Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT_ZIP/spacedig/V16_3/V16NO355.ZIP/V16NO355

Internet Message Format | 1993-07-13 | 20KB

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 93 05:24:37
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V16 #355
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Tue, 23 Mar 93       Volume 16 : Issue 355

Today's Topics:
             Alumnium was available in Elizabethan times?
                   Chicago area cosmonaut lectures
                            COSMIC Catalog
                CRAF's Penetrator (was Re: Grand Plan)
                               Planet X
   Play the Hat Game (was Re: Goldin's comment on Station) (2 msgs)
         Predicting gravity wave quantization & Cosmic Noise
                            Shuttle hatch
                     SR-71 Maiden Science Flight
                         SSRT(DC-x&Y) slides
            Timid Terraformers (was Re: How to cool Venus)

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Date: 23 Mar 93 02:27:28 GMT
From: The Master <[e-mail]>
Subject: Alumnium was available in Elizabethan times?
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.materials

[e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:

>The Napoleon who had aluminum tableware was Napoleon III, Emperor of
>France from 1852 to 1870. Lesser nobles at Napoleon III's table were
>forced to make do with gold utensils. The Elizabethan Age was the
>reign of Elizabeth I, 1558 to 1603. Aluminum would not be produced
>in metallic form large enough to *weigh* until 242 years later.

I remember seeing a picture in a National Geographic magazine of a helmet
from around the late 1800's made from silver, gold and aluminium.
The majority of it was aluminium.

Funny how at the time it would have cost an enormous amount of money
and now it's so cheap.  It's almost like thinking of people drinking
out of gold Coke cans in the future :)

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

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1993 22:40:23 GMT
From: Dennis Newkirk <[e-mail]>
Subject: Chicago area cosmonaut lectures
Newsgroups: sci.space

Cosmonaut Dr. Georgi Grechko will be presenting lectures about
his years of involvement in the Soviet/Russian space program in
early April in the Chicago area.

  Tue, April 6 at 7:30 PM at Harper College, Building J, Room 143
  Wed, April 7 at 7:30 PM held at Chicago Police Dept. 14th District
    Office Auditorium for Wright College.
  Thur, April 8 at 10:00 AM and 11:30 AM at Chicago Museum of Science and
    Industry
  Thur, April 8 at 6:00 PM held at Museum of Science and Industry for
    Chicago Council on Foreign Relations (admission $12).

All appearance are free and open the public except for the last one.

Dr. Grechko is currently head of an atmospheric physics lab of the
Russian Academy of Sciences. Grechko made 3 space flights, one
to the Salyut 4 space station for 29 days in 1975, one to the Salyut 6
space station in 1977 for 96 days, and one to the Salyut 7 space
station for 8 days in 1985. Before joining the cosmonaut corp, Grechko
was involved in ballistics planning for Sputnik, Vostok 1 which
launched the first person into space, and Luna 9 which returned
the first pictures from the surface of the moon. He also trained
to fly missions to the moon in the late 1960's.

Dr. Grechko's visit to Chicago is sponsored by the Chicago Society
for Space Studies, one of four area chapters of the National Space Society.
Groups co-sponsoring lectures include the Planetary Studies Foundation in
Palatine and the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and the Museum
of Science and Industry.

Dennis Newkirk ([e-mail])
Motorola, Land Mobile Products Sector
Schaumburg, IL

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

Date: 22 Mar 93 18:34:25 -0600
From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey <[e-mail]>
Subject: COSMIC Catalog
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Adam R. Brody ) writes:
> [e-mail] (Scott Stallcup) writes:
>
>>  Could someone please post or mail me ordering information for
>>  NASA's COSMIC software catalog.    I need a phone number
>>  and/or address to order a copy.
> I can't find my catalog, but you might try Scott Clark at 404/542-3265.
> He's the assistand director.

You know, if the relevant parts of NASA were not so clueless, the
COSMIC catalog would long since have been at an FTP site somewhere.

(Not the software itself-- that's too much to hope for.  Besides, it's
tough to FTP a card deck.)

Submarines, flying boats, robots, talking         Bill Higgins
pictures, radio, television, bouncing radar       Fermilab
vibrations off the moon, rocket ships, and        [e-mail]
atom-splitting-- all in our time.  But nobody     [e-mail]
has yet been able to figure out a music           SPAN:  43011::HIGGINS
holder for a marching piccolo player.
                     --Meredith Willson, 1948

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

Date: 22 Mar 93 17:54:45 -0600
From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey <[e-mail]>
Subject: CRAF's Penetrator (was Re: Grand Plan)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
> I'd also note that CRAF was attempting to "stay within budget" by shedding
> pieces as the overruns mounted.  For example, the penetrator got dropped
> from the mission to save money.

Therefore the penetrator *didn't* get dropped from the mission?

Bill Higgins, Beam Jockey         | "I'm gonna keep on writing songs
Fermilab                          | until I write the song
Bitnet:      [e-mail]  | that makes the guys in Detroit
Internet:  [e-mail]  | who draw the cars
SPAN/Hepnet:      43011::HIGGINS  | put tailfins on 'em again."
                                            --John Prine

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

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 93 00:52:49 EST
From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Subject: Planet X

-From: [e-mail] (Henry Spencer)
-Subject: Re: Planet X
-Date: 15 Mar 93 01:37:23 GMT

-The problem is that the best evaluation of the orbits of Uranus and Neptune,
-based on the best observations (the 20th-century ones), says that there is
-*no* unexplained error in their positions.

-Unfortunately, if you use earlier data, problems do crop up.  There is
-enough historical data of reasonable quality to raise a good possibility
-of a perturbing force in the past.  But then why has it gone away?

Could the earlier observations be made consistent with a massive object
that passed near the solar system on a hyperbolic trajectory and then left?

John Roberts
[e-mail]

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

Date: 23 Mar 93 01:08:54 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Play the Hat Game (was Re: Goldin's comment on Station)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes:
>Goldin's speech suggests a whole new parlor game: Trying to imagine what
>these hats look like.

JSC hat        Looks just like an ordinary hat, but *this* one is man-rated.
        Costs ten times as much.  Slightly uncomfortable.  But safe.

ESA hat        Looks a bit funny because one part came from each country,
        and they don't quite fit together properly.  The label is
        six inches long to hold all the different languages.

CSA hat        Has small robot arm waving Canadian flag.

Ames hat    A lot like the JPL one.  Much smaller pricetag.

Dryden hat    Flight helmet.  Decal on the back:  "my other plane is
        an SR-71".

McDonnell Douglas hat
        On the front, picture of DC-X, captioned "making space
        cheaper".  On the back, picture of WP2, captioned "well,
        we've got to make a buck somehow".

Perkin-Elmer hat
        Hubble model on top.  Slightly fuzzy around the edges.

NASDA hat    Solar-powered propellor beanie.  Label reads:  "VTOL
        version under deveropment".

ISAS hat    Very small solar-powered propellor beanie.  Only a very

        small person could wear it.  The VTOL setting works.

SSF hat        Recalled for redesign.  It'll be great.  Trust us.
--
All work is one man's work.             | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
                    - Kipling           |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 22 Mar 93 17:41:46 -0600
From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey <[e-mail]>
Subject: Play the Hat Game (was Re: Goldin's comment on Station)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Keith Mancus) writes:
>      "We could fight with each other, we could make fancy view graphs, we
> could have leather briefcases, we could have patent leather shoes, we could go
> rolling up to the Hill, we could make a lot of promises, we could get other
> programs canceled, we could destroy careers. If you wear your corporate hat,
> your center hat, if you wear a truss hat, if you wear a hat that has a solar
> array, if you wear a hat that has your personal identification and ego on it,
> you will destroy what we have. You'd better put on a baseball cap that says the
> United States of America or we're not going to have a coherent space program."
>
>                          - Dan Goldin in "Space News Roundup", March 15, 1993
>
>   Given the infighting going on in this group, I'd say this is a timely
> remark...

Goldin's speech suggests a whole new parlor game: Trying to imagine what
these hats look like.

HAT                       WHAT'S ON IT
==========                ============
Langley hat               Propeller
Reston hat                More hats (layers of management)
JPL hat                   Normal hat, but there's no human under it
Tyuratam hat              Sorry, we sold it to Japanese for hard currency
SSTO hat                  10 x cheaper and you can wear it over and over again

Come on, join the fun!

     O~~*           /_) ' / /   /_/ '  ,   ,  ' ,_  _           \|/
   - ~ -~~~~~~~~~~~/_) / / /   / / / (_) (_) / / / _\~~~~~~~~~~~zap!
 /       \                          (_) (_)                    / | \
 |       |     Bill Higgins   Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
 \       /     Bitnet:     [e-mail]
   -   -       Internet:  [e-mail]
     ~         SPAN/Hepnet:      43011::HIGGINS

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

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1993 22:48:50 GMT
From: "Thomas E. Smith" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Predicting gravity wave quantization & Cosmic Noise
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,sci.physics,alt.sci.planetary

>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]. (Thomas E. Smith) writes:
>>>                                                                  how
>>>     does one define or detect a 'wave'?  Apart from the fact that I suspect
>>>     propagation speed determines the detection through the doppler
>>>     shift, it seems to be crucial in all cases.
>>
>>To detect a doppler shift in gravitons, you would have to be able to detect
>>gravitons in the first place, and we have not been able to so far. That's like
>>trying to listen for the doppler shift in a train's whistle as it's approach-
>>ing you when you are deaf anyway.
>
>[e-mail] (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:
>      The crucial point in my sentence above was unfortunately deleted.
>      The beginning was along the lines 'if the wave travelled
>      instantaneously'.  The sentiment was something like 'If a wave
>      travels at infinite wavespeed, where's the wave?'
>      Your ears are going to have a difficult time decomposing that
>      oscillation.
>
>      You aren't suggesting that 'gravitons', whatever
>      they may be, are propagated instantaneously are you?

No I am not suggesting that. But I am saying that the wave that they are
trying to detect is _not_ a graviton. Gravitons are something that will
have to be detected in a particle accelerator the size of the solar system.
They are _very_ high energy physics. They were probably the first particles
produced out of the big bang, before 10^-40 seconds. Because of it's very
high energy, it has a very short wavelength. So I really don't think that
is the type of wave they are trying to detect with the spacecraft, which
is suited for waves millions of kilometers long.

How are you defining gravitational waves? The wavelength of the graviton?
The frequency of emmited gravitons or what?

I was thinking more along the lines of gravitational waves being oscillating
gravitational field strength (i.e. not a particle). The field does not travel
at all. It's just the 'topology' of space. Granted, changes in the field are
not carried through it instantaniously.

>
>>But ignoring that, it sounds like the events you could detect would be
>>things like massive objects speeding toward or away from you. But according
>>to many articles on the subject, some of the things that would produce
>>gravity waves are neutron stars orbiting black holes, or super novae. These
>>don't have as much doppler shift as other things such as quasars, which have
>>huge red-shifts, or even galaxies as they spin.
>
>      Aren't you confusing E&M doppler effects with GR doppler
>      effects?  I guess that things moving away from us would
>      doppler shift emitted 'gravitational waves', but this would
>      seem to affect only the frequency of the wavepacket.  We seem
>      to be looking for the existence of the wavepacket.

Again, what exactly do you mean by the wave packet (just so we're speaking
the same language).

>      In other words, we seem to be looking for the effect of the wave
>      on the doppler shift of the spacecraft, not the doppler shift
>      of the wave itself due to the motion of the source.
>
Yea, I'll buy that. Like I'm saying below, the wave affects space between
the spacecraft, and the earth. A consequence of this is a doppler shift of
the spacecraft's signal. Either time it, or measure the doppler shift.

>>If a gravity wave travels between the spacecraft, and the receiver on the
>>Earth, it will curve space and increase the distance between us and the
>>spacecraft. If they time the pulses from the ground to the spacecraft,
>>and back to Earth they should see a slight increase in distance between the
>>spacecraft, and the Earth (accounting for the spacecraft's velocity of course)
>>And they will have to  accurately account for the time it takes the spacecraft
>>to proccess the signal, and send it back. If it takes a constant amount of
>>time to do this, then you can just ignore it.
>
>     But time is the rub.  While the wave is playing around with space,
>     it's also playing around with time.  It's also coinciding with
>     the 'return' signal in various configurations.
>
Right. The wave bends space, which increases the distance between us, and it
also distorts time, which doubles the effect by making it take that much
longer. So the effect is not cancelled out, it is doubled. It's the same thing
Einstein predicted when stars apparent positions were displaced by the sun's
gravity that was observed during a solar eclipse. The effect was doubled by
the time distortions.

>                           dale bass


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Living on Earth may be expensive,|Tom E. Smith               | ._________  |
| but it includes an annual free   |[e-mail]| |= (0_, \ \ |
| trip around the Sun.             |                           | |= |0 ` / | |
|--------------------------------------------------------------| |---u----/  |
| And no, I don't speak for my company or any other company.   |             |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 93 01:00:51 EST
From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Subject: Shuttle hatch

A few months ago, somebody posted that the Shuttle hatch can't support
its own weight in one gravity. Not so - after the aborted launch, the
technicians who opened the hatch just swung it open, with no support
cable.

John Roberts
[e-mail]

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

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 93 01:04:39 GMT
From: Bob Combs <[e-mail]>
Subject: SR-71 Maiden Science Flight
Newsgroups: sci.space

The press release that I read presented the SR-71 flights
as a cost effecient means for collecting data.  In 1984
when I worked on the SR-71 at Beale Air Force Base, an SR-71
flight cost $1,000,000 -- each.


This was due to the high support costs.  You had to have
2-6 KC-135Q model tankers in the air 2 hours before
take-off, because the SR takes off with only 1/3 fuel,
due to structural limitations.  That cost of the tankers
is enormous.

The other major overhead that comes to mind was the 48 hour
preflight, with about 50 technicians involved.  BTW, this
48 hour preflight was what killed the airframes role as
an interceptor.

What has NASA done to reduce these costs, if any?


--
-----------------------------------------------
Traditions are the living faith of dead people.
[e-mail]
Bob Combs

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

Date: 22 Mar 1993 23:46:31 GMT
From: Andy Cohen <[e-mail]>
Subject: SSRT(DC-x&Y) slides
Newsgroups: sci.space

Overhead slides describing the DC-X and DC-Y programs have been uploaded
for anonymous FTP at bongo.cc.utexas.edu (128.83.186.13) in pub/Delta
Clipper/ DC-X/SSRT slides.  Thanks to Chris Johnson for rotating them and
supplying space (ouch) on bongo......

There are 15 slides from the Delta Clipper, generic presentation.  Included
are neat line drawings of DC-1 which shows where the payloads and people
go....it also includes some interesting data based on models (I
assume)...also some cost data (who knows how valid), a drawing of the
launch/landing facilities (like I said....a bunch of trucks), drawings of
the DC-X demo missions, some photos in 300dpi(good luck) gif format, and
lots more.

I also included the SSRT description as well as the figure that compares
DC-X to DC-Y......  I will also add the previous two gifs of a DC-X photo
and an artist's rendition of DC-1+.......

So I'm a groupie.  So what.

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

Date: 22 Mar 93 18:27:41 -0600
From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey <[e-mail]>
Subject: Timid Terraformers (was Re: How to cool Venus)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, Callec Dradja <[e-mail]> writes:
> I would also like to address the solution that one person offered
> of using nuclear devices to blast the atmosphere out into space. This
> idea sort of frightens me because such large forces seem sort of
> difficult to control.

Then you should get out of the game of terraforming!  A thermonuclear
weapon is a pipsqueak compared to the planetary-scale energies you
want to manipulate.

In general-- if I may say so without giving offense-- your ideas could
benefit from a quantitative understanding.  You should learn to do the
mathematics behind these problems; much of it is not difficult.
Perhaps you could discuss it with friends on your campus who
specialize in physics, astronomy, or engineering.

Bill Higgins                      | "[Theatregoers], if they did not
                                  | happen to like the production,
Fermi National                    | had either to sit all through it
Accelerator Laboratory            | or else go home.  They probably
                                  | would have rejoiced at the ease
                                  | of our Tele-Theaters, where we
Internet:  [e-mail]  | can switch from one play to
                                  | another in five seconds, until we
SPAN/Hepnet:      43011::HIGGINS  | find the one that suits us best."
                                  | --Hugo Gernsback predicts
Bitnet:      [e-mail]  | Channel-Flipping in
                                  | *Ralph 124C41+* (1912)

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

End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 355
------------------------------