Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V15_3/V15NO386.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1993-07-13 | 19KB

Date: Fri,  6 Nov 92 05:07:14
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V15 #386
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Fri,  6 Nov 92       Volume 15 : Issue 386

Today's Topics:
          ANSWER: Recognizing a Dyson sphere if you saw one
                           Comet Collision
                           gloves in space
                           Hubble's mirror
                        NASA Coverup (6 msgs)
                   Scenario of comet hitting Earth
                            Slush Hydrogen
                Swift-Tuttle Comet a threat to earth?
       why don't you stop snarfy, here is why, no computations!

    Welcome to the Space Digest!!  Please send your messages to
    "[e-mail]", and (un)subscription requests of the form
    "Subscribe Space <your name>" to one of these addresses: listserv@uga
    (BITNET), rice::boyle (SPAN/NSInet), utadnx::utspan::rice::boyle
    (THENET), or [e-mail] (Internet).
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 6 Nov 92 05:14:07 GMT
From: "Frederick A. Ringwald" <[e-mail]>
Subject: ANSWER: Recognizing a Dyson sphere if you saw one
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>
[e-mail] (Erik Max Francis) writes:

> An F-K _dwarf_?  How's that?
>
> Seems to me that a globe with a radius of 1 au and a temperature of 300 K
> would look like an infrared supergiant or, perhaps, a protostar.

No - the main point to the article is that the filling factor does not
necessarily have to be high, so plenty of light from the central star
would get through. What we'd see is a Sun-like star, with a small IR
excess indicating a 300 K shell with size on the order of 1 AU: in
other words, something not necessarily easily distinguishable from a
natural object. Unless there's something obvious, such as narrow-band
radio signals...

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

Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 20:53:44 GMT
From: Leigh Palmer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Comet Collision
Newsgroups: sci.space

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

>Oh, they used Sakharov's Cold Fusion (mu meson catalysis) for energy.
>Anything else?

Sakharov's!? How 'bout Alvarez? For that matter, why do you omit mention of
*Jones*? Have you no family pride? He's the guy who actually did it.

Leigh

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

Date: Thu, 5 Nov 92 17:36:59 PST
From: [e-mail] (Ross Borden)
Subject: gloves in space

Bill Higgins writes:

>The reason I'm writing, instead of just allowing the discussion to
>peter out, is to mention that a suggestion of Hermann Oberth's:
>Astronauts might wear spacesuits without gloves for delicate work!
>
>He reasoned that your skin can stand up to low pressure without major
>medical problems, so maybe you could work without pressure gloves in
>space.  You'd have to wear thin gloves for thermal and UV protection,
>and making a good wrist seal on your spacesuit might be tough-- but
>maybe not as hard as the problem of making a really flexible pressure
>glove! I think this was in his Fifties book *Man in Space*.

    Interesting, but I think I'll let you try it first :-)

    A better idea might be to cast a glove from heat shrink plastic.
It would be just large enough for an astronaut to fit his hand into.
The cuff of the glove would have a seal to attach it to the sleave of his
suit.  After fitting it on, he would gently heat the glove to form it to
his hand.
    It should provide a few atmospheres, enough to prevent damage.
The glove would be destroyed getting it off, so they would have to be
disposable.
    There might be problem with flexiblity of the plastic.  The stuff
I've worked with tends to crack if flexed a lot.  Strength and tear resistance
might also be a problem.  Of course, thermal and
UV protection are still necessary.
    A much better solution is electro-responsive plastics that expand
and contract at will, but they're ways off yet.

_______________________________________________________________________________
|                   .sig?  I don't need no stinking .sig!                     |
|                           [e-mail]                                |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: 5 Nov 92 14:59:21 GMT
From: jcj <[e-mail]>
Subject: Hubble's mirror
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space

>...how the Hubble mirror contractor messed up the figure of the main
>mirror.  I understand it has spherical aberration, but wonder how
>[Rockwell?] managed to do that.
>

Although Rockwell is my competitor in some areas, I must point out it was
Perkin-Elmer that blew the figuring.
--
                [e-mail]

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

Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 21:03:46 GMT
From: "Robert J. Wade" <[e-mail]>
Subject: NASA Coverup
Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.conspiracy

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>
>
>   My  calculations  assume the neutral point to be motionless with respect
>   to the earth and moon . What do your calculations assume?
>
> snarfy
>
>
must be a wormhole near the neutral zone, and i bet those romulans are using

it to get access to our moon!

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

Date: 5 Nov 1992 21:44:38 GMT
From: "Blair P. Houghton" <[e-mail]>
Subject: NASA Coverup
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.space,alt.conspiracy

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>
>
>    Well  ,  it  sounds  like the willingness to cling to some kind of la-la
>   land belief that our  government  wouldn't  lie  to  us  about  the  moon
>   landings

I'm perfectly willing to believe that the government has lied to us,
but I prefer to believe it in the face of hard evidence rather than
the ravings of a lone crackpot.

For instance:

    The government lied to us when it said that George Bush was
    unsupportive of the idea of arms for hostages or ignorant
    of the effort to sell arms to Iran for the release of
    hostages in Lebanon.

vs.

    The moon is four times as dense as our terrestrial calculations
    and measurements suggest, because the government lied to us
    about its verifying data collected during the alleged missions
    to the moon.

I believe the former, because the evidence exists and is supported
by members of the government itself.  I do not believe the latter,
because there is no evidence to support the claim, and because it
comes from a person who previously misinterpreted Ohm's law to the
point that it assisted him in mis-deriving a theory of travelling at
speeds faster than light.

                --Blair
                  "Makes this God stuff look simple."

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

Date: 5 Nov 92 22:16:13 GMT
From: Kevin Quinn <[e-mail]>
Subject: NASA Coverup
Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.conspiracy

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
[ paranoid ranting deleted ]
>
>   snarfy
>
Yo, snarfy dude!  Seems that if you could eliminate or control the paranoid
side effects of your drugs, 'twould be a nice thing to share your sources,
dosage levels, etc. with us - or at least with alt.drugs....

Better physics thru chemistry, huh?


kbq



--
Kevin Quinn                         | [e-mail]
                                    | {mtzinu,pacbell,ll-winken,sun}!ingres.com
My opinions are my own.  Should you think otherwise, think again.

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

Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 23:14:00 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: NASA Coverup
Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.conspiracy

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] writes...
>
>
>>>   No  they  don't  .  Abell's lunar gravity figure of 1/6 assumes the earth
>>>   and moon rotate around a common barycenter. The neutral point  figure  is
>>>   a direct derivation of that result.
>>>
>>>   My  calculations  assume the neutral point to be motionless with respect
>>>   to the earth and moon . What do your calculations assume?
>>>
>>> snarfy
>>>
>
>   In   message-ID:  <[e-mail]>  Dennis,  University  of
>      Alabama in Huntsville comments :
>
>  >A very easy way to blow this one up is to  look  at  the  weight  of  the
>  >Apollo  LM  and  the  thrust of the engine. The rocket equation says that
>  >there must be at least a 1.141 thrust to weight ratio.  Remember  the  LM
>  >only  had  one Ascent stage.
>
>   Dennis ,recall my earlier comment :
>
>>>  The issue is not necessarily whether we landed on the moon , but  how  we
>>>  did it.
>
>   I'm not trying to suggest that we didn't land on (and  return  from)  the
>   moon. What I doubt is that we could have done it all with rockets.
>

What ever makes your clock tick man.

> >  Also  remember  that the Astronauts suits and baggage were set up for 1/6
> >  g and not .6 gee.
>
>   So  we  made  them extra heavy so the astronauts couldn't jump too high ,
>   or wander off too far, right ? (see my most recent post.)

No read "For all Mankind" and find out what happened when they jumped too high.
Its called loss of balance, and it was a dangerous happening for the lunar
explorers. What would happen if they jumped, lost their balance and hit hard
on a rock?

>
> > Henry can probably provide the numbers.
>


>   Who's Henry?
>

Henry is the guardian angel of arcane knowlege. He sometimes posts to the
net in order to enlighten the underinformed. :-)

>  > If any of you out there know Buzz Aldrin, there is no way he  would  keep
>  > something like this covered up.
>
>   Probably not , sorry , gee, I guess you're right . Do you think there's a
>   chance I might get to talk with your good buddy Buzz? Over the ol' modem?
>   Us investigative types just like to get told off by those in  a  position
>   to know , y'know ?
>

Buzz will talk with anyone with moderate intelligence regarding CURRENT efforts
to return to the moon. He will also answer specific questions regarding
technical aspects of his apollo experience. Just don't act like a star struck
idiot (unless you are a female with nice legs|)


>   Now  that  you  mention Buzz Aldrin, didn't I read somewhere that he went
>   through severe depression and "therapy" after  his  one  moon  excursion?
>   What  was  this all about?  Was he confused or upset about anything after
>   this experience?
>

Buzz is a great man who had a hard time dealing with the rest of his life
after the Apollo 11 mission. He is a very hard driving go getter who wondered
what else there was to do to top the lunar landing as something to live for,
for the rest of his life. Can you imagine being 35 with at least half
of your life left and a very remote possiblity of topping your achievements?
Well as a happy ending Buzz is working to get us back to the moon by
buying off on Russian technology. He is probably behind some of the moves
recently that have us getting their hardware. We see him in Huntsville and other
places where the professionals who are working dedicating their lives to giving
humanity a spacefaring civilization meet.


>  >Also the pertubations of  Lunar  orbits  by  the  Earth  and  Sun  become
>  >significant  at altitudes above 800 km and dominate above 22,000.
>
>   Where did you read this ?  Was this a paper based on theory or the actual
>   flight trajectories of real spacecraft ? If it's true , I'll be the first
>   to admit that it shoots my theory ...but I'd like to see for myself.
>

Snarf of the no name, go read up on Lunar Gravity field studies. Start with
the Apollo 15 and 16 science summary by NASA for information on the
perturbations of the lunar gravity fields by MASCONS. Then go and pick do your
research starting with papers by Bill Sjogren from JPL on Lunar Gravity.  His
data is primarily based on Apollo and Lunar Orbiter Gravity mappin missions.
For a nice primer on Earth Lunar Gravity theory go and read Brown's treatise
on the subject. I don't have time to go and the the reference numbers, go
to a government printing office or AIAA  publications house and look it up
yourself. If you are really hard to go after this come to Huntsville or
Houston and go through the archives.

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

Date: 5 Nov 92 19:22:39
From: Fran Litterio <[e-mail]>
Subject: NASA Coverup
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.space,alt.conspiracy

[e-mail] (Bronis Vidugiris) writes:

> [e-mail] writes:
>
> )   jump about 18 inches vertically without a  run.   On  all  of  the  video
> )   footage  shot  by  the  astronauts  while  in  the moonwalking mode , the
> )   highest leaps performed by the most vigorous individuals,  such  as  John
> )   Young,  never  amounted  to  more  than  about 18 inches, while they were
> )   THEORETICALLY CAPABLE OF SLOW BACKFLIPS!
>
> If we assume, though, that the moon landings *were* real and in low G (just
> for the purposes of argument, of course), wouldn't it be plausible that the
> astronauts were being very careful and restrained *NOT* to do backflips, in
> ordor to avoid possible adverse effects due to a bad landing damaging their
> space suits?

Recall that astronauts did sometimes fall down on the moon and had to
be helped up due to the bulkiness of the suits.  That's one reason why
there were always two of them out at once.

Then the was the time an astronaut caught his foot on a cable and
knocked over a rack of million dollar equipment.  It was useless
thereafter (anyone know who did that?).  I guess I shouldn't feel so
bad about getting crumbs in my keyboard.
--
[e-mail]   || Fran Litterio, CenterLine Software R&D
617-498-3255           || 10 Fawcett St, Cambridge, MA, USA 02138-1110
"It's not the thing you fling, it's the fling itself."  -- Chris Stevens

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

Date: 6 Nov 92 01:41:42 GMT
From: "Richard A. Schumacher" <[e-mail]>
Subject: NASA Coverup
Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.conspiracy

Well, if lunar surface gravity was about .64 that of Earths,
then suited astronauts on the Moon would have weighed about
240 pounds. Hardly likely that they would have been bouncing
around as lightly as they appear to be in the videotapes.
And the hammer and falcon feather fell much too slowly for
0.64 G.

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

Date: 4 Nov 92 18:16:11 GMT
From: Erik Max Francis <[e-mail]>
Subject: Scenario of comet hitting Earth
Newsgroups: alt.sci.planetary,sci.astro,sci.space

[e-mail] (John Black) writes:

> What are the chances of the comet's orbit to be change significantly so that
> the close approach or impact doesn't happen. More specifically, what is the
> affect of outgassing or gravitaional interaction with a giant planet?

From what I understand, the outgassing is what _causes_ the possibility
of hitting the Earth (non-gravitational disturbances make the orbit hard
to predict, and it's _possible_ that it might hit the Earth).  We won't
be able to revise the probabilities (has anyone gotten the "official"
chances of it hitting the Earth?) until it is on approach.  I'm of the
opinion that we'll have plenty of time to deflect it if it's determined
to be a significant threat, as long as we get our butts in gear.

----------
Erik Max Francis   Omnia quia sunt, lumina sunt.  Coming soon:  UNIVERSE _ | _
USmail:  1070 Oakmont Dr. #1 San Jose CA 95117  ICBM:  37 20 N  121 53 W _>|<_
UUCP:  ..!apple!uuwest!max   Usenet:  [e-mail]   464E4F5244   |

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

Date: 6 Nov 92 00:21:39 GMT
From: Jeff Greason ~ <[e-mail]>
Subject: Slush Hydrogen
Newsgroups: sci.space

We had an earlier problem posting news, so this may be a repeat post
in some locations.

What exactly is "slush hydrogen?"  I know it is planned for NASP use, and
I believe it is supposed to be a liquid hydrogen alternative with higher
energy density per liter (which would certainly be nice).

However, my CRC claims that solid frozen hydrogen has essentially the same
density as liquid hydrogen.  I has always assumed that "slush" hydrogen
was a mixture of frozen and liquid hydrogen, but this would seem to rule
that out.

So, just what is "slush" hydrogen?  And what is it's density??   And,
if anyone knows, what is the cost to produce it?  Response by email or
post is fine

Disclaimer:  All opinions expressed are my own, and do not reflect the
     position of Intel, Portland State University, or Zippy the Pinhead.
============================================================================
Jeff Greason                  "You lock the door ... And throw away the key.
  <[e-mail]>   There's someone in my head, but it's not me."
                                         -- Pink Floyd

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

Date: 4 Nov 92 18:09:43 GMT
From: Erik Max Francis <[e-mail]>
Subject: Swift-Tuttle Comet a threat to earth?
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space

[e-mail] (Robert Sheaffer) writes:

> But assuming that it is possible to fragment the nucleus of the comet,
> this imparts a transverse velocity to the fragments that they did not
> previously have. If they previously were exactly on the "right" path
> to strike earth, by imparting motion to them along a right-angle to
> that path, won't even a relatively small delta to their previous path
> cause the vast majority of the fragments to miss earth?

That's the idea.  But if the asteroid is anything but tiny, it's going to
take large amounts of energies, delivered at just the right places, to
cause it to calve.  And if you mess up, and the pieces still hit the
Earth, they're going to be hitting even harder and over a wider area.

----------
Erik Max Francis   Omnia quia sunt, lumina sunt.  Coming soon:  UNIVERSE _ | _
USmail:  1070 Oakmont Dr. #1 San Jose CA 95117  ICBM:  37 20 N  121 53 W _>|<_
UUCP:  ..!apple!uuwest!max   Usenet:  [e-mail]   464E4F5244   |

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

Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 23:28:00 GMT
From: IGOR <[e-mail]>
Subject: why don't you stop snarfy, here is why, no computations!
Newsgroups: sci.space

Hello snarfy,

I for one am not related to any governmental agency, I am not even american.
I therefore do not really qualify for a cover-up of any kind.
I do not know where your argument is failing and I am sure some other
readers will take the time to tell you exactly. The thing is that I had with
 my group the extraordinary  possiblity to be in weightlessness, in martian
(1/3g) and in lunar gravity (1/6g) while riding on NASA's KC-135 recently.
I can tell you that if you want to have the agility that those guys had
while on the moon ( from the movies) you HAVE to be at MOST under 1/6 g
and definetly way under .34g.
Trust me, the martian gravity is bitch, there is NO fun being under it
and it's relatively dangerous to even try a backflip.
Then again the pilot might have fooled us since he's a NASA employee!
then again our experiments DO HAVE accelerometers and they match
with NASA's (ain't it weird :-))



Igor
Texas A&M University

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

End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 386
------------------------------