Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT_ZIP/spacedig/V13_1/V13_128.ZIP/V13_128

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Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #128

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 13 : Issue 128

Today's Topics:
             Acronyms periodical posting
               Whatever Happened To...
           1991 Princeton Space Forum (Revision 3)
               RE: Black holes
              Re: Soviet Shuttle
           Re: space news from Dec 17 AW&ST

Administrivia:

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

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Date: 2 Feb 91 00:18:05 GMT
From: bbn.com!nic!kira!emily![e-mail]  (Garrett Wollman)
Organization: University of Vermont - EMBA Computing Facility
Subject: Acronyms periodical posting
Sender: [e-mail]
To: [e-mail]

Having received nothing but positive comments to my proposal, I would
liike to officially announce that I will be creating a monthly posting
of "Acronyms Expanded for New (and Not-so-new) Readers of sci.space."
I plan on spending some of my non-abundant free time in the next few
weeks creating such a file, with the target date for first posting
being around 15 February or so.

I would like to ask all readers who know of good sources of acronym
material (aside from the SPACE archives), or who have acronyms that
they'd like to see expanded, to mail me with that information!  Please
send your replies to [e-mail].  Please also include the
header field
Keywords: acronyms
in your messages; this will allow my message-processing program to
automatically file messages in an appropriate location.

-GAWollman


Garrett A. Wollman - [e-mail]

Disclaimer:  I'm not even sure this represents *my* opinion, never
mind UVM's, EMBA's, EMBA-CF's, or indeed anyone else's.

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Date: 3 Feb 91 06:07:52 GMT
From: crash![e-mail]  (Dan Gookin)
Subject: Whatever Happened To...
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To: [e-mail]

The Soviet shuttle--the one that looked so strikingly familiar?
I remember them making a BIG DEAL about it. But all I recall is
that the Soviet Shuttle went up and landed, unmanned, and that
was that.

If that's the case, why did the Soviets make it? Did they decide
they didn't need a shuttle? If so, why build one?

Just curious.

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

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Date: 2 Feb 91 20:06:11 GMT
From: phoenix![e-mail]  (Marc Wayne Mcconley)
Organization: Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
Subject: 1991 Princeton Space Forum (Revision 3)
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                        MOON, MARS, AND BEYOND
Top Space Experts to Explore America's Future in Space at Public Forum

Princeton, NJ - On February 11, 1991, six of the nation's leading
authorities on space will participate in an innovative public forum
entitled "Moon, Mars, and Beyond" to discuss the policy options now
being considered by the Bush administration for America's space program.
The forum will foster interaction among these experts and the public and
will provide a non-technical perspective on strategies for the
exploration and settlement of the solar system.

Participants include the current Deputy Administrator of NASA,
and an entrepreneur whose private company launches commercial payloads
into orbit.  (A complete list of speakers appears below.)

"Moon, Mars, and Beyond" begins at 7:30 pm on Monday, February 11, 1991,
in Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall, Princeton University.
Admission is $6 to individuals not affiliated with Princeton University.
Tickets may be purchased through the Richardson Auditorium Box Office by
phone [phone]) with VISA or MasterCard only.   The Box Office adds
a $1 service charge to the price of each ticket for phone orders.
Tickets may also be purchased in person at the Box Office with cash,
check, or credit card.  The Box Office is open from 4 to 6 pm, Monday
through Friday, and beginning at 4 pm on the day of the forum.

There will be a banquet prior to the forum, at 5:00 pm on February 11 in
the Senior Room of the Nassau Inn at Palmer Square, on Nassau Street in
Princeton.  Tickets to the banquet are $35/plate.  To order banquet
tickets send a check or money order, payable to Princeton Planetary
Society, for $35 per ticket to:  Princeton Planetary Society, 315 West
College, Princeton University, Princeton  NJ  08544.  For more
information, contact Audrey Robinson at 609-258-7947.

The forum is sponsored by the Princeton Planetary Society, a student-run
chapter of the National Space Society.  "Moon, Mars, and Beyond" is the
Third Annual Princeton Space Forum.  The first two forums each attracted
500 people and widespread media coverage.

--
Marc W. McConley
Vice President / President-Elect, Princeton Planetary Society
Reply-To:  [e-mail]  ||  [phone]

=====================================================================
The following is a complete list of speakers:

JOHN BAHCALL is Professor of Astrophysics in the School of Natural
Science at  the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.  He is
President of the American Astronomical Society and Chairman of the
National Academy of Sciences Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Committee
for the 1990s.   At present Bahcall is Principal Investigator on the
Hubble Space Telescope Key Project for Quasar Absorption Lines.  Bahcall
works on galaxy models, dark matter, neutron stars, quasars, and solar
neutrinos.

JAMES C BENNETT is currently the Corporate Vice President of American
Rocket Company, the private launch company which developed the
non-explosive hybrid rocket engine.  He was also a co-founder of Space
Enterprise Consultants, the first consulting firm devoted entirely to
commercial space development, and co-founder of Arc Technologies, Inc.,
an early private space-launch venture.  Bennett is a member of the
Legislative Committee of the National Space Society.

LORI B GARVER is Executive Director of the National Space Society, a
public-interest space support organization.  She is a founder of
Spacecause, a national lobbying group formed in 1987 to support the
space program, and is currently on its Board of Directors.  Garver is a
co-chair of the education committee for the International Astronautical
Federation and is a member of the Board of Directors of Women in
Aerospace, a professional organization created to honor outstanding
women in the space field.  She will moderate the panel discussion.

LINDA HULL STRINE is the Deputy Associate Director for Program Affairs
in the Office of Commercial Space Transportation at the U.S. Department
of Transportation.  The Program Affairs division facilitates development
of the U.S. commercial space transportation industry by providing
technical information to the space community and to other Federal
agencies.  Her division also manages the Commercial Space Transportation
Advisory Committee which advises the Secretary of Transportation.
Strine is currently serving her second year as President of Women in
Aerospace.

J R THOMPSON, JR became Deputy Administrator of NASA in 1989, following
33 months as head of the Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL.
Druing that period, the Marshall Center oversaw the redesign and testing
of the Space Shuttle's critical solid rocket boosters.  Before becoming
director at Marshall, Thompson served 3 years as deputy director for
technical operations at Princeton's Plasma Physics Laboratory.  In 1986
he served as the vice chairman of the NASA task force inquiring into the
cause of the Space Shuttle Challenger accident.  Previously, Thompson
spent 20 years with NASA at Marshall in various positions, where he was
responsible for the development and operation of the most advanced
liquid propulsion rocket engine ever created.  Thompson will deliver the
keynote address at the forum.

ROBERT G TORRICELLI (D-NJ, 9th district) is serving his fifth term in
the House of Representatives.  He is chairman of the Transportation,
Aviation, and Materials Subcommittee of the Committee on Science, Space,
and Technology.  Torricelli sponsored the legislation enacted to build a
new orbiter following the destruction of the Challenger and also wrote
legislation to promote multinational cooperation in the exploration of
Mars.

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

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X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 5247;andrew.cmu.edu;Todd L. Masco
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Date: Sun, 03 Feb 91 21:36:03 CET
From: GUNNAR RADONS <[e-mail]>
Subject: RE: Black holes
To: Sapce digest <[e-mail]>

RE: black holes question from [e-mail]
Dear Mathew,

I read your note in Space Digest, which reached me just today.
I am not a specialist on relativity, but as I remember from some
lecture on relativity there are two answers to your question:

1) mathematically spoken, you are on curved space and the collapse
   even curves it's surrounding more and more, so  -as I remember -
   the collapse just never ends. You should check with a reader on
   general or special relativity about hte mathematic point of it.

2) Technically, a black hole is 'created' once the gravitational pull
   of the collapsing star equals the kinetic energy of the photon.
   Even with the photons having restmass=0, they have a momentum
   which might be calculated from the standard equation of relativistic
   energy. (You dont even to go that far: Ephot= h*c must be overcome
   by gravitation: Epot= G*M/R in a crude approximation, but the
   relativistic formulation should be more exact). Using the relat.
   formulation and solving for R gives something similar to
   R= sqr(G*M/c) (just don't remember it) which is called the
   Schwarzschild-Radius.
   Once the collapsar is smaller then this radius, it's called a black
   hole.
   But even then there are QM effects, which make the bh radiate
   like for example the vacuum polarisation. Effects like that schould
   be mentioned in the book of Hawkins.

Thank you very much
Gunnar Radons, [e-mail]

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Date: Sun, 3 Feb 91 15:17:24 EST
From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology
    formerly National Bureau of Standards
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are those of the sender
    and do not reflect NIST policy or agreement.
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Soviet Shuttle


>From: [e-mail] (Dan Gookin)
>Subject: Whatever Happened To...
>Date: 3 Feb 91 06:07:52 GMT

>The Soviet shuttle--the one that looked so strikingly familiar?
>I remember them making a BIG DEAL about it. But all I recall is
>that the Soviet Shuttle went up and landed, unmanned, and that
>was that.

>If that's the case, why did the Soviets make it? Did they decide
>they didn't need a shuttle? If so, why build one?

>Just curious.

The single unmanned Soviet shuttle flight had considerable publicity
value, though it didn't quite manage to launch before the first US
Shuttle flight after Challenger. The original Buran orbiter has been
retired from service. There *may* still be an ongoing effort to construct
a new orbiter, but there is considerable doubt as to whether they will
ever bother to launch it. With a healthy fleet of unmanned launchers,
the only solid application for their shuttle would be to retrieve large
payloads from orbit, and there doesn't seem to be much current interest
in that.

There is also cause for concern over Energia (or Energiya, as the US
contractor calls it). Despite many initial reports on the net about
its great cost saving through mass production, I believe only two have
been launched. (Anybody know how many are sitting around on the ground?)
There are reports of a new smaller version, which may see more use.
          John Roberts
          [e-mail]

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Date: 3 Feb 91 00:02:41 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi![e-mail]  (Michael V. Kent)
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY
Subject: Re: space news from Dec 17 AW&ST
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>I would rather think that in about 10 years we'll be playing the same
>catch-up games with the Japanese.  Their government (and, more importantly,
>industry) seems to be taking space industrialization very seriously.  See
>the August 13 issue of AW&ST.


     I know I sometimes feel this way too -- usually after Congressional
budget hearings -- but don't count American industry out yet.  Whether
the Japanese can outperform the Americans remains to be seen.  The market
is beginning to take effect  (perhaps the great benefit of the Challenger
disaster).  McDonnell Douglas, OSC/Hercules, Martin Marietta, and General
Dyanamics have moved into the launch business after commercial payloads
were removed from the Space Shuttle manifest.  Motorola is seriously
undertaking a 77 satellite constellation for mobile communication.  The
NASP contractors are putting up 50% in the effort to gain the technology
necessary to remain competitive in the 21st century.
     Add to this the relavtive infancy of the Japanese aerospace industry.
They have yet to give the American/European aircraft industry a run for
their money.  Spacecraft manufacture is at least an order of magnitude
more difficult than aircraft manufacture.  For the next 15 years, at least,
America's greatest competition is space will be 1) Soviet Union and
2) the European Community.  And to see American plans for SEI, check
out the December 1990 issue of Ad Astra.
     As for the Japanese, just give them more time.

Michael Kent                                       [e-mail]

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End of SPACE Digest V13 #128
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