Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V13_3/V13_381.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #381

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 13 : Issue 381

Today's Topics:
              Re: "Face" on Mars
             Re: Fred on the Moon
          NASA Prediction Bulletins:  Space Shuttle
           PARSEC '91 (Space School, Juno Mission)
        spacesuits (Was: Re: HST in-orbit Maintenance)
              Interplanetary Data Bases
            PARSEC '91 (Waverider)
                Ariane Launch
         Re: Space Stations, Money, Startrek

Administrivia:

    Submissions to the SPACE Digest/sci.space should be mailed to
  [e-mail].  Other mail, esp. [un]subscription requests,
  should be sent to [e-mail], or, if urgent, to
             [e-mail]

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

Date: 8 Apr 91 19:45:40 GMT
From: prism![e-mail]  (Matthew DeLuca)
Subject: Re: "Face" on Mars

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (will) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] writes:
>    Now do not laugh at this since some Japanese belive this too be true.

Just because someone believes something to be true doesn't mean that it can't
be laughed at...

>    Ok, 4 years ago there was a show on JTV (of course), well, the show was
>about Atlantis, life on Mars, etc, etc..  Now the Objective of the show was to
>point out that the Japanese may have came to earth after they destroyed mars in
>a nuclear war, and that is why the Japanese feel uncomfotable about Nuclear
>Weapons, and are different from other forms of life on earth.

How are Japanese 'different' from other life forms on earth?

At any rate, I can think of a lot more reasonable explanation why the
Japanese dislike nuclear weapons, without going into Atlantis and Mars...
--
Matthew DeLuca
Georgia Institute of Technology      "I'd hire the Dorsai, if I knew their
Office of Information Technology      P.O. box."  - Zebadiah Carter,
Internet: [e-mail]    _The Number of the Beast_

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

Date: 8 Apr 91 22:14:34 GMT
From: swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!news.cs.indiana.edu!maytag!watmath!watdragon!watyew![e-mail]  (James Davis Nicoll)
Subject: Re: Fred on the Moon

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jose Pina Coelho) writes:
>
>WORST REASON:
>Emergency: 3 days to get some kind of assistance from earth. (Assuming
>something as energetic as a saturn V is fueled and on launch pad)

    The minimum energy orbit takes, what, about five days?

    Why did NASA use the faster orbit? I'd guess the fuel economy
wasn't worth the extra risk to the astronauts because of longer mission
time.

                                James Nicoll

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

Date: 7 Apr 91 12:00:10 GMT
From: udecc.engr.udayton.edu!blackbird.afit.af.mil![e-mail]  (TS Kelso)
Subject: NASA Prediction Bulletins:  Space Shuttle


The most current orbital elements from the NASA Prediction Bulletins are
carried on the Celestial BBS, [phone], and are updated several times
weekly.  Documentation and tracking software are also available on this
system.  As a service to the satellite user community, the most current
elements for the current shuttle mission are provided below.  The Celestial
BBS may be accessed 24 hours/day at 300, 1200, or 2400 baud using 8 data
bits, 1 stop bit, no parity.

STS 37
1 21224U 91 27  A 91 96.81849980  .00032271  00000-0  82487-3 0    35
2 21224  28.4654 230.3630 0009021 276.5508  83.4921 15.38033689   186
--
Dr TS Kelso                           Assistant Professor of Space Operations
[e-mail]          Air Force Institute of Technology

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

Date: 7 Apr 91 20:40:13 GMT
From: mcsun!ukc!edcastle!hwcs![e-mail]  (Stewart T. Fleming)
Subject: PARSEC '91 (Space School, Juno Mission)

Continuation of PARSEC '91 proceedings

Stewart
--
[e-mail]                        ...ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!sfleming
"But February made me shiver/With every paper I delivered"
  - Don Maclean on the rigours of attending winter seminars.


---------------Continuation

PARSEC : Pro-Amateur Rocketry & Spaceflight Conference
Queen Margaret College, Edinburgh, 6th April 1991.

Afternoon Session

3.30pm Dr. Rodney Buckland, "Space School"

Rodney Buckland is the Director of British Space School associated with
Brunel University, London, United Kingdom.  Space School caters for
14-16 year olds from all over the country and deals with an impressive
range of space-related subjects in one-week residential courses.

During the course, Space School students meet leading personalities of
the British space community; design, construct and launch model rockets;
receive and interpret weather satellite pictures; track satellites;
visit space laboratories; and receive course and careers advice.

Space School has shown that space studies are a highly motivating and
practical way to encourage young people to acquire new skills.  Such
courses help to create communities of young people of the same aage and
with the same motivations and ideals.

Space School is sponsoring a set of educational experiments for Juno
astronaut Helen Sharman to carry out in May 1991 as part of its
promotion of the value of space studies in schools and in preparation
for International Space Year - 1992.

Other activities of Space School :

o International Space Camp

   Space School sent 3 delegates - two students and one teacher - to the
   first International Space Camp, Huntsville USA in August 1990.
   Another British delegation will be sent to the 1991 event.

o Space Exposed Experiment Designed for Students (SEEDS)

   In cooperation with NASA and the Government Ministry of Agriculture,
   Fisheries and Food, SEEDS kits were imported for use by UK students.
   The kits contain tomato seeds which were carried on the Long Duration
   Exposure Facility (LDEF), in microgravity and exposed to cosmic
   radiation for nearly 6 years.

Juno : A Mission for Education

The first British astronaut [cosmonaut, surely ?], Helen Sharman, is due
to go into space on May 12th, 1991, on a week-long mission to the Soviet
space station Mir.  Plans for a full-scale programme of microgravity
research have had to be abandoned; instead it is hoped that a number of
experiments and activities proposed by British schools will be performed
:

o Fluid Loop Actuator, Canterbury High School/University of Kent

   Illustrates the concepts of torque, angular momentum and
   rotational kinetic energy.

o SEEDS, Townmead School, West Drayton

   250,000 pansy seeds will be flown and remain in orbit for 6 months.
   On return to Earth, they will be divided up into small packs and
   distributed to 10,000 UK schools.

o Space Station Mobile, Harrogate Ladies' College

   Radio links will be set up during Mir passes over the UK using school
   amateur radio equipment and an existing VHF transmitter on Mir.

o Spuds in Space, Ogmore Comprehensive, Mid Glamorgan

   Schools are invited to perform ground controls for an experiment into
   osmosis in potato cells.

o Waverider, STAAR Research

   Takes advantage of a large microgravity airspace to carry out
   low-speed aerodynamic tests on scale models of "waverider" aerospace
   vehicles.

o Yo-yo, UK Students for the Exploration and Development of Space

   Students are invited to analyse and predict the mechanics of yo-yo
   motion in microgravity.

Other experiments will make use of existing Mir equipment for photography
and data logging.

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

Date: 8 Apr 91 18:00:50 GMT
From: snorkelwacker.mit.edu!usc!wuarchive!rex!rouge![e-mail]  (Fraering Philip)
Subject: spacesuits (Was: Re: HST in-orbit Maintenance)

Better spacesuits would help your idea and many others as well.
Any ideas?

--
Phil Fraering
[e-mail]
"The geomagnetic storm has ended. Activity has returned to generally
unsettled conditions." - Cary Oler in a Geomagnetic Storm Update.

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

Date: 8 Apr 91 19:10:20 GMT
From: agate!stanford.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!usc!rpi!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!ists!nereid![e-mail]  (H. Peter White)
Subject: Interplanetary Data Bases




Can anyone out there tell me if a data base exists anywhere of the
interplanetary environment? I'm looking for things like solar magnetic field
(not the Earth's), charged particles, etc. I would assume that one exists
somewhere, as didn't most of the interplanetay probes carry such measuring
equipment to help inspect the solar environment?

Thanks for your help.

H.P.White
*Life's just like that*

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

Date: 7 Apr 91 20:41:37 GMT
From: mcsun!ukc!edcastle!hwcs![e-mail]  (Stewart T. Fleming)
Subject: PARSEC '91 (Waverider)

Final report of proceedings from PARSEC '91

--
[e-mail]                        ...ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!sfleming
"But February made me shiver/With every paper I delivered"
  - Don Maclean on the rigours of attending winter seminars.


--------------Continuation

PARSEC - Pro-Amateur Rocketry & Spaceflight Conference
Queen Margaret College, Edinburgh, 6th April 1991.

Afternoon Session

4:30pm John Bonsor, STAAR Research, "Waverider aerospace vehicles"

John Bonsor is currently Secretary of Space Technology Applications,
Astronomy & Rocket Research, and a leading proponent of the so-called
"waverider" aerospace vehicle for atmospheric re-entry.  His talk included
a detailed history of the development of the waverider concept and
background to his own activities in research, construction and testing
of scale models of potential spacecraft.  A proposed experiment for the
British Juno space mission will test the low-speed performance of models
in microgravity.

Aerospacecraft have evolved from low-speed, limited range vehicles,
through transonic, super- and hyper-sonic to space capsules.  The
waverider concept is a radical design intended for atmospheric re-entry.

Originally proposed by Professor Terrence Nonweiler in 1958 for use with
the British "Blue Streak" rocket programme, the original design was a
pyramid with short, stubby wings.  It was intended to ride at the nose
of the rocket to provide aerodynamic stability.  With the failure and
cancellation of the British rocket programme, the waverider concept was
never prototyped or flown.

Recent waverider research has concentrated on vehicles for atmospheric
re-entry using a flying wing with an underside cavity.  During
high-speed atmospheric flight, shockwaves build up on the leading edges
of the craft.  [This ground has been covered by original high-velocity
flight research such as the X-15 and Blackbird (SR-71) programmes.]
With a waverider vehicle, extremely sharp leading edges compress the
airflow across the shockwave, so that the craft is completely enveloped
within it and creating a partial vacuum over the upper surface.

With re-entry speeds of up to Mach 25, atmospheric flight creates a lot
of heat.  [Indeed, the Lockheed Blackbird leaks fuel until its body
becomes the "correct" size due to thermal expansion at Mach 3.]  Space
capsules (cf Gemini, Apollo etc) used ablative heat shields; the
Space Shuttle uses heat-resistant tiles.  With a waverider craft, all
the heat is "dumped" into the cavity, where it can be reradiated using
liquid cooling or "preferred" heat conduction paths into the vacuum on
the upper surface, or used as a method for external fuel combustion.

STAAR Research have created several prototype waverider models.  Some of
these were discussed during the talk :

o Mark IV

   Used a keel fin for hypersonic steering control.  This would get
   extremely hot during re-entry.

o Mark VI

   Simple models with tailfins had bad roll stability at low speeds.
   Wingtip fins were added to provide stability; these were designed to
   fold into the wings in hypersonic flight.  Tested in Mach 2 wind
   tunnel, 1986.

o Mark VIII

   Added fairing to the stern of the craft to reduce drag.  This could
   be used to provide fuel injection for external combustion.

An experimental launcher has been designed for use on the Mir Juno mission,
to investigate :

i) aerodynamic behaviour of the waverider craft in microgravity,
ii) study the behaviour of air in microgravity.

The research group has informal contacts with the SolarProbe project at
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.  This is a probe
designed to approach to within 3 million kilometers of the Sun, using a
30 degree ceramic cone to shade an instrument package.

Due to the Earth's high velocity relative to the Sun, it is difficult to
approach the Sun directly.  Current missions (eg Ulysses) make use of
Jupiter gravity-assist, which can create problems due to mission length,
long-term exposure to radiation and the need to fly through the intense
Jovian magnetic field.  Waverider spacecraft have the potential to fly
through the atmospheres of other planets : aerogravity assist.  A
proposed flightpath for SolarProbe would be via the atmospheres of Venus
and Mars, in order to halt the spacecraft relative to the Sun.

STAAR Research is an amateur organization which has made a considerable
contribution to the field of hypersonic research, which is increasingly
being recognized as an important area with regard to space and avionics
in general.  The waverider concept, along with solar sails, is a
pioneering idea which may provide a supplementary technology to rocketry
as a means of interplanetary travel : opening up the Solar System.

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

Date: 8 Apr 91 05:25:43 GMT
From: sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!munnari.oz.au!yoyo.aarnet.edu.au!sirius.ucs.adelaide.edu.au!levels![e-mail]
Subject: Ariane Launch

I had put 18 Mar. 1991 for the launch of V42 in the Ariane manifest I
posted recently. The actual date is 2 March 1991. I apologise for any
inconvenience. I think that many of you in netland may not have heard
of the latest Ariane launch, so here it is.

From "The Advertiser", Saturday April 6, 1991, p. 6. The comments in
brackets are my own.

SATELLITE ROCKET LAUNCHED

   In Kourou, French Guiana, the 43rd European Ariane space rocket blasted
off at 9:03 am SA time [11:33 pm Thursday April 4 GMT], carrying a Canadian
telecommunications and broadcast satellite. The Anik-E2 [I think this should
be Anik-E1] satellite was put into orbit 19 minutes after Ariane's lift-off.

--
Steven Pietrobon, Australian Space Centre for Signal Processing
School of Electronic Engineering, University of South Australia
The Levels, SA 5095, Australia.          [e-mail]

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

Date: 8 Apr 91 06:43:42 GMT
From: dog.ee.lbl.gov!hellgate.utah.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!ccut!wnoc-tyo-news!astemgw!kuis!rins![e-mail]  (will)
Subject: Re: Space Stations, Money, Startrek


    Asking the soviets for data, they have the experience, the Know-How that
NASA thinks it has, the I am sure, the data you require.

    Why is it that Americans are afraid to ask for help?

                                        William Dee Rieken
                                        Researcher, Computer Visualization
                                        Faculty of Science and Technology
                                        Ryukoku University
                                        Seta, Otsu 520-21,
                                        Japan

                                        Tel: [phone](direct)
                                        Fax: [phone]
                                        [e-mail]

    PS: I am American.

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

End of SPACE Digest V13 #381
*******************