NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #16/NN_1992_16.iso/spool/sci/physics/12036

Internet Message Format | 1992-07-30 | 7.2 KB

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From: [e-mail] (George D. Phillies)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: What's New (Space Station Freedom & APS)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 30 Jul 92 14:41:58 GMT
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Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
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Re: "What's New" July-24-1992
In  <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Thomas J. Nugent)
writes (and quotes [e-mail] (Jim Carr)
and [e-mail])

>>>It may not be the best design, but it's the only design we have,
>>>and the scientist opposition has made matters worse, not better.

During the Lincoln and Grant administrations, proposals were made for
transatlantic airmail service based on the Aereon design, the Aereon
being a lighter-than-air craft which demonstrably flew upwind.  The
Aereon had a useful range, demonstrated over Manhattan island, of 10-20
miles or so, being optimistic.  The design was like the Aereon, only
larger.  A company to build such an airship was chartered and sold stock.
It was not the best design for transatlantic air service, but it was the
only design they had.  (A comment on >>>, not Nugent)

[materials omitted]

>>From this and other postings, I get the impression that some people think
>>that absolutely _NO_ science will come from SSF.  This just isn't true.

The question isn't NO SCIENCE.  The questions is 30-120 gigadollars of
science, because that is what Fred costs.

>Freedom should not be touted simply as a scientific project, but it also
>should not be touted simply as a first step in human exploration of the
>solar system.

>As I've said in other replies to the What's New, we will
>learn about the long-term effects of weightlessness on the human body.

The difference between useful science and scientific navel-gazing is
whether your experiment impacts any experiments other than experiments on
your problem.  "long-term effects of weightlessness" flunks this test.
You could better study people in negative gravity environments by hanging
people from their heels.  A substantial number of iron-pumpers actually
do hang from their heels on a regular basis as part of body building
efforts.  Therefore, by studying people whose feet are velcroed to the
ceiling, you would at least be studying people in an environment which
exists outside of your experiment.  In contrast, information on poeple
spending long times on the space station is of value only to people on
space stations.

>They also will achieve microgravity on SSF, contrary to what some people
>have said.  This will allow some great research to go on.

Well, it will allow some research to go on.

>They might not
>(probably won't?) find a cure for cancer, but some experiments which will
>definitely further cancer research will be performed.  Same for AIDS.
>They haven't crystallized the AIDS virus here on Earth yet, so expecting
>them to be able to do it in orbit (which they tried on a recent shuttle
>flight) anytime soon is unreasonable.  But they will contribute in the
>fights against these medical problems.

*WHY* do you think that crystallizing the AIDS virus will do you any
good?  We await plausible evidence of your sentence.  Enough evidence to
bet the total AIDS research budget on, because Fred costs more than the
AIDS research budget.  (Given the relative numbers of people who die of
AIDS, heart attack, etc. and the (sad statistic from our government)
low (relative to other causes of death, notably long-term terminal
senility) medical cost of an AIDS death, I am not prepared to defend the
AIDS budget other than as a response to a loud minority group.)

Growing large crystals is of value to x-ray crystallography of
macromolecules, a wonderful field which I support but whose contributions
to biomedicine are obviously not worth the whole NIH budget for a three
or ten year period, which is what Fred costs.

Also, crystal growing of biological macromolecules is a bit specialized.
If a macromolecule is soluble in a small-molecule solvent, and has a
molecular weight under 40 000 Daltons or so, you can get its real 3D
structure on an atomic scale from high-field multidimensional NMR.
Without waiting to see if NASA can build a space station.  Without
waiting to see if your material grows better in zero-g.  Furthermore, NMR
identifies the regions that are disordered on the NMR timescale, while
crystallography gives you exact coordinates of the disordered atoms, even
though those atoms don't have exact coordinates under biological
conditions.  (Crystallography has in specific cases contributed to an
understanding of enzymatic active-site functioning.  But here we're
asking for a 30G$ contribution to understanding.)

Unless you have a biopolymer species
   (1) of interest in cancer causation or cure,
   (2) which is of interest because of its molecular shape (rather than its
reactivity or interactions with DNA, RNA, or X),
   (3) which has a molecular weight too large to handle with NMR methods, and
   (4) which (i) won't crystallize well enough on earth and (ii) will
crystallize well enough in zero-g,

the Space Station gives you absolutely nothing towards cancer research.
That's a lot of very restrictive conditions I just listed.  In fact, I just
listed so many conditions that it is highly likely that Fred will never
contribute significantly to biomedicine, other than to reveal novel medical
conditions arising from being on Fred. (No, worse than that.  The
Congresscritters may eventually work up the nerve to enforce Gramm-Rudmann
orits successor, and the useful NIH budget and the largely less useful NASA
budget are on the same side of the firewall.)

>Similarly, if they grow a nice
>big crystal of gallium arsenide more pure than what has been done so far,
>they could sell it for big$$$$.  They won't (probably), but scientists
>on Earth may be able to use it for research.

Big enough to pay for the cost of growing the crystal?  It is important
to emphasize  that there are real safety problems with crystal growing
anything you can't eat, like compounds of gallium, arsenic, thallium, or
other heavy metals.  If you manage to rupture a growth vessel on board
the station, you risk station contamination with gallium, arsenic,
thallium, interesting elements for high-Tc superconductors, etc.  I have
friends in the inorganic chemistry community, not at my institution, who
badly want to remain nameless on this point, but who unsuccessfully
discussed growing (not GaAs, but I gave a list) on a shuttle.  Mission
safety looked at the required toxicities, weights, temperatures, etc. and
cringed.  At least if you have an accident on a shuttle, you can get out
of orbit quickly, decontaminate the shuttle under conditions that you can
bring up arbitary tonnages of solvents, chelating agents, etc., and if
necessary scrap a mere 1 G$ shuttle rather than a 30G$ station.  If you
badly contaminate Fred, well, some heavy metals like Zn and Hg have high
vapor pressures, so I suppose you could vent the station to vacuum and
wait a century.

George Phillies
Professor of Physics
  (yes, I also have a biology degree)
[e-mail]