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Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #305

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 13 : Issue 305

Today's Topics:
      STS-1 10th Anniversary Press Briefing (Forwarded)
             space news from Feb 11 AW&ST
          Space Science Sampler Images with a grid?
       Re: MAJOR SOLAR FLARE ALERT (weather reactions?)
              Inter-probe communication
                Re: "Follies"
           Shuttle Status for 03/20/91 (Forwarded)
Re: First Liquid-Fueled Rocket Launching by Goddard - 65th Anniversary

Administrivia:

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

Date: 21 Mar 91 17:02:00 GMT
From: agate!bionet!uwm.edu!wuarchive!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Ron Baalke)
Subject: STS-1 10th Anniversary Press Briefing (Forwarded)

Ed Campion
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                              March 21, 1991
(Phone:  [phone])

N91-22

STS-1 10TH ANNIVERSARY PRESS BRIEFING SET


        In connection with the upcoming 10th anniversary of the first Space
Shuttle launch, a press briefing with Shuttle Director Robert Crippen, who
served as pilot for the flight, will be held on Monday, March 25.  The
briefing will be held at NASA Headquarters, 400 Maryland Ave., S.W., Wash.,
D.C., in the 6th floor auditorium.

        The briefing will begin at 11 a.m. EST and will be carried on NASA
Select TV.  Videotape highlights of the STS-1 mission, which was flown
April 12-14, 1981, will be shown as part of the briefing.  NASA Select TV is
available on Satcom F-2R, Transponder 13, located at 72 degrees west longitude;
frequency 3960.0 MHz, audio 6.8 MHz.

      ___    _____     ___
     /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|      Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
     | | | |  __ \ /| | | |      Jet Propulsion Lab |
  ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |___   M/S 301-355        | Change is constant.
 /___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /|  Pasadena, CA 91109 |
 |_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                      |

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

Date: 20 Mar 91 07:56:53 GMT
From: magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Feb 11 AW&ST

USAF contracts for two more DSP missile-warning satellites, plus an option
on a third.

Inmarsat expects to pick a launcher for the Inmarsat 3 series around the
end of this year.  Of note is that Proton is considered a serious bidder.

The Salyut-7-Cosmos-1686 complex reentered over Argentina mid-morning
Feb 7.  Numerous reports from witnesses, no injuries or serious damage
known.

Lt.Gen. Horner, air commander in the Gulf, says lessons learned so far
include the need for much better tactical intelligence and a wide-area
tactical-ballistic-missile defense system.  He says there is a
"big BDA [bomb damage assessment] flap" on in the Pentagon, which
"would indicate we may have been overly entranced with some forms of
intelligence collection".  [Translation:  a handful of strategic spy
satellites is not a very good intelligence system for tactical forces
that need lots of selective coverage quickly.]  He says that while Scud
is pretty useless militarily, everyone underestimated its political
impact, and only the success of Patriot controlled the political damage.
What's more, even so the allied forces were lucky:  Patriot was adequate
as an anti-Scud weapon only because the significant Scud targets were
so concentrated.  An anti-TBM system capable of covering large areas
is conspicuously lacking.

OSC/Hercules prepares for a major Pegasus sales pitch in Japan and other
Pacific-rim nations, including forming a marketing alliance with Okura
& Co. Ltd in Tokyo.

The two major manufacturers of hand-held civilian Navstar receivers are
running flat out, working two and three shifts and selling everything
they can build.  The military is ordering huge numbers, and the companies
have also had many orders from individual units, soldiers, and soldiers'
relatives ("...soldiers' mothers have bought units and shipped them to
their sons in the gulf").  The combination of nearly-featureless desert,
often-inaccurate maps, and frequent night operations has produced a
horrendous navigation problem; Navstar receivers are the only available
solution.  The Navstar controllers have turned off "selective availability"
[translation:  deliberately degrading the civilian Navstar signals] to make
the civilian receivers as accurate as possible.

DoD FY92-93 budget kills SDI's Boost Surveillance and Tracking Satellite
system in favor of upgrading the existing DSP warning satellites, and
"restructures" the Milstar strategic comsat to "emphasize tactical
requirements".  A major increase in SDI funding is sought, but nobody
believes it will happen.  What probably will happen, though, is approval
for requests for considerably more money for tactical missile defence.
Antisatellite funding is cut heavily, indicating it has low priority.

NASA FY92 budget calls for 13.6% increase, a start on a new heavylift
booster, a start on a Delta-sized "Lifesat" recoverable life-sciences
research satellite for first launch in 1996, only slight growth in space
station funding, a substantial effort in Moon/Mars technology development,
stable funding for NASP, and doubling of the Mission To Planet Earth budget
[if you thought the shuttle ate everyone's lunch, wait until *this* puppy
sinks its fangs into the planetary-exploration budget].
--
"[Some people] positively *wish* to     | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
believe ill of the modern world."-R.Peto|  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 21 Mar 91 03:36:38 GMT
From: ubc-cs!van-bc!rsoft!mindlink![e-mail]  (Harvey Taylor)
Subject: Space Science Sampler Images with a grid?


    I have been looking at some of the Space Science Sampler CDs
 and I notice that the images have a regular grid of dots over
 the images. Does anybody know how these were created? ie are
 they part of the optical system or do they have a digital
 signature? I want to add a function to remove this grid, btw.
    -het

       "Ah, but you do not understand. To be on the wire is life.
        And the rest is waiting."   Papa Wallenda

      Harvey Taylor      Meta Media Productions
      uunet!van-bc!rsoft!mindlink!Harvey_Taylor
               [e-mail]

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

Date: 23 Mar 91 23:17:58 GMT
From: magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: MAJOR SOLAR FLARE ALERT (weather reactions?)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Joe Cain) writes:
>... This is reminiscent of Alfred
>Wegner's problem in convincing geologists even up to 1950 that maybe
>South America did indeed split from Africa. He was unable to come up
>with any proof so a good idea stagnated for several decades while the
>geologists kept looking under their dimly lit lamposts.

Actually, this approaches the status of scientific urban legend.  People
overlook a few complications in this simple tale:

1. Although US geologists did ignore Wegener pretty thoroughly, European
    geologists did not.

2. At least one aspect of Wegener's theory -- his proposed mechanism --
    was provably unworkable.  (He simply got that part wrong.)

3. Extraordinary theories require extraordinary evidence, and for a long
    time there was precious little for continental drift.  It did
    explain certain things better than older theories, but it simply
    did not make much in the way of testable predictions at the time.
    When it became possible to test it, it was tested, the results
    came out in favor, and almost all geologists promptly adopted it.

>    With the increase of data from satellites and the supposed
>interest in global climate changes, has there been any recent action
>on trying to see what relations might now be found?

Not that I'm aware of.  Such studies are notoriously difficult to do
well.  There is a fundamental problem in that, as one wag put it, "if
you torture the data long enough, it will confess".  You can *always*
find some sort of relationship, even in purely random numbers, if you
look long enough and hard enough.  Making testable predictions, and
testing them, is what makes it science; just finding relationships is
not enough.  Doing iron-clad tests on predictions of weather behavior
takes a long time and is hard.
--
"[Some people] positively *wish* to     | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
believe ill of the modern world."-R.Peto|  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 24 Mar 91 23:23:26 GMT
From: ogicse!unicorn![e-mail]  (Perry Pederson)
Subject: Inter-probe communication


    I was telling my girlfriend's 11-year old cousin about the
probes that exist in outer space; Magellan, the Voyagers, and
Gallileo.  He asked me a question I couldn't answer: If something
'went wrong' and a probe lost communications from Earth, could one
spacecraft be given commands from Earth to redirect its radio dish and
relay/forward commands to another probe that couldn't receive commands
from Earth?

    Just curious,

Perry Pederson
[e-mail]

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

Date: 22 Mar 91 16:37:17 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!news.nd.edu!mentor.cc.purdue.edu!mace.cc.purdue.edu![e-mail]  (Perry G Ramsey)
Subject: Re: "Follies"

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Bob Pendleton) writes:
> In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Perry G Ramsey) writes:
>
> > Salt Lake City quickly could become self
> > supporting; Luna City won't cut its  umbilical for years.
>
> According to my grandfather, whose names is enscribed on the sons of
> the pioneers monument, Salt Lake City was never self supporting. If it
> hadn't been for the '49ers coming through 2 years after the first
> pioneers founded Salt Lake City, the Utah colonists never would have
> survived.

You guys tell all these sad tales to the Indians who lived in the
Salt Lake area or Massachusetts for many years before the Europeans
dropped in and showed them how to exist.

There's fresh water.  There (was) abundant wild game.  There are
a variety of edible plants, if you know which are which.
Even the deepest desert of southern California supported human
existence before the Europeans dammed the creeks and  destroyed the
wildlife.  Even the most hostile desert on earth is infinitely
more hospitable than the moon.

That doesn't say that lunar colonization is impossible.  It does say
that you aren't going to do it on the cheap, as the original post
claimed.  An very well developed transportation infrastructure is essential
if you are going to keep the colonists supplied with the basic
necessities of life.  You can't eat moon rocks, no matter how many
important minerals they might contain.

--
Perry G. Ramsey           Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
[e-mail]    Purdue University, W. Lafayette, IN USA
[e-mail]   ***  IMAGINE YOUR LOGO HERE  ******
    Ten thousand low-lifes a day read this space.

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

Date: 20 Mar 91 17:12:16 GMT
From: pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Ron Baalke)
Subject: Shuttle Status for 03/20/91 (Forwarded)


          KSC SHUTTLE STATUS REPORT - WEDNESDAY, MAR. 20, 1991 - 10  a.m.

             STS-37/GAMMA RAY OBSERVATORY - ATLANTIS (OV 104) - PAD 39-B
                                   LAUNCH - APRIL

          WORK IN PROGRESS:
          - Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test with T-0 at 11 a.m.
          - Preparations for the interface verification tests  between  the
          orbiter and the Gamma Ray Observatory payload.
          - Inspections of orbiter components in the aft compartment due to
          the water intrusion.
          -  Preparations  for  loading hypergolic propellants into the or-
          biter.

          WORK COMPLETED:
          - Mating the Orbiter Midbody Umbilical Unit.
          - Start of the countdown test.
          - Flight crew sharp edge inspection of the Gamma Ray Observatory.

          WORK SCHEDULED:
          - Gamma Ray interface test tomorrow.
          - Loading hypergolic propellants into the orbiter this weekend.
          - Launch Readiness Review March 21.
          - Flight Readiness Review March 26-27.

                     STS-39/DoD - DISCOVERY (OV 103) - OPF BAY 2
                           LAUNCH - LATE APRIL, EARLY MAY

          WORK IN PROGRESS:
          - Rigging of the right hand external tank door hinge housings and
          cycling of the doors to retest.
          - Thermal protection system operations.

          WORK SCHEDULED:
          - Roll to the Vehicle Assembly Building early next week.

           STS-40/SPACELAB LIFE SCIENCES 1 - COLUMBIA (OV 102) - OPF BAY 1
                                    LAUNCH - MAY

          WORK IN PROGRESS:
          - Testing connections for the payload.
          - Installation of space shuttle main engine no. 2.
          - Preparations to service the ammonia boilers.
          - Orbital maneuvering system pod functional tests.
          - Thermal protection system operations.
          - Preparations to replace the S-band antenna.

          WORK SCHEDULED:
          - Installation of the Spacelab Life Sciences payload into the or-
          biter this weekend.

          WORK COMPLETED:
          - Removal of about 10 tiles around the S-band antenna for access.
          - Installation of main engines no. 1 and 3.



                         STS-40 SOLID ROCKET BOOSTERS - VAB

               The left and right aft skirts have  been  removed  from  the
          mobile launcher platform.  Earlier this week,  gauges attached to
          the aft skirts and hold down posts gave readings about the  loads
          that  are  not understood.  The concern is that the posts are not
          aligned properly.

                Yesterday, officials decided to destack the boosters,  take
          optical measurements and realign the posts. Once the optical work
          is  complete,  the  boosters  are  scheduled  to  be restacked on
          Saturday. Schedule impacts are currently being assessed.

      ___    _____     ___
     /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|      Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
     | | | |  __ \ /| | | |      Jet Propulsion Lab |
  ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |___   M/S 301-355        | Change is constant.
 /___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /|  Pasadena, CA 91109 |
 |_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                      |

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

Date: 18 Mar 91 13:27:08 GMT
From: dg!emav49![e-mail]  (Charlie Hopkins)
Subject: Re: First Liquid-Fueled Rocket Launching by Goddard - 65th Anniversary

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Larry Klaes) writes:
|>
|>         Saturday, March 16, marks the sixty-fifth anniversary of Robert
|>     Goddard's launching of the world's first liquid-fueled rocket, the
|>     ancestor of all modern liquid-fueled booster.  The flight took place
|>     in Auburn, Massachusetts (near Worcester) in 1926 and lasted only 2.5
|>     seconds, reaching an altitude of 12.3 meters (41 feet) and landing
|>     (crashing, actually) 55.2 meters (184 feet) from the launch site in
|>     his Aunt Effie's cabbage patch.  Today the launch area is commemorated
|>     with a small monument surrounded by a busy street and numerous stores,
|>     including the Auburn Mall.
|>
|>          Larry Klaes     [e-mail]
|>                 or  ...!decwrl!advax.enet.dec.com!klaes
|>                 or  [e-mail]
|>                 or  [e-mail]
|>
|>               "All the Universe, or nothing!" - H. G. Wells
|>
|>          EJASA Editor, Astronomical Society of the Atlantic


The actual site is between the first and ninth fairways of a golf course on
a hilltop near the Auburn Mall.  It is marked by a small granite obelisk about
1 meter tall.  I've played past it many times.  There is a "Rocket Park"
commemorating Goddard beside the mall.

Charlie
(I have no opinions)

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

End of SPACE Digest V13 #305
*******************