Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/pc/text/spacedig/v10_3/v10_336.txt

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Date: Tue, 12 Dec 89 01:27:14 -0500 (EST)
Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #336

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 10 : Issue 336

Today's Topics:
              Pilgrimage to KSC
           Re: Multi-national (MANNED) Mars Mission
             ESA bulletin (how to get it)
        V10 No.327 and inflammatory ephithets
       Re: NASA Headline News for 12/08/89 (Forwarded)
               Re: Mars rovers
       Re: Scientific value of Apollo (was Re: Motives)
         Solar vs. Nuclear energy (forwarded)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 11 Dec 89 14:24:49 GMT
From: rochester!kodak!ektools![e-mail]  (Peter Armenia)
Subject: Pilgrimage to KSC


Well the time has come for me to make my pilgrimage to KSC to see a shuttle
launch. I am sure that this question has come up before, and I know that
many of you have posted about your own experience of seeing a launch.

I would appreciate any info that would be helpful in getting as close as
possible to the launch sight, photographing the launch, KSC tours, lodging
etc.

I plan on going sometime early next year (possibly for the HST launch).

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!



       ** * * *
     *** ** *** *
    * **** * **/**
[][]   *\\ **//*  [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]
[]       \| |             [] In the spring, Charley, when the valley is []
[]        | |             [] carpeted with blue lupines like a flowery  []
[]      */ | \***         [] sea, there's the smell of heaven up here,  []
[]  ********************  [] the smell of heaven. - John Steinbeck      []
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]
[]  Peter Armenia              ...!rochester!kodak!ektools!armenia      []
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

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

Date: 11 Dec 89 21:14:03 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!shadooby!sharkey!itivax!vax3![e-mail]  (Allen W. Sherzer)
Subject: Re: Multi-national (MANNED) Mars Mission

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>  The World Space Agency formed to oversee a Mars mission would serve
>  as the foundation for a more agressive exploration/colonization
>  effort with ( hopefully ) more vision and commitment then any one
>  nation could possibly keep up by itself for long.

Actually, what I think would happen would be:

The World Space Agency formed to oversee a Mars mission would serve
as the feeding trough for a more agressive boondoggeling/porkbarreling
effort with ( hopefully ) more $$ going into my trough then any one
nation could possibly shovel in by itself for long.



Such is the nature of politics. If you seek to go to space for political
reasons, your effort will acomplish political goals: transfering money
and power from the politically weak to the politically strong.

If you want people to go to space, just allow them to make a buck off it
and it will happen.

  Allen
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Allen W. Sherzer                    |  Is the local cluster the result   |
|  [e-mail]                        |  of gerrymandering?                |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Mon, 11 Dec 89 10:33:29 SET
From: [e-mail]
Comment: CROSSNET mail via SMTP@INTERBIT
Subject: ESA bulletin (how to get it)

Date: 11 December 1989, 10:24:03 SET
From: Lutz Massonne             [phone]     ESC1325  at ESOC
To:   [e-mail]
Subject: ESA bulletin

Someone asked me how to access the ESA bulletin. Unfortunately I
lost the note somewhere in the write-only memory, therefore I answer
via the list (maybe more people have the same question but did not dare to
ask :-) )

The ESA bulletin is a fashionable couloured periodical published
by the ESA publications division four times a year ( in February,
May, August and November)
(At least in Europe) you can receive it free of charge from

ESA Publications Divison
ESTEC
2000 AG Noordwijk
The Netherlands

I don't know how to subscribe to in the US, perhaps you can ask either
ESA Publications division at ESTEC or contact

ESA U.S.A.
Washington Office
955, L'Enfant Plaza
7th floor
Washington D.C. 20024

Regards, Lutz Massonne




 +===================================+===============================+
 | Lutz Massonne                     |   [e-mail]         |
 | mbp Software&Systems GmbH         |   [phone]            |
 | Orbit Attitude Division           |                               |
 | European Space Operations Centre  |This mail expresses my personal|
 | Robert-Bosch Str. 5               |opinion only, neither ESA's nor|
 | D-6100 Darmstadt, FRG             |mbp's.                         |
 +===================================+===============================+

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

Date:         Mon, 11 Dec 89 10:00:43 EST
From: "Lee S. Ridgway" <[e-mail]>
Subject:      V10 No.327 and inflammatory ephithets


>    Jon Leech ([e-mail])    __@/
>    ``Are there any more questions, besides the ones from the
>      liberal communists?''
> George Uribe, natl. director of "Students For America"

Please, in the spirit of the moderator's appeals for some civility
in this forum, would contributors refrain from the red-baiting
implied by such a quote as the one above. Not all of us "liberals"
are not anti-space.  Also, does this imply that
"conservative capitalists" should not ask questions? Let's get back
to space discussions.

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

Date: 11 Dec 89 20:35:46 GMT
From: ingr![e-mail]  (Kirk Boley)
Subject: Re: NASA Headline News for 12/08/89 (Forwarded)

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Peter E. Yee) writes:
>
> Propulsion engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center successfully
> tested an advanced Space Shuttle Main Engine for 160 seconds,
> yesterday.  Engineer Steve Richards said one of the prime
> objectives of the test series is to evaluate the liquid fuel
> engine's enlarged throat main combusion chamber performance.
> Richards said initial data looked good.
>
    I got to see this test, albeit from several miles away. I work
in a building on a hill that overlooks MSFC (I can see the test stands
from my office window). At the time of the test, my officemate and I were
in another office working on a PC to prep it for delivery, when we heard a
rumble.
    "Is that thunder?" he said. (It was overcast that day.)
    "I don't think so," I said. The rumble hadn't stopped yet. We
got up and walked to vacant office with windows facing MSFC. It was a cloudy,
overcast day, and it was also drizzling. The test stands were barely visible,
grey ghosts against the backdrop of the cloudy sky. I noticed a white cloud
coming from the base of one of the test stands. It was almost the same color
as the sky, which made it hard to see. We watched for awhile as the cloud grew,
and then the sound of the engine firing grew in intensity, and then suddenly
died.
    Not as exciting as an F-1 test, which shook the ground, but still
pretty neat!
--
*******************************************************************************
Standard disclaimer.  |   Kirk Boley, Intergraph Huntsville, UAH
Witty .sig message.   |   52 hours to go and counting...  ...!uucp!ingr!boley
*******************************************************************************

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

Date: 11 Dec 89 19:56:35 GMT
From: bfmny0![e-mail]  (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: Mars rovers

We're debating the degree of fine -detail- of teleoperation desired in a
Mars rover.  Clearly any rover will be "teleoperated" on some level.

At one extreme is the "fully manual" rover, where you compensate for the
long Earth-Mars feedback loop either by moving the human controller to
Mars (orbit or surface) or by slowing down the rover tremendously and
controlling him a bit at a time from Earth.

At the other extreme is the "all autonomous" rover where you say, "Go
collect some rocks" and sit back (wherever) while it does it.

Somewhere in the middle is a "semi autonomous" rovers with the
capability to do drudge things like "go to point B" or "move 30km east"
or "put dirt from THERE into hoppers C, D and E" on its own, but no
overall "pick the best things to do and do them" strategies.

The CMU Rover project summarized by Marc Ringuette is fascinating and
promising -- I had read snippets about it in the popular press but
it's refreshing to read some primary material, even if outdated.

The only thing that worries me about it is the whiff of "AI for AI's
sake" emanating from its description of the problems and solutions.
Of course we want to advance the art, but is that the PRIMARY purpose
of the endeavor or should the mission come first, even if something
looking LESS than stellar on the team's CV's will suffice.

Some of this relates to the worry I expressed in another posting.
If you try to do too much, elegantly, you can look good in your
field even if it doesn't fly.

In this case, though, CMU deserves nothing but credit.  If what they're
building isn't the right thing, the responsibility is NASA's because
they decided whom to fund.

--
"NASA Announces New Deck Chair Arrangement For   \_/  Tom Neff
Space Station Titanic" -- press release 89-7654  \_/  [e-mail]

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

Date: 9 Dec 89 02:16:21 GMT
From: bbn.com![e-mail]  (Nichael Cramer)
Subject: Re: Scientific value of Apollo (was Re: Motives)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jonathan Leech) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Nick Szabo) writes:
>>Not surprisingly, Apollo ended up contributing little to either industry
>>or science...
>    "Scientists are still unraveling the immense treasure trove of new
>     knowledge returned by the Apollo program."
>     ...
>    Dr. French spent years studying Apollo and Luna 16 samples.
>Where does your opinion come from, Nick?

I don't know the full context of Nick's statement, and I hesitate to put
words in his mouth, but I suspect what he intended was something like:

  "Not surprisingly, Apollo ended up contributing little to either industry
  or science THAT WAS UNIQUE TO APOLLO; I.E. THAT COULDN'T HAVE BEEN
  ACCOMPLISHED JUST AS WELL AND MUCH MORE CHEAPLY IN OTHER WAYS."

Look, nobody denies that Apollo accomplished a lot.  Nor that it was neat
to have men on the Moon.  The point is that it all could have been done a
lot more cheaply.  Or, to put it another way, a lot more science could have
been accomplished for the same dollar amount.

As far as what Dr French says: Again, I don't know Nick's creditials, and I
--whose undergraduate degree is in astrophysics-- am certainly not going to
presume to debate him on the quality of the Nasa findings.  But I have no
reason to doubt that everything he says is correct.

But whether 1] Apollo did good science is not the point here and the issues
Dr French is addressing above are not really relevant.  And 2] whatever
Nick's personal credentials may be, his statement --at least as I rephrased
it-- certainly reflects the opinion of the majority of working astronomers
that I've known.

N

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

Date: Mon, 11 Dec 89 09:00:48 SET
From: [e-mail]
Comment: CROSSNET mail via SMTP@INTERBIT
Comment: File ULY NOTE A
Subject: Solar vs. Nuclear energy (forwarded)

Subject: Solar vs. Nuclear energy

I found this article on the BIOSPH-L list on UBVM listserv
and thought that it might concern the SPACE list also.

 Date:         Fri, 8 Dec 89 19:38:53 -0800
 Reply-To:     "Biosphere, ecology, Discussion List" <BIOSPH-L@UBVM>
 Sender:       "Biosphere, ecology, Discussion List" <BIOSPH-L@UBVM>
 From:         [e-mail]
 Subject:      Space Probes: Solar v. Nuclear
 To:           Lutz Massonne <ESC1325@ESOC>

 /* Written  4:55 pm  Dec  8, 1989 by tgray in cdp:en.energy */
 /* ---------- "Space Probes: Solar v. Nuclear" ---------- */
 [reprinted without permission]

 [from _The Boston Globe_, 11/27/89]

 NASA FEELING HEAT ON SOLAR
 Little effort, money spent to find option to plutonium power

 By David L. Chandler
 Globe Staff

 After the unprecedented controversy that threatened the October
 launch of the Galileo spacecraft to Jupiter, NASA is facing
 increasing pressure to reexamine its longstanding reliance on
 plutonium generators for many of its planetary probes.

 Just last week, critics disclosed that the space agency's own
 1981 study, previously unpublicized, had concluded that solar
 power, with suitable development, might have been a viable option
 for the Galileo mission.  It was an embarrassing revelation in
 light of the agency's insistence just a few weeks earlier that
 there was no feasible alternative to power plants fueled by toxic
 plutonium.

 Having downplayed the solar option for so long, the National
 Aeronautics and Space Administration now faces the prospect of a
 rerun next fall of the protests and court challenges it faced
 with Galileo.  The agency plans in October to launch the
 plutonium-powered Ulysses probe to study the sun.

 Even if a solar alternative were ready to fly today, agency
 spokesmen said, it is far too late to modify Ulysses without
 adding years of delay to the already much-postponed mission.

 The critics charge that NASA's response to the plutonium
 controversy is uncomfortably reminiscent of the agency's lack of
 candor in the immediate aftermath of the Challenger disaster, for
 which it received a stern rebuke from the presidential commission
 investigating the accident.

 NASA's claims that there was no alternative to plutonium for
 Galileo left most people -- including some scientists who had
 studied the issue -- with the impression that it was physically
 impossible to power such spacecraft any other way.  The truth, it
 now appears, was quite different:  alternatives might exist, but
 they were unavailable partly because little money or effort had
 been spent to develop them.

 In theory, at least, the 1981 study by scientists at NASA's Jet
 Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, showed that, contrary to
 the space agency's claims, solar energy might indeed prove a
 practical alternative power source to the Radioisotope
 Thermoelectric Generators, or RTGs, for spacecraft like Galileo.

 Despite the conclusion reached by that preliminary study, no
 further work was done to develop the type of solar array the
 study found to be so promising, the study's principal author said
 in an interview last week.

 Other JPL studies have concluded that, with sufficient funding
 such a power source could be developed in just a few years.  But
 no such development work has taken place, although work on
 another kind of solar power supply has been under way at the
 laboratory for four years.

 The problem, according to some analysts, has been in part a
 reflection of the slashing of funds for alternative energy
 programs that took place during the Reagan administration.

 In an interview last week, astronomer Carl Sagan offered what he
 called the "perfect symbol of this policy debacle."  In Jimmy
 Carter's administration, he said, "the President put a solar
 thermal heater in the White House roof" to provide some of the
 building's hot water.  "One of the first acts that followed the
 arrival of his successor was to remove that heater."

 Carter was a strong supporter of alternative energy research,
 Sagan said, and "Mr. Reagan found it ideologically
 objectionable."

 Federal research funding supports the anecdote.  According to
 Department of Energy spokesman Roger Meyer, funding for research
 on solar cells amounted to $150 million in 1980; last year, it
 was $35 million.  Even with this drastic reduction, significant
 progress has been made in improving the efficiency and lowering
 the costs of solar cells, Meyer said -- potentially making them
 an even more attractive option now than at the time of the 1981
 study.

 Sagan says it is quite possible that "Galileo could have
 benefited by this research, had the funding continued."

 Galileo's critics, including a coalition of five peace and
 antinuclear groups led by the Christic Institute, unsuccessfully
 sought a federal court injunction to stop the launch.  They
 contended that an accident similar to that of the Challenger
 might release some of the 50 pounds of plutonium on board and
 endanger the lives of Florida residents.  Or that three years
 from now, when Galileo comes whizzing back past Earth on its way
 enroute to Jupiter after a sidetrip to Venus, an accident could
 cause it to burn up in the atmosphere, vaporizing the plutonium
 or dispersing it over a wide area.

 Space agency managers and many scientists dismissed the concerns
 as the groundless fears of a tiny vocal minority.  Sagan takes
 the issue much more seriously.

 As president of the Planetary Society, a space exploration
 advocacy group, and as a longtime researcher and promoter of
 planetary exploration, Sagan might be expected to strongly
 support a mission like Galileo.  He did support the launch, but
 he found it a close call.

 "I'm a scientist working on Gailieo with a long-time investment
 in planetary exploration," he wrote before teh launch.  "I'm also
 a long-time supporter of the Christic Institute...I've felt torn
 on the Galileo RTG issue for years.  I still do...I believe there
 is nothing absurd about either side of this argument."

 NASA's response to its critics was exemplified by the response of
 agency spokesman Charles Redmond in an interview last week:  "Our
 premise is that the proper use of nuclear material is not an
 issue."  RTGs remain "the NASA standard power supply for deep
 space...missions" to hazardous destinations.

 Galileo was so far along when the 1981 study was concluded that
 a switch to solar power would have been infeasible, other
 scientists agree, but what about the dozens of planetary missions
 scheduled for the 1990s and beyond?  Is there time to eliminate
 the plutonium generators planned for some of them?

 Plutonium-powered spacecraft scheduled to follow Ulysses are
 Cassini, a probe to Saturn planned for 1995; and CRAF, a comet
 rendezvous/asteroid flyby mission planned for 1996.

 Cassini seems destined to use plutonium.  Even the optimistic JPL
 study concluded that at distances farther from the sun than
 Jupiter -- and Saturn is much farther -- solar power remains
 impossible because the sunlight is so much dimmer.

 But for CRAF, which [would] be working closer to the sun than
 Jupiter, the problems are different.  It would be close enough to
 use solar power, but it will pass through the dusty tails of two
 comets -- a potentially disastrous environment for solar cells
 because of high-speed impacts with dust particles.

 "It would be a very different mission," said Marcia Neugebauer,
 chief scientist for the CRAF mission.  She said JPL is studying
 how CRAF and Cassini might use solar power, but "it's not a
 pretty picture...We would have to cut way back" on the planned
 scientific objectives for the missions.

 That assessment, however, is based on a solar cell research
 program primarily aimed at developing power supplies for
 satellites in Earth orbit, not deep-space probes.  The type of
 solar array envisioned by the preliminary 1981 study has not been
 researched further; it lost out in the competition for funds.

 "At the time," said Donald Rockey, one of the scientists who
 wrote the 1981 study, "we hoped the work would permit some kind
 of technical demonstration" -- that is, the construction of a
 prototype.  But no such project was funded at the time, and in
 1985, research began on a different kind of solar energy.

 "This agency is not an energy-creation agency," NASA spokesman
 Redmond explained last week.  "The agency is not blind or closed-
 minded to new technology," but must spend its limited resources
 where they will produce the most benefits.

 NASA is actively pursuing many power alternatives, he said,
 including advanced solar thermal generators that might be used by
 the space station.

 One of NASA's most vocal critics says it is unfortunate the
 agency hasn't pushed solar technology harder.  Karl Grossman, a
 journalism professor who brought NASA's 1981 study to light last
 week, recalls that NASA played a major role in developing solar
 cells in the 1950s.

 "The Japanese have [since] moved in and virtually captured the
 market," hs said.  "If NASA committed itself to solar energy, we
 would see the same kind of quantum leap" in the technology as
 took place in the 50s.

 +===================================+===============================+
 | Lutz Massonne                     |   [e-mail]         |
 | mbp Software&Systems GmbH         |   [phone]            |
 | Orbit Attitude Division           |                               |
 | European Space Operations Centre  |This mail expresses my personal|
 | Robert-Bosch Str. 5               |opinion only, neither ESA's nor|
 | D-6100 Darmstadt, FRG             |mbp's.                         |
 +===================================+===============================+

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

End of SPACE Digest V10 #336
*******************