Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT_ZIP/spacedig/V15_3/V15NO379.ZIP/V15NO379

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Date: Thu,  5 Nov 92 05:04:15
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V15 #379
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Thu,  5 Nov 92       Volume 15 : Issue 379

Today's Topics:
                     Duncan Steel on Swift-Tuttle
                           Hubble's mirror
                    Limits to growth of knowledge
                        NASA Coverup (4 msgs)
              notice to archive maintainers, e-clippers
                               Planet X
                      pocket satellite receivers
                          Pumpkins to Orbit
                        Space Digest V15 #376
                    what about toutatis? (2 msgs)
                              Why Vote?

    Welcome to the Space Digest!!  Please send your messages to
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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1992 19:37:40 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Duncan Steel on Swift-Tuttle
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro

The following are comments from Duncan Steel on some recent postings
on sci.astro and sci.space. Please address responses to his email
address. I am posting this for him as he does not have direct access
to UseNet.
Peter Brown
=======================================================================

SOME COMMENTS ON RECENT DISPARATE POSTINGS W.R.T. TUNGUSKA AND P/SWIFT-TUTTLE


(1) Tunguska object being stoney: The work referred to is by Chris Chyba
   (now at NASA-Goddard SFC), Paul Thomas (U. Wisconsin-Eau Claire) and
   Kevin Zahnle (NASA-Ames RC).  They have a paper prepared which shows that
   the Tunguska event is consistent with the entry of a stoney asteroidal
   object about 50 m in size (i.e. there is NO NEED for a fluffy underdense
   object like a "comet" fragment - as if we know anyway what a comet is
   like; hell we don't even know P/Halley's density to within a factor of 3).
   I imagine that they would have given a paper on this at the DPS in Munich.

(2) Frequency of Tunguska-type impacts.  The thing which MAY be wrong with
   most of the discussions is that it is generally assumed that such objects
   hit Earth randomly in time.  This is daft in that we know that a good
   fraction - perhaps even the majority - of the mass influx of smaller
   meteoroids hit the Earth in showers (meteor showers).  These occur as
   the Earth passes through the the meteoroid stream produced by an
   asteroid/comet.  They recur each year since the smaller particles produced
   by the cometary decay are spread around its orbit by ejection speeds from
   the comet nucleus, radiative forces etc.  However, there is a concenration
   close to the cometary nucleus (cf. cyclic meteor storms such as Leonids,
   Draconids, Perseids in 1992 - and in 1993/94?).  The large particles are
   also grouped close to the nucleus since ejection velocities are small,
   and radiative forces insignificant.  What if a giant comet fragments,
   leaving some km-sized lumps but many more smaller ones (50-100m)? These
   will be mostly in a clump.  At such time as the orbital precession/
   evolution gives a node at 1 AU, a shower of large lumps may occur: but
   not every year, only when the clump is at the right (wrong?) point in
   the orbit, like the Leonids recurring every 33 yr (the orbital period
   of the parent comet).  Anyhow, the above would lead to the following
   occurring: a few random incoming Tunguska-type objects every so often
   (every few centuries), but every millenium or so (time depending upon
   exact orbit because of precession rate) there will be a phase of a
   century or so in which every few years/few decades there is a large number
   of Tunguska-type events spread over a week or so, and this dominates the
   long-term (sporadic) influx.  This I call "Coherent Catastrophism", and
   catastrophic it would be.  Indeed, I believe, it "has been", judging
   from the historical record, since this is what is going on at the moment,
   with us now (late 20th Century) being in a hiatus between mass influxes.
   I would refer one and all again to V.Clube and B.Napier, "The Cosmic
   Winter", Blackwells, Oxford & NY, 1990, for the historical stuff.  For
   the nitty-gritty w.r.t. the meteoroids (small ones in showers observed
   now) see Steel, Asher & Clube, Mon Not Roy Astron Soc, 251, 632, 1991.
   Since then we have looked at the asteroids which we believe to be members
   of the complex (see Steel, The Observatory, 112, 120, June 1992) and
   shown that at the >95% confidence level there are 8/9 objects in the
   inventory of known Apollo asteroids which are members of this complex
   (Asher, Clube & Steel, presented at Meteoroids and their parent bodies,
   Slovakia, July 1992 and Mon Not Roy Astron Soc, submitted).  This would
   imply that there are many more smaller objects (50-100m?) which have
   orbits which do not have a node at 1 AU at present, but will precess
   so as to do so before too long!  Outliers in that respect include the
   Tunguska object itself, the 1975 lunar impactors (also detected on
   Earth as ionospheric disturbances: Kaufmann et al, Science in 1989 I
   think), and 1991 BA (that 5-10m near-miss asteroid/meteoroid).  As I
   have said before, I do not know when the world will end but I would
   bet that it'll be in the last week of June one year.  You all might
   like to note that the above ideas on Coherent Catastrophism were
   totally excluded from the NASA report on how to search for Earth-crossing
   objects (Report of the Near-Earth-Object Detection Workshop, ed.
   D. Morrison) despite my best efforts as one on the committee members
   to have it included.

(3)  There has been a lot of bull written in these columns about
   P/Swift-Tuttle and whether it will hit the Earth and what the
   consequences might be.  Here is what led to the news stories.
   In IAU Circ 5636 dated October 15th Brian Marsden pointed out that
   with present orbital solutions and their acknowldeged uncertainties
   an impact on 2126 August 14th is/was possible.  Whenever something
   topical comes up I do some radio interviews with Australian Broadcasting
   Corp stations here, to keep the Australian public abreast of what is
   going on: good for astronomy, good for space, good for science all
   round.  I also informed a few newspapers here.  To that extent the
   Australian public knew all about this story a week or more ahead of
   the populace elsewhere, and with that in mind I would encourage others
   spread all over to do something to keep the public informed about what
   is happening; hell, they (mostly) pay for our salaries, equipment,
   education.  Getting back to Oz, I did my first radio interviews on
   Oct 16th (Darwin & Adelaide), then every other capital city on Oct
   19-21.  The first story in print was, I believe, in The Australian
   newspaper dated Oct 20.  That weekend there was a 3-day conference
   (National Space Development Conference) in Sydney and I gave a talk
   on our program here searching for near-Earth asteroids, NASA plans,
   international plans, SDI involvement, etc.  The case of P/Swift-Tuttle
   was/is an excellent example: a possible impactor, > 100 yrs notice,
   requires observations over the next 5/6 yr from the southern hemisphere
   for better knowledge of whether an impact is likely. (Despite that, it
   turns out that we have no funding as from December so that our program
   will be closed down, resulting in no southern hemisphere searches; I
   would also point out that the US searches have depended upon us for
   follow-up of objects moving south but we will be unable to do this from
   now on.  This is due to the idiocy of the Australian government; we
   have had great support from our north American co-workers in trying to get
   funding here).  Anyhow, back to the talk in Sydney.  The local Reuters
   correspondent was there and after discussions with me on the topic he
   put out a wire story which led to the furore.  Indeed he says that no
   story that he has previously filed has got as wide a response.  So far
   as I know the story he put out was accurate (saying that the CHANCE of
   an impact existed) except that he got the year wrong: 2116 instead of
   2126.  You would not believe where the story was carried: for example
   front page of THE TIMES (London) with an editorial, and a reply by
   Marsden (Oct 30), page 3 of THE SUN (London) with a semi-naked lady,
   front page of a paper in Fort McMurray (Canada) sharing top spot with a
   story about a moose.  I fielded phone calls from all over the world:
   most of them based upon errors and misconceptions. "Such is life" (the
   last words of Australian anti-hero Ned Kelly).

(4) Impact velocity by P/Swift-Tuttle: this is known accurately.  If the
   comet does not hit this next time but it does at some time in the
   future then whenever that occurs the speed would be between 60 and 61
   km/sec (see my paper MNRAS, 227, 501, 1987) unless its orbit (a,e,i)
   changes appreciably.  The 60-61 km/sec ariation is due to
   the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit and hence terrestrial speed.
   For 2126 August 14 the speed can be found exactly, but I haven't done
   it; it's not important since the mass is so poorly estimated.

(5) Using an assumed sphere of diameter 5 km, density 1 gm/cm3, I get
   an energy of above 20 million Megatonnes, or around 1 billion times
   Hiroshima.



Duncan Steel,
Anglo-Australian Observatory,
Coonabarabran, NSW 2357.

"[e-mail]"

=====================================================================


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

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 92 07:34:57 EST
From: "Gerard M. Foley" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Hubble's mirror
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space

[e-mail] (Donald H. Locker) writes:

> Now that I know a little about mirror-making, I'd like to hear again
> how the Hubble mirror contractor messed up the figure of the main
> mirror.  I understand it has spherical aberration, but wonder how
> [Rockwell?] managed to do that.
>
> Thanks for any info.
> --
> Donald.                                Speaking only for myself.
>
> "You can't set glasses or a book on a door or a bathroom!" - djl

It wasn't Rockwell (I forget axactly who it was, but it was an
otherwise reputable New England outfit) and put briefly, they
fouled up the test, performing it incorrectly, and never
checked by any independent method.

[e-mail]  My amateur radio callsign is K8EF, and my
packet radio address is [e-mail]

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

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 92 21:46:08 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Limits to growth of knowledge

> I think much greater use of computer technology can aid substantially in
> dealing with this problem. Data bases, pattern searches, and greatly
> improved indexing offer considerable hope. For instance, when the Grolier's
> Encyclopedia came out on CD-ROM, magazine articles claimed that it had an
> exhaustive index generated in advance by computer, which is actually larger
> than the text of the encyclopedia itself. With aids such as these, research
> time can potentially be cut tremendously. (Anyone know whether the CRC and
> Eshbach's handbooks are available on CD-ROM yet?)
>


I don't know about those two in particular, but the trend is towards more and
more resources like this. Oxford English is available. I believe Ency. Brit
either is or is considering it. Many companies are moving more and more to
digital archives.

The introduction of CDI and the very cheap mastering costs may change this
river into an innundation. (I have been quoted CDI costs in the range of 13
pence each from the manufacturer, and in not terribly large quantity) I think
it is safe to say that virtually every reference of any importance will be
available that way in the next few years.

> Another change that's very important in the long run for cross-pollination of
> different fields is to make the notation and terminology more uniform, and
> to include more explanations in the text - with conversion to electronic
> format, the pressure to condense the text as much as possible to minimize
> the number of printed pages is greatly reduced. Ideally, much of the
> information in specialized fields would be usable by non-specialists
> for peripherally related projects.
>


The point is valid, and the increasing use of interdisciplinary information as
the electronic revolution continues will create a "market requirement" for this
type of terminology standardization, or at least will cause the generation of
(ie Paleontologese to Biologese). Another option is just to have the various
discipline specific dictionaries on line. When you come to a special term, just

highlight it and request a look up.

> Putting reference materials on CD-ROM is a considerable step forward, but
> perhaps an equally important advance is the development of huge centralized
> data bases that can be accessed by multiple users. Having multiple terabytes
> on-line at all times can nearly eliminate the task of sorting through stacks
> of CD-ROMs. Fully implementing this may require changes in policies toward
> copyrights and royalties.
>

This sort of thing is also starting to happen, although at a much slower rate.
AMIX, the American Information Interchange, is one example of a general
commercial resource. Anyone can publish via it. Anyone who picks up information
has their account debited and the creator gets theirs credited.

And then there are the older discipline specific databases like Medlars and
Lexus. I think Compuserve makes many of these commercial databases available to
it's users. I would not be surprised if they allowed multi-database search
already.


> Additions can also be made to the field of indexing. A permuted index (?)
> allows the researcher to find every instance of a term in the text. It's
> also possible (though very difficult) to create a "search tree", in which
> the researcher enters one or more keywords or phrases, and the system
> responds with a suggested range of topics that are relevant. (For instance,
> to go back to the encyclopedia example, entering "Thomas Jefferson" might
> bring a response of "President", "US History", etc., and entering "Thomas
> Jefferson" and "Monticello" might produce "architecture".) This might be
> an interactive system, in which the user is led through a sequence of topics
> to find what is needed. (Encyclopaedia Britannica has one volume that
> essentially does this. I don't usually find that implementation particularly
> helpful, but at least it's a step in the right direction, within the limits
> of what can be done in a printed format.)
>


Indexing is a key issue. I use a NeXT computer and have the Digital Librarian
available: it does a full inversion. So I have at my finger tips the ability to
keyword search ALL of Space Digest (sans a hundred or so missing issues) from
1980 to the present for keywords (also AND and OR of keywords). I have done the
same with all of my electronic mail and research documents back to 1984, and am
extending that backwards as quickly as I can manage to extract things from
prehistoric media and formats. Eventually I intend to scan and OCR the contents
of my bulging file cabinets (mostly space related, as you've no doubt guessed)
into an accessible on-line resource. I currently store on removable 256MB R/W
Optic disks and hope to switch over to 600MB or larger in the near future.

The problems you mention are genuine, but very good, (albiet not perfect)
solutions are already available.

> For the present, and at least for specific topics, the computer networks
> are a valuable resource. It's not too difficult to select interesting
> posts and file them by category, after which they can be searched by topic
> or by pattern match. Even without a regular data base program, "grep" is
> usually fast enough to produce useful results.
>


Grep is okay for very small searches, but just doesn't cut it for "real"
searches. As I already noted, I am storing that type of information in a way
that I can get almost instant retrieval of EVERY occurrence of keyword
expressions.

> And of course the frequently-asked-questions list is very helpful, though
> I'd like it to be much bigger than it is, and to include a section for
> speculative proposals and calculations, so at least people can see what's
> been discussed before, and in how much detail. (Maybe a section for

> calculations and proposals that have to be "refereed" by independent checks
> before they can "graduate" to the main body of the list.)
>


On the NeXT they distribute system FAQ's that can be plugged into the Digital
Librarian and indexed. Really makes life easier. In the future everyone will be
doing this ... or else they won't be in the computer business.

When I brought up exponential change, this sort of work was very much in my
mind. Interestingly enough, you will find a great deal of overlap between the
people in the molecular engineering camp and those involved with things like
AMIX, Agora systems, hypertext systems and so forth.

Another issue that was not touched upon is the defense of privacy when these
masses of indexed personal information come into being on your own home
machines. The DSA (I think that's the right coldwarrior alphabet soup agency)
and other assorted scumbags are crapping themselves over the implication of
secure codes in the hands of a free citizenry. Many of you may be aware of the
recent posting about a trial balloon to require that all encryption keys be
"registered" and placed into a sort of escrow account. This will of course be
ignored even if it becomes law. What is more frightening in terms of a free
society are the behind the scenes threats these lowlifes have been giving to
companies involved in encryption. As an example, note that between the
theatrical release demonstration of NeXTstep 3.0 by Steve Jobs and the
appearance of the first copies in public hands, the unbreakable F.E.E code
module was removed from the Mail.App. My information is that they were given a
simple or else. No distribution, US or otherwise. So you thought you lived in a
free country, hmmm? Just remember the old adage: "All that is necessary for
evil to win is for good men to do nothing". I think major civil disobedience
will be called for in this arena.

Back to the primary point: Robert really did hit the nail on the head.
Retrieval is where much needs to be done and is being done. I'll even throw in
another prediction... and one that I am not only banking on, but intend to make
a great deal of money off of.

By 2005, you will be able to access and search virtually every still existing
piece of information humanity has ever generated, and you will be able to do it
from any point on the surface of the planet or near earth space.

I am counting on that improvement in information accessibility to drive some of
the advances that will give us a short cut into space.

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

Date: Wed,  4 Nov 1992 13:08:07 -0500
From: Lawrence Curcio <[e-mail]>
Subject: NASA Coverup
Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.conspiracy,sci.physics

NASA is obviously covering this up because it would violate the heavy
boots theory.

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

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1992 17:32:39 GMT
From: Tom Nugent <[e-mail]>
Subject: NASA Coverup
Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.conspiracy

[e-mail] writes:

>    Ranger  6,  launched on January 30th 1964, allegedly had it's electrical
>   system burn out in flight and no pictures were sent.   Subsequent  Ranger
>   Probes  were  more  successful  .

I thought that the reason Ranger 6 didn't send back pictures was because
they forgot to take off the 'lens cap' before launch.  Seriously.  That's
why they now have little red tags all over new probes etc. which say "Remove
before launch."  At least that's the story I heard from a JPL engineer.

--
Tom Nugent    voice:[phone]    e-mail:[e-mail]
"To be average scares the hell out of me." -- Anonymous

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

Date: 4 Nov 1992 18:36:51 GMT
From: David Iverson <[e-mail]>
Subject: NASA Coverup
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.space,alt.conspiracy

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



>    Well  ,  it  sounds  like the willingness to cling to some kind of la-la
>   land belief that our  government  wouldn't  lie  to  us  about  the  moon
>   landings  won't  just  melt  in  the  face of straightforward ,elementary
>   mathematics ,and piles of circumstantial evidence. I guess I'll just have
>   to use even bigger piles of circumstantial evidence and MORE  math.  Here
>   goes:

All you who would fancy inclusion into the crackpot index on vain and false
pretenses, behold the true and sincere efforts of an adept and weep for you
sorry attempts.

-diverson

--
[e-mail]

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

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1992 20:16:18 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: NASA Coverup
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.space,alt.conspiracy

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] writes...
>
>
>    Well  ,  it  sounds  like the willingness to cling to some kind of la-la
>   land belief that our  government  wouldn't  lie  to  us  about  the  moon
>   landings  won't  just  melt  in  the  face of straightforward ,elementary
>   mathematics ,and piles of circumstantial evidence. I guess I'll just have
>   to use even bigger piles of circumstantial evidence and MORE  math.  Here
>   goes:

Well, since if the Moon's gravity were 0.64G rather than around 0.16G, this
would mean the Moon is 4 times as massive than it allegedly is as we know
its diameter.  But if this were the case, the Earth-Moon mass ratio would be
quite different, thus the barycenter would move, tides would be quite
different, the motion of the Earth-Moon system around the sun would be
different,  and so forth, none of which correspond to observed information.

>    In one sixth gravity , a 180 pound man would weigh  a  mere  30  pounds.
>
>                                6/180 = 30

Hmm.  You screwed up the math here.  This may give some insight, perhaps you
screwed up the math elsewhere and this is what has confused you.

As to jumping in spacesuits on the moon, don't forget that those suits are
probably rather stiff.  Probably the jumps are quite poor compared to what
would be possible if they wore normal clothing with lead-filled backpacks
with the same mass as the suits.

-Mike

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

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1992 17:19:25 GMT
From: Martin Connors <[e-mail]>
Subject: notice to archive maintainers, e-clippers
Newsgroups: sci.space

I recently made a post containing an unintentional error which caused
embarrassment. I do not wish to further that embarrassment by repeating
the post. Please note that the post with the following message ID:
[e-mail]
contained an error. I can supply on request a corrected post and wish to
do so, particularly to archive maintainers if any. Thus:
(a)If you are an archive maintainer please contact me for a modified post.
(b)If you are an e-clipper (keep a 'clipping' directory of posts) please
locate my post (for example by grep'ing for the above ID) and if you have
it destroy it. If you wish a corrected post on the subject request to the
undersigned by e-mail.
I regret both embarrassment caused any parties by the original post and
any extra effort this request may cause anyone. My net-spirit in wishing
to keep everyone informed of an interesting development was exceeded by my
human capacity for misreading my own notes.
--
Martin Connors         |
Space Research         | [e-mail]  [phone]
University of Alberta  |

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

Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 01:21:14 GMT
From: Ron Baalke <[e-mail]>
Subject: Planet X
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space

Kevin Marvel writes:

> Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of Pluto, and an emeritus faculty member here
> at NMSU always makes a point of stating in his talks to 110 students, that
> he feels there is no planet X and if there was he would have found it.  He
> observed the WHOLE ecliptic plane (+/- some 10's of degrees) at times when an
> object in the solar system would have been most visible (conjunction)

Clyde Tombaugh has done a very extensive search for Planet X along the
ecliptic plane and did not find it, but that does not mean Planet X does
not exist there.  Here are a couple of points to keep in mind.  The
magnitude of Planet X may have been so low that it was beyond the range
of the telescope that Tombaugh was using, and may now be visible to more
powerful telescopes, such as the Keck Telescope, or to SIRTF (if it ever
gets launched).  There is a chance that Tombaugh may have photographed
Planet X, but simply missed detecting it during the blink tests due to
human error.  Another possibility is that Planet X may not have been near
the ecliptic during the time Tombaugh was looking for it, and may now have
drifted into position along the ecliptic plane.

My opinion is that Planet X exists (call it a gut feeling), and there
are also planets XI, XII, etc. waiting to be discovered.
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | Give people a second
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | chance, but not a third.
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     |

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

Date: 4 Nov 92 10:05:05 GMT
From: John C Sager <[e-mail]>
Subject: pocket satellite receivers
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Carl Hage) writes:
> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
> : The noise being injected by DoD (the buzzphrase is selective availability)
> : is currently of a relatively simple type that can indeed be removed by
> : long-term averaging.
>
> I have a few of questions. Suppose we end up with a president who places
> a higher priority on commerce rather than restricting the military buildup
> of countries like Iraq, and accurate navigation information is declassified.
>
>   1. Can the "noise" be turned off, or do we need new satellites?
>      (With DoD involved, this isn't a stupid question.)

Selective Availability *can* be turned off. I guess you'll now have to go
ask Bill Clinton to do it.

>   2. I thought selective availability mean't that noise was injected only
>      during a military operation, e.g. the Gulf War. However, it wasn't
>      enabled then due to a shortage of military units and many commercial
>      receivers were used. Why do I read that commercial units still don't
>      have the accuracy that military units have, i.e. how is full precision
>      information transmitted?

Commercial units use the C/A code & military units use P or Y code. The P/Y
code rate is 10 times the C/A code rate, so, to a first approximation, the
military receivers can give an order of magnitude better positional accuracy
than C/A receivers without SA. When SA is on, there is part of the data
message encrypted & this part gives information about what distortions have
been applied to the signal.

>   3. Would special or extra hardware be required to receive full precision
>      information over existing receivers?

Yes, you need a military reciver, & they are classified I believe.

>   4. Is differential GPS used just to overcome the selective availability
>      noise, or are there other sources of error?

No, it can give additional precision, if the location of the DGPS station
is known accurately enough. You are now using the system to generate
the vector from you to the DGPS station, and a lot of the common-mode
errors involved in computing the absolute position of you and of the
DGPS station cancel out.

>   5. What is the precision of commercial vs military GPS with/without
>      SA enabled?

C/A receiver manufacturers seem to quote about 25m CEP with S/A switched off.
With it on the DoD quotes not more than 100m 2d RMS error for most of the
time. The altitude accuracy is generally rather worse than the long/lat
accuracy because of the geometry of the system (you can't see satellites
below you because the earth gets in the way!).
As I indicated above, military receivers are probably getting on
for 10 times better than that, though I expect the exact performance available
is classified information.

John C Sager                    Mail:    B67 G18, BT Labs
Email:    [e-mail]                Martlesham Heath
Tel:    [phone]                    IPSWICH  IP5 7RE
Fax:    [phone]                    England

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

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 92 17:47:48 GMT
From: Doug Mohney <[e-mail]>
Subject: Pumpkins to Orbit
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Jordin Kare) writes:
>[Discussion of pumpkin chuckin' contest deleted]
>
>So can a laser-launched pumpkin be far behind??

There are easier ways to make pumpkin pie.

                 Play in the intelluctual sandbox of Usenet

  -- >                  [e-mail]                        < --

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

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 92 09:48 EST
From: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Digest V15 #376

In response to statements by Tom Nugent regarding a possible UN Space/Moon
Treaty:
The principal he refers to in Antarctica is known as the "Common Heritage of
Mankind".  With respect to his assumptions about enforceability in Antarctica,
as compared with on the moon, sorry.  The cases are more similar than one
might like to think.  In fact, policy set under the Antarctic Treaty and
subsequently says very little about enforcement, and sets up a budget in the
order of $125,000/year - not enough to watch what's going on or alert anyone
to it, let alone actually enforce legislation.
For this reason, I think the issue of space policy is extaordinarily important.
I think anyone interested in our presence in space needs to consider who has
the power, and what is going to be done with it.
Any comments?
Sharon

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

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1992 17:57:05 GMT
From: be here now <[e-mail]>
Subject: what about toutatis?
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space

What's the latest on asteroid 4179 Toutatis?  Where should I look
for it during it's close encounter on Dec 8th, 1992?


--
Bob Pietkivitch     | "Moon, my long lost friend, is smiling from above."
[e-mail]  |  -- Genesis, Stagnation 1970

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Date: 4 Nov 1992 18:31:15 GMT
From: "Michael C. Hevey" <[e-mail]>
Subject: what about toutatis?
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space



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Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1992 17:44:47 GMT
From: Steve Adams <[e-mail]>
Subject: Why Vote?
Newsgroups: talk.abortion,soc.motss,sci.space

[e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:

>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (David Knapp) writes:
>>
>>Clearly, an individual's vote doesn't matter at all as evidenced by the
>>way the election turns out whether they vote or not. Voting is a symbolic,
>>not a functional, act.
>>
>>Until we get rid of the electoral college, the individual vote will *always*
>>be discounted and we will not be living in a democracy.
>
>That's a horribly cynical, and wrong, opinion. The important elections,
>your local officials, are often decided by only a handful of votes. Your
>Congressman and Senators are directly elected, and again these elections
>are sometimes close. The Electoral College doesn't discount your vote
>either. The Electors are bound by law to vote for the candidate that they
>declare to support on the ballot, under most state laws anyway.
The laws usually have no penalties attached, and are likely uneforceable.
No one has tested them, but I bet those laws would not stand Constitutional
muster, since the Constitution speaks only of electors voting.

>So your
>vote counts just as much in Presidental elections as it does for Senators
>or Representatives. In fact the number of Electors for a given state is
>equal to the number of Representatives and Senators for that state.
>Representatives are apportioned according to population and Senators
>are apportioned by state to give a weight to geographic diversity.
>This was done to prevent some small geographic area of the country
>from dominating the government at the Congressional or Executive
>levels.
Exactly.  The Founders were concerned about Virginia and Massachusetts...
now we would be concerned with California, New York, Texas and Florida.
The point was to make sure that a huge plurality in (Virgina/California)
didn't completely wipe out the votes of say, Rhode Island or Montana.  More
people vote for each candidate in California than the total vote in many other
states combined.

[good description of rationale behind our govt deleted]

[description of regulatory agencies deleted]
>*That* violation of Constitutional intent needs to be
>rectified, but the election process is fine as it is.

Amen!

 -Steve
--
  The opinions expressed above are those of the author and not SPSS, Inc.
                         -------------------
   [e-mail]                                  Phone: [phone]
   Steve Adams        "Space-age cybernomad"       Fax:   [phone]

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End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 379
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