Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V10_3/V10_362.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #362

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 10 : Issue 362

Today's Topics:
       Re: NASA Headline News for 12/12/89 (Forwarded)
           Re: the response to Jim Bowery's parody
         Re: proposed "space-mail" incentive
     Re: Space industry projects: dismantling moons and asteroids
       Re: NASA Headline News for 12/12/89 (Forwarded)
       Re: Scientific value of Apollo (was Re: Motives)
         Soviet lunar module to be revealed?
             GPS system status ?
              Re:  Japanese MIR?
            About satellite tracking data
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 19 Dec 89 00:14:42 GMT
From: clyde.concordia.ca!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: NASA Headline News for 12/12/89 (Forwarded)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Nick Szabo) writes:
>Unmanned strikes again!  Delta launches cost probably one-fifth to
>one-tenth of a Shuttle launch, depending on whose accounting you want
>to believe.

I believe the NRC's accounting, which says that all current US launchers
cost about the same per pound at the same launch volume.  The enormous
cost advantage of unmanned launchers is a myth.

Well, one caveat:  Delta probably *is* somewhat cheaper now because those
are (I think) commercial launches rather than government-run ones; that
development is more recent than the NRC findings.
--
1755 EST, Dec 14, 1972:  human |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
exploration of space terminates| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 18 Dec 89 07:06:46 GMT
From: norge![e-mail]  (John McKernan)
Subject: Re: the response to Jim Bowery's parody

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Paul Dietz) writes:
>Um, you are confusing your daydreams with what that $400 B will
>actually buy if given to NASA: not much.
>
>Did you know that $400 B would fund the US fusion program (for
>example) for over a thousand years?  The US government photovoltaic
>program for over ten thousand years?

I agree that $400 B given to NASA to build yet another white elephant will
accomplish almost nothing at ridiculous expense. But more generally you
can't really think of science as a commodity were you're after the most
pounds per dollar. Something like the superconducting super collider or
the human genome project can make sense despite their high cost if there's
no other way to get the results and persuing those results make sense given
the current state of the science. Thus manned space research makes sense
even if it is expensive if the goals of that research make sense, which is
currently not the case.

John L. McKernan.                                                  [e-mail]
Disclaimer: These are my opinions but, shockingly enough, not necessarily Sun's
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: 18 Dec 89 15:52:37 GMT
From: groucho![e-mail]  (Steve Emmerson)
Subject: Re: proposed "space-mail" incentive


The few discussions on this topic have been interesting, but haven't
addressed the original question, viz. a description (preferably financial)
of those currently existing demands for `space-mail' services which are
analogous to the early-aviation demand for more rapid mail delivery.

Anyone?

[Respond via e-mail, if you wish.  I'll summarize if asked.]

--Steve Emmerson    [e-mail]

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

Date: 18 Dec 89 18:58:55 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!crdgw1!crdos1![e-mail]  (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Subject: Re: Space industry projects: dismantling moons and asteroids

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (H Keith Henson) writes:

| About 10 years ago Eric Drexler and I wrote a paper on furnaces to
| process metals in space.  I would be interested if Steve has any new
| ideas on how to get heat to the metal *without* curding up the mirrors
| with various rock and metal vapors.  Keith Henson

  I had assumed that if there were a problem in this area it would be
transporting the furnace. If the material to be melted were placed in a
cylinder of, say, ceramic, heating the cylinder would cause the
outgassing to come from the ends with some reasonable velocity. If the
mirror were on the side of the cylinder it would be at right angles to
the outgassing as should get minimal depositing.

  This is so simple and obvious that I must be missing something. What
is it, please?
--
bill davidsen    ([e-mail] -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
"The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called
'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see
that the world is flat!" - anon

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

Date: 16 Dec 89 05:19:48 GMT
From: ibmpa![e-mail]  (Nick Szabo)
Subject: Re: NASA Headline News for 12/12/89 (Forwarded)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Peter E. Yee) writes:
>
>This is NASA Headline News for Tuesday, December 12....
>
>Navstar will circularize the orbit on Wednesday.  It's the eighth
>Delta launch this year.

Unmanned strikes again!  Delta launches cost probably one-fifth to
one-tenth of a Shuttle launch, depending on whose accounting you want
to believe.

Now of course these launchers are old technology, older even than
Shuttle.  The difference is that Delta is scaled properly; Shuttle is
a monstrosity.

>
>A NASA high-altitude balloon will carry four astronomical
>instruments aloft from Ross Island in the Antarctica later this
>month.   The New York Times says one of the instruments is a
>large new-type cosmic ray telescope.  The experiment will exploit
>Antarctica's unique physical qualities for research.  The balloon
>will take the instrument package up to 100,000 feet altitude and
>then drift westward along the 78th parallel completing a trip
>around the Earth in about two weeks.

What???  Unmanned probes in Antartica???  Henry, we gotta putta
stop to this!  Soon they're gonna be _everywhere_!  :-)

>NASA's space activities in Florida provided that state's economy
>with a $1.24 billion boost in fiscal year 1989.  Over 18,000
>workers were employed during the year at the NASA field center.
>Of that number 2400 were civil service.

That's probably an order of magnitude less than drug smuggling.  ;-)
Seriously, it all comes out of the pockets of other states.


**** These opinions are not related to Big Blue's ********

--
---------------------------
Nick Szabo
[e-mail]
uunet!ibmsupt!szabonj

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

Date: 18 Dec 89 23:47:04 GMT
From: attcan!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Scientific value of Apollo (was Re: Motives)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John McKernan) writes:
>>  Apollo
>>accomplished much more than some of its detractors admit, and it would
>>have taken a very large and costly unmanned program to get similar
>>results.  It *may* be true that it would have been cheaper to do things
>>that way, but it is *not* a self-evident fact.
>
>Our experience in space makes it empirically evident that unmanned space can
>currently achieve as much or more than manned space for orders of magnitude
>less. Everything that Apollo accomplished (sample returns, pictures, etc)
>could have been done for less with unmanned technology...

Uh, John, did you *read* what I wrote?  If so, might I ask for the details
and numbers behind your assertion that this is "empirically evident"?
My point is precisely that it's not.  Remember, I am talking about getting
the *same* results -- volume and diversity of samples, surface experiments
emplaced, cores drilled, precision landings at pre-chosen sites, etc. --
not the far smaller and simpler missions undertaken by all unmanned landers
to date.  I would be interested in seeing cost estimates for an unmanned
Apollo equivalent, and I don't know exactly what the bottom line would be,
but I know one thing:  when you start comparing apples to apples, instead
of apples to oranges, unmanned isn't so cheap any more.

>...If we really
>want to explore the moon, we need a base were at least a couple of
>dozen people can live for a long time. They need the ability to
>travel over the entire surface of the moon. The base needs to be self-
>sustaining and self-expanding with no or low mass supplies from Earth.
>All of this needs to be done for a maximum of roughly 200 billion
>dollars. We don't have the technology to do this now and we need a
>diverse R&D effort to get there.

Sorry, I simply don't believe this.  Ever looked at some of the plans for
extended Apollo operations, and the bases that were expected to follow?
We had the technology to explore the Moon at affordable cost twenty years
ago.  The people claiming we need oodles of new technology and a decade
of R&D and vast sums of money are the empire builders and contractors,
who care about the process and not the result.
--
1755 EST, Dec 14, 1972:  human |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
exploration of space terminates| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

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

Date: 18 Dec 89 16:57:17 GMT
From: wrksys.dec.com![e-mail]  (CUP/ASG, MLO5-2/G1 6A, 223-3283 18-Dec-1989 1201)
Subject: Soviet lunar module to be revealed?


        I was told by a friend who was watching CNN this weekend that the
    Soviets are going to display in the Moscow Space Museum an actual
    manned lunar module (or parts at least) from their manned lunar
    program of the 1960s and early 1970s.  He said the Soviets revealed
    their biggest problem in the program was getting a powerful enough
    booster, as the one they had exploded three times.  I presume they
    were referring to the G (N-1) booster?  This is all he could tell me.
    Does anyone have more information on this?  Thanks.

        Larry Klaes  [e-mail]
             or - ...!decwrl!wrksys.dec.com!klaes
                 or - [e-mail]
                     or - [e-mail]
                     or - [e-mail]

             N = R*fgfpneflfifaL

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

Date: 18 Dec 89 07:05:42 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!munnari.oz.au!coriolis![e-mail]  (Peter Meikle)
Subject: GPS system status ?


Can anybody enlighten me as to the expected completion date of the GPS
(Global Positioning System) satellite network?  Currently here in
Australia we have approximately 7 hours coverage from about 03:00 UCT
and as a keen yachtie I look forward to having 24 hour coverage.

Merry Christmas.



Peter Meikle : [e-mail] : Dept. Mechanical Engineering

University of Melbourne, Parkville, 3052,  Australia.

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

ReSent-Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
ReSent-Date: Mon, 18 Dec 89 15:43:12 -0500 (EST)
ReSent-From: "Todd L. Masco" <[e-mail]>
ReSent-To: Space <[e-mail]>
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 89 09:07:46 CST
From: [e-mail] (Lou Adornato)
Subject: Re:  Japanese MIR?


in SPACE Digest V10 #349 Jim Barnes ([e-mail]) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Charles Daffinger) writes:
>>
>>o Date: 13 Dec 89 16:08:45 GMT
>>o
>>o     TOKYO -- A Japanese firm has bought Moscow's only surplus Mir space
>>o station and an experimental science module for $10 million to help
>>o promote Japan's space industry, the company's president said Wednesday.
>>
>>Say what?  I figure the price may be off by a few orders of magnitude,
>>but what's this really supposed to mean?

>Does anyone else see a parallel here with what the Japanese have done
>in the electronics and computer industry?  Namely, buy the best technology
>available and improve it?

>Which brings me to another point.  If the Russians are willing to build
>and sell MIR stations for a reasonable price, what's to prevent (for example)
>Hughes and Martin-Marietta from buying one and putting it up with their
>own boosters.  Or even paying the Russians to launch the station and
>then staffing with their own (Hughes and Martin-Marietta, that is) personnel?

Well, for one thing, the Russians didn't build that MIR to sell it, and they
are probably as well equipped to build another as we are to build another
Skylab.  That was the backup core for the MIR station, and most experts are
absolutely shocked that the Russians would even consider selling it.  Some
people think that this means that the USSR is getting ready to pull the plug
on the MIR project due to the truly dismal state of thier economy.

However, there where some articles a while back on the sci.space newsgroup
about a study that Livermore did regarding an inflatable space station made
from reinforced Kevlar (TM).  They claimed that they could have one ready to go
up in '95, that they could put it up on a single booster (didn't say what kind
of booster, hope it wasn't a Saturn V...), and that it would cost around $40M
(that's right, $4.0e7).  That's still a price not many companies can swing, but
there _are_ companies out there with supercomputer facilities in that range, so
I would think that there would be companies (Like maybe 3M) that would/could
spend $40M to set up a microgravity materials/pharmeceuticals research and/or
production station.

The big question is, would Hughes or Marietta, or any of the traditional
NASA biggies, want this technology to come to fruition?  Fact is, they stand to
make a much bigger profit off a $40B space station than from $40M, and I
don't think sales volume is going to be a big factor here.  I have no doubt that
NASA is capable of picking the best design at the best price, but they might not
be allowed to, once congress starts getting a whiff of the pork barrel.

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

Date: 19 Dec 89 04:35:05 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!usc!orion.oac.uci.edu![e-mail]  (Christopher Barrus)
Subject: About satellite tracking data


   Can someone please tell me how to read the satellite tracking data
that appears on this board.  I can figure out some of it, but I'm stuck.

Thanks,
      Chris Barrus

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

End of SPACE Digest V10 #362
*******************