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Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #404

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 9 : Issue 404

Today's Topics:
              Re: Private Space
              Re: Colonization problems
              Re: Voyager model
           Re: Some comments on comments...
               Re: ET exposure
             Re: Private Space Companies
          Re: Asteroid/Earth Close Encounter
         Re: NASP (national aerospace plane)
           Re: Some comments on comments...
        Re: Re: Asteroid/Earth Close Encounter
Private Space Companies (WAS Re: URGENT -- SPACE STATION FUNDING VOTE ON TUESDAY!!)
          Earth based - will it always win?
Re: McBride to leave NASA; Brand named commander of STS-35 (Forwarded)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 28 Apr 89 15:54:05 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Private Space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (David Becker) writes:
>Does the experience of Pegasus and AMROC backup the 'order of
>magnatude less' statement?

Very cautiously, yes.  The caution is necessary because neither has yet flown.

>In other words, exactly how bad do these efforts make NASA look?

Not very, because NASA hasn't been in the expendable-launcher business, or
the small-launcher business, for quite a while.

>Did the embarassment of telling China to raise their Long-March launch
>prices have any impact?  Or what did Fletcher say when a congressional
>committee asked when, if ever, he could make a launch for that much?

As near as I can tell, insofar as Congress cares, it is still buying the
NASA/NASA-contractor party line that it's impossible to reduce costs very
much.  (Taking the hardware out of the hands of NASA and the USAF and
having them buy launch services has already produced modest cost savings.)
--
Mars in 1980s:  USSR, 2 tries, |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
2 failures; USA, 0 tries.      | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 28 Apr 89 15:59:51 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Colonization problems

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jim Meritt) writes:
>}The sum total of human knowledge about low-gravity biological effects is
>}that a few days on the Moon didn't hurt the Apollo astronauts.  That's *it*.
>
>Well, since I think that zero might qualify as low, I would not say that...

The discussion was about low, not zero, gravity, so the Soviets don't know
anything either.
--
Mars in 1980s:  USSR, 2 tries, |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
2 failures; USA, 0 tries.      | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 29 Apr 89 23:34:23 GMT
From: jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Voyager model

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Peter Scott) writes:
>>And what about the third craft?  Is it the one on display at JPL?
>
>The "Voyager" on display here is a model made out of cardboard, plastic,
>wood, occasionally metal.  I believe the third craft is in the Smithsonian.

The Smithsonian has a depressingly large collection of ex-flight-ready
hardware, in fact:  Voyager 3, Viking 3, a real Lunar Module (not a mockup
or test article), Skylab II, ...
--
Mars in 1980s:  USSR, 2 tries, |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
2 failures; USA, 0 tries.      | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 29 Apr 89 23:46:53 GMT
From: jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Some comments on comments...

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Matthew DeLuca) writes:
>... As a matter of fact,
>there is only *one* probe out there doing *anything*...Voyager.

You're forgetting Pioneer Venus and Giotto, at a minimum.

>You seem to put a lot of faith in a program that has the exact same problem as
>you say the U.S. program has: all talk and no action...

The Soviets have had schedule slips.  However, while the US program is
pretty nearly all talk and no action, the Soviet one is mostly talk but
some action.  They have, after all, launched two more Mars missions this
decade than the US has.
--
Mars in 1980s:  USSR, 2 tries, |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
2 failures; USA, 0 tries.      | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 29 Apr 89 04:39:10 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com![e-mail]  (Mark Robert Thorson)
Subject: Re: ET exposure

> > "Dr. Brian T. Clifford (Pentagon) announced 10-5-82 that cases of
> > citizen-extraterrestrial contact were illegal under Title 14,
> > Section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations (and adopted
> > 7-16-69, a few days before the first moon landing).  The Code
>
> I hereby publicly and solemnly swear that I will break this law if ever
> given the opportunity. Furthurmore I will make any and all information so
> gained fully public regardless of personal consequences.
>
> Admittedly, it is rather unlikely that I'll have said opportunity. But
> it's the thought that counts...
>
> If true, this kind of statist garbage is why we need the libertarian
> movement around. SOMEONE has stand up and tell the government to go
> **** itself.
>
>                         Smash the State,
>                         Dale Amon

Why do you think an ET would want to talk to you?  Why do total strangers
knock on your door?  There's about a 90% chance (I'm correct in about 90%
of my estimates :-) that such an ET would be some kind of missionary.

Have you thought of the damage which could be wrought by being exposed
to ET ideas?  What if they're preaching some super-effective form of
Communism or Jehovah's Witnesses or something?

"Hi.  We're from the planet Kolob and we'd like you to ask yourself if
you died right now, are you sure you would go to dimension 5?  If you're not
sure, we have some free information pills we'd like to leave with you.
We're sure you would find them very interesting and tasty."

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

Date: 28 Apr 89 17:19:01 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Private Space Companies

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Larry Brader) writes:
>A couple of weeks ago I remeber someone posted a brief note that
>Rockwell tried to buy the shuttle from NASA..  <I believe it was
>Henery S>..  Why didn't NASA sell them a couple of shuttles?

Because NASA does not want to turn the shuttle, or any other NASA activity,
over to anybody else.  NASA wants to stay in control.
--
Mars in 1980s:  USSR, 2 tries, |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
2 failures; USA, 0 tries.      | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 29 Apr 89 23:01:52 GMT
From: bfmny0![e-mail]  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: Asteroid/Earth Close Encounter

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John Logajan) writes:
>Daniel Hinojosa writes:
>> I read an article in the L.A. Times about this event. Seems the asteroid
>> in question came amazingly close to earth. That is, amazingly close
>> in the overall scope of the universe. 500 million miles close.
>
>I recall seeing a movie film of an object that skimmed through the earths
>atmosphere (over Colorado, I believe.)  I forget how big it was, but it
>stayed in the atmosphere for a few minutes, and it didn't burn up.  It
>just kept going back out into solar orbit.

Yes, I was going to mention this too but was too lazy at the time. It
was in August '77 or '78 I believe - a mountain-sized object passed
through the upper layers of Earth's atmosphere traveling approximately
South to North over the Rockies from Mexico to Canada. Many thousands
of people saw the massive "contrail" and some saw the tumbling body
itself. In the Rockies' high tourist season everyone has a camera, so
there were lots of pictures taken, including some 8mm color movies. It
made the cover of S&T a few months later, you could check the back
issues. I wish the 8mm shots were available on video, I remember
seeing them at the time and it is *TRULY* chilling. Even though it
merely grazed the wispy upper stratosphere, eyewitnesses said they
could HEAR it this thing.  You know the line: "Be afraid... be VERY
afraid"!
--
Tom Neff                UUCP:     ...!uunet!bfmny0!tneff
    "Truisms aren't everything."    Internet: [e-mail]

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

Date: 28 Apr 89 15:58:42 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: NASP (national aerospace plane)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Larry Brader) writes:
>the capabilities of the NASP?  I know its suppose to reach a
>LEO, but could it go higher...

Not very.  Getting into LEO is hard enough.

>Am I into the area of wishfull thinking, yet : ) ? like payloads?

The only aerospace plane that actually has funding is the X-30, whose
payload will be two pilots and whatever they can put in their pockets.

>Also I have heard that the Japanese, Europe are designing a similar
>space/aircraft. But I haven't heard anything similiar being built in
>Russia.

Japan is interested in aerospace planes and is doing vigorous research
on materials and propulsion, but has no immediate plans to build one.
The Europeans are interested in the general idea but aren't doing much
direct work on it at present.  (Note, I speak of aerospace planes --
planes that can fly up into orbit under their own power -- not spaceplanes
that are launched by conventional expendable boosters.  Both the Japanese
and the Europeans have active projects aimed at the latter.)  I suspect
Soviet technology is not up to an aerospace plane just yet.
--
Mars in 1980s:  USSR, 2 tries, |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
2 failures; USA, 0 tries.      | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 29 Apr 89 23:38:08 GMT
From: jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Some comments on comments...

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Stuart Warmink) writes:
>> The Zoology department *here* isn't going to launch any Mars probes until
>> somebody (i.e. the Soviets) finds life there.
>
>Assuming that the statement was not entirely tongue-in-cheek, it seems that
>the US wasted its time with Viking; it wouldn't have found life anyway
>because the landers had the wrong flag painted on them...

Not quite what I meant.  The reason I said that is that the Soviets are
the only ones still looking for life on Mars, so they are the only ones
likely to find it.  Official NASA policy is that there is no life on Mars,
so it is not worth flying hardware to look for it.

>> [list of mars probes] Ancient history, all of them.
>
>I guess that implies that all the data they collected is useless too...

No, but it's not relevant to a discussion of the death and decay of the
US space program today.
--
Mars in 1980s:  USSR, 2 tries, |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
2 failures; USA, 0 tries.      | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 29 Apr 89 17:45:59 GMT
From: hp-pcd!hpcvlx![e-mail]  (Greg Goebel)
Subject: Re: Re: Asteroid/Earth Close Encounter

>
> I recall seeing a movie film of an object that skimmed through the earths
> atmosphere (over Colorado, I believe.)  I forget how big it was, but it
> stayed in the atmosphere for a few minutes, and it didn't burn up.  It
> just kept going back out into solar orbit.
>
> John M. Logajan
>

Yeah, I remember that, it was back in the 70s, I think.  SKY & TELESCOPE
ran some of the pictures ... it skipped into the atmosphere in the
Southwest and ran roughly parallel to the Rockies until it skipped out
at roughly the Canadian border.

Pro and dedicated-amateur astronomers will no doubt be posting full
details presently.

    +---------------------------------------------------------------------+
    | Greg Goebel                                                         |
    | Hewlett-Packard CWO / 1000 NE Circle Boulevard / Corvallis OR 97330 |
    | [phone]                                                      |
    | INTERNET: cwo_online@hp-pcd                                         |
    | HP DESK:  CWO ONLINE / HP3900 / 20                                  |
    +---------------------------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Sun, 30 Apr 1989 14:11-EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Private Space Companies (WAS Re: URGENT -- SPACE STATION FUNDING VOTE ON TUESDAY!!)

If you want to get an idea of what NASA is like from the perspective of
a private launch entrepreneur who has been on the "recieving end" (bend
over and get out the vaseline) of NASA's "commercial space policy",
read the letter to the editor in Ad Astra (April issue I think) from
George Koopman and James Bennet, the principals in Amroc.

Anyone who knows Tom Heppenheimer (a regular contributer to Omni,
Reason, etc) can also hear some similar tales.

NASA is a status quo bureaucracy. They will smile at you and talk and
talk... And then give it to you in the back. Or elsewhere.

I've heard even more blatant stories from the Beggs years.
F'r'instance, one woman I know was in a room where NASA officials were
discussing with some large aerospace companies how they would handle
commercialization and "get rid of the small operators". If the wording
she passed on to me was accurate, they were quite blatant about it.

Things have toned down a little since Beggs was in (he was a statist of
the worst kind), but that does not mean NASA is actually "helpful".

I've also heard some stories about what went on (from someone who was
present for some of the meetings) with NASA officials in Keyworth's
office during the Beggs years. Shall I simply say that they knew ahead
of time that the station would not cost $8B and leave it at that?

All of it is very, very predictable if you look at NASA through Public
Choice Theory glasses instead of rose tinted ones.

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

Date: 30 Apr 89 04:13:25 GMT
From: bfmny0![e-mail]  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Earth based - will it always win?

Now that I have a REAL newsfeed I want to toss something out for
discussion. I was struck by an article in this week's SCIENCE NEWS -
it seems Venus radar mapping has taken a quantum jump in quality
*before* Magellan's launch (and long before we get Magellan results,
given its slooow trajectory). To recollect, Pioneer gave radar maps
with ~ kilometer resolution. Venera was about a hundred times better
over its limited area of coverage. Magellan is supposed to be about
forty times better than that (and cover more of the planet). But
here's a radio astronomer at Arecibo with some new techniques turning
out Earth-based radar pictures four times better than Venera! That's
ten times worse than Magellan will be, if and when (knock tiles), but
it's RIGHT HERE and available for study now. SN printed one of his
images (of the Thea Mons area, a complex volcano/rift zone) and it's
amazing. And there's no battery to run down! You want more, go back to
Arecibo and do it again. Can't crash, no chance of a missed thruster
command or a locked gimbal to screw things up. (The antenna can't even
collapse a la Greenbank, Arecibo's a mesh bowl dug into the ground.)

All of which brings me to a question I've often wondered about. Given
enough time and ingenuity can't we nearly always do better here on
Earth? Yes, we are crushed by 1G and swamped in a gaseous muck that
blocks some wavelengths and distorts most of the rest. Those are
TECHNICAL challenges. We're supposed to be good at technical
challenges. If the money spend on HST, for instance, had been poured
into adaptive optics instead (as is now belatedly being done for Star
Wars), might we be imaging Io from Hawaii today? Instead of waiting
decades for the next probe to get built, you might have to wait nine
months for your slot on the National Adaptive Optical Telescope to
come up... during which time it's doing useful work for others of
course.

Now unmanned probes like Magellan and HST are hardly the top money
wasters, I grant you -- building "Freedom" (to be launched from its
own "Maxi-Pad" no doubt <grin>) so PhD's can melt blobs of yttrium or
whatever absolutely dwarfs the unmanned program in the waste category.
As does building orbiting zappers to destroy missiles when it would be
so much cheaper and easier to dismantle them down here. But still,
pure science is the one who's really getting the shaft. Should we
concentrate on ground based work and de-emphasize space based
observation until some smart cookie makes it a lot cheaper and easier
to get up there? I hope I have framed the question usefully.

--
Tom Neff                UUCP:     ...!uunet!bfmny0!tneff
    "Truisms aren't everything."    Internet: bfmny0![e-mail]

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

Date: 30 Apr 89 04:20:07 GMT
From: att!pegasus![e-mail]  (Paul S. R. Chisholm)
Subject: Re: McBride to leave NASA; Brand named commander of STS-35 (Forwarded)

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Peter E. Yee) writes:
>      Astronaut Jon A. McBride (Captain, USN) has announced his
> intention to leave NASA effective May 12, 1989.
>      McBride was named last year to command the STS-35 (ASTRO-1)
> mission, scheduled for launch in March 1990.

If an astronaut with a guaranteed seat isn't interested in sticking
with the program, imagine how the rest of NASA (orbit-bound and
otherwise) must feel!

Paul S. R. Chisholm, AT&T Bell Laboratories
att!pegasus!psrc, [e-mail], AT&T Mail !psrchisholm
I'm not speaking for the company, I'm just speaking my mind.

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

End of SPACE Digest V9 #404
*******************