Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/pc/text/spacedig/v13_7/v13_710.txt

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Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #710

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 13 : Issue 710

Today's Topics:
            SPACE Digest V13 #614
     Re: L-5 Society is now National Space Society (NSS)
         Re: Self-sustaining infrastructures
              Re: Microgravity?
            Re: Beanstalk analysis reprise
         Re: INFO: Clandestine Mars Observer Launch??
           Astro-Nugget worth $$$ trillions
           Re: Why would I stick a face on Mars...

Administrivia:

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

Date:         Fri, 07 Jun 91 13:53:04 CDT
From: David Lowe <[e-mail]>

get su nu

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

Date:         Fri, 07 Jun 91 14:52:57 CDT
From: David Lowe <[e-mail]>


>Diverting an asteroid to LEO will cause one positive effect,
>the Christic Institute will go into orbit. :-)  With all the
>publicity generated by the Dinosaur Killer, advocating moving an
>asteroid near Earth will generate mass protests that will make
>the anti-nukes look positively pro-technology.

I have been enduring all the romance about imminent asteroid
mining and waiting for someone to discuss safety.  Finally the
above cheap shot.

The Sununuist attitude that anyone who considers the dangers of
some high technology project necessarily does so out technophobia
or ignorance does not stand much scrutiny.  Yes, the effects of
our bifurcated educational system--which produces astrologist art
professors and libertarian engineers--can be seen in the anti-
nuclear power movement.  A closer look, however, finds more than
a few thoughtful people from the life sciences there.

Suppose for the sake of argument that fabulous sums of money were
to be lavished on the space mining project and that technological
breakthroughs were to follow so rapidly one after the other that
moving an asteroid or comet toward the Earth becomes feasible in
the lifetime of the youngest person currently on the SPACE
Digest/sci.space list.  Will the only voices that raise the issue
of collision belong to the heirs of Jeremy Rifkin?

Of course not.  There is a legitimate problem here and name
calling is not going to make it go away.

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

ReSent-Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Resent-Date:  Fri, 07 Jun 91 18:59:14 EDT
Resent-From: Tom McWilliams <[e-mail]>
Resent-To: [e-mail]
Date:         Fri, 7 Jun 91 03:52:49 EDT
Reply-To: [e-mail]
From: [e-mail]
Subject:      SPACE Digest V13 #614
Comments: To: [e-mail]
To: david polito <[e-mail]>, Tom McWilliams <[e-mail]>

R: Asteroid mining

 s> started. Take nickel.  It's current price is around $1/lb.  With
 s> a typical Nickel Asteroid, you could sell it for $.05/lb, and
 s> still make a klilling. (Do you know how much nickel would be in
 s> an asteroid 1km wide?).  Could any mining company compete?  More
 s> importantly, could we get them to invest?

>Your points are well taken.  Take a moment to think, however, about
>the political flak we'll get from the mining unions when we start
>to take jobs away from them!  We would definitely have to get the

Think of the flak the union will get when we offer the guys exotic
work, guaranteed jobs, and good pay (easy to do, in times of actual
economic growth).

>mining unions, in any case, involved.  I don't know if you could
>get the mining companies themselves to invest, mostly due to short-
>sightedness.

Actually, mining companies are one of the few businesses that can't
survive on short-sightedness (I learned that the average company has
ONE mine out of a thousand prospects that makes money, and has to cover the
cost of the others that don't come through.  About 10 just pay for
themselves, and  50 make too little money to pay for themselves.  The
rest are false starts and no-gos).  But you may still be right about
moving from Earth to space, thought your average stony-iron 'stroid,
with about 7% metal would still be better by 1000 times any ore left
on Earth.  That could make a difference.

Tom
Acknowledge-To: <18084TM@MSU>

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

Date: 6 Jun 91 17:29:51 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Jonathan Leech)
Subject: Re: L-5 Society is now National Space Society (NSS)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Craig E. Ward) writes:
>NSS offers a variety of ways to get involved and make a difference in
>creating "a spacefaring civilization with communities beyond the Earth."

    What might they be?  L-5 planned to dissolve in a meeting at L-5.
NSS is an unabashed NASA supporter which doesn't look beyond Freedom,
and its brand of 'getting involved' seems to be 'lobbying for whatever
NASA asks for.' It sends out 'space policy surveys' that are already
slanted to give the answers NSS wants.    It testifies against making
cheap foreign (Chinese) launch services available.  Feh.  I retain my
NSS membership, for some reason, but the Space Studies Institute has
my loyalty.  They're *really* making a difference, and if the 'L-5
spirit' still exists anywhere, it's there.

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

Date: 4 Jun 91 15:17:09 GMT
From: van-bc!rsoft!mindlink![e-mail]  (Nick Janow)
Subject: Re: Self-sustaining infrastructures

[e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer) writes:

> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Nick Janow)
> writes:
>
>+ Humans also get diseases, cancer, physical problems, psychological problems,
>
> Hardly in the same league. I myself have only needed major repair (surgery)
> twice in 33 years of life. I have fallen off a motorcycle at 50+MPH without
> doing any dammage which needed repair by outside means.

What about reliability as pertaining to accomplishing a mission?  We're talking
about missions far enough that a quick return to Earth for repair/healing isn't
feasible.  A robot goes into standby mode; humans go into bored mode and
possibly physical/psychological deterioration mode.

There is also their life-support equipment to consider.  This is likely very
complex equipment, prone to failure.  Just think of all the valves, motors, etc
to fail and the biological portion (algae, etc) that can develop problems.  The
humans might require more complex equipment than a robot.

True, the equipment can be designed so that humans can repair it (spare parts
and/or a machine shop), but a robot can also be designed so that it can repair
itself (or contain repair robots).  You have to compare similar cases (designed
for robot repair unmanned probes vs manned probes with all the necessary
equipment).  You can't properly compare a human on Earth (no extra life-support
equipment necessary) with a car that hasn't been designed for self-repair.

> The operational record of my car (dispite its much younger age) is nowhere
> near that good.

Yes, and your car is a great example of self-repairing robotics technology in
the year 2010.  :)

> Yes we are getting good at building electronics which are fault tollerent.
> How about machines wiht large numbers of moving parts (like satellite repair
> robots)? How good are they at fixing themselves?

Now, or in the future with proper R&D?  Again you're making biased comparisons.
How good would manned space development be if you limit it to only today's
knowledge/technology?  I assume you're expecting that the research into the
effects of zero-g on humans will be used to develop techniques to combat bone
loss and other problems.  Shouldn't you also allow for similar improvements in
robotics?

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

Date: 7 Jun 91 10:44:27 GMT
From: coplex!disk![e-mail]  (joefish)
Subject: Re: Microgravity?

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Codesmiths) writes:
>In-Reply-To:  [e-mail] (Herman Rubin)
>Organization: The Winged Psychos of Destiny
>
>>> A 710-meter shaft set deep into the Earth forms the centerpiece of a
>>> new microgravity experimentation facility which will open in July.
>>
>> I must be missing something.  How do we get microgravity at this depth?
>
>You drop a capsule containing the experiment down the shaft in
>free-fall.
>
>Assuming a linear acceleration of g & a little time to decelerate at
>the bottom, I estimate a drop time of 10s. Some form of viscous
>damping during free fall would allow this time to be extended, but I
>have no more information about the precise setup being used.
>
>Parabolic flights on aircraft (the "Vomit Comet") give freefall times
>of around 60s, but probably cost much more.
>
>Dropping a capsule from a balloon at 710m altitude would be
>susceptible to wind gusts & their resultant horizontal acceleration.
>
>   _
> /  ) ' ,_   ,  /   _ ) _/_       [e-mail]
>/_ / / / / (_) /_) (_)  /_        [phone]
>          (_)

I read all 30 articles-:-)

After visiting the 500 foot vacuum zero gravity at NASA Lewis
Research Center in Cleveland in 1968, I found several facts
very interesting.

The drop time is about 5 seconds, but they have a spring loaded
slingshot that throws the package up to the top, giving about
10 seconds total zero (near zero) gravity.    This facility
was used extensively getting engineering data for tank
baffles and many other areas of space science.

They had the vacuum cover removed and I had my two sons with
me (9 and 11 year olds) and I fearfully held their hands tight
as we stood by the flimsy railing looking down the 500' hole.

After getting away from that nightmare, I began to consider
that when throwing the test cannister up, there is still
zero gravity as it slows and stops and begins falling again.

This provides even more insight into the workings of gravity
than using Einstein's Principle of Equivalence.      For a
fraction of a second, the test package is nearly stationary,
and at zero gravity.   It was an interesting exhibit.

They also had the 3 axis gimbal rig there that the astronauts
used to practice manual attitude control of Mercury capsules
and they demonstrated stopping the spin of a rapidly spinning
capsule using compressed air jets.   The public was allowed
to stand within 10 feet of the rig as it was spinning at
up to about 50 RPM as I remember.

Lewis Research Center plays a big part in space research, and
the nuclear reacter near Sandusky that tests materials for
nuclear powered spacecraft is run by Lewis.

The material used to stop the fall of test cannisters in the
zero g chamber was styrofoam pellets.

Joe Fischer        uunet!coplex!disk!joefish

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

Date: 7 Jun 91 16:58:26 GMT
From: news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Beanstalk analysis reprise

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>And it has to work right the FIRST time.  Having the sucker break in the
>vicinity of geosync altitude could really ruin your day if you were anywhere on
>the equator.

The bulk of it will be at high hypersonic velocity by the time it hits the
atmosphere, so it wouldn't survive reentry.  Untoward effects should be
pretty much confined to the immediate vicinity of the anchor site.
--
"We're thinking about upgrading from    | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
SunOS 4.1.1 to SunOS 3.5."              |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 7 Jun 91 09:26:42 GMT
From: mcsun!ukc!icdoc!sot-ecs![e-mail]  (Fibre Optics)
Subject: Re: INFO: Clandestine Mars Observer Launch??

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Don Allen) writes:

[etc deleted, *this* is what I want to followup]

>What the so-called scientific community has shown me so far is they
>are FAR from being "open minded". Rather, they are narrow and RIGID.
>
>This only applies to just a _few_ individuals thus far, but what they
>don't realize is that I relish poking fun at their most cherished "notions"
>and IF they have such a watertight argument..then let's see some discussion,
>I'm more than willing to LISTEN and consider *their* views..but I will
>NOT be censored by small-minded and inflexible people JUST BECAUSE
>their education has drummed into their heads that "things are a certain
>way" and they won't bother to consider alternate viewpoints.

How right you are ! More power to your elbow Don !
People like these `scientists' imprisoned Galileo.
The problem is idealism. They start with the preconception that the
world is a certain way and then only look at the evidence that agrees
with the preconception. Result being "see ? the world *is* like that !"

No learning or discovery is possible without decades of anguish this
way. Keep rattling their cages Don !
>
>Does this sound like a *challenge* to the "science-priestcraft"??
>
>You bet!
>
Its a challenge all right, they'll just have to not look at the
evidence. Again.
>Don




--
Peter Harris   G4BDQ  |         Unusual exploding disclaimer  ->    (}|){//)
Fibre Optics *-----------------------------------------------------(--PAF !-)
Southampton University| "Relax in the safety of your own delusions" (/}|{\\)
[e-mail]    |           Kerry Wendell Thornley              |||

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

Date: 7 Jun 91 19:56:47 GMT
From: haven.umd.edu!socrates.umd.edu![e-mail]  (mike santangelo (UNIX/VMS Sys Staff))
Subject: Astro-Nugget worth $$$ trillions

Just FYI.  Certainly seems like a good reason to get out there fast!

From the Washington Post, June 7, 1991 (y114#184), p. A11:

                 Nearby Asteroid Worth a Trillion

     "  An astronimical El Dorado containing some 10,000 tons of
      gold and 100,000 tons of platinum has been found orbiting
      the sun tantalizingly close to Earth, according to a report
      in today's issue of Science.
        Asteroid 1986 DA, as the solid metal ''near-Earth-object'' is
      known is 1.2 miles wide and shaped roughly like a canned ham.
      The itinerant astro-nugget also contains approximately 10 billion
      tons of iron and a billion tons of nickel.
        At today's prices, the commodity value of 1986 DA is approximately
      astronomical: The gold alone is worth about $120 billion and the
      platinum nearly a trillion dollars.
        Immediate prospects for mining, however, are dim: The nearest
      the asteroid gets to Tiffany's is about 20 million miles.
        Nonetheless, according to astronomer Steven Ostro, who helped
      discover the orbiting ingot, ''if in the next century we go into
      space robitically or in person, this asteroid -- or many others
      yet to be discovered -- could be among the targets of such
      missions, and the metals could be used for contruction in space.''
        Current theory indicates that such extraordinary metallic
      abundances can only form in the cores of planet-like bodies; and
      the researchers report in Science that 1986 DA appears to be
      ''derived from the interior of a much larger object'' that existed
      billions of years ago and ''subsequently was disrupted by a
      massive collision.''

--
                                  Mike Santangelo ([e-mail])
                                  UNIX / VMS Systems Manager

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

Date: 7 Jun 91 21:51:28 GMT
From: cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!caen!uwm.edu!csd4.csd.uwm.edu![e-mail]  (Mark William Hopkins)
Subject: Re: Why would I stick a face on Mars...

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano) writes:
>        But what I'd be testing for is this' if something looks like a face,
>does this mean that a face was designed into it?

But you can't even test that with Mount Rushmore this way if you don't know
where it came from?

The point of the test is that the neural net ALREADY is trained to rule out
random images from actual photographs with 99% accuracy.  My claim is that
ANY such neural net, no matter how it was designed, trained/programmed when
applied to a photo of the Mars facial image will classify it as a face with
probability exceeding 99%.

You'd be hard pressed to find a random image that would fall between the
cracks then of such a classifier.

You can even use this as the basis for a set of parameters for randomness:
e.g. this image is 99%/99% a face  ... that image is 99.9%/99.9% a face, and
so on ... meaning NOT random.

>        I think it would amke far more sense to provide subjects with a
>series of patterns, some of which have faces 'designed' into them, and others
>which are truly random... and ask people if they see any faces. I expect that
>one would find a high correlation among the random images of where 'faces'
>could be seen. If people are recognizing faces in verifiably random patterns,
>then our seeing a 'face' on Mars doesn't constitute proof for design.

That's essentially the condition to the test I described: that the neural net
have 99% accuracy.  You need a VALID classifier in order to do the test with,
humans may or may not qualify...

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

End of SPACE Digest V13 #710
*******************