Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/pc/text/spacedig/v16_6/v16no636.txt

Text File | 1993-07-13 | 30KB | 694 lines

Date: Fri, 28 May 93 13:56:47
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V16 #636
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Fri, 28 May 93       Volume 16 : Issue 636

Today's Topics:
                  Boeing TSTO concept (sort-of long)
Comet Shoemaker-Levy, Possible Collision With Jupiter in 1994 (2 msgs)
              Detecting planets in other system (2 msgs)
                       Galileo's HGA? (2 msgs)
                  Hey Sherz! (For real!) Cost of LEO
                    Kepler's dream of space travel
                Magellan Aerobraking Underway (2 msgs)
                      Magellan Update - 05/26/93
         Meade 2045 4" Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope For Sale
                        NASA CD-ROM add/price
                  Seeding Mars with "Mars box" life
                 Space Marketing would be wonderfull.
                      The crew is toast (2 msgs)
         Von Braun and Hg (was Re: About the mercury program)

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

Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 19:54:40 GMT
From: Terry F Figurelle <[e-mail]>
Subject: Boeing TSTO concept (sort-of long)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article [e-mail], [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <1to6bu$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pat) writes:
>>>... a better trick:  inject liquid hydrogen (I think
>>>it was) into the bypass ducts of the regular 747 engines, and burn it...
>>
>>I guess that makes Nitrous injection look pale :-)  How would this
>>differ from a conventional afterburner? ...
>
>The main difference is that the air stream in question has not gone through
>the engine core; this is its only exposure to fuel.  The boundaries are
>admittedly rather fuzzy, since there are afterburning turbofans that use
>both the core flow and the duct flow in their afterburners (although they
>generally have rather low bypass ratios, hence are a different sort of
>animal).
>
>>If they seriously boost thrust,  did they have to rre-design
>>the thrust pylons?
>
>I'd expect so, but I didn't see technical details.
>--
>SVR4 resembles a high-speed collision   | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
>between SVR3 and SunOS.    - Dick Dunn  |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

Current 747-400 pylons are good for about 400 klbs thrust continous. Right now
they're mounting 777 pylons/engine mounts to test 777 engines on a 747-100 test
bed (they only change one engine on each side). The 777 engines will have thrusts
from 70-120 klbs under normal operating conditions. I didn't work on the 747 TSTO
study but I suspect they just replaced the hollow fuse pins with solid ones. The
pylons themselves are pretty much overkill to allow for long life, cracks, etc.

We're looking at using the 777 wings/engines on the 767 AWACS with some high
altitude mods. Should be good for 60,000 - 65,000 feet and 0.95 mach. With the
lighter weight of the 767 body it would have three times the thrust/weight ratio
of the 747-400F (the best 747 thrust/weight ratio). After looking at the GE 777
engine core, I would guess you could get 200-250 klbs thrust with afterburners
which the 777 wing/767 body combo should be able to handle.

Is there much of a payoff for getting slightly above 65,000 feet or mach 0.95
for a TSTO? I would suspect you'd need major mods for trans-sonic operations
and I don't think any of the HSCT designs have much payload capacity.

---
Terry F Figurelle            Boeing Defense & Space Group
email: [e-mail]        PO BOX 3999, Mail Stop 6K-66
phone: [phone] fax:[phone]    Seattle, WA 98124-2499

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

Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 01:53:22 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Comet Shoemaker-Levy, Possible Collision With Jupiter in 1994
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary

> The current computations indicate that the comet made a close flyby
> of Jupiter at only 0.0008 AU on July 8, 1992 (this is within Jupiter's
> Roche limit), and will make an even closer flyby of Jupiter on July 25, 1994.
>
>      IAU Circular 5801 further discusses the orbital trajectory of the comet,
> and indicates that it is possible that half of the pieces of the comet may
> collide with Jupiter over a three day peroid in July 1994.  The surviving
> pieces may remain as satellites to Jupiter or be thrown closer to the sun on
> short-period heliocentric orbits.

Is there likely to be any visible effect on Jupiter? (My gues
is "no" - not even HST will see anything, nucleii prob less than
mile across=tiny compared to Jupiter).

-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).
Tel: [phone] (UK/N.Ireland) 1550-111-442 (Eire). Cost up to 48p per min
  (WORLD'S LARGEST ASTRO. SOC. per capita - unless you know better? 0.036%)
                   growing fast! up another notch by late May 1993!-----^

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

Date: 27 May 93 01:24:29 GMT
From: Paul Dietz <[e-mail]>
Subject: Comet Shoemaker-Levy, Possible Collision With Jupiter in 1994
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary

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

> Is there likely to be any visible effect on Jupiter? (My gues
> is "no" - not even HST will see anything, nucleii prob less than
> mile across=tiny compared to Jupiter).


My guess is "yes".  A 1 km^3 block of ice has a mass of about 10^12 kilograms.
This liberates 1.8 x 10^21 joules of energy when falling onto jupiter
(about 400 gigatons of TNT).  Remember, Jupiter's gravity well is some
28 times deeper than Earth's.

The rate at which sunlight hits Jupiter is about 8x10^17 watts.  So,
the energy liberated by the impact is about 40 minutes worth of
insolation.  I expect a significant fraction of the energy would be
converted to light, and radiated over a period of seconds or minutes.
Jupiter could become significantly brighter, even to the naked eye.

If the block is smaller, or its density significantly less than 1,
the energy liberated is of course less.

    Paul F. Dietz
    [e-mail]

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

Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 22:11:17 GMT
From: Brenda Kalt <[e-mail]>
Subject: Detecting planets in other system
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Thomas Clarke) writes:
|> In a recent issue of Science there is a discussion of a project
|> to look for MACHOs (Massive Compact Halo Objects - things like
               ^^^^^
|> planets, brown dwarfs, or even black holes in the galactic halo
|> that might account for some of the missing mass).
[......]

Sexism in research strikes again. Obviously, a modern, non-sexist name
for this phenomenon would be McHalos...
--
Brenda Kalt
[e-mail]

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

Date: 27 May 93 00:07:11 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Detecting planets in other system
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Stupendous Man) writes:
>    Robert Dempsey says (on the subject of detecting planets orbiting
>    other stars)
>
>> There is currently a project at Ames working on this using a spaced based
>> photometer.  The idea is that they will look for millimagnitude variations
>> over time for 10's of thousands of stars.  They are concentrating
>> on late-type cool stars and they have already modeled the anticipated
>> results and it is doable.  They hope to detect jupiter size dark objects
>> around G-K stars.  If the funding goes well the hope to be up by
>> the end of the decade.
>
>
>     Assuming a solar-type star, Borucki finds the expected signal
> to be a 1% decrease in light for Jupiter, 0.1% for Uranus and 0.01%
> for Earth.  These are really tough limits; solar-type stars themselves
> tend to vary by ~ 0.1% or so (= 0.001 mag = 1 millimag) on short time
> scales, which makes looking for Earth-sized planets very hard indeed.
>

Actually, many solar-type stars vary in the 0.01 - 0.5 magnitude range
due to starpsots alone.  I think they plan to distinguish the two from
the fact that the spots producing the large amplitude are not black
but are warm compared to planets.  Not sure.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Dempsey                                 [phone]
STScI/PODPS

"He which hath no stomach for this fight, Let him depart; his passport
shall be made, and crowns for convoy put into his purse: We would not die
in this man's company that fears his fellowship to die with us." -Shakespeare
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: 26 May 93 22:37:26 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Galileo's HGA?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>What's the status of the high gain antenna?

They've given up on it as hopeless.
--
SVR4 resembles a high-speed collision   | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
between SVR3 and SunOS.    - Dick Dunn  |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 27 May 1993 03:13 UT
From: Ron Baalke <[e-mail]>
Subject: Galileo's HGA?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes...
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>>What's the status of the high gain antenna?
>
>They've given up on it as hopeless.

At the present time, the Galileo mission is being planned using the Low Gain
Antenna.  Attempts to open the High Gain Antenna (HGA) have not been abandoned,
and will continue though not as aggressively as in the past.  The HGA is
partially open, and a High Gain uplink test was performed a couple of months
ago to characterize the HGA.  The results of this test were, shall we
say, very interesting.  A downlink test to follow up on this is scheduled for
next month.  The project is commited to using the Low Gain for the Ida
encounter, which is only three months away.
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | Never laugh at anyone's
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | dreams.
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     |

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

Date: 27 May 93 00:36:00 GMT
From: David Ward <[e-mail]>
Subject: Hey Sherz! (For real!) Cost of LEO
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <1u0p1g$[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Pat) writes...
>If i wanted to be very narrow in my estimate i could have said
>128? LDEF trays,  50 Some  SPaceLab  Racks,  and appx 100 GAS Cans.
>
>No matter what, it's ascathing condemnation of the SHuttles mass return
>capacity.
>
>pat
>

Just to add my .02, you might want to add the MACS module that failed
on SMM.  I only add it because several useful components were refurbished
and are flying on UARS -- probably a $5M recovery.

No, it wasn't worth the flight, but I suspect the main mission for the
flight was as someone else posted:  to learn how to do satellite
recoveries.  After all (and I know I'm going to upset an SMM scientist
somewhere), the repair mission was in '84.  The two most recent maximums
of the solar cycle were in '80 and '91.  SMM deorbited in '89 despite
requests by the GSFC community to do a reboost.  Need I say more? (For the
confused, SMM stands for Solar Maximum Mission.)

David W. @ GSFC

PS--(Disclaimer mode on) The opinions above are my own, so don't
blame NASA if you think I'm a bozo. (Disclaimer mode off)

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

Date: 26 May 93 22:49:56 GMT
From: john baez <[e-mail]>
Subject: Kepler's dream of space travel
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Robert Coe) writes:
>[e-mail] (John C. Baez) writes:
>
>> I ... just CAN'T resist giving you all this little puzzle.  To WHOM did
>> Kepler write a letter in 1610 saying:

>> Who would have believed that a huge ocean could be crossed more peace-
>> fully and safely than the narrow expanse of the Adriatic, the Baltic Sea
>> or the English Channel?  Provide ship or sails adapted to the heavenly
>> breezes, and there will be some who will not fear even that void.... So,
>> for those who come shortly to establish this journey, let us establish
>> the astronomy....

>I'd have to guess Galileo Galilei.

Yes.  This was in his "open letter," the Dissertatio cum Nuncio Siderio,
to Galileo, in response to the latter's "Message from the Stars" or
Siderius Nuncius of 1610.

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

Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 02:09:04 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Magellan Aerobraking Underway
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Ron Baalke) writes:
> MAGELLAN AEROBRAKING, GRAVITY STUDIES UNDERWAY
[interesting press notice deleted]

I am interested in any electronic articles on Venus Magellan
articles. Does anyone know where I could find them?

Anyone else care to comment in brief on what Magellan has told us
and what questions it poses?

-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).
Tel: [phone] (UK/N.Ireland) 1550-111-442 (Eire). Cost up to 48p per min
  (WORLD'S LARGEST ASTRO. SOC. per capita - unless you know better? 0.036%)
                   growing fast! up another notch by late May 1993!-----^

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

Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 02:11:57 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Magellan Aerobraking Underway
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Ron Baalke) writes:
> MAGELLAN AEROBRAKING, GRAVITY STUDIES UNDERWAY

Any images by magellan available as GIF/TIFF?
Especially interested in the hemispherical view I've seen
in magazines - that must be a pure computer image with zillions
of perfect pixels just asking to be zoomed in upon?!

-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).
Tel: [phone] (UK/N.Ireland) 1550-111-442 (Eire). Cost up to 48p per min
  (WORLD'S LARGEST ASTRO. SOC. per capita - unless you know better? 0.036%)
                   growing fast! up another notch by late May 1993!-----^

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

Date: 26 May 93 22:58:50 GMT
From: Ron Baalke <[e-mail]>
Subject: Magellan Update - 05/26/93
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary

Forwarded from Doug Griffith, Magellan Project Manager

                      MAGELLAN STATUS REPORT
                          May 26, 1993
                          3:30 PM PDT

1.  The Magellan spacecraft continued its Transition Experiment this
morning at 5:46 AM PDT with another Orbit Trim Maneuver (OTM) which
further lowered its periapsis (closest approach to Venus) to 146.2 km.

2.  The spacecraft has now made nine atmospheric drag passes and all
subsystems were reported to be nominal.  Temperatures of the solar
panels increased by about 12 to 15 degrees C as a result of
atmospheric friction.  They reach a peak of 39 degrees C. (compared to
a design max of about 160 degrees C.)

3.  The attitude control system continues to control the position of
the spacecraft during the drag pass by generating thruster pulses as
the control shifted from reaction wheel control to thrusters and back
during the pass.  Much of this activity is caused by the residual
momentum from the wheels being transferred to the body of the craft.

4.  Power reports that the solar panels generate some small amount of
electricity during the last part of each drag pass.

5.  Based on the present navigation and spacecraft data, the next OTM
will be the "double down" magnitude.  The second of the
corridor-adjustment OTMs is scheduled for 2:07 PM PDT tomorrow.
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | Never laugh at anyone's
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | dreams.
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     |

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

Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 00:47:34 GMT
From: Jon Ciliberto <[e-mail]>
Subject: Meade 2045 4" Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope For Sale
Newsgroups: sci.space

Meade 2045 4" Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope For Sale

Compact, excellent optics, perfect for the beginner or as a
second scope for the experienced astronomer. Excellent for
astrophotography, and for use as a  1000mm telephoto lens. A
beautiful, professional scope.

    *    102 mm (4") Clear Aperture
    *    1000mm (40") Focal Length
    *    f/10 Focal Ratio
    *    1.1 arc second resolution
    *    Limiting visual magnitude: 12
    *    Limiting photographic magnitude: 14.5
    *    Motor Drive
    *    15 ft. near focus

The foam-lined case makes shipping a fairly simple operation.

Also, Heavy Duty tripod, which I will sell, but which would
be more difficult to ship.

Fork-type mounting; Setting Circles; Eyepieces (1.25" O.D.):
MA 9mm (111x)  and MA 25mm (40x); 2x barlow; filters;
Eyepiece holder/diagonal prism  assembly; 5 x 24 mm
Viewfinder; AC power cord; super tough carry case; table
tripod legs; camera piggy-back mount and T-Adapter; many
other features. Light  use, excellent condition.

Asking $475 plus shipping (negotiable).



--
..........................................................................
Jon Ciliberto                      .        [e-mail]
Graduate Assistant                 .                         [phone]
SHAPS Publications Office          .                              Moore 223

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

Date: 27 May 1993 03:00 UT
From: Ron Baalke <[e-mail]>
Subject: NASA CD-ROM add/price
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <1u0kbo$[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Andy Carol) writes...
>Does anyone have the price list and where to write for the NASA
>CD-ROMs which are available?  I'm looking for the Voyager and
>Viking CD-ROMs which I've heard about.

     All of NASA's CD-ROMs can be obtained from the National Space Science
Data Center (NSSDC) at the Goddard Space Flight Center.  The charge for the
CD-ROMs is $20 for the first CD-ROM, and $6 for any additional CD-ROM in a set.
For example, the 12 volume Voyager set costs $86.

     NSSDC's address is:

    National Space Science Data Center
    Goddard Space Flight Center
    Greenbelt, Maryland 20771
    Phone: [phone]

        Email address:   [e-mail]

     You can also reach NSSDC by logging on to their computer.  To log onto the
NSSDC computer, telnet to NSSDC.GSFC.NASA.GOV and give the username "NODIS".
You will then be connected to a menu system which allows you to use the
"Master Directory".  You can also leave questions and orders for the NSSDC
staff.  If this is the first time you have used the NSSDC "NODIS" system, it
will ask you for information (name, address, ...) to keep a database of NSSDC
users.

     The CD-ROMs are also online at explorer.arc.nasa.gov.  You can access
them by using anonymous ftp.

>I also understand the Voyager CD-ROMs are compressed, does anyone
>know what method was used?  Is it lossy or lossless?

     A Huffman compression was used (lossless).  Source code to do the
deocompression is included on the CD-ROM - look in the SOFTWARE directory.
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | Never laugh at anyone's
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | dreams.
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     |

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

Date: 27 May 93 00:07:08 GMT
From: Dan Williams <[e-mail]>
Subject: Seeding Mars with "Mars box" life
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.bio

Robert Casey ([e-mail]) wrote:
: Before you seed life on Mars or elsewhere, be sure there is no natural
: living or fossil life there.  Or else you'll trash an opportunity to
: study it and expand biological science.  And that probably requires a
:
I think the original poster proposed to seed a "Mars box" as an experiment in
exploring the possibility of seeding Mars, or any other planet.  The main
idea is to explore possibilities.

Accidently seeding a planet is not what we want to do anyway.  We will want
to taylor organisms for specific results.  Then we can get this terraforming
science time lag down to a few centuries, rather than the current time lag in
the millions of years. :-)

: through inspection of Mars, by robot or man.  In all sorts of different
: enviroments there.  Probably take a century of work.  By the time you
: get done, you will probably contaminate Mars accidently with Earth life
: anyway.
:
This is an admirable goal, but in the current climate for space expenditure
it will not happen.

On the other hand if someone could prove life was possible in a Mars box
here on Earth, it might drive intrest for new inspection flights to run
more tests or return samples.  But any experiments on Mars will always have
the possibility to contaminate the Mars biosphere.  Since Viking at least,
there is the chance we have already seeded the planet despite our efforts
not to.


--
-------------------/\/\__/\/\-------------------------------------
Daniel J. Williams \/0~__~0\/ These opinionated statements are mine!
Email:             (  /oo\  ) and no-one elses.
 [e-mail] |/VVVV\|
 450-8569            \_**_/   Sometimes the Dragon Wins.
------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: 27 May 93 00:17:33 GMT
From: bill nelson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Marketing would be wonderfull.
Newsgroups: sci.environment,misc.consumers,sci.astro,talk.environment,talk.politics.space,sci.space

[e-mail] () writes:
:
: logically cool one at that.  Initially, I think space advertising will
: appeal to a lot of people simply due to its novelty.  Maybe it will
: proliferate, but I think it will go the way of Burma-Shave signs and
: highway billboards.  Who really reads billboards anyways?

Unfortunately, the only place highway billboards have gone away is where
they have been legislated out of existance. Even then, the advertisers
try to find ways around the bans.

Bill

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

Date: 26 May 93 22:48:32 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: The crew is toast
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] ("Darryl O. Cottle") writes:
>... one of the objects he pointed to he identified as the crew cabin
>with its wiring harness trailing behind it...
>I looked at that and visualized a crude parachute of some sort that
>could be attached to the various parts of the wiring harness to
>slow the fall...

It's been thought about (well, in a refined form -- you might just as
well attach it to the cabin directly), both early in shuttle design and
after Challenger.  The trouble is, that cabin is *heavy*, and it's
normally very firmly mounted inside a lot of structure.  You need a
big parachute to have much of a useful effect, and in an accident of
that sort, it's difficult to ensure that the parachute stays attached
to the cabin, stays intact, and doesn't get snagged on something.  The
bottom line is that you add quite a bit of weight to the orbiter for
a relatively small chance that it will be useful in an accident.

They've taken a different tack on this one, sort of.  The crew now has
partial-pressure suits, oxygen, and personal parachutes.  They'd have
a fighting chance of successfully bailing out of the cabin after a
Challenger-class accident.
--
SVR4 resembles a high-speed collision   | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
between SVR3 and SunOS.    - Dick Dunn  |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 26 May 93 22:52:49 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: The crew is toast
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <1u0pnn$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pat) writes:
>THe F-111,  and the B-1A?  had a crew ejection capsule that was
>designed for such a similiar escape.  THe problem is, at least on STS,
>a probable ejection occurs over water,  thus the crew compartment
>must have a bouyant capcity.  A tough problem...

Actually, both the F-111 and B-1A capsules were/are buoyant.  The real
problem (and the reason why the production B-1 designs switched to
ejection seats) is that those escape capsules simply don't work very
well.  They land too hard, and tend to cause spinal injuries.
--
SVR4 resembles a high-speed collision   | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
between SVR3 and SunOS.    - Dick Dunn  |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 26 May 93 22:41:56 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Von Braun and Hg (was Re: About the mercury program)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (joseph.l.nastasi) writes:
>> Did Wernher von Braun actually have anything to do with the Mercury
>> program, or did pat just see *The Right Stuff* too many times? ...
>
>Van Braun had very little to do with Mercury...

Indeed, I happened to be browsing through Aldrin's "Men From Earth" a
couple of days ago, looking for something else, and ran across a bit
I'd forgotten:  he absolutely tears strips off the movie for the
ridiculous astronauts-vs-Germans confrontation scene.  He says flat
out that von Braun had nothing to do with Mercury -- Max Faget and
his crew were the ones making the decisions -- and adds that although
the expansion of the astronauts' role was partly due to astronaut
input, there was never any head-on clash over it.
--
SVR4 resembles a high-speed collision   | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
between SVR3 and SunOS.    - Dick Dunn  |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: Thu, 27 May 93 17:31:26 EST
From: [e-mail]

Press Release Nr.26-93
Paris, 19 May 1993

FIRST ESA/ECSL WORKSHOP ON INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
RIGHTS IN OUTER SPACE - MADRID, 26 MAY 1993

The European Centre for Space Law (ECSL), created by ESA in
1989, after having studied the legal protection of remote sensing
satellite data, initiated in 1992 a second research on Intellectual
Property Rights (IPR's) in Outer Space. This study will be presented
at a Workshop jointly organised by ECSL and the Spanish Centre for
Space Law, in Madrid on 26 May 1993.

Intellectual Property Rights in Outer Space is a legal area which will
gather importance in the near future due to the expected increase of
experimenting in the microgravity environment, especially on board
space stations and space platforms.

When ECSL initiated this project it was felt that the legal framework
for microgravity activities in outer space, and particularly on board
Columbus - the ESA contribution to the International Space Station
Freedom - may not be clear enough to protect the interests of the
European industry. This should therefore emphasize the need for
harmonized European, or even international, provisions in this area.

A questionnaire was sent to European industry as well as to public
and private entities involved, technically or legally, in activities in
outer space. This was to ascertain what, in their opinion, are  the
legal issues when inventions, patented or not, are used in outer space
and whether the existing patent laws cover these activities in a
sufficient manner.

The invited speakers at this workshop will address the major issues
regarding Intellectual Property Rights in Outer Space from technical,
political and legal points of view. Since most of the participants are
experts in patent law, this event will also be an opportunity for them
to share their views and express their opinion on the next steps which
should be pursued in order to reach a clear legal structure for the
future investors in microgravity activities.

For further information on this Workshop, please contact ECSL
Secretariat, at ESA Paris, (tel. [phone].; fax 33-1-
42.73.75.60).




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End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 636
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