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Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #344

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 8 : Issue 344

Today's Topics:
            Re: Space Station power supply
           Life on Jupiter (was: Re: SETI)
        Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?
                   RE: SETI
            Condensed CANOPUS - July 1988
        Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 19 Aug 88 16:55:10 GMT
From: Portia!Jessica![e-mail]  (Paul Flaherty)
Subject: Re: Space Station power supply

Not too many moons ago, I was hacking pdp-11 code for a biomedical research
lab, which was looking into the question of electrical tissue damage.
They had some interesting experiments, and conclusions; for example, that
60 Hz was probably the most lethal frequency possible.  "As I recall",
ventricular fibriliation is the most common cause of death; this probably
does not occur at 20 KHz (although burns probably would).

20 KHz also means smaller (less massive) transformers...


-=Paul Flaherty, N9FZX      | "There is no distinctly American criminal class
->[e-mail] | except Congress." -- Mark Twain

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

Date: 19 Aug 88 18:41:57 GMT
From: rochester![e-mail]  (Paul Dietz)
Subject: Life on Jupiter (was: Re: SETI)

[e-mail] (Steve Willner) writes:

>>      Jupiter cannot be left out.  At some altitudes, the atmosphere
>> is much the same as Earth's.
>
>In temperature and pressure yes, but the composition is radically
>different.  Jupiter's atmosphere is "reducing", consisting mostly of
>hydrogen, water, methane, and ammonia.  Earth's atmosphere is
>"oxidizing", as we all know.
>
>Being reducing doesn't mean Jupiter's atmosphere cannot contain life;
>on the contrary, it may be better for life than Earth's because the
>poison gas oxygen is not present.

At high pressure and temperature, hydrogen reacts exothermically
with organic compounds to form methane, ammonia and water.  Vertical
circulation in Jupiter's atmosphere carries any given parcel downward
to great depth every few days or so.  It is unlikely that life could
have originated or could survive there.

Paul F. Dietz
[e-mail]

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

Date: 19 Aug 88 18:59:54 GMT
From: vsi1!unisv![e-mail]  (Mike Van Pelt)
Subject: Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Brad Templeton) writes:
>Well there are quite a few options, each with interesting implications:
  (several options deleted)
>b) There's something inherently wrong with the V.N. machine idea:

That's what I think: Self-replicating machines are too difficult
or perhaps even not possible.  (To point at an animal as a
counterexample is to beg the question.  Maybe the reductionist
worldview is wrong...)  Many of the AI people take it as
Revealed Truth that there's nothing to intelligence that can't
be done with a little hardware and some software.  I'm not
convinced.  The more you look at it, the problem of making a
machine that can do even what a cockroach does is not as easy as
it may appear at first glance.  (Which is one of the brick walls
I think the nanotechnology folks are going to run into.)
--
Mike Van Pelt                          Here lies a Technophobe,
Unisys, Silicon Valley                    No whimper, no blast.
[e-mail]                     His life's goal accomplished,
                                          Zero risk at last.

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

Date: 19 Aug 88 18:10:00 GMT
From: apollo![e-mail]  (Peter Nelson)
Subject: RE: SETI


>> Presumably it wouldn't be all that difficult for an advanced
>> civilization to build probes that would be more than a match for
>> any civilization that had only a few years before mastered the use
>> of radio, on which the probes would home in.
>
>If it is possible for an advanced civilization to build and deploy
>self-reproducing, interstellar probes, probes could be continuously
>resident in each solar system.  If the civilization constructing the
>probes were irrationally hostile to other life forms, the probes
>could be programmed to detect life and sterilize any planets long
>before radio could be developed.  Obviously this has not happened, so
>at least one of the assumptions is wrong (or else we are just
>incredibly lucky that all the probes in our solar system have
>malfunctioned).

   Wrong.  We're it, or them, I mean.  WE are the self-reproducing
   probes programmed to sterilize all life before the true intelligent
   life can arise on this planet.  And it's working!

                                            --Peter Nelson

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

Date: 19 Aug 88 22:29:58 GMT
From: cfa!cfa250![e-mail]  (Steve Willner P-316 x57123)
Subject: Condensed CANOPUS - July 1988


Here is the unabridged CANOPUS for July 1987.  There are three
articles.  All are highly condensed, and the first is frequently
rephrased.  Material in {braces} is from me and is signed {--SW} when
it represents an expression of opinion.

CANOPUS is published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics.  Send correspondence about its contents to the executive
editor, William W. L. Taylor ([e-mail];
e-mail to [e-mail] will probably be forwarded).  Send
correspondence about business matters to Mr. John Newbauer, AIAA,
1633 Broadway, NY, NY 10019.  Although AIAA has copyrighted CANOPUS
and registered its name, you are encouraged to distribute CANOPUS
widely, either electronically or as printout copies.  If you do,
however, please send a brief message to Taylor estimating how many
others receive copies.  CANOPUS is partially supported by the
National Space Science Data Center.

SPACE SCIENCE IN THE 21st CENTURY, N.R.C. Report Issued - can880701.txt
- 7/6/88

[Report to NASA from National Research Council on scientific goals in
space.  Requested by NASA in 1984.  The report is a comprehensive
wish list rather than a setting of priorities.  Setting priorities
may not be possible until some current missions are completed.]

In his cover letter, National Academy of Sciences Chairman Frank
Press, calls attention to two severe problems that must be faced.
1) Challenger accident has deprived us of access to space, and
2) available funding and talent are insufficient.

Here are the categories and some of the missions suggested.

PLANETARY AND LUNAR EXPLORATION

For the terrestrial planets: landers, rovers and sample return missions

For the outer planets: atmospheric probes

For primitive bodies (comets and asteroids): rendezvous and
   sample-return missions

Search for planets around other stars (Even planets as small as
   Uranus and Neptune should be detectable.)

"A Mars-focused program is recommended in parallel with the general
program" and not as a substitute.  Venus, Earth and Mars present a
great potential payoff in comparative planetology.

SOLAR SYSTEM PLASMA PHYSICS

An ultraviolet and X-ray telescope to give 1-100 km resolution images
   of the Sun's surface. (The planned High Resolution Solar
   Observatory will have 70-km resolution, but the UV capability has
   been cancelled.)

Plasma observations as part of outer planet missions

Remote sensing of magnetospheric plasmas in the Earth-moon system

Active experimentation {I think this means missions like particle
   releases in the Earth's ionosphere.--SW}

Solar Probe (sometimes called Star Probe), a mission to fly within
   1.9 million km of the visible surface of the Sun {This is about
   1.4 solar diameters.}

An Interstellar probe (also called TAU, for Thousand Astronomical
   Units) would enter the interstellar medium 10 years after launch.

ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS

   o Imaging interferometry, comprising large arrays of
     telescopes for optical and radio VLBI observations,

   o Large-area and high-throughput telescopes, including a 20-
     to 30-m large deployable sub-mm reflector, an 8- to 16-m optical
     telescope, a large 20 to 20,000 keV X-ray telescope, and a large
     0.1-10 meV Compton telescope, and

   o Astro-Mag, a massive cosmic ray analyzer using a
     superconducting magnet spectrometer.

FUNDAMENTAL PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY
(relativistic gravitation and microgravity sciences)

   o Laser hetereodyne interferometer to attempt detection of
     gravitational waves below 10 Hz,

   o Microwave ranging to a Mercury orbiter to measure the time
     rate of change in gravitational coupling,

   o A Precision Optical Interferometer in Space to measure
     the second order effect of the Sun on electromagnetic radiation.

   o A hydrogen maser clock aboard Solar probe or Star Probe to
     measure the gravitational red shift to second order.

   o A free-flying spacecraft to test the weak principle of
     equivalence to one part in 1,000 more than a planned Shuttle
     experiment, and

   o A large-area X-ray detector (possibly from the astrophysics
     category) for microseceond timing to allow detection of X- ray
     pulsars.

HUMAN PRESENCE IN SPACE

The SSB study found no category of space science depends on manned
space flight other than space medicine. Rather than falling into the
man-vs-machine argument that has divided the space community for
decades, the study team wrote that, "At present, we lack enough
information to judge where the balance between manned and unmanned
missions should lie."

PRECONDITIONS AND INFRASTRUCTURE

To train the next generation of scientists, the SSB said that
Explorers, Spartans, Observers, and suborbital programs "must be
allowed to flourish." Projects that take one to three years are
needed to match the training of graduate and post-doctoral students.

FRED SCARF, NOTED SPACE SCIENTIST, DIES AT 57 - CAN990702.txt - 7/19/88

Frederick L. Scarf, a chief scientist for research and technology at
TRW, died Sunday, in Moscow.  Dr. Scarf, 57, was part of an
international delegation attending the launch of two Russian probes
designed to investigate one of the moons of Mars, Phobos.  He was a
co-investigator of an instrument aboard each of the spacecraft.

RESTORING COMMITMENT TO OUR FUTURE IN SPACE - CAN880703.TXT - 7/26/88

A Joint Statement by American Astronomical Society, American
Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers {highly condensed}:

We believe NASA's program is neither sufficiently understood nor
adequately supported.  It is our responsibility to call to the
nation's attention the great value of NASA's historic contributions
to education, science, exploration, and leadership.  We urgently
recommend restoring national commitment to purposeful civilian space
programs and policies.

From both the manned and unmanned space programs, we and the world
community have received manifold benefits that range from the
practical to the intellectually sublime.  Observing the earth from
space has put within our grasp the ability to understand and
stabilize this--the only known--environment of life.  We can now
study the earth's interior, global atmosphere, oceans, and landmasses
as whole entities.

In our time, heavenly bodies have moved into the realm of human
experience.  These discoveries stimulate a deeper understanding of
the earth itself.  New classes of objects and phenomena have been
discovered by past telescopes in space.  In the future, space
astronomy can open for study new wavelength ranges and new volumes of
the universe.

NASA's scientific achievements are echoed in space applications such
as satellite communications... and remote sensing from space, which
has revolutionized weather forecasting and the assessment of our
planet's resources.  Life sciences research ...

The future of these beneficial space activities is at risk.  The
problem is that budgetary growth is required through the remainder of
the century to exploit the technology and infrastructure created by
NASA.  That is the conclusion of the May 1988 report by the
Congressional Budget Office entitled "The NASA Program in the 1990s
and Beyond."

We urge the leadership of the United States to reverse this nation's
current retreat from exploration and development in space by
providing adequate resources to NASA.  We have serious business in
space.  Other nations recognize the benefits of civilian space
activities, and they are creating their own opportunities.  If the
United States can be a reliable partner, we might travel with them --
but we cannot stay home.

The space frontier is no less significant to our future than our
terrestrial boundaries: through each will come the new knowledge,
fresh challenges, economic strength, and the critical resources that
will spur us on and secure our place in the competitive future.  We
call for a restored commitment to space.
--
Steve Willner            Phone [phone]         Bitnet:   willner@cfa
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                 Internet: [e-mail]

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

Date: 18 Aug 88 14:45:41 GMT
From: uplherc!esunix![e-mail]  (Bob Pendleton)
Subject: Re: SETI: Why don't we hear anything?

From article <[e-mail]>, by [e-mail] (Peter Kinsella):
> In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Mike Van Pelt) writes:
>
>> Presumably it wouldn't be all that
>> difficult for an advanced civilization to build probes that would be
>> more than a match for any civilization that had only a few years
>> before mastered the use of radio, on which the probes would home in.
>
>      Why would would the get along fine with each other but be afraid of a
> a little puny underdeveloped planet. If we assume that the galaxy is as
> expansive as most people claim. And if we assume that the Race is
> suffiently developed to send probes to wipe out other planets, wouldn't
                                         ^^^^^^^^
> they also be advanced enough to harvest resources from uninhabited worlds.
> Wouldn't the later also be more economically efficent, especially if the
> world be taken over detonates atomic weapons in its self defense.
           ^^^^^^^^^^

wipe out != taken over.

In fact, they might want us to use our own nuclear weapons. It might
help them wipe us out.

Flame ON!

Did you ever hear about phobias? Individual humans can develop
irrational fears that can drive them to extreme behavior. Did you ever
hear of WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Afganistan, or Iraq, and Iran? Human
cultures can also exihbit irrational behavior.

And then you ask why members of another species, the result of
independant evolution in a different environment would not act like we
HOPE human beings might act some day?

Humanity is an example of a species with high technology and
irrational behavior. If the wrong mass insanity sets in, WE could be
the ones launching the sterilizer probes!

Flame OFF!

Look, my neighbor spent about 3 days with a bubble level and bags of
sand making sure that his front lawn was absolutely level. Every month
or so he goes out and checks to make sure it is still level. His side
and back yards are weed covered dirt. He is considered to be sane. But,
his behavior makes no sense to me at all.

Beyond a few basics, like maybe reproduction, what can we really claim
to know about what an alien intelligence might do?

            Bob P.
--
Bob Pendleton @ Evans & Sutherland
UUCP Address:  {decvax,ucbvax,allegra}!decwrl!esunix!bpendlet
Alternate:     utah-cs!esunix!bpendlet
        I am solely responsible for what I say.

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

End of SPACE Digest V8 #344
*******************