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Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #525

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 11 : Issue 525

Today's Topics:
             Re: Lichens on Mars?
           Jonathan's Space Report, Jun 12
               Solar Sail Race
     Re: Endeavour Construction & "Fixed Price" Contracts
        Looking for rare publication from 1945
         Re: Hubble Space Telescope Update - 06/09/90
                 Mount Graham

Administrivia:

    Submissions to the SPACE Digest/sci.space should be mailed to
  [e-mail].  Other mail, esp. [un]subscription notices,
  should be sent to [e-mail], or, if urgent, to
             [e-mail]

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

Date: 12 Jun 90 18:17:16 GMT
From: clyde.concordia.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!physics.utoronto.ca![e-mail]  (Christopher Neufeld)
Subject: Re: Lichens on Mars?

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (A J Cunningham) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Christopher Neufeld) writes:
>>In article <[e-mail]> "Arnold G. Gill" <[e-mail]> writes:
>>   The critical temperature of water is 374.1 degrees celcius. No liquid
>>water can exist above this temperature.
>>   Mark, am I missing something?
>
>    Yes, pressure. Liquid water can be found at temperatures above
>100 celcius if pressure is increased above atmospheric pressure.
>        Tony
>
   Look up "critical point" in your thermodynamics textbook and get back
to us.
   The surface temperature of Venus is in the neighbourhood of 500
degrees celcius.

>Tony Cunningham, Edinburgh University Computing Service. [e-mail]
>


--
 Christopher Neufeld....Just a graduate student  | "Yes, well like any open
 [e-mail]              | and shut case this one
 [e-mail]          Ad astra! | has a few loopholes."
 "Don't edit reality for the sake of simplicity" |     -Maxwell Smart

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

Date: 12 Jun 90 19:17:52 GMT
From: frooz!cfa250![e-mail]  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Jonathan's Space Report, Jun 12

Jonathan's Space Report

Jun 12 1990 (no.42)
----------------------------------------------------

Launch of STS-38/Atlantis is due for early July. Atlantis has
been transferred to the VAB for mating with the STS-38
stack.

Launch of STS-35/Columbia has been rescheduled for August 9.
The stack was rolled back to the VAB on Jun 12. The STS-41
SRB stack was rolled out to pad 39B to make room for it.

Orbital verification of the Hubble Space Telescope and the ROSAT
observatory continue.  ROSAT systems appear to be working well.  HST
continues to have some problems; the solar array masts flex several cm
when exposed to sunlight, and a guidance computer is insufficiently
shielded from radiation in the South Atlantic Anomaly.  These problems
should eventually be correctable in software.  Pointing stability is at
the milliarcsec level during night portions of the orbit.

Anatoli Solov'yov (Komandir) and Aleksandr Balandin (Bortinzhener)
continue in orbit aboard the Mir complex.  The Soyuz TM-9 transport is
currently at the station.  The Kristall module docked on Jun 10 at the
forward port after a postponement of several days due to worries about a
thruster.  Solov'yov and Balandin have been in space for 120 days.

The last Delta I rocket was launched from Canaveral on Jun 12.
The Delta model 4925 carried an Indian communications and
weather satellite, INSAT 1D, into orbit.

The second Titan 4 was launched from Canaveral on Jun 8.
Space News reports that it went into a 57 degree orbit;
if so, the payload is probably a National Reconnaissance
Office payload, either a LACROSSE radar imaging satellite
or an advanced KENNAN digital optical imaging satellite.

(c) 1990 Jonathan McDowell

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

Date: 12 Jun 90 06:47:06 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Daniel Alexander Davis)
Subject: Solar Sail Race

At Carnegie Mellon, some of us undergrad types  and maybe a professor
want to be part of the solar sail race in 1992.

I'm looking for the address of someone halping administrating the
project.  So I can find out - when we must be ready, a list of
engineering requirements.  As soon as we have a design, I'll ask you
folks to point me at sponsors.

Dan Davis (is), the Repunzel of the Mathematics Department.
Carnegie Mellon student
Disclaimer - don't look at me, I'm also a music major,
I don't have to know what I'm doing.
[e-mail](arpanet).

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

Date: 12 Jun 90 06:17:29 GMT
From: sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!zardoz.cpd.com!dhw68k!ofa123![e-mail]  (Wales Larrison)
Subject: Re: Endeavour Construction & "Fixed Price" Contracts

Regarding...

>>However, it was written into
>>the contract that for every $1.00 saved from the firm, fixed price,
>>Rockwell would be able to keep 20 cents.  Needless to say, Rockwell
>>isreally pushing themselves to produce the vehicle under budget....

>Surely a fixed price contract means that for every $1.00 saved from
>the firm, fixed price, Rockwell would be able to keep 100 cents?

>Or is `fixed price' a NASA-ism or US-Government-ism?


It's really a US Government-ism.  The way it usually works if there
is a significant cost savings (and if the company every wants to do
business with the government again), is that you submit a quarterly
actual cost and expected cost at end of program projection.  During a
firm price contract, this is not really needed, but is required by
government contracting regulation for any contract over $100,000
dollars (along with a lot of other financial disclosure data).

  If you are coming in with a lower contract cost than negotiated
(meaning a higher profit), you typically get jumped on by the
government auditors looking for evidence of concealing cost data and
falsifying cost esimates in negotiation. The immediate assumption
the government auditors is  "You are ripping off the government!".
Usually to avoid long and complex and costly auditing and
investigations, the contractors will reduce their cost to the
government, which also keeps their profits down.  There is lots
of implied pressure to do this if they ever want to get another
government contract....

  (On the other hand, if you are coming in over cost,  government
auditors will still come in and jump all over you since your cost
estimating was obviously faulty.  In that case, they cheerfully
force you out of business to get the product at the original price.)

  Unfortunately, this doesn't leave a lot of incentive for the
contractor to reduce their costs by large amounts.  While I respect
the need for government auditors to ensure  no fraud (it's my
tax money being spent on this stuff - and I don't want it wasted),
there has to be a better way to do government contracts.

   The Rockwell contract is the first of a kind for a major NASA
program, although the DoD has done a couple of similar programs in
the past.  It's the first one which has set a "Not to exceed Cap",
with incentives for coming in less.

[Looking at Mary Shafer's comment that "On the other hand, if the
contractor can make a huge profit (by discovering a new process, for
example) that's OK.", my response is that's the way it's supposed to
theoretically work - but  I've heard of a small company which bid
a DoD fixed price contract, and then did develop a new manufacturing
process which cut their costs substantially.  The government
cheerfully paid the fixed price, and then invoked the "Patents and
Inventions" clause in the standard government contract.  They
publicized this information to the industry, it was picked up by the
company's competition, and they lost all following contract work
in this area - eventually being driven out of business.  Not exactly
an incentive...  Or look at the "guaranteed competition" parts of
government contracts...]
                                        - Wales -


--- Opus-CBCS 1.12
 * Origin: Universal Electronics, Inc. (1:103/302.0)

--
uucp:     Wales Larrison
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BBS:      714 544-0934   2400/1200/300

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

Date: Tue, 12 Jun 90 11:32 EST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Looking for rare publication from 1945

    A friend of mine is looking for U.S. Naval ordinance publication
    "Rocket" from april 1945.  It is referenced in several places, but
    he can't find it.

    In addition to the local libraries, he has tried the Library of
    congress, naval architecture, pentagon lib.  NASALIB, nalal ord.
    lab china lake, national tech. info.  services &etc.  He *really*
    wants to find this.

    Please reply to me and I will arrange to have all copying/mailing
    expenses paid.

    (This is a second posting attempt.  Forgive me if you get this twice.)

    Thanks,

    Chris Eliot
    Umass/Amherst

    [e-mail]

    [phone]
    P.O. Box 371
    Leeds, Mass. 01053

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

Date: 12 Jun 90 14:20:34 GMT
From: att!cbnewsh![e-mail]  (lawrence.m.geary)
Subject: Re: Hubble Space Telescope Update - 06/09/90

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ron Baalke) writes:
#
#                      Hubble Space Telescope Update
#                             June 9, 1990
#
#     A 24 hour Health and Safety load was completed and a 74 hour Bootstrap
#Phase B part 3 (Coarse Wavefront Measurement) was begun.  Bootstrap Phase B
#part 3 is off to a good start.  Out of 15 guide star acquisition and
#reacquisitions attempts 14 acquired fine lock, 3 of those lost lock at the
#terminator but reacquired and held fine lock after ~2 minutes.

So if HST is in the middle of a long exposure, the scope will be jolted and
will vibrate for 2 minutes. Seems that the "shutter" will have to be closed
just before terminator crossing. Question: When oscillations die down 2 minutes
later, is the exposure resumed, or is the total length of an exposure limited
to periods between terminator crossings?

#that it can overwhelm the wavefront measurement.  Even with the terminator
#problem it looks as if there should be enough data to make an alignment/focus
#adjustment by June 11 at the latest.

It hadn't occurred to me before, but can HST's optics be collimated as
well as focused? Is that what's being implied here?

--

Larry Geary: [e-mail] | Dislexics of the world, untie!
         [e-mail]         |

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

Date: 12 Jun 90 23:07:17 GMT
From: unmvax!nmt.edu![e-mail]  (John Shipman)
Subject: Mount Graham

Why do these observatories have to be built on Mt. Graham?
Is this the only decent telescope site left in North
America?

I can think of at least two alternatives: the Sacramento
range, near Cloudcroft, NM; and the Magdalena range, near
Socorro, NM.  Both sites came off very well in site surveys
(better than Mount Graham, I heard; does anyone have the
facts?).  Neither range is home to endangered species, so
far as I know.  The Sacramentos are the site of the
excellent Sunspot observatory, and there are already two
observatories on South Baldy in the Magdalenas, with room
for a lot more.  Unlike Mt. Graham, neither of these sites
is likely to have any problem with light pollution for the
next hundred years.  Socorro is already a center for
world-class radio astronomy (the VLA and VLBA); why not
optical astronomy as well?

I am both an astronomer and a naturalist.  The reason I am
on the side of the squirrels in the Mount Graham controversy
is very simple.  You can put telescopes in lots of places,
but extinction is forever.
--
John Shipman/Zoological Data Processing/Socorro, NM/[e-mail]
``Let's go outside and commiserate with nature.''  --Dave Farber

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End of SPACE Digest V11 #525
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