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Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #356

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 10 : Issue 356

Today's Topics:
       Re: NASA Headline News for 12/15/89 (Forwarded)
            Re: New years eve 1999
            Re: Big Bang:  Did it happen?
           Re: the response to Jim Bowery's parody
             You don't get to go.
           Re: V10 No.327 and inflammatory ephithe
          Space elavator figures request???
         Re: (none) (About Bowery's satire, really.)
             Re: An ICBM question
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 17 Dec 89 19:31:39 GMT
From: yalevm![e-mail]
Subject: Re: NASA Headline News for 12/15/89 (Forwarded)

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Peter E. Yee) writes:

>This is NASA Headline News for Friday, December 15......
>
>Because of the additional steps involved in the first use of
>Launch Pad 39A for the upcoming STS-32 mission...the processing
>schedule continues to run slightly behind.  As a result, it is
>expected that shuttle managers will announce later today that the
>launch will slip an additional day to Thursday, December 21st.
>the launch window on Thursday would open at 5:55 P.M. Eastern
>time.

Is this right? They've had four years to get the pad ready and
still couldn't do it on time?

Duncan Melville

[e-mail]
[e-mail]

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

Date: 17 Dec 89 14:30:20 GMT
From: amdahl!nsc!taux01![e-mail]  (Amos Shapir)
Subject: Re: New years eve 1999

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (David Kinny) writes:
>Again the same stupid claims are being advanced that the end of the
>century/millenium is at the end of the year 2000.  This is ludicrous !
>There was no year zero, runs the usual justification.  So what ?
>Some idiot made a mistake !
...

No one made a mistake.  There was no year zero since there was no
year 1 nor year 1989; there were the first, second, ... 1989th years
of the Christian Era.

>Is it really desirable that the years 2000 and 2001 be part of
>different centuries, or that the year 1990 be part of the eighties ?

Nobody claims it should be, but the 1990th year of C.E. is the last
year of the 199th decade.  However, you are right that what we are
now celebrating is the end of the 80's.  In the same manner, 10 years
from now we'll be celebrating the end of the 1900's, or the end of
the years-which-start-with-a-1 and the beginning of the years-which-start-
with-a-2 - this is what most people care about, not some #$^%#^@ millenia.

Down with the prudes and keep this argument out of sci.space!

--
    Amos Shapir        [e-mail], [e-mail]
National Semiconductor (Israel) P.O.B. 3007, Herzlia 46104, Israel
Tel. [phone]  TWX: 33691, fax: [phone] GEO: 34 48 E / 32 10 N

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

Date: 17 Dec 89 21:57:42 GMT
From: yalevm![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Big Bang:  Did it happen?

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (James P. Galasyn) writes:
>I just heard from a fairly reliable source that CalTech has demonstrated
>the Big Bang never happened.  This is from the mother of a friend of mine
>who's studying cosmology there.  Bright guy, real bright guy, but I haven't
>spoken to him yet, so who knows?  Last I heard Alan Guth's Inflationary
>model was the best theory...anybody know more?  Apparently this discovery
>was made several weeks ago.

Huh? I haven't heard anything like this (though it doesn't mean it's not
possible).  I really don't know how you could *disprove* the BB; it's
been pretty well accepted since the '60s.  There's a lot of data that it
explains real well that you'd have to come up with a better explanation
for... 3 degree background, expansion, primordial nucleosynthesis, etc.
The BB theory, combined with Guth's inflation, does a fine job at the
moment... seems pretty unlikely to disprove it that abruptly.  Any more
(concrete) info on this?
                                       Greg Howard

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

Date: 17 Dec 89 17:20:40 GMT
From: rochester![e-mail]  (Paul Dietz)
Subject: Re: the response to Jim Bowery's parody

In article <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> writes:

> 400 billion dollars is chicken feed -- when
>compared to the potential returns.  (And, yes, those returns are out there.
>This planet makes up a miniscule percentage of the Solar System's accessible
>mass.  I don't have exact figures, but somebody on the net probably does.)

Um, you are confusing your daydreams with what that $400 B will
actually buy if given to NASA: not much.

Did you know that $400 B would fund the US fusion program (for
example) for over a thousand years?  The US government photovoltaic
program for over ten thousand years?

>  The United States needed Vietnam's tungsten and vanadium deposits.

What is this nonsense?  After the war, did light bulbs become unavailable?
And vanadium is present all over the world in large amounts, in deposits
of greater or lesser concentration.  Vietnam was politically motivated;
the cost of substituting for any high grade ore deposits that might
have become less accessible would have been much less than the cost
of the war itself.

>So which will it be?  Sitting on our thumbs, muttering about "maybes" and
>"might-haves", or taking a step that's every bit as significant as the
>coelecanth's coming out of the ocean?

Oh no, not the "next step in evolution" argument again.  It's a flawed
analogy, mainly used for emotional impact.  Evolution is not directed,
certainly not directed by a government agency.

If you must use an evolutionary analogy, remember this: evolution is a
tree, not a path, consisting mostly of dead ends.

> I advocate a clearly reasoned expansion.

No comment.

>Just because the US has hamstrung itself doesn't mean we
>should resent the progress made by the Soviets, or the Chinese, or the
>Japanese, or whoever seems to be ahead of us.  Just so long as we get off
>of this planet before we bring it down around our ears.

What you mean "we", paleface?  Also, are the Soviets really "ahead" of
us?  Their space program is just like ours: kept afloat for political
reasons, fueled by government money with no real payoff.  I've predicted
before that it will be scaled back as their economic chaos mounts;
recent events in eastern europe reinforce my opinion.

>I do think that we WILL make it...but by the hair of our teeth, in the
>finest human tradition.

I think humans will be in space in large numbers at some point in the
future -- probably long after we're dead -- but there will be no
element of apotheosis or race-against-damnation in it.  Jim's parody
of pseudoreligious space fanaticism hit the nail on the head.  Too bad
P.T. Barnum was right.

    Paul F. Dietz
    [e-mail]

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

Date: Sat, 16 Dec 89 18:52:55 PST
From: mordor!lll-tis!ames!scubed!pnet01.cts.com![e-mail] (Jim Bowery)
To: crash![e-mail]
Subject: You don't get to go.

The NASA 90-day report is out.  The National Space Council
looks like it will endorse JSC's version of the future.  For
the first time in 30 years, we have a National Space Council
policy.

Barney Roberts' pawn, Stu Nozette, did his job for JSC well.  They
have wired a Presidential Space Policy embarking us on a grand
mission of giving JSC as much money as it wants instead of
having a space program.  Under this policy, any funds for space
activities freed by defense cuts will be absorbed in programs
concocted by JSC to strengthen its strangle-hold on United
States progress in space.

Assuming, as many of us on the net do, that the policies of the
National Space Council really will direct our space activities,
it's now a safe bet that none of us will ever go to space.  Meanwhile
JSC Propoganda chants about the "inevitability" of our expansion
into space.

Those of you who don't know who I'm referring to are the reason
none of us will ever go to space.  Yammering at each other
on the net without knowing the players or the rules of the game
is kind of like playing blindfold chess after consuming large
quantities of Jack Daniels.  It may be a lot of fun but, surprise,
surprise, you lose.

It would be nice if our descendants could recover, but there is
a good chance America's future in space has now been permanently
destroyed.  We go the way of the famous Chinese Mandarins whose
bureaucracy feared the power of its merchant class so much that
it prevented them from building ocean going vessels and thus ceded
the world to the howling barbarians in Europe.

There is still some faint hope of someone opening the space
frontier.  Too bad it won't be the people who were best suited
for it.  We have chosen, instead, to give bureaucracy power
over democracy.

I wonder who the new howling barbarians are that we are
giving the universe to.  Should I learn Russian, Chinese,
Japanese, French, German, Arabic...?

I'll bet many of you have wondered why I'm so disgusted with
a "space policy" that excites you so much.  It's because
I think space is a good idea.  I'd like to go.  It's ok with
me if you really want to sit here and die drooling at JSC-TV.
I'm mad because you can't just sit here and die by yourself.
You cravenly join other Believers in fighting those, like me, who
are trying to make real things happen in space because JSC Propoganda
informs you that we aren't in line with the Big Lie.  Decades pass.
We all grow old and gray.  Nothing real happens in space.

To understand JSC's "space policy" and your place in it, read
Hitler's theory of the Big Lie in "Mein Kampf" and study its
application to the rise of the Nazi Party.

I don't want to see a bunch of nauseating responses on the net.

Just remember this message in 30 years.
---
Typical RESEARCH grant:
$
Typical DEVELOPMENT contract:
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

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

Date: 17 Dec 89 17:39:12 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!m.cs.uiuc.edu!s.cs.uiuc.edu![e-mail]
Subject: Re: V10 No.327 and inflammatory ephithe


/* Written  2:03 pm  Dec 11, 1989 by [e-mail] in s.cs.uiuc.edu:sci.space */
In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] ("Lee S. Ridgway") writes:
>Not all of us "liberals" are not anti-space.
 ^^^                          ^^^ ^^^^
 Um, could someone from sci.lang please help me out here.  What exactly is
 being said?  All of us "l's" are anti-space?  No "l's" are anti-space?
 I'm completely befuddled.
/* End of text from s.cs.uiuc.edu:sci.space */
My analysis is "~ {All l are ~(^S)}" where l="liberal" and "S" = "pro-space".
So "~ {All l are N or S}" where N="neutral on space issues".
And therefore "E l who are ^S", i.e. he is claiming that there are anti-space
liberals. What relevance this has to his other comments, I don't know.

Alan M. Carroll                "Oh goody, the Illudium Q-36 Explosive
[e-mail]           Space Modulator!"
CS Grad / U of Ill @ Urbana    ...{ucbvax,pur-ee,convex}!s.cs.uiuc.edu!carroll

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

Date: 17 Dec 89 06:12:33 GMT
From: pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!caesar.cs.montana.edu!milton!maven![e-mail]  (Games Wizard)
Subject: Space elavator figures request???

A few weeks ago there was a fairly technical discussion thread about the
space elevator/cable/sky-hook concept.  Having only recently told a
materials friend of mine about the concept ( in order to annoy him and make
him feel inadequite, etc... ) he suggested that before he got upset, I needed
to supply him with the exact details of the system.  ( Also I feel like if
I am going to try to annoy people like this it behooves me to get the facts,
and keep them on file.)

So if anyone has them, could you please send me :

The actual length of the cable?
the tensile strength of the cable?
the diameter at the top / diameter at the bottom
the taper ( and definition of taper, 20 with no units is meaningless to me... )
the proposed lifting capability of the cable system

If there are tradeoff formulas for taper vs tensile strength vs payload
could you send these along?

I apologize for not getting this the first time, I promise to keep them
forever this time round.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trendy footer by:
            John Stevens-Schlick
            Internet?: [e-mail]
            7720 35'th Ave S.W. Seattle, Wa. 98126
            (206) 935 - 4384
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My boss dosn't know what I do.

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

Date: 18 Dec 89 01:48:49 GMT
From: mentor.cc.purdue.edu![e-mail]  (Floyd McWilliams)
Subject: Re: (none) (About Bowery's satire, really.)

In article <[e-mail]>
  <[e-mail]> writes:
>If killing people at random would markedly improve my species'
>chances of expanding beyond this planet's embrace, I would be willing to
>do it...no matter how many people died.

    And later in the article:

>"The Earth is far too fragile a basket for humanity to keep all of its
>eggs in."  Robert Anson Heinlein.  American soldier, author and philosopher.

    Sir:  I would suggest you take any Heinlein books you own,
take them to the stores you bought them from, and ask them to return
your money.  Clearly they have done nothing for you.

--
"Now is the time on Shprockets when we post news."
Floyd McWilliams            mentor.cc.purdue.edu!acu

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

Date: 16 Dec 89 18:39:23 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!aero![e-mail]  (Thomas F. Smith)
Subject: Re: An ICBM question

E'Prime Aerospace Corp. of Titusville, Florida is developing
their S-series vehicles from the MX stage 1 w/o hardening.

The Taurus launch vehicle by Orbital Science Corp also uses
the MX stage 1.  It uses the Peagsus without the wings for
the upper stages.

Minuteman will be in the ground until they rot.  They're
cheap insurance.  Low recurring cost.  An what else would
you do with North Dakota and Montana besides put stuff
in the ground.  Flame on.  I've been there; for 4 years.
They (MM) are good enough for MAD but not good enough
for a serious payload.  Maybe good enough for space burials?

The MX is in current production.  Deke Slayton (SSI) doesn't
want surplus missiles any more.  He should know!

 --
This space reserved.                                     Space Not Reserved.
Space Commercialization Office, Space Systems Division, Los Angeles AFB, CA.

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

End of SPACE Digest V10 #356
*******************