Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/pc/text/spacedig/v16_1/v16no170.txt

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Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 20:58:31
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V16 #170
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Fri, 12 Feb 93       Volume 16 : Issue 170

Today's Topics:
          An 'agitator' replies (was: Clinton's Promises...)
              extreme responses to Challenger transcript
             Getting people into Space Program! (5 msgs)
                         hardware on the moon
                             non-US SSTO
 Other shuttles (was Re: Getting people into Space Program!) (3 msgs)
                      parachutes on Challenger?
                     Peekskill Meteorite (2 msgs)
                 Refueling Freedom/Japanese Business
                     space news from Nov 23 AW&ST
                              SSTO news

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Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1993 18:25:53 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: An 'agitator' replies (was: Clinton's Promises...)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Edward V. Wright) writes:
>In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Matthew DeLuca) writes:
>>Yes, it did.  *After* they learned how to do it.  When they were working on
>>the first trans-continental railroad, they weren't trying for the cheapest
>>railroad possible, they were trying for one that *worked*.  I'm sure Allen's
>>distant relative was there, pointing out that if they would only use cheap
>>Conestoga wagons strung together in trains, they could move goods for a
>>fraction of the cost.
>
>Read some history.  The men who built the trans-continental
>railroad were in it for the almighty dollar you disdain.
>They wanted to move people and freight quickly and cheaply
>because that was the only way they could make money.  Someone
>with your attitude wouldn't have lasted ten minutes in their
>employee.

Read a little *more* history Ed. The robber barons were after
the almighty dollar all right, but it was the government land
grants that went with the railroads that they were after. Alternating
one square mile blocks on either side of the tracks for the length
of the tracks. Most of the railroads went bust, but the men who
built the railroads didn't care, they made their money developing
the real estate Uncle Sam gave them.

Gary
--
Gary Coffman KE4ZV          |    You make it,     | gatech!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary
Destructive Testing Systems |    we break it.     | uunet!rsiatl!ke4zv!gary
534 Shannon Way             |    Guaranteed!      | emory!kd4nc!ke4zv!gary
Lawrenceville, GA 30244     |                     |

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

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1993 21:09:45 GMT
From: "Carl M. Kadie" <[e-mail]>
Subject: extreme responses to Challenger transcript
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.privacy,comp.org.eff.talk

[e-mail] (Carl M. Kadie) writes:

>There is no such a crime as libel against the government (i.e.
>seditious libel) in the U.S. anymore.

[e-mail] (Dave Bushong) writes:

>Whether or not that's true, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's not
>libelous.  Libel is "a written, printed, or pictorial statement that
>damages a person by defaming his character or reputation, damaging
>him in his occupation, or exposing him to public ridicule."  It
>doesn't say that it is a crime.

The government is not a person.

Anyway, "libel" has multiple meanings. The 4th definition in Webster's
9th Collegiate is "the act, tort, or crimt of publishing such a
libel".

- Carl


--
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me.
 = [e-mail] =

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

Date: 10 Feb 1993 14:47:34 -0500
From: Matthew DeLuca <[e-mail]>
Subject: Getting people into Space Program!
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Edward V. Wright) writes:
>In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Matthew DeLuca) writes:

>I'm not fascinated with airliners.  I think they're quite boring, really,
>compared to, say, the SR-71.  But they are handy.  They get where I want
>to go.  The Shuttle (like the SR-71) doesn't.

So exactly where do you want to go, then?  There's no place *to* go up
there yet.

>>And, as far as the usefulness bit goes, since the United States government is
>>paying for the flight, using my tax dollars, I expect it to get its moneys'
>>worth.

>Your tax dollars?  That .edu address wouldn't mean you're a student,
>would it?

Bzzt, thank you for playing.  Operations Department, Georgia Tech Office of
Information Technology.  I pay my taxes like everyone else in this country.

>If you're interested in getting your money's worth, why
>are you supporting an agency that's spending $36 billion for a space
>station that should cost no more than $4 billion even as a government
>project?

Because the alternative is no space station for zero dollars.  While a
cost-efficient space station would be far superior to an overpriced one,
an overpriced one is far superior to no station at all and having the money
transferred to some rathole like HUD.

>>Oh, one other thing: if the Shuttle is evil incarnate, as you claim, why is
>>every major space organization in the world trying to come up with their
>>own?

>They aren't.  The Soviets built their own Shuttleski, flew it once,
>and decided it was too expensive to fly again.

It didn't fly again because of technical reasons; the astronauts refused to
fly it.  Incidentally, they are planning on flying it again and rendezvousing
with Mir, and possibly flying it back with a crew.

Hermes is still on, although another poster from Europe is of the opinion that
it is dead anyway...we'll have to see on that.  Japan has limited shuttle
plans, first as an unmanned flier and possibly later a manned vehicle.

>>News flash: they didn't cancel the program after Challenger, and they likely
>>won't cancel it after the next one, unless there is a *flying* replacement.

>Yeah, if you whistle loud enough, maybe nothing will rise out of that
>graveyard.  Just keep saying that....

Well, let's look at some history, shall we?

First there was the Apollo pad fire, with three fatalities.  The result?
The program was delayed, modifications were made, and the show went on.

Then there was the Apollo 13 affair...three people nearly lost in space, made
it back by the skin of their teeth.  The result?  The program was delayed,
modifications made, and the show went on.

Then, of course, came Challenger.  Seven dead, $1 billion vehicle destroyed.
The result?  The program was delayed, modifications made, and the show went
on.

I realize that all I have to back me up is a quarter-century of history of
U.S. manned spaceflight, but do you think it is possible that the likely
result of another accident is to delay the program and fix the problem,
instead of throwing up our hands in despair and cancelling it?

>>In addition, we've had more flights since Challenger than before, and it's
>>been longer now since the accident than the time from the start of the program
>>to Challenger.  One accident every five to ten years is in all likelihood an
>>acceptable rate to Congress.

>You have no idea how Congress operates.  That is obvious.

Well, history backs me up.  What are you basing your assumptions on, other
than your wild-eyed hatred of the Shuttle?

>>Ed, do you understand what a commercial airline does?  Commercial airlines
>>take people from point A to point B.  In case you are unaware, there is no
>>point B in space.

>Gee, really?  I thought there were lots of point B in space.

Name two.

Mir could sort of be considered as as point B, although I doubt the Russians
would appreciate a bunch of tourists bumping around in there...it's sort of
the equivalent of a research station on the northern tip of Greenland, with
about the same commercial potential.

>>Until there *is* a point B, there's not going to be a
>>spaceline and there's not going to be hundreds of launches a day.  Disparaging
>>the space program because it doesn't launch enough to suit you is pointless.

>You just don't get it, do you?  Air travel didn't develop in this
>country because of any aviation program.

Actually, that's incorrect.  Ask Allen to explain the Kelley Act to you
sometime.

I agree, it's not quite the equivalent of what we have now, but air travel
didn't just pop up overnight; it was force-fed by the government.
--
Matthew DeLuca
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp:      ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!matthew
Internet: [e-mail]

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

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1993 20:06:56 GMT
From: "Allen W. Sherzer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Getting people into Space Program!
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:

 >An airliner has about the same number of parts as a typical launcher. The
 >tollerances to which those parts are built are about the same. It takes
 >about the same amount of fuel to get to LEO as an airliner takes to get
 >to Australia.

>An airliner takes 22 hours to get to Australia while it's wings do the
>work of fighting gravity and it's engines only push it along. It's subsonic
>and operates at no more than 40,000 feet altitude. A spacecraft burns the
>same amount of fuel in 4 or 5 minutes fighting gravity and air resistance
>to get to 8 km/sec and 200 km altitude. The stresses on engines and
>airframe are considerably different.

Actually, operating tempratures and total stresses are also pretty close.
The main differences is in the turbopumps and those exist today. Peak
stresses on SSTO may be higher but Have Region answered most of the
open questions on that. That's why every agency and group which has
looked at SSTO say it can be done.

>And pigs would fly if they only had wings.

It would have been interesting to hear you in 1900 telling us all
about how heavier than air flight was impossible. I can just imagine
the flames about those two idiot bike builders who thought THEY
could do what all the experts said was impossible.

  Allen

--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves        |
|  [e-mail]     |  nothing undone"                                       |
+----------------------125 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+

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

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1993 18:52:00 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: Getting people into Space Program!
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>
>Well Gary your answer to what space is, is a classic example of why people are
>loosing interest in space..
>Such is life and fun.. The US will just become a second class power..

The US is barely a third rate power on a fifth rate world. There are
no second or first rate powers as of yet. Maybe in the 24th century
of the Trekkies.

Gary

--
Gary Coffman KE4ZV          |    You make it,     | gatech!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary
Destructive Testing Systems |    we break it.     | uunet!rsiatl!ke4zv!gary
534 Shannon Way             |    Guaranteed!      | emory!kd4nc!ke4zv!gary
Lawrenceville, GA 30244     |                     |

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

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1993 19:14:50 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: Getting people into Space Program!
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Edward V. Wright) writes:
>In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Matthew DeLuca) writes:
>>Get with the nineties, Ed...they're running eight to nine flights a year
>>now, three times as many as anyone else with ten times the people.  Not
>>as good as it should be, but by far the best in the world.
>
>Three times as many?  Phui!  Call up American Airlines and get
>their flight schedule.

Yes, please do that. You'll find not a single flight above the
atmosphere. Funny thing about American *Air*lines, they can't
get above the air.

Gary

--
Gary Coffman KE4ZV          |    You make it,     | gatech!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary
Destructive Testing Systems |    we break it.     | uunet!rsiatl!ke4zv!gary
534 Shannon Way             |    Guaranteed!      | emory!kd4nc!ke4zv!gary
Lawrenceville, GA 30244     |                     |

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

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1993 19:12:21 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: Getting people into Space Program!
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Edward V. Wright) writes:
>In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:
>
>>No, but offering it as an expensive Disneyworld ride to some lottery
>>winner doesn't benefit society either.... Making it a sideshow ride
>>would just emphasize the apparant lack of merit of the program in the
>>common mind.
>
>So you think Disneyland lacks merit?  Too bad.  I don't think
>Disney cares.  They're too busy laughing all the way to the bank.

When you get the price of a space ticket down to that paid for
an E ticket by the rubes in the Winnebagos, we'll talk. Until
then, $10 million dollar rides into space are somewhat beyond
the reach of the unwashed masses. And it's too high a price to
pay with *tax* money to let Aunt Minnie barf her lunch over people
trying to get work done.


>>We have ideas, but we are at the stage of the mapmaker who draws
>>"Here there be dragons" on empty spaces in his maps. What you're asking
>>is similar to asking Lewis and Clark to take some tourists along to take
>>a look at America.
>
>Oh?  So where are there vast, unmapped regions in cislunar space?

It's a metaphor, stupid. We don't know how to make space profitable
because we don't know how to operate properly in space. Half the stuff
we try doesn't work, and the other half works in ways we don't completely
understand. It's also reality because, for example, we don't have a decent
gravity map of Luna, we don't have a mineralogical survey, or even know if
there is polar ice.

>>It's fodder for explorers and researchers, but not yet for settlers
>>or tourists. Any large scale benefits for society at large, aside
>>from some remote sensing and communications, is decades away at best,
>>centuries is probably a more likely time scale.
>
>If we follow your strategy of protect-the-Shuttle-from-competition-
>at-any-cost, sure.  Except that you can't keep that game going for
>decades, let alone centuries.  As soon as there's another Shuttle
>crash (and there will be, denying that is just whistling in the dark),
>Congress is going shut down your little space program for good.

NASA plans to shut down Shuttle by 2005 in any case. It's not
Shuttle killing your grandiose dreams, it's the reality that
space is a hard place to reach and a difficult place to work.

>Go out to your local airport and count the number of jets
>taking off in one five-minute interval.  Compare that number
>to NASA's five-flights-per-year, which you call a great
>accomplishment.  Just one of those planes can carry as
>many passengers on a single flight as the US and Soviet
>Union space programs combined have fown in the last 30
>years.  And this is only one airport out of hundreds.

Yes, but not a single one of them, nor every one of them combined
can get one inch above the atmosphere. Aircraft are *irrelevant*
to space. They can't get there. You might as well be talking about
steam locomotives.

Gary

--
Gary Coffman KE4ZV          |    You make it,     | gatech!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary
Destructive Testing Systems |    we break it.     | uunet!rsiatl!ke4zv!gary
534 Shannon Way             |    Guaranteed!      | emory!kd4nc!ke4zv!gary
Lawrenceville, GA 30244     |                     |

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

Date: 10 Feb 93 21:02:52 GMT
From: Steinn Sigurdsson <[e-mail]>
Subject: hardware on the moon
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Dave Michelson) writes:

   In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Mary Shafer) writes:

   >And the Apollo 11
   >site has been designated a National Monument, belonging to the
   >National Park Service.

   Does some provision of international law allow this sort of declaration
   or was this a "unilateral" declaration by the U.S.?

As a wild guess it was probably done to prevent someone else
from going there and claiming it as salvage or abandoned
 - like the FEE - can you imagine the reaction if a (x)soviet
mission had gone to the Apollo site and used it for scrap in
building a base :-)

|  Steinn Sigurdsson    |I saw two shooting stars last night        |
|  Lick Observatory    |I wished on them but they were only satellites    |
| [e-mail] |Is it wrong to wish on space hardware?        |
| "standard disclaimer"    |I wish, I wish, I wish you'd care - B.B. 1983    |

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

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1993 21:34:11 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: non-US SSTO
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (David Becker) writes:
>What about other countries?  If is SSTO is as promising as hoped and been
>feasible as long as has been claimed, building a few would be a cost effective
>way for a nation or nations to claim space preeminence ...

And some of them have been looking at it, as witness Hotol.  They've
generally made the X-30 mistake of confusing hypersonics research with
practical spaceflight, so their designs have wings, but you *can* build
an SSTO that way.

Unfortunately, they've mostly got the same disease as NASA:  any such
project would be a focal point of a space agency's efforts, not a low-
budget background experimental project, and hence cannot be allowed to
fail.  This makes a never-before-tried concept less attractive than
just stacking up plain old rocket stages the old-fashioned way.
--
C++ is the best example of second-system| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
effect since OS/360.                    |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 10 Feb 1993 14:58:21 -0500
From: Matthew DeLuca <[e-mail]>
Subject: Other shuttles (was Re: Getting people into Space Program!)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> utz@asterix (Herby Utz) writes:

>Why must a capsule be disposable? It's much easier to build a reusable capsule
>than a shuttle. And on the other hand: The capsule is more efficient and much
>more safer. Is the shuttle really a step forward?

The capsule itself doesn't have to be disposable, but the rocket it rides up
on generally is.  You're still losing 80 to 90 percent of your hardware each
flight.

Whether a shuttle is a step forward or not depends on what you are trying to
do in space.  If your sole goal is to get people from the ground to an
already-existing space station, a capsule is probably the most cost-effective
form of transport, at the cost of having no other manned space capability.  If
you are looking for a broader space capability, however, such as the ability
to fly numbers of non-pilots up, or to have station-independent research
capability, or to be able to deploy and retrieve large objects, then a shuttle
is indeed a step forward.
--
Matthew DeLuca
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp:      ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!matthew
Internet: [e-mail]

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

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1993 21:27:19 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Other shuttles (was Re: Getting people into Space Program!)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Matthew DeLuca) writes:
>>Why must a capsule be disposable? ...
>
>The capsule itself doesn't have to be disposable, but the rocket it rides up
>on generally is.  You're still losing 80 to 90 percent of your hardware each
>flight.

Do bear in mind, Matthew, that most of the projects you elsewhere described
as "shuttles" share the property of discarding most of their hardware.
Hermes, HOPE, and Buran all ride up on expendable boosters.

There are three separate questions here.  One is semi-ballistic capsules
versus bricks-with-wings.  Another is whether the spacecraft itself is
reusable.  A third is whether the entire assembly that lifts off is
reusable, or nearly so.

Bricks-with-wings are really popular with people who associate them with
hypersonics research, but in fact they're not much better as a way of
getting people into space than semi-ballistic capsules.  They are really
lousy gliders, can't abort a landing approach and try again, and are
much heavier than a well-designed capsule for the same payload.  They
are also a lot harder to design.

Making the spacecraft itself reusable is no big deal.  The Soviets have
reused capsules.  About the only thing that really has to be replaced
on a semi-ballistic capsule is the ablative heatshield, if any.  The
other refurbishing needed is a pale shadow of what the shuttle orbiters
need after every flight.

Making the entire assembly reusable is an important goal, but it's
self-deception to pretend that the shuttle achieves it, even ignoring
the external tank.  The SRBs get rebuilt almost from scratch after
every flight; it is doubtful that NASA actually saves any money on
that process.  The orbiters need months of concentrated maintenance
after every flight.  "Salvageable" would be a better word than
"reusable" for this system.
--
C++ is the best example of second-system| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
effect since OS/360.                    |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1993 21:39:43 GMT
From: "Edward V. Wright" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Other shuttles (was Re: Getting people into Space Program!)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Matthew DeLuca) writes:

>The point I am getting at, I would say, is that with the sole exception
>of the Russians, nobody is considering using disposable capsules for their
>manned access to space, and the Russians themselves are or were trying to
>get away from it.  Seems like everyone's trying to forward, except for
>certain elements here in the U.S.

With the sole exception of the Russians?  With the sole exception
of the Russians, who else but the United States is putting people
into space?

Both the Russians and the United States are putting people into
space in artillery shells boosted by long-range missiles.  Calling
the Space Shuttle a "space-transportation system" doesn't make it
one.  Putting wings on a vehicle doesn't make it a space-transportation
system.  A space-transportation system doesn't drop a major piece of
itself into the atmosphere to burn up.  It doesn't drop boosters into
the ocean, where they can be fished out and refurbished at more than
the cost of replacing them.  It doesn't require weeks of maintenance
before it can fly again or have to send its main engines back to the
factory for a complete rebuild after every flight.

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

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1993 21:12:26 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: parachutes on Challenger?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <bern.729358787@kleopatra> [e-mail] (Jochen Bern) writes:
>BTW, are there any Attempts to incorporate this russian Eject-Head-down
>Capability into western Airplanes? (The Para gets opened by a small
>"Gas Generator" Explosion.)

Western ejection seats have long used powered chute ejection, actually.
Martin-Baker's latest seat can supposedly land you safely if you eject
from an upside-down aircraft 100 feet up, just by getting the chute out
damn fast.  (It has its own altitude sensors, so it knows enough not to
do this at high altitude.  If you eject inverted 100ft over Mount Everest,
I think you're out of luck. :-))
--
C++ is the best example of second-system| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
effect since OS/360.                    |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1993 22:58:17 +0000
From: Andrew Haveland-Robinson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Peekskill Meteorite
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ron Baalke) writes:

>The meteorite that went through the trunk of the car in Peekskill, New York,
>last October is on display at the Best Western Executive Inn in Tuscon,
>Arizona.  The car is also on display in the front of the hotel.  The meteorite
>is in the room of Lang's Fossils & Meteorites.  The meteorite has been
>sliced up and sold in smaller pieces, and about 12 pounds of the original
>27 pound mass still remains.  A cast of the original meteorite is in the lobby
>of the hotel.  Small fragments of the meteorite (about 1 gram) and a
>copy of the local newspaper with the meteorite story are availabe for $25.
>The going price for both the remaining 12 pound meteorite and the car is
>$125,000.   The car and the meteorite will continue to be on display until
>February 14.

A gif of a photo of this would be a nice thing, I'd love to see it and the
hole in the trunk, NY is a tad to distant for a weekend jaunt...

Anyone care to oblige?

Cheers
Andy.


+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Haveland-Robinson Associates   | Email: [e-mail]         |
| 54 Greenfield Road, London     |        [e-mail] |
| N15 5EP England. 081-800 1708  | Also:  0621-88756 081-802 4502       |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
<<>> Those that can, use applications. Those that can't, write them! <<>>
> Some dream of doing great things, while others stay awake and do them <

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

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1993 21:05:20 GMT
From: "Pat R. Brown" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Peekskill Meteorite
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary

Could you post an address for Langs Meteorite and Fossil???
Thanks, Pat

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

Date: 10 Feb 93 13:05:50
From: Steinn Sigurdsson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Refueling Freedom/Japanese Business
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Edward V. Wright) writes:

   Lines: 10

   In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Brian Stuart Thorn) writes:

   >   Your basic argument is sound, but I wouldn't use "flash in the
   >   pan" to describe the Shuttle. For all its faults and failures,
   >   its been flying for nearly twelve years. Thats no flash in the
   >   pan.

   I think the time the Shuttle's been flying is more like one year.
   It's just been spread out over a 12-year period.

Does time in orbit really add up to a year?! That's a pretty
impressive duty cycle, even spread over five craft.
Factor out the Challenger moratorium and the inital ramp up
of launches and it looks even better. Not bad for a prototype...

Sanity check: O(50) missions at 1 week per - yup, that's a year...

|  Steinn Sigurdsson    |I saw two shooting stars last night        |
|  Lick Observatory    |I wished on them but they were only satellites    |
| [e-mail] |Is it wrong to wish on space hardware?        |
| "standard disclaimer"    |I wish, I wish, I wish you'd care - B.B. 1983    |

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

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1993 21:30:19 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: space news from Nov 23 AW&ST
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (jack hagerty) writes:
>>Clementine 1, the SDIO/NASA sensor-test mission...on schedule for
>>Jan 1994 launch...on a refurbished Titan II.
>
>This, I take it, will be a Vandenberg launch? Does NASA have any Titan
>facilities in Florida? Can you launch a II off of a III4E pad?

Given that Martin Marietta was hesitating about entering the MLV-3
competition because of the lack of an operational Titan II pad at the
Cape, I would think that Clementine's going to have to go up from
Vandenberg.  There were Titan II pads at the Cape once, as witness
the Gemini missions, but they're all decommissioned and rotting.
--
C++ is the best example of second-system| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
effect since OS/360.                    |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1993 20:29:58 GMT
From: Bill Goffe <[e-mail]>
Subject: SSTO news
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

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

[material deleted]

>If you want to help keep Delta Clipper alive, please write to each of
>the following people and ask for full funding of the SDIO SSRT program.

>1. President Bill Clinton,1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington DC 20500

>2. Vice President Al Gore, Office of the Vice President, Old Executive Office
>Building, Washington DC 20501.  In addition, send a letter to Gore's Senate
>office (not many write there so it has more impact) at: Vice President Al Gore,
>S-212, Washington DC 20510.

>3. Secretary Less Aspin, [etc.]
              ^^^^
Typo. It's Les. If you're writing someone and asking for money, you might as
well spell their name correctly...

No flames please; I'm one of the wost spellers/proofreaders I know. I can
tell you about the time I misspelled shift in front of 100 students...

Bill Goffe
[e-mail]

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End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 170
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