Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V09_3/V9_378.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #378

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 9 : Issue 378

Today's Topics:
               Re: Bored public
  Re: Civilians in space (Was Re: First concert from space--update)
             re: Walker testimony
         Re: astrology (or effect of moon on people)
           bored public, Three Mile Island
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 13 Apr 89 18:21:38 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Stainless Steel Gerbil [Joe Beckenbach])
Subject: Re: Bored public

>> Joe Di Lellio  ([e-mail])
>  [e-mail]

>> P.S. The above mentioned eco major is the same one who dislikes (if we ever
>>      had the reason for it) dumping nuke waste into the sun, since "it will
>>      all come back to us in the solar wind", or in deep space, since "there's
>>      only so much space out there".
>
>Don't worry about this. We will conduct a survey as soon as we figure
>out cheap personal spaceflight, and these people will simply not be
>issued a licence!

    Are you sure you're willing to risk the loss of the revenue that such
a group can conceivably generate?  Look, we're not going to see cheap personal
spaceflight with enough volume to allow anyone into space who can't pull his
or her own weight.  The most valuable space assets for a good while promise
to be informational and rather high-tech; how many of those types will be
able to pull their weight?  Right, only the ones who act as the "dumb" lab
technicians-- and even "dumb" lab technicians tend not to have this type of
attitude!

    So who needs to worry about giving them licenses?  The slots for flight
seats will be small in number, and have science-related strings attached in
the first place:  it's not even going to look attractive to them.  Later,
when Earth's population is straining the limits, the colonies will be able
to ask for the best of the non-science people who still have something of
an open mind.  Or, to follow history, the colonies will get anyone given them,
and try to incorporate the newcomers.  Survival from there is up to them.

--
Joe Beckenbach               |    LUNA HOTEL: $99,999 for 2 people for
[e-mail]       |      2 weeks; includes flights to and
Caltech 256-80, Pasadena CA 91125  |      from Terran Spaceport Alpha.

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

Date: 13 Apr 89 01:07:09 GMT
From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!attcan!lsuc!ncrcan!ziebmef![e-mail]  (Matthew Francey)
Subject: Re: Civilians in space (Was Re: First concert from space--update)

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jerry Gardner) writes:
> >>...The dream may be alive, but not at NASA headquarters.
> >I'm curious, how's the Canadian space program doing these days?
> Lousy.  Our glorious government, in its (minimal) wisdom, has tied it much
> too closely to the US program.

... and a last check, the Great Problem to be solved was where the
headquarters should go (I recall it is to be in Montreal, but that just
raised the further Problem of where *exactly* in Montreal it should go.. sigh).
--
Name: Matthew Francey             Address: N43o34'13.5" W79o34'33.3" 86m
[e-mail]          uunet!utgpu!{ontmoh!moore,ncrcan}!ziebmef!mdf

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

Reply-To: mordor!rutgers!pnet01.cts.com![e-mail]
Date: Sat, 15 Apr 89 10:03:22 PDT
From: mordor!rutgers!pnet01.cts.com![e-mail] (Jim Bowery)
To: hplabs!hpcea!hp-sdd!crash![e-mail]
Subject: re: Walker testimony

Charles Walker, employee of McDonell Douglas and NASA astronaut
posing as a representative of the "grassroots" before Congress
gives testimony:

>         Thank you for this opportunity today to express the hopes,
> dreams and aspirations of the National Space Society before this
> hearing on the institutional issues facing the National Aeronautics
> and Space Administration. The Space Society is a growing
> organization, representing the shared vision of upwards of 25,000
> members and 125 chapters primarily situated here in the United
> States.
That is -- 25,000 subscribers to a heavily censored space magazine
who, 20 years after Apollo, are so desparate to see progress in space
they are willing to put up with any amount of incompetence and
corruption in NASA, because NASA is, quite by design, the only
hope offered them.

>         The National Space Society is a family of organizations which
> includes the non-profit educational `mothership', NSS; the
> grassroots lobby, Spacecause; and the political action committee
> Spacepac.
The non-profit "mothership" has a phone-tree used exclusively for
political activities, its most heavily supported committee is the
legislative committee and its board of directors is both heavily
interlocked with the other, overtly political, organizations and
is tightly controlled by aerospace insiders (such as John Logsdon
who, at once, proclaims himself to be a Washington insider
and also a representative of the grassroots).  The IRS should
investigate whether the 501C3 status of NSS is valid even in
the letter of the law anymore.  Write your congressman ASAP and
ask him/her to recommend that the IRS do so.

>         So you can see that space advocates are beginning to organize
> in much the same fashion as many other politically astute advocacy
> groups have done in the past. Space activists are determined to
> become major players on the public policy stage.
Advocates of, by and for the aerospace industry and NASA engergetic
in their anti-space porkbarrel activism.

>         One step to realize this vision -- a vision common not only
> among our members but, we believe, this nation as a whole -- is
> that the National Space Society fully supports the 1990 Bush
> Administration budget request for the National Aeronautics and
> Space Administration of $13.3 billion.
In other words, NASA and McDonnell Douglas support Mike Walker,
their astronaut, in asking Congress to appropriate them more money.
The magazine with circulation of 25,000 is promoting the naive
and still (even after Challenger) dominant view that the way
to space is through government funded development and operations.

Now comes a classic paragraph virtually bursting at the seams
with Freudian slips:
>         We wish to submit to you that the United States can no longer
> afford to weigh social programs against the attributes of the space
> program. Our space enterprise is a social program...it benefits our
> society by providing jobs.  It promotes the general welfare and
> secures our freedoms. It challenges our creative instincts. And it
> harnesses our esprit de corps to transform space into, not only a
> medium for exploration, but as a locale for business and commerce.
"THE space program" (emphasis by Charlie Walker in his recent
Ad Astra president's column) certainly does challenge our creative
instincts -- to figure out a way around THE space program into space.
It harnesses our esprit de corps and keeps it harnessed to the
interests of the government spoon-fed aerospace industry and NASA
bureaucrats.  It is a social program that benefits and promotes
the general welfare of Charlie Walker, McDonnell Douglas and friends.

>         As you know, the United States has been engaged in exploring
> and utilizing space for over three decades. To assist you in
> gauging just what that thirty years means in terms of productivity
> and jobs for the country, I would like to call your attention to
> a recently issued study by the NASA Alumni League.
The main thing it did for the country was provide three decades of
job security for members of the NASA Alumni League and an environment
conducive to writing marketing hype thinly disguised as a study.

Finally, the portion of the "testimony" that I find, personally,
most offensive:
>         The Space Society notes the gathering support for Mission to
> Planet Earth as an objective for the country's space program...
>
>         We strongly urge this subcommittee to assist in the
> implementation of a multi-agency plan to globally sense our
> environment and better evaluate the stresses and strains placed on
> our planet by our species. Our planet is painfully overdue for an
> examination.
>
>         There can be no end to Mission: Earth...we must maintain our
> earthbound "launching pad" while we peer spaceward. When celestial
> travelers from Earth return to the planet after a long voyage in
> the distant future, they should find their home planet as pristine
> as when they departed.

As the person who coined the phrase "Mission: Earth", edited the
NSS pamphlet by that name and initiated some of the earliest
cooperative work between the Sierra Club and space activists,
which most recently led to the adoption of a jointly written
policy on the greenhouse effect by the Sierra Club, I denounce
this attempt by NASA to continue its pattern of eliminating
indpendent scientific inquiry by controlling all activity
in earth observation.

Normally, it would be sufficient to simply guarantee that other
agencies such as NOAA, NSF, EPA etc. had independent resources to
establish earth observation programs of their own.  However, given
NASA's position and history of refusing to release scientific
data critical to the environment while misreporting such data (much
to the detriment of the environment), it is essential that NASA be
PROHIBITED from soaking up the vital and limited resources earmarked
for environmental applications of space science.

We must enable a variety of independent agencies to pursue the
acquisition of this critical information without bureaucratic impedement
in the guise of "coordination."  They must be given independent
budgets adequat to purchase launch services and build remote
observation satellites.  NASA must be restricted to planetary missions
other than "Mission: Earth."

All who are truly concerned about the environment should
recognize that Charlie Walker and NASA are more concerned
with capitalizing on the precious growing awareness that our
planet is in danger to garner a few more dollars for NASA than
they are with the fact that allowing NASA to play its typical
games in this arena places our planet in peril.

Please do your part to stop NASA and its associated industrial
concerns from inadvertently destroying the environment through
the blind pursuit of a political formula that has worked for
them in the past.

Write your congressman and demand that NASA be limited to
exploration of OTHER PLANETS.  Demand also more money for
a variety of agencies OTHER THAN NASA to pursue INDEPENDENT
environmental research including earth observation from space
with their own probes and satellites.  He is your representative
and this is your money.  Let him know what you think.  From
personal experience, I know it works to talk to your congressmen
about these issues.

Of secondary importance is that the relationship between the
"NSS family of organizations" and the aerospace establishment
be investigated by congress, with special attention being paid
to claims of "grassroots advocacy" by tightly interlocking
boards of directors packed with aerospace insiders, continually
badgering congress with 501C3-supported phone tree activations
to give NASA as much money as it wants for what ever it wants.

We have them on the run.

Strike while the iron is hot!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Bowery    Phone: [phone]
PO Box 1981                  Join the Mark Hopkins Society!
La Jolla, CA 92038   (A member of the Mark Hopkins family of organizations.)

UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim
ARPA: crash!pnet01![e-mail]
INET: [e-mail]

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

Date: 15 Apr 89 11:32:40 GMT
From: Portia!hanauma![e-mail]  (Joe Dellinger)
Subject: Re: astrology (or effect of moon on people)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ken Stuart) writes:
>
>    There has actually been a scientific proof of astrology by
>   someone named Gauquelin.

Astrology was pretty well developed a couple of thousand years ago, right?
The planets have noticeable effects that can be predicted by Astrology, right?

    >>> Then why didn't astrologers discover Uranus? <<<

I mean, they had a LONG TIME to do it in.
\    /\    /\    /\/\/\/\/\/\/\.-.-.-.-.......___________
 \  /  \  /  \  /Dept of Geophysics, Stanford University \/\/\.-.-....___
  \/    \/    \/Joe Dellinger [e-mail]  apple!hanauma!joe\/\.-._

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

Date:         Sat, 15 Apr 89 15:52:54 EDT
From: Kenneth Ng <[e-mail]>
Subject:      bored public, Three Mile Island


:Date: 4 Apr 89 14:03:20 GMT
:From: mfci![e-mail]  (Paul Rodman)
:Subject: Re: Bored public
:
:In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Scott
: Hess) writes:
:>and towards use of it. Else, why was everyone so freaked about Three Mile
:>Island? There was such a small chance of explosion there that it was almost
:>unworthy of talking about.
Actually there was appparently an explosion in the containment building
9 hours and 50 minutes into the accident.  Maximum estimated over-
pressure was 28 PSI.  This pressure spike caused the containment
building sprinklers to kick in.  Calculations (not mine) show that
if all the hydrogen possible had been generated from the zircronium
water reaction had been ignited, the containment building would have
held together.

:An explosion no, but the chances of a meltdown were quite good. Most average
:folks are pretty well informed that an explosion isn't the real danger
:after seeing the "china syndrome", which broke at around the same time.

Even if the reactor did melt down completely, Peehs and INTER estimate
between 4 and 13 days to erode through the 20 foot concrete basement.
INTER also shows that the molten mass would have cooled down enough
to solidify in 1-2 days.  After that one still has to reach water.
Area artesian water is found at 300-800 feet down, but none has ever
been found in the core holes drilled down to 150 feet (I presume they
plugged them up after they drilled them :-)).

:If you've ever read the transcript of what took place at TMI
:it boggles the mind. The fact that the core was "rubblized" and nothing
:worse happened is pretty much blind fate. Lots of stupidity in evidence.
:For example, once the core was exposed (water level too low due to
:human error) the control rods are exposed to oxygen and started to burn.

Er, um, first of all the control rods themselves did not burn, it was
the fuel rods.  What happened was that the residue heat raised the
fuel temperature to about 4000 degrees F.  At about 3000 F, zirconium
reacts with water to form zirconium dioxide plus hydrogen.  To avoid
this, reactors are not supposed to exceed 2,200 F.  What was not
acceptable was the fact that the hydrogen was produced at 500 times
the capability of the hydrogen recombiners built at the time.

This is not to say that nothing went wrong at TMI-2.  Plenty went
wrong, plenty was not designed right.  What struck me the most for
being designed wrong was the PORV (Pilog Operated Relief Valve) which
stuck open.  The operator console had a light indicating the position
of the valve.  Rather than indicating the real position of the valve
(open or closed) it indicated whether or not power was applied to
the soloniod to open or close the valve!  What *IDIOT* designed this?

I've read and studied the transcript printed in the President's
Report.  It's quite shocking, and makes one wonder about who is
being hired to run these things.  But, on the other hand, one could
argue that in spite of all the screwups, we still didn't have a
worst case accident. 1/2 :-)


References:
INTER: a program designed to predict the effects of molten fuel and
concrete.  Also known as CORCON at Sandia Corp.

Peehs: "Analysis of a hypothetical core meltdown accident at a
pressurized water reactor", Siemans Forsch.  U. Entwerke, Berischte
Band 8, 1979, No. 2.

Staff Reports to The President's Commission on The Accident at
Three Mile Island.

:The point of this reply is actually to underscore my agreement with some
:of what you say. But, 3 Mile Island *was* a dangerous fiasco, in my opinion,
:because of the moronic engineering for human factors, and the cavalier
:attitude toward licensing reactor control room personell. Both however
:may have roots in more basic problems.
:    Paul K. Rodman
:    [e-mail]
:    __... ...__    _.. .   _._ ._ .____ __.. ._
True, when high school graduates think Gorbachev is a Russian athlete
and can't even identify the capital of the United States, something
is wrong (ref: recent ABC special on education in America).

Kenneth Ng
TEIES Project
[e-mail]

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

End of SPACE Digest V9 #378
*******************