Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT_ZIP/spacedig/V10_1/V10_165.ZIP/V10_165

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Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #165

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 10 : Issue 165

Today's Topics:
     Galileo Status for 10/18/89 [Corrected] (Forwarded)
           Re: Try thinking before stinking
          Galileo Spun/Despun section communications
         Re: How the GALILEO mission may end.
       NASA Select Radio Programs Schedule (Forwarded)
     Re: NASA Select Radio Programs Schedule (Forwarded)
              Re: More on the Christics
         NASA Headline News for 10/18/89 (Forwarded)
          Re: Threat to delay Shuttle launch
             Re: Plutonium in Earth orbit
Re: Geyser-like plume discovered on Neptune's moon Triton (Forwarded)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 19 Oct 89 04:04:48 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Galileo Status for 10/18/89 [Corrected] (Forwarded)

In the Galileo status report just filed, there is reference
to Atlantis being over Brownsville Texas on Rev 6 when Galileo
was deployed.  It was actually Rev 5 and the geographic range
varies in description from Sonora, Mexico, through Chihuahua, Mexico
to Brownsville, Texas (a matter of preference, actually) but
the orbit is Rev 5, and NOT 6.

Charles Redmond, NASA Headquarters Newsroom

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

Date: 17 Oct 89 22:09:47 GMT
From: aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu![e-mail]  (Steve Masticola)
Subject: Re: Try thinking before stinking

Henry Spencer writes:

> The RTGs are demonstrably capable of surviving reentry.  What's the problem?
> Even if they didn't survive, the radioisotope release is insignificant
> compared to what happens when a Soviet radarsat reactor core reenters.

Several problems. To wit:

- Nothing goes right all the time. It's a tradeoff. But what is being
traded for what?

Say that there's a 10% probability that an RTG will re-enter and
release plutonium. Further say that a release will cause approximately
100 fatalities. The designers of an RTG-powered satellite are, on
average, condemning 10 people to death. But for what? Knowledge?
National security? Or simply for convenience in power systems
engineering? Because there are other power sources that can be used in
Earth orbit - plenty of free insolation all the time.

It's exactly the same tradeoff that Ford made when they decided that
800 people's lives weren't worth correcting a sharp flange in the
Pinto's differential. Unfortunately, the folks who burned to death
weren't consulted about the decision.

- Just because Soviet reactor cores re-enter and plutonium bombs have
been blown off in the atmosphere doesn't make it right to release more
pollution. If it were, then we might as well go ahead and put trichlor
down the wells and spray the blueberries with dioxin, because that's
been done before too.

I'm not paranoid about nuclear power, in or out of space. But it is
dangerous. We have to know what chances we take, and why.

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

Date: 19 Oct 89 20:02:46 GMT
From: dftsrv!drax![e-mail]  (Loren (Buck) Buchanan)
Subject: Galileo Spun/Despun section communications

Hi Netlanders,

The question I have is how does the Despun section (the part with most
of the instruments) communicate with the Spun section (the part with
the main antenna and most of the computers)?

Thanks & B Cing U

Buck

Loren "Buck" Buchanan | internet: [e-mail] | standard disclaimer
CSC, 1100 West St.    | uucp: ...!ames!dftsrv!drax!buck   | "By the horns of a
Laurel, MD 20707      | phonenet: [phone] or 9898  | sky demon..."

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

Date:         Thu, 19 Oct 89 17:08:47 EDT
From: Jeffrey R Kell <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Re: How the GALILEO mission may end.
To: "Kendall Auel;685-2425;61-028;;pooter"
 <zephyr.ens.tek.com!orca!pooter![e-mail]>,
        [e-mail]

On 5 Oct 89 17:40:46 GMT you said:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (CUP/ASG,
> MLO5-2/G1 6A, 223-3283  05-Oct-1989 1016) writes:
>>        Regarding the GALILEO's mission end at Jupiter, the following
>>    excerpts are from Steve Willner's August 1989 edition of CANOPUS:
>>          [] or a "death plunge" into Io, the volcanic moon.
>Oh, Great!!  Just go ahead and contaminate the pristine Io with
>radioactive plutonium and Earth germs!!  Wait til I tell the
>Christic Institute about THIS one. :-) :-)
>Kendall Auel   [e-mail]

Yeah, now what if it finds a "large black monolith" orbiting Io?
And the dark spot on Jupiter starts growing exponentially?
And something "zaps" Galileo's atmospheric probe?
Open the pod bay doors, Hal...

<Jeff>
******************************
* "Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing."
*                                        -Wernher von Braun
******************************
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+-----------------------------------+----------------------------------+

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

Date: 17 Oct 89 20:33:58 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Select Radio Programs Schedule (Forwarded)

The next series of radio programs will be on Select, Monday,
October 23rd at 1:00 PM Eastern.  The programs will include:

The Space Story
Four Weekly Programs 4 mins., 30 sec. each

#1348  Setting Discovery to Music
(Feat:  Jane Ira Bloom)
USE:  10/23/89 thru 10/29/89

#1349  Contact!  The Search for Extraterrestrial
       Intelligence
(Feat:  Michael Klein, JPL)
USE:  10/30/89 thru 11/05/89

#1350  COBE, The Cosmic Detective
(Feat:  John Mather, GSFC)
USE:  11/06/89 thru 11/12/89

#1351  Pegasus - The Winged Launch Vehicle
(Feat:  Bob Pincus, GSFC)
USE:  11/13/89 thru 11/19/89

NASA Select is on Satcom F-2R, Transponder 13, 72 degrees West
Longitude.

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

Date: 18 Oct 89 16:28:23 GMT
From: crdgw1!crdos1![e-mail]  (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Subject: Re: NASA Select Radio Programs Schedule (Forwarded)

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Peter E. Yee) writes:
|  The next series of radio programs will be on Select, Monday,
|  October 23rd at 1:00 PM Eastern.  The programs will include:
|
|  The Space Story
|  Four Weekly Programs 4 mins., 30 sec. each
|
|  #1348  Setting Discovery to Music
|  (Feat:  Jane Ira Bloom)
|  USE:  10/23/89 thru 10/29/89
|    [  etc  ]

  For those of us who don't have access to transponder whatever, is
there a place from which these may be ordered?
--
bill davidsen    ([e-mail] -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
"The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called
'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see
that the world is flat!" - anon

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

Date: 18 Oct 89 06:05:04 GMT
From: crash!orbit!pnet51![e-mail]  (S Schaper)
Subject: Re: More on the Christics

They are NOT any brand of Christian, historically defined. I suspect that they
are a sub-group of the radical-left combined with New-Age/Hindu type thought.
They might _call_ themselves Christian, perhaps - I don't know, but if you
look at the past 1950 odd years of Christian thought, they don't fit.

UUCP: {amdahl!bungia, uunet!rosevax, chinet, killer}!orbit!pnet51!schaper
ARPA: crash!orbit!pnet51![e-mail]
INET: [e-mail]

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

Date: 19 Oct 89 03:32:27 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Headline News for 10/18/89 (Forwarded)

[This status report is of course now out of date, since as you all know
the shuttle successfully lifted off.  NASA news will be late or spotty due
to earthquake induced delays. -PEY]
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, Oct. 18, 1989                     Audio:  202/755-1788
-----------------------------------------------------------------

This is NASA Headline News for Wednesday, October 18th......

The crew of the space shuttle Atlantis boarded the orbiter about
9:45 this morning, hoping the weather will coopeate this
afternoon and permit launch...now scheduled for 12:50 P.M.,
Eastern time.

There are rainshowers in the vicinity of the Kennedy Space Center
this morning.  Yesterday's launch had to be scrubbed when rain
began falling within 20 miles of the shuttle landing facility.
This is in violation of launch commit criteria for a Return to
Launch Site abort situation.

Weather permitting...launch today is scheduled to occur at the
opening of the launch window at 12:50 P.M.  The window for launch
today closes at 1:19 P.M.


Aerospace Daily reports House-senate conferees late yesterday
approved a $12.4 billion NASA appropriations bill for fiscal year
1990.  The compromise measure includes $1.8 billion for the Space
Station Freedom program.  The appropriations bill now must be
approved by the full House and Senate.


A NASA spokesman said yesterday that a computer virus has
infected one of its networks and is spreading anti-nuclear
messages related to the Galileo spaceprobe.  NASA spokesman
Charles Redmond said the virus, discovered on Monday, is in the
form of a computer "worm" which is placed into the operating
system of a computer and spreads by boring into other computers
contacted through networks.  Redmond said the rogue computer
program was apparently placed on a computer in France hooked up
to NASA's Space Physics Analysis Network.  The network is not
connected to the computer systems that operate either Galileo or
the space shuttle, and Redmond said the program has not done any
damage.



                        ***********










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

                    STS-34 television coverage

NASA Select television will be providing near continous coverage
of the entire STS-34 mission, including in flight activities and
change of shift status brifings from Mission Control in Houston.

If launch of Atlantis occurs this afternoon, landing is scheduled
for Monday, October 23rd at Edwards Air Force Base, California.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
These reports are filed daily, Monday through Friday, at 12 noon,
Eastern time.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
A service of the Internal Communications Branch (LPC), NASA
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

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

Date: 18 Oct 89 09:41:03 GMT
From: agate!helios.ee.lbl.gov!hellgate.utah.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!uxa.cso.uiuc.edu![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Threat to delay Shuttle launch


Actually, I think it will be interesting to see what happens.  Not only
will NASA have the usual large number of authoritative people trained in
keeping spectators out of the launch team's way, but you can probably imagine
what the Department o' Defense would think of people trying to put their
launch schedule even further behind.  We'd see some security then, by god!

Seriously, though, have you ever seen the precautions NASA takes to make sure
no unauthorized person is within a mile of the launch pad, let alone on top
of it???  If the christic whatevers want to block the shuttle with their
bodies, they will have a very very very hard time of doing so...

(Of course, I would be very happy to let the whole bunch of em stand oh about
five feet away from the SRB's during ignition.  :-) No flames, all you
christic whatevers out there!  (Slight pun intended...) )

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Dont listen to me, I'm only an undergrad!"

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

Date: 17 Oct 89 21:32:37 GMT
From: swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!hellgate.utah.edu!ug.utah.edu![e-mail]  (Thouis Jones)
Subject: Re: Plutonium in Earth orbit

masticol writes:
>Thouis Jones writes:
    [long flame removed]
>My point (and I had hoped I wouldn't need to spell it out in words of
><=2 syllables) is that there is a difference between a prudent risk
>and a stupid gamble. Launching a hazardous payload that has a small
>chance of returning to Earth is a prudent risk. Launching an RTG which
>_will_ re-enter uncontrolled is a stupid gamble.

    And my point is that your definitions of prudent risk and stupid
gamble are neither compatible with mine nor necessarily right.  Just
because you have a terrible fear of radiation falling out of the sky
on you doesn't mean that we should stop using it in RTG's.  If it
bothers you that much why don't you move to another planet :-)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
              Email: [e-mail]
       "Beware of Quantization Errors."  -prof man page
  "My morals are in no way responsive to your arguments.  Shut up."

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

Date: 19 Oct 89 19:32:03 GMT
From: henry.jpl.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jpl-devvax![e-mail]  (Lee Mellinger)
Subject: Re: Geyser-like plume discovered on Neptune's moon Triton (Forwarded)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Nick Szabo) writes:
:In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Peter E. Yee) writes:
:>Charles Redmond
:>crossing the boundary of our solar system.  The plutonium-based
:>generators that provide electricity to the spacecraft are
:>expected to keep alive the computers, science instruments and
:>radio transmitter for up to 25 or 30 more years.
:>     As of today, the long-lived project will be known as the
:>Voyager Interstellar Mission.  The Voyager Project is managed for
:>NASA's Office of Space Science And Applications by the Jet
:>Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
:Speaking as a person experienced in the ins and outs of JPL beauracracy
:(but not speaking _for_ anybody but myself, of course :-) I can't help
:but wonder about the proposed scientific merits of this extended mission.
:
:The "Voyager Interstellar Mission" is a new twist.  There are a large
:number of people working on Voyager right now, and quite naturally they
:need something to do.

The VIM requires only a very small staff, most of the Voyager folks
are leaving for other jobs, mostly on the upcoming missions.

:
:Meanwhile, we are launching the Galileo and Magellan missions.  These
:projects plan to return at least an order of magnitude more data than
:Voyager, and will put a high demand on the communications networks and
:computational facilities.  In 1992 we will launch Mars Observer, and
:later in the 90's CRAF and Cassini.  There are not enough resources to
:support both these new missions and the "extended missions" of the Voyagers,
:Pioneers, etc.  Both Voyagers, two of the Pioneers, and ICE all require the
:use of our largest and rarest (70m) antennae.  Building a new 70m dish
:would cost and estimated $2 billion: the price of a new space shuttle.

     I don't know where you got this number but I think that this in
the neighborhood of 2 orders of magnitude too high. The cost to build
a 100M az-el deep space stations as designed in 1985 were $58
MILLION.

:If we support the extended missions, we could lose valuable data from the
:new planetary missions.

The VIM does not require much tracking time as the data rate is
reduced to 160BPS and is recorded for replay.  The prime mission
spacecraft have priority over any extended mission, not prime mission
data will be lost because of the VIM.


:A question for astronomers and planetary scientists on the net: does
:the "Voyager Interstellar Mission" have enough scientific merit to sacrifice
:data from Galileo and Magellan?
:
:If not, IMHO Voyager workers should be transferred to Galileo, Magellan or
:wherever they want to go, and retrained as necessary.

They are, see above.

They are heroes
:and deserve our best.  We can let the Voyagers fly free, checking in
:as schedules allow, content in the knowledge that they have completed our
:greatest space mission ever.
:
:Nick Szabo

Lee

"I'm the NRA"

|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]

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

End of SPACE Digest V10 #165
*******************