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Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #328

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 9 : Issue 328

Today's Topics:
                 SSI Flight?
             cold fusion seminar
            Soviets Lose Phobos-2
     Re: Room Temperature fusion - possible indications?
        Re: Success with cold fusion reported
     Re: Room Temperature fusion - possible indications?
            Building a fusion-based rocket
          Re: Building a fusion-based rocket
        Re: Room Temperature fusion - possible
           Re: Planning a trip to Proxima Centauri
       Re: far side of the Moon photo mission (ussr's)
        Re: Success with cold fusion reported
            Re: NSS Space Policy Platform
         Re: Discovery - UFO Close Encounter?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 31 Mar 89 00:03:10 GMT
From: concertina![e-mail]  (Steve Hix)
Subject: SSI Flight?

I heard a brief news item on the radio this morning to the
effect that SSI had recently flown a bird with a 600lb.
payload.  Apparently suborbital.

Was I maybe not yet awake?

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

Date: 29 Mar 89 21:53:43 GMT
From: mailrus!wasatch![e-mail]  (Timothy K Reynolds)
Subject: cold fusion seminar

On Friday, March 31 1989 at 2:15pm Dr. Stanley Pons will present a
seminar on Cold Fusion.  The seminar will be held in room 2008 of the
Henry Eyring Building on the campus of the University of Utah.

I know that due to time and geographical constraints this bit of info
is not going to do you much good, but I'm going and hopefully I can post
a digest of the seminar to the net.

[e-mail]            Behind the Zion curtain.

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

Date: 29 Mar 89 14:58:00 GMT
From: arisia!cdp![e-mail]
Subject: Soviets Lose Phobos-2


According to the Washington Post (March 29, 1989), the Soviet Mission
Control has lost communications with its remaining Phobos-2 Mars moon
spacecraft.  The article stated that communications were lost when the
spacecraft was turned in order to photograph a moon.  No mention was
made of which moon it was trying to photograph.  Last September the
Soviet's lost communications with its sister probe Phobos-1.

Jordan Katz                      Source: Washington Post; March 29, 1989

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

Date: 29 Mar 89 16:01:13 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu![e-mail]  (Donald A. Varvel)
Subject: Re: Room Temperature fusion - possible indications?

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Keith McQueen) writes:
>Just a thought...
>
>What are the implications of this for terrorist activities?
>Will this make cheap available nuclear weapons possible?
>
>
>Shudder!  I hope not!
>
I don't think so.  There are reasons terrorists have never
stooped to mass destruction, even beyond the technical
difficulties.

There are dams that if destroyed at the proper moment would
kill on the order of hundreds of thousands of people.  Why
hasn't that happened?

Terrorism is political.  It thrives on publicity and the
natural sympathy most people have for the underdog.  Using
simple, home-made weapons to embarass major powers is perfect.
Underdog-lovers send money, and certain nations protect
them.  Destroy a city and there's nowhere to hide.  What's the
point?

This doesn't rule out the insane, of course.

-- Don Varvel ({tektronix,gatech}!cs.utexas.edu!varvel)

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

Date: 29 Mar 89 16:16:20 GMT
From: encore!cloud9!jjmhome!cpoint![e-mail]  (Alien Wells)
Subject: Re: Success with cold fusion reported

In article <77762DBH106@PSUVM> [e-mail] writes:
>Bravo!  Bravo!!  The researchers at the University of Utah should be
>congratulated for their breakthrough.  Does this mean the environmentalists
>will have to find another line of work, with all the possible ways that
>a clean power source could be used to alleviate the pollution problem?

I dare say that a lot of them will attack this just as strongly as they have
attacked fission.  After all, the neutron emmissions will cause the
containment to slowly become radioactive, so there will still be some
hazardous waste to deal with (albeit orders of magnitude less than other
power sources).  Nuclear and radioactive are extremely emotionally laden
words with great camera appeal.

In addition, I expect the government to try to limit the use (if it works)
to utility use only for two reasons.  First, there will be political pressure
to protect the structure of utilities, despite the reality that we would
be better off putting one of these in everyone's home and eliminiating the
power grid.  Second, the US government tries to restrict access to heavy
water, one of the reasons that heavy water reactors (which cannot melt
down) are illegal for commercial (even utility) use in the US (they are
standard issue in Canada).

--
=============================================================================
        A path is a terrible thing to waste ...
    decvax!frog!cpoint!alien    bu_cs!mirror!frog!cpoint!alien
=============================================================================

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

Date: 29 Mar 89 21:02:38 GMT
From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Room Temperature fusion - possible indications?

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Mike Van Pelt) writes:
>... The Sudbury deposit
>in Canada is the remains of an ancient asteroid strike, and it supplies
>Pt/Pd/Ir and such as a byproduct...

Last I heard, the geologists were still split on whether the Sudbury ore
body is the asteroid itself or magma brought up from deep deposits by
the heat of the strike.  One should be cautious about using this as
evidence.
--
Welcome to Mars!  Your         |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
passport and visa, comrade?    | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 29 Mar 89 22:12:13 GMT
From: phoenix![e-mail]  (Keith P. Mancus)
Subject: Building a fusion-based rocket


    I've been trying to figure out how to get a "heat-pump" effect
to use the fusion system to pump up a heat exchanger to a reasonable
temperature.  That is, assume that our fusion source will remain at
the boiling point of water regardless of what mass flow of coolant
we pass through it.  What coolant should we choose to allow a
production of temperature of ~3000 K on the other end?

    To see this more clearly, see the following picture.

    |----------|    ->       ------        ->      -----------
    |           ------------| 2  |-------------|            |
    |           ------------|    |-------------|            |
    |           |           ------              |            |
    |    1       |                              |        3    |
    |           |              ------          |            |
    |           |--------------|    |----------|            |
    |           |--------------| 4  |----------|            |
    |----------|              ------          -----------


    1>  This is the fusion reactor.  Presumably it uses liquid D2O
        at very high temperature.  Ideally it should run at 650 C
        or so, and very high pressure.  It vaporizes the working fluid.

    2>    This compressor compresses the working fluid (presumably a
        metal or mixture of metals -- NaK perhaps?) to much higher
        pressure.  In doing so it also raises the temperature.

    3>    This is the combustion chamber.  The working fluid, at high
        (preferably > 2000 C) temperature, goes through a heat exchanger
        which heats reaction mass (probably but not necessarily H2)
        and lets it flow through a standard rocket nozzle.

    4>    The working fluid is now liquid again.  It flows through a
        nozzle at (4) which drops it back to low pressure.  It
        then reenters (1) as a low pressure liquid again.

    This is basically a heat pump cycle, but at high temperatures.  We
certainly can't use water or Freon as the working fluid!  I haven't
worked out yet just how much of the energy producing the high temperature
at (3) comes from the heat at (1) and how much comes from the electrical
energy put in the compressor at (2).  We assume that a second cycle
operates between (1) and a low temperature radiator to produce the
electrical energy (through a turbine generator).
    Still in the thinking stage....



--
------------------------------------------------------------------
-Keith Mancus <[e-mail]>  <- preferred
              <[e-mail]>

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

Date: 30 Mar 89 00:36:02 GMT
From: oliveb![e-mail]  (Philip Stephens)
Subject: Re: Building a fusion-based rocket

From article <[e-mail]>, by [e-mail] (Keith P. Mancus):
>
>     1>  This is the fusion reactor.  Presumably it uses liquid D2O
>         at very high temperature.  Ideally it should run at 650 C
>         or so, and very high pressure.  It vaporizes the working fluid.

Why boil the D2O?  Better to pressurize it so it remains in contact (very
high pressure at 650 C, so I'm not sure how hot you can practically run
if following my suggestion), and use a non-Pd heat sink to transfer the
heat energy to another working fluid.

The rest I have no comment on; I'm really thinking more in terms of generating
electricity, so anything over 200 C would do pretty well; for driving any
working fluid out a rocket nozzle, much higher temperatures would certainly
seem desirable.

'Take what you can use, leave the rest'.    ---Phil        (prs@oliven)

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

Date: 27 Mar 89 00:56:36 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!sm.unisys.com!csun!csuna![e-mail]  (Jeff Boeing)
Subject: Re: Room Temperature fusion - possible

In article <5700009@silver> [e-mail] writes:
>
>With fusion power, transmutation of elements is economical. So is
>reclaiming them from sea water, and so is going to the asteroids!


   With HOT fusion power, transmutation is economical.  With fusion power that
yields a net power output of 3 Watts, occurring at room temperature, you have
just about as much of a chance of turning something into Platinum as you do of
causing all the air molecules in the room to simultaneously jump one foot to
the left.
   Time to start sending round-trip spacecraft to the asteroid belt, isn't it,
guys?

--
Jeff Boeing:  ...!csun.edu!csuna!abcscagz    (formerly [e-mail])
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Brilliance!  That's all I can say . . . sheer, unadulterated brilliance!"
                         -- Wile E. Coyote, Super-Genius

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

Date: 29 Mar 89 21:06:17 GMT
From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Planning a trip to Proxima Centauri

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (MacLeod) writes:
>... Given the energy
>density figures from preliminary reports, how much of a scale-up
>will it take for a constant-boost ship capable of going to Proxima
>Centauri?  Assume refueling there.

Massive.  Colossal.  Nearly impossible.  Fusion is only marginally viable
as an interstellar propulsion system at all, never mind constant-boost!
Effective interstellar propulsion requires antimatter rockets at least,
and preferably systems like the Bussard ramjet or the laser sail that
escape from some of the limitations of rockets.
--
Welcome to Mars!  Your         |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
passport and visa, comrade?    | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 29 Mar 89 21:04:18 GMT
From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: far side of the Moon photo mission (ussr's)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Doug Mink) writes:
>*Surveyor 4      Apr. 17, 1967  Soft-landed on moon; returned photos and soil data

Check your data, please, Surveyor 4 was a failure if I'm not mistaken.
Its transmitter went dead in mid-flight.  It conceivably may have made a
successful landing, since landing was completely automatic, but it returned
no data of any kind.
--
Welcome to Mars!  Your         |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
passport and visa, comrade?    | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 30 Mar 89 01:17:44 GMT
From: tektronix!gvgpsa![e-mail]  (John Abt)
Subject: Re: Success with cold fusion reported

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Miroslav Kocic) writes:
>
>The discussion in this newsgroup has so far been about the authenticity of the
>Utah breakthrough, but I have two different concerns.  First, what if fusion
>turns out to create problems we don't foresee?  We didn't foresee radioactive
>waste or meltdowns back when fission was at this stage, and, if history teaches
>anything, it teaches that every benefit has a proportional price.  Second, what
>if cold fusion becomes the crack-cocaine of energy production?  I can imagine
>a thousand fanatics in 750 terrorist cells making an H-bomb in their kitchen.

With unlimited cheap and pollution-free energy available, we won't be
talking about the greenhouse effect, it will be the furnace effect.

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

Date: 30 Mar 89 05:50:24 GMT
From: agate![e-mail]  (William Baxter)
Subject: Re: NSS Space Policy Platform

In article <246900013@cdp>, jordankatz@cdp writes:
>
>THE 1989 SPACE POLICY PLATFORM OF THE NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY

Do they want to:

>     1. Establish a national policy goal of radically lowering the
>cost of manned and unmanned access to space.
>     2. Provide assured access to space with a robust mixed fleet ...
>     3. Promote the international competitiveness of the U.S.
>commercial launch vehicle industry.
>     5. Initiate development efforts to improve the capabiity and
>efficiency of in-space transportation systems ...
>     2. Develop capabilities for the routine performance of space
>construction, servicing, and in-space repair tasks.
>     3. Explore the Solar System ...

(For the purposes of this statement, please forget momentarily there has
been no progress toward these goals under NASA oversight during the past
two decades.)

Or do would they rather:

>     4. Pursue the development of advanced air-breathing launch
>vehicles with the National Aerospace Plane Program.
>     1. Build the Space Station Freedom ...
>     3. Establish a permanent manned return to the Moon ...
>     l. Establish scientific and resource extraction facilities on
>the Moon.
>     1. Provide the resources and management focus for NASA to
>perform leading edge research and development in space.
>     2. Provide limited exemptions from Federal civil service
>regulations to enable NASA centers to attract the vital talent it
>needs ...

In any case, the bottom line is:

>     3. Increase NASA's budget commensurate with its mission.  A
>minimum of $14 billion is required for fiscal year l990.

It's a shame that the National Space Society leaders have not seen fit
to take input on questions of policy from members.  Since joining, I
have seen no attempt on their part to encourage debate of policy issues
on any level of the organization.  Instead, they send out questionnaires
asking whether we should (a) Build the Space Station, (b) Go to the
Moon, or (c) Go to Mars.

Some NSS chapters are discussing issues of policy.  If you want to join
us, send me email.

William Baxter

ARPA: web@{garnet,brahms,math}.Berkeley.EDU
UUCP: {sun,dual,decwrl,decvax,hplabs,...}!ucbvax!garnet!web

San Diego L5, pronoun,  1. An organization working to foster the
creation of a spacefaring civilization through public outreach,
occasional political action, and establishing an appropriate
philosophical basis for informed policy decisions.  2. A disease that
infects NSS chapters causing them to refuse orders from headquarters to
engage in NASA boosting and other anti-space activities.

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

Date: 29 Mar 89 20:46:25 GMT
From: sgi!key![e-mail]  (James Preston)
Subject: Re: Discovery - UFO Close Encounter?

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (MacLeod) writes:
}On Tuesday March 14, 1989 at 6:42 am the following message was received by a
}UFO investigator in Baltimore through WA3NAN (Goddard) amateur radio
}transission from the orbiter Discovery.  "Houston, this is Discovery.  We
}still have the alien space craft, uhh, under observance."  The transmission
}was picked up on a Radio Shack scanner tuned to 147.45 mhz.

Can you say, "April fool"?

--James Preston

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

End of SPACE Digest V9 #328
*******************