Director of Research
Arlington, TX Chamber of Commerce


 * Origin: *AmeriComm*, 214/373-7314. Dallas'Info Source. (1:124/6507)

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

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 00:59:50 BST
From: Ata Etemadi <[e-mail]>
Subject: Looking for routines to read space science data
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.data.formats

G'Day

I've written routines in C to read AMPTE-UKS field and plasma (FTR) data,
Ulysses magnetometer data, and EISCAT velocity and line-of-sight data
which I am willing to swap (ok I mean you can have them anyways :) with
routines in C or F77 to read other space science data formats. By a
routine I mean you pass it the file pointer (or channel) and you get
one record or block's worth of data. I am particularly interested in:

  WDCA and any other format for ground magnetometer data
  Spacecraft data from any of the instruments on GOES, IMP-J, DMSP, DE,
  AMPTE-IRM, AMPTE-CCE, etc..
  Radar and ionosond data eg Sonderstrom, SABER, etc..

A sample of the data would be nice too, just enough to test out my
routines, but I will contact the PI or CoI if you don't have any.
Your help would be greatly appreciated. If you don't want to be bothered
in case there are problems just say so with the Email. I promise you
I'll reference you and I'll take all the blame if anything goes wrong.

    adios amigos
        Ata <(|)>.
--
| Mail          Dr Ata Etemadi, Blackett Laboratory,                          |
|               Space and Atmospheric Physics Group,                          |
|               Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine,        |
|               Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2BZ, ENGLAND                  |
| Internet/Arpanet/Earn/Bitnet [e-mail] or [e-mail]  |
| Span                              SPVA::atae       or     MSSLC:atae        |
| UUCP/Usenet                       [e-mail]        |

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

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 00:08:49 GMT
From: David Fuzzy Wells <[e-mail]>
Subject: man-made meteor storm?
Newsgroups: sci.space

Westford Needles....they're still up there (or at least a nice-sized
portion are still up there).

            Fuzzy.

==============================================================================
_ __/|       | Lt. David "Fuzzy" Wells |"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
\'o.O'       |    HQ AFSPACECOM/CNA    |
=(___)=      |    Space Debris Guru    | "You must be," said the Cat, "or you
   U  ...ack!| [e-mail] |       wouldn't have come here."
==============================================================================

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

Date: 12 Aug 93 00:09:04 GMT
From: Bruce Watson <[e-mail]>
Subject: man-made meteor storm?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]: [e-mail] (John F. Lawrence) writes:
:
:More spectacular ones are much larger and sometimes survive
:re-entry.  I also remember coming across the story of lady that
:was hit by one in the 1920s while she was sleeping in her
:apartment.  It crashed through the roof and a couple of floors of
:the building before it hit her.  She suffered a broken hip.  Whoa.

1950's. In Alabama.

--
Bruce Watson ([e-mail])

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

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 08:45:03 GMT
From: Innocent Bystander <[e-mail]>
Subject: man-made meteor storm?
Newsgroups: sci.space

If you really want a "man-made" meteor shower, here's what I
would do.

Take a good sized rocket, say delta or Titan, and fill the
payload shroud with iron filings.  Shoot it straight up so that
it doesn't go into orbit, but rather has a parabolic up and down
flight with a high point of, say, 100,000 miles.  This number
can be varied to produce the shower at the desired location.  At
some point on the way up, you would dump the iron filings so
that they would scatter over a large area.  The booster itself
you would probably want to either move to come down on an ocean
area or blow up into little pieces to avoid something hitting
someone on the head.

Why iron filings.  Ever used a grinder and watched the sparks
fly?  Same idea.  On re-entry the filings will hit the Oxygen in
the atomsphere and glow much brighter than say sand (SiO2)
would.



/~~~(-: James T. Green :-)~~~~(-: [e-mail] :-)~~~\
| "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it!"            |
|           <Henry Cabot Henhouse III aka Super Chicken>        |

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

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 23:12:38 GMT
From: "Richard A. Schumacher" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Mars Observer's First Photo
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary

Just in case anyone has missed the point:

First crack at the data is the chief perk that attracts talented
scientists to work on these missions. It's certainly not the
money. If the data were to be released to everyone immediately,

this perk would be lost and the principal investigators would
have little incentive. Taken to the extreme, we would then have
probes sending back nothing more than pretty pictures, because
there'd be no one here to analyze and interpret them in any
systematic way. This would not be a good return on the taxpayer's
investment, even as pure amusement: Lucas/Spielberg movies
would be much cheaper and have better effects.

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

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 23:37:23 GMT
From: "Richard A. Schumacher" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Misc DC-X Updates and request for action
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

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

>I have some new information on the DC-X flight, but first this word from
>our sponsor:  Do you live in Flordia? Do you want to help make the SSRT
>followon a reality? Well, here is your chance!

>There is an urgent need to get phone calls and letters to Senator Bob
>Graham (D-FL). He is on the Armed Services Committee and he seems to be
>somebody who can help get the SX-2 funded. Please write and ask him to
>write Senator Nunn and ask for acceptance of the House position
>on SSRT in the Senate/House conference on the DoD Authorization Bill.

>His address is:
>Senator Bob Graham
>SD-241
>Washington DC 20510

>Phone: [phone]
>Fax:   [phone]

>Some points to make in the letter/phone call:

>1. Florida is the number two state for contracts on this program (especailly
>Honeywell and Pratt & Whitney).
>2. The followon will also mean jobs in the state.
>3. Spaceport Florida will benefit from low cost access to space and will
>be an excellent place DC launches.

>Please write and call soon if you live in Florida. This guy is in a real
>position to influence things if he wants.


Is there any reason that NON-Florida residents shouldn't call Sen. Graham?
Senators should take a less parochial view of things than Representatives,
and besides, his office may not ask whence you are calling.

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

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 01:29:18 GMT
From: "Allen W. Sherzer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Misc DC-X Updates and request for action
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Richard A. Schumacher) writes:

>>Please write and call soon if you live in Florida. This guy is in a real
>>position to influence things if he wants.

>Is there any reason that NON-Florida residents shouldn't call Sen. Graham?

Graham is being targeted for Florida people only. If you want to call
somebody, call Nunn, Murtha, and (I do mean and) Dellums. Those are
the pople we need to hit nationwide. Ask Murtha to fund SSRT at the levels
authorized by the House and ask Nunn and Dellums to authorize SSRT at the
level authorized by the House.

  Allen

--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer |          Mortiki: "What do we do after we do it?"      |
|   [e-mail]    | Man with no name: "Ya live with it."                   |
+----------------------10 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX-----------------------+

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

Date: 12 Aug 1993 02:30:19 -0400
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: Moon Rocks For Sale
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary,sci.geo.geology

  Hey,  some of these are American dust,  not Russian rocks,

and I am sure certain members of this group will tell you
that American Dust is far more valuable then Russian Rocks.
--
I don't care if it's true.  If it sounds good, I will
publish it.  Frank Bates Publisher  Frank Magazine.

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

Date: 11 Aug 93  13:43:00
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Omnibus Space Act
Newsgroups: sci.space

            Omnibus Commercial Space Act Introduced
*******************************************************************

        HR2731, the Omnibus Space Commercialization Act of 1993 has been
introduced in the Congress. This bill aims to promote space development by
creating tax incentives for space
businesses, and to open up exploration of the Moon and planets to private
companies by authorizing NASA to purchase space
science data from the private sector.  The Act also allows for issuance of
spaceport bonds, and the purchase of solar flare data from private vendors.
        HR2731 contains major elements of the Lunar Resources Data Purchase
Act (the  "Return to the Moon" bill).
        Things to do:
        1)      Request a copy of HR2731, the Omnibus Space Commercialization
Act of 1993 from your Congressperson. The
address for your congressperson is: U.S. House of Representatives,Washington,
DC 20515.
        2)      After you have reviewed the bill, please ask your
congressperson to co-sponsor HR2731.
        For more information, please contact your local chapter of the
National Space Society, or send E-mail via Internet to
[e-mail]. This message courtesy of San Diego L5
(619/295-3690) and OASIS (310/364-2290), southern
California chapters of the National Space Society.

--- Maximus 2.01wb

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

Date: 12 Aug 93 00:02:30 GMT
From: Bruce Watson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Orbital Information
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]: [e-mail] (Elliott Conan Evans) writes:
:
:A discussion with my housemate yields the idea for a very fast
:(~45 minutes) polar orbit that precesses slowly to take earth's

Not possible. If the earth had no atmosphere and a satellite was put
into an orbit just above ground level at the equator, the period
would be 84.49 minutes.


--
Bruce Watson ([e-mail])

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

Date: 12 Aug 1993 07:05:05 GMT
From: Dale Atems <[e-mail]>
Subject: SE Michigan Perseid report
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary,sci.geo.geology

I saw roughly 25 meteors between 21:30 and 23:45 EDT Aug 11 (0130 to
0345 UT Aug 12), when thick fog interrupted viewing. Conditions were
generally hazy but not too badly so. Most meteors left a glowing trail;
one was very bright (magnitude about -5 or so). Activity was sporadic,
with three or four in a minute (sometimes two consecutively) followed
by lulls of up to 30 min. Radiant point appeared to be Cassiopeia, but
many meteors extended well south and/or west of the zenith. Overall a
good Perseid show, considering that it was before midnight.

Returned to viewing briefly from 1:30 to 2:00 EDT Aug 12. Saw two
meteors in that time; neither left a visible trail.

------
Dale Atems
Wayne State University, Detroit, MI
Department of Physics and Astronomy
[e-mail]

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

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 02:14:19 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Starlite, Super Material?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:
>Your education is severely lacking. The Dean drive is a reactionless
>drive system based on swinging weights and timed application of braking
>impulses. It demonstrates that a device can fool a spring scale into
>indicating an object weighs less than it does. What it isn't is a real
>propulsion system.

Actually, there is still some small mystery surrounding the Dean Drive.
Dean was a very secretive man, and apparently there is reason to believe
that what was in his patent wasn't what he demonstrated.  It is *almost*
certain that what he had was a gadget that could fool a scale but did not
produce actual thrust, but the Dean Drive was never put to the definitive
pendulum test (put your gadget in a sealed box hung by a string from
the ceiling, thrusting sideways, and see if it produces a consistent
sideways deflection).
--
"Every time I inspect the mechanism     | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
closely, more pieces fall off."         |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 02:24:25 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Survive Challenger disaster?
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Carlos da Costa) writes:
>I was wondering if any new survival methods were added to the Shuttle fleet,
>following the Challenger disaster...

Yes.  The crews now have partial-pressure suits, oxygen, and parachutes,
and the orbiters are fitted with a telescoping pole to take someone
bailing out of the side hatch down clear of the wing.

This gear is primarily intended to cope with a different situation --
orbiter in stable gliding flight at low altitude but unable to reach
a usable runway -- but there is a slim chance that a crew could now
survive a Challenger-type accident.  (The tricky part would be getting
out of the damaged cabin quickly.)

>"it is LIKELY that at least one crew member was alive at the moment
>of impact with the water, [though] it is very unlikely that anyone aboard
>remained conscious for more than 15 seconds following the explosion....due to
>hypoxia."

The medical/forensic report from Joe Kerwin's team said that it was likely
that all of them survived to water impact.  The breakup of the orbiter
wasn't violent enough to kill them.  The water impact was... and it
smashed the cabin so badly that Kerwin's team was unable to determine
for certain whether the cabin had held pressure after the breakup.
(Reading between the lines, I'd say they thought it didn't but could
find no firm evidence.)  *If* it didn't hold pressure, they'd have lost
consciousness fairly quickly.
--
"Every time I inspect the mechanism     | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
closely, more pieces fall off."         |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 12 Aug 1993 02:42:32 -0400
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: Why the Shuttle will never be popular.
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Rob Schultz) writes:
|: You know, I hate to be a wet rag, but these analogies are pretty much
|: meaningless.  The space shuttle is not a winnebago or a dump truck or a
|: Lamborgini (or Lamborghini?  It's not in my dictionary).
|
|Ok, how about this.  The space shuttle started as a small pickup and midway
|through had folks try to turn it into a Lamborgini.
|--
|Rob Schultz     |                       | There is no such thing as over-kill...


AClose.

    Actually, the STS is a winnebago, designed and built by
Lamborgini.

pat

--
I don't care if it's true.  If it sounds good, I will
publish it.  Frank Bates Publisher  Frank Magazine.

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

End of Space Digest Volume 17 : Issue 017
------------------------------