Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V13_7/V13_780.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #780

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 13 : Issue 780

Today's Topics:
           Synthesis Group Reports, Part I
               Re: Freedom Cost
               Hiten Update (Forwarded)
              Ulysses Update - 06/19/91
               European Space News/Info
        Re: Pigs might fly!!! Was Re: Access to Space
            SPACE Digest V13 #638
              Re: Fred's Operatic Death

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: 21 Jun 91 07:25:05 GMT
From: ogicse!milton!hardy.u.washington.edu![e-mail]  (Brett Vansteenwyk)
Subject: Synthesis Group Reports, Part I

[The 2 mail messages I got indicated interest in this report--since I did not
[see someone saying "Hey, I already posted this!", I am assuming that putting
[up some summaries will add to the thread.  I will try to be objective and cover
[the contents of this report over several postings over the next several weeks.
[If you want a copy of your own, ask for the Synthesis Group Reports, U.S.
[Government Printing Office, Washington D.C.  20402.  I also have an address
[of what might be the Synthesis Group Office itself (don't know for sure):
[ 1225 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1501          (phone:  [phone])
[ Arlington, VA  22202                              (FAX:   [phone])
[            ---B.V.S.

        SPACE EXPLORATION INITIATIVE
Introduction:
    This report is a response to President Bush's call for a "new vision"
for the U.S. for the 21st century.  In a speech made on the 20th anniversary
of Apollo 11, he called for returning to the moon to stay, and for humans to
land on Mars by 2019 (the 50th anniversary).

Whodunnit:
    Apparently this is the conglomeration of a lot of groups, including
solicitation of ideas from John Q. Public (my involvement), input from
individuals working in relevant federal research grants, American Institute
of Astronautics and Aeronautics, NASA, and finally major industry reps in the
form of the Aerospace Industries Association and Aerospace Contractors.  RAND,
NASA, the DoD, DoE, and Dept. of Interior filtered the input that then went
to the Synthesis Group.  The Synthesis Group itself is composed of a Steering
Committee, a main body, technical support, etc.,etc. and full of rather
uncommon people.

6 Visions:
    The "new vision" has now become resolved into the following:  1.Knowledge
of the Universe; 2.Advancement of Science and Engineering; 3.United States
Leadership; 4.Technologies for Earth; 5.Commercialization of Space; 6.Strength-
ened U.S. Economy.  Point #3 was underscored by an interesting history right
at the start of the document (written by Stafford in the foreward).  Indicating
that, in 1433, China was an expanding, exploring culture, trading and exploring
all the way to Africa.  Then, because of needs elsewhere and a desire to bring
all resources to bear on problems at home, the Ming Emperor recalled and burned
the fleet.  He also constrained the explorers from doing any more of these
"wasteful" explorations.  The intimation is that China lost its leadership
position because of this decision.
    The "Technologies for Earth" vision dovetails strongly with the "Energy
to Earth" Moon Waypoint--the report makes a good case of how the power demand
on Earth will rise quite enormously by 2019 in spite of conservation.  Besides
the direct import of power directly from space, it was suggested that extrac-
ting He-3 from the Lunar surface (generated by the solar wind) would become
important owing to the anticipated development of fusion reactors on Earth.
It seemed that the heavy/bulky materials mined outside of Earth would be used
there rather than transported back to Earth.
    Commercialization of Space was elaborated in the sense that it would be
more likely once access to space was made more routine.  Heavy lift capability
was considered essential to industrial use of space.  It appears that the
commercial involvement would be in the form of spinning off functions into the
commercial area.

Going to Mars:
    Although the goal of landing humans on Mars is agreed upon, the way to get
there was not.  There were 4 "architectures" developed encompassing the range
of opinions expressed.  These will be covered in detail later.

Recommendations:
    Every commission must make its 10 recommendations--these would be needed
no matter what architecture was chosen:
1. Using the Space Exploration Initiative as a baseline, establish within
NASA a long range strategic plan for the nation's civil space program.
2. Establish a National Program Office by Executive Order.  It would come under
the leadership of NASA, and involve interagency cooperation.
3. Appoint NASA's Associat Administrator for Exploration as the Program Director
for the National Program Office.  This action is to make sure there is both
authority (responsibility) and focus for this initiative.
4.Establish a new, aggressive acquisition strategy for the Space Exploration
Initiative.  In other words, try to avoid "business as usual" to the point of
even allowing multi-year funding committments.
5. Incorporate Space Exploration Initiative requirements into the joint NASA-
Department of Defense Heavy Lift Program.  A lot of references were made to
this throughout the report, with a lot of emphasis on using the Saturn V model.
The goal is to have heavy lift by 1998.
6. Initiate a nuclear thermal rocket technology development program.  Owing
mainly to it being a fairly critical component of the Mars exploration.
7. Initiate a space nuclear power technology development program based on
Space Exploration Initiative Requirements.
8. Conduct focused life support sciences experiments.
9. Establish education as a principal theme of the Space Exploration Initiative.
10. Continue and expand the Outreach Program.  Get Joe Citizen involved in
making suggestions, and maybe the grass roots will come to not only participate,
but support more actively (worked for me).

        ...More to come.

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

Date: 14 Jun 91 00:59:57 GMT
From: swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!emory!Dixie.Com!wa4mei!ke4zv![e-mail]  (Gary Coffman)
Subject: Re: Freedom Cost

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Dani Eder) writes:
>
>An analysis of Fred costs, including:
>
>>Life Cycle Cost
>>    Program Funding    $68B
>>    Launch costs (160 shuttle launches
>>        @ $340M each=$54.4B
>>    NASA personnel costs @ 20% of above
>>        = $25B
>>    Total                    $147.4 billion
>
>The Shuttle cost is way off.  A Shuttle flight costs $900 million.
>This gives us a total life-cycle cost of $237.4 billion.
>By comparison, total life-cycle costs for Apollo were $120 billion
>in 1990 dollars.  It looks like even the GAO is making a gross
>underestimate, and NASA is blatantly lying.

You're playing the same numbers game with the Shuttle as you're accusing
NASA of playing with Freedom, only in the other direction. NASA's
*separate* charter missions are research and development, and operations
in space. Tying one mission's costs to another mission's costs is a
poor accounting practice. The government's role in driving research
and development is not supposed to make money or even break even. It
is designed to push technology as it's goal. Development costs of the
Shuttle system should be charged against this goal and not against
operational use of the Shuttle. This may seem strange to some used
to commercial accounting, but the government is not a commercial
enterprise and it's mission is different.

>It is truly sad that 4 astronauts in an Earth-hugging 28 degree orbit
>cost more in the 1990s than putting astronauts on the Moon did in the
>1960's.  Far from giving us leadership, NASA and its space station
>have become a symbol of American mediocrity.   Please, NASA, wake
>up and cancel this monstrosity now!

Comparing Apollo to Shuttle is like comparing an explorer's Jeep to
a Mack truck. Different missions, different vehicles, different costs.
Comparing the cost of Freedom to Apollo is comparing the cost of a few
days spent on the Moon against 30 YEARS spent on a manned platform in
space. The difference should be obvious. You're getting a lot more for
almost the same amount of money according to your strange accounting.
Charging costs off to the proper accounts reveals that you're getting
a lot more for a lot less money.

The government could have refused to meet its research and development
mission obligations and continued to use Saturn as it's operational
vehicle into the 1990s. But if it did so, it would have failed it's
primary responsibility of pushing technology. What has been learned
in the development of the Shuttle can be applied to the next generation
of vehicles. Without that step, the next generation would likely have
to repeat the mistakes made on Shuttle. It's that information that
was paid for by Shuttle's research and development. Since that cost
was to obtain that information, and is marked paid, it should not
be charged yet again against Shuttle operations.

Gary

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

Date: 20 Jun 91 21:09:28 GMT
From: att!pacbell.com!news.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Hiten Update (Forwarded)

[This information was sent to me for forwarding by Yoshiro Yamada of the
Yokohama Science Center. -PEY]

    HITEN EVENTS

Date Time (UT)         Event

1991

March 19 00:43        first Earth Aerobraking    (125km above Earth surface)
                         -1.7 m/s

March 30 11:36        second Earth Aerobraking(120km above Earth surface)
                         -2.8 m/s

April 26 20:34        9th lunar swingby (12600km selenocentric distance)

October 2        10th lunar swingby


All provided by ISAS.

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

Date: 21 Jun 91 05:40:54 GMT
From: agate!dog.ee.lbl.gov!hellgate.utah.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Ron Baalke)
Subject: Ulysses Update - 06/19/91

Crossposted by Ron Baalke from the NASAMAIL P bulletin board
(All NASAMAIL board P items are O.K. for unlimited distribution per JPL PIO,
unless the postings indicate otherwise)

Posted: Wed, Jun 19, 1991   6:22 PM EDT              Msg: IJJB-2954-9131
From:   DAINSWORTH
To:     P, PAO.LOOP,
        (C:USA,ADMD:TELEMAIL,PRMD:GSFC,O:GSFCMAIL,UN:L)
CC:     GYANOW
Subj:   Ulysses Mission Status 6-19-91

                     ULYSSES MISSION STATUS
                          June 19, 1991

     Mission operations activities to restore the Ulysses
spacecraft to its normal operational configuration began
Saturday, June 15, following loss of the X-band telemetry link
Friday, June 14, for a two-hour interval.

     Ground controllers obtained an extra eight-hour pass Friday
evening to begin a sequence of commands to bring the spacecraft
out of the safing mode.  Round-trip light time is presently about
67 minutes.

     The spacecraft was successfully returned to nearly normal
operational and thermal conditions by Saturday, June 15, at which
time the first of the science instruments was switched back on.
All science experiments were back on and operational by Tuesday,
June 18.  The S-band transmitter, used for radio science
experiments, remains off until further analysis of the incident
is completed.  Shutdown of the S-band link has temporarily
interrupted the Solar Corona Experiment, designed to measure the
electron content of the sun's outer atmosphere.

     Cause of the incident remains unknown.  Following complete
return to normal operations of all experiments later this week,
ground controllers will monitor spacecraft subsystems to assess
the behavior of the Ulysses power system.

     Today Ulysses is approximately 609 million kilometers (378
million miles) from Earth, traveling at a heliocentric velocity
of about 72,000 kilometers per hour (46,000 miles per hour).

                              #####
      ___    _____     ___
     /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
     | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
  ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 301-355        | "Imagination is more
 /___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | important than knowledge"
 |_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     | Albert Einstein

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

Date: 20 Jun 91 22:42:19 GMT
From: aunro!alberta!herald.usask.ca!ccu.umanitoba.ca!bison!sys6626!inqmind![e-mail]  (Norman Paterson)
Subject: European Space News/Info

Re: the Hermes space program, if you or anyone else wishes to access the
latest information on ESA or other European Space Programs (including
several other areas of technical interest) I will provide you with an
address and phone number for a database system provided by the EEC FREE OF
CHARGE! Of course you will have to pay long distances charges (can be done
through datapac). Very large database including ninteen other ones. A
listing of United Nations databanks is also included. For more info or
request for subscription (act soon, service is free because the cost is on
trial basis to promote service):
ECHO
Customer Service
BP 2373 L - 1023 Luxembourg
(352)48 80 41

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

Date: 20 Jun 91 18:36:42 GMT
From: swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!emory!Dixie.Com!wa4mei!ke4zv![e-mail]  (Gary Coffman)
Subject: Re: Pigs might fly!!! Was Re: Access to Space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>
>HOTOL and its derivatives really do need private investment to get them going.
>In the US this might happen (cf Pegasus) but there's lesss than zero chance
>here, and the French and Germans would stop any ESA money going that way.

Pegasus is a relatively cheap program using relatively well proven
technologies and with a relatively strong market and short term
payoff. It's really a derivative of the government funded X15 concept
and the result of many years experience in government funded rocket
development. HOTOL is not in that category and is unlikely to attract
much private funding in the States. It's development promises long
term benefits, but the costs and risks are too great for the private
investor.

Gary

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

ReSent-Message-ID: <Added.scMc=[e-mail]>
Resent-Date:  Fri, 21 Jun 91 18:38:23 EDT
Resent-From: Tom McWilliams <[e-mail]>
Resent-To: [e-mail]
Date:         Fri, 14 Jun 1991 02:13:39 TZONE
Reply-To: [e-mail]
From: [e-mail]
Subject:      SPACE Digest V13 #638
Comments: To: [e-mail]
To: david polito <[e-mail]>, Tom McWilliams <[e-mail]>

Re: Colonization of the Galaxy
...
[Stuff deleted about speed of galactic colonization]

>It only took 300 years to get North America to its current point, that
>without pre-existing technology. Major limitation would be birthrate,
>I would guess < 1000 years to get a newly settled planet to the point
>where it would consider building its own spacships. That is assuming
>_no_ radical changes in AI, robotics, genetic engineering or
>artificial wombs.

If it only took N.A. 300 years, ANY earth-sized planet would take c. 300
years, assuming logarithmic growth curves and pre-existing technology
cancel out.

But aren't you making a rather dubious assumption?  Why would ANY civilization
live on planets (think impact attractors).  Look at the history of
colonization, and project alittle into the future.  It took 5000 years to
cover 1/9th of the major planets in this solar system, not even talking about
the asteroids, comets, etc.
If it took us 5000 years for 50000km, the circumference of the earth, then
it would take, assuming a 2-d distribution of useful stuff in the S-System,
abd assuming the useful stuff stopped at Saturn, jeez, at least the age of
the Sun.  Well.  I guess we can't colonize the galaxy.  Or maybe we just
can't do calculations of this nature.  I'll stop if you all do.

When we talk about things that slow down an 'advancing civilization',
don't forget that it won't be idyllic planets that stop them, but any
star with solid material around it.  They'll bring their own life, if
there isn't any native (or even if there is).

Tom
Acknowledge-To: <18084TM@MSU>

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

Date: 21 Jun 91 20:55:45 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Jonathan Leech)
Subject: Re: Fred's Operatic Death

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Mary Shafer) writes:
>It was not my intent to slander Nick and if his feelings, amour propre,
>or net reputation were damaged by my comment, I apologize and retract
>my comment.

    Nick, do you honestly think you can get away with threatening
people on the net simply because they work for the government?    Grow
up.  What she said is in no sense slander - it's true, as anyone who
didn't conveniently forget your earlier posts can testify, and many of
us will if needed.

    Few people in this group escape your catty name-calling and
misinterpretation of their comments (which is a lot closer to slander
than what you're bitching about).  It's too bad for you that so many
people disagree with you, but it's no excuse for such behavior.
--
    Jon Leech ([e-mail])
    __@/

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

End of SPACE Digest V13 #780
*******************