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Subject: SPACE Digest V12 #116

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 12 : Issue 116

Today's Topics:
        Magellan Press Conference (Forwarded)
         Model Rockets become more space junk
U.S. and Canadian scientists cooperate in atmospheric study (Forwarded)
            Re: World Space Agency
          Soviet shuttle, did it fly more than once?
              Re: Hubble Trouble

Administrivia:

    Submissions to the SPACE Digest/sci.space should be mailed to
  [e-mail].  Other mail, esp. [un]subscription notices,
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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 23 Jul 90 18:15:35 GMT
From: sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Ron Baalke)
Subject: Magellan Press Conference (Forwarded)

MAGELLAN PRESS CONFERENCE SCHEDULED

     "How to cover the Magellan mission" will be the subject of a
press briefing, Thursday, July 26 in the NASA Headquarters 6th
floor auditorium, 400 Md. Ave., S.W., Wash., D.C.  Principals
from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) will explain what
media can expect during Magellan's arrival at Venus, insertion
into the planet's orbit, instrument check-out and subsequent
mapping.

     On Aug. 10, 1990, Magellan reaches Venus after a 15-1/2
month voyage.  Last year on May 4, the spacecraft was deployed
from Atlantis on STS-30, the first planetary mission launched
from a Space Shuttle.  Magellan's primary mission is to map 70 to
90 percent of Venus, with 10 times better resolution than any
achieved before.

     A 3-1/2 minute, animated videotape of the mapping process
will be available.

     Conference presenters include:

     Dr. Joseph Boyce, NASA Hdqtrs., Magellan Program Scientist
     Anthony J. Spear, JPL, Magellan Project Manager
     Dr. R. Stephen Saunders, JPL, Magellan Project Scientist
     Dr. Gordon Pettengill, Massachusetts Institute of
         Technology, Principal Investigator, Radar Experiment

     This briefing will be carried live on NASA Select
television, Satcom F-2R, Transponder 13, C band, at 72 degrees
west longitude, frequency 3960.0 MHz.
      ___    _____     ___
     /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|
     | | | |  __ \ /| | | |      Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
  ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |___   Jet Propulsion Lab | [e-mail]
 /___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /|  M/S 301-355        |
 |_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/   Pasadena, CA 91109 |

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

From: wang!wangarc![e-mail]
To: wang![e-mail]
Subject: Model Rockets become more space junk
Date: Mon Jul 23 17:55:17 1990

Many people have been discussing a contest to put a model rocket on the Moon.
I can understand the fascination with sending your toys up into LEO and
beyond, BUT, before you even think about attempting it please consider the
following excerpt, taken from the July 14, 1990 issue of SCIENCE NEWS
(Vol 138, No. 2, Page 29).  In an article entitled "Tallying Orbital Trash"
(reprinted without permission) Jonathan Eberhart writes:

"A veritable trash heap of manufactured materials encircles Earth.  Made up
of spent satellites, rocket stages and other space hardware, some broken
into tiny pieces, the space junkyard now holds at least 7,000 objects with
diameters ranging from several meeters to about 10 centimeters, according to
Air Force radar-tracking reports.  Astronomers complain that "light pollution"
from sunlight glinting off the objects' surfaces interferes with celestial
observations.  Space engineers fret about the fragments' potential for
damaging or destroying spacecraft, including the U.S. space station Freedom
planned for human occupation in the late 1990s."

[Three paragraphs omitted.]

"Last year, researchers made radar observations of limited portions of the
sky with the Arecibo radiotelescpoe in Puerto Rico and the Goldstone dish
antenna in southern California.  This sampling indicated some 150,000 Earth-
orbiting objects measuring at least 1 cm across Kessler says. [Donald J.
Kessler of Johnson Space Center in Houston]  And the Goldstone data suggest
that an additional 1 million 2-mm-sized objects now orbit the planet, he
says, although that instrument could not detect objects smaller than about
2 millimeters.  According to Kessler, this hints at the presence of five
times that many 1-mm bits."

[Many paragraphs omitted.]

At orbital velocities even the smallest fragment can cause potentially
fatal damage to equipment and/or crew members.  Do we really want to
contribute to this growing problem over a silly contest.

We have already managed to screw up the oceans, groundwater, surface and
atmosphere and we are well on our way to doing the same to the space
immediately around our planet.  For [deity of choice]'s sake (as well as
NASA's and our own) let's not add any more than neccessary to orbital space
and forget about sending toys up into space.

If there is an intelligent community out there do you really think that
they would want to invite slobs like us to join them in their travels
through the rest of the universe.  They would look at us like Charlie
Brown looks at Pigpen.

Besides, you'd feel prety stupid if someone's toy wiped out a communications
satellite, or worse, a "secret" government one.

[No, I'm not some zealot environmentalist, just a concerned techie briefly
 mounting his soap box to inject a quick bit of reality into the fantasy.]

P.S. I only subscribe to the space magazine now so please CC me on any flames.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
David E. Jenkins - Wang Laboratories Inc.
Freestyle Communications/FAX Platforms

WANG: [phone]                         [e-mail]
Home: [phone]                                    - or -
Fax:  [phone]                         wangarc![e-mail]

Opinions expressed are my very own (unless someone wants to pay me for them).

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

Date: 23 Jul 90 22:23:41 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: U.S. and Canadian scientists cooperate in atmospheric study (Forwarded)

Brian Dunbar
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                      July 23, 1990
(Phone:  [phone])

Jean Drummond Clough
Craig E. Murden
Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va.
(Phone:  [phone])

Keith Koehler
Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va.
(Phone:  [phone])

Gordon Black
Atmospheric Environment Service, Ontario, Canada
(Phone:  [phone])


RELEASE:  90-102

U.S. AND CANADIAN SCIENTISTS COOPERATE IN ATMOSPHERIC STUDY


     Scientists from NASA and U.S. universities have joined
Canadian researchers in an expedition to study pollution at high
northern latitudes and emissions of methane, an important
greenhouse gas, from tundra, forests and marshes.

     Titled the Atmospheric Boundary Layer Experiment-3B (ABLE),
the study will let scientists look at changes in chemical
composition that occur when pristine Arctic air masses, which
influence air quality and climate over North America, Eurasia and
the northern oceans, mix with polluted continental air masses.

     Observations of Arctic atmospheric chemistry will be linked
to studies by the Canadian Institute for Research in Atmospheric
Chemistry (CIRAC) of the soil of lowland marshes near Hudson
Bay.  The soils under observation are a source of methane, which
plays a critical role in atmospheric chemistry and possible
global warming.  Like carbon dioxide and the other "greenhouse"
gases, methane traps heat near the surface of the Earth that
otherwise would radiate into space, warming the atmosphere.  Over
several decades, higher temperatures could prompt other
phenomena, such as the melting of light-reflecting sea-ice, that
could lead to even more warming.

     The CIRAC Northern Wetlands Project will study the
sensitivity of methane emissions to changes in surface
temperatures to predict how these emissions may change in a
warmer climate.  The main NASA sampling platform is the agency's
Lockheed Electra aircraft, stationed at the NASA Goddard Space
Flight Center's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va.  The
Electra, a converted turboprop airliner, is scheduled to make 14
flights in the Hudson Bay lowland area and in Quebec.  A Canadian
DeHaviland Twin Otter aircraft will fly 50 research missions
during the same period.

     Ground sampling activity will involve towers and surface
chambers at a McGill University facility in Schefferville,
Quebec.  Research activity began July 5 and will conclude Aug.
20, 1990.  The air and ground measurements will be complemented
by surface-vegetation data from the Landsat and French SPOT
satellites.

     The ABLE project is managed by Langley's Atmospheric
Sciences Division for NASA's Office of Space Science and
Applications.  The program was established in the early 1980s to
study the chemistry of the Earth's atmosphere and its interaction
with the land and the oceans.  Other  principal investigators are
from NASA's Ames Research Center, Mountain View, Calif., and
Stennis Space Center, Bay St. Louis, Miss., and from numerous
U.S. and Canadian institutions.

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

Date: 22 Jul 90 00:02:40 GMT
From: sdd.hp.com!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!dali.cs.montana.edu!milton!unicorn![e-mail]  (Worth Henry A)
Subject: Re: World Space Agency


In article <[e-mail]>
   [e-mail] (lawrence.m.geary) writes:
>
>Instead of a UN style organization, maybe what is needed is a "limited
>partnership" arrangement. ...

   I definitely did not suggest any thing like the UN, members ("partners")
would participate and benefit according to the level of their contributions
(NO preordained dominance for any member! if a member wishes to dominate,
they would have to BUY that dominance every year, year after year, with
their contributions). Such an agency must be structured for success,
be independant, and to have very clearly defined goals and priorities.

   Structuring for success mean structuring it like a business with rewards
for success and "disincentives" for failure. To help ensure all ideas
are considered and not simply discarded as "not invented here", internal
competition must be created.

      For example, ALL employees, contractors, research associates, ...
   and maybe even "outsiders", could be encouraged, and given the
   oppurtunity, to form "design-build" teams to present solutions to
   stated requirements and to carry them on through a series of reviews
   and eliminations until one (or none, or perhaps several in critical
   cases) remained to carry the project on to completion. Member's of these
   teams would receive bonuses for each step their team successfully completes.
   Give the entrepreneurial spirit a chance, and even the stars won't be a
   limit!

   The agency should be allowed to patent/copyright and license its
innovations and, to the extent it is consistant with and supports the
agency's goals, enter into business arrangements (we don't need an agency
selling high-tech fast food and only giving lip service to space R&D).
However, while the agency should be restricted from competing with existing
space services (no need to reinvent the wheel, yet again), it should be
encouraged to form consortiums to pioneer new space services, to exploit
the agency's innovations, or to make significant improvements to existing
space services. Any revenues would be plowed back into the agency to fund
further R&D, perhaps one day allowing the agency to become self-sufficient.

>The organization would be run by its management, *not* by the contributing
>nations,

   The contributors will at least demand a "Board of Directors" to
represent their interests, but, the "Board" should be independently
budgeted and given limited powers (to avoid "Board" staffers trying to
build their own empires, at the expense of the agency). The "Board"
should be limited to setting the overall goals and budget priorities,
hiring and firing senior executives (by super-majority, of course), and
given the responsibility to audit the agency and to form review boards
when problems arise.

   However, the detailed budgeting and implementation absolutely MUST
be left to the executives, the last thing needed, is a half-dozen countries
each trying to micro-manage the agency! A well conceived "Board" can be
invaluable in seeing that the agency stays on course and is well insulated
from national politics.

>        who could drop out and take back their capital if they didn't
>like the way things were going. (They could at least take back their
>money. They probably couldn't take back their people if they didn't want
>to leave. And the technology is irrevocable, practically speaking.)

   It would be a little difficult for a member to remove capital --
"I'll take a camera from that satellite, ten workstations, that space
suit, and that..." -- contributions would have to be viewed as non-refundable.
If a member is not comfortable with the agency's progress, and its
returns -- in the form of space science and technical/commercial spin-offs
-- then they are free to cut their losses, but don't expect any refunds.

   Hanging on to personnel, and contractors, from an ex-member would anger
the remaining members (project participation is one of the main perks for
members). If a member quits, then those personnel and contractors
"sponsored" by that member's share get the "pink slip" (projects may be
delayed, but the agency survives!). However, management must also have a
limited discretion to hire critical personnel and services without
member "sponsorship".

   Both of these factors would tend to deter members from making hasty
departures.

>... Has anything really new and innovative been done in space technology
>since the 1960's? Certainly there has been no progress in propulsion since
>that time; it's been chemical rockets all the way.

   There have been some, but the "not invented here", "that doesn't fit
with the current plan", "if NASA hasn't done it..." or (pick your
favorite) syndromes tend to suppress them before they get a decent hearing.

   As far as non-chemical approachs go, most present problems for
atmospheric use (and the lack of inexpensive LEO access is the biggest
impediment to space R&D -- we need practical "shuttles", once we have
that the starships that follow will be a relative "piece of cake").
However, recent postings have described a couple of groups working on
techniques that use ground based lasers to "push" a payload into orbit.

   There may yet be significant, unexploited potential in chemical
rockets. One example, that nearly made it, was Alan Bond's HOTOL -- HOriz.
TakeOff & Landing : an un-manned, single-stage-to-orbit, winged, reusable
launch vehicle -- which offered nearly half the payload of the shuttle at
a claimed cost, if memory serves, of ~$500/lb to LEO, compared to the
current ~$6000/lb for NASA's shuttle (in the mid-80's, when HOTOL was being
considered, NASA was still trying to claim a cost, for the shuttle, in the
$2-3k/lb range). Even if their estimates were off by a binary order of
magnitude, or two, HOTOL still would have been cheaper than the shuttle
and competitive with other systems. Also promised, was fast turnaround
(48hrs?), thus, higher availability than any other system (how long does
it take to stack a conventional ELV?). With a handful of HOTOL's, it is
conceivable that a sustained daily launch rate would have been possible
(10 tons per launch!).

   Alan Bond's innovation was a dual-mode engine that breathed air when in
the atmosphere (ram-jet style, using a rocket sled to get it up to speed)
and LOX during the later part of the launch, thus, drastically reducing the
mass of oxidizer carried (this was before NASP, and unlike NASP, HOTOL
appeared to elegantly follow the KISS principle). Rolls-Royce and British
Aerospace put a lot of effort into verifying and refining the design, but
ultimately, the British gov. refused to underwrite development, ESA was
not interested in competition for the Ariane/Hermes, and, as far as I have
heard, attempts at forming private consortiums have all failed. The British
gov. also classified the engine (RB535?), blocking any substantially foreign
consortiums (i.e. Japanese).

   The HOTOL vehicle concept did look a bit like a futuristic V-1, perhaps
that had some subliminal effect on the British government, as well as past
experiences like the Comet? Now, if someone were to take the HOTOL, add in
the lower-cost manufacturing techniques developed by the ALS project and ...

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

Date: 23 Jul 90 03:25:25 GMT
From: philmtl!philabs!briar![e-mail]  (Robert Casey)
Subject: Soviet shuttle, did it fly more than once?

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (maury markowitz) writes:
> I feel quite confident that had the Sovs been able to build a shuttle,
>they'd be in the same position as us.  It's only now that they have one,
>but now they can't figure out what to use it for!!

Did the USSR ever fly their shuttle "Burin" (sp) more than once?

Maybe, if they're not going to use it, we should buy it and add it to our
fleet?  :-)  Naw, guess all the details being different would make servicing
it difficult.

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

Date: 23 Jul 90 17:29:59 GMT
From: usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi![e-mail]  (Michael V. Kent)
Subject: Re: Hubble Trouble

Accept the Space Shuttle for what it is: an 8-fold safety improvement over
Apollo.  The reason we only lost one Apollo crew (almost two) is that we
didn't launch all that many missions.  The Shuttle can carry twice the crew
twice as often for 1/8th the risk.  How many Apollo crews would we have lost
if we launched 35 missions in 9 years?  Statistically, 3.5.

Mike                                                 [e-mail]

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

End of SPACE Digest V12 #116
*******************