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Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #331

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 9 : Issue 331

Today's Topics:
        Re: Success with cold fusion reported
              foriegn QSL card procedure
           Re: Furnace Effect?..no worries
          Room-temperature fusion (caution)
                Goldstone tour
            SInfo on Biosphere III please.
              Re: space shuttle landing
              US/USSR prices (followup)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 31 Mar 89 06:47:41 GMT
From: agate!web-2h.berkeley.edu![e-mail]  (Anon <agate!web-2h.berkeley.edu![e-mail]>)
Subject: Re: Success with cold fusion reported

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Chuck Kring) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Chris Phoenix) writes:
>> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John Abt) writes:
>>
>> Imagine how cheap it would be, with unlimited power, to turn large areas of
>> land into mirrors.  Just find any sandy area such as a desert, then melt it
>> smooth, then sputter on some shiny metal.
>
>Not to flame, but this is one of the stupidest ideas that I've read in this
>group.

Skipping a bit...


>    2> If the greenhouse effect were a problem, then much of the reflected
>       sunlight would get trapped on the way back up and end up warming the
>       atmosphere anyway.

Not to flame :) , but this is not strictly true.  The greenhouse effect
requires sunlight to be absorbed by something, and the energy to be reemitted
in frequencies which are absorbed more efficiently by the atmosphere.  A
mirror, or a region with a high albedo (such as a snow-field) reflects sunlight
rather than absorbing/reemitting it.  This can have a net cooling effect,
and there is speculation that this is one mechanism which maintains the
cool temperatures in an ice age.



    --MYC

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

Date: 30 Mar 89 14:47:55 GMT
From: vsi1!wyse!mips!prls!philabs!briar.philips.com![e-mail]  (Robert Casey;6282;3.57;$0201)
Subject: foriegn QSL card procedure

Can someone tell me how one goes about getting QSL cards from international
stations?  How do QSL brearus work, and how do I use them?  In particular, I
contacted on 10m these stations: YU2NY,YV6PM,YV4WT,P43HM,XE2FU,LZ9A?,HK1LDG
Maybe someone could e-mail me what brearus one would use for these stations,
and what the procedure is.
thanks in advance,  73 de WA2ISE

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

Date: 31 Mar 89 14:16:02 GMT
From: meccts!meccsd![e-mail]  (Vincent J. Erickson)
Subject: Re: Furnace Effect?..no worries

The greenhouse effect and the furnace effect could both be compensated
for in the following way:  Call 3M up; order many square kilometers of
mylar; place mylar in solar orbit just indise the Earth's so it blocks
a small percentage of the sun's rays. Result; a lowering of the
Earth's temperature.

A more elegant solution might be a sunscreen, rather than a reflector.
A large enough piece of mylar which allows all the visible light, but
reflects some of the infra-red light. This would keep shadows from
projecting on the Earth. This same method would be useful for blocking
ultraviolet radiation in the event we destroy the ozone layer as
well.

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

Date: Fri, 31 Mar 89 13:07:51 EST
From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Formerly: National Bureau of Standards
Sub-Organization: National Computer and Telecommunications Laboratory
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are those of the sender
    and do not reflect NIST policy or agreement.
Subject: Room-temperature fusion (caution)


A few years ago, somebody came here and gave a talk on muon-catalyzed
room temperature fusion. One of the things that came out was that it
really is a room temperature phenomenon. If the temperature rises above
a certain low value, it stops working. This is good in the sense that it
can not be used directly as a fusion bomb, but poses a problem for power
collection. The proposed method was to use heat engines that operate on
a low temperature differential, such as the Stirling engine. While the
mechanism for the electrolytic fusion is not known or has not been disclosed,
it may similarly be limited to moderate temperatures. If this is the case,
perhaps the best hope for a space drive is an electric generator driving
an ion engine. Even with the required hardware and shielding this could
be attractive for long-term, low-thrust missions, but you can forget all
about 1G drives.

Of course, the phenomenon must first be verified by duplication, and its
parameters established.
                                       John Roberts
                                       [e-mail]

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

Date: 31 Mar 89 22:17:23 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (James N. Price)
Subject: Goldstone tour

-------
To sci.astro folks,

My wife and I got a personal tour of the Goldstone Tracking
Facility on the high desert of California last week.  It's easy to
arrange (if nothing else is going on) and one can't be anything
but amazed by the size and complexity of the instruments in the
Deep Space Network!  Contact me if you'd like the name and number
of the guy to call.  Plan on a good chunk of the day--it's truly
in the boonies.

--Jim Price, ARPANET:  [e-mail]

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

Date: 29 Mar 89 15:47:00 GMT
From: inmet!ishmael!inmet![e-mail]
Subject: SInfo on Biosphere III please.


Pardon me if this is not the correct forum, but I am curious as
to the Biosphere III experiment that was taking place in Arizona.

Biosphere I is Earth.

Biosphere II is the shrimp/algae aquarium designed by NASA - about
the size of a volleyball.

Biosphere III, as I remember it, is a sealed habitat covering several
acres of land with several different environmental areas (rain forest,
savanah, desert, etc) and representative life forms for each
environment.  It is inhabited by four couples, all scientists and was
supposed to run for five years.  The only things which were to enter
the habitat were sunlight and electrical power (for the computers, etc).

Does anyone have any pointers to a report on this?  I think the five
year period is substantially up.

Please send e-mail as to references (either in literature or other
discussion groups) and I'll post a summary if there's enough information.

Thanks in advance.

                Michael Tighe
                Intermetrics Inc
                Cambridge, MA
                ph: [phone]

                Internet:  inmet.inmet.com
                UUCP: ... decvax!seismo!think!inmet!tighe
                  or: ... cca!mirror!inmet!tighe

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

Date: 30 Mar 89 18:02:47 GMT
From: iconsys![e-mail]  (Ed Lane)
Subject: Re: space shuttle landing





>From: [e-mail] (Timothy K Reynolds)

>        When the space shuttle Atlantis lands at Edwards AFB, I
>        would reeeeealy like to be there. I have read letters on the
>        news-group telling me what to take along, but what do I have
>        to get to watch. Do I have to get some kind of a pass to get
>        on base? Please tell me what the deal is! And while I am
>        asking who would I have to beg to get real close, if you
>        know what I mean. Please help, I know that you guys out
>        there must know someone. I am just a student who life dream
>        is to watch the shuttle land from the front row.
>
>                         Thank You,
>                         Patrick R. Jones



I attended a shuttle landing on June 24, 1985.  My brother lives in nearby
Palmdale which was convienent since the landing was at 7:00am PDT.  Quite an
event-- something like a combination "trekkie" convention and RV caravan,
I would assume.  The experienced observers seemed to watch the event in
"simul-vision".  This is accomplished by watching the event on satillite
TV just outside your RV in the spectator parking lot at Edwards AFB.
Another memory is of a man on a recumbant(sp?) bicycle equipped with an
American flag on a rod (presumably for safety and patriatism).  This man
was able to carry an aluminum step ladder which he later deployed to sit
and watch the event through binoculars above a crowd of onlookers gath-
ered at the fenced parking lot.  The actual landing is brief and diffi-
cult to see with the unaided eye or a 50mm camera lens for that matter
(all I had at the time).  The actual landing is hard to see from the
spectators area without a telescope but the experienced observers would
watch the event on TV via satillite dish outside their RV.  The pictures
I have from that event are rather disappointing but the memories are
still endearing.  No pass is required for the spectator lot but this is
an extremely poor vantage point for seeing the landing.  The "multi-
sonic boom" phenomenon is experienced from this vantage point however as
the shuttle passes directly overhead (at considerable altitude) before
it turns to land.  I estimate that the shuttle is about 1/2 mile from
the parking lot when it comes to a stop.  From this distance the shuttle
looks like a lizard lying on a dry lake bed at 50 yards away :-)  It may
be possible to get a better vantage point on-base but in '85 shuttle
landings were still pretty well attended events and even the cheap-seats
off-base caused traffic congestion of major proportions (The re-cyclist
had the right idea).  Don't know the situation now so you might call Ed-
wards AFB for more recent info.

...............................................................................
Ed Lane                uunet!iconsys!lane
Software Engineer
SANYO/ICON            Telephone: [phone]
Orem, Utah            FAX: [phone]

"According to the source code this is appropriate behavior." -- T.Kimpton
...............................................................................

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

Date: Fri, 31 Mar 89 13:04:42 EST
From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Formerly: National Bureau of Standards
Sub-Organization: National Computer and Telecommunications Laboratory
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are those of the sender
    and do not reflect NIST policy or agreement.
Subject: US/USSR prices (followup)


>From: <[e-mail]>
>John Roberts writes:
>> - Economies of scale: The ability to maintain a high volume of launches
>>     and to accelerate the learning curve (and possibly to discourage the
>>     competition) can make it economically attractive to sell products or
>>     services for less than the actual cost. This has been a favorite
>>     Japanese strategy for years.

>Yes, it's called competition.  The Japanese are good at it.  This is usually
>considered to be something good, unless Americans are on the wrong end of
>the deal - then it is labeled unfair trading practices.

The actual situation is a lot more complicated than this. When a company
introduces a product into a market for which competing products already exist,
it must strive for market share (customer base) and sufficient volume of
business to assure a rapid learning curve and reasonable economies of scale.
Toward this purpose, the company is often willing to sell the product for an
artificially low price with reference to its current production costs,
accepting limited profits or even losses until it has established a market
position. At this point prices are set at a more reasonable level. (The
price may not actually go up, since production costs may have gone down.)
As long as no fraud is involved and the company is merely seeking to become
one competitor among many, this is considered proper business practice.
If, however, a company is trying to drive its competitors out of major
contention altogether, so it can control the market, this is considered
restraint of trade, and is illegal in the US. Note that it is not necessary
to drive the competitors entirely out of business. If their sales volume
can be reduced to the point that they no longer enjoy economies of scale,
they may not have sufficient funds to operate at a loss in order to restore
volume, or they may become convinced that they can not make a profit on the
product in question, and give it up. A clever company introducing an entirely
new product will lower the price as its production costs drop, making it
difficult for a new company to enter the market with a low sales volume.
(The typical US corporate approach is to charge what the market will bear
until a competitor comes along with lower prices and takes away most or
all of the business.)

This technique has been applied throughout modern history. After the
American Revolution, England tried to discourage the development of
US industry by making manufactured articles available at low prices.
Rockefeller of Standard Oil used to cut prices in local areas to kill
off small competitors, then raise the prices again. The Japanese
semiconductor manufacturers allegedly dropped $4 billion by underpricing
DRAM chips in an effort to knock out all competitors in the DRAM market.

>     The general comments sound like typical American geocentrism to me.  Why
>must the rest of the world pay the inflated prices that Americans, with their
>artificially stimulated (by the military-industrial complex) economy, are
>willing to pay?  Cheap labour exists all over the world, especially behind
>the Iron Curtain, and it has little to nothing to do State subsidies.

Americans are not anxious to lower American wages to the levels found
elsewhere in the world, though the current trade policy leaves things
headed in this direction. I was not talking about the international market,
just the domestic market. The US should not hope to do business abroad
unless its prices are competitive. A very common practice in Japan is for
a new business to be protected within the country by steep import tariffs,
until it is large enough to compete in other countries. Because of its
low volume and inexperience, the US private launch industry must be
considered a new business. If competing nations employ this technique,
why shouldn't the US do the same?

>...If you can't compete on the world market place,
>then get out or adjust your prices.  Just don't use a bludgeon on someone
>else just because you don't like the way that they are running their
>business!  Mafia tactics rule in the US Government's economic policies.

Not as much as in many other parts of the world.

If you will reread the original posting, I was not accusing the Soviets of
a conspiracy. I was stating that they have several incentives to employ
economically attractive business practices which would cause us to have
a distorted view of the overall efficiency of their program. Many people
say that the Soviet space program is much better than ours, so we should
do everything the way they do. I was pointing out that we do not really
have a complete picture of their space program, since they choose to
keep their costs secret. That does not in any way imply that we could
not benefit by copying *some* of what they have done.

>                                         -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
>Arnold Gill                             | If you don't complain to those who  |
>Queen's University at Kingston          | implemented the problem, you have   |
>gill @ qucdnast.bitnet                  | no right to complain at all !       |
>                                         -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
                              John Roberts
                              [e-mail]

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

End of SPACE Digest V9 #331
*******************