Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT_ZIP/spacedig/V16_1/V16NO126.ZIP/V16NO126

Internet Message Format | 1993-07-13 | 32KB

Date: Thu,  4 Feb 93 05:24:44
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V16 #126
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Thu,  4 Feb 93       Volume 16 : Issue 126

Today's Topics:
     An 'agitator' replies (was: Clinton's Promises...) (4 msgs)
                         Beanstalk?+ (2 msgs)
                 Cooling re-entry vehicles. (2 msgs)
                   Expensive shuttle toilets (Why?)
              extreme responses to Challenger transcript
                      parachutes on Challenger?
                             Polar Orbit
            So what's happened to Henry Spencer? (2 msgs)
            Today in 1986-Remember the Challenger (2 msgs)

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

Date: 3 Feb 1993 15:39:53 -0500
From: Matthew DeLuca <[e-mail]>
Subject: An 'agitator' replies (was: Clinton's Promises...)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Edward V. Wright) writes:
>In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Matthew DeLuca) writes:

>>They go up three times a year, we go up eight.  They send up two or three
>>people, we send up five to eight.  So for every ten people they send up, we
>>are sending somewhere between forty and seventy.

>They use unmanned launchers to do many of the things we do with the
>Shuttle.  This is because of NASA's decision, back in the 1970's, to
>move all payloads off expendables and onto the Shuttle.  Russians
>also stay in space up to a year longer than we do.

Ah, you're changing the topic; we're talking about manned space here.  The
fact of the matter is Sherzer's claim that they are doing far more manned
space activity is incorrect.  They're logging more time, sure, but we're
logging more people.

And, as I pointed out in a previous post, we're the ones building up a large
cadre of experienced space workers, not the Russians.  After the first few
days or weeks of experience in orbit, months and months of time in space
don't get you much, other than for biomedical purposes.

>>Believe it or not, there's more to space than the almighty dollar.

>Oh, yeah?

Yeah.

>Why don't you take a drive out to Atlanta Hartsfield Airport
>and count the number of jetliners you see sitting on the tarmac.

Thanks, but I used to work there; I'm familiar with the planes.

>Multiply by $100 million or so to calculate the value of the aircraft.
>Look at the number of flights landing and taking off -- all for the
>almighty dollar you disdain.  Think about what've you seen as you
>drive home -- in a car that I'll wager was made by a company in
>search of the almight dollar, or the all-powerful yen.

Uh-huh.  But during the first decade or two of this century, when planes were
still new, the primary consideration was *not* the cost of the plane itself,
but getting the plane to *work*.  Once airplanes were well enough understood,
*then* people became concerned with cost.

Same thing with automobiles; first you get them to work, and understand the
principles fully, *then* you worry about interchangeable parts and mass
production.  Sherzer is talking about mass-producing the space equivalent of
the Wright Flyer (Soyuz capsules on expendable rockets) which may be cheap
in the short term, but a disaster in the long.

>The almighty dollar made this country, kid.  It built the railroads,
>the mines, the harbors, and transformed the Great American Desert
>into the Breadbasket of the World.  Not some jingoistic government

Yes, it did.  *After* they learned how to do it.  When they were working on
the first trans-continental railroad, they weren't trying for the cheapest
railroad possible, they were trying for one that *worked*.  I'm sure Allen's
distant relative was there, pointing out that if they would only use cheap
Conestoga wagons strung together in trains, they could move goods for a
fraction of the cost.

>You think that we have an active program because NASA launches
>eight Shuttle flights per year?  Phah!  Eight popcycles!

Compared to three Soyuz launches with fewer than half the people aboard,
yes.  That was the original assertion.

>The Japanese want to build a Honeymoon Hotel in orbit.  Not a
>little tin can like Space Station Freedom, a big wheel like the
>one in 2001.  They estimate it will cost $46 billion, of which
>an insignificant fraction is the actual construction cost.  Most
>of it is the cost of Space Shuttle launches.  And still, even with
>that, it's only about half-again the cost of SS Freedom.

I followed up to your post on this, which you apparently ignored.  Needless
to say, I think those numbers were pulled out of thin air.

And, if the Japanese can confidently say they can build massive space
structures for only $1 billion, even though they have no experience whatsoever,
why can't they build a cheap launch system?
--
Matthew DeLuca
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp:      ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!matthew
Internet: [e-mail]

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

Date: 3 Feb 1993 21:21:28 GMT
From: Doug Mohney <[e-mail]>
Subject: An 'agitator' replies (was: Clinton's Promises...)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Matthew DeLuca) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Edward V. Wright) writes:

>Ah, you're changing the topic; we're talking about manned space here.

Ed does that a lot until you manage to steer him back on track :).

> The fact of the matter is Sherzer's claim that they are doing far more manned
>space activity is incorrect.  They're logging more time, sure, but we're
>logging more people.

>And, as I pointed out in a previous post, we're the ones building up a large
>cadre of experienced space workers, not the Russians.  After the first few
>days or weeks of experience in orbit, months and months of time in space
>don't get you much, other than for biomedical purposes.

More importantly, we're putting up a diverse set of people, relative to Mir.
PhD grade mission specialists, rather than Ivan-the-handiman. Putting up lots
of skilled people *will* have tangible benefits when SSTO goes to orbit.

If the Space Zealots crowd would cut this crap about Soyuz/Atlas and put their
energies into ASSURING funding for follow-on hardware to DC-X.

The U.S. budget is in a state of finite resources. SSTO concepts help to
advance U.S. aerospace technology, rather than make companies subcontractors
wtih the Russians.

Squandering emotional and political clout so you can (supposedly) shave a few
bucks by launching tin cans is NOT the way to go.

>>You think that we have an active program because NASA launches
>>eight Shuttle flights per year?  Phah!  Eight popcycles!
>
>Compared to three Soyuz launches with fewer than half the people aboard,
>yes.  That was the original assertion.

Hmm. Come to think of it, the amount of mass which goes up and down on a
Shuttle flight IS much larger than the tin-can shuffle.

Hmm. Even if you add in the Progress resupply which are more grocery/fuel
flights than active experiment loads.

>And, if the Japanese can confidently say they can build massive space
>structures for only $1 billion, even though they have no experience whatsoever,
>why can't they build a cheap launch system?

The more telling thought is reflected in Japan's committment to Freedom. If
they had been so impressed with the Russian space program, they could have
bought space on Mir long ago. Or, if you believe the press reports, BOUGHT a
new Mir, for that matter.

As the saying goes, money talks, bullsh*t walks.




                    I have talked to Ehud, and lived.
  -- >                  [e-mail]                        < --

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

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1993 21:32:08 GMT
From: "Allen W. Sherzer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: An 'agitator' replies (was: Clinton's Promises...)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Matthew DeLuca) writes:

>They go up three times a year, we go up eight....

If you figure out the total number of person days both spend in space you
will realize that for every day we spend in space they spend between three
and four day.

>I wouldn't say they are doing 'far far' more than we are.

Anybody who does something three times as much as another IS doing
more.

>So what are they doing?  I haven't heard of any real results from their work
>up there.  I'm sure there are some, but they can't be that earth-shattering.

It isn't clear to me that you would have heard. I'm sure it isn't earth
shaterring but it is just getting started. Their station produces
commercial products. We don't even plan to do that 20 years from now.

>Believe it or not, there's more to space than the almighty dollar.

This is why we have a stagnant space program. NASA has suckered you
into thinking that wasting money is patriotic.

I won't argue whether or not there is more to space than the $$. The bottom
line is that you won't go anywhere without it. We pay 10 times more than
we need to for everything and people think it needs to be that way. THAT
is why we don't see more support for NASA. That is why our station is
deployed inside a CAD workstation (and spinning out of control) instead
of in orbit.

Efficient use of resources (you call this 'the almighty dollar') may not
be a sufficient condition but it is a necessary one.

>>>Capsules were the first generation, and the Shuttle is the second.

>>Great! I hope we quit at the second generation. Every new generation
>>doubles the cost of access to space. We won't be able to launch NASA's
>>third generation system because it will be too expensive.

>You're drawing conclusions as to trends in launch costs based on two data
>points?  Way to stick your foot in your mouth.

Actually, I am using three data points. The third point is the cost
of NLS or Shuttle II (take you pick). NLS may be dead but it IS the
best NASA estimate of the third generation system (it is mere coincidence
that the third generation system looks a lot like the Russian first
generation system).

If NLS where built, we would have gone 40 years and spent well over
$75 billion for systems each of which was MORE expensive than the
previous generation. Why doesn't that put just a twinge of doubt
in you?

Suppose aircraft where developed this way? It would have been great
for the train manufacturers but a bit of a downer for the economy
of Seattle.

>Besides, I didn't specifically mention NASA.

As the source of most of the problems, you should.

>If you notice below, I consider SSTO the next generation.

But you see, I don't consider SSTO a third generation system. The
whole basis behind the concept is that launcher designers have been
going down the completely wrong path for the past 30 years.

That makes SSTO a first or maybe second generation system.

   Allen

--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves        |
|  [e-mail]     |  nothing undone"                                       |
+----------------------132 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+

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

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1993 21:33:58 GMT
From: "Allen W. Sherzer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: An 'agitator' replies (was: Clinton's Promises...)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John F. Woods) writes:

>>Like what?

>I believe he means the giant conveyor belt planned to transport money to
>"space" contractors that never build space hardware.

Hmmm... I thought we where going to use a giant tractor. That way we
could leverage off the technology we use to pay farmers to do nothing.

>Note that in this
>key technological field, the US program is, indeed unequalled in the world.

God help us.

  Allen

--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves        |
|  [e-mail]     |  nothing undone"                                       |
+----------------------132 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+

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

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1993 15:47:18 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: Beanstalk?+
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>
>What about using the beanstalk to generate electricity..
>I wonder if there is a way to use that electricity to maintain it in its
>inline??

Using tethers to generate electricity has been covered here extensively
as well. Shuttle had an experiment to try it out. Remember the stuck
reel? The main problem is the return circuit. It takes two wires to
make a light as we say in the electrical contracting business. A tether
moving through a magnetic field has a current induced into it, but a
return wire would have an equal and opposing current induced into it,
so no net current would flow. To get around that, you use brush discharge
contactors to use the global circuit as your return path. One of the
things our stuck reel satellite was supposed to test was how well that
would work.

For a beanstalk, however, you don't cut magnetic lines of force because
the beanstalk is travelling *with* the Earth and it's magnetic field
as it revolves. So the magnetic lines it sees are static and no current
is induced.

Gary

--
Gary Coffman KE4ZV          |    You make it,     | gatech!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary
Destructive Testing Systems |    we break it.     | uunet!rsiatl!ke4zv!gary
534 Shannon Way             |    Guaranteed!      | emory!kd4nc!ke4zv!gary
Lawrenceville, GA 30244     |                     |

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

Date: 3 Feb 93 19:51:55 GMT
From: Del Cotter <[e-mail]>
Subject: Beanstalk?+
Newsgroups: sci.space

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

>What about using the beanstalk to generate electricity..

How do you do that?  Hang solar cells from it? :-)

Seriously, you may have heard that electricity can be generated from
tethers *moving through the Earth's magnetic field*.  You can't do that
with a beanstalk.

>I wonder if there is a way to use that electricity to maintain it in its
>inline??

By sending appropriately modulated currents up or down the beanstalk, I
*think* you could apply forces both along *and perpendicular to* its orbit,
using these for stabilisation.  But, like you, I may be confusing tethers
with beanstalks.
--
 ',' ' ',','  |                                                  |  ',' ' ',','
   ', ,','    |       Del Cotter       [e-mail]      |    ', ,','
     ','      |                                                  |      ','

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

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1993 21:33:17 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Cooling re-entry vehicles.
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:
>>Alternatively I gather that JPL has looked into aerobraking manouvers
>>that involve flying engine-first into the atmosphere and running the
>>motors at "idle"...
>
>Yes, this *sounds* plausible. There are probably practical difficulties.
>One I see right away would be in trying to keep the engines "idling"
>smoothly against a hypersonic flow of air trying to enter the bells.

Not an issue if you've got enough flow through the engines to keep the
shock wave (where the engine and air flows meet) at a distance.  The
engine flow is supersonic once it's beyond the throat; flow disturbances
beyond the nozzle end will not affect engine operation unless they're
massive enough to push the shock wave back into the nozzle.  Nothing
short of a shock wave can propagate upstream in a supersonic flow.
--
"God willing... we shall return."       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
       -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1993 21:24:15 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Cooling re-entry vehicles.
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <2402@snap> [e-mail]-mrc (Paul Johnson) writes:
>Why not use a total-loss cooling system in a re-entry vehicle?  I
>gather that ablative cooling works on this principle: as the shield
>reaches its maximum temperature it ablates, leaving fresh, cooler
>shield underneath.  So would a titanium skin with cooling pipes
>underneath it work?  The coolant would be used once and then dumped
>behind the vehicle.

It's workable.  I don't know if anyone has ever actually flown one, but
several of the SSTO proposals have relied on such a concept.  About the
only real wart is that it's difficult to make such skin panels removable
for access to stuff inside.

If you're reentering base-first, like the SSTO designs, you go one better
by dumping the coolant out *forward* through the engines.  You needn't
actually try to burn it -- the flow of *relatively* cool gas keeps the
engines from getting too hot, and they're presumably somewhat heat-tolerant
already for obvious reasons.

You do need to find a coolant with fairly high heat capacity.  Liquid
hydrogen is good.  So is water, especially if you exhaust it as steam --
the phase change soaks up a lot of heat.  (Bonus points if you start
with it as ice, since that gives you *two* phase changes, but it's hard
to get a solid to flow through the plumbing.)  Coolants with lower heat
capacities (e.g. LOX) get too heavy.
--
"God willing... we shall return."       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
       -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1993 16:11:00 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: Expensive shuttle toilets (Why?)
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Richard A. Schumacher) writes:
>
>The points you raise are true, but are they relevent? Skylab had a perfectly good
>toilet in use for scores of days on end 20 years ago. Why not just reuse that design?
>Add incremental improvements, if you like; it shouldn't have cost anything like
>$23 million.
>
>I'll bet a can of Coke that some contractor or other (with generous NASA supervision)
>is working on Yet Another toilet design for Space Station Fred not derived from the
>Skylab toilet or from either incarnation of the shuttle toilet, and which will go
>through some number of cycles of testing and correction after deployment, etc.

One would certainly hope so. A good toilet is good for morale and
hygene. Tape on baggies worked, but were a real pain in the ...
to use. Skylab's toilet wasn't that easy to use and dumped it's wastes
in the empty booster, hardly a permanent solution. The current Shuttle
toilet is a horrible contraption, difficult to use (a half hour operation),
noisey, and having a tendency to stop up. Not good in a closed box. Ask the
Navy how much it cost to finally get a properly functioning toilet on their
nuke subs. Being at depth causes problems different than being in space, but
they are nonetheless difficult engineering problems. And they didn't even
have to contend with weightlessness. (New boats don't evacuate directly
to the sea, but the older ones did, and working the valves in the wrong
sequence could get really messy, even threaten the integrity of the boat.)

Gary
--
Gary Coffman KE4ZV          |    You make it,     | gatech!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary
Destructive Testing Systems |    we break it.     | uunet!rsiatl!ke4zv!gary
534 Shannon Way             |    Guaranteed!      | emory!kd4nc!ke4zv!gary
Lawrenceville, GA 30244     |                     |

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

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1993 19:30:10 GMT
From: "robert.m.atkins" <[e-mail]>
Subject: extreme responses to Challenger transcript
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Tesuji) writes:
> X-Anon-To:sci.space,sci.astro,alt.privacy,comp.org.eff.talk
>
> As I look at the article, I would agree that it
> seems more likely than not to be concocted.

> ..............................even if the
> article were totally fabricated, that does
> not mean it necessarily is completely *false*.
>
> That is, could it have portrayed a possible outcome?
>

Are you seriously proposing sci.astro.fiction? I though we had seen the
last of that with the demise of the "space potato" theory. Come to think
of it weren't those postings from finland too? Any connections here?

>
> It is especially ironic to see the cretins from Bell Labs heading up the
> peasants ready to torch me for my posting.  Bell Labs -- who help make

My, my, aren't we getting testy! At least we don't hide behind anonymous
logins. If you are really keen on getting burnt at the stake, I've a
nice big CO2 laser sitting in the lab. Why not come by and visit! You
can even wear a bag on your head if you want anonymity!  Seriously, if we
have to decend to the level of trading insults then you are not worth
arguing with and certainly not worth wasting Internet resources on.

In order not to waste more bandwidth I'd be happy to carry on a reasonable
discussion via email with anyone not hiding behind an anonymous ID. I will
NOT post again in sci.astro or sci.space on this subject.


===============================================================
Bob Atkins  AT&T Bell Labs  email (direct)  att!clockwise!rma
===============================================================

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

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1993 19:00:41 GMT
From: "Robert F. Casey" <[e-mail]>
Subject: parachutes on Challenger?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jeff Bytof) writes:
>Were parachutes available to the crew of the Challenger?

>
From what I remember, no.  Problems like no easy way to get out of the
Shuttle during going up, And even if you did manage to get out, you'd
be bailing out into near vacuum.  And ejection seats would  mean more weight
(mass) that you couldn't fly as payload, and also the risk that something
might screw up and eject you during an otherwise good flight.

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

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1993 20:05:20 GMT
From: Dave Michelson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Polar Orbit
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Chris Jones) writes:
>
>As I said yesterday (in <[e-mail]>), for polar orbit the latitude of the
>launch site doesn't matter (except that a launch site at either pole would have
>lots of longitude lines along which to launch in order to achieve polar orbit).
>I expect Vandenburg is easier to reach than Poker Flats (lessening transport
>costs to the the site and operating costs of the site), and has the advantage
>of already having the infrastructure for launching satellites (along with over
>30 years' experience).  I don't know specifically why it was chosen, but it
>seems a reasonable guess that the US looked for a suitable site from a range
>safety point of view which was already secure (since spy satellites were often
>placed into polar orbits).

I would like to hear from someone who can actually cite a text or paper that
deals with the matter in more detail.  In a recent issue of Financial Post
magazine, an article dealing with a proposal to reactivate the National
Research Council's Churchill Rocket Range for commercial launches of polar
orbiting satellites quotes the director of aerospace studies at the University
of Toronto as saying that there is a definite advantage to launching near
the poles rather than the equator.  Furthermore, the advantage is commercially
significant in a competitive launch services environment.

The basic texts on orbital mechanics and such seem to deal with coplanar
maneuvers in equatorial orbit.  Once again, I appeal to the net for a pointer
toward a treatment of payload to orbit from a launch site of arbitrary latitude
to an orbit of arbitrary inclination.

---
Dave Michelson                             University of British Columbia
[e-mail]                                  Antenna Laboratory

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

Date: 3 Feb 1993 19:52:17 GMT
From: Doug Mohney <[e-mail]>
Subject: So what's happened to Henry Spencer?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:

>Is there a Henry Spencer stamp yet?  Which Henry picture did they use?  ;-)

The one with the Maple Leaf upside down in the background....


                    I have talked to Ehud, and lived.
  -- >                  [e-mail]                        < --

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

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1993 20:25:24 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: So what's happened to Henry Spencer?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Richard A. Schumacher) writes:
>Does anyone know why Henry Spencer has not posted recently?
>His were consistently the most interesting, informative
>and terse posts. What a shame if the intemperate remark by
>that Harvard snotnose drove him away...

Nope, I'd have left the net a long time ago if I didn't have a high
tolerance for turkeys.

I've been away and sick, in various combinations, for about three weeks.
And of course I now have a horrendous backlog to catch up on, and I'm
not fully well yet, so there may be some delays.

The space-related parts of the "away" part may be of interest...  First,
I attended "Making Orbit 93", which was a seriously neat con with some
very interesting people.  Where else can you hear Max Hunter explain
why his Thor team fought to end static tests, Gary Hudson discuss the
history of his single-stage-to-orbit concepts, and Mitchell Burnside
Clapp tell you why kerosene and hydrogen peroxide is a better fuel
combination for an SSTO than LOX/LH2?  Or see videos of (for example)
the Soviet N1 lunar booster exploding on its first flight?  If the
organizers can repeat this success next year, this is definitely the
space convention to go to.

Second, I visited Edwards and Dryden, and finally met Mary Shafer.
It was a great visit, even though I wasn't entirely well by that point,
and Mary's every bit as nice in person as on the net.

(One caution, if you're planning to see the place yourself:  there are
two different tours, one of Edwards and one of Dryden, and it helps
if you know exactly where you're going.  The base is a big place and
gets limited tourist traffic, so you won't see big "this way to the
tour" signs.  More important, the folks at the gate want to know where
you're going and why -- Edwards is a working military base and is not
open to casual sightseeing, so make arrangements in advance, preferably
with written confirmation to show the gate guards.  We had some worried
moments due to not-quite-adequate preparation, although it worked out
in the end.)

Third, as a minor diversion from a non-space part of the trip, I saw the
aerospace museum in San Diego.  The Air&Space Museum it's not, but it's
worth a couple of hours, especially if you're interested in early aviation.
--
"God willing... we shall return."       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
       -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 3 Feb 93 13:55:41 GMT
From: Paul Johnson <[e-mail]-mrc>
Subject: Today in 1986-Remember the Challenger
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Simon E. Booth) writes:

>Something that to this day still offends me is that whenever footage of the
>disaster is shown, there's also footage of the high school auditorium
>at the school where McCulliffe (sp?) taught.  I hope I'm grossly mistaken,
>but the way the footage looks, it almost seems as if the kids cheer louder
>around the moment of the explosion.
>
>I really do hope I've been wrong all this time and it's just bad editing of
>archival footage.

I heard they did cheer.  They were all in "WOW" mode, ready to cheer
anything.  They didn't know what the big cloud of flame and smoke
meant until they were calmed down and told.  Probably thought the
shuttle had jumped into hyperspace or something...

I remember where I was.  I was queuing for dinner at my University
Hall.  I heard from someone that the shuttle had blown up and didn't
believe it, but I could see the lounge TV from the queue and so
watched a replay a couple of minutes later.  I didn't eat much.

Last Monday's "Horizon" (prestige BBC science documentary) was about
Feynman, and partly about the shuttle investigation.  Does anyone know
(or have theories) about who Kutyna (sp?) was protecting when he
steered Feynman at the O-ring problem?  Is s/he still flying?

Paul.
--
Paul Johnson ([e-mail]).        | Tel: [phone] ext 3245
--------------------------------------------+----------------------------------
These ideas and others like them can be had | GEC-Marconi Research is not
for $0.02 each from any reputable idealist. | responsible for my opinions

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

Date: 3 Feb 93 17:24:46 GMT
From: Nick Sandru <[e-mail]>
Subject: Today in 1986-Remember the Challenger
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle

In 1986 I was still living in Bucharest, Romania, and the only reliable
sources of information were the foreign radio stations - Radio Free Europe,
Voice of America and BBC. It was 6 pm (11 am in Florida) when I tuned
my receiver to Radio Free Europe in order to get the latest news. The
news broadcast began with the expected launch of Challenger at 6:30
(Romanian time) and then continued with the uprising against the dictator
Ferdinand Marcos in Phillipines.

While listening to the radio I resumed the work on a ZX Spectrum compatible
home computer that had to be delivered to a customer the following week;
building 3 or 4 such computers every month and selling them was my way
of tripling my income.

The 10 minutes long news broadcast was followed by the 'Political program'
- dealing mainly with the situation in the Phillipines - and by the
'Foreign Press Review' at 6:45. A few minutes into the Press Review the
broadcast was interrupted by the announcement: "The space shuttle
Challenger has exploded shortly after lift-off. The fate of the crew
is still unknown.". The following news broadcast at 7 pm was entirely
consacrated to Challenger.

The Romanian TV began its news program at 8 pm with the film of the disaster -
it was unusually fast in this case considerring the fact that nothing had
yet been said on the anti-Marcos uprising that was going on for several days...

In the following weeks the Romanian strictly state-controlled media provided
a lot of informations on the findings of the presidential comission set up
to investigate the accident. Three months later, however, another disaster
- directly affecting Romania - was totally omitted by the media. The
Chernobyl disaster was announced by a 5-line notice in the communist party's
newspaper on May 2, 1986, a week after it happened...


Long Haired Nick

--
Nick Sandru - System administrator   | e-mail: [e-mail]         (office)
Columbus Space Station SDE Project   |         [e-mail]      (home)
Computer Resources International A/S | phone:  [phone] x2036 (office)
Bregnerodvej 144                     |         [phone]       (home)
DK-3460 Birkerod, Denmark            | fax:    [phone]

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End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 126
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