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Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #520

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 11 : Issue 520

Today's Topics:
           Payload Status for 06/11/90 (Forwarded)
         Trees in Space? (was: Re: Lichens on Mars?)
              Satellite Pictures
                 Re: Egomania
Re: Public Perception Of Space (was Re: US/Soviet Planetary Activity)
                 unsubscribe
             Re: Ersatz Free Fall
 Soviet Union's Krystall expansion module successfully docks with Mir

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

Date: 11 Jun 90 19:00:57 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Payload Status for 06/11/90 (Forwarded)


    Daily Status/KSC Payload Management and Operations 06-11-90.


    - STS-35 ASTRO-1/BBXRT (at Pad-A) -

    Payload bay access was re-established third shift Sunday and
    BBXRT argon servicing was completed third shift today.
    Payload preps for rollback will continue on first and second
    shift today.


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

    Electrical, mechanical and fluid preps for CITE testing
    along with MVAK training continues.


    - STS-41 Ulysses (at ESA 60) -

    CITE MUE validation continues at the VPF.


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

    Rack, floor, and module staging is continuing.


    - STS-45 Atlas-1 (at O&C) -

    Pallet support brackets, cables, and plumbing will be
    installed today.


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

    Coldplate and avionics components removal is scheduled for
    today.


    - STS-47 Spacelab-J (at O&C) -

    Rack 11 staging continues.


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

    Rack 12 will be installed in its shipping container for
    transport to Germany.


    - STS-LON-3 HST M&R (at O&C) -

    MLI installation will be active today.

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

Date: 11 Jun 90 19:15:50 GMT
From: usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!bridge2!3comvax![e-mail]  (Michael McNeil)
Subject: Trees in Space? (was: Re: Lichens on Mars?)

[e-mail] (Brian or James) writes:
>    'Course, I can imagine a 'terraformed' Mars that could support
>lichen, but not us. This brings up the question of what qualifies as
>terraforming and what doesn't. There're lots of terran environments
>that support life that won't support animals like *me*. I can also
>imagine people who would consider creating a life supporting
>environment that didn't include a niche for us as worthwhile anyway.
>Better *some* life than none at all, and all that.

Good point!  But I'd suggest not terraforming Mars at all (at least
not at first), but rather that we take Freeman Dyson's suggestion
(in his essay "The World, the Flesh, and the Devil") of genetically
modifying the skin of plants so they can live in vacuum -- and also
make them able to live in Mars's atmosphere, on the surface of the
Moon, etc.  Then, we can modify ourselves and other animals and life
of Earth so that we, too, can breathe vacuum -- and we'll be all set.

Following is an excerpt from Dyson's essay regarding this subject:

}First I have to clear away a few popular misconceptions about space
}as a habitat.  It is generally considered that planets are important.
}Except for Earth, they are not.  Mars is waterless, and the others are
}for various reasons basically inhospitable to man.  It is generally
}considered that beyond the sun's family of planets there is absolute
}emptiness extending for light years until you come to another star.
}In fact it is likely that space around the solar system is populated
}by huge numbers of comets, small worlds a few miles in diameter, rich
}in water and the other chemicals essential to life.  We see one of
}these comets only when it happens to suffer a random perturbation of
}its orbit which sends it plunging close to the sun.  It seems that
}roughly one comet per year is captured into the region near the sun,
}where it eventually evaporates and disintegrates.  If we assume that
}the supply of distant comets is sufficient to sustain this process
}over the thousands of millions of years that the solar system has
}existed, then the total population of comets loosely attached to the
}sun must be numbered in the thousands of millions.  The combined
}surface area of these comets is then a thousand or ten thousand times
}that of Earth.  I conclude from these facts that comets, not planets,
}are the major potential habitat of life in space.  If it were true
}that other stars have as many comets as the sun, it then would follow
}that comets pervade our entire Galaxy.  We have no evidence either
}supporting or contradicting this hypothesis.  If true, it implies
}that our Galaxy is a much friendlier place for interstellar travelers
}than it is popularly supposed to be.  The average distance between
}habitable oases in the desert of space is not measured in light years,
}but is of the order of a light day or less.
}
}I propose to you then an optimistic view of the Galaxy an an abode of
}life.  Countless millions of comets are out there, amply supplied with
}water, carbon, and nitrogen, the basic constituents of living cells.
}We see when they fall close to the sun that they contain all the
}common elements necessary to our existence.  They lack only two
}essential requirements for human settlement, namely warmth and air.
}And now biological engineering will come to our rescue.  We shall
}learn how to grow trees on comets.
}
}To make a tree grow in airless space by the light of a distant sun is
}basically a problem of redesigning the skin of its leaves.  In every
}organism the skin is the crucial part which must be most delicately
}tailored to the demands of the environment.  The skin of a leaf in
}space must satisfy four requirements.  It must be opaque to far-
}ultraviolet radiation to protect the vital tissues from radiation
}damage.  It must be impervious to water.  It must transmit visible
}light to the organs of photosynthesis.  It must have extremely low
}emissivity for far-infrared radiation, so that it can limit loss of
}heat and keep itself from freezing.  A tree whose leaves possess such
}a skin should be able to take root and flourish upon any comet as near
}to the sun as the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn.  Farther out than
}Saturn the sunlight is too feeble to keep a simple leaf warm, but
}trees can grow at far greater distances if they provide themselves with
}compound leaves.  A compound leaf would consist of a photosynthetic
}part which is able to keep itself warm, together with a convex mirror
}part which itself remains cold but focuses concentrated sunlight upon
}the photosynthetic part.  It should be possible to program the genetic
}instructions of a tree to produce such leaves and orient them correctly
}toward the sun.  Many existing plants possess structures more
}complicated than this.
}
}Once leaves can be made to function in space, the remaining parts
}of a tree -- trunk, branches, and roots -- do not present any great
}problems.  The branches must not freeze, and therefore the bark must
}be a superior heat insulator.  The roots will penetrate and gradually
}melt the frozen interior of the comet, and the tree will build its
}substance from the materials that the roots find there.  The oxygen
}which the leaves manufacture must not be exhaled into space; instead
}it will be transported down to the roots and released into the regions
}where men will live and take their ease among the tree trunks.  One
}question still remains.  How high can a tree on a comet grow?  The
}answer is surprising.  On any celestial body whose diameter is of the
}order of ten miles or less, the force of gravity is so weak that a
}tree can grow infinitely high.  Ordinary wood is strong enough to lift
}its own weight to an arbitrary distance from the center of gravity.
}This means that from a comet of ten-mile diameter, trees can grow out
}for hundreds of miles, collecting the energy of sunlight from an area
}thousands of times as large as the area of the comet itself.  Seen
}from far away, the comet will look like a small potato sprouting an
}immense growth of stems and foliage.  When man comes to live on the
}comets, he will find himself returning to the arboreal existence of
}his ancestors.
}
}We shall bring to the comets not only trees but a great variety of
}other flora and fauna to create for ourselves an environment as
}beautiful as ever existed on Earth.  Perhaps we shall teach our
}plants to make seeds which will sail out across the ocean of space to
}propagate life upon comets still unvisited by man.  Perhaps we shall
}start a wave of life which will spread from comet to comet without end
}until we have achieved the greening of the Galaxy.  That may be an end
}or a beginning, as Bernal said, but from here it is out of sight.

Freeman Dyson, "The World, the Flesh, and the Devil," Third
J. D. Bernal Lecture, delivered at Birkbeck College, London,
May 16, 1972, reprinted as Appendix D in *Communication with
Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CETI)*, edited by Carl Sagan,
MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England, 1973.

--
Michael McNeil            [e-mail] (3comvax.UUCP)
3Com Corporation        ucbvax!hplabs!oliveb!3comvax!michaelm
Santa Clara, California        work telephone: [phone] x 5-208

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

Date: Mon, 11 Jun 90 13:11 GMT
From: "Joe Desbonnet, UCG Ireland." <[e-mail]>
Subject: Satellite Pictures

There are several NOAA pictures in GIF format which are updated every
week or so and can be obtained using anonymous FTP at VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU
directory: phil.515

Joe.

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

Date: 11 Jun 90 14:08:55 GMT
From: usc!cs.utexas.edu!ntvaxb![e-mail]  ([e-mail] (C. Irby))
Subject: Re: Egomania

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] ("Thomas Fletcher ", Hellraiser) writes:
> You people scare the hell out of me!!!!!!!!
>
> You seem to think you know all the answers to the earth and universe.  If you
> know so much about how to "terraform", forget about doing it to other planets,
> you had better start right here on good ole earth.  I do believe in scientific
> knowledge, that is what I fear from most people; their fear of discovery and
> knowledge.  But please remember that human beings have not even learned a
> zillionth of what is out there.  So please don't act like you know how the
> environment works.  'Cause no one down here knows, if they did I would like
> to think they would start correcting the damage that we have already done.
> Damage that was done by people who thought they knew what the hell they
> were doing.
>
> A word to the wise:  Get off your high horse.


Oh, damn.

And I was all ready to start work on terraforming Venus *next week*...
I guess I'll have to put it off for a few months until I really know what
I'm doing...  Well, I have a round-trip ticket to Venus City that's up for
sale... anybody  want it?

I think, instead, I'll spend the summer helping those people who were so
neglected as children that they have no imagination- or discrimination between
theory and reality...



C Irby
[e-mail]
ac08@untvax

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

Date: 11 Jun 90 20:18:45 GMT
From: usc!samsung!xylogics![e-mail]  (Jim Barnes)
Subject: Re: Public Perception Of Space (was Re: US/Soviet Planetary Activity)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (lawrence.m.geary) writes:
>NASA has their own cable channel. Who watches? You want a NETWORK show?

But how many people can actually receive the cable channel?  Only 50%
(is it higher?) of homes in the U.S. have access to cable TV.  My local
cable company doesn't provide the NASA cable channel.

  Jim Barnes ([e-mail])
----
  Jim Barnes ([e-mail])    | <This space for rent.>
                                      |

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

Date: Mon, 11 Jun 90 18:13 CDT
From: "Harlan..." <[e-mail]>
Subject: unsubscribe

unsubscribe
Please unsubscribe me from the list.

                Thanks,
                Harlan...

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

Date: 11 Jun 90 23:40:00 GMT
From: uvaarpa!murdoch!astsun9.astro.Virginia.EDU![e-mail]  (Greg Lindahl)
Subject: Re: Ersatz Free Fall

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (David Gillies) writes:
[ discussing the Vomit Comet, a KC-135 operated by NASA ]
> They take a Comet up to about 40000 feet and put it into a parabolic
>trajectory (essentially free fall) which means one can float around
>inside and get some idea of what a microgravity (aka "weightless" )
>environment is like.

Actually, they start the parabolas around 10,000 or 15,000 feet, and
get free fall going up and coming down. If you started at the top,
you'd cut the free-fall time in half.

> Globs of chunder are unpleasant things to have occupying the same
>space as oneself and,incidentally,are a major hazard in long term
>missions where they get into the air conditioning and hang around FOR
>EVER [...]

Well, on the Vomit Comet, people generally avoid tossing it in 0g
because you choke on it immediately. Instead, they find sufficient
inner strength to hold it in until gravity comes back. There is also
an ample supply of barf bags. Unfortuntely, the ones NASA supplies are
plastic and sometimes have holes, so we inflate them in advance to
test.

In space, it's a bit more of a problem.

--
"Perhaps I'm commenting a bit cynically, but I think I'm qualified to."
                                              - Dan Bernstein

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

Date: Sun, 10 Jun 90 23:15:24 -0400
From: Glenn Chapman <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail],
        [e-mail], [e-mail],
        [e-mail], [e-mail]
Subject: Soviet Union's Krystall expansion module successfully docks with Mir

      The Soviet Union successfully docked its new 19.5 tonne expansion
module, called Krystall, to their Mir space station on June 10th (some time
between 9 am and 7 pm EDT).  Launched successfully on May 31 problems occurred
on the first docking attempt on June 6th.  At that time the announcement was
that an attitude rocket had failed two hours before the docking.  Latter
analysis on June 7th suggested that instead of an engine fault, the onboard
computer had decided that the rocket was being used too much, thus shutting it
down.  This moved up the proposed docking from the rescheduled date of June
13th to June 10th.  As expected docking took place on the forward ball docking
mechanism, using the axial port.  If they follow the same pattern as Kvant 2
in Nov. '89 in about 24-48 hours they will use the robot arm on Krystall to
transfer it from the axil port to the side port of the ball opposite the Kvant
2 module.
     This addition will increase the mass of Mir itself by about 39%, to 71
Tonnes, plus another 7 Tonnes for the Soyuz TM-9 for a total of 79 Tonnes.
Actual weight may be about 10 Tonnes higher because this ignores equipment
brought up on the Progress tankers, 21 of which have visited Mir and delivered
some 48 Tonnes of supplies/equipment to the station (about half of that
fuel/water/air).  It will also increase station volume will increase from
about 192 cubic meters (6700 cu ft.) to 272 cubic meters (9600 cu. ft.)
Station electrical power will double to about 39 Kilowatts.  Krystall contains
4 furnaces, called Krater 3, Optizon 1, Zona 2 and Zona 3.  These are designed
for substantial materials processing, at a pilot plant level, and require the
huge power supply that Krystall carries with it for full operation.  More
importantly the movement of Krystall to the side of Mir will certainly reduce
the difficulty in keeping Mir properly aligned which result from the Kvant 2
module being on the side.  The previous L shaped asymmetric side mounting
means that the earth's gravity turn the station from the angle they wish to
fly it in.  This is especially important for the Kvant 1 astrophysical
observations, which require precise station pointing.  The was substantially
increased firings of the attitude rockets, increasing fuel usage.  The new T
shaped configurative should considerably reduce all these problems.
     One other point. As noted in previous postings Krystall has brought up a
ladder and other equipment to be used in the repair of the blankets that have
come lose on the Soyuz TM-9 craft.  Cosmonauts Anatoly Solyov and Alexander
Balandin will first fly Soyuz TM-9 to the front docking port, then do a space
walk to repair the craft plus probably inspect the Kvant 2 - Krystall docking.
It is probable that they will do this before Progress M-4 is launched,
sometime in the next few weeks.  That way if something else is needed for the
repair they will be able to send it up on the next supply ship.  Currently the
crew is scheduled to come down on July 29th.
     Mir has how nearly completed, successfully, the second stage of its
expansion.  Krystall is expected to make the Russians money by extensive
materials processing.  We will see if this comes true.

                                                  Glenn Chapman
                                                  MIT Lincoln Lab

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

End of SPACE Digest V11 #520
*******************