Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V13_7/V13_703.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #703

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 13 : Issue 703

Today's Topics:
               More than 14 astronauts?
             Re: Crary's Quick Debunkings
        Re: Tethers (was Re: Laser launchers)
             Space Station Debate
           MAJOR GEOMAGNETIC STORM UPDATE - 07 JUNE
       SkyPix picture looks good, Sky Cable closes down
            Re: Death of the Space Station
            SPACE Digest V13 #608

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Resent-Date:  Thu, 06 Jun 91 13:42:05 EDT
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Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1991 14:38 N
From: "Rob A. Vingerhoeds / Ghent State University" <[e-mail]>
Subject: More than 14 astronauts?
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X-Vms-Cc: ROB

dev8b.mdcbbs.com![e-mail] wrote:

> In article <Added.sc=[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
   (B
>    ob Rehak Ext. 3-9437, AIS Central Services  -  Swen Parson 146) writes:
> >
> > 14 astronauts?  Last time I counted there were only 10.
> >
> > Apollo I: Grissom, White, and Chaffee.
> > STS-61L Challenger: Scobee, Smith, Resnik, Onizuka, McNair,
> >                     Jarvis, and McAuliffe.
> >
> > A couple have died flight testing aircraft that was not related to
> > space exploration and a couple have did in car accidents...I think.
>
> If Grissom, White, and Chaffee (who died on the ground) are considered
> as "Lost in the line of duty", the same should apply to the astronauts
> who died in training flights. Just because they didn't make the evening news
> doesn't mean that their contributions or sacrifices should go unheeded.
>

Aren't we counting the losses on the Russian side? The cosmonaut who died
before Gagarin ever flew, the three cosmonauts who died during reentry?


Rob

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

Date: 6 Jun 91 19:49:49 GMT
From: cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!utgpu!cunews!semifs3!testeng1![e-mail]  (Chris Stanfield)
Subject: Re: Crary's Quick Debunkings

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Roadster Racewerks) writes:
>I would remind those discussing the "face" on Mars that there are quite a few
>perfectly natural features here on Earth that coincidentally resemble human
>faces (such as the famous "Old Man of the Mountains") or other parts (the "Paps
>of Ainu"). I've never been able to figure out why the Martian formation should
>be considered of an "occult" or "alien intelligence" origin, while the local
>ones are not.
>
>Anybody care to list other terran formations that resemble faces, etc.? I know
>they exist all over the planet...

Then, of course, there are clouds. Ever lain on your back watching
clouds and trying to identify the shapes? My 9-year old daughter
thinks this is great fun. Of course it is only recently that I have
been made aware of the fact that this is probably caused by aliens
modifying the cloud shapes on the fly with their death rays or by
beams of pure thought. :-)

Chris Stanfield, Mitel Corporation: E-mail to:- uunet!mitel!testeng1!stanfiel
[phone] Ext.4960
We do not inherit the world from our parents - we borrow it from our children.

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

Date: 6 Jun 91 18:41:54 GMT
From: cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi![e-mail]  (James C Krok)
Subject: Re: Tethers (was Re: Laser launchers)


     I missed the beginning of this discussion on tether technology,
but I presume it is that people wish to "winch" the shuttle up to the
(future) space station.  Maintaining an orbit or changing one has
little to do with directly lifting an object up further away from the
planet.  To maintain an orbit, a spacecraft must have a certain tangential
velocity dependent on its altitude (radius from core of Earth).
If you were to try to winch the shuttle up to a space station, you would
wind up pulling the space station down, and changing the orbital velocity
of both shuttle and station.  Centrifugal force would no longer be able
to counteract gravity, and both objects would plummet to the Earth.
Likewise, if the shuttle were already at the space station, you could
let go of it and it would go nowhere!  It would still have its orbital
velocity, just like the space station, and could maintain orbit until
rarefied gas friction drag slowed it down.  It would not pull any sort of
tether down.
     Basically, change in orbital velocity through OMS or RCS firing is
the only way to change orbits.

J. Chris Krok   RPI Explosion Dynamics Laboratory

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

Date: 6 Jun 91 21:04:38 GMT
From: prism!mailer.cc.fsu.edu!geomag![e-mail]  (Joe Cain)
Subject: Space Station Debate


    Would you believe my congressman actually and personally
called me back? Pete Peterson is agonizing over the Chapman/Lowery
amendment, which itself is now being amended. He recommended we tune
in on C-SPAN to watch the action which has been going on all day and
likely to continue at least another 2 hours before any vote.

    Someone recently argued on sci.space that we should have
worried about the present crisis before the U. S. brought in partners.
Well, this morning's New York Time lead editorial "Space Yes, Space
Station No" succinctly notes that "The United States cajoled and
pressured ESA, Canada and Japan into building modules and equipment
for the station. These international partners have already spent more
than $1 billion over three years. Stiffing them now would
unquestionabley make other international agreements more difficult.
But that does not justify throwing tens of billions into a dubious
project."

    They go on to point out that the notion that a space station
will eventually be needed as a launching pad for exploring the
planets..is a misconception. "..the White House and NASA has proposed
several possible missions to the Moon or Mars. Not one would use a
space station. The reason..is that a station will seldom be in the
right place at the right time. Small wonder the Administration has
suppressed this report, from the Sythesis Group, until after today's
space station vote."

    I recommend you find this editorial, as well as the one that
is in this week's Time. They make the point that the SSF is not
adequate for "Life Sciences Research" nor for microgravity research.
The point about the latter is that it is "Far better to do
microgravity research on smaller platforms visited by astronauts only
rarely."

    Whatever your opinions, it is an opportunity to contact your
personal representative and make those opinions known. Of course
Peterson said that maybe all this flail will not have any eventual
effect as the real resolution will likely be in a House-Senate
conference where indeed no one will know who did what. Call your own
representative's staff and maybe you too will become part of the
problem,...or the solution if you can think of one. I tried to see if
there were some way DOD would be interested in pulling some of their
big bucks in this direction, but apparently not only has the budget
agreement disallowed funneling DOD money into the civilian area, but
also there does not seem to be much NASA-DOD cooperation.

    For example, I have heard that the United States is spending
about $9 billion a year to keep 50,000 troops and their dependents in
Japan to protect them from the Russians, and the Japanese are paying
nothing for this service. With money like this going down the tube, I
find it hard to argue against anything space like and agonize over
being backed into such a corner.

Joseph Cain        [e-mail]
[e-mail]        scri::cain

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

Date: Thu, 6 Jun 91 19:16:32 MDT
From: oler <@BITNET.CC.CMU.EDU:[e-mail]> (CARY OLER)
Subject: MAJOR GEOMAGNETIC STORM UPDATE - 07 JUNE
X-St-Vmsmail-To: st%"[e-mail]"

                       /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

                            GEOMAGNETIC STORM UPDATE

                       /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

                               01:00 UT, 07 June

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


STORM UPDATE INFORMATION:

     Geomagnetic storming has presently ended.  Generally unsettled to active
conditions have been observed since approximately 06:00 UT on 06 June.
However, geomagnetic storming is expected to redevelope sometime in the UT
day of 07 June.  Activity is expected to become major to severe once again as
yesterdays major class X12+/3B flare begins to have an impact.

     The most disturbed day of the period should be 08 June.  Geomagnetic
activity on that day is expected to be at major to severe storm levels
throughout much of the day.  Planetary A-indices are expected to range
between 60 and 150.  Planetary K-indices of between 5 and 8 are also
possible.  K-indices of 9 will be possible over the northerly middle and high
latitude regions.

     Geomagnetic activity should become more dormant by 10 June, barring
further energetic flaring.  Major flaring is expected to continue from Region
6659 over the next 3 to 7 days at least.  It is maintaining a very potent
optical and magnetic configuration and has maintained its overall size.
White-light flares from this region may be possible.

     HF propagation conditions are still well below normal, although
improvements have been observed lately.  Conditions are expected to become
strongly degraded on 07 and 08 June as geomagnetic storming redevelops.
Polar latitude PCA activity has blacked out radio signals over many high
latitude and polar latitude regions.  Absorption levels are currently running
at values near 2.8 dB (above event thresholds).

     PCA and proton activity are expected to continue over the next several
days.  Protons are currently hovering near 240 pfu at greater than 10 MeV.  A
significant enhancement in protons could occur if another major solar flare
erupts from Region 6659.  This region is continuing to move toward the
central solar meridian and will therefore become increasingly capable of
producing stronger proton impacts.

     VHF propagation conditions have returned to semi-normal over the past 24
hours, although instabilities and some unusual conditions have been reported.
VHF backscatter communications are expected to recur as geomagnetic storming
redevelops on 07 and 08 June.  Significant and widespread VHF backscatter may
exist on these dates (particularly 08 June).

     Low latitude auroral activity is expected to become possible again late
in the evening hours on 07 and possibly 08 June (local time).  The Low
Latitude Auroral Activity Warning is being held over until 08 June.  If the
expected shock fails to arrive by then, the warning will be reassessed.

     The next update will be later this UT day.


                       /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

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

Date: 7 Jun 91 02:08:25 GMT
From: fs7.ece.cmu.edu!o.gp.cs.cmu.edu![e-mail]  (Vincent Cate)
Subject: SkyPix picture looks good, Sky Cable closes down

Sky Cable (one direct broadcast satellite TV company) has closed up
before it ever really got started according to the June 4th Wall
Street Journal, page B6.  This was formed over a year ago by a group
of big companies and they had planned to start doing DBS TV by 1994.

SkyPix is still around and should be selling by thanksgiving (reading
between the lines a bit).  SkyPix had planned to be out this summer but
this has slipped.  Still, SkyPix will be out with 80 stations in 1991.
Could be part of why Sky Cable folded.  :-)

I saw the SkyPix demo at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago on
Monday.  They were using one transponder for the demo.

The picture quality is very good.  Laser disk or a good satellite system
may be better, but SkyPix clearly beats cable or broadcast TV.  The sound
quality is amazing.  The sound is digital as well.  To demo the box they
used several different movies on a 100 inch TV with surround sound
(4 speakers) the combination was fantastic.  Given a choice, I would much
rather see a movie like this than at a theater.

The SkyPix box is very small, say 11 inches by 7 inches by 2 inches.  The
user interface is nice and simple.

They use compressed digital signals to get 8 high resolution TV channels
onto each transponder with enough redundancy and error correcting to be
able to use an existing Ku satellite (SBS-6 I think it was) with 50 watt
transponders.  Sky Cable was going to wait till 1994 (and USSB is going to
wait till 1994) for a higher power satellite (240 watts I think).  SkyPix
can get by with 3 foot dishes with the current 50 watt transponders.

There are going to be 3 types of channels, free, super station, and pay
per view.  All of the SSs will be about $12/month.  The pay per view will
be about what you rent a video tape for.

The box, dish, and cables will sell for $699.  They will be sold through
all sorts of retail places (Macys, Circuit City, The Good Guys, etc) so
it should be coming soon to a store near you.  :-)

Also, SkyPix has 3 digital outputs on their box.  One is RS-232 at 9600
baud.  Another is high speed digital audio.  The last is a 1.8 Mbits/sec
very high speed digital.  They have not said what this is for, but this
could be very interesting.  I would expect things like netnews, stock
quotes, etc to start coming out that RS-232 port sometime in the first
year or so.  Many other things will follow, I am sure.  UPI/AP wire
services or the company news that you get on Prodigy or Dow Jones
will probably also show up eventually.  Looks to me like electronic
publishing could really take off with this.  Fun stuff.

SkyPix's phone number is [phone].

   -- Vince

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

Date: 6 Jun 91 18:55:55 GMT
From: cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!csus.edu!beach.csulb.edu![e-mail]  (Jeff Sicherman)
Subject: Re: Death of the Space Station

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Vicki Holzhauer) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>>If you are refering to the real space station, I would hardly think it would
>>become history.  NASA is already gearing up for the place,  experiments are
>>chosen.  There are models for all phases of the space station.  The future
>>Astronauts to live there already have their daily schedules for the 6
>>month period they will be spending there.  If they threw away the space
>>station idea away now, they would be throwing away years and years of hard
>>work.
>
>
>According to this week's "Time" magazine (the one with "EVIL" on the
>cover), throwing it away is exactly what they are doing.  It either
>has been cancelled or is about to be cancelled.  It had gotten too big
>and expensive a project, and the impetus for it kind of diminished
>after the Challenger disaster ...
>

  It's important to understand in these matters that the impetus for these
projects take on a life of their own even after the scientific and economic
sense of the project have evaporated. This is due to two major factors
involving interest groups. First, existing and future contracts for the
large sums involved create a community of self-interest of unions,
corporations, and hence inevitably politicians and other growth-intersted
parties. Second, there is always an unstated military need or desire for
dominance that drives not only the existence of the project but it's
nature and scheduling. This was a major factor in the shuttle and some of it's
problems: the Air Force demanded capabilities and missions that had limited
utility for civilan use but forced NASA to make a lot of changes and
compromises. The great thing for the AF was they didnt have to pay for
these things in a political sense (take the heat).

  I'd have to say that the political-military impetus for going-it-alone
has or is disappearing with the current state of the world. We should
leverage the USSR's experience and presence in space with our superior
technology and push on together to the moon instead of wasting scarce
money (on both sides) on a silly, obsolete competition that no longer
has much political meaning. This may , of course, be hard for those
with ecomomic or military agendas to swallow.

ObST: It's really time for some kind of International space agency
dedicated to exploration.

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

ReSent-Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Resent-Date:  Thu, 06 Jun 91 20:28:32 EDT
Resent-From: Tom McWilliams <[e-mail]>
Resent-To: [e-mail]
Date:         Thu, 6 Jun 91 03:30:55 EDT
Reply-To: [e-mail]
From: [e-mail]
Subject:      SPACE Digest V13 #608
Comments: To: [e-mail]
To: david polito <[e-mail]>, Tom McWilliams <[e-mail]>

Subject: Mars Info Requests

>I am about to embark on an endeavour to aquire as much information as I
>can about Mars, Future Mars Missions, Theories and Proposals for Colonization
>and or Exploration of our sister planet.

I hope it doesn't muck up your plans too much, but Mars is not our sister
planet.  Venus is.

Tom
Acknowledge-To: <18084TM@MSU>

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

End of SPACE Digest V13 #703
*******************