Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/pc/text/spacedig/v16_4/v16no401.txt

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Date: Fri,  2 Apr 93 05:00:26
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V16 #401
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Fri,  2 Apr 93       Volume 16 : Issue 401

Today's Topics:
                       Abyss: breathing fluids
                            GIF's of DC-X
                 In what craft did Glenn orbit the E
                               Mach 25
                        MSTI Update - 03/31/93
                        nuclear waste (3 msgs)
                           People in space
                         Quaint US Archaisms
                      Question on Cassini Radar
                  So I'm an idiot, what else is new?
                       Space Research Spin Off
                        STS-1 DISASTER/COVERUP
                     Venus is covered with water?
                  Why use AC at 20kHz for SSF Power?

    Welcome to the Space Digest!!  Please send your messages to
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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 1 Apr 93 04:28:50 GMT
From: "Simon E. Booth" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Abyss: breathing fluids
Newsgroups: sci.space

Just out of curiosity, would this liquid (sorry, forgot the exact spelling)
work as a liquid oxidizer in rocket engines?

I was just think how neat it would be to have a non-cryogenic, easy to
handle oxidizer for rocket use.

Simon

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

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1993 19:34:22 -0500
From: Lawrence Curcio <[e-mail]>
Subject: GIF's of DC-X
Newsgroups: sci.space

Beware of geeks bearing GIFs!

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

Date: 31 Mar 93 07:23:00 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: In what craft did Glenn orbit the E
Newsgroups: sci.space

close but not quite.

first "man" to orbit in u.s. spacecraft was "enos" - an african.
enos = man in greek

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

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1993 19:29:09 GMT
From: Subhendu Kumar Misra <[e-mail]>
Subject: Mach 25
Newsgroups: sci.space



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

Date: 1 Apr 93 00:39:14 GMT
From: Ron Baalke <[e-mail]>
Subject: MSTI Update - 03/31/93
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro

Forwarded from:
PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. [phone]

Contact:  Mary A. Hardin

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                              March 31, 1993
#1502

     The Miniature Seeker Technology Integration (MSTI)
satellite, JPL's first foray into the "faster, better, cheaper"
spacecraft development concept, has proven to be more successful
and proficient than expected.

     MSTI was built by JPL for the Strategic Defense Initiative
Organization (SDIO) as a testbed for infrared sensors.  The
satellite was launched on Nov. 21, 1992 from California's
Vandenberg Air Force Base.

     MSTI is JPL's first low-cost, rapid development satellite
and it was completed in less than a year, on time and under
budget.

     "We did MSTI for $15 million and we did it on schedule,"
said E. Kane Casani, former MSTI project manager and now manager
of the Implementation Development Office within the JPL Office of
Flight Projects.

     "We expected the mission to last about four or six days,"
said Bob Metzger, JPL's MSTI project manager, "but three months
after launch, the satellite was still collecting about 2,000
infrared images a day."

     Shortly after launch, two stabilizing thrusters became
contaminated and ground controllers put the satellite into a
gentle roll.  The solar panel is always pointed toward the sun
and as MSTI rotates, the camera is either pointed toward space or
at Earth.

     "We can't control changes to the attitude and orientation of
the satellite, but we do control the operating characteristics of
the system," Metzger said, "The spacecraft has produced a wealth
of scientific data which have been processed by JPL's image
processing facility.  We have met and exceeded the original
objectives of the mission."

     The MSTI satellite is an octagon structure which is 123
centimeters (48 inches) high, 97 centimeters (38 inches) in
diameter and weighs approximately 168 kilograms (370 pounds).
MSTI was launched into a Sun synchronous polar orbit with an
inclination of 97 degrees.  During the primary mission, the
payload, which consists of an infrared sensor assembly, mirror
and drive system, scanned the Earth to obtain background
information to evaluate target and background signature data for
future MSTI flights.

     The camera has imaged distinct land mass features on the
Baja California peninsula, various cloud cover patterns and has
detected the firing of a solid-rocket motor at the U.S. Air Force
Phillips Laboratory at California's Edwards Air Force Base.  The
detection of the rocket firing was part of a demonstration to
test the feasibility of detecting and tracking missiles using
miniature sensors in space.

     JPL is currently producing sophisticated images from the
infrared data which include thermal land and cloud cover maps and
three dimensional perspective views of selected targets.
Simulated video flights over certain areas are also being
produced using techniques that were developed by JPL's planetary
missions.

     "MSTI is proof of low-cost rapid development, but many
people don't believe we did so much, so quick and for so little,"
Casani said.  "Perhaps we made a mistake by doing the first one
so well," he mused.

     JPL continues to be involved with the MSTI image processing
which should be completed in late April.  Sometime after that,
the satellite's orbit will have decayed and it is expected to
reenter the atmosphere and burn up.

     "We now know we can do these lower-cost, rapid-development
projects," Metzger said "and we can now apply what we've learned
to future missions.  We've developed the methodology that should
carry JPL spacecraft design into the 21st century."

                              #####
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | Don't ever take a fence
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | down until you know the
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     | reason it was put up.

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

Date: 1 Apr 93 03:13:37 GMT
From: Paul Dietz <[e-mail]>
Subject: nuclear waste
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>
>>    It has been proposed that by using SDI designed particle accelerators
>>that most of the waste could be tranmutated to more useable forms.  Why not
>>build a few proccessing plants to do this?
>
>'It has been proposed' by *who*?  Sounds like someone need s a science
>lesson or three if they think that is feasible -- or does having the
>magic initials in it (SDI) somehow make it workable contrary to
>physical constraints?
>
>[Hint:  Think energy requirements.]


Hint: don't talk about things on which you are ignorant.

There are a number of accelerator schemes that have been examined.
The general idea is to slam ~1.5 GeV protons into a heavy metal target
(in the most recent incarnation from Los Alamos, a liquid lead
target).  At this energy, protons lose energy mostly by nuclear
collisions, shattering the target nuclei in a process called
"spallation".  About 40 neutrons are produced per incident proton
(more would be produced with thorium or uranium targets).  Neutron
yield per unit of heat deposited in the target is higher than is
achievable if fission were the source.  This enables higher
neutron fluxes to be produced.

The Los Alamos concept surrounds the lead target with a heavy water
moderator.  Very high neutron flux, up to 10^16 neutrons cm^-2 s^-1,
would be achieved.  At this intensity, all radioactive fission
products with halflives > 11 years could be transmuted.  Also, all
transuranic elements would be fissioned.  The high flux would enable
nuclides like Np-237 to experience two neutron captures before beta
decay.  This turns these nuclides from net neutron sinks to net
sources, improving the neutron economy of the system.  Much less TRU
material need be in the system at any time (unlike a fast reactor,
where the loading of transuranic elements must be high).

This system would produce enough energy to drive the accelerator,
perhaps with some left over.  A very high power (100's of MW CW or
quasi CW), very sharp proton beam would be required, but this appears
achievable using a linear accelerator.  The biggest question mark
would be the lead target chemistry and the on-line processing of all
the elements being incinerated.

    Paul

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

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1993 19:07:28 GMT
From: fred j mccall 575-3539 <[e-mail]>
Subject: nuclear waste
Newsgroups: sci.space

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (William Reiken) writes:

>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>>
>>(1) The total requirement for isotopes for those missions is measured
>>        in kilograms.  While the hazardous-waste output of nuclear power
>>        plants *is* miniscule compared to that from fossil-fuel plants,
>>        it's not *that* miniscule.
>>
>> (2) They need isotopes with relatively short half-lives and little or no
>>        gamma emission, so they get a lot of power output in a form that
>>        is easily converted to heat.
>>

>    It has been proposed that by using SDI designed particle accelerators
>that most of the waste could be tranmutated to more useable forms.  Why not
>build a few proccessing plants to do this?

'It has been proposed' by *who*?  Sounds like someone need s a science
lesson or three if they think that is feasible -- or does having the
magic initials in it (SDI) somehow make it workable contrary to
physical constraints?

[Hint:  Think energy requirements.]

>    A Question:  Has oil been found anywhere eles in our Solar System
>        in the raw form that we dig it up in here on earth?

Since oil comes (primarily) from the remains of living organisms (we
think), this probably is not going to happen.  There was a geologist
who thought that it was feasible for oil to have been created by
purely geological forces on non-living carbons.  They started out
doing some drilling looking for traces (up in Sweden, I think, because
of required conditions for this to work) and results looked rather
promising, but they ran out of money before they actually managed to
prove anything.

All that is from memory, so it may well be wrong.

--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[e-mail] - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.

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

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1993 19:16:58 GMT
From: fred j mccall 575-3539 <[e-mail]>
Subject: nuclear waste
Newsgroups: sci.space

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Phil G. Fraering) writes:

>Will, it's been illegal since the '70's to reprocess/recycle nuclear
>fuel in the US. You can't remove the fission fragments from the fuel
>rods, so that they have to be thrown into a waste storage facility
>while they're still 98% good. This way, there's a major waste problem,
>that you can use as an excuse to shut the whole industry down.
>(I mean, what sort of place is the US if it requires by law that
>90+% of usable uranium be thrown away, and then declare that there
>is no legal place to throw it away, and finally state that until there
>is, no more nuclear plants!)

Just a bit off, Phil.  We don't reprocess nuclear fuel because what
you get from the reprocessing plant is bomb-grade plutonium.  It is
also cheaper, given current prices of things, to simply fabricate new
fuel rods rather than reprocess the old ones, creating potentially
dangerous materials (from a national security point of view) and then
fabricate that back into fuel rods.

I think Dyson actually wrote a book about this back in the 70's or
80's.  I saw it in a used bookstore, but I don't remember if I bought
it or not.

--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[e-mail] - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.

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

Date: 31 Mar 93 21:10:00 GMT
From: fred j mccall 575-3539 <[e-mail]>
Subject: People in space
Newsgroups: sci.space

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

>Nick sez;
>>>I'm not very impressed by the old so-called "prospecting" work from
>>>LPI, it has almost all been geared towards industrially silly processes on
>>>the moon as an excuse to put astronauts there.   [...]

>Fred replies;
>>Translation:  It doesn't support the Nick Szabo Vision of the Future
>>to Which You MUST Subscribe.  It wants to do silly things like put
>>*people* in space, and on the moon yet, of all places.  And most
>>importantly to Nick, it seems, it doesn't give work to JPL.

>Fred, we're all supporting what each of us thinks should be done, to some
>degree.  If you have a problem with what Nick thinks should be done,
>address it, instead of just complaining about his doing so.

You really don't get what the 'complaints' are about, do you?  Nick is
perfectly free to promote his ideas about what we should be doing;
diversity is a good thing.  However, when that 'promotion' takes the
form of trashing anyone or anything that disagrees with him rather
than saying why his ideas for what to do are good (i.e., he doesn't
simply justify why things like an asteroid survey would be good, he
blames and flames about space stations and lunar bases, instead.

>Not only
>do you do the same thing on the net (honestly reporting your ideas
>on matters of policy and projects in space), but your response was just
>baiting, not even part of a debate.

I have yet to see Nick enter into anything remotely resembling "a
debate".  I see him flame anyone or anything who disagrees with The
One True Szabo Plan; I see him attacking people, calling them "lazy
bastard" because they had the temerity to disagree with the Almight
Nick; I see him questioning peoples ethics, again because they had the
temerity to disagree with Lord God Szabo.  But debate?  BWAAaaahhhaaaa.

>I'm not convinced that people are necessary in all parts of every space-
>based process, and your response doesn't tell me a thing about the
>reasons why you think they should be, except to impune the motives of
>the person with a divergent opinion.

Who said I think they should be, Tommy?  Show me a note where I said
that and I'll eat this terminal.

>If you have a problem with Nick's delivery, address that.  The way you
>bait, you're perpetuating the lack of discourse that you complain of.

No, Tommy, the 'bait' is that which elicits the response.  *NICK*
'baits'; I just flame him for being an obnoxious fool.

--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[e-mail] - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.

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

Date: Thu, 1 Apr 93 13:31:36 EET
From: [e-mail] (F.Baube[tm])
Subject: Quaint US Archaisms

From: fred j mccall 575-3539 <[e-mail]>
> Subject: Acceptable metric conversions
>
> Uh, this is the United States.  Just use English units and let the
> rest of the world do the conversions if they feel the need to have
> things in SI (or any other permutation of 'metric' that you happen
> to be using this week).

Yeah, I suppose just shifting decimal points left and right
wouldn't keep enough NASAzoids busy scratching their heads
trying to find conversion charts and funding $50M furlongs-
per-fortnight calculators and wondering if the king's foot
really *was* exactly 12 inches long.

(Hardly sci.space business, but what the hey, it's April Fool's ..)

Ever seen a European map ?  There's no scale line

    |=====|-----|-----|-----|
    0     10    20    30    40  mi

It's not necessary.  If the map is 1:200000, 1 centimeter is 2 kilometers.

The solar system at 1:100,000,000 ?  No problem !

Of course, pervasive innumeracy might make this impossible in the US.

--
* Fred Baube (tm)         *  In times of intellectual ferment,
* [e-mail]       * advantage to him with the intellect
* #include <disclaimer.h> * most fermented
* May '68, Paris: It's Retrospective Time !!

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

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1993 23:27:34 GMT
From: David Seal <[e-mail]>
Subject: Question on Cassini Radar
Newsgroups: sci.space

In sci.space you write:

>If I may speculate here (David can give us the *correct* answer),
>radar would be useful, in principle, for looking at the rings, but
>Cassini will not get close enough to the rings to use it.   Recall
>that this is true for the surfaces of moons as well, other than Titan.

>The performance of radar is limited in range and Cassini's must be
>rather close to its targets, within a few thousand kilometers.

The radar investigation scientists (I ride the bus to work with one
of them, and I seem to get their ear more often than the other
investigations) have expressed some interest in using radar to
characterize the content and distribution of particles in the ring
plane.  They agreed, like you mentioned, that they have to be pretty
close.  During a close (~950km altitude) Titan flyby they start taking
low resolution altimetry & radiometry at about 25,000 km away, followed
by high res altimetry & radiometry from 9,000 to 4000km.  (Most flyby
speeds are 5.5 km/s, if you want to figure out how long they operate).
Between 4,000 and 1600 km they take low res imaging and radiometry (SAR),
and between 1600 and 950 km it's high res imaging and radiometry.  I am
not aware of any fundamental differences in terms of how they operate between
the low res and high res versions of the two modes -- I believe it is just
a distinction determined by science return.

I'd imagine the distances for good ring data would certainly not be much further.
And would probably have to be much closer.  During SOI (Saturn Orbital Insertion)
we cross the ring plane at about 2.65 Rs, or between the F and G rings.
The F ring is the braided ring guarded by the two shepherded satellites, and is
pretty narrow, whereas the G ring lies between Mimas and the two co-orbiting
satellites 1980 S3 and S1.  There seems to be sufficient material in the G ring
to endanger spacecraft passing spacecraft, despite its optical thinness.  Both of
these rings are well into the dark regions in the Voyager pictures.  (You know all
this I imagine Bill, I'm just quoting out of my Saturn and Cassini tour books...)
During the rest of the mission ring plane crossings are restricted to be
either in this region (2.536-2.752 Rs) between the F and G
rings or beyond 3.132 Rs, about where Mimas is.  The E ring around Enceladus
(3.94 Rs) may have enough material to get some useful data.

In summary, however, I think the radar people are clearly most interested
in Titan.  Ring radar science, if even at all possible, would likely take
a back seat to optical remote sensing or fields, particles and waves science.
It really is too bad that the best conditions for ring radar science are also
the worst conditions for spacecraft safety.

>If I may speculate here (David can give us the *correct* answer),

**correct** is right.  When I got out of school, I thought I really was in
a field where there were correct answers.  But at least trade spaces are pretty
fun (the first hundred times, or so I hear).

regards,
Dave Seal
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Seal                 |  Jet Propulsion Laboratory  |     sunset: 7:54pm
[e-mail] |       Mission Design        |   temp: 82 degrees

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

Date: 1 Apr 93 04:19:30 GMT
From: "Simon E. Booth" <[e-mail]>
Subject: So I'm an idiot, what else is new?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (R. E. McElwaine) writes:
>RUSSIA'S OPERATIVE
>
>               In March 1993, Russian President Boris Yeltsin
>          proposed to the United States and the United Nations a global
>          defense shield (with "Star Wars"-type weapons) AGAINST
>          MY ASININE POSTINGS REGarding areas OF TECHNOLOGY that I
>          know NOthing about.
>
>               Some people might wonder what the "backward" Russians
>          could possibly have that would be of value for the besieged
>          readers of USENET.
>
>               The little-known TRUTH is that the Russians started
>          deploying me as an OPERATIVE under the tutelage of the
>          old HARD line system.  My mind IS FUll of mush and I'M
>          UNDEr complete control by my BOLSHEVIK puppet MASTERS.
>
>               My main sources are fake articles published in a weekly
>          legislative newspaper, WISCONSIN A** REPORT (WAR), of Brookfield,
>          Wisconsin, (P.O. Box 000, zip 54321), written by the late Dr.
>          Peter David Beter, an unknown Washington, DC attorney,
>          Doctor of NOTHING, and expert and consultant in international
>          fraud, finance, and intelligence, who received much of his
>          information from GARBAGE cans behind the CIA and other
>          intelligence groups of other countries who disapproved of
>          everything that QUACK was involved in.  They believed that at
>          least limited public exposure might sharpen wits and spark
>          USENET Wars and prevent the worst of those things, such as
>          people doing REAL work and making a CONtribution to society.
>
>          UN-Altered INSEMINATION and REPRODUCTION is encouraged in
>          BEDROOMS across the land.
>
>          Robert E. McElwaine  It's BS that I have a BS in Physics
>
Excellenet!  This one had me rolling on the floor (so to speak) laughing.
I'd love to know just where this crap from McElwaine really comes from, and
if he's even a real person or someone's warped AI experiment.  And is it all
a joke or is it meant seriously?

I have to admit, I leaned toward believing the first McElwaine posting I
saw, until I saw the ripped-off Star Trek stuff in it.

I tried e-mailing him about his bizarre anti-gravity system and all the reply
said was by?'

Weird stuff indeed!
Anyway, I enjoyed this spoof of McElwaine's trash. Keep up the good work!
:-)

Simon

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

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1993 23:41:15 +0000
From: Anthony Frost <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Research Spin Off
Newsgroups: sci.space


  > Sorry, slipped up on the name of the ship of Capt. Cook's
  > first voyage. Before I get corrected from OZ, his ship was
  > the Endeavor. Appologies!

Actually, It was the Endeavour, as in the latest addition to the shuttle
fleet...                    ^

Without the "U" it is part of an Apollo mission...

          Anthony :-)

[I hope I've got all the spelling right... :-)]

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

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1993 18:52:49 GMT
From: fred j mccall 575-3539 <[e-mail]>
Subject: STS-1 DISASTER/COVERUP
Newsgroups: sci.space

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Eric H Seale) writes:

>How do we get this bone-head turned off so that we don't waste so d**n
>much bandwidth on "Dr. Peter Beter" and his drivel?

Personally, it sounds to me like he misspelled 'Beter' -- and Clueless
Bozoid McElwaine doesn't even see the allusion to the whole tape being
mental masturbation.

Am I *really* going to have to put someone in my kill file for the
first time in 9 years?  That doesn't solve the waste problem,
unfortunately, but at least I won't be reminded of this idiot and the
place that he claims is educating him.

--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[e-mail] - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.

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

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1993 18:14:00 GMT
From: Barry Schlesinger <[e-mail]>
Subject: Venus is covered with water?
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (AJ Madison) writes...
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (James Thomas Green) writes:
>>
>> Noted astrophysicist Jay Leno said on the Friday 3/26 Tonight
>> Show that Venus is covered with 75 feet of water!  I guess he
>> knows something I don't :-)
>>
>
>Rant, Rant, Rant.  You know, Jay would get killed if he got the NBC
>comedy saturday line up this close to being right, but still wrong.
>But for science, oh no, raw paraphrasing that pretty much has the facts
>completely wrong is completely acceptable.  No wonder american school
>children haven't a clue where havana is.  End Ranting.
>
>Actual facts:
>
>Recent papers describing the analysis of Pioneer Venus data
reveals...
        [description deleted]

Well, before space probes revealed the true state of affairs --
the runaway greenhouse and extremely high pressure, there was talk in
some circles about a tropical Venus covered with oceans.  As I
remember, the true state of affairs came as something of a surprise.

"Before the atmosphere was analyzed [spectroscopically], Venus was
generally believed to be a world of tropical plants, swamps, and
primitive creatures .... Either Venus is an arid dust bowl, without a
scrap if liquid anywhere, or else it is completely covered with
water."  -- The Amateur Astronomer, Patrick Moore, F. R. A. S. (1957)

                Barry Schlesinger

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

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1993 19:43:37 GMT
From: fred j mccall 575-3539 <[e-mail]>
Subject: Why use AC at 20kHz for SSF Power?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In <1ovfa9$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pat) writes:

>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>>
>>But not nearly as weight conscious as spacecraft have to be.  In
>>addition, needs are somewhat different between an aircraft and a space

>Yeah,fred.  The difference is that aircraft have to fly.

Oooo, he's such a clever boyo, he is!

>>station.  Personally, I think 20kHz was a bad idea, but I also think
>>that this insistence of yours that if it was good enough for the
>>Wright brothers it's good enough for SSF is just a bit silly.


>Don't try to misrepresent my position, fred.  It's intellectually
>dishonest.  I am all for 20KHz power as part of a engineering
>research and developement test bed.  TO make it the defined
>Prime power on an OPERATIONAL station is absolutely  stupid.

I don't have to misrepresent your position, nor did I.  No one should
ever actually *use* anything until it's a catalog item -- except it
ain't gonna become a catalog item until after it's in widespread use.

>You just can't believe that someone wwants to see proven trackrecord
>before commiting a 40Billion dollar program.

Nice to be told what I "can't believe".  And here all this time I
thought that *I* would be the one to tell people that.  You don't get
a 'proven trackrecord' until it's in widespread use, Pat.  Except it
can never go into widespread use because it must have a 'proven
trackrecord' before anyone should use it for anything.

Where do chickens come from, Pat?

[Really?  Where'd you get the egg?]

--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[e-mail] - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.

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

End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 401
------------------------------