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Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #471

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 13 : Issue 471

Today's Topics:
          Re: Atlas Centaur bites the big one, 4/18
            Re: tabloids and moon landings
                Re: Incentives
           Jonathan's Space Report, Apr 24
               Re: Saturn V and the ALS
               Re: Saturn V blueprints
          Re: Atlas Centaur bites the big one, 4/18
             Launch Scrubs due to Weather
         NASA Headline News for 04/25/91 (Forwarded)

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

Date: 26 Apr 91 18:56:14 GMT
From: agate!bionet!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!news.cs.indiana.edu!noose.ecn.purdue.edu!en.ecn.purdue.edu![e-mail]  (/dev/null)
Subject: Re: Atlas Centaur bites the big one, 4/18

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer) writes:
> >Budget, NASA just did not have enough money to do both.  The congressional
> >budget had been cut back too much.
>
I agree.  NASA has had its budget continuously in a downward spiral
(until recently) since hte moon missions.

> I disagree. Over the past 20 years NASA has spent about $60 billion on
> Shuttle operations and development. That would buy about 120 Saturn
> launches which amounts to six flights a year over the last 20 years.
> This compares to the Shuttle average of about four per year.
>
> Keeping the Shuttle would have allowed us to lift fifteen times the
> mass to LEO for the same cost.

    Isn't hindsight wonderful?  (I assume you mean SATURN when you
said SHUTTLE in that last sentance)

--
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Brent L. Irvine     |            These are MY opinions   |
| Malt Beverage Analyst     |            As if they counted...:) |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: 26 Apr 91 19:32:13 GMT
From: prism![e-mail]  (Matthew DeLuca)
Subject: Re: tabloids and moon landings

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:

>The people using the retroreflectors for precise lunar distance
>measurements typically get one or two photons back per laser pulse.

The bare surface of the moon, on average, is 11% reflective; the laser
reflectors must be much more, at least 70%-80% reflective.  How could they
only get one or two photons, then?

--
Matthew DeLuca
Georgia Institute of Technology      "I'd hire the Dorsai, if I knew their
Office of Information Technology      P.O. box."  - Zebadiah Carter,
Internet: [e-mail]    _The Number of the Beast_

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

Date: 26 Apr 91 15:15:31 GMT
From: usc!samsung!rex!rouge![e-mail]  (Fraering Philip)
Subject: Re: Incentives

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Mark Ricci - CATS) writes:

>>Congress should allocate (through lotteries, appropriations,
>>etc) a large cash prize on the order of
>>US$100,000,000 for the first person/organization to
>>go to the moon and spend an amount of time on the surface.
>>
>>Any comments as to how to make this work?

>You can't be serious!  There is no way that this taxpayer approves of
>$100,000,000 being given to any person/organization for going to
>the moon or Pluto for that matter.

>I don't think we need to give the boneheads in Washington any new ideas
>on wasting money.  They already do enough damage.

Let me see, the government spends some 10,000 times this amount every year.

NASA spends about 10 billion, or 100 times that amount, every year.

They spend five times the proposed amount per shuttle launch.

What was being proposed was that a not-so-modest sum to us, but
a very modest sum compared to the space program in general, be given
to the first private group to perform a certian task. Of course, if
a private group does what the government itself says it cannot, and
for far less money, then one hell of a lot less would be wasted than
if things continue as they are.

At the very least, the idea would be to pay for results. I can't see
why someone would object to this when yearly much more is spent for
much less results, the only difference being the gubbimint spends it.

--
Phil Fraering
[e-mail]
Joke going around: "How many country music singers does it take to
change a light bulb? Four. One to change the bulb, and three to sing
about the old one."

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

Date: 26 Apr 91 15:06:37 GMT
From: hsdndev!cfa203![e-mail]  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Jonathan's Space Report, Apr 24

Jonathan's Space Report

Apr 24 1991 (no.72)
----------------------------------------------------

The launch of STS-39/Discovery is scheduled for
April 28, pending repairs to a main
engine sensor which scrubbed the Apr 23 launch attempt.

Viktor Afanas'ev and Musa Manarov continue in orbit aboard the
Mir/Kvant/Kvant-2/Kristall/Soyuz TM-11/Progress M-7 complex.
On Apr 12 and Apr 14 the engine of Progress M-7 was used
to raise the complex orbit from 360x377 km to 370x382 km.

The second commercial Atlas I Centaur launch on Apr 18
was a failure. This was particularly unfortunate as the
payload was the GE/NHK (General Electric/ Nippon Hoso Kyokai
Japanese Broadcasting Corp) BS-3H, a replacement for
the BS-2X spacecraft which fell in the Atlantic due
to an Ariane failure, and was in turn a replacement for
BS-2 spacecraft in orbit which have been suffering equipment
failures. The Atlas was successful, but one of the two
RL-10 engines on the upper Centaur AC-70 stage failed to ignite.
This is the first Centaur failure since AC-62 in Jun 1984.
The Centaur and payload were destroyed by the range safety
officer.

A navigation satellite, probably Kosmos-2142, was launched
by Kosmos R-14 rocket on Apr 16.

___________________________________
|Current STS status:              |
|Orbiters                         |
|                                 |
|OV-102 Columbia        OPF Bay 1 |
|OV-103 Discovery       LC39A     |
|OV-104 Atlantis        OPF Bay 2 |
|                                 |
|ML/ET/SRB stacks                 |
|                                 |
|ML1                              |
|ML2/STS-39/ET/OV-103   LC39A     |
|ML3/STS-40/ET          VAB Bay 3 |
-----------------------------------

10 years ago: 25 Apr 1981.  The Kosmos-1267 spaceship was launched from
Baykonur.  Kosmos-1267 consisted of two spacecraft, a prototype Salyut
module of the Kvant-2/Kristall type now docked to Mir, and a prototype
piloted spaceship with room for two cosmonauts (it was cancelled before
being used with a crew); the reusable spaceship capsule was on its
second flight, the first flight being Kosmos-929 in 1977.  The capsule
separated and was recovered after 29 days in space; the next month the
Salyut module docked with the Salyut-6 space station.  It remained
attached to the station until their combined reentry in July 1982.

20 years ago:  24 Apr 1971 The Soyuz-10 spaceship with three
crewmembers docked with the Salyut laboratory after launch
late on Apr 22. The cosmonauts were unable to attain a tight
docking seal and had to undock and return to Earth without
opening the hatch.

30 years ago: 25 Apr 1961. The Mercury-Atlas-3 flight was intended
as the first unpiloted orbital test flight of the Mercury spacecraft.
The Atlas exploded at only 7 km altitude. On 27 Apr, the S-15
scientific satellite reached orbit and was renamed Explorer 11.
Explorer 11 was the first gamma ray astronomy satellite, the distant
ancestor of GRO; it was not sensitive enough to detect any sources.

(c) 1991 Jonathan McDowell. Information in this report is obtained
from public sources and does not reflect the official views of NASA.

 .-----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
 |  Jonathan McDowell                 |  phone : [phone]                 |
 |  Space Science Lab ES65            | uucp:                                  |
 |  NASA Marshall Space Flight Center | bitnet :                               |
 |  Huntsville AL 35812               |  inter : [e-mail]  |
 |  USA                               |   span : ssl::mcdowell                 |
 '-----------------------------------------------------------------------------'

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

Date: 26 Apr 91 15:19:22 GMT
From: aio!vf.jsc.nasa.gov![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Saturn V and the ALS

>
> You know, maybe there could be a program to drop launch costs below these
> really expensive per pound costs!  I think that is the real enemy of
> would-be space utilizers!  If launch costs drop, then perhaps more
> resources could be concentrated towards what we are going to do in space
> and less on how we are going to get there (and 'oh my ghod look at that
> bill!').

Bingo!  Thats the real problem, as long as launch costs are in the
thousands of dollars per pound of payload to Low Earth Orbit, space
will never be utilized by anything but niche applications such
as comm satilites.  It is unreasonable to expect that a
revivified Saturn V program would reduce the launch costs to any
degree.  The Saturn V was a great launch system, but bringing it back will
not reduce launch costs.  The Shuttle was the first launch system designed
with the reduction of launch costs as a requirement.  Believe it or not,
it did, it just was not a significant reduction.

We need a reductions of launch costs of around a factor of 10:  launch costs
around 100-400$ dollars a pound.  The only way to do that?  Design and build
new launch system with that in mind.  Before, the primary design factor was
how efficient was the launch system.  Cost was not a significant factor
since it was all the designers could do to make the launch system work at any
cost.

When launch costs go down, then the private sector will be able to access
space independantly of the federal goverment.  Then we will truely start moving
into space.  Space access will not be chained to the NASA budget.

--

Mike Kent -      Lockheed Engineering and Sciences Company at NASA JSC
        2400 NASA Rd One, Houston, TX 77058 [phone]
        [e-mail]

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

Date: 26 Apr 91 17:26:53 GMT
From: pacbell.com!mips!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Saturn V blueprints

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (/dev/null) writes:
>> ... and Congress does not want to face the all-out political
>> war that would erupt over any SDI deployment decision.  One simple way to
>> postpone it indefinitely is to refuse to develop the launch capacity ...
>
>A better way to stop SDI is to stop funding it...

You miss the point.  That would require an explicit decision, which would
touch off the political war I mentioned.  To Congress, the ideal situation
is indefinite postponement of any need to decide SDI's future.  Quietly
postponing development of adequate launch capability accomplishes that.

>> The only kind of heavylift launcher that Congress will fund will be one
>> designed for maximum reliability and a modest launch rate.  Civilian
>
>MODEST LAUNCH RATE?!?!?  I assume you mean rate = cost.

When I say "launch rate", I mean *launch rate* -- how many launches per year.

>The military is a major launch customer.  To preclude them would
>preclude a BUNCH of buisness and shoot your program down in Congress.

Any heavylift launcher program will be justified on grounds other than
volume of business, since there is virtually none in that size range.
--
And the bean-counter replied,           | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"beans are more important".             |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 26 Apr 91 17:44:25 GMT
From: att!pacbell.com!iggy.GW.Vitalink.COM!widener!hela![e-mail]  (Allen W. Sherzer)
Subject: Re: Atlas Centaur bites the big one, 4/18

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

>>>In my opinion, NASA was faced with the undesireable choice of continuing the
>>>Saturn 5 or developing the Shuttle.  I think NASA made the right decision.

>> Why?

>Budget, NASA just did not have enough money to do both.  The congressional
>budget had been cut back too much.

I disagree. Over the past 20 years NASA has spent about $60 billion on
Shuttle operations and development. That would buy about 120 Saturn
launches which amounts to six flights a year over the last 20 years.
This compares to the Shuttle average of about four per year.

Keeping the Shuttle would have allowed us to lift fifteen times the
mass to LEO for the same cost.

  Allen

--
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Allen W. Sherzer | If you love something, let it go. If it doesn't come back |
|   [e-mail]   | to you, hunt it down and kill it.                         |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: 26 Apr 91 15:22:36 GMT
From: tahoe!jimi!herbert![e-mail]  (Doug Phillipson )
Subject: Launch Scrubs due to Weather


    Has anyone got some stats concerning what percentage
of shuttle launches were scrubbed due to weather from KSC?  And perhaps
an estimate of how much extra money those scrubs cost.  Can anyone
tell me how much of an advantage it is, in payload pounds, to launch
from KSC as opposed to say Nevada.  The weather in Southern Nevada
is such that launches could take place 300 plus days a year.  There is
lots of open land for launch failures to fall into. The humidity is usually
below 20 percent and it is not a wildlife refuge (I understand that launches
are not allowed sometimes when they might disturb the hatching of protected
birds).

Doug Phillipson

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

Date: 26 Apr 91 09:07:49 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Headline News for 04/25/91 (Forwarded)


             Headline News
Internal Communications Branch (P-2) NASA Headquarters

  Thursday, April 25, 1991    Audio Service: 202 / 755-1788

This is NASA Headline News for Thursday, April 25, 1991 . . .

NASA space flight management elected to pick up the STS-39
countdown at 8:15 this morning.  The countdown leads to a
scheduled launch at 7:01 am EDT Sunday, April 28.  The launch
window extends to 10:21 am.  The count was picked up based on the
progress made in replacing a pressure transducer on Discovery's main
engine #3.  A new transducer and harness are now installed and have
been successfully tested.  The suspect transducer and harness were
flown to Huntsville, where an analysis showed a crack in the
transducer housing.  Currently, KSC launch team technicians are in
the process of orbiter aft closeout.  The forecasted weather for
Sunday morning calls for scattered clouds at low and high
altitudes and moderate winds from the south.  The probability of
violating a launch constraint is 30 percent at the opening of the
window, but improving to less than 10 percent probability of violation
later that morning.

Meanwhile, Columbia's rollover from the orbiter processing
facility to the vehicle assembly building is being delayed until
about 6:00 this evening so technicians can change out a tire on the
orbiter.  Following the rollover, technicians will proceed immediately to
hoist and mate Columbia to its STS-40 solid rocket booster/external
tank stack.  The STS-40 Spacelab Life Sciences mission is scheduled
for launch in May for a planned nine-day mission to study the
biological effects of weightlessness.  Also flying on this mission will be
two non-NASA payload specialists -- cardiologist Drew Gaffney and
biochemist Millie Hughes-Fulford.

                   * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

At 2:00 pm EDT today, Rockwell International rolls out OV-105, the
newest in their line of space shuttle orbiters.  On hand to accept the
space shuttle Endeavour for NASA will be Administrator Richard
Truly.  Also participating will be Congressman Tom Lewis (R-Fla.),
who sponsored the legislation enabling America's school children to
name the orbiter, Senator Jake Garn, who flew in space on
Discovery's 51-D mission in April 1985, and astronaut chief Dan
Brandenstein, who has been named commander of the Endeavour's
first mission -- STS-49, scheduled for a tour-de-force satellite rescue
and triple-spacewalk mission next May.   Rockwell Executive Vice
President and CEO Sam Iacobellis will present the orbiter to Adm.
Truly.  The ceremony will be carried live on NASA Select TV.

                   * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


NASA's newest orbiter features a host of enhanced systems and
improved or updated components.  The onboard computing, navigation
and guidance system uses newer generation inertial measuring
units and faster computers.  Endeavour also features improved
nosewheel steering and updated auxiliary power units.  In addition to
the systems which Endeavour has in common with its orbiter fleet
members, OV-105 features a drag chute which is expected to
decrease the landing distance by more than 1,000 feet.  Things might
be more crowded aboard Endeavour missions, though, as it also
features 127 cubic feet of additional mid-deck stowage.
Endeavour will also inaugurate another new NASA vehicle, the new
747 shuttle carrier aircraft, NASA 911, which joins the first carrier
aircraft, NASA 905.  The new carrier aircraft will be used to transport
the Endeavour to Kennedy Space Center on May 2, next Thursday.

                   * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Royal Astronomical Society, London, has announced that
astronomers have proved the existence of a BL Lac object in a
galaxy dominated by a large flattened disk.  Previously, BL
Lacerta objects were thought to exist only in the center of elliptical
galaxies.  BL Lac objects produce X-rays, radio and visible light energy
which are thought to be produced by relativistic jets streaming from
the active nuclei of elliptical galaxies.  There are about 40 known BL
Lac objects.  The Society says the discovery of such an object in a
non-elliptical galaxy throws doubt into current theories about
these objects.  The discovery was made by Ian McHardy, Southampton
University, Roberto Abraham and Carolin Crawford, Oxford
University, Pat Mock and Roland Van derspeck, Mass. Institute of
Tech., and Marie-Helene Ulrich, European Southern Observatory.
They were using the 4.2 meter Herschel Telescope in the Canary
Islands.


Here's the broadcast schedule for Public Affairs events on NASA
Select TV.  Note that all events and times may change without notice,
and that all times listed are Eastern.

Thursday, 4/25/91
    12:00 pm    STS-1 anniversary ceremony at National Air & Space
          Museum, taped on April 12.

    1:00 pm    The Age of Space Transportation program.

    2:00 pm    Endeavour rollout ceremony live from Rockwell
          International, Space Systems Division, Palmdale, Calif. orbiter
          assembly plant.

This report is filed daily at noon, Monday through Friday.  It is a service of
NASA's Office of Public Affairs.  The contact is Charles Redmond, 202/453-
8425 or CREDMOND on NASAmail.  NASA Select TV is carried on GE
Satcom F2R, transponder 13, C-Band, 72 degrees West Longitude,
transponder frequency is 3954.5 megaHertz, audio is offset 6.8 MHz,
polarization is vertical.

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

End of SPACE Digest V13 #471
*******************