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Date: Mon,  2 Oct 89 04:24:48 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #99

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 10 : Issue 99

Today's Topics:
               Re: Private launch costs
              NSS Hotline Update 9/21/89
               Re: Pluto meets Neptune
             Re: HIPPARCOS status report
                  membership
            Risk of NOT launching Galileo
      Re: Plutonium in space (was Risk of NOT launching Galileo)
             Edgar Rice Quayle on himself
    Plutonium in space (was Risk of NOT launching Galileo)
               Re: Pluto meets Neptune
             Re: HIPPARCOS status report
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 25 Sep 89 09:54:13 PDT
From: mordor!lll-tis!oodis01!riacs!rutgers!pnet01.cts.com![e-mail] (Jim Bowery)
To: ucsd!nosc!crash![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Private launch costs

Greg Lindahl writes:
> (noise deleted)                     ... The US public sector provides
> shuttle-sized launches for the SAME COST as the shuttle.
Interesting Freudian Slip, Greg.  I couldn't have said it any better
myself.  The big three rocket manufacturers ARE basically "US public sector"
so one shouldn't EXPECT them to do much better than shuttle costs.  On the
other hand, depending on whose accountants you listen to, shuttle costs are
estimated at anywhere from about equal per pound to twice costs of the
big three.

> Some US corporations might be efficient (AMROC, OSC). Others aren't
> (Titan IV, anyone?).
> (more noise deleted)
The US corporations that are "efficient" are those that are forced to
be win business by being efficient rather than through maintaining
the status quo.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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: 25 Sep 89 11:16:07 GMT
From: cdp![e-mail]
Subject: NSS Hotline Update 9/21/89


This is the National Space Society's Space Hotline updated
Thursday, September 21.

The following press advisory was announced by NASA this morning
at 7:30 EDT:

Shuttle program managers have concluded that there is no credible
scenario relative to hurricane Hugo which would require a
rollback of Atlantis to the VAB at KSC and therefore, have
decided that the vehicle should remain on the launch pad.

For about the next 12 hours, KSC personnel will be preparing to
resume work readying Atlantis for launch. During this time,
officials will continue monitoring the weather to determine if
the pad area might see winds of a velocity which would require a
"ride out" configuration, although this is not forecast. This
period also will provide an opportunity for rest for the KSC work
force.
            (end release)

Hurricane Hugo, a class IV storm which is moving in a
northwesterly direction towards the Atlantic coast, is projected
to affect an area from the Florida-Georgia border to Cape
Hatteras, NC. by sometime Friday. Silmultaneous preparations had
been underway to roll the shuttle stack back to the Vehicle
Assembly Building as well as continued launch processing
preparations for the regularly scheduled launch. The crawler-
transporter was positioned next to the shuttle and a vibration
and strain guage had been attached to the IUS-Galileo payload,
air conditioners set up to cool the payload and the payload bay
doors were closed.

The solid rocket booster on mobile launch platform 3 was removed
and the platform moved out of the VAB to make room for the STS-34
stack if necessary.

The space shuttle can stay on the pad if winds remain below
hurricane force. NASA reports the shuttle cannot be moved on the
crawler-transporter if the winds go above 40 knots (46 mph). The
launch pad and the giant VAB were built to sustain winds of up to
125 mph. Weather has never before forced a rollback. A delay of
at least several days would occur, depending on how long the
launch is suspended. A rollback would also delay the STS-32
Columbia mission if room has to be made in the VAB for Atlantis.

NSS Shuttle Launch Tour preparations continue pending further
information on the status of the launch. There is some
speculation that the preparations which had already been made to
roll back the STS-34 stack may force a slip of one day - more
word on this as it becomes available.

At Launch complex 36, a decision has been made to not demate the
FleetSatCom Navy communications satellite from its Atlas-Centaur
(AC 68) rocket.  Launch will be no earlier than Sunday.

Virginia Attorney General Mary Sue Terry has filed a motion in
Richmond Circuit Court to request an immediate shutdown of the
Avtex Fibers rayon plant in Front Royal, VA. Terry says that the
plant is continuing to leak dangerous amounts of PCBs into the
Shenandoah River. Avtes is the nation's sole supplier of vital
rayon yarn used in military and space shuttle rocket nozzles.

The crew of the Atlantis had breakfast in Washington last
Saturday with Vice President Quayle and his wife. The VP said he
will be at the Cape for the launch of the STS-34 mission to
underscore the fact that there is no danger from the Radio
Thermal Isotope Generators during launch.

Defense Daily reports that the 12.557 billion dollar FY '90 NASA
appropriations bill survived full Senate deliberations without
any major changes Tuesday night, but drug-related amendments
could threaten funding levels set for the entire bill. A final
vote on the VA, HUD and Independent Agencies bill will not occur
until at least today or tomorrow in order to give Senate
leadership time to work out a compromise funding plan to pay for
the president's drug cleanup. Sen. Robert Dole of Kansas said
that only drug-related amendments would be considered in an
effort to prevent someone from coming in with "some other
amendments cutting the space program" or any other program. Sen.
Jake Garn called the bill a "remarkable achievement"..."but not
one to be proud of." He further expressed the opinion that the
allocation "short changes the future."

The International Space University has announced its 1990 session
will be held next summer in Toronto, Canada. Information can be
obtained by calling the ISU offices in Boston @ 617-247-1987.

The launch of the AMROC Koopman Express has been delayed until at
least September 28th due to the Air Force's scheduled launch at a
nearby site.

This has been David Brandt reporting for the NSS Space Hotline.
This tape will be updated as information warrants.

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

Date: 26 Sep 89 02:26:20 GMT
From: haven!uvaarpa!hudson!astsun3![e-mail]  (Greg Scott Hennessy)
Subject: Re: Pluto meets Neptune

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (David Smith) writes:
#The simulations (which someone reported on in this forum recently) show
#that the orbits Neptune and Pluto are resonant, so that they will never
#come close.

While other similations show the orbit of Pluto to be chaotic, meaning
that we can't predict how close they do come.

-Greg Hennessy, University of Virginia
 USPS Mail:     Astronomy Department, Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475 USA
 Internet:      [e-mail]
 UUCP:        ...!uunet!virginia!gsh7w

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

Date: 24 Sep 89 22:16:14 GMT
From: mcsun!ukc!mucs!liv-cs![e-mail]
Subject: Re: HIPPARCOS status report

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Hermann Schneider) writes:
>
> Hipparcos status report
> (This is an exert from the ESOC news letter)
> 5 firing attempts of Apogee Boost Motor between 10th and 25th Aug 89.
> A definite understanding of the reasons for the failure could not be
> be obtained. On-board investigations have been given up. Ground
> laboratory test now to reproduce failure.
>
> Regards Hermann Schneider

Being ignorant of a lot of what goes on here this may be a silly question, but
why can't the space shuttle be used to grab, repair, and reposition Hipparcos?
I thought that this was exactly the sort of thing for which the space shuttle
was built in the first place.
  Just curious...

Peter Anderton
(aka Zanussi)

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

Date: Tue, 26 Sep 89 10:50:21 EDT
From: [e-mail] (golgen bengu (ie))
Subject: membership

I would like to subscribe to your journal. Please let me know if there is
any procedures for it. Thanks.

Address  [e-mail]

Golgen Bengu
Asst. Prof.
New Jersey Ins. of Tech.
IE Dept.

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

Date: 26 Sep 89 18:05:54 GMT
From: frooz!cfashap![e-mail]  (Steve Willner)
Subject: Risk of NOT launching Galileo


{On September 25, a front page story in the Boston Globe recounted the
opposition to the launch of Galileo by those who believe the risk of
plutonium release is unacceptable.  The story was written by the
Globe's excellent science writer, David Chandler, and raises the same
issues already discussed on sci.space.  Following is my response to one
of those issues in the form of a letter to Mr. Chandler.}

Dear Mr. Chandler:

Your article (Sept. 25) on the controversy over the launch of the
Galileo space mission was excellent as far as it went, but your sources
somehow overlooked a significant part of the story.

Weather and climate are obviously important to all of us.  The recent
destructiveness of hurricane Hugo is a timely reminder of the
importance of storm forecasting, and there is escalating concern over
the much greater destruction that could be produced by global
warming.  In these circumstances, learning as much as we can about the
Earth's atmosphere seems not just desirable but necessary.

Galileo's mission is to study Jupiter's atmosphere.  One can never be
sure --- this is basic research we're talking about, after all --- but
it seems inconceivable to me that studying atmospheric dynamics on
Jupiter can fail to help us understand atmospheric dynamics on Earth.
Thus there is considerable risk in _cancelling_ the launch of Galileo:
the risk that something we fail to learn could turn out to be fatal to
many of us.  My personal assessment is that this risk is vastly greater
than the risk of plutonium release in a launch accident, since both the
probability of loss and the numbers of people affected are enormously
greater.  No doubt reasonable people can disagree on the magnitude of
the risk, but the idea that launch cancellation is a risk of some
degree is an element that was missing from the story.

You are welcome to publish these comments as a "letter to the editor,"
but my real hope is that you will use them as a starting point for
further investigation.  The risk of _not_ launching needs to be
considered.

                                      Sincerely yours, ....

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Willner            Phone [phone]         Bitnet:   willner@cfa
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                 Internet: [e-mail]

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

Date: 26 Sep 89 19:20:24 GMT
From: rochester![e-mail]  (Paul Dietz)
Subject: Re: Plutonium in space (was Risk of NOT launching Galileo)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Steve) writes:

>  Also, little known fact is that the military sat
>whch was on challenger was nuclear powered.

It's "little known" because it's utter bullshit.

    Paul F. Dietz
    [e-mail]

    (Is udder bullshit an ox-y-moron?)

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

Date: Tue, 26 Sep 89 16:44:30 EDT
From: "Gregory E. Gilbert" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Edgar Rice Quayle on himself

Would some one please tell me where the "Edgar Rice" came from.  Please
pardon my ignorance, I haven't been around long.

Gregory E. Gilbert
Academic Consultant
University of South Carolina
Columbia, South Carolina   USA   29208
[phone]

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

Date: 26 Sep 89 19:01:22 GMT
From: pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!ganelon.usc.edu![e-mail]  (Steve)
Subject: Plutonium in space (was Risk of NOT launching Galileo)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Steve Willner) writes:
>
>{On September 25, a front page story in the Boston Globe recounted the
>opposition to the launch of Galileo by those who believe the risk of
>plutonium release is unacceptable.  The story was written by the

Well, granted it is safer not to launch plutonium into space than to launch
it.  However, nuclear powered satillites are hardly new, and some have even
re-entered and crashed on Earth (Russian spy-sat which crashed several years
ago in Canada was a nuke.  Also, little known fact is that the military sat
whch was on challenger was nuclear powered.

Its actually probably more dangerous to leave Galileo sitting in some wherehouse
where it could hit by some low flying Cesna.

=Steve=

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

Date: 26 Sep 89 16:16:37 GMT
From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Pluto meets Neptune

In article <[e-mail]> gsh7w@astsun3 (Greg Scott Hennessy) writes:
>#The simulations (which someone reported on in this forum recently) show
>#that the orbits Neptune and Pluto are resonant, so that they will never
>#come close.
>
>While other similations show the orbit of Pluto to be chaotic, meaning
>that we can't predict how close they do come.

One can have chaotic orbits that nevertheless remain within well-defined
bounds.  My impression is that the orbit of Pluto is chaotic in that sense,
not in the "it could wander off anywhere" sense.
--
"Where is D.D. Harriman now,   |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
when we really *need* him?"    | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 26 Sep 89 17:01:29 GMT
From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: HIPPARCOS status report

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>why can't the space shuttle be used to grab, repair, and reposition Hipparcos?
>I thought that this was exactly the sort of thing for which the space shuttle
>was built in the first place.

Quite apart from the lack of an available shuttle mission, Hipparcos is in
an orbit that is unreachable for at least two reasons.  (1) It's a transfer
orbit with a very high apogee, and the shuttle can only get to low orbits.
(2) It's essentially equatorial, since the launch was from Kourou, and the
shuttle can't get into an orbit with an inclination much less than the
latitude of KSC.

To solve (1), you need something like the Space Tug that was originally
supposed to be part of the shuttle system.  Solving (2) requires either
a heftier Space Tug or an equatorial shuttle launch site (Cape York? :-)).
--
"Where is D.D. Harriman now,   |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
when we really *need* him?"    | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

End of SPACE Digest V10 #99
*******************