Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V09_6/V9_620.TXT

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Date: Sat,  2 Sep 89 23:52:14 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Todd L. Masco" <[e-mail]>
To: +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr1/ota/space/[e-mail]
Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #620
X-Kibology: Allowed

             SPACE Digest V9 #620
             --------------------

          Subject: Re: Quick and Dirty Won the Race
      Subject: Re: "Old" question about film resolution
           Subject: Space Trash to the Nth
         Subject: Re: exploding Saturns, lack thereof
Subject: Re: Neil Armstrong, Yeager, Crossfield, best pilots (Bob Hoover)
          Subject: Re: design of spacecraft
     Subject: Atari ST graphic satellite tracking program
           Subject: Re: Space:  The Final Frontier
         Subject: Re: exploding Saturns, lack thereof
               Subject: Re: Satellites
              Subject: Pegasus and NASA
        Subject: Re: What is the Solar Impact Mission?
          Subject: Re: Quick and Dirty Won the Race
          Subject: USAF throws in the towel

------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (Jordan Kare)
Subject: Re: Quick and Dirty Won the Race
Date: 7 Aug 89 19:36:33 GMT

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jon C. Slenk) writes:
>
>The Shuttle is too expensive as far as I am concerned. Any "space plane"
>is too expensive, as far as I am concerned. We don't need to take up
>payload with a plane! We need to toss it into orbit as simply as
>possible. I posit that the Shuttle is not the simplest (sp?) way to do
>it.
>
>Laser Launchers. This would put mass into orbit cheaply and easily.
>
>Admittedly the accelerations woul
>d make mince meat out of astronauts, but the point of a l. l. is not to
>get people into orbit, but mass.
>...
>Jon Slenk
>
Typical acceleration for a laser launch system is 6 G's max.
Entirely rideable by people.  You just need a relatively big
laser, since people are not conveniently subdividable into
20 kg pieces (at least, not if you want them to work afterward :-)
One ton is about the minimum payload size for launching people --
that's what the Mercury capsules massed.  Though I do know
some folks who would volunteer to go up without all that
hardware around them -- "Just me and a spacesuit, balancing on
that block of ice..."

Cannon launchers are even cheaper than lasers, but much less
flexible, and they _do_ involve high accelerations.



    Jordin (Speak Softly and Carry a Megawatt Laser) Kare
------------------------------

From: "UTADNX::UTD201::GREER"[e-mail]
Subject: Re: "Old" question about film resolution
Date: 7 Aug 89 19:54:43 GMT


This is mighty late, but I've had some trouble getting through.

In Space_Digest V9 #544, John Roberts asks:

>Do you have any good numbers for a 35-mm negative, i.e. Kodak Gold 100, on
>its equivalent in pixels and bits per pixel? I don't, but I would guess
>~1000-3000 pixels across. How about an IMAX image?

    Kodak's newest color print films, Ektar 25, Ektar 125, and Ektar 1000
have maximum resolving powers of 4500 lpi, 4000 lpi, and 2000 lpi,
respectively.  Gold 100 hits about 3000 lpi and Gold 400 yields about 2500 lpi.
LPI is lines per inch, so 35mm Ektar 25 has about 6200x4200 "pixels", though
I'm not sure if that word is quite accurate for film.
    But 35mm isn't the only format by any means.  Some common formats
professional photographers use include 2-1/4x2-1/4 inch, 6x7mm, 4x5 inch, and
8x10 inch.  So an 8x10 photo on Ektar 25 would have about 36000x45000 or 1.62G
pixels.  At 32 bits per pixel, this would require about 52G bytes of memory.
(Note that "giga" in "gigabytes" is pronounced the same as "giga" in
"gigantic", since they come from the same Greek root meaning "huge".)

----
"That which you call,            |         Dale M. Greer
         'E Plabnista...'"        |   Center for Space Sciences
             -- J.T.Kirk    | University of Texas at Dallas
                    | UTSPAN::UTADNX::UTDSSA::GREER
The opinions are my own, and may or may not reflect those of my employer.
------------------------------

From: "UTADNX::UTD201::GREER"[e-mail]
Subject: Space Trash to the Nth
Date: 7 Aug 89 20:28:23 GMT


    Anybody out there have any idea how long near-Earth space would
be uninhabitable after activation of an ICBM Shield?  I'm talking mainly
about debris left behind by things like kinetic-kill weapons,
destruction of orbiting battle stations by ASATs, explosion of neutron
bombs (for decoy discrimination), etc.  Has anyone done any
environmental impact studies of this, or do the SDI people assume a)
nobody's going into space for a long time after a nuclear war anyway or
b) it's a small price to pay for national security, or what?
    Just curious.
----
"That which you call,            |         Dale M. Greer
         'E Plabnista...'"        |   Center for Space Sciences
             -- J.T. Kirk    | University of Texas at Dallas
                    | UTSPAN::UTADNX::UTDSSA::GREER
The opinions are my own, and may or may not reflect those of my employer.
------------------------------

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: exploding Saturns, lack thereof
Date: 7 Aug 89 21:02:03 GMT

Perhaps my original reply did not/has not percolated through the net, but I'll try
again.

The rocket that is shown exploding at the end of Koyaanisquatsi is not a Saturn, as others
have pointed out already.

It is not a Saturn staging sequence either.

It is an early Atlas Centaur flight. As the first vehicle to fly with LH2/LOX powered
stages, it had more than it's share of spectacular failures. The engine that the camera
follows for some time is the main, or sustainer, engine from the Atlas stage.

Gary Hughes
hughes @star.dec.com
------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Eugene Miya)
Subject: Re: Neil Armstrong, Yeager, Crossfield, best pilots (Bob Hoover)
Date: 7 Aug 89 22:41:57 GMT

I don't think anyone should bash General Yeager.  Funny, Mary and I discussed
this topic when she dropped by my office one day (Mary: BTW, I moved from
208 to 200).

General Yeager's life story isn't one to shake a stick at.  I think
it is well enough documented.  I think the lesson from the story is like
the lesson of prejudice which was presented in the film: Breaking Away.
While his tales may have been glorified a bit, I think he can and does get
a bit of leeway.  He has accomplished much on his "high school" education.
I think it is better to just smile when the topic comes up.
Write Yeager if you really have to know more.

For my money, I think the best test pilot who has ever lived and perhaps
ever will live will be Bob Hoover, but then he was a V-P at North American
Rockwell when I was summer H-S job-shopping there.

This is getting away from space and now belongs in rec.aviation.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, [e-mail]
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {ncar,decwrl,hplabs,uunet}!ames!eugene
                  Live free or die.
------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Eugene Miya)
Subject: Re: design of spacecraft
Date: 7 Aug 89 21:03:20 GMT

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Tom Neff) writes:
>>>  What upsets me most is that all these probes we are launching seem to be
>>>completely unique.  Has no one considered the benefits of making a nice
>>>standard space probe that can do Everything?  ...
>>
>>...The Mariner Mark II spacecraft is supposed to be a modular
>>chassis onto which all sorts of mission specific hardware can be attached.
>>NASA and JPL want to stop reinventing the wheel as much as anyone.
>
>Unfortunately, Mariner Mk. 2 is not the first attempt to do this.  There
>has been a depressingly long history of "multi-purpose", "modular"
>spacecraft designs that get used for one or two missions and then
>abandoned in favor of a different one.  I'm not sure precisely why this
>is, although I can think of one obvious contributing factor, which also
>operates in a lot of other government-funded areas:  standardization and
>volume production means lower profits for contractors.

The design of spacecraft and avonics, etc. is a tricky art.  The problem
is that technology isn't one field, it's many: there's electonics,
there's optics, there's materials, chemistry, etc.  Each field is
undergoing incredible changes.  You can combine any two orthogonal
fields and derive what sounds like an interesting question: why not
use the latest warm superconductors on your imaging gear .....?

You want to do Everything? So did the Multics operating system.  Yes, there
has to be a degree of specialization.  To illustrate the change in electronics
alone, I got a photo the electronics bays of the F-111 (the first plane
with modularized electronics).  The problem is that electronics has changed
so much the connectors and adaptors are now larger than the modules themselves.
Minaturization (ignoring who ever gets credit).

Right now standardization implies "freezing" technology.  And this just isn't
space.  It's a problem we will have to face increasingly in all fields.
In the case of space craft, they argue over the different requirements
and some one typically ends up losing (until the next probe gets proposed).
It was like this on Halley Rendevzous, on Galileo, on Voyager, etc.
And before you say, "It's not freezing...., just to this instead.."
That has been thought of, and typically squashed someone else's idea.
So we do have technology freezing.  I think we have to live with the
expense for a little while longer (but I do think we will stablize).

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, [e-mail]
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {ncar,decwrl,hplabs,uunet}!ames!eugene
                  Live free or die.
------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (John Logajan)
Subject: Atari ST graphic satellite tracking program
Date: 7 Aug 89 22:55:56 GMT

Although this is machine specific (and it is written in GFA Basic, which
makes it language specific) you might never the less be interested to know
that I have just finished a graphic satellite tracking program that
displays the current positions of the earth satellites found in the
NASA orbital elements posted often to sci.space by T. Kelso.

It reads the element file, as is, and simultaneously tracks all the satellites
found there on a world map.  It is a very pretty display.  It can update the
positions of 100 satellites in about 6 seconds.

It is written in GFA Basic (2.0) for the Atari ST computer.  The source code
is available from me for the asking, and it should appear in
comp.sources.atari.st real soon!

If you want it, drop me a line.

--
- John M. Logajan @ Network Systems; 7600 Boone Ave; Brooklyn Park, MN 55428  -
- [e-mail] / ...rutgers!umn-cs!ns!logajan / [e-mail] -
------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Brian Yamauchi)
Subject: Re: Space:  The Final Frontier
Date: 7 Aug 89 23:12:52 GMT

In article <[e-mail]> andrew@berlioz (Lord Snooty @ The Giant Poisoned Electric Head ) writes:
>    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"?

>"Rocket Man", Elton John
>"Major Tong", David Bowie    (strange note: both Brits)
        ^^^^
        Tom (I think the actual title was something like Space Oddity)

Actually, both of these songs paint a rather negative picture of space
exploration from the point of view of a depressed astronaut.  Similar
themes are expressed in "Major Tom" by Peter Schilling (no, it's not a
remake of the Bowie song) and "Why Me?" by Planet P.

A much more positive song (and one of my personal favorites) is
"Countdown" by Rush from the Signals album.  This is about the first
launch of the shuttle, and includes excerpts from the conversation
between mission control and the astronauts.

Rush has a number of other space-related songs -- "Cygnus X-1" (from A
Farewell to Kings) is about the obvious topic, and the albums 2112 and
Hemispheres are somewhat related to space travel.

Styx also had a space-related hit with "Come Sail Away" from The Grand
Illusion album.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Brian Yamauchi                University of Rochester
[e-mail]        Computer Science Department
_______________________________________________________________________________
------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Steve Hix)
Subject: Re: exploding Saturns, lack thereof
Date: 7 Aug 89 23:36:57 GMT

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

> The rocket that is shown exploding at the end of Koyaanisquatsi...
> ...is an early Atlas Centaur flight. As the first vehicle to fly with LH2/LOX powered
> stages, it had more than it's share of spectacular failures. The engine that the camera
> follows for some time is the main, or sustainer, engine from the Atlas stage.

The Atlas sustainer engine used kerosene/LOX, while the Centaur upper stage
used LOX/LH2.

It did have a tendency to cook off sometimes...but in this case, it was the
older Atlas engine that went.
------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (John Logajan)
Subject: Re: Satellites
Date: 7 Aug 89 23:44:51 GMT

[e-mail] (Michael Corbin) writes:
> I have observed these objects through binoculars and a 6"
> Celestron telescope and they are not passenger jets.  I have
> clearly identified these.  However, while I do see a good number
> of lights travelling north to south and vice versa, I have also
> seen a number of objects travelling west to east and some other
> directions.  I did observe one light that had a bluish corona to
> it with a red light in the center of it which was not a jet
> travelling to the northeast.

> Michael Corbin - via FidoNet node 1:104/422
> UUCP: ...!scicom!mcorbin
> INTERNET: [e-mail]

In the satellite tracking program I referred to in another posting
to this newsgroup, I take all the satellite orbital elements that
T. Kelso posts also to this newsgroup and display them simulataneously
on a world map.  The preference, at least for those listed in the elements
posted, is clearly for polar orbits -- probably because they get a scanning
effect of the entire earths surface.  Whereas, more equtorial orbits never
make it up to the high latitudes -- though there are many in the posted
elements that aren't in polar orbits.  A third group is geo-synchronos
satellites.  Strangely, by setting my real time clock/calender ahead
several months, I noticed that the geo-sats have moved!!!!!!

What causes this, I wonder?  Do geo-sats have to do station keeping to
stay in place (sats like the TDRS series are some that seem to drift.)?

Or is the satellite predicition program flawed so that it is not accurate
very far in advance?


--
- John M. Logajan @ Network Systems; 7600 Boone Ave; Brooklyn Park, MN 55428  -
- [e-mail] / ...rutgers!umn-cs!ns!logajan / [e-mail] -
------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Pegasus and NASA
Date: 7 Aug 89 21:09:33 GMT

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Mary Shafer) writes:
>NASA is providing a B-52 and all its support for the 7 or 8 initial
>test flights, at a price ridiculously below what it would cost to buy
>their own airplane, modify it and maintain it...

If NASA is charging full operating and maintenance costs for this, then
I fail to see how there is any subsidy involved; renting existing facilities
is just as much a commercial deal as building your own.  (There is a good
chance that OSC/H will rent or lease a commercial aircraft, rather than
buying it outright, once they start getting commercial customers.)  And
if NASA is not doing full cost recovery, then it's a subsidy, but I can't
see it being a big one -- surely it does not cost millions of dollars to
fly the B-52 7-8 times?
--
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: Re: What is the Solar Impact Mission?
Date: 7 Aug 89 20:04:53 GMT

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (David Messer) writes:
>The lowest-energy method to drop a probe into the sun would use a Jupiter
>fly-by to kill the probes orbital velocity...

I'm not sure that's good enough for solar impact, as opposed to a near
flyby, but I haven't seen numbers.

> It should be
>possible to drop many tons of spacecraft into the sun using this method.
>(Even WITH the shuttle, Henry.)

How do you get "many tons" of spacecraft to Jupiter?  Without using Energia,
I mean?  Galileo, which is not exactly "many tons" in weight, will go through
all sorts of contortions and delays to reach Jupiter with a shuttle launch.
(Admittedly it has an extra constraint, wanting minimum arrival velocity to
reduce fuel requirements for settling into orbit, but the point remains:
you can't get "many tons" *anywhere* except low Earth orbit with the shuttle.)
--
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: Re: Quick and Dirty Won the Race
Date: 7 Aug 89 21:24:27 GMT

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jon C. Slenk) writes:
>What, pray tell, is the use of the Shuttle? "Reusable." Big fat hairy
>deal. The only parts that are (right now) resues are the booster pods
>and shuttle. Bye bye main tank.

That doesn't necessarily have to be a problem; the tank is big but it's
not very complicated.  The shuttle would probably be better than it is
if NASA had been willing to accept drop tanks from the beginning, as in
Lockheed's "Starclipper" proposal circa 1970.

>Laser Launchers. This would put mass into orbit cheaply and easily.
>Admittedly the accelerations would make mince meat out of astronauts...

No, actually, the reason for not using laser launchers to launch people
is different.  If I recall what Jordin Kare said the last time I heard
him talk, the accelerations in current designs actually aren't all that
high.  The limitation is that the size of the laser is in fairly direct
proportion to the size of the vehicle, and a human plus life support
plus emergency equipment plus etc etc is a substantial lump, all the more
so if you want a two-man capsule so you can fly people who are not
exhaustively trained in emergency procedures.  Early laser launchers
won't be up to anything that heavy.
--
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] (Michael B. Brooks)
Subject: USAF throws in the towel
Date: 8 Aug 89 04:22:12 GMT

Since I haven`t seen it discussed on the net yet, I have reprinted
some text of an article that appeared in the SF Chronicle today, taken
in turn from a NY Times article by William J. Broad.  Broad used to write
for the journal SCIENCE in the news and comment section, and I consider
most of his work to be more reliable than most reporters`.

[reprinted without permission; my comments are bracketed]

Why Pentagon Axed Secret Shuttle Group
by WJ Broad (NY Times) 7aug89

When a secret military payload is launched on the civilian space shuttle
tomorrow, it will be without the Air Force`s Manned Spaceflight Control
Squadron in Houston.

The Defense Department has gradually dismantled its secretive, coast-to-
coast network of space equipment and personnel that cost at least $5 billion
and was intended to operate in collaboration with the civilian space
shuttle.

Over the past three years, the department has mothballed a $3.3 billion
spaceport in California [Vandenberg] and scrapped a sprawling control
center in Colorado.  Last year, it disbanded a secret cadre of 32
astronauts based in Los Angeles.

[text deleted]

After two decades of shuttle collaboration with the civilian space agency,
the Pentagon has decided that manned spaceships are too risky for its
payloads, which include satellites intended to spy on other countries or
warn of a missile attack. Instead, it has bought its own fleet of big
unmanned rockets.

[text deleted]

[the rest of the article details the AF decision to go with a fleet of
unmanned boosters, and some comments by others that the the AF is
either "doing the right thing" or possibly setting itself up for
further troubles by "putting all its eggs in one basket"---that of
unmanned rockets.

 The "Air Force officials disagee that they need the shuttle." in response
to said worries.

The point, as is probably well known to many here already (though I confess
not myself), is that the enormous AF committment to manned spaceflight is
gone.  Obviously some military astronauts will fly, but probably not on
AF owned  "blue" shuttles.  The magnitude of how "gone" the AF effort is
seems rather impressive and tells alot as to how the DoD feels about
manned spaceflight.

This is not a good sign for those of us who support such things---it`s
unlikely that NASA will take up much "slack" left over by the AF withdrawal.
Also clear is the point that private "peopled" spaceflight is a substantial
time away at best.

Put another way, is this beginning of a US government trend---withdrawal
from manned spaceflight?  (The statements of George Bush and
the talk about the space station not withstanding)

Also, does anyone know more details, beyond what has been posted before on
the topic of the AF getting more Titans?  How about the seemingly scrapped
idea of a "blue" shuttle, or a USAF NASP?  NASP looks pretty unlikely, given
this latest bit of news; are we to conclude that the AF figures "people are
out" or is this strictly a payload economics move?

Mike Brooks/Stanford Electronics Labs/SU
[e-mail]

*** End of SPACE Digest V9 #620 ***