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Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #365

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 13 : Issue 365

Today's Topics:
              Problems with TDK
         Re: Let's build Freedom on the Moon
               Space technology
           Payload Summary for 04/03/91 (Forwarded)
         Re: NY Times Article: Nuclear rocket
             Re: nuclear rockets
          comsat cancellations and lawsuits
Gamma Ray Observatory ready for launch--last milestone reached (Forwarded)
            SPACE Digest V13 #354

Administrivia:

    Submissions to the SPACE Digest/sci.space should be mailed to
  [e-mail].  Other mail, esp. [un]subscription requests,
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ReSent-Message-ID: <Added.sbyn7xa00UkTI=[e-mail]>
Resent-Date:  Thu, 04 Apr 91 09:00:39 EST
Resent-From: Harold Pritchett <[e-mail]>
Resent-To: Space discussion group <[e-mail]>
Date: 4 April 91, 09:25:11 MEZ
From: Martin Meuer 06298-28361 CA1H at [e-mail]
Subject: Problems with TDK

I am having problems getting the TDK program (version from 1985) to run
on a VM/SP operating system.  The program originated from a VAX machine,
and runs without errors with the same input data.
After compilation without errors, the program runs and gives the follow-
ing error message:
                    AFB210I (operation exception)

This can mean that program code was distroyed while it was running.
Does someone know what the difference is between these two systems which
could cause this?  Please send any information to me directly.


Martin Meuer
CAP5@DLRVMLA

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

Date: 5 Apr 91 01:15:57 GMT
From: hub.ucsb.edu!ucsbuxa![e-mail]  (Charles Frank Radley)
Subject: Re: Let's build Freedom on the Moon

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (James Davis Nicoll) writes:

As Rus Cage beat into me in an exchange a couple of months ago:-
most of the loading on the pressurized modules is from the
air pressure, the gravity loads are smaller, but yes, need to
be considered.
  The 90 day study was conceptual.   Indeed, if the modules
were totally or partially burried conceivably the weight of
lunar material could take some of the linternal air pressure
load.
.

>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Charles Frank Radley) writes:
>>
>>
>>The NASA 90 day study proposed exactly that ..  a lunar base
>>composed initially of Freedom modules.

>    How much redesign would be necessary to adapt a structure
>designed to be used in free fall to be useful in 1/6 gravity?
>Would it be cheaper to design a structure intended to be used on
>the Moon?

>                            James Nicoll

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

Date: 4 Apr 91 13:30:22 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Nick A. Bucci)
Subject: Space technology


   I recently got into a "discussion" (argument is a better term) with
my father about the need for a space program.  Being an old fashioned,
middle class, construction worker, he disagrees with the concept of
spending "a lot of money for nothing."  I tried to show him how our
lives have benifited directly from space exploration:  New products, new
technology, etc., but he remains unconvinced.
    I would greatly appreciate any list of products, etc., that came as
a direct result of the Space program (both U.S. & international).  Maybe
if I give him enough tangible evidence, I can win him over.
    Also, let me know if I should post a comprehensive list as one is
formed.  I apoligize in advance for any errors, I'll just list what I'm
given, though I'd appreciate feedback on the list so I can correct any
mistakes.
    Thanks in advance.
                -Nick A.Bucci

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

Date: 4 Apr 91 19:12:30 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Payload Summary for 04/03/91 (Forwarded)


                               PAYLOAD TEST AND ACTIVITY SHEET
                               Kennedy Space Center, Florida
                               April 3, 1991


          George Diller
          407/867-2468
          FTS 823-2468


          GAMMA RAY OBSERVATORY
          STS-37/Atlantis

          HISTORICAL SUMMARY

          Arrival of Spacecraft at PHSF: 2/6/90
          First functional test begins: 2/26
          Install High Gain Antenna: 11/8
          Final functional test complete: 12/4/90
          Spacecraft Fueling complete: 1/11/91
          Install Flight Batteries: 1/15
          First Joint Integrated Simulation (JIS): 1/16
          Airborne Electrical Support Equipment (AESE) arrives at VPF: 1/24
          Astronaut payload sharp edge inspection: 1/29
          Install orbiter Airborne Electrical Support Equipment (AESE): 2/1
          Transfer GRO to Vertical Processing Facility: 2/7

          Installation into VPF west test cell: 2/9
          VPF Stand-alone Functional Test: 2/12-13
          Interface Verification Test (IVT) of AESE: 2/17
          IVT of GRO (orbiter interfaces simulated): 2/22
          End-to-end (ETE) communications test (MILA/GSFC/TDRS): 2/25
          Payload Readiness Review: 2/25
          MILA RF communications test: 3/4
          Transfer payload to canister: 3/11
          Roll to Pad 39-B/Transfer to PCR: 3/13

          Initial GRO Battery Charging: 3/13
          Payload installation into Atlantis: 3/17
          Astronaut payload bay sharp edge inspection: 3/19
          Interface Verification Test (IVT):  3/21
          GRO end-to-end test: 3/25
          Battery reconditioning:  3/25-3/30
          Final JIS-Nominal Day 3 deploy: 3/27
          GRO final closeouts for flight: 4/1
          Close payload bay doors: 4/2

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

Date: 4 Apr 91 21:14:09 GMT
From: agate!bionet!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!exodus!norge.Eng.Sun.COM![e-mail]  (John McKernan)
Subject: Re: NY Times Article: Nuclear rocket

[e-mail] (Bob Pendleton) writes:
>Personally I'm glad to hear that they are developing the pellet bed
>reactor for propulsion applications. BUT, I'm very distressed to hear
>that they were looking at using it inside the atmosphere.

Why assume, a priori, that testing anything nuclear in the atmosphere
would be a bad thing. This is new technology, so we really have no idea
how much radioactivity a nuclear rocket of this design would give off.
If the amount of radiation released is low and both the thrust and the
ISP are high, such a nuclear rocket might be a very good replacement
for or supplement to chemical rockets. Although the the impression I
get is that they are many many dollars away from a flyable system, so
the whole "nukes in the atmosphere" flap is probably moot anyway.

John L. McKernan.                                                  [e-mail]
Disclaimer: These are my opinions but, shockingly enough, not necessarily Sun's
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   "It's kind of a macho thing,
    programmers are always trying to be weirder than their machines."

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

Date: 4 Apr 91 16:21:48 GMT
From: agate!bionet!uwm.edu!rpi!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: nuclear rockets

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Carl Gooch) writes:
>... the fissionable material was imbedded in small carbon (?) pellets.
>The hydrogen coolant passed through this flock of particles and left
>in a big hurry, Isp ~ 1000 sec.  Since the fissionable material and
>fission products are never exposed to the coolant stream, the nastier
>bits of radiation were neatly contained.

Well, yes and no.  Very few reactors directly expose their coolant to the
fissionable material.  The problem is that some of the fission products
get out anyway.  Radioactive xenon, in particular, is difficult to contain.
Nuclear-thermal rockets, which by their nature run their reactors hot and
hard, always have a non-zero fission-product content in their exhausts.
--
"The stories one hears about putting up | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
SunOS 4.1.1 are all true."  -D. Harrison|  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 4 Apr 91 16:33:20 GMT
From: agate!bionet!uwm.edu!spool.mu.edu!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: comsat cancellations and lawsuits

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>...  As a case in point take Hughes Galaxy's recent attempt
>to file a breach of contract suit against NASA because the shuttle is no longer
>permitted to launch comsats.  This situation came about because of the
>CHALLENGER disaster in which SEVEN PEOPLE DIED.  In the aftermath of this, it
>was decided not to risk future crews on missions such as comsat launches...

Hughes is not suing over the decision to take comsats off the shuttle; it
is suing over the government's refusal to compensate innocent customers for
the financial losses they incurred when the government broke its promises.
There were good reasons to *renegotiate* those promises, perhaps to turn
them into expendable launches.  That's not what the government did; it said
"well, those promises are no longer operable, that's the way the cookie
crumbles guys, go away and don't bother us".

Agreed that the US is lawsuit-happy, for which government tax and financial
policy bears no small share of the blame... but Hughes got a seriously raw
deal on this one, and has every right to be ticked off.
--
"The stories one hears about putting up | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
SunOS 4.1.1 are all true."  -D. Harrison|  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 4 Apr 91 19:14:55 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Gamma Ray Observatory ready for launch--last milestone reached (Forwarded)


          George Diller                                   April 3, 1991
          Kennedy Space Center
          407/867-2468

          KSC Release No. 42-91


          GAMMA RAY OBSERVATORY READY FOR LAUNCH--LAST MILESTONE REACHED


               The payload bay doors of the Space Shuttle Atlantis were
          closed for flight at 9:50 A.M. on Tuesday, April 2, concluding
          over 15 months of testing and prelaunch preparation of the Gamma
          Ray Observatory (GRO) by the NASA/TRW payload test team.

               GRO arrived at the Kennedy Space Center on February 6, 1990,
          and was placed in the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility (PHSF)
          located in the KSC Industrial Area where final assembly, fueling,
          and functional testing were performed.  The spacecraft was loaded
          with 4,200 gallons of hydrazine propellant, the largest quantity
          ever to be loaded aboard a satellite.

               With the remanifesting of Space Shuttle flights during 1990
          because of the hydrogen leak difficulty, NASA and TRW management
          took advantage of having additional time to study each of the
          problems on the Hubble Space Telescope to determine whether they
          might also apply to the Gamma Ray Observatory.  The test team
          researched engineering specifications and historical test data in
          search of any problems which may have gone undetected.  In
          addition, more contingency planning was done based on the Hubble
          experience.

               By the time GRO was ready to be moved to the Vertical
          Processing Facility (VPF) for its integrated testing, the team
          was confident they would not have similar problems and that
          indeed every system on the Observatory was functioning as
          designed.

               The astronauts also had an opportunity to inspect GRO at the
          conclusion of its testing in the PHSF.

               On February 7, 1991, a year and a day after the spacecraft
          arrived at KSC, it was moved to the VPF to begin checkout of its
          Space Shuttle interfaces.  The NASA/McDonnell Douglas team at KSC
          verified that all was in readiness, and that associated
          communications links were operating.  On March 13, the Gamma Ray
          Observatory was moved to the launch pad, and loaded aboard the
          Space Shuttle Atlantis four days later.

               While GRO fills only half of the payload bay of Atlantis, it
          weighs in at 34,493 pounds, the heaviest satellite to be deployed
          by the Space Shuttle into low Earth orbit.

               After interface checks and a brief functional test, followed
          by a final communications checkout, the flight batteries were
          reconditioned and a trickle charge established.  Removing the
          trickle charge and reading the battery voltages are the last
          items on the checklist before commiting GRO to launch.  This
          operation occurs 50 minutes before the liftoff.

               "With the payload bay doors closed, we've reached a point
          we've been anticipating for a long, long time," said Observatory
          Manager Marty Davis from the Goddard Space Flight Center.
          "There's no remaining work to be done.  Now its just  the anxious
          wait."

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

ReSent-Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Resent-Date:  Thu, 04 Apr 91 20:28:22 EST
Resent-From: Tommy Mac <[e-mail]>
Resent-To: [e-mail]
Date:         Thu, 4 Apr 91 03:33:07 EST
Reply-To: [e-mail]
From: [e-mail]
Subject:      SPACE Digest V13 #354
Comments: To: [e-mail]
To: david polito <[e-mail]>, Tom McWilliams <[e-mail]>

Re: Fred on the Moon

Danny McGurl Asks:

TM: [lot's of reasons to place Fred on the moon]

DM: I can only see two major problems with this:

DM: 1) Where do you do the 0g crystal growing?

Well, I guess the crystals would have to be grown in 0G.  :-)
i.e. not on the moon.  Seriously, though, there is the question of whether or
not growing crystals is a real efficient use of the resources that would become
available.

One could also hypothesize that with a moon base, and travel between the two
planets, some sort of way station would probably be created that could do
microgravity production.  You could also speculate that the moon base itself
would lead to the production of a number of space colonies becuase of the G.
O'neill-type-infrastructure potential.

DM: 2)Do you gain anything because you have to have extra fuel and packaging
DM: to land on the moon, and then get materials back.

Disclaimer:  Read 1) High Frontier, G. O'neill, for the idea,
      followed by 2) Space Resources, for a rough idea of what's out there,
      followed by 3) the CRC handbook; Space Industrialization (2 vol.)

These will give you much more detail about the possibilities than I can, but to
summarize:  YES!  The energy to escape the moon is .05 that to get off Earth.
If you use the EM launcher (which is not limited by friction), you need only
import the structure, not the fuel, (solar power), so maintainence payloads are
small.
     Not too much is known about what, exactly, is available on the moon.  Most
people will agree that there is abundunt iron, silicon and oxygen.  Specualtion
is king, since so little of the moon has actually been explored.  But with a
base there, you can bet that there will be expeditions to find anything that
could be mined easier than lifted from earth.
     The one I've heard the most about is water (or co2, o2, n2) ice that's
been trapped in permanently dark craters at the poles.  We'll see. (I hope!)

I might point out that the best use for materials from the moon would be to
build up the base on the moon.  I.E. save launch costs from earth and the moon.

Sheilding from cosmic radiation:  Moon has lots of dirt
Glass for windows (greenhouses?): Moon has lots of silicon
Heat for industry (making glass?):  Solar energy (2 week battery not included)
Electricity :                      Ditto (Ditto for the battery, too)
Grid for solar generator         : Silicon and processing both done on Moon
Turbine for solar furnace?       : Iron/Nickel on Moon
Dirt for green houses            : Dirt from Moon

Naturally there are enourmous difficuties that I'm completely glossing over in
my enthusiasm, but the bottom line is, as always: it's not the concept, it's
the engineering.

Tommy Mac             Hey, I like that!
[e-mail]      "The concept is not the limiting factor;
Mich. State. U.          the engineering is." - armchair aerospace enthusiast
Acknowledge-To: <18084TM@MSU>

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

End of SPACE Digest V13 #365
*******************