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Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #313

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 11 : Issue 313

Today's Topics:
          NASA Prediction Bulletins:  Space Shuttle
              Re: Decompression
         Re: How can the shuttle reach higher orbits?
             Re: Other Big Bangs
                  Re: [HELP]
           Payload Status for 04/24/90 (Forwarded)
            Re: Rename the Earth?
              Re: Dyson spheres?
         Re: duct tape (and lunar astronomy)
              Rename the Earth?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 24 Apr 90 19:34:25 GMT
From: ncis.tis.llnl.gov!blackbird![e-mail]  (TS Kelso)
Subject: NASA Prediction Bulletins:  Space Shuttle


The most current orbital elements from the NASA Prediction Bulletins are
carried on the Celestial RCP/M, [phone], and are updated several times
weekly.  Documentation and tracking software are also available on this
system.  As a service to the satellite user community, the most current
elements for the current shuttle mission are provided below.  The Celestial
RCP/M may be accessed 24 hours/day at 300, 1200, or 2400 baud using 8 data
bits, 1 stop bit, no parity.

STS 31
1 20579U 90037A   90114.57620854  .00000000  00000-0  00000-0 0 00029
2 20579 028.4676 230.5666 0021936 059.7727 300.5497 14.90549087    10
--
Dr TS Kelso                           Assistant Professor of Space Operations
[e-mail]          Air Force Institute of Technology

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

Date: Tue, 24 Apr 90 18:23:57 EDT
From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are those of the sender
    and do not reflect NIST policy or agreement.
Subject: Re: Decompression


>From: janus.Berkeley.EDU![e-mail]  (Blake Philip Wood)
>Subject: Re: Decompression and 2001

>In being exposed to a vacuum
>you certainly wouldn't want to simply open your mouth, because with no
>air in your lungs you have only about 15 sec of consciousness.  The best
>strategy may be to exhale and hold that.  Then you'd still have air, but
>the alveoli would only be exposed to some fraction (what is it?) of an atm.

>                 Blake P. Wood - [e-mail]
>                 Plasmas and Non-Linear Dynamics, U.C. Berkeley, EECS

Apparently the lungs contain compound which forms a foam, which in turn keeps
the lung somewhat inflated even when you exhale. In certain medical conditions,
this substance is missing, causing the lungs to collapse. The foam limits the
degree to which you can exhale. I don't know what percentage of the total lung
capacity this foam takes up, but barring further information, it seems best to
just go ahead and keep your breathing passages open.
            John Roberts
            [e-mail]

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

Date: 25 Apr 90 04:51:02 GMT
From: uokmax![e-mail]  (Tom Egelston)
Subject: Re: How can the shuttle reach higher orbits?

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] () writes:
>    I know that the shuttle can only reach Low Earth Orbits,
>    but what are the problems involved in putting it into a
>    higher orbit?

     The major problem is that there is a limited amount of thrust available,
since the total thrust from the solid rocket boosters is constant and there is
a definite maximum fuel for the liquids.  Increasing the altitude thus mandates
reducing the payload, which kind of defeats the purpose in having a shuttle
anyway.

>                     Wouldn't it be possible, for instance, to
>    include four (instead of two) boosters?

     My guess is no.  The External Tank would definitely have to be
redesigned to deal with the added stress.  Also, I don't think the stack
would balance correctly.  One side would be thrust-heavy.  In addition, that
configuration would also require some modification to the launch pad.

>                                               Why hasn't NASA
>    tried to reach higher orbits with the shuttle?

     Put simply, they haven't really had any need to.

>                                                      Would each
>    launch be much more expensive than what it is now?

     I would think the shear cost of redesign would make it prohibitively
expensive on NASA's budget.

>                                                          Is it
>    that they consider it enough for their purposes to reach LEO?

     Yes.  The ideal situation is to have a space station in LEO with
"space tugs" to tow stuff into higher orbits...

--
          Tom Egelston      Internet: [e-mail]
 Disclaimer: Don't get so stressed!! It's nothing but a bunch of 1's and 0's...
     "Though my eyes could see, I still was a blind man,
         Though my mind could think, I still was a mad man..."  --  Kansas

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

Date: 24 Apr 90 15:25:27 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Matt Crawford)
Subject: Re: Other Big Bangs

I shouldn'a hadn'a oughtn'a cleaned out my `kill' file ...

In article <[e-mail]>, vac@sam (Vincent Cate) writes:
) The evidence will reliably show that there are stars expanding from a few
) other points in similar numbers to what we see expanding away from the
) location of our big bang.

Vincent, just which point do you consider to be the location of "our"
big bang?  Ask some patient person at CMU to tell you what a "spacelike
singularity" is.
________________________________________________________
Matt Crawford                 [e-mail]

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

Date: 24 Apr 90 16:41:25 GMT
From: usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!m.cs.uiuc.edu!bucc2![e-mail]
Subject: Re: [HELP]


>/* Written  1:55 pm  Apr 19, 1990 by elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!john in bucc2:sci.space */
>/* ---------- "[HELP]" ---------- */
>Well, this was posted on one of the newsgroups.. I consider this a high
>insult to us JPL/Caltech.. Your help is needed... Please email to me..
>Sorry, but I am not an astronomy major.. I only know computer...
>
>>1. Name the inner planets and outer planets.
    Not all that hard: Inner: Mercury, Venus, & Earth. Outer:Mars,
        Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Pluto, and Neptune.
>>2. List the planets in the order of distance from the Sun
    Again, not all that tough. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars,
        Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Pluto, & Neptune. (At least until
        ~1999)
>>   (not Sun in California, I know it's hot there, too).
>>3. Name the farthest planet that was visited by one of NASA spacecrafts.
    Neptune.
>>4. Name that spacecraft
    Voyager II.
>>5. Give the date of that visit
    August 29, 1989.
>>6. Name the sist
er planet of Earth
    I always hated this question, since it's rathre obvious that
        no world is quite like ours. But they tell you Venus, so
        that's it.
>
>>I think one of Cowsteak students will get this because they live in
>>the same town with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (the one that
>>manages the spacecraf).
>
>~John
>
>[e-mail]
>

Frankly, I'm ticked off about how poor science education is getting. I
am, at present, a physics major at a mid-sized college. I know of
people IN COLLEGE who were never exposed to a math or science class.
The sad thing about it is that Pres. (I hate broccoli) Bush actually
intends for these people to understand why he wants America to
re-establish a forceful presence in space. He is one of the same dolts
who cut education funding to deprive these people of learning science
to fund defense projects that have gone nowhere. It galls me that even
my teachers in grade school knew less about science in general than I
did at the time. Heck, it galls me to find people who aren't sure
whether it's Sol around Earth or Earth around Sol. I don't know what
us in the universities can do to stop this, but I tried-I donated my
old books to my old elementary school, so that they can build up at
least a 5-year-old library instead of a 40-year-old one. Oh well...


Craig\The Moonman\Levin
Bitnet {?}: [e-mail]      |  uiucdcs\
Internet: [e-mail] |      noao>bradley!bucc2!moonman
I'm just an undergrad. THEY don't   |     cepu/
care if I have opinions or not.     |

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

Date: 24 Apr 90 14:25:29 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Payload Status for 04/24/90 (Forwarded)


  Daily Status/KSC Payload Management and Operations 04-24-90.


  - STS-31R HST (at pad-B) -

  Launch countdown support continues today.


  - STS-35 ASTRO-1 (at OPF) -

  On Monday the payload bay doors were opened, BBXRT liquid argon
  servicing was completed and the payload bay doors were re-closed.
  No payload activities are planned for today.


  - STS-40 SLS-1 (at O&C) -

  Preps for experiment train interface test were completed Monday.
  The actual interface test will start today.


  - STS-42 IML-1 (at O&C) -

  Module pyrell foam replacement, floor staging, and rack staging
  were worked Monday and will continue today.


  - STS-45 (Atlas-1)-

  Cold plate installation was worked Monday and will continue
  today.


  - STS-46 TSS-1 (at O&C) -

  Emp mgse fit checks were completed yesterday.


  - STS-55 SL-D2 (at O&C) -

  Rack 12 staging will continue today.


  - HST M&R (at O&C) -

  ORUC interface testing continues.

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

Date: 25 Apr 90 01:49:13 GMT
From: bfmny0![e-mail]  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: Rename the Earth?

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John Roberts) writes:
>To E.E. Smith, Earth was "Tellus of Sol". Tellus is the ancient Roman goddess
>of the earth (like Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, etc. for their respective
>planets), while Sol is the ancient Roman god personifying the sun. A person
>living on the earth is a tellurian. All these terms are accepted parts of the
>English language, though they are not frequently used. If you insist on names
>other than "Earth" and "Sun", these probably make more sense than anything
>else.

"Earth" is considered to derive from Indo-European 'ar' meaning the
(plowed) ground, via lots of Northern European intermediate forms including
Hertha the Icelandic earth goddess.  It is in no sense less appropriate
than the Latin 'tellus' form.  The latter just sounds more exotic to our
Anglophone ears.  If there were Latin language SF writers they would
probably call their characters Earthlings for that nifty sound. :-)

>On the topic of astronomical terminology, I stongly disapprove of the
>translation of planetary place names into Latin. Mount Olympus is gone from
>Mars - it's now Olympus Mons. The Sea of Tranquility on the moon no longer
>exists - it's Mare (?).

At the time Lunar features were first mapped, Latin was the universal
language of Western science.  Mare Tranquillitatis was the first "official"
name the feature had; "Sea Of Tranquillity" came along later for the
benefit of monolingual English and American students.

I believe Olympus Mons was first tentatively identified early in this
century or late in the last, as a feature visible only to serious
astronomers, among whom Latin was still the accepted lingua franca. :-)
I seldom see it it called Mount Olympus except in Golden Books type
bowdlerizations and the occasional SF effort.
--
'We have luck only with women -- not spacecraft!'     \\  Tom Neff
 -- R. Kremnev, builder of failed Soviet FOBOS probes //  [e-mail]

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

Date: 24 Apr 90 14:09:22 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Patrick Brewer)
Subject: Re: Dyson spheres?


>definition of a thermal "blackbody" source.  Furthermore, Hawking showed
>that even _black_holes_ emit thermal blackbody radiation.
>--
>Terry Gaetz         --   [e-mail]   --   [e-mail]


    Last I heard (Playboy interview) Hawking has decided the black-holes
can't exist. And he is now trying to prove it.

Thought you might want to know.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    The  NOBLE  One           Patrick W. Brewer       [e-mail]

        "It's not how much you have, it's how much you give!"

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

Date: 24 Apr 90 18:09:06 GMT
From: news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!watserv1!watcgl![e-mail]  (Alan Wm Paeth)
Subject: Re: duct tape (and lunar astronomy)

>In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (David Smith) writes:
>Well, at least the Apollo 15 LM carried duct tape to the moon...

>In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Doug Josephson) writes:
>That reminds me:  one of the Apollo dune buggies lost a fender...

Caltech friends travelling from LA to Vancouver Washington to see the 1979
total solar eclipse broke a tire chain near the Siskyou Pass (sp?) in Southern
Oregon. They fashioned a new link from duct tape and made it to the next town!
Both Kerry and Lou were fond of saying "There is little that cannot be solved
by brute-force and ignorance"; duct-tape often playing the former part.

    /Alan Paeth
    Computer Graphics Laboratory
    University of Waterloo

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

Date: Tue, 24 Apr 90 18:10:13 EDT
From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are those of the sender
    and do not reflect NIST policy or agreement.
Subject: Rename the Earth?


>From: haven!aplcen!jhunix![e-mail]  (Garrett A Wollman)
>Subject: Re: Our galaxy

>>[...] Or perhaps
>>a Latinized name like we use "Terra" instead of "Earth"? [Since, actually,
>>both of those words can be translated to "dirt", they really are not
>>very dignified names for the home planet.

>How about Sol-3?

>Of course, that's cheating.  What we need is a numbering system that's
>not so geocentric; we should chose some other center (perhaps that
>hypothetical point 10 kpc away?) from which to base our system...still
>purely arbitrary, but it would at least free us to speak in less charged
>terms about our home.

To E.E. Smith, Earth was "Tellus of Sol". Tellus is the ancient Roman goddess
of the earth (like Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, etc. for their respective
planets), while Sol is the ancient Roman god personifying the sun. A person
living on the earth is a tellurian. All these terms are accepted parts of the
English language, though they are not frequently used. If you insist on names
other than "Earth" and "Sun", these probably make more sense than anything
else.

On the topic of astronomical terminology, I stongly disapprove of the
translation of planetary place names into Latin. Mount Olympus is gone from
Mars - it's now Olympus Mons. The Sea of Tranquility on the moon no longer
exists - it's Mare (?). You would think a few thousand astronomers around
the world would be intelligent enough to learn the words for mountain and sea
in three or four languages so they could read each others' papers, rather
than force several billion people to learn Latin. I really think this decision
will come back to haunt the field of astronomy education.
                 John Roberts
                 [e-mail]

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

End of SPACE Digest V11 #313
*******************