Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/pc/text/spacedig/v16_9/v16no895.txt

Text File | 1993-07-20 | 35KB | 785 lines

Space Digest                Tue, 20 Jul 93       Volume 16 : Issue 895

Today's Topics:
                   A new spin on Gravity -vs- space
                      COOKIE CUUTTER PROBES (WA
                        Cookie Monster probes
        Henry was right (as usual) (was Re: Space Movie/PR..)
                   Hubble, Why the hurry? (6 msgs)
                          Isp of solid fuels
                          Satellite viewing
                Some Proposals (Re: Space Movie/PR..)
                           Space Movie/PR..

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Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 23:06:00 GMT
From: "Ray Swartz (Oh, that guy again" <[e-mail]>
Subject: A new spin on Gravity -vs- space
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Dean Reece) writes:
>
>[e-mail]  (Karl Hahn) writes:
>>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (me) writes:
>>
>>>   The moon is tidally locked.  It rotates once every 28 days or so,
>>>   therefore it has some (more or less) constant rotational inertia.
>>>   If the Earth were to vanish and take its gravitational field with it,
>>>   then the moon would travel off in a straight line (ignoring the sun and
>>>   other planets gravity for now).  Would it continue to rotate at 24e-6
>>>   RPM or would it slow or stop rotating?
>>>   (and thus the warped space gradient).
>>
>> The answer is that it would continue to spin on its axis.  If you had a
>> ball on a string that you were whirling around your head, the ball would
>> be locked just as the moon is.  If you cut the string, the ball would
>> continue to rotate about its own axis.  Try it.
>
>This is not the same situation:
>The ball follows the curved path due to the mechanical anchor point, not
>because it is the path of least energy expenditure.  More importantly, the
>ball does not experience a gravity gradient.  It is not traveling around
>a warped space well, but is just bound in a circular path in flat space.
>I don't think the string can be use to model a gravity gradient.


    But it _is_ the same situation for a point mass.  The ball is also
following a 'least energy' path -- it would have to have more energy to break
the string.  Also, the point of attachment where the string is tied to the
ball, combined with the acceleration of the curved path, will act the same as a
gravity gradient (equivalence principle).  The ball on the string, in energy
terms, is a very similar situation.  I stand by the answer that the moon would
continue rotating, just from rotational inertia.  In the absence of external
tidal forces (sun, etc.) it would rotate forever.


>Also, I realize that the moon would continue to spin on its axis, I am
>curious if it slows down at all.  Even if the moon/ball slowed down .0001%
>due to the space warp gradient, the effect would be interesting to
>know about (but wouldn't be detectable in the experiment you describe).

    Ah, relativistic effects.  I guess the model to use for this calculation
would be a dumbbell shaped mass, aligned to the CM of the earth-dumbbell system,
in orbit.  One mass would be deeper in the gravity well than the other.  Then
remove the earth (easier in theory than in practice).  Anyone want to take a
crack at this?

Raymond L. Swartz Jr. ([e-mail])
================================================================================
Excel in everything -- specialization is for insects!! (paraphrase of R.H.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I read the newspaper today and was amazed that, in 24 hours, five billion
people could accomplish so little.
================================================================================

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

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 22:19:09 GMT
From: Zvi Lev <[e-mail]>
Subject: COOKIE CUUTTER PROBES (WA
Newsgroups: sci.space

Henry Spencer ([e-mail]) wrote:

: Who cares?  Pick the one that's best at initial design time, and stick
: to it.  It's not that vital to have the latest and fastest CPU aboard --
: you're not running Microsoft software. :-)

That is, of course, very true. However, I want to use it to bring up an
idea and see what people think about it:
I claim that the main reason that space systems are expensive to build
and manufacture is not launch costs, specialized environment, rad hard
electronic components etc, although these factors definitely prevent
us from having a spacecraft for a few thousands of dollars, they
do NOT prevent us from having ones that are only a miliion dollars or
so a piece. The real problem is design costs, or to put it in another way:
Suppose someone were to suggest to a large hardware/software corporation
(something like IBM) the following project:
I want you to make me a personal computer, and it does not have to be faster
or more sophisticated than standard ones, except for the next few items:
A. It uses a new, totally non standard microprocessor.
B. It has to have redundancy of all major units in hardware.
C. It has to have software which will support all these redundancies
autonomously.
D. It has to have a total mission reliability of more than 90% for a
period of about 1 year.
E. (that's the catch!) While the software and hardware can be
tested on a board by board basis and on simulatiors such as ICE  and other
debuggers, you CANNOT ever test the fully built system with the
actualy work enviro and the acutal inputs/outputs (it does not
have to be a fancy space system - imagine a system for network
analysis, only you can never check it against a real network...). Still,
The thing has to work FIRST TIME it is powered on (see D) in the real
enviro, and once it starts working it is enclosed in a sealed box FOREVER,
and no repairman will ever get a chance to look at it, or fix it.
To debug it you may only use the standard output the machine has. If that
gets busted - you're out!

And a hint for those who think it is easy - consider your own experience
at home/work - how many systems (cars, computers, stereos, lightbulbs)
could pass the above test? not one, i dare say.

F. (and if E was a catch, this is a black hole!) - eh, sorry guys,
but I only want a few of these ever produced, say 5, and no, you cannot
use this technology to make anything that sells.

Now you may wonder what will be the unit price - ...
You guessed it, tens of millions, anytime,everytime.

This is really not new to anyone who has actually done such projects (and
this is very true for 'plain' military projects too, as the limitations
are often similar), but may be new to those who just read about them
in AW&ST....

Oh, and if I forgot to add to the price, the thing has to be operated for
a long time using complex machinery that is entirely not standard and by
very specialized personnel. Hmm....

So you can go ahead and make SSTO give you 100$ perk Kg, and develop
new Gee Whiz materials that make your structure thinner than an eggshell,
and new star sensors that can lock and track on brown dwarves, and we'll
all be happy. BUT 30 YEARS from now our sons & daughters will be discussing
on USENET why is space hardware so damn expensive....

Actually, it is even worse - I do not believe that the software
of any spacecraft is anywhere as reliable as that of any old (5 years),
popular PC operating system. No matter how clever the people who test it
are, they are not cleverer than 10^7 users with crazy setups and uses.
The same for hardware, of course...

So, is there a way out? I dunno, but consider this:
suppose you could buy for around 100k$ a system which enables you to
fully build a sattelite main electronics system on something which is
PC compatible (no advertising intended. Could be any kind) -
that is, you can run on it anything a PC runs, plug into it any card
a PC can take.    The system has all the excellent debugging
facilities you have for a PC, but with an operating system that also
supports some clever features such as redundancy, SEU protection,
ACS sensors/actuators support,etc. The thing also has a simulation
mode that can feed the desgined electronics/software inputs to match
a space enviro.

I may be optimistic, but I think such a thing could solve many problems
for many many missions, if it is done correctly, with the right tradeoffs
between actual needs (mission,reliability) and the ever present
GEE WHIZ desire (lets develop a NEW way to do it that is 10% better than
the old one but costs double the money.. this should get us publicity...).

Basically i guess I am saying that we might have a use for a space
hardware bus that runs Microsoft windows.....

What are the opinions of my fellow USENET space advocates?
If you want to mail me directly - I'm
at [e-mail]
Ever yours,
Zvi Lev

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

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 22:26:56 GMT
From: Zvi Lev <[e-mail]>
Subject: Cookie Monster probes
Newsgroups: sci.space

In reply to a discussion on CPU requirements for cheap standard probes,
Henry Spencer ([e-mail]) wrote:

: Who cares?  Pick the one that's best at initial design time, and stick
: to it.  It's not that vital to have the latest and fastest CPU aboard --
: you're not running Microsoft software. :-)

That is, of course, very true. However, I want to use it to bring up an
idea and see what people think about it:
I claim that the main reason that space systems are expensive to build
and manufacture is not launch costs, specialized environment, rad hard
electronic components etc, although these factors definitely prevent
us from having a spacecraft for a few thousands of dollars, they
do NOT prevent us from having ones that are only a miliion dollars or
so a piece. The real problem is design costs, or to put it in another way:
Suppose someone were to suggest to a large hardware/software corporation
(something like IBM) the following project:
I want you to make me a personal computer, and it does not have to be faster
or more sophisticated than standard ones, except for the next few items:
A. It uses a new, totally non standard microprocessor.
B. It has to have redundancy of all major units in hardware.
C. It has to have software which will support all these redundancies
autonomously.
D. It has to have a total mission reliability of more than 90% for a
period of about 1 year.
E. (that's the catch!) While the software and hardware can be
tested on a board by board basis and on simulatiors such as ICE  and other
debuggers, you CANNOT ever test the fully built system with the
actualy work enviro and the acutal inputs/outputs (it does not
have to be a fancy space system - imagine a system for network
analysis, only you can never check it against a real network...). Still,
The thing has to work FIRST TIME it is powered on (see D) in the real
enviro, and once it starts working it is enclosed in a sealed box FOREVER,
and no repairman will ever get a chance to look at it, or fix it.
To debug it you may only use the standard output the machine has. If that
gets busted - you're out!
F. (and if E was a catch, this is a black hole!) - eh, sorry guys,
but I only want a few of these ever produced, say 5, and no, you cannot
use this technology to make anything that sells.

Now you may wander what will be the unit price - ...
You guessed it, tens of millions, anytime,everytime.

This is really not new to anyone who has actually done such projects (and
this is very true for 'plain' military projects too, as the limitations
are often similar), but may be new to those who just read about them
in AW&ST....
 Anyway

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

Date: 19 Jul 1993 23:09:24 GMT
From: George William Herbert <[e-mail]>
Subject: Henry was right (as usual) (was Re: Space Movie/PR..)
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes:
>> In article <22cv4m$[e-mail]> [e-mail]
>> (George William Herbert) writes:
>>>
>>>I've been working on a project to do a scale model Orion for special
>>>effects purposes with Footfall movie or miniseries in mind.  It's
>>>really quite doable.  A ten-meter diameter vehicle will easily work,
>>>and use up quite a bit of conventional explosives per "jolt".
>
>George, I would like to see more discussion of this idea.  Could you
>post a bit more discussion of how to do it?  (Possibly more
>appropriate to rec.pyrotechnics... do they ever discuss Orion models
>over there?  I don't usually read it.  To quote one Fermilab sage:
>"They must be typing with their noses, because they can't possibly
>have any fingers or toes left...")

I'll leave the pyrotechnics people out of this; alt.engr.explosives might
vaguely be interested, but rec.pyros is a bit of a stretch ;-)

The basic concept is simple.  An Orion was simply a spacecraft powered
by nuclear bombs going off behind it, with a heavy pusher plate to
absorb the bomb energy (part of it, though most is lost to the sides...)
and shock absorbers to cushion the ride.

Doing this as a conventional vehicle (conventional in this sense referring
to "conventional explosives" vs nuclear rather than a truly conventional
flight vehicle) is pretty easy.  As part of the early conceptual tests
for Orion, a small vehicle using 6 (5?) TNT charges was built, and took off
and flew as predicted.

You can look at that as sort of the DC-X of Orions; it demonstrated that
it's possible to design a flight vehicle which works based on those
principles and it demonstrated the takeoff and landing characteristics
of Orions (though hard landings seem to be the rule... 8-).  My design
is sort of the sounding-rocket payload bigger demonstrator equivalent.

The first thing I did was select a series of explosives options that
are better propellant cantidates than TNT.  The idea is to generate
propulsive force off the expanding gas cloud of the explosion
(the "force" of the bomb) rather than shatter anything (explosive "brissance");
TNT is moderately brissant.  I chose a family of aluminized ANFO
explosives of slightly lower power but much lower brissance or
detonation velocity; it makes it easier for the vehicle not to
shake apart in flight 8-)

The next step in the design is to determine the desired thrust level,
pulse rate, and thence calculate the bomb sizing per pulse.  As a point
design, we can look at a "puddle jumper" I designed as an exercise,
with a roughly five meter diameter thrust plate, which was a combination
flat plate and cone section thrust plate:  /---\ (roughly)
with a bomb storage bay and a small control cabin at the nose (yes, it
was supposed to be manned).  The plate's thickness was about four inches.
Total vehicle mass was estimated at about 35 tons, of which 16 was
the plate, 4 was shock absorber systems, 8 was fuel, 2 was fuel feed,
and 5 tons of payload and crew cabin.  Overall length was 10 meters,
and the top part was roughly cone-shaped to give the illusion of
aerodynamic design.  It also helps with my desired landing mode
(more later).

Ok, I now have overall mass, plate size (abt. 20 m^2) and can begin
detail work on the bomb and motion calculations.  The mass loading is
1.75 tons/m^2; since I want an accelleration of about 1.5 Gs (15 m/s^2)
for takeoff purposes, I need a thrust loading (time averaged) of about
2.6 tons/m^2.  I assumed that I can't reliably do better than 4 Hz
(four explosions per second); each explosion will provide propulsive
energy for about 0.01 sec during it's blast, as a first estimate, so
we end up with a time loading of 0.04 and a peak force of about 66 tons/m^2
during the explosion (force on the thrust plate).

Then, using convoluted methods not easily explained without five
pages of reference to "The Science of High Explosives", I estimated
the charge size to provide that force level at a distance of 2.5 meters
from the explosion, my "optimal" bomb detonation point.  That, and an
allowance for errors in calculation, led to an estimate of about 100 kg
per charge, or 400 kg per second, which gives 20 seconds under power.

It's nowhere near this simple in detailed examination; the thrust plate
has to be carefully engineered for maximum strength.  The shock absorbers
require very careful design to damp out the blast forces, which I'm still
not done with (Vibrations is my weak point and has been since the first
class I had in it 8-( ).  And the vehicle to this point has no landing
gear provisions. It should be able to fly to about 4,000 ft in a
mostly-up ballistic flight, at which point the pilot admires the view and
bails out with a parachute, letting the vehicle arc down into a
nearby deep pond for hopefully not totally fatal recovery.
Alternatively, you add a bunch of really big parachutes and try to soft-land
it, but this is a bit out of my field.  I'm under the impression that
it's a bit heavier than the biggest thing every parachute landed.


If I actually had to fly one of these, I'd buy some land out in the
desert and carefully quantify the thrust generated by explosions before
doing a detail design.  But the approxomations I used should be
reasonably good.  They show that for small, demo-sized vehicles,
you can indeed build workable conventional-explosive Orion type
vehicles.

Btw, the friends I have who heavily do pyro stuff have all their
limbs intact, though one has a slightly magnetic hand.  All of them
pale in significance to what my mother did after she got out of college;
she worked at SRI for a while, helping determine that RDX makes a poor
solid rocket fuel (unlike normal solid fuels, it shifts from deflagration
to detonation if it cracks...).

-george william herbert
Retro Aerospace

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

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 22:13:04 GMT
From: "Phil G. Fraering" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Hubble, Why the hurry?
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space

[e-mail] (Peter Monta) writes:

>[e-mail] (Bob Myers) writes:

>> What were the original expectations for the service life of these
>> gyros?  Has their design been modified for improved reliability?

>Boston Globe had a recent article on the repair mission; the number
>that caught my eye was the 15-year (!) gyro design lifetime.

>So, naive question, but why aren't laser-interferometric gyros used?
>With good diode lasers available, plasma-tube lifetime/fragility

>would be moot.

Are you sure that laser-ring gyros won't have a lifetime in
the radiation enviornment of low earth orbit? How long will
it take for the fiber-optics to fog up?

>Peter Monta   [e-mail]
>MIT Advanced Television Research Program
--
+-----------------------+"And so it went. Tens of thousands of messages,
|"Standard disclaimer"  |hundreds of points of view. It was not called
|[e-mail] |the Net of a Million Lies for nothing."
+-----------------------+

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

Date: 19 Jul 1993 21:37:10 GMT
From: Doug Mohney <[e-mail]>
Subject: Hubble, Why the hurry?
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Peter Monta) writes:
>Boston Globe had a recent article on the repair mission; the number
>that caught my eye was the 15-year (!) gyro design lifetime.
>
>So, naive question, but why aren't laser-interferometric gyros used?
>With good diode lasers available, plasma-tube lifetime/fragility
>would be moot.

(I should leave this to the Gunny & the STSI people, but what the heck...)

Ya gotta remember that when Hubble was being built, laser-wiz-bang gyros
weren't off-the-shelf equipment.  So... that's one issue.

Secondly, NASA has a feeler out in the CBD for laser-ring gyros for Hubble
to be installed in the next repair mission (1997?).




     January 1993 - John Scully embraces Bill Clinton.
     July 1993    - Apple Computer lays off 2500 workers, posts $188
            million dollar loss.

  -- >                  [e-mail]                        < --

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

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 22:32:36 GMT
From: Paul Dietz <[e-mail]>
Subject: Hubble, Why the hurry?
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space

>>So, naive question, but why aren't laser-interferometric gyros used?
>>With good diode lasers available, plasma-tube lifetime/fragility
>>would be moot.
>
> I believe diode lasers don't produce a sufficiently clean output to be
> used in orthodox laser gyros yet.  And laser gyros qualified for combat
> aircraft don't need much improvement in durability to be good enough
> (in that department) for spaceflight.


Ok, I'm confused.  I thought the HST used its gyros to turn the
telescope.  Or are there separate reaction wheels for that?

    Paul F. Dietz
    [e-mail]

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

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 21:07:18 GMT
From: Greg Hennessy <[e-mail]>
Subject: Hubble, Why the hurry?
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space

Peter Monta writes:
#So, naive question, but why aren't laser-interferometric gyros used?
#With good diode lasers available, plasma-tube lifetime/fragility
#would be moot.

Becuase HST is 70's technology.

The gyros are actually leftover gyros from IUE.


--
-Greg Hennessy, University of Virginia
 USPS Mail:     Astronomy Department, Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475 USA
 Internet:      [e-mail]
 UUCP:        ...!uunet!virginia!gsh7w

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

Date: 19 Jul 1993 23:00:51 GMT
From: "William C. Gawne" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Hubble, Why the hurry?
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Paul Dietz) writes:
  somebody had written:
>>>So, naive question, but why aren't laser-interferometric gyros used?
>>>With good diode lasers available, plasma-tube lifetime/fragility
>>>would be moot.

[As others have mentioned, the answer is the same reason that the Titanic
didn't have a GPS or Loran receiver on board.]

  quoth Henry Spencer:
>> I believe diode lasers don't produce a sufficiently clean output to be
>> used in orthodox laser gyros yet.  And laser gyros qualified for combat
>> aircraft don't need much improvement in durability to be good enough
>> (in that department) for spaceflight.

 replieth Paul:
>Ok, I'm confused.  I thought the HST used its gyros to turn the
>telescope.  Or are there separate reaction wheels for that?

Yes.  There are separate reaction wheel assemblies.  The gyros are there
to sense attitude, not to change it.

-Bill
--
   The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of
     North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information
        Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service.
           internet:  laUNChpad.unc.edu or 152.2.22.80

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

Date: 19 Jul 1993 18:14 EST
From: David Ward <[e-mail]>
Subject: Hubble, Why the hurry?
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Peter Monta) writes...
>[e-mail] (Bob Myers) writes:
>
>> What were the original expectations for the service life of these
>> gyros?  Has their design been modified for improved reliability?
>
>Boston Globe had a recent article on the repair mission; the number
>that caught my eye was the 15-year (!) gyro design lifetime.
>

I expect this number is a design "goal", which may be more of a PR number
than a worst-case analysis number.  However, the HST gyros _are_ refurbed
IUE gyros, and we know that a _couple_ made it 15 years. :-)

>So, naive question, but why aren't laser-interferometric gyros used?
>With good diode lasers available, plasma-tube lifetime/fragility
>would be moot.

There is some talk ongoing here to replace all of the gyros with Fiber
Optic Gyros during the '97 repair mission.  I believe the primary reason
why Ring Laser Gyros and FOGs weren't used in the first place was that
they hadn't been used previously on a space mission (as far as I know).
NASA tends to be very conservative on flying new components, and I'm afraid
the designs for RLGs and FOGs weren't mature enough in the old days (early
'80's) to be used for space applications.

As for the upcoming repair mission, I'm afraid the same arguments still
stand.  We _still_ don't have too much experience with Laser-based gyros
in space, and I'm sure HST doesn't want to be a test bed for a new idea.
The repair mission is simplified by putting in a duplicate gyro, with
the same interfaces, instead of putting in a new box, attempting to match
interfaces.

Note I'm just trying to provide some insight.  I'll leave the editorial
comments to others so inclined on the 'Net.:-)

>
>Peter Monta   [e-mail]
>MIT Advanced Television Research Program

David W. @ GSFC

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

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 22:04:18 GMT
From: Bertil Jonell <[e-mail]>
Subject: Isp of solid fuels
Newsgroups: sci.space

  Does anybody know some typical specific impulses for solid rocket fuels,
both theoretical and practical? My references are mostly concerned with large
scale rocketry so they don't list anything lower than the Isp's for various
liquid propellant mixes.

-bertil-
--
"It can be shown that for any nutty theory, beyond-the-fringe political view or
 strange religion there exists a proponent on the Net. The proof is left as an
 exercise for your kill-file."

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

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 22:34:18 GMT
From: Zvi Lev <[e-mail]>
Subject: Satellite viewing
Newsgroups: sci.space

Gary  huntress ([e-mail]) wrote:

: The second event was three satellites traveling in formation!  Going
: roughly north to south, they were in a skewed triangular formation
: and they had approximately equal brightness.  I could think of no reason
: to have a number of satellites operate as a group, so the only explanatio

: I could come up with was chance.  Given the 6K or so pieces of space
: junk, the odds are that a few should be moving together, right?

: Any thoughts?

The odds are very very low. Yet, every normal sattelite is actually at
least two sattelites as you have the upper stage orbital for at least some
time. So yes, I figure you could expect a formation of some sort to
appear in the beginning of the sattelite life, though I'll be surprised
if it stayed that way for a long time, as you have different balisstic
coefficients and drag characteristics. Sattelites can also perform
orbit corrections, which AKM boosters do not tend to do...
just my two cents into the bin...
Zvi

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

Date: 19 Jul 1993 23:08:14 GMT
From: "Thomas A. Baker" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Some Proposals (Re: Space Movie/PR..)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <22770h$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Steven Reardon) writes:
>In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>>It would be a grewat publicity plou to get people interested in space research.
>
>I've been thinking about this recently, and I have to disagree.  I think that
>all of the popular movies and TV shows about space (a la Star Trek) do more
>harm than good in terms of public interest in space exploration.

People have been wanting to talk to Martians and see nebulae go whizzing
past their portholes -- that's exciting.  Trying to sell them on the wonders
of LEO is a hard job, cause it's hard to outdo what they've seen in movies
since the fifties.

On the other hand ...

>I think that John/Jane Q. Public has a *grossly* exaggerated idea of what
>is possible in terms of space/technology because of these shows.  I did a

Just what *is* possible in terms of today's technology?  There are some
possibilities.

I have been doing some thinking about it.  My personal pet fantasy:

    After a bit of lobbying on the parts of some of us in the LA area,
    Paula Abdul films a music video entirely of dance moves performed
    in the Nasa Vomit Comet.  It's a little tricky getting the movie
    lights to hold up under the alternating zero G/double G, but it
    pays off as, over a period of two hours, the dancers film enough
    to put together an electrifying four minutes of weightless
    choreography.

    Imagine four or five (or more) dancers in a pattern, eventually getting
    the knack of doing the same twist-and-turn while not in contact
    with anything but air.  A major talent like Abdul manages to get
    them in sync with her music's beat.  The thing works.  The promotional
    material features her gushing about the possibilities if she had
    had thirty feet of headroom, or a clear ten minutes of weightlessness.

    Airing this video produces a "gosh wow" feeling among the MTV crowd,
    and more interest in future enterprises.  A followup springs out
    naturally as Paula is consulted on producing an advertisement
    for a fictional Zero Gee Aerobics, for use in a sci-fi movie.

I wanted to get something going called the Ad Hoc Special Interest Group
for Space Arts and Recreation.  Alas, I'm in a graduate program now,
unlikely to throw much time towards something like this, but I do think
it has possibilities.

Get *some* parts of the public to see some new and interesting possibilities
in our space hardware.  There are jocky ideas, like that Alaskan guy's
"Sky Surfing Club" here a few months back.  Or is someone able to get
across the old idea of flying in a moon cave, like in "Brazil" or that
Heinlein novella?

Can anyone out there throw ideas like the above past a major dance talent with
clout, willing to try some experimentation?

Tom Baker

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

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 22:15:39 GMT
From: "Phil G. Fraering" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Movie/PR..
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (stephen voss) writes:

>[e-mail] (Bruce Hoult) writes:

>> [e-mail] writes:
>> > Or maybe a high budget First Contact with Aliens.. not a "V" or soem such,
>> > a first contact that is a bit more up to modern tech/current tech, and
>> > possibilties
>>
>> _Footfall_ could make a good movie, I think.  It's got pretty nifty and well-
>> out aliens.  For that matter, so has _The Mote in God's Eye_.
>>
>>
>> >Maybe this time the Government and NASA can play the good guys..
>>
>> Oh.  I didn't realise you were thinking of a fantasy...


>Ok remove government

>how about this for a plot

>5 years from now the american space program is in mothballs. The Russian
>progam is almost non-existent . The only manned program is being done
>by a billionaire with a visionary spirit,Bill Gates, he decides he wants
>a space program having nothing else to do with his 30 billion dollar
>fortune, he funds the final work on the DC clipper project. On one of
>his launches he decides to send a member of the press along for the ride
>with the crew . This beautiful intelligent reporter(fill in megababe)
>for a news network (as close to CNN as possible without having to pay
>royalties) goes along with the crew captained by a brave and experienced
>(fill in favorite intelligent looking megahunk).

>and while they are up there they detect signals with an extraterristial
>source(too far away of course to make out clearly)....

>fill in the plot

How bout: Close enough to make out clearly, but not compatible
with WindowZ NT's new client-server protocol, and therefore
ignored because they're not intelligent life...



--
+-----------------------+"And so it went. Tens of thousands of messages,
|"Standard disclaimer"  |hundreds of points of view. It was not called
|[e-mail] |the Net of a Million Lies for nothing."
+-----------------------+

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


From: [e-mail]
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: CSTS pot pouri
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Date: 19 Jul 93 23:43:20 GMT
Article-I.D.: max.1993Jul19.154320.1
Distribution: world
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Nntp-Posting-Host: max.u.washington.edu
Sender: [e-mail]
Source-Info:  Sender is really [e-mail]


Greetings to everyone on "sci.space," this is my first message on Usenet so
please be gentle.

I am a graduate student in Aeronautics and Astronautics at the University of
Washington. Several of us are working on a small grant in support of the
Commercial Space Transportation System Alliance Space Marketing Study. This is
a study by five of the major aerospace contractors (Boeing, General Dynamics,
Lockheed, Martin, and Rockwell) under contract to NASA. This study has had a
lot of recent media attention, and has been mentioned here earlier.

One of the specific topics we have been asked to investigate is that of Space
Medical Facilities, Hospitals, etc. The entire realm of putting people who are
already sick or injured into space with the expectation of it doing them more
good than harm!

So far, we have not been able to find very much on this, and I was hoping that
someone here might have some ideas, contacts, or references which would help
us. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Other topics that we are investigating are:

Space Manufacturing
Space Science Research
Biological Space Research
Fast Package Delivery
Extraterrestrial Resources
Space Power
Remote sensing
Personal Earth Space Viewing
Killer Asteroid Detection & Deflection
Space Tourism
Artificial Space Phenomena
Space Settlements
Hazardous Waste Disposal

We have been able to find somewhat more information on these topics, but any
information, ideas or comments would be welcome. Other members of the CSTS
Alliance are working on other topics, hopefully someone is working on any
potential space application area, and comments outside these areas, if anyone
has any, can be passed on to the appropriate parties.

Thanks,
Brian Thill
[e-mail]

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

End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 895