Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT_ZIP/spacedig/V15_1/V15NO140.ZIP/V15NO140

Internet Message Format | 1993-07-13 | 33KB

Date: Tue, 25 Aug 92 05:00:04
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V15 #140
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Tue, 25 Aug 92       Volume 15 : Issue 140

Today's Topics:
                             ACRV/Soyuz P
                 Apollo video (prod. review) (2 msgs)
            BuckyStalks (was Re: Beanstalks in Nevada Sky)
                      Home made rockets (2 msgs)
                  Iridium Transmutes to Dysprosium?
          Launch Loops - quick summary (was Re: BuckyStalks)
                   Mars Observer Update - 08/24/92
                          Martian Chronology
                     NASA Small business program
                           Opinions on NLS
                   re: Apollo video (prod. review)
                   Return of payloads from Freedom
             SPS feasibility and other space development
           WANTED: Quicksat.zip satellite tracking program
                  What happened to Viking? (3 msgs)
         With telepresence, who needs people in Earth orbit?

    Welcome to the Space Digest!!  Please send your messages to
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    (THENET), or [e-mail] (Internet).
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 24 Aug 92 17:20:16 BST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: ACRV/Soyuz P

> But it isn't economics which keeps it there, it's government dictate.
> Unless we make space a market and subject it to market forces, costs
> will never come down.
>


It is difficult to point at a particular case and say that this will change in
x years. But economics are just as certain as physics in the long run. If an
economy is twisted out of shape far enough, it will be restored to an
equilibrium, one way or another. The USSR and Eastern Europe are right now
going through the most extreme example of this, one caused by massive and
relatively effective suppression of those who stated, as the fairy tale says,
that "the king has no clothes". In a free society the equilibrium will be
restored (I pray) in a means less disruptive to the overall welfare.

There is no question in my mind that economics will rule space exploration in
the long term. I am only worried about how long the short run will fare, and
how long in coming and how disastrous in effect the lesson in socialized space
will be.

Maybe I'm a bit more optimistic than Alan:-) I believe that the lesson is
already being learned.

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

Date: 24 Aug 92 12:34:56 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Apollo video (prod. review)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro

This is not an exact response to the question about Apollo Video Clips
(which was about the famous 'feather and hammer' stunt (or rather,
experiment) on the Moon.  I thought this was a good time to give a mini
product review on the set of Apollo EVA videotapes offered by Centrepoint
(yes, Centre, not Center) of Dallas, Texas.  Now, this set is advertised
as 'every moonwalk minute' so the hammer and feather routine is in there,
but I don't know which of the 29 tapes it is on.  I may find it soon.

Granted, you have to be a real loonie to spend $300 you can't afford to
buy 29 2-hour videotapes of Apollo EVAs, and willing to jeopardize your
marriage too, but I did it.  YES --HAHAHA - and I'm NOT sorry!!!  (though
I may yet be....)  So - this is what you get....

yes, it really is pretty much the full set of Apollo televised EVAs.  Of
course, the later missions - bless 'em - had quite a bit of non-televised
time while they were driving from one station to another, and naturally that
is not on the tapes because there was no TV transmission.  Also, as all
you veterans will recall, the quality of the TV was horrendous early in
the program.  Still, who cares?  It is great to see it all again if
you like that sort of thing.  Casual observers might tend to be critical
of the long periods spent setting up ALSEP or trying to get a drill core
unstuck.  This set is NOT for the casual observer, it is for hard core
space junkies.  I am only about a third of the way through the set - I
can't very well play them every evening or the Stooke marriage would
indeed be on the rocks, and I haven't come across the feather routine yet,
but I've seen lots of goodies.  I think my favourite stuff is the Apollo
15 visits to the edge of Hadley Rille.  When they first got up on the slopes
of St George crater and the TV panned northwest to look across the rille
for the first time the guys on the ground got really excited about this
incredible scenery.

So, as that great .sig says - if we can put a man on the Moon. why DON'T we
put a man on the Moon?

The set costs $300, or $20 per tape (29 tapes)
from CENTREPOINT, PO box 542107, Dallas, Taxes 75354.

(sorry, did I say taxes? No good reading MY lips!)

Phil Stooke

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

Date: 24 Aug 92 13:35:02 GMT
From: Paul Repacholi <[e-mail]>
Subject: Apollo video (prod. review)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] writes:
>
>
> This is not an exact response to the question about Apollo Video Clips
...
> The set costs $300, or $20 per tape (29 tapes)
> from CENTREPOINT, PO box 542107, Dallas, Taxes 75354.
>

Any one know if they are avail in PAL format?

~Paul

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

Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1992 15:36:58 GMT
From: Richard Martin <[e-mail]>
Subject: BuckyStalks (was Re: Beanstalks in Nevada Sky)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>What is a Lofstrom loop?
>                                                          Eric Klien
I *think* (I'm probably wrong, but...) that it's a system where you a
continuous converyor belt to LEO is set up, with a chain of parcels
always going up and then coming back down, driven by magnetic
repulsion devices on the ground and in orbit--a bit like a chain of
devil sticks (?).  I don't really know--the guy who tried to explain
it to me was a bit drunk, and I'm rather tired myself, so...
Please correct my numerous errors everybody (I know you won't hesitate)
Richard. =)
--
Richard Martin                   [e-mail]
If I had anything witty to say, I wouldn't put it here.

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

Date: Mon, 24 Aug 92 16:53:54 BST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Home made rockets

> My source for this was a newspaper article claiming the U.S.
General

> Accounting Office as its source.  I have not and did not confirm

> this figure with the GAO.  I simply quoted the statement (notice
the "'s).
>


As Fred Ringwald has pointed out in a very different context, popular
accounts of things are very often innacurate or incorrectly
understood. This is also true of the use of statistics in local
newspapers (and in the big ones sometimes as well), not to mention
outright biases pro or con. I'm not picking on this particular topic
per se, just using it to note that figures in the news are often just
plain wrong. Like the Mitch Mitchell homeless tally that showed up as
gospel and in actuality had no basis in factual reality whatever.

This problem is also very prevalent in popular accounts of space and
space projects. Numbers get misused, misquoted, mis-decimal placed
and sometimes used with hidden political agendas (ie undercurrents
that "all space is part of the war machine'). Even a "good" article
in a magazine like Time, Newsweek, USN&WR is enough to make a space
expert cringe.

Yes, I do have my personal libertarian opinion on the original topic,
but this is not the place to discuss it. I think it IS a place to
discuss the wide-eyed belief and lack of healthy scepticism that many
people show towards numbers in print.

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

Date: 24 Aug 92 16:25:10 GMT
From: Robert Rubinoff <[e-mail]>
Subject: Home made rockets
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Dani Eder) writes:
>in.  The casting pit is where you mix and pour the solid fuel, far
>away from any humans, in Utah.

Actually, I heard a rumor that humans have been making occasional brief visits
to Utah lately, so this is no longer guaranteed to be true.  :-)

   Robert

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

Date: Mon, 24 Aug 92 09:49:19 PDT
From: "UTADNX::UTDSSA::GREER"@utspan.span.nasa.gov
Subject: Iridium Transmutes to Dysprosium?

From an article by Terry Costlow in Electronic Times,
.....
Motorola's Iridium satellite network will use larger satellites to shrink
the number from 77 to 66, each sending 48 beams to Earth instead of 37.
The satellites will be in LEO in 6 planes with 11 satellites in each plane.

The network is set for commercialization in 1998, and is projected to cost
$3.37g, up from previous estimates of $3.1g.
.....

The atomic element number 66 is the rare-earth Dysprosium, but the article
I read didn't speculate on the possibility of changing the name of the
project.

The article implies that the satellites were made larger so their numbers
could be made fewer, but in fact the satellite design had already gone
overweight of its own accord.  Perhaps this larger size might also make it
easier for these satellites to carry scientific instruments.

_____________
Dale M. Greer, whose opinions are not to be confused with those of the
Center for Space Sciences, U.T. at Dallas, UTSPAN::UTADNX::UTDSSA::GREER
While the Bill of Rights burns, Congress fiddles. -- anonymous attourney

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

Date: 24 Aug 92 16:55:00 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Launch Loops - quick summary (was Re: BuckyStalks)
Newsgroups: sci.space

> What is a Lofstrom loop?

Here's an article I wrote a couple of years ago...

----------

I'm sure many of you have heard of Keith Lofstrom's concept of the Launch
Loop.  I think it's incredibly cool, and I'll take a crack at describing
what the principle of it is.


1. Kinetic Structures
=====================
The physical basis of the concept is something which I call a kinetic
structure.  I'll explain it by example.

Shoot a stream of water from a garden hose up in the air.  It forms an arc.
There is no need for material strength in the water:  there's no tension or
compression going on, but rather just the water's free-fall motion along the
path prescribed by gravity.

Imagine shooting a stream of water into a very high arc: it could go higher
than you could build the tallest skyscraper, since it's not limited by
the strengths of construction materials.  Now imagine balancing a pie plate
on top of the arc of water, so that it is supported by deflecting the water
downwards slightly.  The plate is suspended there, higher than you might
have thought possible, by the force from the continuing deflection of the
stream of water.


2. The Launch Loop
==================
If you replace the stream of water with a segmented ribbon of iron, achieve
the deflection of the stream by using magnets, and have two 'stations'
suspended by the ribbon rather than a single pie plate, you have Lofstrom's
launch loop.  It is a structure about 2000km long and 80km high.  The loop of
iron runs along the earth's surface in one direction, is deflected upwards
by magnets at an earth station, back parallel to the earth's surface by a
station 80km high, downwards by another station, and back along the earth's
surface.


         A --------->------------->------------->--------------- B
          /                                                     \
         /                                                       \
        /                                                         \
      C ---------<----------<------------<--------------<---------- D
===============================Earth====================================

   The Launch Loop.  A and B are stations, 80 km high.  C and D are
   deflector stations, 2000 km apart, on the ground.  The segmented
   iron ribbon moves at 14 km/s.  The horizontal sections, and the
   earth, are actually convex, not straight as shown.

The whole loop of iron segments whizzes along at 14 km/s inside a vacuum
sheath.  The stations at A and B are held up by the force generated by
magnetically deflecting the ribbon downwards; they are anchored to the
ground by cables, which are needed for stability and to counteract the
horizontal forces.


3. Say What?
============
I should head off your initial skepticism.  This is no joke.  The guy has
worked out details of how you deflect the ribbon, what materials are
required, how to anchor the stations, and all the other details.  The idea
has been reviewed by a lot of people, so if you think you see a glaring flaw,
it's probably because I haven't conveyed the idea properly.  The paper I
have, AIAA-85-1368 (from an AIAA conference in 1985), has lots of numbers
for everything.

Some details that I should mention:

  - the iron ribbon consists of 200cm x 5cm x 1cm segments, which are
    slotted to fit into each other.  the joints can slide freely lengthwise,
    and normal operation involves small changes in segment spacings in
    response to acceleration and deceleration.

  - the ribbon undergoes no stress whatsoever; it is just a passive holder
    of kinetic energy.

  - starting up the launch loop is a difficult task, involving spinning
    up the ribbon while it is floating on the surface of the ocean.


4. Using the Launch Loop
========================
Once you have spun up this thing, what do you do with it?  The stations
themselves are useful things: they're outside the atmosphere, yet they
are anchored to the surface by cables.  You could put an observatory on
one of them, and commute to it up and down the 80km cable.

But the main use of the loop is to launch vehicles, weighing about 5 tons,
including passenger vehicles.  The idea is that the vehicle sits on the top
section of track, and uses magnetic coupling with the moving ribbon to
accelerate along the 2000km top portion until the desired velocity is
reached (which could be orbital velocity or escape velocity).  So to get
into orbit, you winch yourself up a cable to station A, hop in a car, get
accelerated up to orbital velocity on the cable, and let go.

Because the loop is so massive, accelerating a vehicle doesn't decrease its
velocity much; the velocity is added back in by the ground-based magnets.
The result is that ground-based electrical power has been used to send a
payload into orbit.


5. Practical Objections
=======================
Lofstrom talks of the project as if it might be real, and even gives some
guesses as to construction costs ($2 billion total).  My evaluation of this
whole thing is:  incredibly cool physical concept, incredibly impractical
engineering problem.  Particularly, the ocean-based leg of the system is a
2000-km-long vacuum sheath which must be flawless.  Spinning up the thing
involves getting the entire 4000-km-long loop going perfectly on the first
try, dealing with weather and all sorts of unpleasantness, and gradually
lifting the stations up to their correct positions.


6. My preferred version: the hula hoop
======================================
I think the ground-based section of this thing is the worst part.  So I
propose having the loop go all the way around the earth, in low orbit.
The ribbon will be moving faster than orbital velocity, so that it can be
deflected by the stations to hold them up.  I'd say there should be about
60 stations spaced around the equator, each of them fastened by cables to
the ground.  The ribbon moves in a shape somewhere between a 60-sided
polygon and a circle.  In between stations, it flies in free fall.  It's
still a really complex device, but at least it isn't in the weather.

To spin up this structure, you could start with the stations in low orbit,
and gradually decelerate them to a standstill as the ribbon is spun up and
starts to support them.

I notice that Lofstrom references some articles in the L-5 news and JBIS
which discuss this idea.




[ Marc Ringuette | Cranberry Melon University, Cucumber Science Department  ]
[ [e-mail] | 412-268-3728 |      ".surivorter erutangis a ma I"       ]

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

Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1992 23:29:24 GMT
From: Ron Baalke <[e-mail]>
Subject: Mars Observer Update - 08/24/92
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,sci.geo.meteorology

Forwarded from Glenn Cunningham, Mars Observer Deputy Project Manager

                          MARS OBSERVER
                 DAILY ACTIVITIES STATUS REPORT
                            FROM THE
      KENNEDY SPACE CENTER/CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION

                      Launch Minus 23 Days

Date of report:     8-24-92        Time of report:     9:00 AM EDT


At this time we are out of the "Hurricane Condition III" (the Air
Force has issued an "all clear" from hurricane support), and all
elements are proceeding to re-establish their functional
configurations that were in place on Friday night before the
hurricane interrupted the flow.  As the result of our preparedness
and the low severity of the storm here, we believe, at this time,
that we sustained no physical damage from the storm.

The first priorities for the spacecraft are to re-install the RLE
(Remote Launch Equipment) in the B-10 room of the AGE building, and
to work with Titan to clear the TTCA to Titan cabling problem
(which is in series with all our future operations).

The science purge flow is being check at this time, the payload
nitrogen purge has been terminated and the air conditioning will be
will be re-established by 12:30 AM.  We expect to gain access to
the Universal Environmental Shelter at level 11 at about 11:30 AM
after the residual nitrogen has escaped.

Other spacecraft operations required before the Launch Day Dress
Rehearsal (LDDR) include battery charging, umbilical mode check,
GO/NO-GO SEPET, loading flight software version 6E, and a practice
countdown.  This totals about 4 days from the time that the TTCA to
Titan cabling problem is solved.

Several scheduling meetings with all elements this morning and in
the early afternoon will address how much time is required to be
ready for the LDDR.  It appears that the LDDR will have to slip.
We will have more data for the next report.
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | Optimists live longer
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | than pessimists.
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     |

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

Date: Mon, 24 Aug 92 16:30:33 GMT
From: Dave Jones <[e-mail]>
Subject: Martian Chronology
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Kenneth Freeman) writes:
>Has a Martian calender been worked up for the benefit of future
>colonists? Would the moons have a practical or a _pro forma_ role?
>---
>Free Tibet.
>UUCP: {ucsd nosc}!crash!pnet01!kfree INET: [e-mail]

A Martian calendar was written up in either "Galaxy" or "Astounding"
SF magazines  in the 50s.  It may even have been an Asimov article.

The real question is: would any colonists care enough about the seasons
on Mars to want to track them accurately with a calendar?

As for the moon(lets): with periods of 30.36 hours (Deimos) and 7.6
hours (Phobos) it would make for short months......

--
||)) Dump the Whatizit!  Ren and Stimpy for Olympic mascots in '96 ! )))))))|
||)))))) - Above slogan cancelled after seeing "Ren's Toothache".....)))))))|
||))))))   Normal .sig will be restored as as soon as possible       )))))))|
||Dave Jones ([e-mail]) | Eastman Kodak Co. Rochester, NY   |

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

Date: 24 Aug 92 15:41:09 GMT
From: Tim Nicholls <[e-mail]>
Subject: NASA Small business program
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (Edward D Wright) writes:
> The NASA Small Business Innovative Research program (SBIR) may be
> contacted at......
>    SBIR Program Manager
>    Code CR
>    National Aeronautics and Space Administration
>    Washington DC 20546.
> The deadline for the 1993 applications is July 1993.  Initial grants
> are reported to be in the $50k range.
>
> Thanks to everyone who responded.
> Ed Wright


    Does anyone have more information about SBIR? I would like to know the type
of research that NASA is willing to support. I will write to the above address,
but would like some more information before doing so.


Thanks

Tim Nicholls

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

Date: 24 Aug 92 14:24:19 GMT
From: "Allen W. Sherzer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Opinions on NLS
Newsgroups: sci.space

the bottom line on NLS is that it will not reduce costs but will
actually raise costs if you factor in development costs. On the other
hand, we have proposals out there for Delta and Titan derived HLV's
which WILL reduce costs by a factor of two even if development costs
are included (assuming they work).

If you need a HLV, it makes far more sense to spend a little effort
and build one of these so costs can be reduced.

   Allen

--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer | "If they can put a man on the Moon, why can't they     |
|  [e-mail]     |  put a man on the Moon?"                               |
+----------------------242 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+

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

Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1992 16:19:36 GMT
From: Martin Connors <[e-mail]>
Subject: re: Apollo video (prod. review)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
writes:
> this set is advertised as 'every moonwalk minute' ....
> yes, it really is pretty much the full set of Apollo televised EVAs.
> This (moon EVA) set is NOT for the casual observer, it is for hard core
> space junkies.  I am only about a third of the way through the set - I
> can't very well play them every evening or the Stooke marriage would
> indeed be on the rocks...
> Phil Stooke

Having grown up and watched pretty well every minute of the -original- EVA
broadcasts in Phil's territory of London, Ontario, Canada, it's nice to
see Londoners are still watching. I guess this confirms that London,
Ontario, itself has not become any more interesting in the intervening 20+
years....

Sounds like a neat set of tapes even if one does likely want the finger
poised over the fast forward button on the remote control.

Martin Connors - bored Canadian

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

Date: Mon, 24 Aug 92 16:09:39 BST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Return of payloads from Freedom

> >The shuttle has already lived a longer time than most of the really

> >early cargo aircraft (ie pre-Ford Trimotor and DC-3). It will have an

> >honored place at NASM and will probably be sitting there before 2005.
>

>     Well, just to pick nits, NASM already has a shuttle and DC-3s are still
> flying.  One has the equivalent of something like 6 million miles on it.  Pre-
> DC-3 craft probably weren't popular for long, but I bet there were some that

> flew for 15 years.
>


Please note pre-fix "pre" which I used in the above.

A few Ford Trimoters are also still flying  I believe.

NASM only has a test article that was considered too expensive to convert to flight
status (the Enterprise). I believe it was due to weight problems. The location of the
other test articles has been well covered in back issues of Space Digest and is probably
in FAQ. If not, it should be.

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

Date: Mon, 24 Aug 92 15:55:06 BST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: SPS feasibility and other space development

> Sorry, but I'm going to keep asking questions: you can't stop me!
Nor
> could they stop Galileo, although they did stop him from doing it
> publicly. But they were wrong. And my questions are not "blind": I
ask
> questions, because I want to know the answers, and I have reasons
why I
> want to know the answers.
>


I would agree that questioning is valuable. I think though that
Dennis is trying to make a valid point and just not doing a good job
of it.

There are times when you follow hunches and gut feel on engineering
issues because you simply don't have solid fact to go on. You then
have the choice to either stop and wait for science to catch up, or
else you plow on into the unknown and get things to work by empirical
means, ie you find that some things you try work, some don't, you
don't know why, but you have a "feel" for the system.

Engineering overlaps science but is NOT science. Engineering is the
art of getting a job done, regardless of whether you understand what
is going on or not. OBVIOUSLY, you are better off if you DO
understand those underlying principles. And if they are known and you
have no good reason to doubt them, then you would be a complete fool
not to use them.

I think, at bottom, that is what Dennis is trying to say. When
engineering and goals reach the edge of what is known, you sometimes
have to step out into that unknown, take you best shot and hope you
are right.

I think both Dennis and I and Allan would all agree that the fastest
way to drive a technology (rather than science) into the the future
capabilities we want is to build lots of quick and dirty prototypes
that we can crash, blow up and otherwise mangle as a means of
collecting EMPIRICAL data. That data (as in astronomy) is then grist
for the theoritician's mill. Eventually the theoritician figures out
why it works and then we can shave the large margins of error on the
design to come up with more cost effective solutions.

The Romans, for instance, built aqueducts that are still standing
2000 years later. They did it with empirically derived tables and
they did it damn well. True, we can now build aqueducts for a
fraction of the "cost" of the Roman model and that will be optimal to
.99999. (Of course the modern ones probably will fall down long
before the existing Roman ones do, but that's beside the point :-)

As I read Dennis and Frederick, I think I see more common ground and
less disagreement between them on this than they do. Frederick's own
field is replete with risk takers who did just what Dennis is really
trying to say. The people at University of Arizona (?) who pioneered
the spinning mirror technology were those sort of risk takers, They
used the best numbers available, made an engineering decision that
"I've got a feeling I can make it work", and then they made it work.
There were questions raised, and it was appropriate that they were
raised. But as Dennis is implying, there is a point where you
interpret the facts as best you can and tell the rest of the world
they are wrong and they may only judge you by the harshest of all
possible criteria: your results.

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

Date: 24 Aug 92 10:04:40 GMT
From: M{kel{ Veikko <[e-mail]>
Subject: WANTED: Quicksat.zip satellite tracking program
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Keith Vanavery) writes:

>Would some kind soul out there in Usenetland e-mail me quicksat.zip?
>I checked archie; it isn't available via ftp.  I don't have a modem
>to download it from TS Kelso's Celestial BBS.

  Try anonymous-FTP from ftp.funet.fi:pub/astro/pc/satel/qsat240.exe


                        Veikko Makela,
                        moderator of
                        astronomy files
                        in ftp.funet.fi

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

Date: 24 Aug 92 15:48:37 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: What happened to Viking?
Newsgroups: sci.space

None of the Viking spacecraft were turned off due to lack of funds.  The
orbiters ran out of steering propellant.  I believe Viking Lander 2's nuclear
power source dwindled to levels too low to operate the spacecraft and VL1's
antenna did indeed receive an erroneous signal causing it to point away from
Earth.
                                             Nathan Bridges
                                             U.S. Geological Survey
                                             Branch of Astrogeology
                                             Menlo Park, CA

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

Date: 24 Aug 92 19:04:14 GMT
From: Lee Mellinger <[e-mail]>
Subject: What happened to Viking?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Eugene N. Miya) writes:
:In article <[e-mail]>
:[e-mail] (John Burris) writes:
:>What happened the Viking spacecraft?
:
:Both lands and orbiters were shut down for lack of funds and the need to use
:the antenna resources for other projects (Galileo, Magellan, power
:distribution experiments, SETI, etc.)
:
:>I heard through the grapevine that someone sent a bogus signal to it which
:>turned the antenna away from Earth, resulting in LOS.
:
:That was Voyager II (briefly).
:
:--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, [e-mail]

Not quite Gene,  one Viking lander (VL1 I think) was lost due to a bad
command that turned the antenna is an unknown direction.  The spacecraft
was never recovered.

Lee

"Mit Pulver und Blei, die Gedanken sind frei."

|Lee F. Mellinger                 Caltech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory - NASA
|4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 818/354-1163  FTS 792-1163
|[e-mail]
B
B
B

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

Date: 24 Aug 92 19:12:54 GMT
From: Lee Mellinger <[e-mail]>
Subject: What happened to Viking?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
:In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Eugene N. Miya) writes:
:>>What happened the Viking spacecraft?
:>
:>Both lands and orbiters were shut down for lack of funds and the need to use
:>the antenna resources for other projects (Galileo, Magellan, power
:>distribution experiments, SETI, etc.)
:>
:>>I heard through the grapevine that someone sent a bogus signal to it which
:>>turned the antenna away from Earth, resulting in LOS.
:>
:>That was Voyager II (briefly).
:
:Eugene, are you getting enough sleep? :-)  This does *not* correspond to
:the history of Viking as I'm aware of it.


[deleted description of what happened to the Viking s/c]
:
:--
:There is nothing wrong with making      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
:mistakes, but... make *new* ones. -D.Sim|  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

Since I was working for the DSN during the entire Viking project, I
can verify that what Henry said here is exactly what happened.  I even
contributed to the Viking Fund!  We searched for an RF signal from VL1
for weeks, but except for one very quick and weak signal (which may or
may not have been the lander) nothing was ever seen.

BTW, there is some hallway talk of trying to image the landers by the
Mars Observer s/c, maybe we will see which direction the antenna is
pointing ;-)

Lee


|Lee F. Mellinger                 Caltech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory - NASA
|4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 818/354-1163  FTS 792-1163
|[e-mail]

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

Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1992 23:43:07 GMT
From: Ron Baalke <[e-mail]>
Subject: With telepresence, who needs people in Earth orbit?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes...
>Not the same thing at all. Except for the Viking landers, *none* of the
>spacecraft that ventured beyond the Moon have been able to manipulate
>their environment.

One other exception is Venera 13 and 14.  They collected some soil samples
on Venus and performed some onboard analysis.
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | Optimists live longer
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | than pessimists.
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     |

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End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 140
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