Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/pc/text/spacedig/v13_2/v13_230.txt

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Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #230

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 13 : Issue 230

Today's Topics:
              Re: Space profits
                 Time Travel
             Russian Right Stuff
           Re: Milankovitch Cycles on Mars?
           Salyut Re-entry and Fits <-- info please
              Re: Space Profits
            Re: WWN does it again!
                   Re: Gaia
          Re: Government vs. Commercial R&D

Administrivia:

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

Date: Sat, 2 Mar 91 23:00:02 EST
From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are those of the sender
    and do not reflect NIST policy or agreement.
Subject: Re: Space profits


>From: [e-mail] (Nick Szabo)
>Newsgroups: sci.space
>Subject: Re: Space Profits
>Date: 28 Feb 91 22:37:57 GMT

>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] ("Allen W. Sherzer") writes:

>>>we won't find things until we explore in detail, all over the solar
>>>system, not just in Death Valley.

Analogies can be very useful, but they can also be treacherous, and
inadvertently cause the listener to make invalid comparisons. Historical
analogies can be especially tricky:

Death Valley was not much good for farming or travel, but it turned out
to be a rich source of borax, copper, gold, lead, and silver.

>>the preliminary survey is done.

>We have not look at _one_ asteroid close up.  We have not sampled
>any comets or Galilean moons.  Most of the surfaces in the
>solar system remain unmapped.  The survey has barely started.

Good point. As a start, any idea how good a look Galileo is supposed
to get? How about CRAF?

>>Robots are not good enough to do all that themselves.

>The typical Luddite point of view, the same one that keeps our Detroit
>factories inefficient while the Japanese fill theirs with robots.

Also a good point, but in this particular case, I get the impression that
many of the auto factories are outfitting with robots, though of course
the Japanese have a considerable head start. Curiously, the unions are
generally supportive of this automation, because they realize the entire
industry and their jobs will go without it.

>>Exactly. No profit making enterprise would ever have funded the
>>colonization of the new world.

>This comment is beyond comprehension.  Please, please, read your history
>before attempting to comment.  Do any of these ring a bell?

>Inca gold
>Peru silver mines

If earth does obtain wealth from space, I hope the method bears no resemblance
to the way in which Spain acquired the gold and silver.

>Tobacco/Jamestown

Jamestown was founded in 1607, basically to search for gold and silver.
That didn't work out, so the colonists turned to other pursuits, particularly
the raising of hogs and Indian corn. It wasn't until 1612 that the tobacco
industry really got going.

>Fur/Hudson's Bay Company

Perhaps a better analogy. Founded in 1670, it was dedicated to trading
furs, and that's pretty much what it did.

>Sutter's Mill

After a long career involving all sorts of curious activities, Captain
John A. Sutter received a large land grant in the Sacramento Valley from
the Mexican government in 1839. He founded the settlement of New Helvetia
(later Sacramento), and sought to gain an income from trading and other
activities associated with the settlement. In 1848, during the process of
construction of his sawmill, gold was discovered, which prompted the Gold
Rush. Sutter couldn't get people to work his businesses, and by 1852
went bankrupt. So the investment in the mill was obviously a financial
mistake on his part.

If we are to use history as our guide in the development of space for profit,
then judging by the bulk of the historical examples, we should choose a
method which is plausible, yet ultimately doomed to fail, because some other
application of space resources will turn out to be the big money maker.
It also wouldn't hurt to have two companies, the first to lay the
groundwork then fail, the second to cash in on the reward.
  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)

>Nick Szabo            [e-mail]
>"What are the _facts_, and to how many decimal places?"  -- RAH
         John Roberts
         [e-mail]

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

Date: 4 Mar 91 01:36:33 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!cec2![e-mail]  (Dave Elliott)
Subject: Time Travel

I've been getting posts pointing out my mistake in giving a local number
for Mr. Moravec's article in sci.physics. For various reasons I think it
impolite to repost his complete article (net etiquette guidelines)
but here is the message header to help you find one of the best discussions
I've seen on the Physics of time travel, and a brief extract.

<From: [e-mail] (Hans P. Moravec)
<Newsgroups: sci.physics
<Subject: Re: Time Travel 2
<Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
<Date: 2 Mar 91 00:10:33 GMT
<Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
<Lines: 274


<The following is a background section for an article that
<examines the computational consequences of negative time
<delay elements in computer circuitry:

<A Brief History of Time Travel   (Hans Moravec, CMU Robotics, 1991)
...

                                David L. Elliott
                Dept. of Systems Science and Mathematics
                                Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130
                [e-mail]

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

Date: 4 Mar 91 01:20:28 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Adam R. Brody)
Subject: Russian Right Stuff

I was away on travel when the broadcast was on last week and my VCR
bombed.  Anyone know when it will be rebroadcast?

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

Date: 2 Mar 91 23:55:54 GMT
From: prism!mailer.cc.fsu.edu!geomag![e-mail]  (Joe Cain)
Subject: Re: Milankovitch Cycles on Mars?

See p. 63 and 105 of "The New Solar System" edited by Beatty and
Chaikin from Sky and Telescope, as well as the references for each
chapter.

BYW I would be interested in any references to work on the way in
which tidal torques on the moon vary for distances from the Earth. I
would like to see how the present 3 cm/year can be back extrapolated.
Joseph Cain        [e-mail]
[e-mail]        scri::cain

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

Date: 3 Mar 91 21:04:02 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!munnari.oz.au!comp.vuw.ac.nz!rata.vuw.ac.nz![e-mail]  (Timothy Banks)
Subject: Salyut Re-entry and Fits <-- info please

Last week I put out a call for FITs references, and information on
the recent Salyut Space Station re-entry, but it doesn't have seem to
have made it off the local network! :-(

Anyway, a while ago there was a large amount of discussion about FITs,
but at the time I was not working with images and so took little notice.
But as fate would have it, now I am, and so I would be most grateful if
someone could send me references, so that I can look it up in the journals.

The second point concerns a Masters student who collared me for info
about the recent Salyut re-entry, for an essay he has to get done.
Unfortunately, I was away observing at the time this happened - and
when I got back the sci.astro and sci.space cupboards were bare on
this topic (our back log isn't very big as we get nearly all the groups).

So, I would be most grateful for any email on either of these topics!
Thanks is advance!
--
 Timothy Banks, Physics Department, Victoria University of Wellington, NZ.
   [e-mail];[e-mail];[e-mail].
  "He's dead, Jim!" "OK, you take the tricorder - I'll take the wallet!"

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

Date: Mon, 4 Mar 91 15:10:23 -0500
From: "Allen W. Sherzer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Space Profits
Newsgroups: sci.space
Cc:

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

>> [more grossly uneconomical LOX scenarios conventially avoiding the mention
>> of numbers]

No I don't have detailed numbers. However, I note that about half the
weight of stuff we haul up there is fuel and upper stages. The market for
fuel currently must be in the billions of $$. If the government provided the
infrastructure and only charged the incrimental cost of additional
facilities/crew they could turn a market.

However, I note that you also have never mentioned numbers in any of
your posts. Even detailed plans didn't have costs associated or specify
who would pay for them.

>>the preliminary survey is done.
>
>We have not look at _one_ asteroid close up.  We have not sampled
>any comets or Galilean moons.  Most of the surfaces in the
>solar system remain unmapped.  The survey has barely started.

I'll accept that. However, there is nothing on Triton we will need
for a long time.

>>Robots are not good enough to do all that themselves.
>
>The typical Luddite point of view, the same one that keeps our Detroit
>factories inefficient while the Japanese fill theirs with robots.

First of all, saying Detroit's problems are due to a lack of robots
is a gross oversimplification. GM spent billions in the 80's on every
type of automation they could think of. The problems there are more
complex and subtle.

As I said, when professors and oil companies do their field work with
robots instead of going on site I'll believe you.

>space missions: for example, Voyager has by rough estimate generated 10
>times the references in the scientific literature for 1/50 the cost of
>Apollo: a factor of 500 more useful to our knowledge base per dollar.

First of all, you can't count this. Voyager didn't turn a profit and
only happened because the government paid for it. You object to every
human effort for that reason so you should also object to Voyager for
the same reason.

Second of all, you are shifting criteria on us again. Recently papers
wasn't the measure of good work; patents where. I suspect Apollo generated far
more patents than Voyager.

You can't have it both ways Nick. Keeping to your double standard only makes
you contradict yourself.

    Allen
--
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Allen Sherzer |A MESSAGE FROM THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT TO THE PEOPLE OF KUWAIT: |
|[e-mail]   |       "If rape is inevitable, enjoy it!"                     |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: 4 Mar 91 14:10:33 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!merrimack.edu![e-mail]
Subject: Re: WWN does it again!

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Jonathan A Bishop) writes:
>
>      Yes, folks, the Weekly World News, the people who brought you the hidden
> Challenger transcripts, have done it again!  They have conclusively
> that the moon landing was a hoax, and they have sidebars to prove it!
>      Their evidence comes from Bill Kaysing (the name sounds familiar... who is
> he, and did he ever really work at Rocketdyne?), who offers the following
> incontrovertible proof:
>
> 1)  NASA has never released any photos in which the moon can be seen in
> relationship to planets other than Earth, because those relationships would
> be almost impossible to fake.  Also, he says that the Earth in pictures from
> the Moon is too small.  (I don't know, Kepler's laws don't seem too difficult
> to me...)
>
> 2)  He says the LEM didn't kick up any dust, but that the astronauts' boots
> sink into the soil, and that the boots sink in more than the LEM footpads.
> (I'll have to analyze my tapes more; I always thought Buzz said "Picking up
> some dust" just before the alleged touchdown, but I must be mistaken...)
>
> 3)  The information about the moon missions is not classified, but information
> is not available to the public.  (So, I must have been hallucinating when I
> thought I was reading all the technical reports about the missions...)
>
> 4)  The Apollo astronauts have stated that they don't want to discuss the
> missions.  (True, Neil is happy to stay on his farm, and you don't see much
> of Buzz, but Mike Collins seems to me to be the kind of guy who'd be happy to
> talk about it all day.  Not to mention Pete Conrad, Gene Cernan, Frank Borman,
> Alan Shepard, and John Young, all of whom seem talkative; then there's Tom
> Stafford, who I've talked to for several hours...)
>
> 5)  The space suits the astronauts wore were not designed for the
> temperature extremes of the Moon.  (So Rocketdyne built the suits too?)
>
> 6)  The Van Allen belts should have "burned them to crisps."  He points out
> that astronauts who merely orbit the Earth don't encounter them.  (Wait...
> that means that some of the Gemini flights must have been faked too!  This
> deserves further investigation!)
>
> Finally, my favorite:
> 7)  There is a picture showing astronauts training on one of the lunar surface
> mock-ups, with a caption pointing out that girders can be seen in the picture.
> (The technical people really dropped the ball on this one, since they also
> forgot to put the gold foil on the LEM, and one of the astronauts has his sun
> visor up.)
>
> A couple other points are brought up, but these should be enough to convince
> anyone (under the age of six, anyway).
>
> I guess I need to modify my .sig...
> --------
> [e-mail]
>
> "I'm with you, LEM, though it's a shame that it had to be fake.
>  The mother ship is just a set in which to do a take.
>  I'm with you, boys, oh, there's something I just thought of.
>  It's on my mind, we should be on the Moon, but we're in Nevada."
>             --(Not Quite) Jethro Tull, "For Michael Collins, Jeffrey, and Me"

You forgot to critical points:

Only on the moon could a man hit a golf ball as far as Alan Sheppard did.  So
somewhere in California, someone built an anti-gravity chamber at least 500
yards long so the ball could travel that far.

Secondly, the jumping around that we saw the astronauts doing is not related to
the lack of gravity on the moon compared to the Earth, but rather that the
astronauts had been lifting weights (a couple thousand pounds at a time) to
build up their legs so that they could jump as far as they did.

And as for the rocks, they worked out with their arms too.  Or better yet, the
WWN will come out next week and say they were made out of paper mache :-)

Kevin

E-Mail MIGHT reach me at:

[e-mail]

"You can still Rock in America"  - Night Ranger

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

Date: 4 Mar 91 14:06:25 GMT
From: pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!news-server.ecf!ecf![e-mail]  (MURTY Hema Sandhyarani)
Subject: Re: Gaia

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John Roberts) writes:
>
>>About Gaia:  It all started when two people, whose names I can't remember, were
>>The originator of the Hypothesis (Sorry I can't remember the guy's name) also
>

     The theory was first proposed by James Lovelock and further
     promoted by Lynne Margulis, in the sixties.

Hema Murty
[e-mail]

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

Date: 4 Mar 91 21:06:39 GMT
From: sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!rex!rouge![e-mail]  (Fraering Philip)
Subject: Re: Government vs. Commercial R&D

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (S Schaper) writes:

>Indeed, in a recent _Science News_ there was an ad for a book called
>something like _Great Mombo Chicken and the somethingorothers_...

I haven't read it, but the book is _Great Mambo Chicken and the
Transhuman Condition_ by Ed Regis.

Phil Fraering
[e-mail]

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

End of SPACE Digest V13 #230
*******************