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Date: Mon, 11 Jul 88 20:23:36 PDT
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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #269

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 269

Today's Topics:
        The U.S. Virtual (or Imaginary) Space Program
               Launch Sequence Details
               Re: Cometesimals
              Re: Bureaucracy vs.  space
                MOOSE
              Re: Bureaucracy vs.  space
              Re: Bureaucracy vs.  space
              Re: Mars Underground News
             Re: Recycling Pershing-II's
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:  7 Jun 88 21:23 PDT
From: William Daul / McAir / McDonnell-Douglas Corp  <[e-mail]>
Subject: The U.S. Virtual (or Imaginary) Space Program

message

It struct me as being a bit humorous the SPACE news today.  The primary story
was the launch of the 3 Soviet cosmonauts (1 actually Bulgarian) and the
secondary story was the successful imaginary (CBS did use that word to describe
the simulation) launch of the shuttle.  It got my imagination going...

   The US is so far ahead of the soviets in the imaginary space program.  They
   can't even dream how far ahead.

   The imaginary launch even had a imaginary problem causing a imaginary early
   return.  Imagine that!

   Our virtual space program is on the verge of great accomplishments.  Perhaps
   we could have a virtual manned mission to Mars.  The program would cost so
   much less.  Virtual dollars are almost unlimited if we DO need to spend
   anything on it.  The program would only be limited by the imagination.

I am a bit jealous of the Soviet program...that is why I make light of ours
here.  I do hope we find the path to return to space.  --Bi((

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

Date:     Wed,  8 Jun 88  08:10:09 MDT
From: [e-mail]
          (Jim Kirkpatrick 307 766-5303)
Subject:  Launch Sequence Details

Where might I find detailed launch-sequence specifications for, say, the
Space Shuttle?  I'm interested (just curiosity) in details such as have
recently shown up on the amateur radio list: (paraphrasing from memory)
"At H0 minus .38 seconds propellant valves are opened" and "at H0 plus
63 seconds the pad hold-down clamps are blown open."  I have long thought
a fascinating short movie (15-30 minutes) could be made that chronicles
the launch sequence with detailed verbal explanations accompanied by
appropriate photography and computer-generated animation.  Such a movie
would probably begin long before launch (begin with fueling and arming
perhaps), and as it gets closer to actual launch, where things get real
busy real quick, the time scale would obviously have to shift.

I have no doubt many technical people would find this a fascinating
insight.  I also have few doubts it would never get done.  So, is there
at least a publicly-accessible document/article that details a real
sequence?

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

Date:     Wed, 8 Jun 88 20:38:15 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Allen C. Kistler)
Subject:  Re: Cometesimals

For those interested in the small comet theory of Lou Frank, John Sigwarth,
and John Craven (all here at the University of Iowa), these are the references
(not in bibliographic form, but good enough) which some of you have requested.
All of these are in _Geophysical_Research_Letters_, a monthly publication of
the American Geophysical Union covering research in space science, atmospheric
studies, geology, hydrology, and oceanography.  AGU is a non-profit
organization, equal-opportunity employer, and all those other good things.
Someday I'll be a member.  {I've got some text of my own afterwards.}

Original papers are in the April 1986 GRL
-----------------------------------------
[1] On the Influx of Small Comets in the Earth's Upper Atmosphere:
    I.  Observations
[2] On the Influx of Small Comets in the Earth's Upper Atmosphere:
    II. Interpretation

Replies to Comments (NOTE: Titles listed below are my own designation.  Usually
                     published titles run like "Reply to <whomever>.")
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1]  June 1986  Atmospheric transport of extraterrestrial water; and effects of
                                                 cometesimals on Venus and Mars
[2]  June 1986  Dusty mantles of the cometesimals

[3]  Sept 1986  Cometesimal signatures for in situ ionospheric measurements

[4]  Sept 1986  Thermal stability of cometesimals in the inner solar system

[5]  Oct  1986  Statistical possibility of instrumentation fluke

[6]  Nov  1986  Estimation of maximum lunar seismic event amplitude

[7]  Dec  1986  Crustal deposition rate of extraterrestrial iridium; and
                                    comparison of cometesimals to larger comets
[8]  Feb  1987  Calculation of optical detection rate

[9]  May  1987  More statistical consideration of instrumentation flukes

[10] July 1987  Recapitulation of extraterrestrial iridium deposition

## And now for a different tactic... ##########################################

>From: mtunx!whuts![e-mail]  (WARMINK)
>
> .... It is generally accepted that water once flowed
>on Mars, but cycles of thawing and freezing? I would immagine that such cycles
>would have a drastic impact upon the Martian surface, which does not fit in
>with the large number of craters observed. I would be interested to find out
>where the evidence for multiply thawing/freezing cycles comes from.  Does
>water vapour have the same greenhouse effect as CO2? Why water vapour anyway?
>The Martian atmosphere contains a significant percentage of CO2....

There are not freezing/thawing cycles.  Water arrives at Mars via the
cometesimals.  The same thing happens at Mars that happens at Earth: the
atmosphere heats the snowballs until they are clouds of vapor.  However the
Martian atmosphere cannot support the water, so most of it freezes on the
surface.  What does remain in the atmosphere generates a greenhouse effect.
Water DOES have the same effect as CO2.  The planet heats up; the atmosphere
can support more water; the heating rate increases, etc., until the ice melts,
rivers flow, and Mars has Spring, such as it is.  But Mars is a smaller planet.
With all this heat, it essentially blows its stack.  The water escapes out into
space, including the liquid water which is now evaporating.  There is no longer
enough greenhouse effect to keep the planet warm.  Mars cools down, waterless.
The CO2 stays because it's heavy by comparison.  But there are still the
cometesimals bringing water in from the Oort disk....
  There are maybe THAWING cycles, if you want to call them that.  "Periodic
Spring" is a more common designation.  It's an idea that's been kicked around
previously, but nobody ever figured out a way that it could happen.  The
cometesimal theory hardly turns on this point, however.  If you would like the
authors' own words, read Reply [1] above.

>From: mcvax!ukc!its63b![e-mail]  (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
>
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Burch) writes:
>>... Could this explain (neatly) the occasional reports that
>>lunar observers have made of clouds of water vapor?  I recall that these
>>have been from near the terminator, logical if a snowball hit during the
>>night, and was being vaporized by the sun....
>
>.... A comet or small comet or snowball is in orbit round the sun.  If the
>moon gets in the way, the snowball would hit the lunar surface at a velocity
>measured in kilometers per second. (or miles per second if you are observing
>from the Space Station :->)
>
>Any snowball would be ionised by the impact, which would
>also make a large hole in the surface....

>From: Peter Scott <[e-mail]>
>
>Well, hold on a moment.  Using the authors' figures of 12m diameter and
>0.1 g/cm**3 density, such a snowball travelling at 6 km/sec impacts with
>1.5 *10**12 joules, a yield of about a quarter of a kiloton....  If
>someone can explain how such an impact could not leave a crater at least
>10m in diameter, I'd like to hear from them.  By my calculations, at
>most one-fifth of the energy would be used in vaporizing the snowball.

>From: oliveb!3comvax![e-mail]  (Michael McNeil)
>
>I also believed that the lack of lunar craters constantly being created
>was a flaw in this idea, but then one newspaper report I read implied
>that what was happening was that tidal forces would break up the very
>fragile snowballs well before they got near the Earth or the Moon.  If
>the matter were sufficiently dispersed by the time it arrived at the
>Moon, creation of a crater could be avoided....

Tidal forces help break up the cometesimals as they approach the Earth, but
are insufficient to break them up as they approach the moon.  They hit the moon
with about a kiloton of TNT equivalent energy.  It is an important point that
the cometesimals are water instead of rock.  They are vaporized within about
5 msec (read "instantly").  The shock of impact compression heats them to more
than just sea-level boiling.  The deepest depression would only be about
20 cm deep.  I wouldn't call that a crater, but if you want to... okay.  For
the authors' own words, see Reply [6] above.

------------------+------------------------------------------------------------
Allen Kistler     | [e-mail] Internet <-use sparingly
University of Iowa| kistler::iowa                      SPAN     <-NASA pays
------------------+------------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer: Any mangling of the above concepts is my own mistake, otherwise
               it's not MY fault if it's true!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: 6 Jun 88 22:52:25 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Bureaucracy vs.  space

> Comparing the Space Shuttle with a cargo airplane is utterly pointless
> since they provide a completely different service.

Strange, I had always thought they were rather similar except for different
operating regions.  Certainly NASA has said so in the past.  Can you
elaborate on how, say, delivering a satellite into low orbit is *completely*
different from delivering a load of instruments to Antarctica?

> In case you haven't figured it out yet, there is a world of difference
> between building airplanes and building space launchers.

Of course there's a real difference, the same way there's a difference
between building trucks and building airplanes.  Oddly enough, I do not
find this to be sufficient explanation for the sad state of spaceflight
at the moment.  Especially since the Long March is built by a refrigerator
company and works just fine as a space launcher.

> The fact that
> we went from Orville and Wilbur to the 747 and affordable air transport
> in a single human lifespan is not "proof" that the same rate of progress
> in space transportation could occur "if only the Government would get
> out of the way"...

No... but it suggests what might, perhaps, be possible if the government
stopped trying to run the show and concentrating on *helping*, the way it
did for aviation.  If agreeing with people like Max Hunter and Del Tischler
that progress could be much quicker makes me a Space Cadet, so be it.

(For those who don't recognize the names:  Hunter took the Thor missile
[today's Delta launcher is a somewhat souped-up Thor] from initial design
to initial deliveries in something like two years.  His entire staff was
smaller than the current government *launch crew* for a Delta.  Tischler
wrote the specs for the F-1 [definitely the US's most successful big rocket
engine] in 24 hours, had them reviewed in a couple of weeks, and had full-
scale development underway within three months.)
--
"For perfect safety... sit on a fence|  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
and watch the birds." --Wilbur Wright| {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

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

Date: 8 Jun 88 01:16:19 GMT
From: ecsvax![e-mail]  (D Gary Grady)
Subject: MOOSE

Anyone remember the Man Out Of Space Easiest (MOOSE) project?  As I
recall, this was a 60s effort to develop a reentry vehicle usable by
individuals.  It comprised a spacesuit, something to generate a foam
heatshield (inflated in the fashion of a life vest), a retro pack, and a
parachute.  Seems to me it would be useful for certain space shuttle
emergencies.
--
D Gary Grady
[phone]
USENET:  {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary
BITNET:  [e-mail]

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

Date: 7 Jun 88 16:31:46 GMT
From: mnetor!spectrix!tmsoft!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Bureaucracy vs.  space

[If you think you've seen this before, it's because the first version
contained a *serious* typo that I didn't notice until just now.  I've
sent out a cancellation for it.]

> Comparing the Space Shuttle with a cargo airplane is utterly pointless
> since they provide a completely different service.

Strange, I had always thought they were rather similar except for different
operating regions.  Certainly NASA has said so in the past.  Can you
elaborate on how, say, delivering a satellite into low orbit is *completely*
different from delivering a load of instruments to Antarctica?

> In case you haven't figured it out yet, there is a world of difference
> between building airplanes and building space launchers.

Of course there's a real difference, the same way there's a difference
between building trucks and building airplanes.  Oddly enough, I do not
find this to be sufficient explanation for the sad state of spaceflight
at the moment.  Especially since the Long March is built by a refrigerator
company and works just fine as a space launcher.

> The fact that
> we went from Orville and Wilbur to the 747 and affordable air transport
> in a single human lifespan is not "proof" that the same rate of progress
> in space transportation could occur "if only the Government would get
> out of the way"...

No... but it suggests what might, perhaps, be possible if the government
stopped trying to run the show and concentrated on *helping*, the way it
did for aviation.  If agreeing with people like Max Hunter and Del Tischler
that progress could be much quicker makes me a Space Cadet, so be it.

(For those who don't recognize the names:  Hunter took the Thor missile
[today's Delta launcher is a somewhat souped-up Thor] from initial design
to initial deliveries in something like two years.  His entire staff was
smaller than the current government *launch crew* for a Delta.  Tischler
wrote the specs for the F-1 [definitely the US's most successful big rocket
engine] in 24 hours, had them reviewed in a couple of weeks, and had full-
scale development underway within three months.)
--
"For perfect safety... sit on a fence|  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
and watch the birds." --Wilbur Wright| {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

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

Date: 8 Jun 88 15:36:47 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Mike Smithwick)
Subject: Re: Bureaucracy vs.  space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
... delete ...... delete ...... delete ...... delete ...... delete ...
>. . .since the Long March is built by a refrigerator
>company and works just fine as a space launcher.
>

And remember, the Space Shuttle was built by a company that also
makes power tools! :->

>(For those who don't recognize the names:  Hunter took the Thor missile
>[today's Delta launcher is a somewhat souped-up Thor] from initial design
>to initial deliveries in something like two years.  His entire staff was
>smaller than the current government *launch crew* for a Delta.  Tischler
>wrote the specs for the F-1 [definitely the US's most successful big rocket
>engine] in 24 hours, had them reviewed in a couple of weeks, and had full-
>scale development underway within three months.)
>--

Some time ago I remember reading an article in SpaceFlight I think, about
a sounding-rocket project carried out in Austrailia. (I read this a year
ago, and I forget most of the details) The rockets were very successful,
reaching altitudes of several hundreds of miles I believe. The entire
team consisted of not much more than a dozen engineers. An American
army type toured the facility and couldn't believe what they did
with so few people, considering that the army had over a hundred working
on a similar project. The secret? None of the engineers would think twice
about picking up a broom, and sweeping up if necessary. That is, the
phrase "but it's not my job!" was not in their vocabulary.

(Henry may want to fill in the details, otherwise I could look them up)

Randumb observations by. . .


--
               *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick ***
"Being a dwarf does have it's shortcomings"
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

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

Date: Thu,  9 Jun 88 10:15:18 PST
From: Peter Scott <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Mars Underground News
X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"[e-mail]"

Maybe I'm confusing this with another Mars Underground News, but I seem
to recall paying $10 (to the Planetary Society, I believe), for the
privilege of receiving this newsletter (of which I only remember seeing
one).  Is this newsletter in Space Digest the same thing?  If so, I
don't begrudge the society the money - I'd contribute anyway - but it
doesn't seem right to publish something for free that people have paid for.

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

Date: 7 Jun 88 18:27:53 GMT
From: thumper![e-mail]  (Phil R. Karn)
Subject: Re: Recycling Pershing-II's

> > Another story, also by the same writer, describes the atmosphere
> > at the Hercules, Inc. plant west of Salt Lake City, where Soviet
> > inspectors will be stationed for the next 13 years.

Don't forget that the treaty gives the US similar rights to inspect
Soviet manufacturing facilities. Any agreement that gives equal
inspection rights to both countries is likely to work in our favor,
since the Soviets are normally so much more secretive than we are.

I would like nothing better than a treaty so comprehensive and providing
for so much intrusive on-site verification that military contractors
doing classified work are actually forced out of business, assuming of
course that the same happens to their Soviet counterparts.  Stop
thinking about "saving jobs" and start thinking about the effect that
the products of those jobs are having on the world.  Good old financial
greed and narrow self-interest (on both sides) has driven the arms race
as much as any genuine Soviet threat.

Phil

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

End of SPACE Digest V8 #269
*******************