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Subject: SPACE Digest V12 #70

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 12 : Issue 70

Today's Topics:
                Re: Red Shift
          Re: Wall Street Journal column (115 lines)
           docking standards, lack thereof
  Re: NASA as entertainment ( was - Re: Oppose manned Mars expl... )
                   Re: Grim
         Re: Nick Szabo's lobbying on the net
               UFO notes group
            Re: NASA's lobbying on the net
               NASA Management

Administrivia:

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

Date: 10 Jul 90 15:50:00 GMT
From: usc!cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!tmsoft!masnet!f906.n250.z1.fidonet.org![e-mail]  (maury markowitz)
Subject: Re: Red Shift


  A lot of people have tried to rescue the idea of a non-expanding
universe over the last little while, and most do so due to conflicting
belief systems.  Recently, a speaker from the NRC (here in Canada) came to
our U and gave a talk on the subject.  It took me about 30 minutes to
completely ruin his line of arguement, all I did was run over to the
library and pull out KTW's "Gravitation" (a.k.a. "The Bible", "The Book"
etc...).
 a> My question is this: Has anyone else heard anything similar to this??
 a> Could
 a> there be a type of matter in space (black matter) that causes the red
 a> shift?
 a> Is the universe expanding? Does the universe have boundaries?

  The shole idea is called "tired light". It goes something like this...
light from the stars slowly loose energy on the}i way to us due to an
interesting collision with interstellar matter.  No one's ever seen this
type of collsion, but that's not enough to stop the arguement, for reasons
I'll point out later.  Thus, light from a long way away would suffer more
collisions, and would thus have a higher red-shift... therfore the
universe isn't expanding, we see the red-shift due to these collisions.
  Now, the speaker at my school made two arguements that were mutually
exclusive.  For one, he said that this sytem can explain the interesting
red/blue shift measured at the sun's limbs which doesn't seem to work, but
I don't know too much about this, if anyone else does, please post.  He
also said that the result of this collision would give off a very low
energy photon to make up the energy.
  I'm well known in the department for my big mouth, and only 3 of us in
the croud of about 25 saw the problem.  My question was that IRAS has red
shifts measured for objects that are partially obscured by massive dusk
clowds.  I was going on memory from a review article though, so I'm not
really sure.  An alternate for is that all the galactic halo clusters are
homogeneous in red shift around us (but he was gone by the time I saw this
one).  Think about it, a cluster on the far side of the galaxy would go
though a LOT more dust than one sitting right above us, out of the plane.
His system would require that the ones on the far side be heavily shifted,
but they arn't.  His reply was that there isn't enough dust.  Sorry, but
there's a lot more dust there than between us and Andromeda!  And yet, he
said that there's enough dust between the sun and us to see this
effect!?!? WHAT???
  Actually, Zeldovich wrote a paper on it back in the 60's which cut it up
from a theoretical side.  Consider two photns from the same source, one
that undergoes 100000 collisions, and another that undergoes 100001
collisions.  The one that suffered the one extra will be red shifted more.
 If you then consider ALL the photons from any particular line in a star's
spectra, you would see that some suffered NO red shift, some suffered a
small amount, and a few that suffered a lot.  The result would be that the
spectra lines would be nice poisson curves in intesity, spead out widely.
Sorry, we don't see this.
  The other possibility is that the light undergoes a sideways
displacement (if the other photon goes out to the sides, not striaght to
the front of back) and the result would be that the stars would look like
large diffuse disks, even to the eye!  Sorry, we don't see that either.
The speaker at my school mentioned Zeldovich and said his paper didn't
apply, but he only quoted the FIRST analisys (the one I gave second,
sorry!)!  He completely neglected the s~recond which SPECIFICALLY applied
to the case he was talking about!
  No, the universe seems to be expanding.  No models that hold up have
been seen yet that can seriously detract from this, regardless of what
Tifft says!

                                                       Maury

p.s.  Sorry, I forgot.  The universe has no edge.  Get "Cosmic Horizons"
by Wagoner and Goldsmith.  It's a great intro book that I highly recommend

--- Maximus-CBCS v1.00
 * Origin: The Frisch Tank, Newmarket, Ontario, CANADA (1:250/906)

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

Date: 15 Jul 90 02:14:41 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Lawrence Curcio)
Subject: Re: Wall Street Journal column (115 lines)

You were expecting a flame!? The article wasn't nearly sarcastic enough.
Having worked for a NASA contractor, I'm here to tell you that this group
misses the point entirely. The keyword in the acronym isn't, "Space," at
all. It's, "administration". They haven't the foggiest idea of how to
conquer outer space; they just want to administer it.

BTW, I quit my job with the contractor after four months. Why? I wrote
a CLIST to do my job for me. Every day I'd come in, check the printout,
check to see that the job re-submitted itself, and then complain to
my boss that I needed something to do. His reaction? I got an assistant!

This is the kind of crap NASA can tolerate, but I sure can't. Any .GOV folks
out there? I'd be HAPPY to testify!

-Larry Curcio

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

Date: 15 Jul 90 00:03:50 GMT
From: swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: docking standards, lack thereof

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (maury markowitz) writes:
>p.s. Does anyone know if the USSR has retrofitted the capsules with the
>standard docking adapter?

There is no standard docking adapter.

(The "standard" one invented for Apollo-Soyuz was standard for that one
mission, and neither the US nor the USSR has paid any attention to it
since.)
--
NFS:  all the nice semantics of MSDOS, | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
and its performance and security too.  |  [e-mail]   utzoo!henry

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

Date: 15 Jul 90 01:52:32 GMT
From: uokmax![e-mail]  (Robert W Murphree)
Subject: Re: NASA as entertainment ( was - Re: Oppose manned Mars expl... )

My favorite idea about manned space is that since much of the impulse to see
manned space programs is related to star wars (the gross for the movie is
about the same as a shuttle launch) we should combine the best of both worlds
and give Steven Spielberg one free shuttle launch per year and all the IMAX
film he can carry.  Finally, there are plenty of old sci-fi plots that could
be shot in orbit-the marooned astronauts with limited air supply, etc.

I think its misleading to say we anti-manned folks are either/or.  I'm
perfectly willing to keep the manned program as long as its 20% of the
budget instead of 80%.  After all, international prestige has its uses
and who's to say its not worthwhile.  BUT, you don't need to waste all those resources -you can have prestige-just have 1-2 manned misions a year instead of
8-9.  The problem with the international manned mars mission (the political
problem) is related to the reality that manned space yields international prestige.  The people at the top do not fund these projects for science-they fund them to win THE GAME (the game of my nation is better than your nation)  The object of the game is to look BETTER than the other guys not to have a love fest.
World peace is the last thing the guys at the state department want.  They want
to WIN.

kkksll

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

Date: 13 Jul 90 14:29:00 GMT
From: spock![e-mail]  (Tom Gray)
Subject: Re: Grim

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Derek Buzasi) writes:
>
>> A car with a slight misadjustment of the ignition system is a poor analogy
>> to the HST. After all, the HST is only within about 10% of spec -- in perfect
>> analogy to the car I describe. If HST put 90% of the light into a 0.1 arc sec
>> circle (which is about 90% of specified performance), that would match your
>> analogy. However, instead it puts only 10% of the light into that circle --
>> which matches mine.
>>
>
>True, but this does not mean that only 10% of the planned science can be done.
>This rules out many progams and reduces the efficiency of many but there
>is still a lot to be done.  Maybe that is not sufficient to justify
>HST, but I don't want to argue that at this point. Still, 50% of the projects
>is not the same as 10%.
>

The metric which is used to measure the usefulness of Hubble should include the
importance of each project. Importance could be rated as the potentila to make
a measurement which could change the current astronomical models. If the now
unfeasible projects contain the important projects - then the usefulness of
Hubble is open to question.

The US government and people spent a great deal of money to create the HST.
Did they get their money's worth? If the HST can do science which is important
and can't be done elsewhere (in space and time) then they did. If it can't then
they didn't.

Placing an instrument with such a major defect in service was an engineering
fiasco. Accepting this fiasco will only make the US astronomical program the
less. The design objectives of the project were not met. The responsibilty
should be placed on the engineers who made the mistakes. It should not
be allowed to cloud the future of astronomical research - and funding.

Accepting mediocrity will make mediocrity acceptable. Coming from Canada,
I know what this means.


------------------------------------------------------------------
Tom Gray  Mitel has no responsibility for the views epressed in this
          message



-

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

Date: 13 Jul 90 17:58:06 GMT
From: usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!daver!tscs!tct![e-mail]  (Chip Salzenberg)
Subject: Re: Nick Szabo's lobbying on the net

According to [e-mail] (Nicholas J. Szabo):
>Imagine for a second that my company dominated the comp.* groups like NASA
>dominates sci.space.

NASA dominates sci.space only in Mr. Szabo's fevered imagination.

>Look, I am not trying to be a grinch here, I just want to point out
>that this is an unfair situation for other government agencies and
>private companies [...]

Usenet access has nothing to do with "fairness," and that's as it
should be.  Anarchy isn't about fairness, it's about what each site
wants to do.  And my sites wants to carry articles from NASA,
self-styled net.ethicists notwithstanding.

All of you NASA employees reading this:  Please don't leave.  Most of
us appreciate your thoughtful and informative articles.
--
Chip Salzenberg at ComDev/TCT     <[e-mail]>, <uunet!ateng!tct!chip>

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

Date: 14 Jul 90 10:00:00 CDT
From: "23BMSDO" <[e-mail]>
Subject: UFO notes group
To: "space" <[e-mail]>


  There is a pretty active group located at the following address:
     [e-mail]
  I use the following addressing to get there from my system:
     [e-mail]
  The admin guy is Mike Corbin
  Enjoy,
    David Winters

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

Date: 14 Jul 90 08:23:47 GMT
From: usc!hacgate!aic![e-mail]  (Brian Yamauchi)
Subject: Re: NASA's lobbying on the net

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Nicholas J. Szabo) writes:
>
>(3) My views are often in the majority, not minority in this forum.

That's the _point_.  In an earlier post you claimed that posts from
NASA sites were dominating this group.  In reality, I would guess that
the NASA critics outnumber the NASA supporters.

Don't get me wrong -- the critics raise some good points, but it
hardly seems fair to criticize an organization and then not allow the
members of that organization to express their opinions.

If you want to get upset about something, get upset about the fact
that Wednesday's Nightline broadcast on NASA's problems didn't mention
the private space industry even once.  One would have thought they
could have invited someone from OSC or Amroc to participate in the
dialogue -- instead we got a NASA administrator, a Newsweek writer, and
Tipper's husband.

At least on the net, the advocates of free enterprise are certainly in
no danger of being silenced.

>(4) There is a very good reason for the laws, regulations and ethics
>    preventing a government agency from using its equipment for
>    political action.

The act of NASA employees expressing their personal opinions hardly
constitutes political action.  Surprisingly enough, Usenet is not a
major focus of political power in the modern world.

Would you be equally opposed to a NASA employee posting an article
critical of NASA?

>(5) There is a large audience not able to participate in this discussion
>    because they lack taxpayer-funded equipment.  Some people like myself
>    are fortunate enough to have access to private equipment and we need
>    to speak up for the others.

Reality check here.  We have to prevent NASA employees from posting
pro-NASA opinions to protect the people who can't read Usenet?

Just to clarify, I have no problem with anti-NASA postings, but I do
want to hear _all_ sides of the issue -- from faithful NASA supporters
to radical free market purists, and everywhere in-between.

______________________________________________________________________________

Brian Yamauchi                          Hughes Research Laboratories
[e-mail]                Artificial Intelligence Center
______________________________________________________________________________

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

Date: 13 Jul 90 13:44:48 GMT
From: van-bc!rsoft!mindlink![e-mail]  (Guy Saffold)
Subject: NASA Management

With all the discussion of NASA management of the HST project,
on the net, it is of some interest to read some statements on this
subject *from NASA itself* from 1982,83  (Source: The Space Telescope,
by David Ghitelman).

NASA administrator James Beggs became sufficiently alarmed at HST
delays and problems that he initiated a thorough review of the HST
program that drew upon the expertise of independent evaluators.

The review report found that management responsibility was divided
between the Marshall and Goddard Centers and characterized the working
relationship between these two NASA arms as "deplorable."  Problems at
Lockheed and Perkin Elmer required "immediate attention."  One NASA
administrator said, "Nobody had a tight grip on the whole project or,
for that matter, any of its parts."

In 1983 Beggs told the House Committee on Space Science that NASA
itself deserved much of the blame because it had become excessively
"success oriented," leaving no room in its budgets for spare parts,
testing, and backup design.   In addition, NASA had introduced an
"unusual" management structure.  It seems that rivalry and
ill-feeling between Goddard and Marshall had reached the point
where technical problems were sometimes glossed over rather than
managed properly.

The report also noted that management at Perkin Elmer had been too
loose and stricter supervision was urgently required.  Beggs
apparently felt there was merit in these conclusions because he
ordered a thorough reworking of the management structure.

HST's early development took place in this environment of confusion.
By the time of the major management overhaul the design and production
of the mirrors and related assemblies had already taken place.

Since these remarks come from NASA's own senior management and studies
they cannot easily be dismissed as "NASA bashing".  The comments
give strong plausibility to the claims that much of HST's ills are
the result of sloppy management, over confidence, and internecine
quarrels at NASA -- a pattern that seems to be evidenced in other
failures and blunders that have originated at the agency.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Guy Saffold  [e-mail]   Fax [phone]    Ph. 604-888-7511

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

End of SPACE Digest V12 #70
*******************