Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V09_4/V9_469.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #469

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 9 : Issue 469

Today's Topics:
              Private launchers
NASA Commercial Programs Office to exhibit at Paris Air Show (Forwarded)
                gps satellites
         Re: Sun's invisible partner NEMESIS
     Magellan Status for 05/30/89 - 06/03/89 (Forwarded)
         Re: Venus & the Greenhouse effect..
   Re: Amazon Forest Destruction (was Re: Asteroids and Dinosaurs)
             Re: Private Space Companies
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 19 May 89 22:54:32 GMT
From: ccncsu!handel.colostate.edu![e-mail]  (Chris Bogart)
Subject: Private launchers


   I understand there are, or have been, several private corporations working
on their own launch vehicles, under a loosening of restrictions on non-NASA
launches.  Does anyone know if any of these comanies still exist?  Please
reply by e-mail and I'll post a summary of responses I get.
   I'm interested more in for-profit companies intending to put up
communication satellites or whatever, than in futurist groups like the L-5
society.  Thanks for your help,


Chris Bogart         [e-mail]

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

Date: 30 May 89 16:28:17 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Commercial Programs Office to exhibit at Paris Air Show (Forwarded)

Jim Ball
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                       May 30, 1989


RELEASE:  89-81

NASA COMMERCIAL PROGRAMS OFFICE TO EXHIBIT AT PARIS AIR SHOW


     An exhibit featuring the cooperative efforts of NASA and
U.S. industry to commercially develop space will be displayed in
the United States National Pavilion at the 38th Paris Air Show,
June 9-18.

     The exhibit highlights the development of commercial
applications, and focuses on current research activities underway
by NASA and U.S. companies through programs such as Joint
Endeavor Agreements and the Centers for the Commercial
Development of Space.

     Also displayed with the exhibit will be scale models of
commerical space hardware provided by U.S. commercial space
transportation firms, satellite manufacturers, and privately-
developed orbital laboratory facilities.

     The commercial programs exhibit will be located with U.S.
industry displays and staffed by representatives of NASA's Office
of Commercial Programs.

     The Office of Commercial Programs was created in 1984 to
provide a focus for efforts to encourage greater private sector
involvement and investment in the nation's civil space program.

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

Date: 30 May 89 15:12:29 GMT
From: vsi1!daver!wombat![e-mail]  (George Scolaro)
Subject: gps satellites


I have just bought a handheld gps receiver from a company in L.A. called
Magellan. The unit works well, and is an impressive piece of technology.  My
question is: what is the schedule for more gps satellites going up. It seems
that there are 7 up now, as has been since the beginning of the year(?).
--
George Scolaro
george@wombat
(try {pyramid|sun|vsi1|killer} !daver!wombat!george)

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

Date: 30 May 89 19:55:55 GMT
From: agate!rocket.ssl.berkeley.edu![e-mail]  (George Kaplan)
Subject: Re: Sun's invisible partner NEMESIS

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (the  root) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Blake Philip Wood)
>writes:
>>Prof. Richard A. Muller, here at Berkeley, is the originator of this idea.
>>About a year ago he wrote a book on the subject: "Nemesis".
>
>I checked our libary listings and found
>    ...
>There is no listing for Miller. Can anyone help?

From the MELVYL online catalog at UC Berkeley:

Author:        Muller, R. (Richard)
Title:         Nemesis / Richard Muller. 1st ed. New York : Weidenfeld &
                 Nicolson, c1988.
Description:   xiii, 193 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.

Notes:         Includes index.

Subjects:      End of the world (Astronomy)
               Planets, Minor.
               Extinction (Biology)

Call numbers:  UCB   Astronomy QB638.8 .M851 1988
               UCB   Main      QB638.8 .M851 1988
               UCB   Physics   QB638.8 .M851 1988

George C. Kaplan                Internet:  [e-mail]
Space Sciences Lab              UUCP:  ...!ucbvax!sag4.ssl!gckaplan
University of California        [phone]
Berkeley, CA  94720

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

Date: 30 May 89 22:04:37 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Magellan Status for 05/30/89 - 06/03/89 (Forwarded)


                     MAGELLAN WEEKLY STATUS
                       May 30-June 3, 1989


     This is a weekly status report. The next report will be
issued June 5.

     The spacecraft is in good health following the long holiday
weekend. All momentum wheel desaturations and star calibrations
were performed routinely.

     The Attitude Control team determined on May 27 that a
ground software error was responsible for an attitude update
problem and the error is being corrected. No flight software
changes are required, but gain changes will be uploaded.

     The Cruise-3 computer command sequence was successfully
tested in the System Verification Lab and is to be uploaded this
afternoon.

     Cruise-3 contains wheel desaturations at 12:45 p.m. and
12:45 a.m. and the star calibration at 1 p.m. daily. It also
contains radio tests and arming of the Solid Rocket Motor on
June 7 at 3 p.m. Arming is done early so that any possible
problems later in the cruise will not prevent its arming.


     SPACECRAFT
     Distance From Earth (mi)                    3,735,101

     Velocity Geocentric                         5,531 mph
              Heliocentric                      60,293 mph

     One Way Light Time                           20.0 sec

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

Date: 30 May 89 03:26:59 GMT
From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!me!ecf![e-mail]  (Hema Sandhyarani Murty)
Subject: Re: Venus & the Greenhouse effect..

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (System Administrator) writes:
>
>   I heard that Venus used to be a flourishing planet, and could have been much
> like Earth, until the Greenhouse took into effect there. Does anyone know if
> this is true, and if so, can you fill in a few details?  Thanks..
>
> _______________________________________________________________________________
> _______________________________________________________________________________


Venus has almost the same mass, size and density as the Earth, which has
earned the nickname 'Earths sister'.  However, there are some important
differences.

Surface Venus temperature is 900 deg. F and surface Venus pressure is
90 atmospheres.

Its atmosphere is 96 percent  carbon dioxide and this is responsible for
the massive greenhouse effect - a planet-wide catastrophe.

The Earth also has a greenhouse effect due to its carbon dioxide and water
vapor.  The global temperature of the Earth would be below the freezing
point of water if not for the greenhouse effect.  Like Venus, the Earth
also has about 90 atmospheres of carbon dioxide; but it resides in the
crust as limestone and other carbonates and not in the atmosphere.
If the Earth were a little closer to the Sun, the temperature would
increase, driving some of the carbon dioxide out of the surface rocks,
generating a stronger greenhouse effect, which in turn would heat the
surface further.  A hotter surface would vaporize still more carbonates
into carbon dioxide and this would lead to a runaway greenhouse effect.
This is just what we think happened in the early history of Venus because
of Venus' proximity to the Sun.

This is warning to all of us life forms on this planet - burning fossil
fuels releases carbon dioxide into the air.  This is the only home we
know.

Hema Murty
Institute for Aerospace Studies, University of Toronto
4925 Dufferin St., Downsview, Ontario, M3H 5T6 Canada

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

Date: 30 May 89 20:50:24 GMT
From: oliveb!3comvax![e-mail]  (Michael McNeil)
Subject: Re: Amazon Forest Destruction (was Re: Asteroids and Dinosaurs)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer)
writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Steve Hosgood) writes:
>>it's like asking the original white settlers of what is now the USA and
>>Canada not to got west because they'll destroy the Amerinds. They'd have
>>shot you and continued regardless.
>
>Speak for yourself, Yanqui. :-)  If they'd tried that in Canada, the RCMP
>(or RNWMP or NWMP as it then was, depending on the year) would have hauled
>them off to jail fairly promptly.  The Canadian West was very different
>from the American West:  in Canada, the police arrived *before* the settlers.
>Mostly because of lawless characters leaking up from down south, too.

I notice that the area of Indian reservations in western Canada
is similar to that of the western United States -- i.e., a small
percentage of the total land area.  Despite the vigilance of the
Mounties, the Indians don't seem to come out of it much better.

>The Mounties' job was to make sure that the Amerinds were destroyed in a
>peaceful and superficially-lawful manner. :-(

This is largely what happened in the United States as well.  It's
a myth that the Indian displacement was mostly accomplished by
massacre.  The Federal government was charged with protecting
the Indians' rights and made a considerable effort to do so --
but it was pretty much a matter of trying to hold back the sea.

In fact, your statement above could almost be a paraphrase of
what Alexis de Tocqueville wrote back in the 1830's, comparing
the U.S.'s approach to the Indians with that of the Spaniards:

    The Spaniards let their dogs loose on the Indians as if
    they were wild beasts; they pillaged the New World like a
    city taken by storm, without discrimination or mercy; but
    one cannot destroy everything, and frenzy has a limit;
    the remnant of the Indian population, which escaped the
    massacres, in the end mixed with the conquerors and
    adopted their religion and mores.  [FN: But one should
    not give the Spaniards any credit for this result.  If
    the Indian tribes had not been settled agriculturists when
    the Europeans arrived, no doubt in South America they would
    have been destroyed just as they were in the North.]

    On the other hand, the conduct of the United States
    Americans toward the natives was inspired by the most
    chaste affection for legal formalities.  As long as the
    Indians remained in their savage state, the Americans did
    not interfere in their affairs at all and treated them as
    independent peoples; they did not allow their lands to be
    occupied unless they had been properly acquired by contract;
    and if by chance an Indian nation cannot live on its
    territory, they take them by the hand in brotherly fashion
    and lead them away to die far from the land of their fathers.

    The Spaniards, by unparalled atrocities which brand them
    with indelible shame, did not succeed in exterminating the
    Indian race and could not even prevent them from sharing
    their rights; the United States Americans have attained
    both these results with wonderful ease, quietly, legally,
    and philanthropically, without spilling blood and without
    violating a single one of the great principles of morality
    in the eyes of the world.  It is impossible to destroy men
    with more respect to the laws of humanity.

        Alexis de Tocqueville, *Democracy in America*, 13th
        Edition, 1850, Edited by J. P. Mayer, Translated by
        George Lawrence, Anchor Books, Doubleday and Co., Inc.,
        New York, 1975, p. 339.

>Van Allen, adj: pertaining to  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
>deadly hazards to spaceflight. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

--
Michael McNeil            [e-mail]
3Com Corporation        hplabs!oliveb!3comvax!michaelm
Mountain View, California    work telephone: [phone] x 208

    We do not believe.  We fear.
        Aua (a Central Eskimo shaman, when queried about Eskimo
        beliefs), from *Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire
        in a Northern Landscape*, by Barry Lopez, 1986

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

Date: 26 May 89 19:40:22 GMT
From: skipper![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Private Space Companies

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:

   Contrary to popular misconception,
   the KC-135 and the 707 are **not** the same aircraft -- they don't even
   have the same fuselage cross-section -- although they share a common
   [privately funded] ancestor.)

This is not a popular misconception.  Let's look at Jane's All the
World's Aircraft, which is a very authoritative source.  On page 238
of the 1976-77 edition we find the following:

Boeing Model 707

US Air Force designation: VC-137

   The prototype of the Boeing Model 707 was the first jet transport
designed as such to be completed and flown in the United States.  It
made its first flight on 15 July 1954.

   Designated Model 367-80, it was built as a private venture and was
used to demonstrate the potential of commercial and military
developments of the design for a period of more than 15 years.  During
its early test programme, it was fitted with a flight refuelling boom,
to prove the capability of this type of aircraft for refuelling
present and future jet bombers, fighters and reconnaissance aircraft
at or near their operational altitudes and speeds.  As a result, a
developed version was ordered in large numbers for the USAF under the
designation KC-135.

[stuff about donation of prototype to Smithsonian]

    On 13 July 1955 Boeing was given clearance by the USAF to build
commercial developments of the prototype concurrently with the
production of military KC-135 tanker-transports.  These transports
have the basic designations of Boeing 707 and 720, but were made
available in many versions, of which a total of 919 had been sold and
905 delivered by 31 August 1976 [when this went to press].  These
totals include five specially-equipped aircraft delivered to the USAF
under the designations VC-137A (now VC-137B) and VC-137C, and two
AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) aircraft which were used,
under the designation EC-177D, for competitive trial of
downward-looking radars.  They are now being used in the next phases
of the E-3A programme.

[gives specs of only version available, 707-320C]

End of excerpt.

Thus we see that a privately developed prototype became the VC-137
(probably A) which turned into the KC-135.  The Air Force then gave
Boeing _permission_ to build a commercial version, known as the 707
and 720, concurrently.  I'm not sure what is implied by this
permission, but it sounds like the Air Force had some sort of rights
which they shared with Boeing.  Having the Air Force pay for the jigs
and assembly-line setup makes it a lot cheaper to build the commercial
version.  The Air Force also paid for the CAT I testing, which would
have put the commercial version further up the maturity curve, even
though it would not suffice for the FAA certification.

On page 239, we also find, in reference to the 727, the following:

In other respects [refers to the innovative rear-engined layout] the
727 bears a resemblance to the 707 and 720 series.  It has an
identical upper fuselage section and many parts and systems are
interchangeable between the three types.

I guess this makes the 727 a KC-135/VC-137 derivative too. :-)

The Air Force paid for the YC-14 prototypes, since this was back in
the era of fly-offs.  This certainly contradicts the "Boeing has never
been paid by the government to build an aircraft" line.  They (Boeing)
spoke then of a commercial version, probably to compete with the L-100
(commercial version of the C-130).  They're also building the Osprey
and were talking about building a civilian version of this.  Boeing is
much less concerned about ideological purity than some people on the
net are.  Rather, they'll take any advantage they can (IMO as they
should) to continue building successful and profitable aircraft.

--

M F Shafer
NASA Ames-Dryden Flight Research Facility
[e-mail] or [e-mail]

NASA management doesn't know what I'm doing and I don't know what they're
doing, and everybody's happy this way.

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

End of SPACE Digest V9 #469
*******************