Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/pc/text/spacedig/v09_4/v9_463.txt

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Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #463

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 9 : Issue 463

Today's Topics:
               Re: Launch noise
           Re: Re: Private Space Companies
            Re: How Hubble will get there
            Re: How Hubble will get there
             Re: Andromeda Strain
             Re: Asteroids and Dinosaurs
           Re: Re: Private Space Companies
            Re: New Orbiter Name Announced
             Re: Teach your children well
         Re: UFOs and other weird stuff on this list.
          Proposed improvements for Arecibo
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 24 May 89 23:06:17 GMT
From: b.gp.cs.cmu.edu![e-mail]  (Ralf Brown)
Subject: Re: Launch noise

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jordan Kare) writes:
}>[noise from non-rocket launchers]
}It's been a significant concern for laser launching -- enough to
}generate a couple of calculations.  Typical numbers are that a
}100 MW launch system generates 80-90 db noise levels --
}10 km from the launcher!  I've occasionally been known to suggest
}modulating the laser rep rate (nominally ~100 Hz) to play
}a really impressive bass line for a rock concert :-)

Almost good enough for "Disaster Area" :-)  A quick off-the-cuff calculation
gives me 170 dB at the vehicle--rather painful, I would imagine.






(for those not familiar with the reference, "Disaster Area" is a rock group
in _Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy_ which plays such loud music that the
optimum distance from the speakers is 37 miles....)

--
{harvard,uunet,ucbvax}!b.gp.cs.cmu.edu!ralf -=-=- AT&T: [phone] (school)
ARPA: [e-mail] |"Tolerance means excusing the mistakes others make.
FIDO: Ralf Brown at 129/31 | Tact means not noticing them." --Arthur Schnitzler
BITnet: RALF%B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU@CMUCCVMA -=-=- DISCLAIMER? I claimed something?
--

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

Date: Wed, 24 May 89 14:46:34
From: Lutz Massonne <ESC1325@ESOC> ([phone]) <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Re: Private Space Companies

In his recent posting (SPACE Vol.9 Issue 408) Henry Spencer said that
"very little; essentially none" of Ariane is private.
I don't agree to this point of view.

The Ariane launches are at present marketed by Arianespace, a private
company intending to make money out of this business. The launcher are
built to their orders by European aerospace firms, most of them are
private companies.

The Ariane rockets were developed by ESA, a multi-government agency, but
now ESA itself has to *BUY* the launchers and launch services from
Arianespace. The development costs of the launcher are have thus not been
paid by Arianespace, but this is also true for some of the US private
launch enterprises (I remember that some of them uses MX technology -
I suppose MX was developed from the taxpayers pockets).

Therefore I consider Arianespace as a private company, and they
are making money from space business (IMHO the only way to keep
a space effort alive in the present budget-cutting times).

The deeper sense behind this is, of course, ESA's status as 1) non-profit
and 2) non-military organisation.

To overcome 1) is in the interest of every taxpayer in Europe (and Canada :-)),
overcoming 2) is in the interest of some ESA member states (note that
a British military communications sat was launched by Ariane(space) quite
recently).

Disclaimer: This mailing expresses my personal opinions only,
neither mbp's nor ESA's. I accept no liability for any of my
statements and give no guarantee for their correctness.
Some parts of this mail may be meant humorous or are simply cynic.

+------------------------------------------------------+
| Address: Dr. Lutz Massonne, OAD/mbp, ESOC,           |
|          Robert-Bosch-Str.5, D-6100 Darmstadt, FRG   |
+------------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: 24 May 89 17:30:43 GMT
From: dogie.macc.wisc.edu!indri!larry![e-mail]  (Jeffrey W Percival)
Subject: Re: How Hubble will get there

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] () writes:
>Here's something I found out yesterday.  Currently, the Hubble Space
>Telescope is being stored in California.  Everyone knows that it is going
>to be launched (some day) on a shuttle from the Cape (Florida east coast).
>But apparently, the only safe way to transport it is by boat.  Which means
>it will almost certainly have to go thru the Panama canal.........Let's
>hope things improve down that way in the next year.    Sigh.


The boat plan has been changed.  It was going to go by the "Greenwave",
a Navy ship.  Now it's going by air (some reject C5, I hear).
--
Jeff Percival ([e-mail])

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

Date: 24 May 89 20:24:02 GMT
From: uflorida!haven!uvaarpa!hudson!astsun5.astro.Virginia.EDU![e-mail]  (Greg Hennessy)
Subject: Re: How Hubble will get there

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] () writes:
>[ Excuse the cross-posting, please. ]
>
>Here's something I found out yesterday.  Currently, the Hubble Space
>Telescope is being stored in California.  Everyone knows that it is going
>to be launched (some day) on a shuttle from the Cape (Florida east coast).
>But apparently, the only safe way to transport it is by boat.  Which means
>it will almost certainly have to go thru the Panama canal.........Let's
>hope things improve down that way in the next year.    Sigh.
>

Actually it will go in a C5A transport plane. It was going to go by
boar, but recently it was determined that the place could carry the
load. The people at STSCI are much happier with it travelling by
plane.



-Greg Hennessy, University of Virginia
 USPS Mail:     Astronomy Department, Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475 USA
 Internet:      [e-mail]
 UUCP:        ...!uunet!virginia!gsh7w

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

Date: 22 May 89 17:41:18 GMT
From: pyramid!prls!philabs!gotham!ursa![e-mail]  (Josh Diamond)
Subject: Re: Andromeda Strain

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>
>    In the *movie* version it was not an asteroid, it was a space
>    probe.  It has been a long time since I saw it, but there was I
>    think the implication of a possibility that the probe was lanched
>    by the military in order to collect extraterrestrial material.
>    Also, It didn't decompose plastics at all.  It caused blood to
>    coagulate comletely, which kind of slowed the heart down.  In the
>    end it was found that it didn't do well in an oxygen environment.
>    However, all of the high-tech machines broke down, for stupid reasons
>    that the movie maker thought representative of engineering narrow
>    mindedness, and so it took them much too long to figure this out.
>
    [second paragraph omitted]
>
>    Chris Eliot

Sorry. Watch the movie again....

You are partially correct: In the *movie* version it was a space probe.
The probe was specifically designed to scoop up particles from the upper
atmosphere.  The organism was fount on a small particle which was found
in/on the probe.

However your statement that "It didn't decompose plastics at all" is false.
In fact, it mutated into a form which was non-harmful to animal life, but
which did decompose plastics.  It was then found that the organism could not
survive in an alkaline environment -- like the ocean.  They couldn't use
"The Bomb" to eradicate it, because that would either make it grow faster,
or mutate it again.  So they just let it go, figuring it would die when the
rain washed it down into the ocean.

                More ravings from...

                              Josh

--
Josh Diamond            {philabs.phillips.com, sun.com}!gotham!ursa!jmd
                      ...!{sun, philabs, pyrnj}!gotham!ursa!jmd

We're on an express elevator to hell -- GOING DOWN!!

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

Sender: "Dennis_C._Brantly.WBST129"@Xerox.COM
Date: 23 May 89 05:14:00 PDT (Tuesday)
Subject: Re: Asteroids and Dinosaurs
From: [e-mail]
Cc: [e-mail]


RE: "Does anyone knows others example of strange disappearance ?"

The June 89 issue of Astronomy has an excellent article titled "Piecing
Together Earth's Early History" by William K. Hartmann, that has an
interesting statement:

"Environmental scientist James C. Walker has suggested that the early
lmbrium-scale impacts that occured intermittently may have caused several
extinctions of the earliest lifeforms, but after each such event, life
restarted.  Sketchy evidence for such as idea comes from the observation
that later fossils (such as at 3.1 billion and 2.7 billion years ago) may
not be decended from the earliest fossil species.  The creation of life may
thus have begun and ended several times over before the rain of impacts
decreased enough to let life endure."

So don't just think that mass extinctions involved just a portion of life
on Earth, some could have involved all of life (on Earth).

Dennis

Brantly:WBST129:Xerox

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

Date: 25 May 89 16:48:03 GMT
From: uflorida!mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Re: Private Space Companies

In article <Added.MYSjRKu00UkTQ=[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Lutz Massonne, [phone]) writes:
>In his recent posting (SPACE Vol.9 Issue 408) Henry Spencer said that
>"very little; essentially none" of Ariane is private.
>I don't agree to this point of view.
>
>The Ariane launches are at present marketed by Arianespace, a private
>company intending to make money out of this business. The launcher are
>built to their orders by European aerospace firms, most of them are
>private companies.

In theory.  In practice, Arianespace has about enough authority of its own
to blow its nose without government permission, and the aerospace firms
are in a similar situation.  There is a nominal financial separation between
the governments and the companies, but in reality the governments are still
in charge.  The financial separation breaks down whenever it gets in the
way, e.g. for new development.

>... The development costs of the launcher are have thus not been
>paid by Arianespace, but this is also true for some of the US private
>launch enterprises...

In fact it's true for all of the major "private" launch suppliers in the
US, which is why I put "private" in quotes.  The separation between the
companies and the government is very thin there too.  General Dynamics,
to pick only one example, basically does what the US government tells it
to do, because the US government is all that keeps GD alive.

Boeing -- which is not currently in the space-launch business, although
it has a long-standing interest in the notion -- is probably the only
big aerospace company in the world that can afford to go its own way
and make its own decisions.

The only truly private launch enterprises in the world are some of the
new ones in the US, which may have government customers but have no
government subsidies and no major government influence on management
(and no history of government work to drive efficiency down and costs up).
--
Van Allen, adj: pertaining to  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
deadly hazards to spaceflight. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 24 May 89 22:15:55 GMT
From: pacbell!ditka!bucket![e-mail]  (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: New Orbiter Name Announced

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Diana L. Syriac) writes:
<In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Scott Gibson) writes:
<>Peter Scott writes:
<>>whether one name will be painted on one side and one on the other, or why on
<>>earth they felt it necessary to use non-American spelling at all...
<>
<>The Endeavour is named for a British sailing vessel of some exploratory
<
<
<I thought it was interesting to note that the latest issue of AWST
<dated 15-May-89 spelled the name "Endeavor", NOT "Endeavour".....

I'd chalk this up to the now "standard" use of spell-checker programs
*instead* of proofreaders. Any spellchecker sold in the US is going to
tell you to change Endeavour to Endeavor (and colour to color). I wouldn't
be very surprised to hear that many of the "or" spelling votes from the
schools were from teachers *mistakenly* correcting the spellling.
--
Leonard Erickson        ...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard
CIS: [70465,203]
"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools.
Let's start with typewriters." -- Solomon Short

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

Date: 25 May 89 06:30:01 GMT
From: vsi1!daver!lynx![e-mail]  (Neal Woodall)
Subject: Re: Teach your children well

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Tom Neff) writes:

>>I am never so frustrated and morose about our prospects for the future as
>>when I find someone misunderstanding science.  Phrases like "it's been
>>light-years since I saw home" (_Hard Time on Planet Earth_) ...

>What is the difference between "light-years since I saw home" and
>"miles to go before I sleep"?  Both describe a journey in terms of
>the distances involved.

Or how about people who describe distances in terms of time? Examples:
"The shopping mall is only 15 minutes from here", or "it is about an hour
to the city."

It seems to me that the original poster made a misinterpretation of the
phrase he posted....I don't really see what is "wrong" about describing
a journey in terms of distance rather than time, or vice-versa.



Neal

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

Date: 24 May 89 17:20:52 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com![e-mail]  (Mark Robert Thorson)
Subject: Re: UFOs and other weird stuff on this list.

From Radio-Electronics magazine, June 1989 issue, page 6:

"The results of a survey entitled "Engineers Preview Highlights of the
22nd Century City" were presented by Robert E. Hogan, president of the
American Consulting Engineers Council, during National Engineers Week
(February 19-25, 1989).  The survey, which was distributed to over 2,000
American engineers of all disciplines, asked the respondents to describe
in detail the technological advances that would be achieved by the 22nd
century.
    While some of the results came as no surprise--we will live to an
average age of 80 to 100, and critical environmental problems will include
lack of clean air and water and hazardous waste disposal--others were more
innovative.  More than one-third of those surveyed believe that we will
communicate with extraterrestrials;  that we will inhabit the Moon and
man-made planets; and that artificial body parts will be so commonplace
that they will be sold as "off-the-shelf" items to be purchased as needed."

How do you like them apples?  ET's and space habitats lumped together.
Think about that the next time you look for a consultant.  Maybe that would
be a good screening question, "Do you believe Earth is being visited by ET's?"

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

Date: Thu, 25 May 89 14:29:12 EDT
From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are those of the sender
    and do not reflect NIST policy or agreement.
Subject: Proposed improvements for Arecibo


(From the May 1989 issue of Sky & Telescope)

The 1000-foot radio telescope at Arecibo Observatory has a spherical rather
than parabolic nonmoving dish, so the telescope can be "pointed" in different
directions by moving the pickup point. Unfortunately, this induces spherical
aberration (the received energy does not all focus on a single point), so
a 96-foot line of receivers must be used as the pickup. It is proposed that
this system be replaced [or augmented, so the telescope can "point" in
two directions at once?] by small secondary and tertiary reflectors, shaped
to correct for spherical aberration, so the signal can be focused into a single
feed horn. The two smaller reflectors would hang over the main dish from the
central pickup, and would be surrounded by an 80-foot geodesic dome structure
to shield them from earth-based radio noise. This modified receiver is called
a Gregorian subreflector.

Additional proposed improvements include putting up a 60-foot metal mesh fence
around the main dish to reduce noise, and replacing the current 450,000 watt
radar transmitter with a 1,000,000 watt system.

It is expected that these modifications will improve sensitivity for radio
astronomy by a factor of 10, and for radar studies of the solar system by
a factor of 40. Anticipated new targets for radar mapping include asteroids,
comets, the moons of Mars, and the surface of Titan (!)

The expected cost for these modifications is $20 million. NASA has offered
to provide half of that, but finding the remaining $10 million has been a
problem. There is some hope that it can be obtained from NSF. [Private
donations for astronomy, while often substantial, seem to be biased in favor
of optical astronomy.]
                             John Roberts
                             [e-mail]

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

End of SPACE Digest V9 #463
*******************