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Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #721

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 13 : Issue 721

Today's Topics:
          Space Conference - Albuquerque, NM
               Re: More on Freedom Vote
      Shuttle & Launch Policies (Was: Re: More on Freedom Vote)
            Re: Fred Vote Thursday
            Re: Fred Vote Thursday
          NASA Prediction Bulletins:  Space Shuttle
        Re: Space manufacturing and Leasecraft
            Re: orbiter production

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: 11 Jun 91 00:38:26 GMT
From: cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!news.cs.indiana.edu!ariel.unm.edu!hydra.unm.edu![e-mail]  (Ollie Eisman N6LTJ)
Subject: Space Conference - Albuquerque, NM







             10th ANNUAL SEDS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

           -=+=- Call for Papers and Participation -=+=-

    August 10-14, 1991   Sheraton Old Town Hotel    Albuquerque, New Mexico

     Sponsored by the University of New Mexico Chapter of
     Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS).

     Theme: "Education - The Key to the Cosmos"

     Topics: Small satellite research, space life sciences,
     lunar-based astronomy, manned missions, space power and
     propulsions systems, space exploration, and education.

     Papers on any of the above topics should be sent to
     the address listed below and received no later than July 15, 1991.


     Speakers include:

     Prof. Mohamed S. El-Genk
     Institute for Space Nuclear Power Studies, UNM

     Dr. William K. Douglas
     NASA Flight Surgeon, Project Mercury

     Theresa Foley
     Editor, Space News

     Nikolai N. Rukavishnikov
     Soviet Cosmonaut and Buran/Energia Engineer

     PLUS

     Students from the United States, Canada, United Kingdom,
     Soviet Union, Uruguay and more...

    Tours: Sandia National Laboratories, University of New
        Mexico, the SEDS Satellite Tracking Station, and
        the New Mexico Space and Planetary Image Facility.

    Events: Barbeque, Educator Short Courses, Awards Banquet
        and continuous demonstrations of weather satellite
        image capture, amateur radio satellite communications,
        satellite TV links, and voice/computer contacts with
        the Soviet space station MIR.

     Exhibits: Government, industry and international participation.
           Exhibit space is still available.


     $60 registration includes banquet, barbeque and tours.

     For additional information, please contact:

     Brian Vanden Bosch, Chairman
     1991 SEDS International Conference
     Box 92 SUB, University of New Mexico
     Albuquerque, NM 87131

     Phone: [phone]
     Fax:   [phone]
     Electronic mail: [e-mail]




--
Ollie Eisman (N6LTJ)    [e-mail]    [phone]
3505 Lafayette Rd. NE #3, Albuquerque, New Mexico  87131, USA

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

Date: 4 Jun 91 22:05:48 GMT
From: cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!lethe!telly!moore!eastern!egsgate![e-mail]  (Bob Pendleton)
Subject: Re: More on Freedom Vote


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Doug
Mohney) writes:
> In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer)
writes:


> >Another interesting note is that the President is playing hardball on
> >this issue. He recently spoke with Jamie Whitten who is the head of
> >the Appropriation Committee. He told him that if Freedom isn't built
> >then there was no reason to build the Advanced Solid Rocket Motor (ASRM)
> >for the Shuttle. ASRM is built in Whitten's district and he consideres
> >it an important project. Bush's veiled threat should have a big effect.

> And you are so naieve as to think that you can get Congress to kill the
> Shuttle, which is already operational, to go to tin cans....
>
> Watch, look, and learn.

Killing the ASRM is NOT the same as killing the shuttle. The ASRM is
an all new replacement for the existing SRM. The main reason for
building the ASRM is to put Thiokol out of the SRM business. Secondary
reasons for building the ASRM are to bring the shuttles payload up to
spec and to put a big aerospace manufacturing plant in the back woods
of the Great State of Mississippi.

The extra payload is needed to support Fred. Without Fred the reasons
for building ASRM come down to revenge against Thiokol and a shifting
of Utah pork to Mississippi. Whoopee...

Personally, I hope they bury Fred so deep it never gets out. Talk
about a gold plated over rated waste of money. If I've every seen a
solution looking for a problem Fred is it. The second worse example
would be the shuttle.

            Bob P.

P.S.

We should've build the X-15B.

--
              Bob Pendleton, speaking only for myself.
   [e-mail] or decwrl!esunix!bpendlet or hellgate!esunix!bpendlet

                         Tools, not rules.

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

Date: 5 Jun 91 00:24:44 GMT
From: agate!spool.mu.edu!think.com!rpi!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!lethe!telly!moore!eastern!egsgate![e-mail]  (George William Herbert)
Subject: Shuttle & Launch Policies (Was: Re: More on Freedom Vote)


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer)
writes:
>It's more than just Congress, it's also the Space Council and space
>activists. Look at the signs: OMB is using the money for another
>orbiter to fund HLV work. Congress is moving toward commercial
>procurement policies which will move cargo off the Shuttle. The
>only thing left is spacelab and Freedom resuply which can be done
>for FAR less with expendables.

Allen, following the Challenger accident, all commercial and most military
payloads were taken off the shuttle.  The only payloads that the shuttle now
carries, mostly for the simple reason that it's only launching 7-9 times a
year, are ones that ONLY it can carry.  Big recon birds, manned experiments,
large/wierd payloads (Galileo, Hubble, GRO).

-george william herbert
[e-mail]

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

Date: 4 Jun 91 18:35:43 GMT
From: news-server.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!lethe!telly!moore!eastern!egsgate![e-mail]  (Matthew DeLuca)
Subject: Re: Fred Vote Thursday


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer)
writes:
>This is incorrect, 217 is enough to win by one vote. At the moment there
>are only 432 members in the House (three seats are vacant due to death,
>resignation, ect). Also note that a tie is a win since the VP gets the
>tiebreaking vote.

Just as a point of information, the tiebreaking authority of the Vice
President is in the Senate, not the House.  Oddly enough, my copy of the
Constitution doesn't seem to provide for tiebreaking in the House.

>The momentum is also on Freedoms side. Last Freday there where only 70
>votes in favor of the amendment to restore Freedom funding.

Maybe this near-death will scare the Freedom people into getting some
hardware built...
--
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: 4 Jun 91 20:14:00 GMT
From: cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!lethe!telly!moore!eastern!egsgate![e-mail]  (Greg Moore)
Subject: Re: Fred Vote Thursday


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer)
writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jim Bowery)
writes:
>
>>By the way, the current vote count puts it nip and tuck.  Fred has
>>just enough votes to tie if the House majority whip's stats are correct.
>>Fred has 140 Republicans and 77 Democrats.
>
>This is incorrect, 217 is enough to win by one vote. At the moment there
>are only 432 members in the House (three seats are vacant due to death,
>resignation, ect). Also note that a tie is a win since the VP gets the
>tiebreaking vote.

The VP only breaks ties in the Senate, not in the House. (The Senate having
100 members, it is possible for a tie with all members voting.)  As the
House has 435 members, if all members vote there can not be a tie.  As
right now there are only 432 active seats, you are right, there can be a
tie, but Quayle can't break it.

>The momentum is also on Freedoms side. Last Freday there where only 70
>votes in favor of the amendment to restore Freedom funding.
>
>  Allen
>
>--
>+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
>|Allen W. Sherzer |   DETROIT: Where the weak are killed and eaten.
|
>|   [e-mail]   |
|
>+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+


Carpe Diem                             [e-mail]
                                       [e-mail]
"All that is gold does not glitter."   [e-mail]

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

Date: 10 Jun 91 20:06:45 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 40
1 21399U 91 40  A 91161.22557870  .00108909  00000-0  25599-3 0   184
2 21399  39.0060 302.2897 0011886  29.0413 201.1907 15.95587607   742
--
Dr TS Kelso                           Assistant Professor of Space Operations
[e-mail]          Air Force Institute of Technology

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

Date: Mon, 10 Jun 91 06:11 CDT
From: [e-mail] (R. S. Hallquist)

When I signed up on this list I was looking for articles and discussion
based on space research and design.  Instead, I seemed to have signed on
to a political debate.  Can anyone recommend a good space discussion to
subscribe to?

...Roy Hallquist
   [e-mail]

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

Date: 10 Jun 91 15:53:05 GMT
From: theory.TC.Cornell.EDU![e-mail]  (Bill Newman)
Subject: Re: Space manufacturing and Leasecraft

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Paul Dietz) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Wales Larrison) writes:
>>   Erythroprotein is a large glycoprotein which stimulates the
>>production of red blood cells.
>...
>>   The MDAC electrophoresis system was a great success, in that it
>>separated out the biological material into about 1500 different
>>products, one of which was the pure erythroprotein.  This allowed
>>MDAC's partner Johnson and Johnson (their Ortho Pharmaceutical
>>Division, I believe) to not only move into FDA clearance tests, but
>>also provided enough pure product to Amgen for genesplicing into a
>>bacteria which could be grown in large quantities.
>
>This is confused.  The product, being a protein, could not have been
>gene spliced into a bacterium, as genes are DNA.
>
>I've heard that the 700x improvement claimed for the MDAC CFE
>apparatus was a PR exaggeration, and that they could have improved
>its performance on the ground by a factor of 10 simply by turning
>the machine upside down.
>
>Note also that a different group, Genetics Institute, also cloned
>the EPO gene (leading to a prolonged fight over patent rights).
>I somehow doubt they found the CFE results vital.
>
>    Paul F. Dietz
>    [e-mail]

Well, I don't know the story, but if there was no source of pure
erythropoietin before the zero-G electrophoresis, and afterwards, there
was pure protein available, then the story makes sense.  If you have the
pure protein, you can find its amino acid sequence.  Then, you can
synthesize a piece of DNA which codes for it, and clone this
into bacteria.  (I oversimplify, but that's the general idea.)  Alternatively,
if you can only find part of the amino acid sequence, you can figure out
what part of the gene probably looks like.  Using this information, you can
make a piece of DNA which matches it, and use this as a probe of the human
genome to fish out the complete gene.  So Wales' story makes sense.

I'd be surprised, though, if the production of
recombinant bacteria expressing a protein were delayed more than 2 years
by lack of access to zero gravity electrophoresis.  There are ways
to find the gene for a protein you're interested in (e.g. finding a cell
line which expresses the protein, using reverse transcriptase to produce
a lot of DNA complementary to its messenger RNA, and cloning the result
into a phage library..) which aren't dependent on having a pure source of
the protein, and there are ways to purify proteins (e.g. raising
monoclonal antibodies to it and using them in a chromatography column)
which don't depend on zero gravity.  You can afford to try a lot of things
for the price of sending your lab equipment into space.
So Paul's point makes sense, too.  (For growing high quality samples for
X-ray crystallography, though, there may be nothing as good as zero-gravity.)

  Bill Newman
  [e-mail]

PS: I was a biologist as an undergrad before becoming a
theoretical chemist.  If you care about this stuff, take a look
at Maniatis' book, _Molecular_Cloning:_a_Laboratory_Manual_, and if
you don't know enough biology to understand the basic concepts there,
try _The_Molecular_Biology_of_the_Cell_ first.  Any good university library
or bookstore is likely to have them, and they're both excellent
texts (at least in the earlier editions that I used; both of them have
newer 1989 editions now).

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

Date: 10 Jun 91 13:01:02 GMT
From: think.com!rpi!usc!hela![e-mail]  (Allen W. Sherzer)
Subject: Re: orbiter production

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Chris Jones) writes:

>>Not at all. Which of the differences do you consider relevant?

>The one I mentioned, I consider relevant.  The Gemini program used,
>essentially, the first two liquid-fuelled stages of today's Titans.  The
>strap-on boosters have never been man-rated, and have failed in the past.

You will never get perfect safety. Since the systems operational record is
about as good as the Shuttle there is no need for the added expense of man
rating.

>As I've posted in the past, the Titan launch sequence, which has the thing
>taking off with only the solids burning, and igniting the core liquid
>fuelled engines later, is also a worry.

Put an escape tower on top of the capsule. If the core doesn't fire you
rocket the capsule away. If the Air Force and commercial companies
think this launch sequence is safe enough for multi-hundred million $$
payloads it should be safe enough for people.

>I'm not sure if your proposal involves an upper stage,
>but that's another difference between a Titan II and a Titan 34 or Titan 4.

At the moment I don't think an upper stage is needed. Do you think one
is required?

  Allen

--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Allen W. Sherzer |   DETROIT: Where the weak are killed and eaten.         |
|   [e-mail]   |                                                         |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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

End of SPACE Digest V13 #721
*******************