Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V09_6/V9_619.TXT

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From: "Todd L. Masco" <[e-mail]>
To: +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/[e-mail]
Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #619
X-Kibology: Allowed

             SPACE Digest V9 #619
             --------------------

Subject: NASA = US Space Program (Was Re: Circumstances of Koopman's death)
        Subject: Re: What is the Solar Impact Mission?
          Subject: Re: Quick and Dirty Won the Race
        Subject: space news from July 3 AW&ST
     Subject: Re: Space telescope - why only 1200 hours?
          Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V9 #582
             Subject: ESA news bulletins?
     Subject: Re: Space telescope - why only 1200 hours?
         Subject: Re: What is the Solar Impact Missio
               Subject: HR2674
             Subject: Re: Golfball flight
           Subject: Re: Space:  The Final Frontier

------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (William Baxter)
Subject: NASA = US Space Program (Was Re: Circumstances of Koopman's death)
Date: 7 Aug 89 04:33:39 GMT

Eric Tilenius once again demonstrates the confusion of NASA with the US
space program.

In article <[e-mail]>, EWTILENI@pucc (Eric William Tilenius) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Jim Bowery) writes:
>>Here are some of the circumstances of George Koopman's death:
>>He is pronounced dead at the scene.  I'm not sure what the status
>>is of AMROC's lawsuit against NASA after all this.
>>Has anyone seen a police report?  Did the coroner's report do
>>thorough testing for psychoactive substances?
>>Basically, I want to see the possibility of foul play eliminated.

Eric, compelled to rush to the defense of his beloved NASA, says

>But when you try to use his death as another of your propaganda weapons
>against NASA, I'm afraid I can't remain silent any longer.
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^
>[diatribe about Bowery, praise of Koopman, and nothing about NASA]

>because you're using his death as another attempt to demean the entire
>space program of the United States of America.             ^^^^^^^^^^
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
No wonder the defense was so swift and emotional.  Eric thinks that NASA
is the entire space program.  He must not have been listening to George
Koopman while he was alive.

William Baxter

ARPA: web@{garnet,brahms,math}.Berkeley.EDU
UUCP: {sun,dual,decwrl,decvax,hplabs,...}!ucbvax!garnet!web
------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (David Messer)
Subject: Re: What is the Solar Impact Mission?
Date: 7 Aug 89 04:20:52 GMT

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
 >In article <24.Jul.89.09:32:[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
 >>OK, What is the "Solar Impact Mission"  and why is it so hard to
 >>hit the Sun? After all we have already had close ups of Mercury.
 >
 >I don't particularly remember hearing about this one, but almost certainly
 >it's a mission to go straight down into the Sun, doing some observations on
 >the way.  The hard part is that to do it, you have to kill *all* Earth's
 >orbital velocity, which is about 50 km/s.  A Saturn V could have dropped a
 >couple of hundred kg into the Sun, as I recall.  The shuttle, forget it,
 >unless you use in-orbit assembly.  A beefed-up Energia with about four
 >upper stages could probably put a modest probe into the Sun.  Advanced
 >propulsion technologies would really help.
 >
 >The Mercury flyby was done with a Venus gravity assist.  But Mercury is
 >still a long way out from the Sun, and the last few million km are the
 >really hard ones, deep in that monstrous gravitational field.

The lowest-energy method to drop a probe into the sun would use a Jupiter
fly-by to kill the probes orbital velocity.  (Basically you fly-by on
the opposite side of Jupiter that the Voyager probes used.)  It should be
possible to drop many tons of spacecraft into the sun using this method.
(Even WITH the shuttle, Henry.)

 >1961-1969: 8 years of Apollo.  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
 >1969-1989: 20 years of nothing.| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

1969-1989:
USA: Five landings on the moon, first space-station, first
     international manned spaceflight, Voyager, Viking,
     first reusable space-craft, many other commercial,
     military and scientific missions too numerous to name.

Canada:  A robot arm.

--
Remember Tiananmen Square.           | David Messer       [e-mail] -or-
                                     | Lynx Data Systems  ...!bungia!viper!dave
------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Quick and Dirty Won the Race
Date: 7 Aug 89 04:48:17 GMT

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Rikhit Arora) writes:
>Is this really true??  Henry, could you compare the payloads that could be
>delivered to LEO by the Saturn V and Energiya?  (The third stage of the
>Saturn V does constitute a legitimate "payload" to LEO!)

There is a problem in doing specific comparisons because it's hard to pin
down a single number for either booster.  The Saturn V's payload rose
steadily over its flight history, which is why you run into such a range
of numbers on its hypothetical LEO payload.  And Energia has flown only
twice, in two slightly different configurations, and others could be put
together easily.  Energia's nominal capacity to LEO is 100 tons at the
moment -- i.e., that's what the Soviets would feel confident about signing
a contract for -- but Energia is believed to be designed for growth versions
with six or even eight strap-ons rather than the four seen so far.  The
Soviets have talked about being able to launch 200 tons relatively soon,
which is definitely a lot more than even the last Saturn Vs could do.
--
1961-1969: 8 years of Apollo.  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
1969-1989: 20 years of nothing.| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]
------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from July 3 AW&ST
Date: 7 Aug 89 05:30:01 GMT

This is the Paris Air Show wrap-up issue, light on space news.

NASA reveals plans to do exhaustive photography of LDEF before moving it
into the payload bay on the LDEF-retrieval mission, to document the exact
surface appearance of everything before exposure to air.

Air Force Secretary recommends 70% cut in DoD Aerospace Plane funding,
saying that costs are too high and risks too great.  He does concede
that it will be six months before he can be specific about technical
objections [!].  Reports are that his opinion was based on a report from
the Rand Corp., his former employer.  A 70% cut would effectively kill
the project.

German-led industrial consortium (with members in US, France, and Italy)
beign formed to develop a privately-owned retrievable unmanned space
platform called "Amica".  ESA is considering turning Eureca, a similar
rig developed with ESA money, over to the group.  This would provide two
vehicles for industrial materials work in the early 1990s.  The group
is already marketing platform space to NASA, ESA, and the French and
Italian space agencies; it will concentrate on government-agency payload
sponsors initially, with a gradual shift to commercial customers later.
Construction will be financed with payload deposits and bank loans.
NASA is a crucial customer; Amica does not want NASA money, but wants to
trade payload space for free or cheap shuttle deployment and retrievals.
NASA is interested but wary.  Eureca is scheduled to fly (for ESA) in
mid-1991, and it would then be turned over to the Amica group.  Amica
itself would fly for six months in 1992, after which the platforms would
alternate in doing one six-month mission per year.  ESA plans to use
most of the second and third Eureca flights but has made no commitment
to Amica yet.

British astronaut to fly to Mir in 1991.  The mission, dubbed "Juno", is
now official, with the signing of the contract in Moscow.  It will be
financed by sponsorship and merchandising (!), sale of payload space,
and broadcasting rights.  About L16M is needed all told.  Two astronaut
candidates are being sought; they will start 18 months of training at
Star City in November.  They will learn Russian as part of this.  [I'm
surprised at this -- I'd have expected that to be a prerequisite -- but
maybe they decided there weren't enough people who could meet it.  If I
recall correctly, nominal training for a Mir flight is one year, so
the Soviets are allowing extra time for it.  They may also be charging
extra, as L16M is about twice the reported "going rate".]  The mission
will be 8 days long in spring 1991.  The backup candidate will spend
the time doing the same experiments on the ground.

ESA's Olympus broadcast satellite arrives in Ottawa for checkout before
shipment to Kourou.

First pictures of the new Soviet SL-16 booster.  This is the one whose
first stage is also the Energia strap-on.  At least 11 have been launched
since first flight in 1985, mostly carrying military snoopsats.  A new
version of the Progress freighter is being developed for SL-16 launch.
Capacity to LEO is 30 klbs.  [Sounds like Progress II is going to be a
whole lot bigger than the current one.  SL-16 could well be meant as a
Proton replacement in the long run; payload capacity should be similar
with a third stage added.]

SSME fails during development testing:  pump shaft seizes and hydrogen
fire results, with heavy damage to the engine.  This engine was a ground
test unit, but NASA is assessing whether the problem might affect the
operational engines.

First pictures of Soviet launch activities at Plesetsk; quite good photos,
actually.  This is novel because Plesetsk is primarily military and was
very highly classified until recently.  It is the world's busiest launch
site, ahead of even Baikonur [nowhere else comes close to either], with
over 1200 launches to date.

Lockheed to develop threat-warning system for US military satellites, to
detect and verify attacks by antisatellite weapons.  The initial Satellite
On-board Attack Warning System unit, for delivery and launch in 1992,
will include detection of microwaves, laser light, and impacts.  There
have been suspected cases of "interference" with US satellites
in the past, although details are classified.  A major goal of SOARS
is unambiguous determination of whether trouble is an attack or an
on-board technical problem.  Low-profile attacks like peppering a
satellite with projectiles could be mistaken for problems with space
debris, for example, and it is considered important that the cause of
a satellite failure be known quickly and definitely in a crisis; even
a tentative analysis can take months now.  SOARS normally gets power
and communications through its host satellite, but it includes its own
hardened backup power supply and transmitter, designed to survive an
attack that would disable the satellite.  The initial contract is for
only one unit, although there are options for two more, and Lockheed
obviously hopes to get a production contract eventually.  Later
versions might add sensors for particle beams, radio jamming, and
nuclear radiation.
--
1961-1969: 8 years of Apollo.  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
1969-1989: 20 years of nothing.| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]
------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Paul Martenis)
Subject: Re: Space telescope - why only 1200 hours?
Date: 7 Aug 89 14:58:04 GMT

From article <[e-mail]>, by [e-mail] (John E Van Deusen III):
> I wonder if someone might be able to make use of the data that could be
> collected while the space telescope is repositioning at "the speed of a
> minute hand".  Such data could consist of a series of short-exposure
> data sets, shifted to compensate for movement, and then added.

    Yes, it can be done.  In fact, the guy sitting next to me here
at work is doing this with the "slew data" from the Einstein (HEAO-B)
X-ray Observatory.  According to him, Einstein slewed at about 18
arcminutes per second.  It was up for about two and a half years and
the slew data covers almost the whole sky with an average exposure time
of ~50 seconds.  "The speed of a minute hand" is 6 arcminutes per
second, so the HST will get about three times the exposure time.  I
hope somebody is working on this.

- Paul
--
Paul L. Martenis        E-mail:    leeds@cfa
60 Garden St.                or:    [e-mail]
Cambridge, MA  02138 USA    Phone:    [phone]
------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Mary Shafer)
Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V9 #582
Date: 7 Aug 89 16:35:27 GMT

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

>>great business opportunity, some capitalist would be out there building
>> "fighters" and making a lot of money.  Since that isn't happening, maybe
>> this isn't a great business opportunity. So the market isn't allocating
>> resources to it.

>This might well be a true statement. If there weren't governments
>pushing them, there might be an awful lot less high tech weaponry being
>built....

>This is supposed to be bad????

We were talking about building purely private "fighter" aircraft for
the purely private buyer.  That is, people who believe that everything
spec-ed or funded by the government is evil, unworkable, and poorly
designed can't buy surplus fighters, since such fighters are tainted
by the government stigma.  Thus, for such people who still want
fighter-type aircraft, the only option is a purely private "fighter."
It was the virtually non-existant market for such aircraft that I was
referring to in the posting that was quoted.
--

M F Shafer                          [e-mail]
NASA Ames Research Center           arpa!elxsi.dfrf.nasa.gov!shafer
Dryden Flight Research Facility
                Of course I don't speak for NASA
------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Stuart Warmink)
Subject: ESA news bulletins?
Date: 7 Aug 89 16:52:04 GMT

If anybody in the European Space Agency is reading this, would it be
possible to post regular news bulletins (similar to Peter Yee's postings)
regarding the status of launchers and/or payloads?

It is not easy to obtain up-to-date info on ESA on this side of the
Atlantic; I am sure I am not the only one who would be very interested
to read such reports!
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stuart Warmink, Whippany, NJ, USA    |     [e-mail] (att!cbnewsl!sw)
-------------------------> My opinions are just that <------------------------
------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Tom Neff)
Subject: Re: Space telescope - why only 1200 hours?
Date: 7 Aug 89 16:45:55 GMT

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Wayne Hayes) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Tom Neff) writes:
>>
>>Speaking of HST, there was a very interesting squib in this month's
>>ASTRONOMY.  Seems a team has taken the Palomar 5-meter scope to the
>>*diffraction limit* using optical interferometry (a technique adapted
>>from radio astronomy), ....
>
>    I haven't seen this article but the technique is also called Speckle
>Interferometry.

I was hoping someone else would follow up with a detailed correction
to this, but since no one has:

It was my impression that the famous SPECKLE interferometry, which
controversially imaged Betelguese years ago and other things since,
was NOT the same as "optical interferometry" as mentioned above.
Am I right or wrong?  (Should crosspost to astro I guess.)

--
"We walked on the moon --    ((    Tom Neff
    you be polite"         ))     [e-mail]
------------------------------

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: What is the Solar Impact Missio
Date: 7 Aug 89 16:58:00 GMT


>The Mercury flyby was done with a Venus gravity assist.  But Mercury is
>still a long way out from the Sun, and the last few million km are the
>really hard ones, deep in that monstrous gravitational field.

I recall only incompletely what I found, but I did some primitive
computer simulations of a Solar-intercept trajectory around 1971 or
1972, assuming Titan technology.  The only really feasible one that I
saw was a Jupiter gravity assist -- send the probe to Jupiter, and
whip around the planet so that the probe is dropping right into the
Sun.  Would provide a close flyby of Jupiter, too, and (assuming that
the probe is designed for solar exploration), a nice study of the
plasma physics of the Jovian system as well as that of the Sun.

Of course, the simulation may not have been sufficiently accurate -- I
was just a high school kid back then....

A-T
------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (J. Rachiele)
Subject: HR2674
Date: 7 Aug 89 17:49:49 GMT


I have just looked over HR2674, the space transportation thing, and have
several questions which I'm sure will get me some flames.

1.  If the bill is passed as is, it seems to preclude the government from
owning any spacecraft for routine purposes.  Is this truly what's intended?

2.  The way the phrasing goes, the government can only own its own spacecraft
if space transportation is not available as specified.  But "space
transportation" being defined as a service, can't this service disappear
on rather short notice, where rather long lead time would be required
to provide spacecraft so the government can provide its own?  Doesn't this
put us in a rather vulnerable position?

3.  The "exception" paragraph of the HR, where the government need not
purchase the services if the cost is too high, or if the security requirements
are not met, seems to me (a veteran civil servant) weasel-worded enough so
that any administrator could reject any potential provider of the transport
service.

Comments?

          Jim Rachiele
          [e-mail]
------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Lee Mellinger)
Subject: Re: Golfball flight
Date: 7 Aug 89 19:15:31 GMT

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Matthew DeLuca) writes:
:In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] ("DENVER BRAUGHLER") writes:
:
:>Okay, would someone please tell me the gravitional acceleration on the moon?
:
:From memory, about 1.7 m/sec
:
:
:At a guess, though, I'd say a golf ball goes a good bit faster, say, 60
:meters per second.  (Any golfers out there?).  Running that number through
:gives a distance of 2120 meters...assuming the surface of the moon is flat,
:which it's not.
:
:
:>I'm not a golfer either.
:Georgia Institute of Technology     :          [This space for rent]
:ARPA: [e-mail]      :
:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The average golfer hits the ball with clubhead speed of about  90 mph.

Lee

|Lee F. Mellinger                 Caltech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory - NASA
|4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 818/393-0516  FTS 977-0516
|{ames!cit-vax,}!elroy!jpl-devvax!leem  [e-mail]
------------------------------

From: andrew@berlioz (Lord Snooty @ The Giant Poisoned Electric Head )
Subject: Re: Space:  The Final Frontier
Date: 7 Aug 89 19:43:22 GMT

I was musing about what kinds of things it might take to mobilise the
general population to the point where "space travel" was an everyday
topic of conversation, and continuous action was the order of the day.
I exclude conventional political avenues, since these are frequently
discussed. Something like wartime mentality would be just the ticket,
or that 60s-type intensity.
    It occurs to me that music is a fair touchstone for reflecting
and even augmenting public opinion. This is true in wartime, and also
was of course in the 60s. So how about "space music"?
    So far, I am only aware of 2-and-a-half "pops":

"Rocket Man", Elton John
"Major Tong", David Bowie    (strange note: both Brits)
"Fly Me To The Moon", Dean Martin and the gang (1/2, old)

Maybe it's time for some high-energy pro-space music. Something to get
us moving. The above offerings are very dreamy and floaty (spacey);
perhaps a more positive genre (space punk?) is a mode whose time has
come.
    I urge any space songwriters out there to get busy!
--
...........................................................................
Andrew Palfreyman    There's a good time coming, be it ever so far away,
[e-mail]    That's what I says to myself, says I,
time sucks                       jolly good luck, hooray!

*** End of SPACE Digest V9 #619 ***