Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/pc/text/spacedig/v12_0/v12_094.txt

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Subject: SPACE Digest V12 #94

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 12 : Issue 94

Today's Topics:
          Whatever happened to Spider (Apollo 9 LM)?
               Re: Soyuz stuff
             Re: What was Big G ?
                 Re: Energia
    Cosmonauts repair Soyuz in EVA & a farewell to the net
                NSS elections
                 Re: Energia
             MOL, why was it cancelled ?
                 More on NASA
                 Soyuz stuff

Administrivia:

    Submissions to the SPACE Digest/sci.space should be mailed to
  [e-mail].  Other mail, esp. [un]subscription notices,
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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 6 Jul 90 16:41:30 GMT
From: mcsun!ukc!icdoc!syma![e-mail]  (Andy Clews)
Subject: Whatever happened to Spider (Apollo 9 LM)?

I was reading some NASA literature concerning the Apollo 9 mission, the
other day. I've not seen any detailed mission reports for Apollo 9, and
I was wondering what they did with the two stages of the LM after
rendezvous and re-docking with the CSM.
Did they (1) leave the two stages of the LM in orbit to decay naturally,
or (2) perform controlled re-entry of the two, or (3) ???
If the LM stages *were* left in orbit, does anyone know when they
actually decayed - or, indeed, if either of them remain in orbit?

I wondered also if recent discussion concerning Apollo hardware that's
still flying up there, included Apollo 9 or whether it was just the
lunar missions.

Footnote: Having read more about Apollo 9 I was filled with admiration
by reflecting on the fact that the LM was given its first manned test
flight in March '69 and was put to real work only four months later.
They'll have a hard time repeating that sort of feat.


--
Andy Clews, Computing Service, Univ. of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QN, England
JANET: [e-mail]   BITNET: [e-mail]

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

Date: 19 Jul 90 01:51:31 GMT
From: usc!samsung!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!uflorida!stat!sun13!prism![e-mail]  (Matthew DeLuca)
Subject: Re: Soyuz stuff

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (David Anderman) writes:
>Although I realize that it is highly unlikely that anyone in the Federal
>government will ever be rational enough to think of using Soyuz capsules
>for cheap access to space, I do believe that there is merit in the idea.
>For the cost of one space shuttle, you could purchase, say, 200 Soyuz
>capsules.....

Considering we have (nor do the Soviets, really) no idea what a Soyuz
costs to build, isn't it a little premature to state how much we'll save?
In a centralized command economy, such as the Soviets have, with no real
money, it's impossible to determine real cost.  When (if...) reforms
really go through, we'll finally know what it costs to make (and then buy)
a Soyuz.  Until then, though, it's a bit early to worry about.

To clarify what I mean, think of that little car they make in East Germany,
the Trabant.  It's simpler and less sophisticated than a Yugo, which sells
for $3990.  Western experts who have been to the Trabi plants have determined
that in a free-market economy with real money the Trabant would cost
almost $20,000 to produce.  Who knows the real cost of a Soyuz?

--
Matthew DeLuca
Georgia Institute of Technology      Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards,
Office of Information Technology     for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
Internet: [e-mail]

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

Date: 9 Jul 90 12:00:52 GMT
From: mcsun!ukc!icdoc!syma![e-mail]  (Nick Watkins)
Subject: Re: What was Big G ?

From article <[e-mail]>, by [e-mail] (Henry Spencer):
> In article <900706.145119.EDT.JEFF@UTCVM> [e-mail] (Jeffrey R Kell) writes:
> to re-man-rate one of the Titans, but it would require a deliberate effort.
> (Ditto for Atlas, but its payload is pretty small, so Titan would be a
> better bet.)
Or man rate a Titan III derivative.

>>For that matter, what will we do for a capsule?  Buy a Soyuz? ...
In the early 70's Jim Fletcher recalls the post Apollo choice as being
Big G (a Gemini Titan III), or what we now know as the Shuttle. Anybody
know any more about Big G?

Source: "Prescription for Disaster" by Joseph Trento, Crown 1987ish.
Interesting book ...

> That's about the size of it.  You might perhaps be able to man-rate one
> of the spy-satellite film-return capsules, although I think the late-model
> ones are too small for this purpose, and I'm not sure they're still in
> production.

There have been no film return missions since last KH8 GAMBIT in 1984,
so probably not ...

Nick

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

Date: 18 Jul 90 23:02:41 GMT
From: usc!samsung!rex!rouge![e-mail]  (Fraering Philip)
Subject: Re: Energia

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Brian or James) writes:

JDN>Buran reminds me [a bit] of the steamship 'Great Easterner' [I may
JDN>have screwed up the name] which, while being a marvel of the technology of the
JDN>day, filled an economic niche for which there was no demand at the time. I
JDN>believe the GE ended up as scrap after several attempts to use her
JDN>profitably failed [We're talking several years of service, of course], and
JDN>it would appear Buran will get shuffled off to the museum, a similar fate.JDN>                                       JDN


Sounds a bit like the space shuttle system here.

Philip Fraering
[e-mail]

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

Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 10:34:21 -0400
From: Glenn Chapman <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail],
        [e-mail], [e-mail],
        [e-mail], [e-mail]
Subject: Cosmonauts repair Soyuz in EVA & a farewell to the net

      On board the Mir space station the Cosmonauts Anatoly Solyov and
Alexander Balandin have completed a space walk to repair their Soyuz TM-9
capsule, but with some difficulties.  This walk was necessitated by the
insulating blankets which had come lose around the bell shaped landing
section of the Soyuz craft.  About 160 seconds into the launch on Feb. 11 3
of the eight triangular shaped blankets broke lose from their holding clips
at the point where the aerodynamic shroud was ejected.  There were three
worries here.  First the dark green coloured blankets provide some thermal
insulation for the outer section of the capsule, and there was some concern
that cold temperatures there could cause some water condensation (the active
systems on the Soyuz would keep most of the craft in good a thermal range).
Secondly, these blankets cover a heavier insulation that protects the craft
during reentry, and it was possible this would be damaged either during
launch or in orbit.  Finally, these lose blankets are seen flapping around
when the craft was moved from one Mir port to another.  They might interfere
with the horizon sensors of the Soyuz during reentry.  To compensate for
the thermal problems Mir has been kept in a mode which maintained the
temperature of the Soyuz somewhat constant and moderate, at the cost of
restricting some of the experiments that require precise pointing of the
Kvant astrophysical module's telescopes.
      With all of this in mind the Solyov and Balandin prepared for this
walk by observing video tapes of the simulations of this space walk repair in
the Star City water tank, and receiving instructional material from earth.
While neither has done Extra Vehical Activities, both have had much training
on earth for these.  Late July 17th Solyov and Balandin exited the space
station and used a small ladder extended from the Kvant 2 module to the
capsule (Kvant 2 is docked perpendicular to the Mir station body, while the
Soyuz is docked to the axial port at the front of the station).  The ladder
was employed instead of their manned maneuvering unit which would not be
stable enough for the repairs (they were worried about hitting some of the
antennae on the capsule damaging both the capsule and the cosmonaut's suit).
In a six hour walk they first cut away the loses panels, but the report did
not mention trying to replace them.  Then the cosmonauts carefully inspected
the outside of the Soyuz for damage to the second layer of insulation,
apparently finding none.  Problems developed during the reentry to the
station.  The cosmonauts had apparently failed to close an air lock door
properly, and hence could not enter the station.  The short wave report stated
they used a small secondary door to enter the station.  One can speculate that
this means there were problems with the primary airlock and they used the
secondary entrance to return (Mir has a small airlock on the station, and a
larger one on the Kvant 2 module).  The walk must have been considered
successful in the repair because the report concludes with statements that
Solyov and Balandin (who have been in orbit for 156 days) will return on Aug.
9th as previously announced.  (Radio Moscow, Vermya July 17, Spaceflight July
'90)
     This is probably my last posting to the net for many months unless
something important comes up in the next day or so.  I am leaving my post
at M.I.T. Lincoln Lab for an Associate Professorship at Simon Fraser
University in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (Yes I am another one
of "them there Canadians" that seem bother some people by our comments on
the net). Hence my recent postings have not been as timely as they could
have been. It will probably be more than a month before I will be able to send
out anything else.  I hope that some other person on the net can cover the
Soviet area during until I return.  It has been my pleasure to help keep the
people on the net informed of the goings on in the USSR's space program.  I
took on that task because the information of what they are doing there needs
to be widely spread if we are to put the space programs of all the earth's
people into proper perspective.  I hope it has been useful to some of you out
there.


                                                  Glenn Chapman
                                                  MIT Lincoln Lab

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

Date: 18 Jul 90 16:41:31 GMT
From: news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: NSS elections

Well, I see it's National Space Society election time again...  Folks who
know something about the various candidates might want to post comments.

My own suggestion is the same as last year:  if you vote for the petition
candidates and against the nominations-committee candidates, this is quite
a bit better than voting at random.
--
NFS:  all the nice semantics of MSDOS, | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
and its performance and security too.  |  [e-mail]   utzoo!henry

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

Date: 18 Jul 90 17:20:40 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!watserv1!maytag!watdragon!watyew![e-mail]  (Brian or James)
Subject: Re: Energia

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>
>>I thought it was the price tag -- duplicating our money-waster for the
>>sake of prestige no longer looked worth it amid the economic realities
>>of Soviet perestroika.  Is there a specific reference for the notion
>>of a Buran failure in flight?
>
>    You are correct, Sir.  As I understand it, Buran is a d'etre without
>a raison, a fait without an accompli.  Brezhnev pushed it through to
>"compete" with the US, but nobody at Glavkosmos wanted it so it was developed
>by the Air Force (I think) without any specific purpose in mind.  Head of
>Glavkosmos Alexander Dunayev said in a recent interview in _Literaturnaya
>Gazeta_ that many "suggestions" and "proposals" had been made as to the
>future use of Buran/Energia.  However Mr. Dunayev did not deny his
>interviewer's claim that a Buran launch would cost 20 to 40 times an ELV
>launch (though such large factors seem exaggerated to me) and elsewhere he
>said that a 10% funding cut for Glavkosmos had been proposed, and that many
>people wanted to cut more.

    Buran reminds me [a bit] of the steamship 'Great Easterner' [I may
have screwed up the name] which, while being a marvel of the technology of the
day, filled an economic niche for which there was no demand at the time. I
believe the GE ended up as scrap after several attempts to use her
profitably failed [We're talking several years of service, of course], and
it would appear Buran will get shuffled off to the museum, a similar fate.
    The nice thing about the net is that if I've made a factual error, I
can be sure that those more knowledgable than myself will correct me [An
exhibit in a San Fransisco museum is probably not a sufficient basis to form an
opinion].
                                 JDN

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

Date: 6 Jul 90 13:00:56 GMT
From: mcsun!ukc!icdoc!syma![e-mail]  (Nick Watkins)
Subject: MOL, why was it cancelled ?

From article <[e-mail]>, by
[e-mail] (Wales Larrison):

> Klauss, author of "Secret Sentries in Space" (now out of print, but
> probably the best reference on the early days of military
> observations satellites), ...
Probably not, actually, as it is 20 years old & much information has
been declassified since. Jeff Richelson's "America's Secret Eyes In
Space", for example, is much better & draws on interviews with many of
the key players in the early days. Name is Klass, btw, AvLeak avionics
contributing editor.

> ... claims the MOL program was primarily
> directed to resolve a fundamental problem with early missile warning
> systems.  He claims that early missile launch warning satellites
> could not discriminate well enough to reliably detect submarine
> launched missiles from sun-lit cloud cover.  They could detect the
> launches, but the rate of false warnings was so high, that the U.S.
> government could not rely upon it for sufficent warning time.  One
> ofthe primary objectives of the MOL program (according to Klauss) was
> to provide direct observation and verification of missile launch
> detection to the national command authority.  Man-in-the-loop was
> required due to the vulnerability of the U.S. to Soviet missile
> submarines and the short warning times, and to avoid the potential
> hazards of accepting a false warning.
They'd have needed a lot more MOLs than the number planned in order to do this,
check out the unmanned EW MIDAS constellation design if you don't believe
me (or the Russian EW satellies in Molniya orbits, for that matter).

>    However, this sensor inability to discriminate missile launches
> was overcome by a significant effort in new IR sensor design, and
> significant scientific investigation into the phenomenology of
> missile launch signatures.  This included the use of a Gemini crew to
> photograph and track an ICBM launch from Vandenberg during a Gemini
> flight, gathering space-based data that unmanned satellites could not
> gather at that time.  (Klauss includes a public domain picture taken
> from space by the Gemini mission of the ICBM launch from Vandenberg).
This is all true, but the operational (DSP) system was not in place til
the early 1970's (1st launch, only partially succesful, was in in 1970),
well after MOL was cancelled. DSP uses a geostationary orbit & still
needs 3 satellites & 2 spares to do the job. The 2/3 Atlas Agena test
flights of 1968-1970 were probably just as important as the Gemini
experiments in this regard, if not more so.

>    As the ability to confidently detect missile launches was put into
> place by unmanned satellites, the reason for a manned MOL died.  An
> unmanned version could do the job, very well, and a new generation of
> unmanned satellites could do the job even better, and cheaper.
Richelson's explanations i) that MOL was the largest non-Vietnam AF budget
item in 1969 & ii) that it didn't have the backing of CIA director Richard
Helms, sound more likely to me.

Nick

"..., they [CIA] feared that an accident that cost the life of a single
astronaut might ground the program for a extended period of time &
cripple the reconnaissance program." - Richelson, p.103

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

Date: Thu, 8 Mar 90 13:39:29 CST
From: levy%fnal.dnet@fngate (Mark E. Levy)
To: "[e-mail]"%FNGATE.dnet@fngate
Cc: [e-mail]
Subject: More on NASA

I'm new on this net and I have seen the flames from the NASA bashers.  I
have this to say to those who want the obviously cool-tempered NASA posters
to shut up: If you don't like it, leave.  In the short time I have been a
subscriber, I find that some of the most interesting material posted is the
'internal' stuff from NASA.  Let's not piss them off so they stop.  We'll
all lose out.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[e-mail]               "Drink up, the world is about to end"
                                                -- Ford Prefect
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: 17 Jul 90 22:47:13 GMT
From: usc!jarthur!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!zardoz.cpd.com!dhw68k!ofa123![e-mail]  (Mark Perew)
Subject: Soyuz stuff

>For the cost of one space shuttle, you could purchase, say, 200 Soyuz
>capsules.....

David, David, David.  You really expect me to buy this line?

Have you actually asked the Soviet Union what it would cost to buy a
Soyuz capsule?  Not too long ago someone suggested that the Russians
had a price tag for most anything.  That may be true, but does anyone
**REALLY** know what the price tag says?

And even if we did get a Soyuz or twenty what have we got.  We have a
cramped capsule that carries a MAXIMUM of three people sitting down
all the time.  No room for science on a Soyuz!  No room for mission/
payload specialists either (well maybe *one on a three-person crew).

Um, lesse, what else don't we have?  Oh. how about a vehicle to
put it on.  How much will it cost to mate a Soyuz to say an old
Gemini style Titan II?  Betcha nobody even has a reasonable guess.

Oh, and what about GROUND SUPPORT!  We ain't got no software to
support a Soyuz!  We have no procedures.  We have NO EXPERIENCE!
Where is it going to land?  (I suppose that it could land at Edwards,
but will the pilots like the hard-landing idea?)

Oh yes, speaking of pilots, do you really think that our Air Force
and Navy pilots will want to fly in a second-hand Soyuz?  Remember
that our general perception of Russion technology is that they don't
do things as well as we do.  Can we really expect to trust a Soyuz
capsule?

I'll ask a question related to one I asked Alan Sherzer.  If the
Soyuz is such a hot idea why is Hermes being built?  Surely the
Russians would have sold a Soyuz to France even before peristroika
and glasnost.

Now, I am not saying that the idea of buying a Soyuz should be totally
rejected nor the idea of expendable capsules.  I do think that before
someone starts spouting that it will save 19 gigabucks to use a Soyuz
there are a great deal of questions that need to be answered.  I don't
think those people have even asked the questions, let alone answered
them.  Of course, I could be wrong.  If I am leave me private mail
and I will give you my FAX number and you can send me the proof.


--
Mark Perew
Internet: [e-mail]
BBS:      714 544-0934   2400/1200/300

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End of SPACE Digest V12 #94
*******************