Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/pc/text/spacedig/v16_4/v16no435.txt

Internet Message Format | 1993-07-13 | 31KB

Date: Thu,  8 Apr 93 05:18:32
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V16 #435
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Thu,  8 Apr 93       Volume 16 : Issue 435

Today's Topics:
                  Alaska Pipeline and Space Station!
                             Biosphere II
          Comet in Temporary Orbit Around Jupiter? (2 msgs)
     Hey, it's over (was Re: International Space Year Compendium)
          Hoosier eccentricity (was Re: Quaint US Archaisms)
         Inflateble Space Station! was blow up space station.
                      interested in microrovers
              Irish Re-entry or AURORA: SOLVED (2 msgs)
          Louisiana ASteroid resources conference. (2 msgs)
                     MACH 25 landing site bases?
                     Need info on a Voyager probe
                  Portable Small Ground Station?dir
                      Shuttle-C cost estimating
                          space food sticks
                          SR-71 Replacement?
               Washington Post Article on SSF Redesign
             What if the USSR had reached the Moon first?

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

Date: 7 Apr 1993 17:49:27 -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 don't have to "try reading a bit", Pat.  I *work* as a government
|contractor and know what the rules are like.  Yes, they sign some
|(damned few -- which is why everyone is always having to go to
|Washington to see about next week's funding) multi-year contracts;

Well, don't go writing about how it's impossible to get multi-year funding
proposals.  Write about how it is difficult and rare.  And having
worked on several multi-year projects,  i can see why the government
doesn't like them.   THese were military projects that were screwed
from word one,  But instead, they went till the money ran out.
The taxpayers took it in the shorts.  Multi year,  means some form of
congressional review.


|they also aren't willing to include sufficient cancellation penalties
|when they *do* decide to cut the multi-year contract and not pay on it
|(which can happen arbitrarily at any time, no matter what previous
|plans were) to make the risk acceptable of something like putting up a

That's  kinda dependent on where you make the analysis.
Navy killed the A-12.  They claim default and want  1.5 billion back.

The Contractors claim it was a convenience  cancellation  and want
the whole 12 Billion.   It's going to make a lot of lawyers
rich.

The C-17 may get cancelled.  MacDac  will get almost $1 Billion, in
penalty money,  which will bail them out of  internal over-runs.
But then they lose the revenue from the production contract which is
18 Billion dollars over 12 years.   Short term win,  long term lose.

Penalty clauses really vary.  My dad,  had a contract killed,  and it was
a $300,000 contract.   $150, was  already paid on progress,
and the penalty clause was for $150 K.   The government CO's were
real pissed when they  read the fine print.

It really requires a contractor to fight for their own interest.
I guess TI isn't able to do that as well.

|
|I'd like a source for that statement about "the reason they aren't
|cutting defense spending as much as they would like"; I just don't buy

That was an article in the Post about 3 years ago,  when we won the
cold war.  Considering we had signed contracts for the Stealth
Bomber,  Trident missile boats,  and 2 carriers  still waiting,
I could see the point.   IT's only now,  4 years after the russians
had their "Going out of Business Sale"  that we are starting to
see large defense cuts.



|it. The other thing I find a bit 'funny' about your posting, Pat, is
|that several other people answered the question pretty much the same
|way I did; mine is the one you comment (and incorrectly, I think) on.
|I think that says a lot.  You and Tommy should move in together.


Your article arrived here first.  Don't apply paranoid logic, you'll
sound like mcelwaine.;-)
a
Besides,  who says I'd like to live with anyone besides my cat.

pat

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

Date: Wed, 7 Apr 93 23:57:34 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Biosphere II
Newsgroups: sci.space

Bill,

Here are some more Biosphere II articles for your reading list.  If
you want some help with that FAQ let me know.

As one of those "critics" of it, I have to remind you that the
operators/organizers were a theater troupe before they started this
venture.  They all got their "scientific" degrees from an unaccredited
university in France that they founded and run.  But, some of the
people currently inside the structure are real science professionals
with degrees.  People like Ray Walford.

As for the science it may produce, they are going about it in an very
unusual manner which will probably not generate any useful data.
If they ever release any data.  (They have been very closed so far.)
Their approach is to throw all the organisms into a mostly closed
environment and see what happens, or what survives.  A good
scientific approach would be to take a simple ecology where we
understand the interactions between the organisms and then
increase the complexity slightly by adding another organism (one
variable).  That way we can say for sure that the perturbations in the
resulting system are due to the new organism.  With their approach
we won't know what interactions caused what perturbations because
there are too many variables.

As a publicity event for space, ecology and the environment, it is
unparalleled.  If you look at it in that way, it is a success.

Newspaper Articles:
"Visitors to a Small Planet: Earth, Meet Biosphere II", by Jim Robbins,
_New York Times_, Oct. 16, 1989.

"5 Days in a Self-Contained Imitation World", _New York Times_ Mar.
14, 1989.

"Biosphere II: Learning to manage natural ecosystems", by Nirmal
Ghosh, _The Times Of India_ Apr. 5, 1989.

"Biosphere II", by Kathleen A. Dyhr, _Space Frontier_, Jan1987, pg 6-
9.

"Not Your Average Terrarium", by Sharon Begley & Lynda Wright,
_Newsweek_ Jun. 1 1987. pg 60.

"Visit to a Tiny Planet: Within Glass Walls, Five Climates and 3,800
Species", by Seth Mydans, _New York Times_ Apr 30, 1990, pg C11.

"8 Pioneers Will Enter Their Own Little World", by Thomas H. Maugh
II, _Los Angeles Times_, Mar. 23, 1987.

Magazine Articles:
"Earth's First Visitors To Mars", by Gina Maranto, _Discover_ May
1987, pg 28-43.

"Building an ecosystem from scratch", by Mark Holman Turner,
_BioScience_, Mar. 1989, Vol. 39, #3, pg 147-150.

"Trouble In Paradise", by Roger H Ressmeyer, _Air & Space_ Dec.
1991, pg 55-65.

"An Insider's Look at Biosphere 2", by Ken Davidian, _Spacefaring
Gazette_ Apr. 1993, Vol 9, #2, pg 1.

"Scientific" Papers:
"Biosphere 2: Overview of System Performance During the First Nine
Months", by William F. Dempster, SAE Paper 921129, 22nd
International Conference on Environmental Systems, Jul. 13-16,
1992.

There is also an article in Omni in 1987(?).  I have many more
newspaper articles too.  Let me know if you want them.


Tim Stroup
Lockheed Missiles & Space Co.
Sunnyvale, CA
[e-mail]

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

Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1993 20:00:08 GMT
From: Anita Cochran <[e-mail]>
Subject: Comet in Temporary Orbit Around Jupiter?
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary

In article <[e-mail]>, [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?

Well, it is the center of mass which is in orbit around anything and normally
that is the cometary nucleus.  In normal situations, even though there
is a big bright coma, we can tell where the nucleus is to approximately
1 or 2 arcsec.  However, Shoemaker-Levy is not a normal comet but
is one that has been ripped apart by Jupiter (pretty unusual).
The image it presents is cigar shaped about 1arcmin by 11 arcsec.
There are some discernible knots of brightness but the question is
which is the "nucleus".  Actually, they will all continue to orbit
the sun and so we now have multiple mini-comets, all of which need
orbits (they will not stay bound together probably).  For previous
split comets, the pieces were more unequal in size so we kept track
of the brightest, presumed biggest.

Now at Jupiters distance (5au), an object that is 1arcmin long is
more than 200,000km long.  So it is quite relevant to our orbit
calculations that we know where in that 200,000km the nucleus is (are?).
All of the orbit calculations to date have assumed it is in the center,
even though the brightest condensations are not in the center.
If the pieces were to stay together, the dominant error would be
in the perihelion date but since they won't, all bets are off.

--
 Anita Cochran  uucp:  !utastro!anita
                arpa:  [e-mail]
                snail: Astronomy Dept., The Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX, 78712
                at&t:  [phone]

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

Date: 8 Apr 1993 01:14 UT
From: Ron Baalke <[e-mail]>
Subject: Comet in Temporary Orbit Around Jupiter?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <1pv38q$[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Pat) writes...
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ron Baalke) writes:
>|
>|Some months prior to Galileo's encounter with Gaspra, the project called
>|upon the astronomy community to help provide the best position of the
>|asteroid with Earth-based observations.  This information was used to take
>|the optical navigations
>
>For SHoemaker - levy,  will galileo follow a similiar activity?

Yes, if the comet sticks around long enough.

>
>|images.  In the optical navigation images, Gaspra was just a point of light
>|against a background of stars.  The images were long exposures and the camera
>|was slewed during the exposure resulting in the image with streaks of
>|squiggly lines for Gaspra and the stars.

>Was the slewing deliberate, or an unavoidable artifact of the
>long exposures?

It was deliberate, to better gauge the motion of Gaspra against the
star background.

>During the ecounter, enough images were taken around the area where
>|Gaspra was supposed to be to ensure a 99% confidence level that Gaspra
>|would show up in some of the images.  The first playback of
>
>How many images were wasted?  Or at least weren't of gaspra?

They were about 150 images total taken, I'm not sure how many had Gaspra
on them, but I think it was around 20.

>What prioritzation will  S-L  get on the science mission?

It is too early to tell.  We'll just have to wait and see how the orbit
for the comet turns out.  The comet split up into at least 17 pieces, and the
pieces will probably start spreading apart from each other.
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | Being cynical never helps
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | to correct the situation
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     | and causes more aggravation
                                                  | instead.

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

Date: 7 Apr 93 17:46:02 -0600
From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey <[e-mail]>
Subject: Hey, it's over (was Re: International Space Year Compendium)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <7APR199313252135@stdvax>, abdkw@stdvax (David Ward) writes:
> From: [e-mail]
> Newsgroups: alt.education.distance,sci.edu,k12.ed.science
> Subject: REPOST: Space Resources Compendium
> Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
> Date: 1 Apr 93 21:08:32 GMT
[...]
> DT:     January 15, 1993
>
> The "1992 International Space Year" Compendium has been jointly
> produced [...] to assist educators [...] in their planning
> and celebration for the 1992
> International Year of Space.

As a 1 April 1993 repost of a 15 January 1993 message, this seems sadly
out of date.

*I* already whooped it up during International Space Year.  It's time
to put that behind us and turn our attention to the future.  A broad
highway stretches endlessly ahead, featuring lowered expectations,
squabbles over ever-shrinking space budgets, and lies told to children
about their promising careers in asteroid mining and Moon farming.

Bill Higgins, Beam Jockey              | The restaurant's architect
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory  | said every effort had been
Bitnet:           [e-mail]  | made to build McDonald's
Internet:       [e-mail]  | 15th outlet in Italy
SPAN/Hepnet:           43011::HIGGINS  | in harmony with Pompeii.
                                       | --Reuters story in *Chicago
                                       |  Sun-Times*, 18 June 92

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

Date: 7 Apr 93 18:29:53 -0500
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Hoosier eccentricity (was Re: Quaint US Archaisms)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes:
> In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] writes:
> [Converting to metric would be good but...]
>>
>>           Don't get me wrong, coming from the land without daylight savings
>>           time, I understand the need to hold on to what always was even if
>>           it does not make much sense.  The Indiana Senate recently
>>           defeated yet another attempt to drag us into 20 century time, to
>>           the collective sigh of Hoosiers everywhere.  If we are to be
>>           stereotyped as rubes we want it to at least be eccentric rubes.
>
> Don't worry, Tom.  I think "Indiana Pi" secured that reputation firmly
> and forever, back in the last century.
>
> Bill Higgins, Beam Jockey
> Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

Hey Wild Bill,
Do you mean the old Hoosier bromide: Pi R not square!  Pie are round,
cornbread R square?  If not then I guess I need some schooling on my
own state's history.

I'd say e-mail me the answer but it is obvious from these flamers that
use their keyboards as aids in onanism and not discourse, that bandwidth
is no problem in this newsgroup.  If they can use hundreds of lines
in odes to their egos, surely we can use 50 or 60 on goofiness.

Tom Freebairn  | "It drives them crazy counting."
               |              J.P. Donleavy
                            _The Onion Eaters_

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

Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1993 23:13:06 GMT
From: "Brian A.Laxson" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Inflateble Space Station! was blow up space station.
Newsgroups: sci.space

Brian's Brain on Bubbling:

    Multiple applications could be used  to provide the material
behaviours that make space habitable.  Spraying reflective, then
structural, etc. in sequence puts out the material you need.

    Making material sprayable would mean particlizing them, either
through hightemperatures or mechanical "slicing".  Getting the material
into the ballon would use Michael's idea on spinning.


    Ballon inflating should occur easily.  The material used for the
first spraying and vacumn dynamics would expand the ballon quickly.


Brian Laxson, [e-mail]

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

Date: Wed, 07 Apr 93 13:24:28 EST
From: "S.K. Whiteman" <[e-mail]>
Subject: interested in microrovers

For anyone interested in microrover technology there is an article in
April 1993 issue of NASA Tech Briefs, vol 17 no 4, on page 36. The
article describes some of the nifty things the 15 Kg machine can do.
There is a TSP, technical support package, available; NPO-18543. The
work was done by David Miller, et al., of JPL.
        \       /___________________         Sam
         \_____/         1794-1994 |         IBM Systems Programmer
Chicago/ |                     *   |  O      Indiana University -
    I    |               Ft. Wayne |  H      Purdue University at Fort Wayne
    L    |                         |         Fort Wayne, Indiana USA

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

Date: Thu, 8 Apr 1993 02:02:55 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Irish Re-entry or AURORA: SOLVED
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro

This UFO sighting has been cleared up conclusively by Dr. T.S. Kelso.
From sightings by expert members of Astronomy Ireland, we had always
favoured space debris explanation. The BBC's Leo Enright favoured a sighting
of the hush hush space plane Aurora and published same in Irish Times
(Tue April 6, page 12). Now his theory is completely disproven (apology
to U.S. DoD in order?)

Basically, John Fitzsimons saw two mag -1 lights travelling parallel to
one another from NW to SE bein 70deg up in SW at highest at 0:10UT
on March 31. The public were alarmed and reports of UFOs were in all the
papers, TV, radio next day. Dept. of Transport set up inquiry. Astronomy
Ireland has passed on Dr. Kelso's solution:

>Sorry for the delay, but I finally got everything that I needed to do my
>analysis for you this afternoon.  Here's what I discovered.
>
>I began by taking the catalog of objects on orbit (as maintained by NORAD
>and limited to unclassified objects only) and taking only those objects
>with an element set after the last ten days prior to the decay.  Element
>sets earlier than this would have been of questionable accuracy for a
>decaying object.  That gave me 6,529 objects.  I then eliminated any object
>with an element set after the decay (since no observations would have been
>gathered to generate a new element set); that reduced the number to 2,868
>objects.  Of these, only 438 were above your observer's horizon at 0010 UTC
>on 93 Mar 31.  Of these, only one was below 250 km at this time; it was
>Catalog Number 22586, International Designator 1993-018B, which decayed on
>March 31.  This object appears to have been a rocket body of Cosmos 2238.
>
>Based on the latest element set for this object, it would have passed
>through perigee at an altitude of 107 km at 2351 UTC on 93 Mar 30 and would
>not have been likely to escape reentry.  Closest approach to your observer
>was predicted to have occurred at 0009 UTC on 93 Mar 31 at an azimuth of
>196 degrees and at an elevation of 63 degrees when it was at 53.6 N, 8.7 W.
>The pass began at 0006 UTC at an azimuth of 313 degrees and ended at 0012
>UTC at an azimuth of 140 degrees.
>
>These predictions seem to match quite well with your observer's report (he
>should be commended for the accuracy of his observations!).  And the
>reentry of a rocket body could be expected to cause a pretty spectacular
>fireworks display, quite possibly resulting in multiple large pieces as you
>described.
>
>Please feel free to disseminate this information to whomever might be
>interested (and certainly on Internet) and let me know if you have any
>additional questions.  - TS
>--
>Dr TS Kelso                           Assistant Professor of Space Operations
>[e-mail]                    Air Force Institute of Technology

So the object was a fragment of the rocket that launched Cosmos 2238 a
Russian military surveillance satellite (another post described Cosmos 2238
previously).
Thanks to everyone who help - it was really appreciated.

-Tony Ryan, "Astronomy & Space", new International magazine, available from:
              Astronomy Ireland, P.O.Box 2888, Dublin 1, Ireland.
6 issues (one year sub.): UK 10.00 pounds, US$20 surface (add US$8 airmail).
ACCESS/VISA/MASTERCARD accepted (give number, expiration date, name&address).

   (WORLD'S LARGEST ASTRO. SOC. per capita - unless you know better? 0.033%)
Tel: [phone] (UK/N.Ireland) 1550-111-442 (Eire). Cost up to 48p per min

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

Date: Thu, 8 Apr 1993 02:22:01 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Irish Re-entry or AURORA: SOLVED
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] writes:
> This UFO sighting has been cleared up conclusively by Dr. T.S. Kelso.
[deleted explanation]
> Thanks to everyone who help - it was really appreciated.

After Ireland, sightings of this object are few. There were some from UK
(west) but did it make it to France or further?

-Tony Ryan, "Astronomy & Space", new International magazine, available from:
              Astronomy Ireland, P.O.Box 2888, Dublin 1, Ireland.
6 issues (one year sub.): UK 10.00 pounds, US$20 surface (add US$8 airmail).
ACCESS/VISA/MASTERCARD accepted (give number, expiration date, name&address).

   (WORLD'S LARGEST ASTRO. SOC. per capita - unless you know better? 0.033%)
Tel: [phone] (UK/N.Ireland) 1550-111-442 (Eire). Cost up to 48p per min

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

Date: 7 Apr 1993 18:05:38 -0400
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: Louisiana ASteroid resources conference.
Newsgroups: sci.space

March 29 and 30, USL  held with support from SDIO and DOE,
a conference on Resource extraction  from Near Earth Asteroids.

Did anyone attend?

pat

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

Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1993 23:44:43 GMT
From: "Phil G. Fraering" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Louisiana ASteroid resources conference.
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (Pat) writes:


>March 29 and 30, USL  held with support from SDIO and DOE,
>a conference on Resource extraction  from Near Earth Asteroids.

>Did anyone attend?

>pat

I attended the closing meeting (as opposed to the whole thing:
I haven't been attending this semester, and had a bad ear
infection, and therefore didn't have enough warning. However
I did attempt to tape said meeting with a camcorder. Hopefully
it recorded everything I couldn't hear ;-)

More later ;-)

--
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: Wed, 7 Apr 1993 23:57:45 GMT
From: "Phil G. Fraering" <[e-mail]>
Subject: MACH 25 landing site bases?
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] writes:

>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] writes:
>> The supersonic booms hear a few months ago over I belive San Fran, heading east
>> of what I heard, some new super speed Mach 25 aircraft?? What military based
>> int he direction of flight are there that could handle a Mach 25aircraft on its
>> landing decent?? Odd question??
>>
>> ==
>> Michael Adams, [e-mail] -- I'm not high, just jacked
>>
>Even if there was such a thing as a Mach 25 aircraft, they would not land at
>supersonic speeds.

>Hank - sorry no fancy tag line - M.

Actually, Russia once had a Mach 25 capable airfield at Tungusta, but
the third or fourth tme they tried to land their ship there they
miscalculated the sink rate and the thing crashed, causing the fabled
explosion there.

Later, all the plans for the craft were burned to keep theim from
falling into the hands of the communists, thus setting back propulsion
technology 100 years. (It set back wheel and brake technology
several millenium).


--
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: Thu, 8 Apr 93 01:03:20 GMT
From: Aali Masood <[e-mail]>
Subject: Need info on a Voyager probe
Newsgroups: sci.space

I am writing a paper about a probe (I think it is a Voyager
series) that was launched by NASA in the 70's into the
orbit with a picture of a man and a woman along with some
other Earth's information (maps, songs and greetings in
many languages).

I need to know the progress of that probe and also more
details about it for a research paper.

I would be extremely grateful if anyone could help me with
my research or direct me to someone who would be able to
assist me.

Aali Masood

E-mail [e-mail]

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

Date: 8 Apr 1993 00:26 UT
From: Ron Baalke <[e-mail]>
Subject: Portable Small Ground Station?dir
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes...
>
>The DSN stations are different, and aren't used to monitor Shuttle.

The DSN provide backup coverage during the Shuttle launches and landings, and
can provide emergency support at any other time.  This is also true for any
of the satellites that use TDRSS.
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | Being cynical never helps
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | to correct the situation
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     | and causes more aggravation
                                                  | instead.

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

Date: Thu, 8 Apr 1993 00:03:19 GMT
From: Nick Szabo <[e-mail]>
Subject: Shuttle-C cost estimating
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

[e-mail] (Pat) writes:


>NASA drops 4 Billion  for 8 STS  missions,  most of that is fixed costs.

Love your accounting method:

(1) ignore upfront R&D and tooling costs (more of which would be
necessary to build a Shuttle-C)
(2) pick the very best year for your numbers.  Equally valid would
be to say that NASA drops $4 billion a year for zero STS missions (1986
and 1987), so that STS costs are infinite.

Adding up _all_ costs that have been incurred to develop and support
STS, including interests costs, and dividing by the total number of
flights gives us well over $1 billion per flight.  Of course, there is
no shortage of creative accounting schemes that allow one to
ignore various costs and bring down the cost estimate as low
as you like.

The lesson here is that for Shuttle-C we will have new R&D costs,
new tooling costs, etc.  If done the way STS was done we will
occur costs similar to STS's.  So it makes sense to use the full
cost of STS as a guide instead of using fantastically creative
accounting methods ("the fuel & raw materials for the parts only
cost $27 million per mission!") to produce the low figures one
wishes were true.


--
Nick Szabo                     [e-mail]

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

Date: 7 Apr 1993 17:57:12 -0400
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: space food sticks
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>Has anyone noticed that articles in this thread are normally very close to
>articles in the nuclear waste thread?  Just coincidence, I guess :-)


Has anyone noticed that the Problem with Nuclear waste only
started after Pillsbury stopped making this product:-)

Correlation, I guess :-)

max Headroom, where are you.

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

Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1993 18:27 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: SR-71 Replacement?

Does anyone have any info on a replacement for the SR-71 aircraft.  A
friend claims he saw an article around Dec 92 or early 93 which had a
plane making the USA - Europe flight in just about an hour (Shades of
Lens Crafters).   My understanding is nothing is currently in inventory
or about to come on line to replace the SR-71s capabilities.

+---------------------------+-------------------------------+
| [e-mail]  |   THINK!..If you are already  |
|                           |   thinking, please disregard  |
|   John Pomeroy            |   this message.               |
+---------------------------+-------------------------------+

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

Date: 7 Apr 1993 17:58:49 -0400
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: Washington Post Article on SSF Redesign
Newsgroups: sci.space

THe article also mentions that Panel is looking to overhaul
the station management structure.

pat

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

Date: 8 Apr 1993 01:01:31 GMT
From: Alaric Tekiahyn <[e-mail]>
Subject: What if the USSR had reached the Moon first?
Newsgroups: alt.history.what-if,sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (John E. Curtis) writes:
]    The value of a lunar military base over a satellite station are many
]    the most obvious are
]
]       1 not vulnerable to simple tactics like scattering gravel in front
]     of the station.

On the other hand, an orbiting satellite station can be only a few hundred
miles away, instead of 247,000.  That makes the difference between several
minutes time-to-target vs. many hours.

(Of course, this means time-to-target *to* the satellite as well as *from*
it.)

]       2 can mine moon for raw materials unlike station which is dependant
]     on resupply

How much rock do you plan on eating?  You'll still need to supply food, at
least until you get a fairly extensive hydroponic garden going.

The satellite is also much cheaper to resupply than the moonbase.

]       3 can only be shot at from one side

The satellite can be in line-of-sight to use a direct-fire weapon (say,
a really *big* laser or particle beam) *hours* before a moon base can.
The moon base may have to wait up to 18 hours.

It's also much easier to target weapons from the shorter range.


You missd one or two advantages, though:  A moonbase has gravity (albeit
not much) without having to be spun.
On the other hand, of you don't mind spinning your station, you can get
a full 1G on it, as against one sixth for the moonbase - and yet you still
need only a tiny amount of thrust to leave it, because you don't have to
climb out of the moon's gravity well.


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End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 435
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