Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson Received: from holmes.andrew.cmu.edu via trymail for +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr1/ota/space/space.dl@andrew.cmu.edu (->+dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr1/ota/space/space.dl) (->ota+space.digests) ID ; Fri, 31 Mar 89 05:16:52 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Fri, 31 Mar 89 05:16:41 -0500 (EST) Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #327 SPACE Digest Volume 9 : Issue 327 Today's Topics: more on cold fusion Re: Room Temperature fusion - possible indications? PHOBOS 2 dead ? Re: Success with cold fusion reported Re: Civilians in space (Was Re: First concert from space--update) Room Temperature fusion, expert skepticism Re: Cold Fusion Magellan Phobos Skepticism is not ostrichism Re: Discovery - UFO Close Encounter? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 29 Mar 89 11:54 EDT From: Subject: more on cold fusion I think if this is legitimate Great, if it is tabloid filler, they should and will be skewered alive by the scientific community. I wonder when they will come out with a "Mr. Fusion" for my 71 Datsun 510? Regular gas is getting real hard to find, and my mileage isn't what it used to be. ;) Seriously, though, when you hear it being knocked by "eminent" scientists, see if that person is working for a current fusion project or an energy company.....since their livelyhoods are at stake, their opinions are biased (in my opinion, etc.). I applaud them for the "outrageous" way they released their info. That way, if it is legitimate, enough people all over have the basic details to check it out, and no government or industry can squash it before it gets out, ala the 400 mpg engine. If it is garbage, they look like fools, if it's not..... By the way, anyone know how difficult it is to get the Deuterium out of seawater? The process efficiency might determine how expensive fusion could get. I heard somewhere that a gram of D = 2400 barrels of fuel oil if it is all fused into He and you use all the energy (WSJ article, so no guarantee of accuracy). Korac MacArthur ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ No accountability of opinion required :p ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ------------------------------ Date: 29 Mar 89 19:47:52 GMT From: ccoprmd@pyr.gatech.edu (Matthew T. DeLuca) Subject: Re: Room Temperature fusion - possible indications? In article <3276@nunki.usc.edu> sawant@nunki.usc.edu (Abhay Sawant) writes: >AAAARGH!!!!! Why so many people here using fps? I thought higher >education in the US used SI only. Nope. My aerospace engineering courses use FPS routinely. I hate it. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Matthew DeLuca : Georgia Institute of Technology : Remember, wherever you go, there you are. ARPA: ccoprmd@pyr.gatech.edu : ------------------------------ Date: 29 Mar 89 08:12:36 GMT From: mcvax!ukc!axion!phoebe!sjeyasin@uunet.uu.net (swaraj jeyasingh) Subject: PHOBOS 2 dead ? Just heard on the radio (BBC World Service) last night that the Soviets have lost contact with PHOBOS 2. Anyone out there know anything ? No further info was given on that broadcast which I first heard at 2300GMT on Tuesday 28th and again at 0600GMT on Wed 29th. (Usual disclaimer etc ) Swaraj Jeyasingh sjeyasingh@axion.bt.co.uk British Telecom Research Labs Martlesham Heath, IPSWICH UK ------------------------------ Date: 29 Mar 89 16:24:01 GMT From: encore!cloud9!jjmhome!cpoint!alien@bu-cs.bu.edu (Alien Wells) Subject: Re: Success with cold fusion reported In article <1989Mar28.041030.2291@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> kocic@gpu.utcs.UUCP (Miroslav Kocic) writes: > >The discussion in this newsgroup has so far been about the authenticity of the >Utah breakthrough, but I have two different concerns. First, what if fusion >turns out to create problems we don't foresee? We didn't foresee radioactive >waste or meltdowns back when fission was at this stage, and, if history teaches >anything, it teaches that every benefit has a proportional price. Second, what >if cold fusion becomes the crack-cocaine of energy production? I can imagine >a thousand fanatics in 750 terrorist cells making an H-bomb in their kitchen. 1) The problems with fission WERE forseen at this stage with fission. In fact, one of the two original designs submitted to the government when it requested proposals for fission power plants could not melt down (similar to most US university reactors). The US govt made a decision that meltdowns were unlikely enough that they were not an issue, and required all utilities to use light water reactors instead. When the utilities objected (utilities are, after all, extremely conservative) the US govt assumed all liabilities from a catastrophic meltdown. Of course, they recently decided that was unfair and capped what the govt will pay ... In addition, radioactive waste was considered a problem immediately. Again, utilities were unwilling to come to the table until the US govt assumed all responsibility for waste disposal. Of course, the govt did nothing ... 2) History does not teach us that everything has a proportional price, it teaches us that people will use something until its price is as much as the benefit. Before cars, there were serious concerns that horse waste (manure) was destroying public health and would destroy cities as viable entities. Cars pushed transportation down to the middle and lower classes and saved cities until the price got to the break-even point. 3) You cannot make an H-bomb with catalized fusion of the type described. That is as silly as saying you can make an atom bomb from radioactive watch dials. -- ============================================================================= A path is a terrible thing to waste ... decvax!frog!cpoint!alien bu_cs!mirror!frog!cpoint!alien ============================================================================= ------------------------------ Date: 29 Mar 89 15:23:46 GMT From: mcvax!ukc!etive!bob@uunet.uu.net (Bob Gray) Subject: Re: Civilians in space (Was Re: First concert from space--update) In article <3015@eos.UUCP> steve@eos.UUCP (Steve Philipson) writes: >Soviets don't have that problem (yet), and their leadership can set >priorities and direct efforts to accomplish them with far less in the way >dissent. If they have an edge because of the differences in political >systems, we just have to chalk that up to part of the price of democracy. The first dissent is already showing. In the recent soviet elections, Boris Yeltzin was elected to represent Moscow with 90% of the vote. He was standing against the official Communist party candidate. One of his election promises is to cut the Soviet spending on space exploration and spend the money on housing or other public projects to improve the quality of life for the ordinary citizen. Sounds quite familiar. Bob. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Mar 89 13:20:09 GMT From: thorin!lhotse!symon@mcnc.org (James Symon) Subject: Room Temperature fusion, expert skepticism In article <13470@steinmetz.ge.com>, blackje@sunspot.steinmetz (Emmett Black) writes: > . . . > I'm inclined to believe them, too. > I'm inclined not to. My father is a theoretical physicist who worked for years in plasma research. I called and asked him "Say Dad, do you suppose if I squeezed some deuterium into a metal lattice it might fuse?" He just said, "No." Then again, there is a wild, cheering, science enthusiast in the back of my head yelling, "Experts have been wrong before, wrong before, wrong before!" I bet my father has the same demon in action but probably under many more muffling layers of knowledgable skepticism. jim symon@cs.unc.edu {decvax uunet}!mcnc!unc!symon ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Mar 1989 11:31-EST From: Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU Subject: Re: Cold Fusion Question: If the fusion is occuring because of the "overlap" of the wave functions, could it be that the cross section for the proton branch and the neutron branch are sensitive to the precise distance? Can you effectively "tune" the n,p output by controlling the distance? I am suggesting (with out the experience to go off solving wave functions myself) that the lattice separation in the Palladium may control which reaction occurs. We would never have seen this before because we have not had atoms at "static" distances from each other, we have been slamming them as close together as possible as quickly as possible. Can anyone do the math? Seems like this might be down Bill Higgins or Mr. Koloc's alley. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Mar 89 16:38:10 PST From: Peter Scott Subject: Magellan X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"space@andrew.cmu.edu" The following is excerpted without permission from NASA Activities, February 1989, Volume 20, #2: Magellan: Exploring Venus as Never Before ----------------------------------------- Scheduled for launch April 28, 1989, aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis, the spacecraft Magellan will conduct the most comprehensive observation of the surface and gravitational features of Venus ever undertaken. During its 243-day (one Venus rotation) primary mission, the spacecraft will map up to 90% of the planet with high-resolution imaging radar. [...] Magellan's high-resolution radar will reveal surface features as small as 273 to 377 yards [by curious coincidence, these figures just happen to be close to 250 to 345 meters...]. This performance exceeds that of all previous U.S. and Soviet missions to the sister planet. [...] After launch from the shuttle, Magellan will be propelled onto its Venus trajectory by an Inertial Upper Stage, two-stage booster rocket. Once away from the gravitational pull of Earth, the spacecraft will cruise for 15 months (1.5 orbits of the Sun) before reaching its destination. [...] Magellan is a 7,826-pound, three-axis-stabilized craft. Solar panels and three gyroscopic momentum wheels will provide energy and control the motion of the spacecraft. Onboard electrical power will be supplied by the two solar panels, totalling 15.1 square yards. The array will always be pointed towards the Sun, despite the changing Earth-Sun-spacecraft geometry during the mission, and will be capable of producing 1,029 watts during the mapping phase. Two nickel-cadmium batteries will provide power during times of solar occultation and allow normal spacecraft operations independent of solar illumination. [...] With conventional radar, the resolution of an image depends on antenna size: the bigger the antenna, the better the resolution. A large antenna on a spacecraft, however, would be expensive and difficult to manipulate. To solve this problem, Magellan's synthetic aperture radar (SAR) will create high-resolution radar images by using computer processing on Earth to simulate a large antenna on the spacecraft. The onboard radar system will operate as though it has a huge antenna, hundreds of yards long, when the antenna is actually 12 feet in diameter. During the 37.2-minute data acquisition phase of each orbit, the SAR will transmit several thousand pulses of radio energy each second. [...] the pulses will illuminate a 15.5-mile-wide swath of the planet's surface [...]. [...] Magellan's orientation will be carefully controlled by three momentum wheels, assisted, when necessary, by 12 small gas-thruster motors. Magellan is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif [yay!]. Peter Scott (pjs@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov) ------------------------------ Date: 29 Mar 89 07:02:24 GMT From: jarthur!dwilliam@uunet.uu.net (David L. Williamson) Subject: Phobos I just saw a report on the news stating that contact with the Phobos probe currently in orbit around Mars has been lost. This would appear to be a major blow to the Soviet exploration of Mars. Anybody have better information about precisely what's going on??? -/ david /- -------------------------------------------- Bitnet: DWILLIAMSON@HMCVAX Snail : David L. Williamson Platt Campus Center Harvey Mudd College Claremont, CA 91711 Disclaimer: Who would WANT to think anything that I think of?!?!? ------------------------------ Date: 30 Mar 89 03:23:04 GMT From: leah!rpi!sun.soe.clarkson.edu!nelson@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Russ Nelson) Subject: Skepticism is not ostrichism UFO drivel is NOT welcome in sci.space [1], but there is no talk.ufos. Followups to sci.misc. [1] Fortunately, this isn't drivel. Yet. We're still operating in the sci.entific realm here. In article <7765@pyr.gatech.EDU> ccoprmd@pyr.gatech.EDU (Matthew T. DeLuca) writes: In article , nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Russ Nelson) writes: > In article <7751@pyr.gatech.EDU> ccoprmd@pyr.gatech.EDU (Matthew T. DeLuca) writes: > > This is patently ridiculous, ... Most likely ... > > How do you know that? I counter your skepticism with my > skepticism. I will admit, the evidence for my conclusion is as skimpy as the evidence for the UFO theory, but let's be realistic. So why do you advance further guesses below? Your skepticism seems to be as hard a belief as the UFOnatics. Skepticism means looking at the facts, and if the facts say "we don't know", then we don't know. Astronauts have been seeing 'UFO's' since the dawn of the space age, and the vast majority, if not all, have been sightings of expended booster segments, ejected garbage, and frozen urine. So? Most lottery tickets aren't winners either. That doesn't mean that *all* lottery tickets are losers. Each time, the UFO crowd came running, and each time there was a very reasonable explanation for the phenomenon. Not true. There is always a small percentage of unexplainable occurrences. Whether you believe these are noise or genuine UFOs depends upon your beliefs. Each time, the UFO crowd then claimed that there was a massive coverup. Unfortunately for you, the coverup explanation fits many facts just as well as the no-UFOs explanation. For example, many of Philip Klass's objections to the MJ-12 papers can be answered by "of course that would happen if it were being covered up." Well, it's been a quarter of a century now since these sightings from space have started, and I find it difficult to believe that an event of such magnitude as contact with alien life or alien technology could be kept secret. Unfortunately, you can't prove a negative, so we're back to beliefs again. When alien life *does* contact us (and I am of the opinion that we are not alone in the universe, although I am not on the edge of my seat, waiting for them to come along), it will hit us like a ton of bricks. Two tons of bricks. More guesses. A very possible explanation of this occurrence comes to mind: since the frequency of the alleged transmission is in the middle of the commercial radio band, it is possible that someone with a radio set to that frequency broadcast the two items to see what happened, knowing that someone might be listening. A pretty good joke, if you ask me. More guesses. If you don't know, just say so. -- --russ (nelson@clutx [.bitnet | .clarkson.edu]) If you can, help others. If you can't, | Leftoid and proud of it at least don't hurt others--the Dalai Lama | ------------------------------ Date: 29 Mar 89 23:09:21 GMT From: vsi1!daver!lynx!neal@apple.com (Neal Woodall) Subject: Re: Discovery - UFO Close Encounter? In article <7751@pyr.gatech.EDU> ccoprmd@pyr.UUCP (Matthew T. DeLuca) writes: >More likely, if an alien ship >did appear near the shuttle, the crew would turn around and head for home, under >orders from the ground, since they're not equipped for alien contact. I thought this whole thing was some kind of early April Fool's joke, but now this! What do you mean "not equipped for alien contact." (maybe you have been reading too much science fiction) I didn't know that our government or space program even had any "rules" for alien contact, much less that they have special "equipped for alien contact" shuttles! >Finally, *real* aliens would make contact with government officials Don't you think that they would seek out some more intelligent examples of our species? >and we can assume that this didn't happen, since at last check, Bush was at >some elementary school, talking about U.S. drug policy. Like I said, why not some more intelligent examples of our species (or maybe they communicate by reading lips! :-)? Cheers, Neal ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V9 #327 *******************