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Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #274

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 9 : Issue 274

Today's Topics:
             NASA's budget and addresses
               400th anniversary colony
                Errata
         Re: First concert from space--update
              Re: 1992 moon base
                 Space Digest
                edwards base?
             Cylinder on Titan IV
                Re: Mars Movie
               Solar cells on the moon
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 27 Feb 89 06:27:42 GMT
From: beowulf![e-mail]  (Chris Riley)
Subject: NASA's budget and addresses

I got this form letter in the mail the other day and thought I'd pass it
along.  Hope they don't mind!  Make of it what you will...

-------
From the desk of James Beggs, Former Administrator of NASA

Dear Space Enthusiast,

    The Russians will soon totally dominate us in space, unless we
move our space program forward aggressively.  They have had a
space station in orbit since 1982.  Ours will not be available until
1996, at the earliest.  In the last year before the Challenger space
shuttle disaster, the Russians launched 97 rockets compared to our
17.

    The Japanese and Europeans understand the importance of
space and are rapidly closing the gap between them and us.

    How did we get ourselves into this sorry situation?  In the late
1960s the NASA budget was almost 1% of our GNP.  Today it is less
than 1/4 of 1%.

    Despite this situation, I would not be writing this letter to you
if it were not for the fact that Congressional pressure on this year's
NASA budget is particularly severe.  Budget reductions are almost
certain. The Space station program, in particular, may be gutted.

    The deficit situation is forcing each of the special interest
groups to mobilize all of its political constituency.  The competition
for every federal dollar is fierce.  The NASA budget has done poorly
in similar situations in the past, primarily because its supporters
among the public have not been organized.

    This time, let us do things differently.  SPACECAUSE--the new
lobbying organization for the grassroots space constituency--is
mounting a major effort to save the NASA budget in general and the
space station in particular.

    I urge you to write a letter (or send a mailgram) to each of four
key members of Congress:  Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia,
Washington D.C. 20510-4801;  Senator Jake Garn of Utah, Washington
D.C.20510-4401;  Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, Washington
D.C. 20510-2003; and Congressman Robert Traxler of Michigan,
Washington D.C. 20515-2208.  All of these, except for Garn, are
Democrats.  Letters should be less than one page and need not be
typed.  Essentially the same letter can be sent to all four.  After you
have done this, please call ten of your friends and have them do the
same and then have each of them call ten of their friends, etc.

    In Congress, we face an unusual situation.  The three members
who are likely to be the most influential on space issues--all of
whom are among the four that I have asked you to write--are new to
their positions.  Impressing them with the strength of the public
support for the space program will pay high dividends for years to
come.  Your letters are key to accomplishing this.

[a bit about what letters can do and money for their group can do left
out]

Signed by James Beggs
--------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the
support of Paul." --George Bernard Shaw
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris Riley
[e-mail]

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

Date: Mon, 27 Feb 89 22:45:27 EST
From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Formerly: National Bureau of Standards
Sub-Organization: National Computer and Telecommunications Laboratory
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are those of the sender
    and do not reflect NIST policy or agreement.
Subject: 400th anniversary colony


>From: [e-mail] (trekkER)
>  Rather than rushing projects together and begging for donations
>to get a lunar base by 1992 (for the 500th anniv. of Columbus'
>stumbling upon the new world)  I think a much more feasible and
>worthwhile goal would be to plan said base in greater detail for
>2020.
>  2020, however, would mark the 400th anniversary of the voyage of
>the Mayflower and the subsequent settlement of New England.  Apollo
>marked our lunar parallel to Columbus.  Let the lunar base parallel
>the settlement of a new frontier.
>Chris Clark

Maybe 2007 would be more appropriate. The Pilgrims formed the Plymouth
Colony to escape religious persecution, or to impose their own brand
of religious persecution, depending on your point of view. Hopefully,
a space colony would not be needed for either of these reasons. Also,
one would hope that the first space colony would be better thought out
than the expedition to the Plymouth Colony, and have a lower initial
mortality rate (~50%)!!!

Jamestown was founded in 1607 with the intention of forming a profitable
colony, surely setting a better example. (Or, we could try for 1965,
to mark the 400th anniversary of the founding of St Augustine, Florida :-)
                                     John Roberts
                                     [e-mail]

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

Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1989 19:28-EST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Errata

Stuart Warmink pointed out that I inadvertantly said "Skylab" where I
meant "Spacelab" in a posting I made yesterday. Sorry about that
guys...

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

Date: 27 Feb 89 05:58:41 GMT
From: ingr![e-mail]  (Brooke King)
Subject: Re: First concert from space--update

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
| In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Brooke King) writes:
| >...The Iron Curtain launchers are simply facing the reality of their
| >need for hard currency and the results of the (until recently)
| >reality of the US government's foolish, all-the-eggs-in-one-
| >expensive-shuttle-basket, monopolistic launch policy.  They
| >oughtn't be credited with any love of free enterprise.
|
| Neither should NASA, which really would prefer to go back to said
| monopolistic launch policy, so it could retain control.  At the moment
| the space-launcher competition isn't between free enterprise and the
| socialist bureaucracies, it's between four or five different socialist
| bureaucracies.  Predictably, the simplest and crudest one -- China's --
| is the low bidder for current launch contracts, the most experienced
| one -- the Soviet Union's -- is not far behind, and the newest and most
| factionalized one -- NASA and the US aerospace contractors -- is dead
| last.
|
| There are some glimmerings of free enterprise here and there, at places
| like OSC/Hercules, Amroc, Pacific American, et al, but they are still
| very small and vulnerable.  Pray that the US government doesn't step on
| them, deliberately or through sheer negligence, in the next few years.
| If they succeed, it will be a whole new ballgame.

A ballgame I should like very much to see!  I do worry that the
aerospace contractors here in Huntsville and elsewhere might team
up to oppose privatization out of fears they might not be able to
compete.  I hope they allay my fear.  The contractors here
certainly have the talent in their ranks to make their
competition viable.

| The Earth is our mother;       |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
| our nine months are up.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]
--

[e-mail] uunet!ingr!brooke W+1 205 7727796 H+1 205 8950824
"I'd like to nuke all the litterers." -- John Denver, 19 Oct 1988
Why REPEAL the income tax?  I heard only four states ratified it!

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

Date: 27 Feb 89 16:11:47 GMT
From: fas.ri.cmu.edu![e-mail]  (Donald Schmitz)
Subject: Re: 1992 moon base

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Keith P. Mancus) writes:
>    Just how close are we to being able to establish this unmanned
>base we are discussing?  In particular, I would like to know how
>far development of teleoperated mechanical hands has progressed.
>Do hands capable of picking up and turning a wrench or screwdriver
>exist?  If you have to build all of the tools into the hand, repair
>will be very expensive and for complex tasks impractical.

A few very anthropomorphic robot hands have been built, the usual problem is
mounting the dozen or so actuators which control the fingers via cable drive
on the robot carrying the hand.  I don't think such a hand has ever been
installed on a commercial manipulator (at least without making the
manipulator much more bulky and less capable).

>    I can't believe that a 3 second turnaround lag will matter for
>most jobs.

We just had a guest speaker here from Teledyne Brown in Huntsville, they are
doing teleoperation research (as subcontractors) for the NASA station - most
of the info that follows is from him: The plan is to provide a teleoperated
manipulator in the station lab module, allowing experiments to be
continuously tended from the ground. Counting all the satellite bounces,
delays of 3 or more seconds are possible to LEO.  There are quite a few
studies showing teleoperation efficency rapidly drops to 0 with delays
greater than 0.5 seconds.  The current solution is to graphically simulate
the robot responding instantly, and overlay this on top of the actual video
feedback.  Operation is still inefficient - after every few seconds of
operation, the operator waits the 3 seconds to make sure the actual robot
did what it should have - however efficiency and operator fatigue are much
better using the simulator.  Safegaurds and local intelligence are built
into the maipulator to keep it from crashing into unexpected obstacles (like
stray astronauts) - hopefully this intelligence can be extended to handle
more of the tasks without human intervention.

In summary, although there are no insurmountable problems, a lot of
engineering is requried to build even a 90% human capacity tele-robot.
Still, there are lots of earth bound applications of such technology, and it
will likely be available in the next 5 years (my opinion of course).

Don Schmitz    ([e-mail])
--

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

Date: 24 Feb 89 05:35:36 GMT
From: att!alberta!ubc-cs!van-bc!rsoft!mindlink![e-mail]  (Jono Moore)
Subject: Space Digest

How does one get put onto the mailing list?
--
.......
Jono Moore --> [e-mail]  *or*  [e-mail]
Vancouver, BC, Canada ... eh!

The definition of a Canadian is someone who knows how to make love in a
canoe.
  -- Pierre Burton (I think...)

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

Subject: edwards base?
From: [e-mail] (nicholas c. hester)
Date:    Mon, 27 Feb 89 10:59:49 EST

is the base that the airforce built for the launching of shuttles closed perma-
nently or is it used for unmanned rockets? also, is there any chance of it bein
g used for shuttles? i'm sorry that i don't remember the name of the base.

=Nick Hester=
[e-mail]

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

Date: 27 Feb 89 20:25:37 GMT
From: killer![e-mail]  (Robert Johnson)
Subject: Cylinder on Titan IV


Quick question:  On page 35 of the February 20, 1989 issue of Aviation
Week & Space Technology, there is a picture of the Titan IV...What the
hell is that red cylinder on the right hand solid booster?

     Thanks,
        Robert C. Johnson

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

Date:    Fri, 24 Feb 89 17:38:40 PST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Mars Movie
X-St-Vmsmail-To: ST%"[e-mail]",RGD059

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Charles Cain) writes:
>The other morning while at work I saw a video of a computer animation that
>was done at JPL. If anyone missed it, you missed truly some of the best
>computer animations ever rendered out to video. My question is to anyone at
>JPL, is that available for distribution or was it just something for internal
>use and press footage only, or is there a lot more than the 2:00 minutes I saw
>then.

It's called "Mars, The Movie" and it was done by one of the groups in my
section here (Digital Image Animation Lab).  For those of you that haven't
seen it, it's a simulation of a *close* Mars flyby, combining imagery from
Viking with terrain elevation data to get a 3-D effect.  It's maybe 5 minutes
long (it's much longer than the clip CBS showed a while back).

I just talked to one of the creators about how to get a copy.  "Mars, The
Movie" is being distributed on a VHS tape along with the earlier "L.A., The
Movie", "Miranda, The Movie", and "Earth, The Movie" by:

The Video Tape Company
10523 Burbank Blvd.
North Hollywood, CA 91601
Attn: Kathy
[phone]

All four are on one VHS tape, for $33.40 (includes shipping and tax).

That's kind of a steep price for maybe 15-20 minutes of video, but it's
the easiest route.  The movies are public domain, so if you can find someone
else who'll copy one for you, it's no problem (no, I'm not taking requests,
sorry).  You might try calling the JPL Public Information Office at
[phone] and see what they say.  They may have something available,
especially if you're with an educational institution or something.

Good luck...

Bob Deen  @  NASA-JPL Multimission Image Processing Lab
[e-mail]        span:  mipl3::rgd059
#include <stddisclaimer.h>

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

Date: Mon, 27 Feb 89 23:11:24 EST
From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Formerly: National Bureau of Standards
Sub-Organization: National Computer and Telecommunications Laboratory
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are those of the sender
    and do not reflect NIST policy or agreement.
Subject: Solar cells on the moon


>Note that no matter where you build your collector you want to pivot it
>to follow the sun; at the pole it just happens that that pivoting is around
>a vertical axis.  This might even make it easier; you don't have to worry
>about the wind loading on the structure and can balance it on edge nicely.

Not sure about the lunar poles, but elsewhere there might be little
incentive to pivot solar cells to follow the sun, if you have adequate
power storage (3 weeks or more). A pivoting solar array would cost much
more than one just laid flat on high ground, and would only collect about
60% more power (at the equator). It would, however, provide full power
for a higher percentage of the time.

Caution: Solar cells have reduced performance at high temperatures. Since
the moon gets pretty hot during the day, this might have to be taken into
account.
                                       John Roberts
                                       [e-mail]

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

End of SPACE Digest V9 #274
*******************