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Date: Sun, 29 Oct 89 22:08:58 -0500 (EST)
Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #167

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 10 : Issue 167

Today's Topics:
              The true value of Galileo
          Follow-on to Amateur EEA Detection
                  Lunar ores
              Re: Galileo Luddite status
          Spacecraft error in November OMNI.
              NSS Hotline Update
         NASA Headline News fro 10/17/89 (Forwarded)
             Re: Plutonium in Earth orbit
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Date: Sat, 7 Oct 89 23:40:47 PDT
From: mordor!lll-tis!oodis01!riacs!rutgers!pnet01.cts.com![e-mail] (Jim Bowery)
To: ucsd!nosc!crash![e-mail]
Subject: The true value of Galileo

1) NASA planned to launch Galileo on a Shuttle with a Centaur
upper stage for a 2 year transit to Jupiter and quick results.

Then Challenger blew up.

2) NASA decided it was more important to keep Galileo on a Shuttle
even though the fleet was grounded, than it was to launch in a
timely manner.

Then the Centaur was delcared inappropriate for the Shuttle bay.

3) NASA decided it was more important to keep Galileo on a Shuttle
even though it would have to use a less powerful upper stage, than
it was to prevent Galileo's mission duration from stretching out
5 additional years.

Of course, each of these delays not only lengthened the cashflow to
more than $1 billion, but it also aided NASA by not allowing any
more real science returns than is absolutely necessary.  In this way
NASA advanced the space program's current goal of making it appear
the planetary science program is almost as bankrupt of results, and
as needlessly expensive, as the manned program.

I hope the suit to block launch of Galileo fails.  We need
to see another Shuttle blow up a bunch of astronauts,
the lives work of many competent and idealistic scientists and
possibly, 50lbs of Plutonium.  Such an event would finally
wake us from our opiated stupor induced by eating the rotting
carrion of Apollo that NASA has been spoon-feeding us for
TWENTY YEARS.

Such an awakening is our only real hope of getting to space.
The cost of such a disaster would be small compared to the
value of breakout out into the space frontier before the
Club of Rome comes home to roost.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Bowery      PHONE: [phone]     BE A SPACE ACTIVIST
PO Box 1981            GET OFF THE NET AND SET UP AN APPOINTMENT WITH YOUR
La Jolla, CA 92038                         CONGRESSMAN!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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INET: [e-mail]

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Date: Wed, 11 Oct 89 08:08:29 PDT
From: mordor!lll-tis!oodis01!riacs!rutgers!pnet01.cts.com![e-mail] (Jim Bowery)
To: ucsd!nosc!crash![e-mail]
Subject: Follow-on to Amateur EEA Detection

After talking to a few people "in the know" about these things, it
is apparent that Earth approaching asteroids are too small, dim and
moving too fast to get a good signature on any economical detector
using a reasonably large amateur telescope.  Apparently 36" is about
the minimum useful size mirror.  You also need a good deal of integration
time (meaning wide field of view since EEA's are zipping along at an
angular rate on the order of the moon).

The basic problem is light-gathering.

There are some other approaches that might prove fruitful given this
constraint.

To get more light, synchronize about 100 amateur telescopes to look
at the same place at the same time.  Then one approach becomes using image
warping to register the images on the background stars, some noise filtering
and then sum the images together.  Another is to take the 100 or so
images and, doing appropriate image transforms, look down in the noise
for the zillion possible EEA tracks that appear -- then look for
intersecting possibilities between the images (the number of possible tracks
could increase so rapidly as you descend into the noise, as to kill this
idea).

Among the problems presented by these approaches:

* Communicating and analyzing the images in a timely manner so
  follow-up observations in a couple of nights can be done to
  determine the trajectory
* Synchronizing the observations
* Excluding "bad" images from the analysis
* Ensuring the warping algorithm isn't introducing too much numeric noise


Another route to take is to recognize that the problem of detecting
EEA's isn't your typical astronomical observation in that you really
want to have a very low resolution image of a lot of the sky taken with
the largest mirror you can get, integrated over the largest amount of
time you can.  A device cost-optimized for this might not look like a
very good telescope.

This may point to some variation on the spinning mercury pool idea using
a cheaper liquid (like water with some immiscible liquid coat) in a tank
rotating at a high rate to produce a very short focal length (with the
CCD suspended over it at a fixed position).  Note that the fact this
is producing a very low resolution image combined with the large
integration times means some vibrations can probably be tolerated
leading to a cheaper mechanism.  The pool images a large area centered
on the zenith -- moving with the rotation of the Earth.  Each time the
CCD array is read out, the pixels are added into a shifting sum to
produce a time delayed integration (TDI) image of the sky.  Having
built TDI systems I can vouch for the very high signal to noise ratios
attainable through this method.

PS: Sorry if I've overlapped some responses to the original message, but
the net response time is about one week at my end.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Bowery      PHONE: [phone]     BE A SPACE ACTIVIST
PO Box 1981            GET OFF THE NET AND SET UP AN APPOINTMENT WITH YOUR
La Jolla, CA 92038                         CONGRESSMAN!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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INET: [e-mail]

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

Date: 18 Oct 89 04:46:50 GMT
From: jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!radio.astro!helios.physics![e-mail]  (Prof. A. Griffin)
Subject: Lunar ores

Disclaimer: I am NOT professor Griffin. If you use "F", please check the
attribution against the signature.

  We've heard that lunar mining operations might be impractical, because
there are no known ore-concentrating processes. Consequently, aliuminum,
oxygen, and silicon would be some of the only economically accessible
materials in lunar mining.
  Surely the moon has been hit by many big carbonaceous and iron-nickel
meteors. Couldn't the impact craters be mined the way Sudbury mines nickel
in Ontario? Along the same lines, lack of hydrogen on the moon is a big
problem. I don't know what elements are found in the stony or carbonaceous
asteroids; is there hydrogen present in useful amounts in these rocks?
  For those of us who don't know, could somebody list the elements present
in useful quantities in the different meteor types? Please list volatiles
separately, since we wouldn't expect to mine ice or light hydrocarbons out
of an impact crater.
--
 Christopher Neufeld....Just a graduate student  |  "Scotty..now _would_
 [e-mail]               | be a good time!"
 [e-mail]              |   - Pavel Chekov
 "Don't edit reality for the sake of simplicity" |

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

Date: 17 Oct 89 14:49:06 GMT
From: munnari.oz.au!murtoa.cs.mu.oz.au!ditmela!yarra!cit5![e-mail]  (Steve Balogh)
Subject: Re: Galileo Luddite status

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John Reece ) writes:
>By the way, has anyone noticed how reminiscent this debate has been of
>that scene in "Rain Main" where Tom Cruise tries to convince Dustin
>Hoffman that it's safe to fly?  Maybe if we got Quantas to launch
                                                 -------
>the mission instead of NASA these technophobes would be satisfied.

QANTAS - Queensland And Northern Territory Airways Service

         (Australia's International Airline - 0 accidents to date :-)


----_--_-_-_--_-__-_------_-__---_-___-_----_-____-_-_--__-_--_--___-_-_-_--__-_

Steve Balogh    VK3YMY              | [e-mail] (...oz.au)
Chisholm Institute of Technology  O^O | [e-mail]
PO Box 197, Caulfield East       U  | ICBM: 37 52 38.8 S  145 02 42.0 E
Melbourne, AUSTRALIA. 3145      \_/ | {hplabs,mcvax,uunet,ukc}!munnari\
[phone] (Ans Machine)          |  !cit5.cit.oz!steve

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

Date: 17 Oct 89 14:26:44 GMT
From: wrksys.dec.com![e-mail]  (CUP/ASG, MLO5-2/G1 6A, 223-3283 17-Oct-1989 1021)
Subject: Spacecraft error in November OMNI.


        First TIME magazine, now OMNI:  In their November 1989 issue
    on page 71, the spacecraft diagram depicted is the GALILEO probe
    to Jupiter, not VOYAGER as they have indicated.

        Larry Klaes  [e-mail]
             or - ...!decwrl!wrksys.dec.com!klaes
                 or - [e-mail]
                     or - [e-mail]

        EJASA Editor, Astronomical Society of the Atlantic

             N = R*fgfpneflfifaL

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

Date: 17 Oct 89 15:01:25 GMT
From: cdp![e-mail]
Subject: NSS Hotline Update


This is the National Space Society's Space Hotline for Monday,
October 16th.

The launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis and its STS-34 crew is
now scheduled for 12:57 pm Tuesday from Pad 39B at the KSC. The
countdown has begun and the Galileo spacecraft in the payload bay
is equally ready for its long journey to Jupiter, nearly 12 years
after its intial planning.

The House and Senate VA, HUD and Independent Agencies
Appropriations conference committee will reportedly meet
tomorrow, October 17, to discuss the NASA budget. Interested
space advocates are encouraged to call the offices of Senators
Barbara Mikulski and Jake Garn and Representative Robert Traxler
by 1 pm Washington time tomorrow to encourage them to ensure
space station and NASA funding goals.

The NSS's Shuttle Launch Tour is scheduled to meet at the Ramada
Inn Titusville at 8:30 am for the ride out to the Causeway
viewing site. If you have any questions, call this office at 202-
543-1900 or the Ramada at 407-269-5510 after 8:00 am tomorrow.
For those lucky enough to be scheduled for this tour, happy
launching!

NASA Administrator Richard Truly announced the appointments of
two key positions today within NASA. Arnold Aldrich will become
the Associate Administrator for OAST and Capt. Robert Crippen has
been named to the post of Director of the Space Shuttle Program.

Anti-nuclear activists have appealed the decision by a federal
judge last week in which he decided not to grant their request
for a delay to the STS-34 mission. Papers have been filed with
the US District Court of Appeals in Washington to appeal his
decision, but a restraining order is not likely according to
sources.

This is David Brandt for the NSS Space Hotline. For news of the
STS-34 mission, call Dial-A-Shuttle @ 1-900-909-NASA from 6 am
tomorrow through 6 am Monday. This tape will be updated as
information warrants.

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

Date: 17 Oct 89 17:24:11 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Headline News fro 10/17/89 (Forwarded)

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, Oct. 17, 1989                       Audio:  202/755-1788
-----------------------------------------------------------------

This is NASA Headline News for Tuesday, October 17th......

The countdown for this afternoon's launch of the space shuttle
Atlantis and it's primary payload...the Galileo/Jupiter
probe...is progressing smoothly this morning.

[As you know by now, we just scrubbed the launch a couple of minutes
ago. -PEY]

Atlantis's crew...Commander Donald Williams, Co-pilot Michael
McCulley and Mission Specialists Shannon Lucid, Ellen Baker and
Franklin Chang-Diaz...were awakend at 7:30 this morning for
breakfast, and began boarding the orbiter at about 9:45.

Yesterday in Washington, the final legal hurdle for launch was
cleared, when the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a final
appeal of three activist groups seeking to block the launch.

So this morning...everything, including the weather at the Cape,
looks good. [Hah! -PEY]  today's launch opportunity is a 26-minute period
beginning at 12:57 P.M., Eastern time.

Once Atlantis reaches orbit...about six-hours into today's
mission, the crew will deploy the Galileo spacecraft into low-
Earth orbit, starting it on its journey to explore Jupiter.
Galileo will be propelled on a trajectory, known as Venus-Earth-
Earth gravity assist, by an Inertial Upper Stage rocket.  The
trajectory will swing the spacecraft around Vensus, the sun and
Earth before Galileo makes its way toward Jupiter...arriving on
December 7, 1995.

NASA Select television will provide near continuous coverage of
the entire STS-34 mission, including in flight crew activities
and change of shift status briefings from Mission Control at the
Johnson Space Center.  Landing is scheduled for Sunday, October
22, at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

Again...today's launch of the space shuttle Atlantis is scheduled
for a 26-minute period beginning at 12:57 P.M., Eastern time.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
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 18:31:31 GMT
From: gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!crabcake![e-mail]  (Kenneth Arromdee)
Subject: Re: Plutonium in Earth orbit

>You're boring me, Thouis. Any sane person _is_ afraid of what can kill
>him and cannot be controlled. Any intelligent person will accept some
>risk if the potential reward is high enough. Anyone who's both sane
>and intelligent will know the difference, and will not accept stupid
>chances for low gains.
>Is it worth losing your legs to beat a stop light? Is it worth
>incinerating 800 people to save $2 per Pinto? Is it worth killing some
>good folks to avoid having to launch solar arrays? Apparently you
>think so, and don't seem inclined to factor ethics into your thinking.

You don't understand risk.

Specifically, you forgot to account for the situation when a risk might be
"high", but the probability of that risk happening at all is rather low.
Say you want to buy something and you can either buy it at $10 here or $5
across the street.  However, crossing the street entails some risk--there's
a small, but non-zero, probability that an accident will occur and you will
be killed if you cross that street, as in fact happens when crossing any
street.  This is a risk of a loss of life--something you value quite highly
compared to the measly $5 you save by crossing that street.  You can reduce
the risk by looking both ways, following "don't walk/walk" signs, etc..., but
you cannot reduce the risk to nothing.

According to your reasoning, you should never cross that street just to save
$5 since the potential reward is only $5, but the potential risk is loss of
your life, something which can kill you and cannot be controlled.

The fallacy is that indeed you may lose your life crossing that street--but
the chance of that happening is small enough that it is an acceptable risk
even so.

You're saying for Galileo that if there is any risk at all of "killing some
good folks", that it would be unethical to launch and thus risk people's lives.
The fallacy is the same--it's not wrong to do it if the chance of people
actually dying is quite small.
--
"The workers ceased to be afraid of the bosses.  It's as if they suddenly
 threw off their chains." -- a Soviet journalist, about the Donruss coal strike

Kenneth Arromdee (UUCP: ....!jhunix!arromdee; BITNET: arromdee@jhuvm;
     INTERNET: [e-mail])

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End of SPACE Digest V10 #167
*******************