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Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #674

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 13 : Issue 674

Today's Topics:
           Toward Rational Space Facilities
       Female Cosmonauts (Was Re: The Reasons for a Station? )
          Re: Extra Terrestrial Intelligence

Administrivia:

    Submissions to the SPACE Digest/sci.space should be mailed to
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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 27 May 91 13:00:04 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Jim Bowery)
To: crash![e-mail]
Subject: Toward Rational Space Facilities

PRELIMINARY WORK LEADING TO VIABLE SPACE FACILITIES

We need a variety of space facilities with differing
capabilities, degrees of automation and permanence.

What these facilities should do and who should finance, develop,
operate and use them, are questions which must be answered prior
to their deployment.  We do not currently have enough information
to answer these questions, which is a major cause of Space
Station Freedom's technical and political problems.

We should proceed at once to gather the information we need.

BEGIN IMMEDIATELY TO ACQUIRE MORE MICROGRAVITY KNOWLEDGE

The most important priority in answering these questions is to
fund a more diverse array of microgravity science experiments.
Funding could come from shuttle ops.  This work must use
existing services and begin immediately.

These microgravity experiments should derive from unsolicited
peer-reviewed proposals in all branches of science.  The NSF
peer-review mechanism should be used as a model.  Indeed, the NSF
should be a primary source of funding for these proposed
experiments.  The announcements of opportunity should consist of
little more than the information in this paragraph.  An infusion
of creative ideas is needed.

It should be the responsibility of the scientist to propose an
existing microgravity service, such as Battelle's American
Commercial Space Enterprises (contact Michael Hanley at
614/424-5070), Payload Systems Mir space services (contact
Anthony Arrott at 617/868-8086), NASA's extended duration orbiter
with ESA's Spacelab or any of a number of other nascent
microgravity services.  Funding for use of the facility should be
provided directly to the scientist -- not filtered through
another program, such as Shuttle.  In other words, scientists who
wish to use the extended duration orbiter/Spacelab are to be
treated by NASA Shuttle operations on the same par as paying
commercial customers.  This sort of independence will help keep
the service providers honest.

NASA's COMET program should be specifically excluded as an option
because it is competing with entry-level commercial microgravity
services.  The fact that James Rose is a former McDonnell Douglas
employee adds to the pattern of anticompetitive appearances
surrounding McDonnell Douglas and the Space Station program.
Other companies appear to have already been captured by the "good
ole boy" network surrounding the space station program.  The
"good ole boys" include James Rose (formerly with McDonnell
Douglas), Jake Jacobson (formerly with McDonnell Douglas) and
James Beggs (NASA administrator who started up Space Station with
McDonnell Douglas).  The captured companies are Spacehab
(Beggs/Jacobson) and Space Industries Incorporated (Beggs).
COMET is a creature of James Rose.  A widely held view among
aerospace entrepreneurs is that these individuals are captains of
the Space Station program who jumped ship even before the rats,
and then took over the small microgravity  businesses that had
offered early competition to the Space Station program.  For
example, the founder of Spacehab now owns only 3 percent of that
firm and Beggs is the Chairman of the board.  For more details
see Smithsonian Air and Space magazine, current issue.

Given these circumstances there is a serious danger that  funding
administered by NASA will be manipulated so as to give business
to the Shuttle/Spacelab, COMET, Spacehab and SII cabal,
regardless of the impact on science or the merits of those
facilities.  This is one of several compelling reasons that NASA
must avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.  Given
the above circumstances, it can only do so by not acting as the
prime source of funds for microgravity science.

Scientists who receive funding for space facility services from
independent agencies will tend to choose services on their merits
-- thus disciplining the service providers, whatever their
origins.

In this light, NSF is the best choice as the primary source of
microgravity science funding since it:

* Has no space facility, nor connections with the microgravity
services industry;
* Is experienced in peer review of unsolicited proposals;
* Covers the entire range of science and
* Understands the nature of science as opposed to engineering.

Microgravity experiments geared toward industrial process
development/engineering should be paid for by the private sector,
and the intellectual property remain privately held.  The test of
whether funding should be public or private is  whether it would
be classified as science or not under patent law.  If it would be
considered "due diligence" in the pursuit of a patent, it should
be privately financed.  If it is "discovering properties of
nature" it should be publicly financed and the results placed in
the public domain.  In any proposal review process, a patent
examiner should be included to render his opinion as to whether
the work proposed is patentable "due diligence".

In boarderline cases, the scientist should be allowed to receive
government funds if he agrees to place all his results in the
public domain.

As the volume and diversity of microgravity science knowledge
expands, so will the experience and reliability of microgravity
services.  The services purchased by microgravity researchers
will expand the market for such services and attract additional
private capital and competition.  The knowledge of the
microgravity environment will feed into the industrial innovation
process thereby attracting more private capital for microgravity
process development/engineering.  These processes will then
provide a totally commercial market for microgravity services and
facilities, in addition to the ongoing government-financed
scientific market.

This evolutionary approach will quickly create the right mix of
services and facilities to meet the needs of the international
community of scientists and industrial engineers, as well as new
businesses in space.


DEALING WITH THE INTERNATIONAL PARTNERS

The first question to ask is whether the agreements with our
international partners have the Constitutional authority of
treaties ratified by the Senate, or whether the agreements are
merely promises made by NASA and some sympathetic members of
Congress.

If the agreements are not Constitutional treaties, we must avoid
creating the precedent that a government agency, such as NASA,
and some sympathetic Congressmen can create such profound
international obligations without going through the processes
described under our Constitution.  Our international partners
certainly understand our Constitution and international law and
must accept the consequences of operating in the absence of a
legal treaty.

If there is a Constitutional "Space Station Treaty", we must
fulfill the obligations contained therein to the satisfaction of
our international partners.

Under either circumstance, it may be desirable to compensate the
international partners.  This compensation, if provided, should
take the form of space goods and services vouchers, redeemable
for cash from the U. S. Treasury only by U. S. space companies.
These vouchers should be transferable.



TRANSLATE SOVIET LIFE SCIENCE FINDINGS TO ENGLISH


The Soviets have a vast amount of life sciences data from their
extended duration flights aboard Mir.  A variety of individuals
can be contacted regarding this data:


Anders Hanson
Commercial Space Technologies
London, UK

Joseph Gitelson (sealed biospherics)
Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, USSR

Dr. Mark Nelson (who has worked with the Soviets)
Space Biospheres Ventures
Oracle, AZ

Mir Press in Moscow, USSR

Mir Press has a translation program with international
publication and distribution.  For example,  "Scientific
Foundations of Space Manufacturing" is a compilation of highly
valuable microgravity processing information discovered by the
Soviets aboard their space stations, which is available in
English from Mir Press.

We should pay the Soviets to translate all of their life science
research papers to English, pursuant to their recent agreement
with NASA under which NASA gets full access to Mir's life science
results -- an agreement NASA has failed
to take advantage of.

The "life sciences" aspect of space station politics is
particularly pathological and should be examined carefully.  For
example, I witnessed a Johnson Space Center expert in life
sciences declare that they didn't look at Soviet data because it
was worthless.  A more likely explanation is that they simply
didn't want to undermine their own program and could rely on the
absence of a widely distributed translation of Soviet life
science research, which is actually quite voluminous.

Also, the key phrase "life sciences" is actually a promotional
idiom of lobbyists within MIT's biology department, which they
began using a few years ago when they  decided to acquire a large
portion of the space station program.  Ignore that promotional
rhetoric and "life sciences" is really just one more aspect of
microgravity science which should compete on an equal footing
with all others -- even less so given the yet-to-be-translated
Soviet work.

Indeed, given the political pathologies involving MIT and JSC, it
may be necessary to prohibit any further life sciences work until
after the full distribution of the English translations of the
Soviet work.

Due to current economic conditions in USSR, these translation
services could be had for substantially less than 30 billion
dollars and could be available in a much shorter time period than
15 years.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Bowery      619/295-3164               The Coalition for
PO Box 1981                                   Science and
La Jolla, CA 92038                             Commerce
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: 28 May 91 00:56:53 GMT
From: agate!lightning.Berkeley.EDU![e-mail]  (Frank Crary)
Subject: Female Cosmonauts (Was Re: The Reasons for a Station? )

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Mark Purtill) writes:
>    Well, for one thing, we might actually like to find out what
>happens to women for more than a few days.  In case you haven't
>noticed, the Russians haven't had any women cosmonauts for some time.
>Judging by the comments from various Russians when the British sent a
>female cosmonaut (along the lines of "women don't belong in space"), I
>don't think it's likely that they'll be giving us any information on
>this any time soon.  (I omit pointing out that a year isn't really
>very long only because someone else already has).
>    Flames that the Russians are right to /dev/null.
>
The Soviet attitude torwards female cosmonauts is the result of their early
experience, during their Vostok program. Their first female cosmonaut,
V. V. Tereshkova, was one of thier first six people in orbit. She was
selected for political reasons, and was not selected for military pilots
nor did she fit the same medical profile as the other Vostok cosmonauts.
Possibly for these reasons, she was the ONLY one of the Vostok cosmonauts
to suffer from very serious space sickness (Space Adaptation Syndrome).
She was unable to complete all the objectives of her flight as a result.
Today, we know that Tereshkova was a statistical fluke, and that women are
no more prone to SAS than men. However, to the early soviet mission planners,
there was no way to tell this. They concluded from a very small sample
(5 men and 1 woman) that female cosmonauts were a mistake. This error
illustrates the need for more long duration manned space missions: There
are only 3 men who have spent over 300 days on orbit. Even if the soviet
medical data was complete and detailed (it is not), nothing meaningfull
can be concluded from only 3 test subjects.

                         Frank Crary

>>>    * some Microgravity (not all)
>>Microgravity reasearchers prefer quick return of their samples and do *not* ask
>>for superduper manned stations that can be served only once in a while.
>    Microgravity researchs on a space station have very fast turn
>around time.
>
>>>    * most Biological science
>>What Biological science? Again the Soviets have done all that before,especially
>>with the Biosputnik spacecraft where many foreign experiments were flown.
>    *All* biological science?  You're kidding, right?  Quick:
>what's the effect on bacon production of a pig kept at .15g for it's
>entire life?  We don't even have a good understanding of how
>microgravity effects conception and birth (in any species), or even
>how it effects an animal kept in microgravity for most of it's life).
>
>>Adding up points 1 & 3 one could also ask: why should we be interested at all
>>in the response of biological systems to microgravity as all life as we know it
>>has developed under 1g conditions? Seems like a lousy circular argument: "We
>>need man/animals in space so that we can learn how badly space affects them..."
>    If you think that humans will never leave this planet,
>certainly studying what happens to people and their animals in space
>is not a high priority.  But many of us disagree with that.  ABC just
>had a film on about colonizing the moon -- they must think someone's
>interested!
>    In any case, "biological science" does not mean just "studying
>how microgravity effects (animals,people,plants)."  For instance,
>protein crystals can only be grown in microgravity and an American
>company has done this on Mir (in a project that involved some activity
>by the cosmonauts, although not much).  Studying calcium loss in space
>could help determine how to prevent it in older people on earth.  (I'm
>not saying it will, that's just an example).  Studying how people and
>animals are affected by microgravity is usuful basic research that
>could provide spinoffs.
>
>>>    * Spacecraft Refurbishment
>>this is the best point - but wasn't the capability to serve other s/c the FIRST
>>thing they threw away when they had be begin to descope Fred? Here (in the light
>>of GRO's successful and HST's upcoming orbital repair) I would argue for
>>developing a fleet of flexible shuttles, manned (for LEO) and unmanned (for GSO)
>>and highly maneuverable (for GTO, like for catching defective HIPPARCOSses).
>>Imagine what could have been done in this respect with the billions already
>>wasted on Fred...
>    Not much; apparently only $5G has been spent of Fred so far.
>That buys two current shuttles, whose development cost has already
>been paid for; or starting devlopment of the nifty shuttles you want,
>spending $5G, and getting the project axed because the budget was cut.
>Not much different than Fred.  (Fred costs *so far* are certainly much
>less than 10 years * $2G/year (which was to be spent this year) =
>$20G, so my $5G isn't far off even if I'm misremembering it).
>    The amount spent so far is not be confused the the $120G
>figure floating around which is a *projected* figure on how much it
>would cost to build, lauch *and operate* Fred for 30 years.  I hope no
>one has got the impression that that $120G has been redirected to
>other things; it was never appropriated to start with.  (The actual
>loss to the NASA budget was $817 million.  Aside from small items and
>"general reductions", the gainers were: space transport, +$375
>million; space fight R&D, +$215 million;  space science, +177 million;
>and aeronautics and space tech., +$162 million).
>
>^.-.^ Mark Purtill         [e-mail]         [phone] (O)
>((")) DIMACS, P.O. Box 1179, Rutgers U., Piscataway, NJ 08855 [phone] (H)
>****** I'm moving on or about August 24th; watch this space for details. ******

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

Date: 27 May 91 19:11:16 GMT
From: cruzio![e-mail]  (Brett Breitwieser)
Subject: Re: Extra Terrestrial Intelligence



Another theory to answer the question as to why we haven't seen E.T...
It may be that in water-hole worlds the natives have not left the oceons
...may still be frolicing in the seas dolphin-like...it may be that we
(homo sapiens terrestius) are somewhat unique in that we have emerged from
one medium (water) and transformed to operate in another (complex gas)
medium...I forget who originated this idea (not I, not I) but it
parallels the terrestrial historic idea as to why the Europeans became
agressive explorers..their home continent being so small and so divided
by waterways that they tended to develop as agressive seamen...if one lives
in a homogenous medium, why leave it? Perhaps on other water worlds life
stayed in the water...the original perpetrater suggested that maybe
it is our destiny to act as the communicators, travellers and culture-
carriers of the universe...manifest destiney for interstellar travel?
(oh God, here we go again...) not that I necessarily concur with this
theory but I have seen it bandied about...

Brett Breitwieser    KC6UPU      Gridloc CM86XX
SETI: the ultimate DX

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

End of SPACE Digest V13 #674
*******************