Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/pc/text/spacedig/v09_4/v9_481.txt

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Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #481

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 9 : Issue 481

Today's Topics:
             I'm getting too old for this
          Re: Space Station computer system
            Re: How Hubble will get there
             Kremlin reveals space budget
             Re: Private Space Companies
            Assessment of NASA management
          Re: Assessment of NASA management
            Re: asteroid almost hits earth
          Re: Space Station computer system
    NASA Select TV to feature Voyager 2 Neptune images (Forwarded)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 6 Jun 89 15:02:44 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Who remembers 8USER.PAR?)
Subject: I'm getting too old for this

I recently interviewed a potential summer hire who was very excited about
the upcoming 20th anniversary of Apollo 11.  Seems it's also her 20th birthday!

Arrrrggghhhhh!

Dillon Pyron
[e-mail]

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

Date: 8 Jun 89 11:39:00 GMT
From: xanth![e-mail]  (Frank C. Paterra)
Subject: Re: Space Station computer system

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Neal Woodall) writes:
> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Rick Francis Golembiewski) writes:
>
> >> highlights:  they're talking about thirty to forty IBM PS/2 model 80's
>
> >EEEK  This sounds really frightening MS-DOS in space,
> >now I KNOW that the space program is in trouble...
>
> Who said that the computers had to run MS-DOS? Why not
> some other operating system?

The operating system will be a derivative of Unix, comforming to POSIX.


Frank Paterra                    Nobody believes or agrees with what I
[e-mail]               say.

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

Date: 7 Jun 89 21:44:37 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!reading!cf-cm!cybaswan![e-mail]  (Steve Hosgood)
Subject: Re: How Hubble will get there

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jim Sims) writes:
>(and yes, I promise to be a good boy and _NOT_ post TLAs without translations
>  from now on)
>

Ok, so - er - what's a TLA please?

Steve

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

Date: 8 Jun 89 20:47:01 GMT
From: vygr![e-mail]  (Mike Ekberg, Sun {GPD-LEGO})
Subject: Kremlin reveals space budget

From the San Franscisco Examiner, Thursday, June 8, 1989.

"More than half goes for military use"

By Charles Mitchell
United Press International

Moscow - The Soviet Union, in its first public disclosure of how
much it spends on the space program, revealed Wednesday that more
than half of its annual $10.7 billion space budget is devoted to military use.

The revelation shattered one of the Kremlin's most effective
international propaganda claims, that the bulk of the program
is devoted to peaceful civilian uses.

Speaking at the first joint session of the Supreme Soviet,
Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov also provided the first breakdown
of the Soviet defense budget of $119.8 billion, first revealed by
President Mikhail Gorbachev on May 30.

Both the military and space budgets had been closely guarded
Soviet secrets, hampering arms-reduction talks.

Ryzhkov said $50.5 billion, or about 42 percent, of the military
budget was used for procurement of arms, ammunition, and equipment.

By comparison, the United States spends about 28.6 percent of its
nearly $300 billion annual military budget on procurement.

The prime minister said research, development and testing accounted
for $23.7 billion; personnel and maintenance of the army and navy,
including food and wages, $31.3 billion; and construction projects,
$7.13 billion. Another $3.6 billion went to military pensions and
$3.6 billion to miscellaneous expenses.

Ryzhkov also said military expenses would be subject to public
scrutiny and would be decided just as civilian expenditures
are - by debate and necessity.

In a startling disclosure, Ryzhkov said $6 billion, or 57 percent
of the space budget, was devoted to military uses, dwarfing the
$2.6 billion it says it spends on "science and economic" uses.

The remainder of the space budget, $2 billion, is devoted to the
trouble-plagued Soviet space shuttle, which made an unmanned
test flight last year before plans to send it into orbit manned
were suspended indefinitly.

By comparison, NASA's budget for 1990 is $13 billion,
excluding Air Force launches.

The Soviet space program has come under increasing pressure from
the press and citizen's groups to justify its expense. Compared
with the U.S. space program, there have been few technical spinoffs
that have benefited the economy.

...

# mike (sun!mae), M/S 8-04
"The people are the water, the army are the fish" Mao Tse-tung

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

Date: 8 Jun 89 15:46:31 GMT
From: skipper![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Private Space Companies

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:

   In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
   >The 707 was originally the KC-135...

   As I've said elsewhere, this is a common misconception.  The two planes
   look similar, and share a common ancestor (a Boeing private-venture
   prototype whose designation I can't remember offhand), but in fact are
   not very similar at the detailed hardware level.  The huge order the
   USAF placed for KC-135s undoubtedly helped supply the cash to launch
   the 707, but that's known as "making a profit", and is not normally
   considered a form of subsidy. :-)

   >The 747 was initially proposed as an entry in the competition that the
   >C-5 won.  (That's why it has a through deck.) ...

   True, but note (a) it lost, and (b) it cost Boeing something like a
   billion dollars to launch it as a transport.  It wasn't until over a
   decade later, at 747 number 400 or so, that it was in the black.

Yes, but USAF paid for the design.  Competitions like this are two-stage:
first USAF lets contracts for detailed design.  These are then assessed
and _the_ contract for the aircraft is then awarded.  For a while in the
late 60s-early 70s USAF paid for two competeing aircraft, the YF-16/YF-17,
YC-14/YC-15, and A-9/A-10 fly-offs came from this.  USAF then went back to
the old system of assessing detailed designs.  Fly-offs are expensive.

   >Even Pegasus, which is touted as private enterprise at its best, is
   >subsidized by NASA providing the B-52 and the test range at a
   >ridiculously low cost.

   For government launches, and government launches only.  OSC/Hercules will
   be buying or leasing a widebody transport for commercial flights.  The
   only real subsidy here is DARPA's willingness to buy (at a fixed price)
   the first launch of a new launcher -- a risky deal, mitigated somewhat
   by the fact that OSC/H don't get paid if it fails.  There is nothing
   unreasonable about using government facilities for government launches
   without full cost reimbursement; just who would be reimbursing who?

I'm sorry, I was thinking NASA = government, not DARPA.  I thought
that DARPA was putting money into the developement phase, not just
buying a finished product.  The NASA subsidy includes all of the
initial flight test.  The only NASA "flights" that I've heard about is
a proposal to add a small instrumentation package to some of the early
flights.

A lot of my problem with the "scheming conspiring NASA management"
explanation of the limited privatization of space is my experience
with NASA management.  These people can't even manage a simple flight
program for a few years, so how can anyone believe that they can
manage a sophisticated conspiracy?  (I didn't write this and you
didn't read it, so there!)  Many (perhaps most) other NASA working
engineers will agree with me on this.
--

M F Shafer
NASA Ames-Dryden Flight Research Facility
[e-mail] or [e-mail]

NASA management doesn't know what I'm doing and I don't know what they're
doing, and everybody's happy this way.

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

Date: 8 Jun 89 19:05:35 GMT
From: skipper![e-mail]
Subject: Assessment of NASA management

I wrote: <[e-mail]> :
-
-A lot of my problem with the "scheming conspiring NASA management"
-explanation of the limited privatization of space is my experience
-with NASA management.  These people can't even manage a simple flight
-program for a few years, so how can anyone believe that they can
-manage a sophisticated conspiracy?

This probably should have been:

A lot of my problem with the "scheming conspiring NASA management"
explanation of the limited privatization of space is a congruence
problem.  If you believe, as many apparently do, that these people
can't even manage an operational flight program for a few years, how
can you believe that they can manage a sophisticated conspiracy?
If nothing else, the turnover rate in the higher levels of management
is so high that word of this would have eventually gotten out.

I don't believe in conspiracies in general.  But I phrased my remark
poorly.  I don't believe that the space side of NASA is run as well
as it could be (or as well as I could run it :-)) but I firmly believe
that the _real_ problem is Congress and the tendency for non-technical
people to try to micromanage technical issues.

I took a cheap shot at management and then sent it before I thought
about what I'd said.  That advice to newusers about thinking before
you hit send was forgotten since I was in a hurry to go down to the
hangar for the X-15 Symposium hardware display.  You should be here at
Dryden today!  It's the 30th anniversary of the first flight and we're
celebrating.  Ah, the good old days.  There are a lot of people here
who still look back with longing for a time when life was simple and
Headquarters and Congress just sent money.

(No, nobody said anything to me--my .sig's still accurate.)
--

M F Shafer
NASA Ames-Dryden Flight Research Facility
[e-mail] or [e-mail]

NASA management doesn't know what I'm doing and I don't know what they're
doing, and everybody's happy this way.

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

Date: 9 Jun 89 02:23:24 GMT
From: unmvax!polyslo![e-mail]  (John McKernan)
Subject: Re: Assessment of NASA management

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>A lot of my problem with the "scheming conspiring NASA management"
>explanation of the limited privatization of space is a congruence
>problem.  If you believe, as many apparently do, that these people
>can't even manage an operational flight program for a few years, how
>can you believe that they can manage a sophisticated conspiracy?

No sophisticated conspiracy is needed for a bureaucracy to suppress its
competition. The reflexive use of its power and resources for
selfperpetuation is enough.

John L. McKernan.                    Student, Computer Science, Cal Poly S.L.O.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The future is rude and pushy. It won't wait for us to solve today's problems
before it butts in with tomorrow's.

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

Date: 8 Jun 89 16:16:25 GMT
From: skipper![e-mail]
Subject: Re: asteroid almost hits earth

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

>>/* Written 12:41 pm  May 26, 1989 by [e-mail] in s.cs.uiuc.edu:sci.space */
>>>agate!shelby!Portia!hanauma![e-mail]  (Joe Dellinger) writes:
>>>Incidentally, some geophysicists are waiting quite impatiently
>>>for another mag 9 mega-quake.
>>This is a great source of comfort to all of us in Southern California...

> It's about time you wierdos in CaliforniA did something useful. Be sure to
> take accurate notes when it hits.

At least we've thought about quakes.  Just remember that the biggest
quake in the US was at New Madrid, near St. Louis, and it was felt in
New England.  When those brick walls shatter and your house ends up
_in_ the basement, you'll know why California houses look like they
do.  The Midwest isn't even instrumented!
--

M F Shafer
NASA Ames-Dryden Flight Research Facility
[e-mail] or [e-mail]

NASA management doesn't know what I'm doing and I don't know what they're
doing, and everybody's happy this way.

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

Date: 7 Jun 89 22:23:00 GMT
From: m.cs.uiuc.edu!s.cs.uiuc.edu![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Space Station computer system


/* Written 12:39 pm  Jun  2, 1989 by [e-mail] in s.cs.uiuc.edu:sci.space */
/* ---------- "Space Station computer system" ---------- */
(...) with 4 megabytes of RAM and running X-Windows,
/* End of text from s.cs.uiuc.edu:sci.space */
4M & X-windows? Bahahahahahahahahahaha! They'd better fire 'em up now, if
they want to finish by next century. I can't believe this - as was mentioned,
these things are behind the times TODAY, much less in 5 or 10 years.

Alan M. Carroll                "And there you are
[e-mail]           Saying 'We have the Moon, so now the Stars...'"
CS Grad / U of Ill @ Urbana    ...{ucbvax,pur-ee,convex}!s.cs.uiuc.edu!carroll

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

Date: 8 Jun 89 20:02:33 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Select TV to feature Voyager 2 Neptune images (Forwarded)

Charles Redmond
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

Robert MacMillin
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

N89-46
EDITORS NOTE:  NASA SELECT TV TO FEATURE VOYAGER 2 NEPTUNE IMAGES

     Beginning Tuesday, June 13, at noon EDT, a selection from the
previous week's images of Neptune from the Voyager 2 spacecraft
will be broadcast on the NASA Select TV system, Satcom F2R,
transponder 13, every Tuesday through Aug. 8.

     The broadcast of the images is expected to last about 1 hour
and will show a replay of the first-order reconstruction of the
Voyager's imaging system views of Neptune.  At the time of the
first broadcast, Voyager 2 will be nearly 2-2/3 billion miles from
Earth and approximately 71 million miles from Neptune.

     On June 5, the Voyager 2 spacecraft went into the observatory
phase mode.  In this mode the spacecraft begins a series of near-
daily imaging observations of Neptune from afar.  Voyager planetary
scientists will use these images to help study the Neptune atmos-
phere, already seen to be more turbulent than that of Uranus and
possessing what appear to be variable "white" spots, covering
portions of whole hemispheres.   The spots come and go with
relative rapidity.  Dr. Brad Smith, University of Arizona, said,
"Neptune is now more interesting that Uranus was even at close
encounter."  Smith is the Voyager Imaging Team leader.

     The observatory phase runs from now through Aug. 6, when the
scientific team goes into the "far encounter" phase.  Voyager's
closest approach to Neptune, the "near encounter" phase, begins
near midnight on Aug. 24.  At this point, the spacecraft will whisk
past Neptune's cloud tops at an altitude of only about 3,000 miles,
travelling at a velocity relative to Neptune in excess of 37,000
miles per hour.

     The Voyager 2 spacecraft, along with its sister Voyager 1,
were launched on Titan-Centaur vehicles in 1977 by NASA from the
Kennedy Space Center, Fla., to take advantage of a rare (once every
175 years) planetary alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and
Neptune.  This alignment allowed NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
(JPL), Pasadena, Calif., to swing both Voyager 1 and 2 from Jupiter
to Saturn and, in the case of Voyager 2, from Saturn to Uranus and
on to Neptune.

     Without the advantage of gravity-assist trajectory maneuvers,
neither spacecraft would have been able to encounter more than a
single planet.

     The timetable for NASA Select replay of Voyager 2 images,
along with the distance remaining to Neptune and the distance from
Earth, is given below.

Date             Neptune Distance             Earth Distance

June 13          70.70 million miles          2.65 billion miles
June 20          64.40 million miles          2.65 billion miles
June 27          59.00 million miles          2.66 billion miles
*July 4          53.73 million miles          2.66 billion miles
July 11          48.30 million miles          2.664 billion miles
July 18          42.88 million miles          2.67 billion miles
July 25          37.45 million miles          2.678 billion miles
August 1         32.03 million miles          2.686 billion miles
August 8         26.60 million miles          2.696 billion miles

*(This date may move later in the week due to holiday observance.)

     The images to be replayed on NASA Select will include both the
actual image of Neptune as seen by Voyager and engineering and
science information about the conditions of the imaging system and
lighting conditions.  This data will appear alongside each image of
retransmissions but will be removed in later, more processed views.
Early transmissions will not show a great amount of detail and the
planet will occupy only a small portion of the imaging frame.
Detail will improve dramatically as the spacecraft nears Neptune.

     One-way light and radio transmission times between the Voyager
2 spacecraft and the NASA Deep Space Network receiver facilities at
Madrid, Canberra and Goldstone, Calif., range from 3 hours, 57
minutes now to an expected 4 hours, 6 minutes at the closest
approach.  It takes over 8 hours for commands, sent from JPL's
Space Flight Operations Facility, Pasadena, to reach the Voyager 2
spacecraft and be verified and sent back to Earth.

     Because the JPL facilities associated with the Voyager project
are not completely geared up for the close encounter activity,
these views will be released in video format via satellite only.
There will be no capability to release individual still photos for
the complete video series.  Current expectations, though, include
the capability to release on a periodic basis, a set of hard copy
views which have received the benefit of further computer
enhancement.  JPL's complete computer processing capabilities will
be up and running, though, for the encounter period from Aug. 21
through Aug. 29.  Post encounter runs from Aug. 29 through Sept.
11, at which time the Voyager 2 will return to interplanetary
cruise mode.

     NASA will operate a full-time Voyager encounter news facility
at the JPL Von Karman Auditorium from Aug. 21 through Aug. 29.

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

End of SPACE Digest V9 #481
*******************