Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT_ZIP/spacedig/V10_0/V10_058.ZIP/V10_058

Internet Message Format | 1991-07-08 | 18KB

Return-path: <[e-mail]>
X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson
Received: from beak.andrew.cmu.edu via trymail for +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr1/ota/space/[e-mail] (->+dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr1/ota/space/space.dl) (->ota+space.digests)
          ID </afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr1/ota/Mailbox/QZ68y9K00VcJ84QU5A>;
          Thu, 21 Sep 89 03:36:42 -0400 (EDT)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
From: [e-mail]
To: [e-mail]
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 89 03:36:13 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #58

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 10 : Issue 58

Today's Topics:
         NASA Headline News for 09/11/89 (Forwarded)
                painting tanks
             Re: Galileo Mission
         Re: What's Wrong With HR2674. (long)
       Re: NASA Headline News for 09/06/89 (Forwarded)
           Re: SpaceCause---request for info about
            Re: Linguistic Tidbits
      Re: Was Voyager another damaging Apollo one-shot?
          Re: Launch Pad crawler info wanted
              NASA SpaceFlight Handbooks
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 11 Sep 89 15:59:59 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Headline News for 09/11/89 (Forwarded)

-----------------------------------------------------------------
                         NASA Headline News
Monday, Sept. 11, 1989                        Audio: 202/755-1788
-----------------------------------------------------------------

This is NASA Headline News for Monday, September 11....


The New York Times says the Energy Department wants to halt
funding on the SP-100 nuclear reactor designed for use in space.
Both future NASA and DoD space missions could be affected.  The
times says the proposed cut is for the fiscal year 1991 budget.
The Energy Department action could be overturned by the Office of
Management and Budget, according to the story.


A story in the Miami Herald says the risk of a radioactive
plutonium spill during the launch of the Galileo spacecraft
aboard the space shuttle may be greater than previously reported.
The newspaper story says Dr. Thomas Rona...a White House science
adviser...is reviewing documents provided by NASA and a federal
interagency panel on the scheduled October 12 launch.


Engineers at the Cape have completed a test of the body flap on
Atlantis to determine if any free play existed.  The test
indicated that the flap was well within specifications.  However,
a thorough analysis of test results is underway.  The test was
conducted because of photographic evidence obtained during the
STS-28 mission that indicated the possibility of movement.
Columbia and Discovery will also undergo testing for body flap
free play.

Meanwhile, workers at Pad 39B are moving ahead with plans to
conduct the Countdown Demonstration Test this coming Thursday and
Friday.  The STS-34 crew will arrive at the Cape Tuesday evening
and will participate in the test on Friday.  Today, hypergolic
fuels are scheduled to be loaded into Atlantis' Orbital
Maneuvering System and Reaction Control System tanks...and
hydrazine will be loaded into the auxiliary power units and the
solid rocket booster's hydraulic power units.


Eight high school students will present proposals for Space
Station Freedom experments this week in Washington.  The
experiments...selected from over 1,600 proposals...could possibly
be conducted aboard the Space Station Freedom when it becomes
operational.  The event is one of many to be conducted during a
three-day national space science symposium co-hosted by NASA and
the National Science Teachers Association.



                *            *          *            *


-----------------------------------------------------------------
Here's the broadcast schedule for public affairs events on NASA
Select television.  All times are Eastern.


Thursday, September 14...

    11:30 A.M.      NASA Update will be transmitted.



Friday, September 15....

    6:00 A.M.       Countdown Demonstration Test with the STS-34
                    crew.  Approximately 6 hours in duration.



All events and times are subject to change witout notice.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
These reports are filed daily, Monday through Friday, at 12 noon,
Eastern time.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
A service of the Internal Communications Branch (LPC), NASA
Headquarters.

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

Date: 11 Sep 89 15:55:29 GMT
From: jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: painting tanks

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Frank C. Paterra) writes:
>> The only reason it was painted in the first place was to look good...
>
>Is this true? (Oh Henry, are you there?)  I thought that orginally the
>ET was painted white to reflect sun light and keep the tank cooler.

My recollection is that it was that plus some concern about the effects
of rain on the insulation.  (KSC gets lots of small thunderstorms, so
almost anything that sits on the pad for more than a day or two can
expect to get wet.)  My recollection is pretty hazy, though...
--
V7 /bin/mail source: 554 lines.|     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
1989 X.400 specs: 2200+ pages. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 7 Sep 89 14:17:32 GMT
From: usc!henry.jpl.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jpl-devvax![e-mail]  (Lee Mellinger)
Subject: Re: Galileo Mission

In article <24fbc5fb@ralf> [e-mail] writes:
:In article <1050400001@cdp>, [e-mail] wrote:
: >to Jupiter. Galileo will be powered by 50 pounds of plutonium.
:
:I keep hearing 47 and 50 POUNDS of plutonium (so far only from opponents of
:launching the Pu).  I can believe that the *RTGs* weigh 50 pounds, but 50
:pounds of Pu???  That sounds way off.
:
:Does anybody have the real figures on this?

There is 48 pounds, 24 in each of two RTG's that supply a total of
4200 Watts of electrical power.

Lee

"I'm the NRA"

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin 1759

|Lee F. Mellinger                 Caltech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory - NASA
|4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 818/393-0516  FTS 977-0516
|{ames!cit-vax,}!elroy!jpl-devvax!leem  [e-mail]

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

Date: 7 Sep 89 15:32:55 GMT
From: deimos.cis.ksu.edu!cveg!hcx![e-mail]  (6079 Smith James)
Subject: Re: What's Wrong With HR2674. (long)


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Kieran A. Carroll) writes:
> Yes, costs will come down, by removing sources of inefficiency in current
> rocket-building practices. A local optimum will be reached. The "potential
> barrier" between this local optimum and the global one will be too wide
> for the resulting manufacturers to "tunnel through", as it were, because the
> procurement rules of HR2674 will have lowered prices so far that it will be
> easier for >all< rocket manufacturers to stay at the same (low) level of
> technology, rather than risking a large amount of R&D money to develop new,
> less-costly technology. That is my fear. By the time the problems of HR2674
> have been discovered, a decade of potential progress will have been lost.
> Why wait? Why not pass a better law >now<?
[...]
> Do you think that the US Government >should<
> be providing extra money to fund a >rapid< decrease in the cost of space
> launches, by developing new technology (the sort that competis can't
> afford to fund on their own), assuming that a fair means for doing so can be
> worked out?

There are two problems with this reasoning:

1.  High technology does not mean low cost.  The Space Shuttle, especially
its main engines and heat-shielding, were cutting-edge technology back in
the seventies.  The result is a temperamental system that has to be babied
through everything.  Meanwhile, other low-tech launchers are going up
regularly, even in rain and snow, because they are simpler and better
understood.

2.  The starship fallacy again:  if you build one now, a better one will
be available in time to beat it out, so why bother to build one now?
Let NASA do the unprofitable R&D, and let private enterprise build some
off-the shelf launchers to get the hardware up.  Isn't that how our
modified capitalism is supposed to work?

Something else:  when car companies were "dragged kicking and screaming
into the era of modern technology,"  usually they were dragged into
adding modification that lowered power output and increased price.  This
has to do with consumer preference.  In the forseeable future, no one who
is buying space services will have to worry about the effect of emission
controls on the rocket. :-)  Not to defend the industry that does things
like destroy public transport and purposely build-in obsolescence to keep
the parts market up, of course. :-(

The point is, we have a research agency in place now.  If we relieve them
of the responsiblity of launching everybody's stuff, we will have *more*
tech. advances and *more* launches without any gov't budget increases.

Make sense?


 /--------------------------------------------------------------------------\
|  James W. Smith, University of Arkansas  |  hcx![e-mail]   |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|  I'm so depressed.  If I didn't have so much to do, I'd be a nihilist.     |
 \--------------------------------------------------------------------------/

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

Date: 7 Sep 89 12:50:57 GMT
From: mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!marque!lakesys![e-mail]  (Mike Shawaluk)
Subject: Re: NASA Headline News for 09/06/89 (Forwarded)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Peter E. Yee) writes:
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>                          NASA Headline News
>Wednesday, Sept. 6, 1989                     Audio:  202/755-1788
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>
>This is NASA Headline News for Wednesday, September 6th......
>
>Two Soviet cosmonauts last night began a six-month mission to
>re-open the Mir space station, which has been unmanned since
>April.  Their Soyuz craft is scheduled to dock with the space
>station tomorrow.  The rocket which lifted the two cosmonauts
>into space was painted with ads for an Italian insurance company,
>an effort by the Soviets to help pay for some of the costs of
>their space program.

Has NASA ever thought of this idea before (i.e., selling advertising space on
the side of a booster)?  With all of the previous discussion about funding
woes, it would certainly be another source of revenue.  I can see it now,
Coke and Pepsi duking it out for prime-location advertising space on the next
shuttle flight... :-)

On a related note, would there be any problem caused by the weight of the
paint, or drag caused by it, etc., if such a thing were to be actually done?
I remember reading somewhere a long time ago that the airlines were
discontinuing the practice of covering their jets with paint, as the extra
drag and/or weight (I can't remember which) were causing a significant
increase in fuel consumption (this may have been during the oil embargo.).  I
can see that, for a single plane that makes many, many flights in its
lifetime, that this could make a difference, but I don't know if the
economics are equivalent for a large spacecraft.
--
   - Mike Shawaluk
       ([e-mail]  OR  ...!uunet!marque!lakesys!mikes)
   "If spirit == essense, then spiritual == essential!"  - me

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

Date: 11 Sep 89 23:19:19 GMT
From: ibmpa![e-mail]  (nick szabo)
Subject: Re: SpaceCause---request for info about

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Elijah Millgram) writes:
>
>>I have started getting junk mail from an organization called
>>SpaceCause.
>
>>4.  What are the organizations policy slants?  What particular
>>projects do they support?  And which ones do they oppose?
>
>They basically use the policy platform of the NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY.
>The closest thing to that (if you don't have NSS' position statements)
>is the National Commission on Space.  That is to say, SPACE STATION,
>MOON, and MARS are the three main goals.

Ah, The Plan.  Spend hundreds of billions of dollars on three narrow,
obsolete, but extravagently expensive projects, while real science, real
R&D, real space exploration, and real space industry starve.  The same 3
stupid goals that NASA has had ever since the 60's, that NASA has been
wasting tens of billions on since the 60's, that NASA is no closer to now
than in the 60's.  How much longer must we suffer, Oh Lord?





"Committees do harm merely by existing."
        Freeman Dyson
--
--------------------------------------------
Nick Szabo
uunet!ibmsupt!szabonj
These opinions are not related to Big Blue's

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

Date: 12 Sep 89 21:38:25 GMT
From: concertina![e-mail]  (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: Linguistic Tidbits

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Nichael Cramer) writes:
>
> As a brief aside, somewhere ("Intelligent Life in the Universe" ?) Sagan
> suggests the adjective "Cytherean" --from Cytherea, the island where
> Venus/Aphrodite was "born"-- to describe things connected with Venus.  In
> part because the adjective form of "Venus" is "Venereal" and he refused to
> accept the neologism "Venusian".
>
> I always thought this very pretty, but I don't recall ever having seen it
> used.

That's the one! (As opposed to earlier guess of "cynthian")

It has been used, occasionally, in some science fiction stories.  Some of
Asimov's juveniles most likely, as well as some others when Venus was still
thought to perhaps have major seas.  (When they were ruled out due to surface
temperatures, the planet got a lot less press time.)  "Venereal" couldn't
have gotten past 1950s book editors...

------------
"...I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by
reorganizing: and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion
of progress, while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization."
    - Petronius Arbiter, 210 B.C.

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

Date: 7 Sep 89 19:36:33 GMT
From: bond![e-mail]  (Michael Slavitch)
Subject: Re: Was Voyager another damaging Apollo one-shot?

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Tom Neff) writes:
>--
>Annex Canada now!  We need the room,    \)    Tom Neff
>    and who's going to stop us.        (\    [e-mail]

Why doesn't this yank put on a suit of suet and go for a swim in shark infested
waters?  Otherwise, he's a walking waste of protien!

Mike.

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

Date: 8 Sep 89 05:58:21 GMT
From: agate!bionet!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Launch Pad crawler info wanted

In article <[e-mail]> I wrote:
>"Spaceport", one of the three big Apollo-related books in the NASA History
>series.

Argh.  I must have been half-asleep when I typed that.  The book is
"Moonport", by Charles D. Benson and William Barnaby Faherty, NASA SP-4204,
1978, US Govt. Printing Office stock # 033-000-00740-0.  Don't know whether
it is still in print.
--
V7 /bin/mail source: 554 lines.|     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
1989 X.400 specs: 2200+ pages. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 8 Sep 89 20:21:50 GMT
From: ndsuvm1.bitnet![e-mail]  (Barry Pederson)
Subject: NASA SpaceFlight Handbooks

Our university library is a Federal Document Depository or some such deal,
and one day, while snooping around, I came across the NASA section.  There
were hundreds of books and pamphlets, and one set that looks pretty
interesting are the NASA Space Flight Handbooks.

The Handbooks are divided into 3 volumes: the Orbital Flight Handbook which
covers maneuvering in earth-orbit, the Lunar Flight Handbook covers flying
to the moon, and the Planetary Flight Handbook covering trips to the planets
and some asteroids.  The three volumes are divided into 15 parts, and amount
to a little more than a cubic-foot of printed material.

The books go into mind-boggling detail with charts and graphs and enough
equations to fill a couple college calculus textbooks.  However, the books
are dated from 1963 to 1968, and mention from time to time " ... modern digital
computers such as the IBM 7090..." :-)

I'm kind of tempted to tackle these books and decrease my ignorance, but I'm
wondering if there are any updated versions of these books.  In some parts
it seemed that they were not too sure about masses and sizes of the planets,
and I'd think that nowadays, these things have been pinned down a little
better.  While the laws of gravity probably haven't changed in the last
20 years, could there be new techniques in choosing flight paths, or
solving the math that's involved?

I just thought I'd share this discovery, and see if anybody was familiar
with this material..
-------
Barry Pederson    [e-mail]   or   [e-mail]

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

End of SPACE Digest V10 #58
*******************