Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/pc/text/spacedig/v16_4/v16no424.txt

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Date: Tue,  6 Apr 93 05:24:02
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V16 #424
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Tue,  6 Apr 93       Volume 16 : Issue 424

Today's Topics:
             Alaska Pipeline and Space Station! (2 msgs)
              Blow up space station, easy way to do it.
                       Celebrate Liberty! 1993
               Comet in Temporary Orbit Around Jupiter?
                               El Sets
                           Funding for NASA
            Griffin / Office of Exploration: RIP (2 msgs)
        HLV for Fred (was Re: Prefab Space Station?) (2 msgs)
                     How do they ignite the SSME?
         Long Island (was Why use AC at 20kHz for SSF power)
                            M-81 Supernova
                         Nasa (dis)incentives
                            nuclear waste
                          PBS space special
                       Space Research Spin Off
                      Sr-71 in propoganda films?
                  Status of U.S./Soviet Cooperation
          Vulcan? (No, not the guy with the ears!) (2 msgs)
             What if the USSR had reached the Moon first?

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Date: 5 Apr 1993 17:20:51 -0400
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: Alaska Pipeline and Space Station!
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
|
|I think this would be a great way to build it, but unfortunately
|current spending rules don't permit it to be workable.  For this to
|work it would be necessary for the government to guarantee a certain
|minimum amount of business in order to sufficiently reduce the risk
|enough to make this attractive to a private firm.  Since they
|generally can't allocate money except one year at a time, the
|government can't provide such a tenant guarantee.


Fred.

    Try reading a bit.  THe government does lots of multi year
contracts with Penalty for cancellation clauses.  They just like to be
damn sure they know what they are doing before they sign a multi year
contract.   THe reason they aren't cutting defense spending as much
as they would like is the Reagan administration signed enough
Multi year contracts,  that it's now cheaper to just finish them out.

Look at SSF.  THis years funding is 2.2 Billion,  1.8 of which will
cover penalty clauses, due to the re-design.

pat

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

Date: 5 Apr 93 18:06:00 PST
From: "RWTMS2::MUNIZB" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Alaska Pipeline and Space Station!

on Date: 01 Apr 93 18:03:12 GMT, Ralph Buttigieg <[e-mail]>
writes:
/Why can't the government just be a tennant? Private commercial concerns
/could just build a space station system and charge rent to the government
/financed researchers wanting to use it.

I believe that this was the thought behind the Industrial Space Facility.  I
don't remember all the details, but I think Space Services (?) wanted NASA to
sign an anchor tenancy deal in order to help secure some venture capital but
NASA didn't like the deal.  (I'm sure I'll hear about it if I'm wrong!)

Disclaimer: Opinions stated are solely my own (unless I change my mind).
Ben Muniz     [e-mail]    w(818)586-3578
Space Station Freedom:Rocketdyne/Rockwell:Structural Loads and Dynamics
   "Man will not fly for fifty years": Wilbur to Orville Wright, 1901

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

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1993 02:45:27 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Blow up space station, easy way to do it.
Newsgroups: sci.space

This might a real wierd idea or maybe not..

I have seen where people have blown up ballons then sprayed material into them
that then drys and makes hard walls...

Why not do the same thing for a space station..

Fly up the docking rings and baloon materials and such, blow up the baloons,
spin then around (I know a problem in micro gravity) let them dry/cure/harden?
and cut a hole for the docking/attaching ring and bingo a space station..

Of course the ballons would have to be foil covered or someother radiation
protective covering/heat shield(?) and the material used to make the wals would
have to meet the out gasing and other specs or atleast the paint/covering of
the inner wall would have to be human safe.. Maybe a special congrete or maybe
the same material as makes caplets but with some changes (saw where someone
instea dof water put beer in the caplet mixture, got a mix that was just as
strong as congret but easier to carry around and such..)

Sorry for any spelling errors, I missed school today.. (grin)..

Why musta  space station be so difficult?? why must we have girders? why be
confined to earth based ideas, lets think new ideas, after all space is not
earth, why be limited by earth based ideas??

==
Michael Adams, [e-mail] -- I'm not high, just jacked
going crazy in Nome Alaska, break up is here..

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

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1993 02:38:13 GMT
From: "Phil G. Fraering" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Celebrate Liberty! 1993
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,sci.space

Are you people posting this to sci.space because you think
that the Libertarians are inherently spacy or something?


--
Phil Fraering         |"Seems like every day we find out all sorts of stuff.
[e-mail]|Like how the ancient Mayans had televison." Repo Man

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

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1993 02:26:32 GMT
From: "Phil G. Fraering" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Comet in Temporary Orbit Around Jupiter?
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary

[e-mail] (Rob Unverzagt) writes:

>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ron Baalke) writes:
>> According the IAU Circular #5744, Comet Shoemaker-Levy 1993e, may be
>> temporarily in orbit around Jupiter.  The comet had apparently made a
>> close flyby of Jupiter sometime in 1992 resulting in the breakup of the
>> comet.  Attempts to determine the comet's orbit has been complicated by
>> the near impossibility of measuring the comet's center of mass.
>>

>Am I missing something -- what does knowing the comet's center
>of mass do for you in orbit determination?

>Shag

I'm not sure, but it almost sounds like they can't figure out where the
_nucleus_ is within the coma. If they're off by a couple hundred
miles, well, you can imagine the rest...

--
Phil Fraering         |"Seems like every day we find out all sorts of stuff.
[e-mail]|Like how the ancient Mayans had televison." Repo Man

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

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 93 14:54:30 GMT
From: Peter Shread <[e-mail]>
Subject: El Sets
Newsgroups: sci.space

I am looking for a source of orbital element sets
other than UAF/Space Command.  I believe there is
one on CompuServe.  Please let me know what other
possible sources there are and how I can reach
them.  Thanks much.

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

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1993 01:28:25 GMT
From: Sean Michael Gallagher <[e-mail]>
Subject: Funding for NASA
Newsgroups: sci.space

I am doing a political science paper on the funding of NASA and pork-barrel
politics.  I would be interested in information about funding practices and
histories of some of the major programs (Apollo, STS, SSF, etc) and the
funding of SSTO to contrast.  Could someone please recommend some sources
that would be useful?  Thank you.
--
Sean Gallagher
[e-mail]

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

Date: 5 Apr 93 18:54:17
From: Brian Yamauchi <[e-mail]>
Subject: Griffin / Office of Exploration: RIP
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

Any comments on the absorbtion of the Office of Exploration into the
Office of Space Sciences and the reassignment of Griffin to the "Chief
Engineer" position?  Is this just a meaningless administrative
shuffle, or does this bode ill for SEI?

In my opinion, this seems like a Bad Thing, at least on the surface.
Griffin seemed to be someone who was actually interested in getting
things done, and who was willing to look an innovative approaches to
getting things done faster, better, and cheaper.  It's unclear to me
whether he will be able to do this at his new position.

Does anyone know what his new duties will be?
--
_______________________________________________________________________________

Brian Yamauchi            Case Western Reserve University
[e-mail]    Department of Computer Engineering and Science
_______________________________________________________________________________

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

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1993 02:29:07 GMT
From: "Phil G. Fraering" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Griffin / Office of Exploration: RIP
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

[e-mail] (Brian Yamauchi) writes:

>Any comments on the absorbtion of the Office of Exploration into the
>Office of Space Sciences and the reassignment of Griffin to the "Chief
>Engineer" position?  Is this just a meaningless administrative
>shuffle, or does this bode ill for SEI?

>In my opinion, this seems like a Bad Thing, at least on the surface.
>Griffin seemed to be someone who was actually interested in getting
>things done, and who was willing to look an innovative approaches to
>getting things done faster, better, and cheaper.  It's unclear to me
>whether he will be able to do this at his new position.

>Does anyone know what his new duties will be?

First I've heard of it. Offhand:

Griffin is no longer an "office" head, so that's bad.

On the other hand:

Regress seemed to think: we can't fund anything by Griffin, because
that would mean (and we have the lies by the old hardliners about the
$ 400 billion mars mission to prove it) that we would be buying into a
mission to Mars that would cost 400 billion. Therefore there will be
no Artemis or 20 million dollar lunar orbiter et cetera...

They were killing Griffin's main program simply because some sycophants
somewhere had Congress beleivin that to do so would simply be to buy into
the same old stuff. Sorta like not giving aid to Yeltsin because he's
a communist hardliner.

At least now the sort of reforms Griffin was trying to bring forward
won't be trapped in their own little easily contained and defunded
ghetto. That Griffin is staying in some capacity is very very very
good. And if he brings something up, noone can say "why don't you go
back to the OSE where you belong" (and where he couldn't even get money
for design studies).
--
Phil Fraering         |"Seems like every day we find out all sorts of stuff.
[e-mail]|Like how the ancient Mayans had televison." Repo Man

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

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1993 20:47:34 GMT
From: Josh Hopkins <[e-mail]>
Subject: HLV for Fred (was Re: Prefab Space Station?)
Newsgroups: sci.space

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

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


>>Titan IV launches ain't cheap

>Granted. But that's because titan IV's are bought by the governemnt. Titan
>III is actually the cheapest way to put a pound in space of all US expendable
>launchers.

In that case it's rather ironic that they are doing so poorly on the commercial
market.  Is there a single Titan III on order?

--
Josh Hopkins                                          [e-mail]
          "Tout ce qu'un homme est capable d'imaginer, d'autres hommes
                     seront capable de la realiser"
             -Jules Verne

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

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1993 22:37:52 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: HLV for Fred (was Re: Prefab Space Station?)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Josh Hopkins) writes:
>>>Titan IV launches ain't cheap
>>Granted. But that's because titan IV's are bought by the governemnt. Titan
>>III is actually the cheapest way to put a pound in space of all US expendable
>>launchers.
>
>In that case it's rather ironic that they are doing so poorly on the commercial
>market.  Is there a single Titan III on order?

The problem with Commercial Titan is that MM has made little or no attempt
to market it.  They're basically happy with their government business and
don't want to have to learn how to sell commercially.

A secondary problem is that it is a bit big.  They'd need to go after
multi-satellite launches, a la Ariane, and that complicates the marketing
task quite significantly.

They also had some problems with launch facilities at just the wrong time
to get them started properly.  If memory serves, the pad used for the Mars
Observer launch had just come out of heavy refurbishment work that had
prevented launches from it for a year or so.

There have been a few CT launches.  Mars Observer was one of them.  So
was that stranded Intelsat, and at least one of its brothers that reached
orbit properly.
--
All work is one man's work.             | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
                    - Kipling           |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 5 Apr 93 18:11:00 PST
From: "RWTMS2::MUNIZB" <[e-mail]>
Subject: How do they ignite the SSME?

on Date: Sat, 3 Apr 1993 12:38:50 GMT, Paul Dietz <[e-mail]>
writes:

/in essence, holding a match under the nozzle, is just *nuts*.  One
/thing you absolutely must do in such an engine is to guarantee that
/the propellants ignite as soon as they mix, within milliseconds.  To
/do otherwise is to fill your engine with a high explosive mixture
/which, when it finally does ignite, blows everything to hell.

Definitely! In one of the reports of an early test conducted by Rocketdyne at
their Santa Susanna Field Lab ("the Hill" above the San Fernando and Simi
Valleys), the result of a hung start was described as "structural failure" of
the combustion chamber.  The inspection picture showed pumps with nothing below
, the CC had vaporized!  This was described in a class I took as a "typical
engineering understatement" :-)

Disclaimer: Opinions stated are solely my own (unless I change my mind).
Ben Muniz     [e-mail]    w(818)586-3578
Space Station Freedom:Rocketdyne/Rockwell:Structural Loads and Dynamics
   "Man will not fly for fifty years": Wilbur to Orville Wright, 1901

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

Date: 5 Apr 93 18:08:00 PST
From: "RWTMS2::MUNIZB" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Long Island (was Why use AC at 20kHz for SSF power)

on Date: Fri, 2 Apr 1993 23:19:46 GMT, Edmund Hack <arabia!hack> writes:

/In article <1pgdno$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pat) writes:
/>
/>I always thought GD's  Fighter plants were in Long Island.
/>
/No, Northrup has a plant on Long Island.

I don't think Northrup ever had a plant on Long Island.  The two main airframe
manufacturers there were (Fairchild)/Republic which closed its doors after the
T-46 cancellation, and Grumman (which is still hanging on last I time I called).
I think Sperry also started there.  If you're ever in the area check out the
Cradle of Aviation Museum at Mitchell field (now mostly parking lots behind the
Nassau Coliseum and the community college).  Good display of vehicles from Long
Island, including a LEM flight article.

Disclaimer: Opinions stated are solely my own (unless I change my mind).
Ben Muniz     [e-mail]    w(818)586-3578
Space Station Freedom:Rocketdyne/Rockwell:Structural Loads and Dynamics
   "Man will not fly for fifty years": Wilbur to Orville Wright, 1901

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

Date: Mon, 05 Apr 93 14:32:00 PDT
From: Dan Kelo <[e-mail]>
Subject: M-81 Supernova

How 'bout some more info on that alleged supernova in M-81?
I might just break out the scope for this one.
____________________________________________________
"No sir, I don't like it! "-- Mr. Horse
Dan Kelo     [e-mail]
____________________________________________________

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

Date: Mon, 05 Apr 93 20:00:41 EDT
From: Tom <[e-mail]>
Subject: Nasa (dis)incentives

[questions and issues WRT congress raised and discussed}

Dennis Replies;
>Now black when it is white is just white. Except that when black is called
>white money is put into the system in a study to find out just when it is
>justified to call black, white.  It is also apparant that when white is called
>black, just the opposite occurs. Now white is a color, but when white is
>called black, it calls into question the validity of the color spectrum.
...
>It is a given however that NASA nor the military, whose competence in
>differentating black from white is well known (remember the black and
>white paint on the Saturn V rocket?) That nothing will occur here either.
>When black and white are used by congress, who cares nothing for results,
>just more money for pork barrel jobs brought about by the black/white
>controversy....

Dennis, why must you always see things in black and white terms? :-)

-Tommy Mac
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tom McWilliams 517-355-2178 wk   \\ As the radius of vision increases,
[e-mail] 336-9591 hm \\ the circumference of mystery grows.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: 5 Apr 93 18:05:05 GMT
From: Paul Dietz <[e-mail]>
Subject: nuclear waste
Newsgroups: sci.space

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

>> The real reason why accelerator breeders or incinerators are not being
>> built is that there isn't any reason to do so.  Natural uranium is
>> still too cheap, and geological disposal of actinides looks
>> technically reasonable.
>>
>
>    November/December, 1987 page 21 - "Science and Technology in Japan".
>            Seawater Uranium Recovery Experiment
>    "The ground uranium reserves are estimated at about 3.6 million tons,
> and it is anticipated that the demand and supply balance will collapse by the
> end of the 20th century.  In Japan, a resources poor country, technological
> development are now under way to economically collect uranium dissolved in
> seawater.  The total quanity of uranium dissolved in seawater is estimated
> to be about 4.6 billion tons, a huge amount when compared with ground uranium
> reserves......."


I hate to pour cold water on this, but currently seawater extracted
uranium, even using the new, improved fiber absorbers from Japan, is
about 20 times more expensive than uranium on the spot market.
Uranium is *very* cheap right now, around $10/lb.  Right now, there
are mines closing because they can't compete with places like Cigar
Lake in Canada (where the ore is so rich they present safety hazards
to the mines, who work in shielded vehicles).  Plenty of other sources
(for example, uranium from phosphate processing) would come on line before
uranium reached $200/lb.

"Demand and supply balance will collapse" is nonsense.  Supply and
demand always balance; what changes is the price.  Is uranium going
to increase in price by a factor of 20 by the end of the century?
Not bloody likely.  New nuclear reactors are not being built

at a sufficient rate.

Uranium from seawater is interesting, but it's a long term project, or
a project that the Japanese might justify on grounds of
self-sufficiency.

    Paul F. Dietz
    [e-mail]

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

Date: 5 Apr 93 22:33:05 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: PBS space special
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Josh Hopkins) writes:
> [e-mail] (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes:
>
>>I am interested in the Net's reaction to last night's PBS special,
>>whose prosaic title "Living and Working in Space" concealed the
>>unorthodox sights and sounds within.  I've only watched a fraction of
>>the tape, so I'll reserve my opinion for now.


A friend of mine said "It is obvious that they went out, and interviewed
everybody who is anybody, but they didn't really care what those people
had to say.  I KNOW some of those people, and things were taken out of
the context that I KNOW they were speaking about."

Personally, I kept hitting the couch, and saying, "But thats not the REAL
problem."  Or, "AAARGH, we all know that it's not really going to work
THAT WAY."

And yes, I felt like it was fluffed up, and aimed at an audience no more
advanced than say 5th grade.

This is not to say that at this level, it would not be effective.  I think
that if it was aimed at this level, they did a good job.

However, if it was aimed at a more mature audience, it seems to me like
there was more that they could have done without getting any more technical
than they did.


        John.

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

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1993 02:19:59 GMT
From: "Phil G. Fraering" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Research Spin Off
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (Mary Shafer) writes:

>On 4 Apr 1993 20:31:10 -0400, [e-mail] (Pat) said:

>Pat> In article <[e-mail]>
>Pat> [e-mail] writes:
>>Question is can someone give me 10 examples of direct NASA/Space related
>>research that helped humanity in general? It will be interesting to see..

>Pat> TANG :-) Mylar I think.  I think they also pushed Hi Tech
>Pat> Composites for airframes.  Look at Fly by Wire.

>Swept wings--if you fly in airliners you've reaped the benefits.

Didn't one of the early jet fighters have these?
I also think the germans did some work on these in WWII.

>Winglets.  Area ruling.  Digital fly by wire.  Ride smoothing.

A lot of this was also done by the military...

>Microwave landing systems.  Supercritical wings.  General aviation
>air foils.

Weren't the first microwave landing systems from WWII too?

>--
>Mary Shafer  DoD #0362 KotFR NASA Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA
>[e-mail]                    Of course I don't speak for NASA
> "A MiG at your six is better than no MiG at all."  Unknown US fighter pilot

Egad! I'm disagreeing with Mary Shafer!
--
Phil Fraering         |"Seems like every day we find out all sorts of stuff.
[e-mail]|Like how the ancient Mayans had televison." Repo Man

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

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 93 22:06:10 GMT
From: Gregory Smith <[e-mail]>
Subject: Sr-71 in propoganda films?
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:

>In <1phv98$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pat) writes:


>>THe SR-71 stopped being a real secret by the mid 70's.
>>I had a friend in high school who had a poster with it's picture.

>It was known well before that.  I built a model of it sometime in the
>mid 60's, billed as YF-12A/SR-71.  The model was based on YF-12A specs
>and had a big radar in the nose and 8 AAMs in closed bays on the
>underside of the fuselage.  The description, even then, read "speeds
>in excess of Mach 3 at altitudes exceeding 80,000 feet."

L.B.J. publically announced the existance of the Blackbird program
in 1964.

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

Date: 31 Mar 93 15:46:56 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Status of U.S./Soviet Cooperation
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Matthew DeLuca) writes:
> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Matthew DeLuca) writes:
>>>There are a number of good reasons to work with the Soviets in space, but
>>>until the situation stabilizes over there, I seriously doubt any sane
>>>Western organization or government is going to put signifigant money into
>>>any joint projects.
>
>>"Let's wait and see" is a mistake; we should start small, to make it
>>clear that we aren't yet happy, but we should start now.
>
> The only kind of aid I see having any real effect on the situation over there
> is aid targeted at specific sectors of the economy that are in critically
> failing condition; food production and transportation, energy, housing, things
> like that, where the money has a direct effect on the people.  Giving money
> to Energia to build Szabo Space-Toasters likely won't have that effect.
> --

Large scale aid one of the things they need (Note: with an exchange rate of
several 100 roubles to the dollar even this is easier than it might at first
seem).

However, the high tech parts of the Russian economy urgently need direct aid to
stop the technology being lost completely. Joint projects, such as the
ESA-BAe-Molniya-Antonov (sp?) project studying developments of the Interim
HOTOL, announced in this months spaceflight, are probably the way to go.


--
================================================================================
Dave Clements, Oxford University Astrophysics Department
================================================================================
clements @ uk.ac.ox.vax            |  Umberto Eco is the *real* Comte de
dlc      @ uk.ac.ox.astro        |           Saint Germain...
================================================================================

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

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1993 22:17:33 GMT
From: Michael Moroney <[e-mail]>
Subject: Vulcan? (No, not the guy with the ears!)
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (Victor Laking) writes:

>Does anyone have any info on the apparent sightings of Vulcan?
>
>All that I know is that there were apparently two sightings at
>drastically different times of a small planet that was inside Mercury's
>orbit.  Beyond that, I have no other info.

>Does anyone know anything more specific?

>(Yes, this happened LONG before Star Trek and is apparently where they
>got the reference for the "guy with the ears".)

Yes, long before Star Trek.  Before Einstein, in fact.

Vulcan as a planet inside Mercury was hypothesized to explain a perturbation
of Mercury's orbit that could not be explained by the known planets.  But
Einstein's theory of relativity explained Mercury's motion, and analysis
of Mercury's motion now shows there are _not_ any planets inside its orbit.

-Mike

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

Date: 5 Apr 93 23:48:55 GMT
From: James Thomas Green <[e-mail]>
Subject: Vulcan?  (No, not the guy with the ears!)
Newsgroups: sci.space

>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Victor Laking) writes:
>>From: [e-mail] (Victor Laking)
>>Subject: Vulcan?  (No, not the guy with the ears!)
>>Date: Sun, 04 Apr 93 19:31:54 CDT
>>Does anyone have any info on the apparent sightings of Vulcan?
>>
>>All that I know is that there were apparently two sightings at
>>drastically different times of a small planet that was inside Mercury's
>>orbit.  Beyond that, I have no other info.
>>
>>Does anyone know anything more specific?
>>

As I heard the story, before Albert came up the the theory
o'relativity and warped space, nobody could account for
Mercury's orbit.  It ran a little fast (I think) for simple
Newtonian physics.  With the success in finding Neptune to
explain the odd movments of Uranus, it was postulated that there
might be another inner planet to explain Mercury's orbit.

It's unlikely anything bigger than an asteroid is closer to the
sun than Mercury.  I'm sure we would have spotted it by now.
Perhaps some professionals can confirm that.


/~~~(-: James T. Green :-)~~~~(-: [e-mail] :-)~~~\
| Heaven, n.:                                                   |
|   A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk |
|   of their own personal affairs, and the good listen with     |
|   attention while you expound your own.                       |
|                  Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"     |

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

Date: 6 Apr 93 02:00:21 GMT
From: James Thomas Green <[e-mail]>
Subject: What if the USSR had reached the Moon first?
Newsgroups: alt.history.what-if,sci.space

Suppose the Soviets had managed to get their moon rocket working
and had made it first.  They could have beaten us if either:

* Their rocket hadn't blown up on the pad thus setting them back,

and/or

* A Saturn V went boom.

If they had beaten us, I speculate that the US would have gone
head and done some landings, but we also would have been more
determined to set up a base (both in Earth Orbit and on the
Moon).  Whether or not we would be on Mars by now would depend
upon whether the Soviets tried to go.  Setting up a lunar base
would have stretched the budgets of both nations and I think
that the military value of a lunar base would outweigh the value
of going to Mars (at least in the short run).  Thus we would
have concentrated on the moon.


/~~~(-: James T. Green :-)~~~~(-: [e-mail] :-)~~~\
| "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving    |
| the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the     |
| Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."            |
|                  <John F. Kennedy; May 25, 1961>         |

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

End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 424
------------------------------