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Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #435

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 9 : Issue 435

Today's Topics:
         Soviet Foton processing craft lands
                Amroc on NASA
            Re: New Orbiter Name Announced
     Re: Why no Saturn V? (Was Re: space news from April 3 AW&ST)
          Re: space news from April 3 AW&ST
         Enterprise: will it ever fly,like Columbia ?
        Re: funding large scale space hardware
            Re: New Orbiter Name Announced
             International Space Station
         Re: Private funding of space science
          Re: space news from March 27 AW&ST
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 15 May 89 00:39:29 EDT
From: Glenn Chapman <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail], [e-mail],
        [e-mail]
Subject: Soviet Foton processing craft lands

     On May 12th the USSR landed another Foton processing craft.  The Fotons
are designed to do materials research experiments, mostly for foreign
countries, and then return the samples to earth after about 2 weeks.  This
particular craft brought back samples of optical glasses, semiconductors,
and crystal growth experiment.  Interestingly the May 14th short wave
announcement also stated that this particular Foton craft had been reused
three times.
    On May 15th they announced that the large Antonov 225 cargo aircraft will
be doing flight displays at the Pairs airshow.  The An-225 is the 200 Tonne
capability plane with external mounts designed to carry the Soviet shuttle,
and shuttle equipment.  It appears that the Buran, their shuttle, will not be
displayed at this airshow, in spite of the rumors mentioned by Aviation Week.
    Materials processing for other countries is now an operational activity
for the USSR's space program.  More importantly they are now getting multiple
uses out of the processing laboratory.  We will see if can really expand their
sales in that area.

                                                  Glenn Chapman
                                                  MIT Lincoln Lab

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

Date: 12 May 89 09:32:27 GMT
From: agate![e-mail]  (William Baxter)
Subject: Amroc on NASA


Letter to the Editor, Ad Astra, April, 1989
From James C. Bennet and George A. Koopman of American Rocket Company


Laying Blame

We are the co-founders of American Rocket Company.  We have been
full-time, working commercial space entrepreneurs for 10 years and
have been space development advocates for even longer, having joined
the L5 Society in 1977.  We are dismayed by Charles Miller's
wishy-washy comments in the February Space Politics Forum, including
his comment that "nobody is to blame" at NASA for its hostile actions
toward commercial space ventures.

This failure to tell it like it is causes great harm to commercial
space efforts.  Further, coming from an official of NSS in its
official publication, it reinforces the broad perception that
NSS is a thinly-guised apologist and cheerleader for NASA.

As you must be aware, NASA has been actively hostile to commercial
space ventures since their first appearance.  In addition to numerous
malicious actions directed against American Rocket Company, NASA has
done substantial damage to Transpace Carriers, Conatec, Space
Industries, Astrotech and many other small, entrepreneurial ventures.
They have also threatened several large aerospace companies with
economic sanctions when those companies expressed interest in entering
and participating in commercial space ventures.

In short, NASA, the agency charged with leading this nation's space
exploration and exploitation, has consistently acted to advance its
short-term interest at the expense of the repeatedly stated national
goal of fostering commercial space development.  Past NASA
administrators have shamefully set agency interest above national
needs.

NASA's role to date in space commercialization has only resulted in
harm to the commercial sector.  It is a classic case of setting the
fox to guard the hen house.  It does no good to speak of "no blame"
when, indeed, individuals and offices at field centers and NASA
Headquarters can be assigned specific responsability for harm caused
to space ventures.  The first step in repairing damage is to
understand exactly what damage has been done and why it happened.  The
next step is to design fixes to assure that it does not happen again.
The third step is to create a new system in which the corrected parts
have useful, positive functions to carry out.

We have always believed that NASA has an important role to play in
space commercialization.  We have been waiting for NASA to begin
working in a positive fashion with commercail space firms to help
define that role.  But this will not happen unless and until past
errors have been identified and the reasons for those errors have been
corrected.

James C. Bennet, Vice President, External Affairs
George A. Koopman, President

American Rocket Company, Camarillo, California

----
William Baxter

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

"We will not be intimidated by that evil Central American dictator whose
armed forces number almost as many as the undergraduates at UC
Berkeley."  El Presidente.

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

Date: 12 May 89 14:01:07 GMT
From: bfmny0![e-mail]  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: New Orbiter Name Announced

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Andrew J. Higgins) writes:
>According to CNN, NASA has announced that the Challenger replacement orbiter
>will be named Endeavour....

>The space ship in _Rendezvous_with_Rama_ was also named Endeavour.  Maybe
>their are some A. C. Clarke fans at NASA.

Lest others on the net be tempted to draw the same erroneous conclusion,
let me point out that "Endeavour" drew a hefty plurality of votes in the
name submission contest held at US schools last year.

NASA set strict rules and supplied "curriculum materials" so I suspect
they pretty much got the name they wanted.
--
Tom Neff                UUCP:     ...!uunet!bfmny0!tneff
    "Truisms aren't everything."    Internet: [e-mail]

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

Date: 12 May 89 14:46:29 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Steve Lamont)
Subject: Re: Why no Saturn V? (Was Re: space news from April 3 AW&ST)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (William Baxter) writes:
>only more extreme.  The Shuttle was to use normal runways and air
>traffic control, be fully reusable, cost $50 per pound to orbit

I can see it... "Shuttle Atlantis... you are number two for landing...
right behind the Cessna..." ;-)

                            spl

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

Date: 12 May 89 14:17:57 GMT
From: tektronix!tekgen!tekred![e-mail]  (Larry Brader)
Subject: Re: space news from April 3 AW&ST

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>
>US scientists examining protein crystals recovered from a Chinese
>satellite observe that many were broken by reentry and landing forces.
>Complete crystals are important for protein-structure determination.
>
From what I understand they do most of the crystal analysis on earth.
Has anyone engineer a piece of test equipment to actual perform analysis
in space?  It would seem to make a alot of sense check out a micro-g crystal
structure in space in addition to analysis on earth.  Gravity and re-entry
will cause deformation to various crystaline structures.

How about a satellite that grows crystals, performs analysis and beam the
information to earth?  I'm sure someone has already thought of it. Is it
possible, worthwhile, or simply another idea to be noted and log?

>--
>Mars in 1980s:  USSR, 2 tries, |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
>2 failures; USA, 0 tries.      | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]
Space 90's :
Japan  buys NASA



--
Larry Brader  :: [e-mail]
timesurfing the new temporal sport

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

Date: 13 May 89 03:11:15 GMT
From: tank!shamash!nic.MR.NET!thor.acc.stolaf.edu!thor.stolaf.edu![e-mail]  (Mark)
Subject: Enterprise: will it ever fly,like Columbia ?

I'm sorry, stupid, but curious. Could somebody tell me the purpose
that Enterprise is used for and include a history of it ?
Please include why it doesn't fly like the other shuttles.

The new shuttles' name  is due to a 'name the shuttle contest',
not because of A.C Clarke, try elementary students, I think.
If I am wrong, I stand corrected.


.............Sen. Jake Garn didn't deserve to go on the shuttle.............

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

Date: 12 May 89 14:00:04 GMT
From: prism![e-mail]  (Matthew DeLuca)
Subject: Re: funding large scale space hardware

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>
> Boeing will
> *not* start full development of a new airliner purely on speculation; it
> wants to see contractually-committed customers first.

I wasn't aware of this.  Does this mean that the 7J7, which is currently
under development (or has it gotten to flight tests?) already has some
committed customers?  This seems unlikely, given the recent rush by the
airlines to order current models.

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Matthew DeLuca                      :
Georgia Institute of Technology     :          [This space for rent]
ARPA: [e-mail]      :
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: 12 May 89 16:31:45 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx![e-mail]  (Marc Bonin)
Subject: Re: New Orbiter Name Announced

It's interesting to note that every shuttle orbiter except Columbia has
a fictional counterpart


Enterprise :  Obvious !
Discovery:   the ship from 20001
Challenger:  remember the Adventures of Tom Swift??? He had a ship called
             the Challenger
Endeavour:   from 'Rendezvous with Rama'


                     Marc Bonin

                        University of Texas at Austin

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

Date: 12 May 89 18:29:38 GMT
From: agate![e-mail]  (William Baxter)
Subject: International Space Station

Since the Soviet Space Station MIR carries experiments from many
nations, and since cosmonauts from several countries have visited it,
should call it the International Space Station?

William Baxter

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

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

Reply-To: mordor!rutgers!pnet01.cts.com![e-mail]
Date: Thu, 11 May 89 22:23:49 PDT
From: mordor!rutgers!pnet01.cts.com![e-mail] (Jim Bowery)
To: hplabs!hpcea!hp-sdd!crash![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Private funding of space science

The government is the best source of support for research NOT development
(with exceptions for military civil service activities mentioned below).
Research results are KNOWLEGE ABOUT THE NATURE OF THINGS and belong
in the public domain.  Development results are the REDUCTION TO
PRACTICE OF INVENTIONS which belong to those who contributed the
capital and creativity necessary to bring the ideas to fruition.

While I contribute my personal finances to Space Studies Institute
as a Senior Associate (and have done so since 1981) I do so not
because I believe that organizations like SSI are, as a matter of
policy, the correct organizations to carry out space research.
I contribute to SSI because the government, due to its present
policy, has failed to support space research.

Quibble if you must on the precise boundry between research and
development.  It is clear that:

* The government is engaging in a lot of development (and even
  operations) at the expense of the availability of public
  funds for research (this includes NSF in its supercomputer
  network and superconducting supercollider, NASA in just about
  everything and DARPA in almost as much of what it does).

* This political bias is a direct result of political activities of
  those who make money from these development activities.

* The knowlege base from which real development can be accomplished
  is stagnating due to neglect.

* The stagnation of basic knowlege is contributing to a stagnation of
  truly innovative development -- formerly the unique strength of
  our country.

* The vicious cycle of government contract-dependence is leading to
  ever greater levels of political activities on the part of those
  who have become dependent on government contracts.

* The selective pressure on these firms being political rather than
  economic is resulting in the degradation of some of our best
  technical resources.

* The degradation of our technical resources in service of politics
  is leading to ever decreasing levels of economic and ethical integrity.

* Those who continue, in the face of recent history and
  Eisenhower's warning against the "military industrial complex"
  almost 30 years ago, to lobby for the government to give them
  ever larger contracts "in the national interests" are, in fact, so
  selfish and destructive to our country that they are properly
  called traitors.

* Attempts to justify the creation of ever larger bureaucracies
  (such as the developing relationship between DoD and IBM)
  by pointing to "Japan Inc.", are playing directly into this
  failure mode and must be treated as part of the problem.

To the extent that the government, for national security reasons,
must engage in development and operations, as in the case of
the branches of the military, this should be accomplished within
the purview and restrictions of civil service.  To stop the
vicious cycle of political action by those benifiting from
development spending, the Hatch Act must be extended to include
all those who receive non-entitlement income from the government,
including welfare recipients and those charging to government
contracts, as well as civil servants.

Anything short of these measures will be insufficient to
break this runaway positive feedback cycle.  The result
will be catastrophic to our country and ourselves if we
do not act decisively.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Bowery    Phone: [phone]
PO Box 1981                  Join the Mark Hopkins Society!
La Jolla, CA 92038   (A member of the Mark Hopkins family of organizations.)

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01![e-mail]
INET: [e-mail]

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

Date: 12 May 89 13:56:06 GMT
From: prism![e-mail]  (Matthew DeLuca)
Subject: Re: space news from March 27 AW&ST

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>No damage that I know of.  It's overweight and well below normal orbiter
>specs, but that's another story.  If you did a thorough refit on it, you
>could theoretically fly it into space, although payload would be low due
>to the overweight structure.

The very fact that it *is* overweight would be a problem in new landing
tests, since landing weight is very important when it comes to landing gear
and braking.  My guess is that, yes, we could refit it and use it for landing
tests, but the data would not be fully indicative of the performance of the
flight shuttle.

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Matthew DeLuca                      :
Georgia Institute of Technology     :          [This space for rent]
ARPA: [e-mail]      :
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

End of SPACE Digest V9 #435
*******************