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Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #345

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 10 : Issue 345

Today's Topics:
                space science
            shuttle as Great Satan
                signature fun
       Space industry projects: dismantling moons and asteroids
               Magellan Update 12/12/89
                Japanese MIR?
              Re: space science
         Galileo Update 12/13/89 (Forwarded)
      Re: Relative distances and sizes in the Universe.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:         ???, 11 Dec 89 11:39 EST
From: Paul Shawcross <[e-mail]>
Subject:      space science
To: <[e-mail]>

          In this discussion about how space science has so often
          suffered at the hands of the manned space program, I think
          that it is important to remember that the space science
          program only gets the funding it does because of the
          emotional appeal and popular support of the overall space
          program, which is largely due to manned space activities.

          Space science is usually given 20% of the overall NASA
          budget.  At the moment it is benefiting from the increased
          NASA funding for the shuttle and space station development.
          If the space science portion of NASA were to be separated
          from the rest of the program, and its control given over to
          a real science agency, such as the National Science
          Foundation, I am sure that its funding would rapidly
          decrease.

          NSF would view the space science program from the strict
          viewpoint of trying to get the most science for the money.
          On a pure science basis, it is near impossible to justify a
          mission like Galileo, when the money could instead be used
          to support a vast number of basic research programs across
          the nation.

          The space science program has suffered from being integrated
          into the manned program, but it also benefits from their
          high-profile activities.

          Flame away.  My shields are up

          *****************************************************
          Paul Shawcross   :  [e-mail]
          These are my views.  My employer probably disagrees
          *****************************************************

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

Date: 12 Dec 89 19:20:59 GMT
From: attcan!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: shuttle as Great Satan

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jim Bowery) writes:
>>The real problem is that the planetary-science people got caught in
>>a vicious circle of bigger and more complicated and less frequent missions.
>
>And why did they get caught in such a cycle?
>The lack of lauch slots forced design of missions around launch slots
>rather than launch slots around missions...

The vicious cycle was well advanced long before the lack of launch slots
became evident.  One sophisticated project after another died in the 70s
and early 80s, when plentiful launch slots were still considered imminent.
I recommend reading the SSEC report on the subject.  It makes it very
plain that those projects died, pure and simple, because they were too
ambitious and too expensive.
--
1755 EST, Dec 14, 1972:  human |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
exploration of space terminates| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 12 Dec 89 19:31:20 GMT
From: attcan!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: signature fun

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Robert Firth) writes:
>>1755 EST, Dec 14, 1972:  human |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
>>exploration of space terminates| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]
>
>Gee, I know those Russkies are a bit strange, but to learn they aren't
>even human...!

They're human all right, but they aren't doing much exploring of late.
Paddling around in the shallows, in low Earth orbit, stopped being
exploration over 20 years ago.
--
1755 EST, Dec 14, 1972:  human |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
exploration of space terminates| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 13 Dec 89 21:23:42 GMT
From: mentor.cc.purdue.edu![e-mail]  (Mark Gellis)
Subject: Space industry projects: dismantling moons and asteroids

New topic for discussion.  Freeman Dyson and David Criswell both talk
about dismantling planets (Criswell talks about dismantling stars).  I
have something a little less ambitious in mind; I'm sure it can eventually
be done (not with our technology, mind you, but eventually) but, not being
an engineer myself, I was wondering HOW you would dismantle smaller, hard
bodies (i.e. large asteroids and moons) for their raw materials.

Can they be shattered with nukes?  Can you simply vaporize huge chunks
with solar powered (or nuclear-powered) gigawatt lasers?  Someone was
talking about the idea of simply setting up a magnetic field and spinning
the object until it tore itself apart into usable chunks.  All these
ideas are fine, but will they work?  What is involved in making these
things work?  My enquiring mind wants to know.  Thanks in advance for
any references or more detailed discussions.

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

Date: 13 Dec 89 20:16:43 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!usc!henry.jpl.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!forsight!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Ron Baalke)
Subject: Magellan Update 12/12/89



                     MAGELLAN STATUS REPORT
                          Dec. 12, 1989

     Today, the Magellan spacecraft is 105,959,492 miles from
Earth, traveling at a speed of 71,336 miles per hour relative to
the sun.

     Magellan is 221 days into the mission and the cruise is 48
percent completed with 241 days to Venus orbit insertion.

     The telecom status now has the 12 foot High-Gain Antenna (HGA)
pointed to Earth with engineering data coming in at 1,200 bits
per second.

     The solar panels are providing 32.6 amps (1,030 watts) of
power and the panel degradation from solar particle events is at
11.5 percent, better than predicted for this point in the
mission.

     Intense solar activity experienced in August, September and
October caused the degradation, but an active sun was
anticipated, and a margin of 35 percent was provided for.
Temperatures aboard Magellan are normal as it continues to move
out towards the orbit of Earth.

     The successful daily star calibrations are maintaining the
spacecraft attitude to better than 0.04 degrees per day. Only one
star calibration has been missed since Nov. 16 when a new
software filter was inserted in the craft's attitude control computer.

     To date the spacecraft has used only 5.7 kilograms of
hydrazine propellant with 123.8 kg remaining. This also is better
than predicted.

     Technical personnel and engineers are making good progress in
troubleshooting a "bit-slip/bit-flip" problem in data from Magellan's
tape recorder playbacks.  A special Deep Space Network (DSN) telemetry
configuration was utilized during the scheduled playback on December 1.
Playback data was processed in parallel through two strings, one frame
synchronized, and the other unsynchronized, in an attempt to isolate
the problem.

     On November 30th, the first in-flight command to Magellan was
successfully transmitted via the Deep Space Network's X-band uplink.
This activity was conducted at Canberra, Australia, and represents a
significent increase in the project and DSN command capability.

     Thermally, Magellan is stable and temperatures aboard the spacecraft
are normal as it continues to move out towards the orbit of Earth. Magellan
is now 179 million miles from Venus which it will orbit next August and
begin mapping in September with its imaging radar instruments.


     SPACECRAFT
     Distance from Earth (mi)             105,959,492

     Velocity Heliocentric                71,336 mph

     One-way light time                   9 mins, 29 secs

 Ron Baalke                       |    [e-mail]
 Jet Propulsion Lab  M/S 301-355  |    [e-mail]
 4800 Oak Grove Dr.               |
 Pasadena, CA 91109               |

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

Date: 13 Dec 89 23:45:07 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Charles Daffinger)
Subject: Japanese MIR?


o From: [e-mail] (United Press International)
o Subject: UPI NEWS AT A GLANCE
o Date: 13 Dec 89 16:08:45 GMT
o (this is from biz.clarinet.sample, so I guess I can include it:)
o
o
o     TOKYO -- A Japanese firm has bought Moscow's only surplus Mir space
o station and an experimental science module for $10 million to help
o promote Japan's space industry, the company's president said Wednesday.
o

Say what?  I figure the price may be off by a few orders of magnitude,
but what's this really supposed to mean?

-charles
--
Charles Daffinger  >Take me to the river, Drop me in the water<  [phone]
[e-mail]              {pur-ee,rutgers,pyramid,ames}!iuvax!cdaf
Home of the Whitewater mailing list:    [e-mail]

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

Date: 13 Dec 89 20:53:47 GMT
From: bfmny0![e-mail]  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: space science

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Paul Shawcross) writes:
    [ gross indentation removed ]
> In this discussion about how space science has so often
> suffered at the hands of the manned space program, I think
> that it is important to remember that the space science
> program only gets the funding it does because of the
> emotional appeal and popular support of the overall space
> program, which is largely due to manned space activities.

This is an unsupported and in fact counterintuitive assertion.
What in heaven's name is the 'manned space activity' taking
place in 1989 to generate 'emotional appeal and popular support'
for the space program as a whole?  Syncom deployments from the
Space Shuttle?  Highway overpass maintenance is romantic by
comparison.

The constituencies with leverage are the aerospace industry and
the SDI community.  It's good for PR to bathe in the reflected
glory of Apollo, and to be seen to please a few USA TODAY type
ordinary citizens who care -- but those kinds of considerations
don't traditionally open the purse strings.  Jobs do.

> Space science is usually given 20% of the overall NASA
> budget.  At the moment it is benefiting from the increased
> NASA funding for the shuttle and space station development.

Translation, NASA *gives* 20% of the loot it gets from the
above mentioned mechanism.

> If the space science portion of NASA were to be separated
> from the rest of the program, and its control given over to
> a real science agency, such as the National Science
> Foundation, I am sure that its funding would rapidly
> decrease.

Wait -- if space science were separated while NASA *continued to exist*
otherwise undisturbed, then yes, space science funding would probably
decrease because NASA is the Budget Terminator - it absolutely *will not
stop* till it eats your funding!

But if NASA were abolished totally, its functions distributed to
industry, the military and the NSF, the net funding for space science
might well stabilize at workable levels.  The important question is,
why are America's space scientists so afraid of putting this to the
test.

> NSF would view the space science program from the strict
> viewpoint of trying to get the most science for the money.

Fools!  :-)

> On a pure science basis, it is near impossible to justify a
> mission like Galileo, when the money could instead be used
> to support a vast number of basic research programs across
> the nation.

Oh, like the kind of programs that might actually make sure American
kids learned something about science and really CARED about discovering
the world around us, so that they grow up into voters who could apply
REAL political pressure for a REAL space exploration program rather than
a Cold War / contractor boondoggle lurching from one dead end
extravaganza to the next.

Or the kind of programs that might actually make AI and cheap space
flight possible through the unforeseen, serendipitous grassroots
breakthroughs decentralized, independent science yields.

If a mission like Galileo (one of the truly Olympian dollar suckers by
the way) is impossible to justify on science terms, WHY IS IT
AUTOMATICALLY ACCEPTED that it's RIGHT to fly it anyway?  Isn't this
"the problem" in action?

> The space science program has suffered from being integrated
> into the manned program, but it also benefits from their
> high-profile activities.

"Benefit" needs better defined here.  It sounds perilously close to the
"benefit" a heroin addict derives from his fix.  Feels great; no other
way to get it; messed up the rest of my life but as long as the supply
lasts who cares; just don't take it away man!!!!

> Flame away.  My shields are up

Thanks for a provocative posting!  We need more like them.
--
"Take off your engineering hat   = "The filter has      | Tom Neff
and put on your management hat." = discreting sources." | [e-mail]

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

Date: 13 Dec 89 22:25:21 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!usc!henry.jpl.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!forsight!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Ron Baalke)
Subject: Galileo Update 12/13/89 (Forwarded)



                     GALILEO MISSION STATUS
                        December 13, 1989

     The Galileo spacecraft is 10.3 million miles or 55 light-
seconds from Earth today.  It has travelled a total of 82 million
miles since launch, with 102 million ahead in the trajectory to
Venus.  Closest approach to that planet will be at about 10 p.m.
PST February 9, 1990, at about 10,000 miles from the center of
Venus (6,200 miles above the cloudtops).

     Things are generally going well.  The power margin,
temperatures, propellant-tank pressures, spin rate and
orientation parameters are nominal or within acceptable ranges.

     During the pre-Venus characterization exercises begun last
week, the scan platform, which carries the camera and other
remote-sensing instruments was moved about both axes for the
first time.  The platform was elevated about 160 degrees from the
zero (antisolar) position and rotated 180 degrees around its axis
(parallel to the spin axis); after other movements, it was
returned to the zero position.  The ultrastable oscillator, to be
used in radioscience experiments, was also operated for the first
time, and a series of tests was performed to characterize the
telecommunication system hardware.

     Galileo's mission team has completed the EV-4
(Earth-Venus #4) sequence, the operational program defining
spacecraft events from December 18 through the first week of
January.  This sequence includes the second trajectory
correction maneuver, set for December 22, and the 4-day
science checkout, December 27-30.


 Ron Baalke                       |    [e-mail]
 Jet Propulsion Lab  M/S 301-355  |    [e-mail]
 4800 Oak Grove Dr.               |
 Pasadena, CA 91109               |

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

Date: 13 Dec 89 16:45:14 GMT
From: bfmny0![e-mail]  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: Relative distances and sizes in the Universe.

I like the "SolarSystem::Galaxy as CoffeeCup::NAmerica" analogy.  For
future reference note that thousands of people traverse both distances
every day.

It does suggest a good slogan for space enthusiasts:

    The Solar System - It's Not My Cup Of Tea!

--
"How can a man of integrity get along    ///  Tom Neff
in Washington?" -- Richard Feynman      ///   [e-mail]

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

End of SPACE Digest V10 #345
*******************