Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT_ZIP/spacedig/V15_2/V15NO276.ZIP/V15NO276

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Date: Sat,  3 Oct 92 17:08:17
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V15 #276
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Sat,  3 Oct 92       Volume 15 : Issue 276

Today's Topics:
                     Amber (Was: Re: Population)
                       another sad anniversary
                      Clinton and Space Funding
           FAQ: another varient  of Astronomical Mnemonics
                       GPS constellation status
                               Magellan
                         Mars Observer orbit
          Mystery Alien Object Invading European Airspace...
                       Psalms from outer space?
             Toutatis impact in 2000 AD? (was Re: Help !)
                       What is this ? (2 msgs)
                         what use is Freedom?

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

Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 21:29:38 GMT
From: Derek Tearne <[e-mail]>
Subject: Amber (Was: Re: Population)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.geo.geology

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (John Roberts) writes...
>>-From: [e-mail] (Doug Mohney)
>>-I suppose we should next try to restore the dinosaurs to the prominance they
>>-had a couple million years ago?
>>
>>That's a *little* beyond our current capability. I believe the current
>>(and recent) record for DNA extraction is ~25 million years, for a termite
>>trapped in amber. Reconstructing the entire genetic code from DNA fragments
>>and using that code to produce a living organism are additional challenges.
>>
>>I'd like to see the restoration of the wooly mammoth. With frozen tissue
>>available, there's a pretty good chance that they could be cloned.
>

Wow,  A Mammoth preserved in Amber!

Seriously,  or perhaps not,  that was our favourite 'newbie' trick.  Going
to the section of the museum where they had all the little insects in
preserved in Amber and saying "You should see the Mammoth in amber they've
got round the corner!".  Worked every time!


--
Derek Tearne. -- [e-mail] --  Fujitsu/ICL New Zealand --
Some of the more aware dinosaurs were worried about the environmental
consequences of an accident with the new Iridium enriched fusion reactor.
"If it goes off only the cockroaches and mammals will survive..." they said.

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

Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 11:38:39 -0500 (CDT)
From: [e-mail] (Patricia Reiff [phone])
Subject: another sad anniversary

Regarding the turning off of the apollo instrumentation, Henry Spencer
stated:

>On 30 Sept 1977, the surviving Apollo lunar surface instruments -- left by
>Apollos 12, 15, 16, and 17 -- were turned off by ground command, because
>money could no longer be found to receive and record their data.

That of course is mostly correct - MO&DA (Mission Operations and Data
Analysis) money was drying up - standard "two years after last major
function" procedure.  But, another problem was that the RTG's were
losing power.  That was not so much a problem in receiving the data here
(as Voyager has shown us), but also the RTG's kept the heaters going during
the cold long lunar night, and they were no longer up to the task.

Incidentally, I was there that day, with a number of scientists and
engineers on the project, and since "my" instrument was still one of the
working ones, I got the opporunity to flip the switch to turn off the last
instrument on the moon.  There was a sign in the ALSEP room that said "LIVE
DATA FROM THE MOON".  The sign had been made for a live exhibit of data
before congress, and had been the in ALSEP room ever since.  After the
instruments were turned off, I had everyone present sign it and brought it
home, where it sits in pride in the Rice Department of Space Physics and
Astronomy.  Rice had three working instruments at that time, from Apollos 12
and *14* - two SIDES (suprathermal ion detector experiment) and one CPLEE
(Charged particle lunar environment experiment).  I call that one "mine"
because my PhD thesis involved analyzing its data, and by then the two PI's
who had built and flown the instrument had left Rice for other places.

Of course, I was saddened by having to turn off functioning instruments,
not only our own but the seismometers and other instruments which were also
still working quite well.  I told an NBC reporter that I felt like I had
"pulled the plug on my grandmother".  That quote made it into the NBC
nightly news that night!

Incidentally, my notes (made several months after the event) said that it
was Friday Oct 28, not Sept 30, but my recollection could have been faulty.
------
From the First Space Science Department in the World:
                                                    :      _^ ^_    ____
     Patricia H. Reiff                              :     / O O \   |GO \
     Department of Space Physics and Astronomy      :     \  V  /   |OWLS\
     Rice University, Houston, TX 77251-1892        :    / ""R"" \__/
     internet:  [e-mail]  (128.42.10.3)    \ ""U"" /
     SPAN:      RICE::REIFF                         :    _/|\ /|\_

"Why does man want to go to the Moon? ...  Why does Rice play Texas?"
   ....JFK, Rice Stadium, 1962

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

Date: 2 Oct 92 15:26:09 GMT
From: "Don M. Gibson" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Clinton and Space Funding
Newsgroups: sci.space

Could someone please send me copy a Clinton's Space Position.
Thanx--DonG

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

Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 14:50:33 BST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: FAQ: another varient  of Astronomical Mnemonics

>     Spectral classification sequence: O B A F G K M R N S
>

>     Oh Be A Fine Girl Kiss Me Right Now, Sweetheart. (a classic)
>


I learned it as:
     Oh Be A Fine Girl Kiss Me Right Now, Smack!

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

Date: 2 Oct 92 13:54:50 GMT
From: Thomas Enblom <[e-mail]>
Subject: GPS constellation status
Newsgroups: sci.space

Is there anybody out there that could provide me with a full status of the current GPS constellation. The last one I've got is from september 1991. I know that there has been some changes since then.
================================================================================
Ericsson Telecom, Stockholm, Sweden

Thomas Enblom, just another employee.

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

Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 15:17:41 GMT
From: Ron Baalke <[e-mail]>
Subject: Magellan
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Richard Ottolini) writes...
>How does Magellan move its radar attena to transmit results to earth?
>Is it an electric motor powered by solar power or thrusters?
>Is this the ultimate limitation on Magellan's lifetime then, barring
>breakdowns?

The entire spacecraft is turned towards Earth twice on each orbit
to transmit the radar mapping data back to Earth.  The turns are done by
using three spinning reactions wheels (one for each axis of rotation).
The wheels are spun at different speeds to turn the spacecraft using the
transfer of momentum principle, and this is all done without using any
propellant.  The reaction wheels do pick up excessive speed from the solar
wind and the gravity of Venus, so this excessive speed is bled off by firing
the thrusters briefly twice a day (referred to as desats in the Magellan
status reports).

Magellan has been a busy little beaver in sending back its data to Earth.
On a typical mapping orbit, the antenna is pointed towards Venus and
bounces the radar off the planet and records it onto the tape recorders.
It then turns towards Earth using the
reaction wheels and transmits half the data back to Earth for about an hour.
Magellan then turns away from Earth to lock on two reference stars with its
star scanner to see if its attitude position has drifted any, and if so,
then makes a minor attitude adjustment with the reaction wheels.  This is
called a star calibration.  It then turns back to Earth and sends the
remaining data from the tape recorder.  The spacecraft has now completed
one orbit and turns back to Venus to start the next mapping pass.

This pirouette around the planet is repeated every 3.26 hours, and is done
day in and day out, 24 hours a day, for most of the 2+ years that Magellan
has been orbiting Venus.  It is an amazing engineering feat that has mostly
gone unnoticed, and a lot of credit goes to the spacecraft designers who
made it work so well.
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | Einstein's brain is stored
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | in a mason jar in a lab
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     | in Wichita, Kansas.

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

Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 14:19:17 GMT
From: Hartmut Frommert <[e-mail]>
Subject: Mars Observer orbit
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jeff Bytof) writes:

>The orbit is computed to minimize injection energy and Mars orbit
>insertion delta-V.  Given that Mars' orbit is fairly elliptical and inclined
>to the ecliptic as well, gas-guzzling transfer orbit solutions can arise
>when the transfer angle to Mars is set too close to 180 deg.  In some
>cases, a "split-plane manuever" is required, where half-way to Mars,
>a burn is made to change the transfer orbit's inclination.  MO would
>have done a split-plane burn had it launched prior to Sept. 21.

[..]

Is there any software [PD/inexpensive SW/commercial] out there to do such
orbital simulations, i.e. transfer orbits, approach hyperbola [dependent
of multiple params], orbits around planets or planetary satellites
[optionally also for the Jupiter system, or solar system including major
satellites] ?
--
 Hartmut Frommert                 <[e-mail]>
 Dept of Physics, Univ of Constance, P.O.Box 55 60, D-W-7750 Konstanz, Germany
                                           -- Eat whale killers, not whales --

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

Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 12:24:33 -0500
From: [e-mail] (Phil G. Fraering)
Subject: Mystery Alien Object Invading European Airspace...

The guy who started this thread writes:
\Dale Amon writes (Wed, 30 Sep 92 17:47:26 BST):

/>       21            290                       990       1000
\>       22            300                       990       0000
/>       22.5          300                       980       0000  Break
\lock
/>
\>                                                   I'd say it looks
/>like test data for a fire and forget air to ground missile. There are
\>some interesting features         . I assume altitudes in MSL rather
/>than AGL and airspeed rather than ground speed.

\Could not be an air to ground missile since nothing fell to the ground.
/Since the altitude displayed on the F-16's Westinghouse APG-66 radar
\display screen (upper right hand corner) has only two digits, 00 on
/this screen, and 0000 in the quoted report, means anything between
\0 and 500 feet (I think 0 = ground level, not sea level). The speed is
/the absolute value of the real 3-D vector speed (air speed ?), not the
\absolute value of its 2-D vector projection on the ground.

Don't be so sure. Have you heard of penetrators? It might have hit the
ground and buried itself and gone unnoticed.

\Nobody knows what it was (I mean, those who know keep silent...). In
/its SUMMARY REPORT ON OBSERVATIONS 30-31 MARCH 1990, Colonel (now
\General) De Brouwer, of the Belgian Air Force, writes:
/"...............
\ A total of 9 interception attempts have been made.
/ At 6 occasions the pilots could establish a lock-on with their air
\ interception radar. Lock-on distances varied between 5 and 8 NM. On
/ all occasions targets varied speed and altitude very quickly and
\ break-locks occurred after 10 to 60 seconds. Speeds varied between
/ 150 and 1010 knots. At 3 occasions both F-16 registered simultaneous
\ lock-ons with the same parameters. The 2 F-16 were flying +- 2 NM
/ apart. ............."

Just wondering, but I recall a while back that some Viggens on
excercises in the Baltic once tried a lock-on to an SR-71, just to
prove that they could catch it if they wanted to. This was "way
back when."

Target lock lasted all of three seconds before being overwhelmed
bu ECM. The "black" projects the US has been building all have
heavy emphasis on stealth characteristics (passive ECM, as it were)
and more active forms of ECM.

I have heard speculation that the Belgian UFO's were American spook
vehicles that were not capable of that sort of acceleration, but
of making an F-16's radar _think_ it had seen something that could
do that.

Of course, it may have been alien spacecraft. After all, if the
aliens came tomorrow and buzzed the White House, whoever was in
charge of Aurora would hold a press conference and say "We didn't
do it. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more, we can't talk about
why it wasn't us, etc., etc., we totally deny everything." And noone
would think it was aliens, but that it was Project Whatever.

Oh, BTW: ;-)

--
Phil Fraering [e-mail] where the x is a number from 1-5.
Phone: [phone] SnailMail: 2408 Blue Haven Dr., New Iberia, La. 70560
"NOAH!"
"Yes Lord?"                          - Bill Cosby
"HOW LONG CAN YOU TREAD WATER?"

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

Date: 2 Oct 92 10:41:41 GMT
From: Andrew - Palfreyman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Psalms from outer space?
Newsgroups: sci.space

: A friend has stumped me with the following question:
:
: >  Which Psalm was it that was read from space by an astronaut?
: >My mom was wondering  (she guessed Psalm 8).

If my memory serves, it was "The Lord Is My Shepherd" - the 23rd Psalm,
again from memory.
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
| lord snooty @the giant |  Would You Like Space Potatoes With That?       |
| poisoned electric head |              [e-mail] |
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 15:12:42 GMT
From: Ian Taylor <[e-mail]>
Subject: Toutatis impact in 2000 AD? (was Re: Help !)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Martin Connors) writes:
[.../dev/nulled]
>Of course Toutatis
>is NOT coming in randomly, and even for its chaotic orbit we know the
>position well enough to say that over the next few encounters it will not
>be hitting and after that its encounters are not so close.

As you know Toutatis's position _well enough_, perhaps you or someone else can
answer Bill Higgins previous question about what the error is in its predicted
position at Earth "encounter"?

An interested observer :-)

+-- I -------- fax [phone] --------------------- voice [phone] --+
| T a y l o r  Alcatel-ELIN Research, 1-7 Ruthnergasse, Vienna A-1210 Austria  |
+-- n ---- [e-mail] --- PSI%023226191002::SE_TAYLOR --- 20731::ian -----+

         better, smaller, faster, cheaper, smarter, stronger ... never?

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

Date: Fri, 02 Oct 92 14:51:54 MET
From: [e-mail]
Subject: What is this ?

Carl Hage writes (30 Sep 92 22:52:50 GMT):

:  Seconds after    Heading                    Speed    Altitude
:    lock-on       (degrees)                  (knots)    (feet)
:
:       00            200                       150       7000
:       01            200                       150       7000
:       02            200                       150       7000
:       03            200                       150       7000
:       04      sharp 200          acceleration 150       6000
:       05       turn 270             = 22 g    560       6000
:       06            270                       560       6000
:       07            270                       570       6000
:       08            270                       560       7000
:       09            270                       550       7000

>It must have a warp drive since it managed 1000 feet of altitude change
>while going only 150 knots (253 f/s).

Not necessarily, since the altitude displayed on the F-16's Westinghouse
APG-66 radar display screen (upper right hand corner) has only two
digits. 07 means 7000 + or - 500, 12 means 12000 + or - 500, etc...
So in this report, 7000 could be 6501, and 6000 could be 6499.

J. Pharabod

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

Date: Fri, 02 Oct 92 16:20:18 MET
From: [e-mail]
Subject: What is this ?

Dale Amon writes (Wed, 30 Sep 92 17:47:26 BST):

>       21            290                       990       1000
>       22            300                       990       0000
>       22.5          300                       980       0000  Break
lock
>
>                                                   I'd say it looks
>like test data for a fire and forget air to ground missile. There are
>some interesting features         . I assume altitudes in MSL rather
>than AGL and airspeed rather than ground speed.

Could not be an air to ground missile since nothing fell to the ground.
Since the altitude displayed on the F-16's Westinghouse APG-66 radar
display screen (upper right hand corner) has only two digits, 00 on
this screen, and 0000 in the quoted report, means anything between
0 and 500 feet (I think 0 = ground level, not sea level). The speed is
the absolute value of the real 3-D vector speed (air speed ?), not the
absolute value of its 2-D vector projection on the ground.

>The low initial speed and altitude makes me think of some sort of
>helicopter launched anti-tank or antiradiation weapon. (I just don't
>see an F15 gallumphing along at 150kn at FL70 to launch any sort of
>ordinance...) Whether 7000 is low really depends on whether it is MSL
>or AGL, and if MSL then on the ground level MSL altitude. Antitank
>choppers would not usually attack at that altitude unless they were
>long range stand off weapons.
>
>I do not believe it is an RPV unless it was either one whose wings
>fell off at 11000 MSL or an unusual new government method of
>ploughing furrows in a field. (Not all that less efficient than
>agricultural subsidies... :-)

Nobody knows what it was (I mean, those who know keep silent...). In
its SUMMARY REPORT ON OBSERVATIONS 30-31 MARCH 1990, Colonel (now
General) De Brouwer, of the Belgian Air Force, writes:
"...............
 A total of 9 interception attempts have been made.
 At 6 occasions the pilots could establish a lock-on with their air
 interception radar. Lock-on distances varied between 5 and 8 NM. On
 all occasions targets varied speed and altitude very quickly and
 break-locks occurred after 10 to 60 seconds. Speeds varied between
 150 and 1010 knots. At 3 occasions both F-16 registered simultaneous
 lock-ons with the same parameters. The 2 F-16 were flying +- 2 NM
 apart. ............."

J. Pharabod

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

Date: Fri, 02 Oct 92 16:14:01 GMT
From: Andy Cohen <[e-mail]>
Subject: what use is Freedom?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Henry
Spencer) wrote:
>........let us not get carried away with
> how tremendous it is.
> --
True, the immediate habitable space is smaller than skylab.....How much use
was that space in Skylab?  Also, when I "get carried away with how
tremendous it is" I am referring to the overall size of the structure of
Space Station Freedom. (by the way, the only place where I've heard SSF
referred to as "Fred" was here. Nobody at NASA who is working on the
program refers to it that way, nor do the contractors.)

However, lets look at the habitable sapce....A complete SSF will have four
modules. The US lab and hab modules, the ESA module and the NASDA module.
SSF will also have at least two resource nodes between the modules which
will contain the primary workstation, the cupola and it's workstation AND
the centrifuge among other things.  The complete SSF will also have a
Hyperbaric Airlock almost as big as the resource nodes, a pressurized
docking tunnel, and a the resource module.  Take these spaces into account
before you compare with Skylab..

I've been in both the Skylab mockup at JSC as well as Skylab II at the
Smithsonean in DC....I've also talked a great deal with Pete Conrad on how
they used the Skylab (I work in Flight Crew Integration)..  Yeah...Skylab
was huge.... especially when you compare it to....Mir.  But it did not
provide nearly the same volume or usable area the SSF will.  Standing
(instead of floating unfortunately) in the full scale mockup of resource
node 2 with the cupola provides a very large area which is very similar to
the area in skylab where the crew exercise equipment was.....  With all the
hatches open, within the US areas alone, the crew will be able to have
great frisbee games or races....if they had the time.....

More importantly, as I alluded to in my prior post, a complete SSF provides
a HUGE structure.  This structure is almost 300 feet long.....Thats a
football field..... It also has power panels and radiators which stick
out....  All this structure is essential to provide living spaces, power
and all the other services needed for direct human activities in Earth
orbit.....  If we can't do this, we can't do much else as far as people in
Space.....

I welcome ANYBODY to come to our facility in Huntington Beach, CA to see
our full scale mockups.  We have a complete mockup of half the truss.  It
takes up the whole building.  We also have the basic "Race Track" mockup of
the modules and nodes........

Again, I ask all not to judge by the newspapers..... Ask those who are
directly involved.... I have no doubt there are others on the program who
read here besides me.....


Again....these are my opinions...not MDSSC....

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


          id aa25686; 2 Oct 92 4:26:45 EDT
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From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Population growth, Von Neumann machines
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Date: 1 Oct 92 11:53:09 GMT
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-From: [e-mail] (Thomas Clarke)
-Subject: Re: Self-genociding space colonies & the Fermi Paradox
-Date: 23 Sep 92 12:49:02 GMT
-Organization: University of Central Florida

-In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Nick
-Szabo) writes:
-> I hadn't thought of that, but it is a fascinating and quite disturbing
-> idea. The demographics hold for all highly educated human societies,
-> from Hungary to Italy to Germany to Japan, but I have a hard time
-> extrapolating that to all possible ETI societies.

It has indeed been observed that countries with high per capita income
tend to have a low rate of population growth. Over the last few years,
that correlation has gone from observation to accepted gospel, and it is
now believed to be a controlling factor - in other words, it is accepted
that if the wealth of a society can be brought above a certain critical
point, the population growth rate *will* be forced low.

I would say that while the observation is an encouraging one, it's been
given a little more weight than observations to date perhaps warrant. It
may still be a little early to rely on it as a factor in setting policy.
For instance, among the countries that have shown increasing wealth and
decreasing population growth (without legal restrictions like China),
how many of them had extremely high population density to start with?
And there have been plenty of countries that were relatively poor yet had low
population growth. How about the US - over the last decade or more, I
get the impression that average income (adjusted for inflation) of the
*majority* of the population has actually been decreasing, yet population
growth is still pretty low. I'm not saying the concept is wrong - I just think
that it has a way to go before it can be relied on as an accurate predictor
of future events. Perhaps education is a factor, as Nick implies, and also
other social factors.

->If ETI life is common
-> by the Drake Equation, a civilization somewhere should value fertility
-> over wealth, have achieved immortality, have built Von Neumann machines
-> that would clue us in even if they had failed themselves to expand, or
-> some such.

-But wouldn't the same demographic problem apply to the Von Neumann
-machines also? :-/

After the last discussion of Von Neumann machines, I read two biographies
of Von Neumann. In the field of computer design, the term "Von Neumann machine"
always refers to a computer with the "traditional" architecture - sequential
execution of instructions stored in randomly addressable (and generally
writable) memory, plus a few other qualifications. I believe this is also
the accepted definition in the general body of technical literature. It's
true that Von Neumann theorized on the subject of self-replicating machines,
but I do not believe they were called Von Neumann machines - the name had
already been taken to describe the computer architecture. The only actual
experiment mentioned in the biographies was a somewhat lighthearted attempt
to build such a machine out of Tinkertoys. :-)

John Roberts
[e-mail]

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

End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 276
------------------------------