Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V16_1/V16NO187.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1993-07-13 | 32KB

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 05:00:03
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V16 #187
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Tue, 16 Feb 93       Volume 16 : Issue 187

Today's Topics:
                          "Late 'L5' Society
                Antimatter/Atomic Booms for Jettison!
                      A response from Anonymous
                         Henry Spencer stamps
                      high school class project
                Ice composites for space applications?
                        kerosene/peroxide SSTO
                   leading-edge anonymity (2 msgs)
                     letters to Clinton, Congress
Nobody cares about Fred? (was Re: Getting people into Space Program!)
                          Optics/Telescopes
                           PEGASUS QUESTION
                           Sherzer Column?
                   Solar sail nits, final edition.
                      Soyuz I re-entry (2 msgs)
             space station cut, goldin to stay on at NASA

    Welcome to the Space Digest!!  Please send your messages to
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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 15 Feb 1993 11:15:51 -0500
From: "Michael K. Heney" <[e-mail]>
Subject: "Late 'L5' Society
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Tom A Baker) writes:
|>@lub001.lamar.edu writes:
|>>
|>>(Gary Coffman) writes:
|>>>
|>>> The late L5 Society killed this one. It was never ratified by the US.
|>>
|>>Sorry, Gary, but the L5 Society isn't "late," just renamed to The
|>>National Space Society when it combined with the former Space Studies
|>>Institute.  We're still kicking.
|>
|>That turns out not to be the case...
|>
|>NSS and L5 merged around 1985, and retained the NSS name.  It is a
|>collection of "chapters" around the country (at least one in Mexico)
|>that "promote the eventual establishment of a spacefaring civilation".
|>It tends to focus on educating the public.
|>
|>Space Studies Institute is the late Gerard O'Neil's organization (may
|>his beloved soul rest in peace) out of Princeton University in New
|>Jersey.  It is an engineering concern that pushes for space
|>colonization, and does fantastic work in mass drivers and other
|>nuts-and-bolts designs we'll need up there.  Still very overwhelmingly
|>alive.
|>
|>Both deserving your support!  (<- my opinion)


Close!  The L-5 Society merged with the National Space *INSTITUTE*, to
form the National Space Society (NSS) - which is indeed alive and kicking.

The Space Studies Institute info looks good to me, as does the comment
about supporting both.

Mike Heney                |   Senior Systems Analyst and     |  Reach for the
[e-mail]   |  Space Activist / Entrepreneur   |  Stars, eh?
Kensington, MD (near DC)  |     * Will Work for Money *      |

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

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1993 09:24:18 +0000
From: Andrew Haveland-Robinson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Antimatter/Atomic Booms for Jettison!
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes:

>> You would probably want your engines on a long boom anyway,
>> however, because it makes radiation shielding much easier.

>There's an old saying among physicists: "Distance is the cheapest
>shielding."

That's an old saying amongst old physicists!   :-)
                             ~~~

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Haveland-Robinson Associates   | Email: [e-mail]         |
| 54 Greenfield Road, London     |        [e-mail] |
| N15 5EP England. 081-800 1708  | Also:  0621-88756 081-802 4502       |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
<<>> Those that can, use applications. Those that can't, write them! <<>>
> Some dream of doing great things, while others stay awake and do them <

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

Date: 15 Feb 93 11:23:25 EST
From: jason 'Think!' steiner <[e-mail]>
Subject: A response from Anonymous
Newsgroups: news.admin.policy,alt.privacy,comp.org.eff.talk,sci.space,sci.astro

[e-mail] (Mr. Aaron Barnhart) writes:
>
> Shift to e-mail, however, and the balance needs to be different,
> since the absence of any kind of trail can lead to tremendous abuse
> by poor net citizens.  Real wankers can be tracked down if they use
> ftp; but if anon e-mail were permitted, even that verifiable trail
> would vanish.  The beauty about anon ftp, of course, is you don't
> need to use the log, provided you set up everything correctly, and
> your bounty is truly everyone's to share.  But who will protect the
> recipients of unwelcome and anonymous e-mail?

"oh no! i'm being threatened by anonymous email! who will come to my
rescue?!?"

*dan-ta-da-DAAAA!*

"Don't worry leetle missy, *I'll* save you! For I am Mr. D-key!
zapping unwanted mail at the single twitch of your lovely finger!"

"my hero! but my widdle finger gets -tired- twitching so much."

"Then meet my trusty sidekick, KillFile!"

c'mon folks. anyone scared of mail shouldn't get out of bed in the
morning, much less bother to log in.

jason

--
`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`
`,` "True love is better than anything, except cough drops."            `,`
`,`                     - The Princess Bride (book), by William Goldman `,`
`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,` [e-mail] ,`,`,`

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

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 93 12:24:39 EST
From: Tom <[e-mail]>
Subject: Henry Spencer stamps

4> who's back ?
4> Elvis ?
3> Is there a Henry Spencer stamp yet?  Which Henry picture did they use?  ;-)

2>No, but I just went down to the post office to get some stamps, and, being
2>tired of ducks, asked what they had.

2>I got this cool set of 'Space Fantasy' stamps.

>>But Henry Spencer wasn't anywhere on them! :-)

>Hmm.  We could lobby the postal serivce (oxymoromn?) to make a Spencer stamp.
>However, we'd have to kill him and then wait ten years so I don't think it's
>worth it.  Oh well, we'll just have to wait.
>Josh Hopkins

To be honest, I have no idea what Henry actually looks like, so if he was
on those stamps, I wouldn't know anyway :-)

-Tommy Mac
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tom McWilliams | 517-355-2178 (work) \\     Inhale to the Chief!
[e-mail]  | 336-9591 (hm)\\  Zonker Harris in 1996!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Mon, 8 Feb 93 08:34 CST
From: aaron cleaver <[e-mail]>
Subject: high school class project

I am looking for some information on Venus for a high school project.
I am trying to find some information on how to design a livable habitat for
Venus.  Could you please send some information at this address.

internet: [e-mail]
bitnet: [e-mail]

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

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1993 14:24:58 GMT
From: Dave Stephenson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Ice composites for space applications?
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (Del Cotter) writes:

>[e-mail] (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes:

>>All the essential facts have been posted in this thread, but if you
>>want to read a bit more about Pykrete and this adventure, look at
>>*Engineers' Dreams* by Willy Ley.

>Thanks.

>>It's a wonderful book, and though
>>it isn't concerned with space, you will enjoy it if you are the sort
>>of goofball who reads and posts to this group...

>Er, thanks... I think.  What I would be very interested in is any work
>that has been done on xxx/ice composites where xxx is any material that
>might reasonably be obtained in space.
>--
> ',' ' ',','  |                                                  |  ',' ' ',','
>   ', ,','    |       Del Cotter       [e-mail]      |    ', ,','
>     ','      |                                                  |      ','

The only tid bits of research that I have heard being done were in the
early 80's in California . It was mentioned in one of Citizen's Consulative
Commitee reports (1984?) i.e Jerry Pournelle's  lobby group for space under
the name of Mr. Hynton. I think a U.S. army group has done some work too.
All this work is either classified or under commercial wraps and as far as
I know has not been published so far.

I wrote a homourous article 'Of Comets, Aircraft Carriers, Bathwater
and Blocked Drains' for the late lamented Space Frontier magazine in 1986.

on a mundane note. The best road in northern British Columbia that
never has ice heaves is the road to Chetwynd airport. Since gravel
was not available the road was made by grinding Hog Fuel (bark) from
the local sawmill and using it as ballast. The water table rose into
the wood and made Pykrete. It works.


--
Dave Stephenson
Geodetic Survey of Canada
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Internet: [e-mail]

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

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1993 14:42:16 GMT
From: Gary Coffman <ke4zv!gary>
Subject: kerosene/peroxide SSTO
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>Mitchell
>Burnside Clapp (whose ideas triggered this discussion) chose that fuel
>combination not for performance, but for ease of operations.  For routine
>flying operations, it's a considerable advantage to have fuels that are
>easy and safe to handle, i.e. fuels that do not need refrigeration and
>are not highly toxic.  This is where peroxide/kerosene comes from.

Peroxide, at least in the grades needed for rockets, is still pretty
touchy stuff. Of course almost all rocket fuel oxidzers are. LOX is
certainly dangerous to handle. However, peroxide is nearly unique among
common oxidizers in being unstable enough to self-decompose violently.
I guess that red fuming nitric acid is about as bad. Over the years we've
developed pretty good techniques for handling LOX, but we have much less
experience in handling concentrated peroxide in rockets. It has been used
successfully in naval torpedos and in a Brit rocket if I recall correctly.
I certainly wouldn't call it "easy and safe to handle" however. I'd save
that label for the kerosene.

Gary
--
Gary Coffman KE4ZV          |    You make it,     | gatech!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary
Destructive Testing Systems |    we break it.     | uunet!rsiatl!ke4zv!gary
534 Shannon Way             |    Guaranteed!      | emory!kd4nc!ke4zv!gary
Lawrenceville, GA 30244     |                     |

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

Date: Sun, 14 Feb 93 12:56:36 PST
From: Jason Cooper <[e-mail]>
Subject: leading-edge anonymity
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.privacy

> for anonymity.  What this idiot was and is doing isn't one of them.
> That makes him automatically junk.

There's words for people like you, but, unfortunately, they don't belong
on the net any more than your type do.

                                                        Jason Cooper

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

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1993 03:18:12 GMT
From: Emin Gun Sirer <[e-mail]>
Subject: leading-edge anonymity
Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.privacy

[e-mail] (Dave Ratcliffe) writes:
>[e-mail] (Steve Gardner) writes:
>>     We know they died because of incompetence and political favor
>>     currying at NASA.
>
>Do we? Can you cite any reports or investigations that say exactly that?
>Or is that your intuitive gut knowledge of "the facts"?

    Clearly you have not read "What do you care what other people think"
by Feynman. As you might know, not only was Feynman a Nobel laureate and a
brilliant physicist, but also was a member of the civillian board that
looked into the Challanger disaster on commision from the government. His
entire report can be found at the end of that book, which I suggest
you read if you want to learn "the facts" instead of trying to prove
things by vehement assertion.

Feynman flames NASA to a crisp on accounts of beaurocracy, failing to
respond to known problems (there was, and still is (ok, at the time of
writing), a strange case where some shuttle engines oscillate at 4000
Hz for no good reason), and downright bad engineering (he claims most
of the shuttle's problems are due to top-down design without making
use of well-tested stock materials).

Just today in the NY Times there was an article on a three point plan to
make the shuttle more reliable. They propose a change in the main
engine that would reduce the catastrophic failure rate from ***1 in 120***
to something more like 1 in 450. My previous impression was that the
shuttle was designed for a catastrophic error rate of 1 in 10^5, which
I was told was the ballpark figure for legally designing things like
nuclear reactors, etc. NYTimes might be wrong on this, but Feynman's
criticism remains. You decide whether you want to put your Ma on a
device which explodes 1 out of 120 times.

>What a crock. You oughtta get down on your knees and thank whatever God
>you believe in for the "space kick". It's responsible for more
>technological advances than you can imagine. The chances are very good
>that you never go through a day in your miserable existance without
>using SOMETHING that results directly or indirectly from the space
>program and all the research and developement programs it spawned.

A trite argument that I am not going to get into, but at least you
could do it with class.

What speaks out for the success of the NASA's program is some
west-coast company's decision to have its 21 satellites boosted into
space by the Russian high-power rockets (about two days ago). Whether or
not good stuff came out of space research, NASA seems to have gone the
wrong way (back to Apollo days) by pushing manned flights over cheap &
safe methods of carrying big payloads. What Steve was saying was that
people just aren't thrilled anymore to see the boys beat the russkies
by risking their lives for communications satellites and science
projects with tomatoes and bees.

You might also want to check the 1991 June or July issue of the New
Republic which calls the shuttle a "lemon" for similar reasons.

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

Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1993 11:15:43 CST
From: [e-mail] (Odin the All-Father)
Subject: letters to Clinton, Congress

I would have to agree with the earlier assertion that sending snailmail
to Clinton would be more effective than sending e-mail.  Moreover,
carbon copies of any letter sent to C. could be sent to members of
Congress, Secretary Bentsen, etc.

Bob Sparr

Any opinions expressed herewith do not reflect the policies or opinions
of the U. S. Government, NASA, or any of its contractors, or employees
of any of the above.

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

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1993 16:47:34 GMT
From: "Kieran A. Carroll" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Nobody cares about Fred? (was Re: Getting people into Space Program!)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes:
>
>>> which couldn't have ever been built. It should be obvious that very
>>> few people actually care if a space station is ever built.
>
>>This is massively unfair to both the leadership of NASA and the troops
>>in the trenches-- including all the people on the Net who are working
>>on SSF and things that support it.
>
>I don't for a second doubt that there are lots of people working of Freedom
>who honestly and sincerely want to see it fly.
>
>At the same time however, the management at both NASA and the contractors
>have spent billions of $$ on designs which they knew couldn't be assembled
>in space. Wrose, they have for years prefered to cover up and hide problems
>rather than deal with them.

Allen;

If this claim is based on recent discussions here regarding
the change-over from the rectangular assemble-in-space truss
to the hexagonal pre-integrated truss, then I think that you're
way off the mark. If it's based on something else, then for the
benefit of the rest of us could you please carefully explain
how you have arrived at this conclusion?

Regarding my "off the mark" contention, I wonder if you understand
the systems engineering approach that is being used to design
SSF (and whish was also used on Apollo, and most NASA programs
since then). In that approach, design is carried out  by a
hierarchy of organizations/departments, organized in a tree
structure---one group at the top (NASA Level II), and many
groups at the bottom (i.e. at the "leaf nodes" of the tree).

None of the groups in the structure is very large, and certainly
no group is large enough to keep track of and fully comprehend all
of the details of the evolving design. Instead, reliance is placed
on a >process<, that is supposed to be set up so that the resulting
design meets its requirements, and can be built (i.e. contains no
incompatibilities or inconsistencies or impossibilities).

In this process, the group at the top sets high-level requirements
(e.g. "the SSF will have a lab module, of such-and-such a volume;
it will provide so many kW of power at MTC, and so many at PMC").
They give these to the groups immediately below them (Reston, I guess,
and then JSC, LeRC and MSFC below them), and ask them to send back
designs meeting those requirements. These groups in turn break up
their parts of the system into smaller subsystems, and ask the
next-lower-down organizations to give >them< designs back. This
proceeds down to the lowest-level organizations, who actually design
components. At this level, some of the groups find that they're unable
to meet their requirements---this is not unreasonable, since the most
detailed analyses are actually carried out at this level, and some
problems simply won't show up until those anlyses are done. As these
problems surface, they are reported back up to the next level.
If they can't be resolved through re-design at that level, they're
passed further up. The further up they have to go before becoming
resolvable, the larger the resulting re-design will be.

In addition, there are certain types of design problems that can't
be found during the initial top-down analysis, or at the low-level
design stage. Instead, they are found when integrating together
designs of low-level portions of the system. The best example of this
that I can think of is the SSF maintenance-time issue. Until a first
cut had been done of the design of most of the lowest-level components
of SSF, it was pretty well impossible to determine how much maintenance
would be required. After the first-cut deign was done, however,
and had been reported back to the top-level group, it became possible
to examine estimated mean-times-between-failure for all the components
(impossible to do until each component had a design), and add up
estimated repair/replacement times for each. This analysis was
done pretty well as soon as the data became available, by the Fisher-Price
External Maintenance Task Team. To everyone's dismay, the worst-case
estimates of required crew maintenance time were much higher than had been
anticipated. At this point, the systems design process did what is was
supposed to do---the highest-level groups in the design team carried out
a re-design to address the issue, producing a design which had
drastically reduced maintenance requirements.

As far as I know, the same sort of thing happened with the truss design.
The initial high-level design didn't (couldn't!) take into account
efffects that weren't well-understood at the time, such as atomic-oxygen
degradation of graphite-epoxy composite structures, and assembly/maintenance
time for all the utilities that were to run through the old box truss
(e.g. el;ectrical cables, communications cables, cooling fluid lines,
etc.). As I understand it, some problems were reported by the lower-
level design groups (e.g. the MDSSC report here, that anticipated loads
were too high to be withstood by this structure), and others showed up
when system-wide analyses were done once the entire system's preliminary
design was available. These problems floated up to the top as part of the
rigorous design review process, and once they reached the top they were
dealt with through re-design.

Given this long preliminary, we come to the nub of my argument.
Sure, >some< people in NASA and the contractors knew of problems with
the truss design, quite some time before they were acted on. However, just
because some time elapsed before the design changed doesn't mean that "NASA
and the contractors...knew (SSF) couldn't be assembled in space",
or that they "for years preferred to cover up and hide problems rather
than deal with them." What was happening was that the problems were being
reported, and dealt with. Perhaps what you object to is the "cover up"
aspect of it---i.e. that NASA didn't go to the press with the results of
every adverse analysis of every nut, bold and longeron in the design.
To characterize this as "covering up" seems absurd; >every< engineering design
has many intermediate design problems and issues (including Apollo, and the
design of whatever car that you drive); as long as the problems are
dealt with (even if it takes some time to do so, due to the complexity
of the system being designed), then why should anyone outside of the design
organization want to know about these issues?

Now, this is not to say that SSF has been the >best< systems design
project in history. It probably hasn't been the >worst<; I imagine that there
are many DoD projects vying for that distinction. It had a poor set of
original high-level requirements, and has been additionally hampered by
arbitrary funding cuts and stretch-outs at the customer's (i.e. Congress')
whim, resulting in very significant changes in the top-level requirements
(which, in this sort of process, leads to the system having to be
re-designed practically from scratch), resulting in poor schedule
performance. I would even dare to say that some of the contractors
didn't put their best people on the project, probably because the best
ones were already busy on other projects that had a greater potential
for making a profit (companies rarely profit much from working for NASA).
Nonetheless, the process has worked more or less the way it should,
and the resulting design meets virtually all of its current requirements.

Now, can you explain to me again why you make the accusations that
you do?
--

     Kieran A. Carroll @ U of Toronto Aerospace Institute
     uunet!attcan!utzoo!kcarroll [e-mail]

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

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 93 15:19:22 PST
From: [e-mail] (Dan Kelo)
Subject: Optics/Telescopes

I am aware of the fact that this post is not entirely appropriate for
this list, but I have searched for an alternative and come up empty
handed.

I have a question regarding optics/telescope making/astro photography,
(specifically relating to some 60's vintage military aerial photo
lenses and their adaptability for astronomical use).  I do not have
USENET access, so any discourse would have to take place on e-mail
or via LISTSERV lists.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated!!!!

Dan Kelo

_________________________________________________
[e-mail]
"I hate quotations, tell me what you know" -- Emerson
-------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1993 16:57:16 GMT
From: Frank Crary <[e-mail]>
Subject: PEGASUS QUESTION
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> Lawrence Curcio <[e-mail]> writes:
>...It would seem to me,
>though, that this acceleration scheme would work only if the rocket
>didn't change its altitude - that is, if it flew in an atmospheric orbit
>rather than on a tangent or a spiral. In the end, the amount of work
>required to get the rocket into a real orbit would be greater this way,
>because the rocket would be flying through more air. No? Am I missing
>something?

That depends mostly on the rocket's speed: As velocity increases,
the atmospheric drag also increases. At some point, this disadvantage
outwieghs the advantage of wings and lift. However, at low velocities,
there is still an advantage. That's why Pegasus has wings on the
first stage only. After the first stage, its moving to quickly for
wings to be a net benefit.

By the way, if the engine is also air breathing, the advantages of
staying within the atmosphere continue to much greater velocities...

                                                  Frank Crary
                                                  CU Boulder

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

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1993 13:34:54 GMT
From: Thomas Clarke <[e-mail]>
Subject: Sherzer Column?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer)
writes:
> One engineer, for example, almost lost his
> job for providing information for my column on overruns.
>
Is your column syndicated?  Where does it appear?
I think I would like to read it!
--
Thomas Clarke
Institute for Simulation and Training, University of Central FL
12424 Research Parkway, Suite 300, Orlando, FL 32826
[phone], FAX: [phone], [e-mail]

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

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 93 12:03:59 EST
From: Tom <[e-mail]>
Subject: Solar sail nits, final edition.

I wrote:
>>Aaaand, since we were talking about solar-sails, which are just ways
>>of catching momentum, it doesn't matter what you use; unlike flashlights,
>>which are only really effective when they match the frequency response
>>of human eyeballs.

>Sorry, but it does matter what you use.  Solar sails are much more
>effective when they match the nature of what's coming at them well enough
>to reflect it, rather than absorbing it.  For one thing, that gives you
>twice the thrust, and solar sails don't have any thrust to waste.  For
>another, that lets you thrust tangentially, to make long-term changes
>in your orbit.  Absorption thrust is always straight outward, which
>effectively just diminishes the Sun's gravity a little bit.

1) This thread was all about my thought that the definition of 'solar
wind' is arbitrary, since it 'discriminates' against photons, without a
necessary reason.  I was just a nit, a passing thought, so this
will be my last post.  If you ascribe more meaning to my assertions
than I intended, it's your problem from now on :-)

2)  Henry's resonse is somewhat out of context.  I forgot who it was
I was respnding to, but they said my assertion was like saying
"let's just use gamma-rays to light up a room.  It's all light, right".

While it is true that it does matter what you use, if your goal is
a high thrust/weight ratio, or easy tangential movment, it does not
matter what you use if your goal is 'catching momentum'.  I think the
confusion lies in the limited use of the flashlight/solar sail analogy,
a limitation whose potential I underestimated when I responded.

Solar wind existed before solar sails, so I'm sure the definition is
not necessitated by where solar sails get the major part of their thrust.

-Tommy Mac
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tom McWilliams | 517-355-2178 (work) \\     Inhale to the Chief!
[e-mail]  | 336-9591 (hm)\\  Zonker Harris in 1996!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: 15 Feb 93 10:42:33 EST
From: Chris Jones <[e-mail]>
Subject: Soyuz I re-entry
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, sheaffer@netcom (Robert Sheaffer) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Tesuji) writes:
>>X-Anon-To:sci.space,sci.astro,alt.privacy
>>
>>On April 23, 1967 while Soyuz I and comsmonaut Vladimir Komarov
>>were being monitored, one of the intercept operators reported the
>>following conversation as problems developed during re-entry:
>>of space exploration -- probably reminds you of your cowardice.
[...]
>
>Too bad, Mr. Anonymous, that they died from decompression, a problem
>that occurred because a leak developed during the strains of re-entry.

You're confusing the Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 11 accidents, which are the two publicly
acknowledged Soviet space flights with crew fatalities (and people who have
carefully followed the program believe there are no unpublicized ones).
--
Chris Jones    [e-mail]

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

Date: 15 Feb 93 10:26:16 EST
From: Chris Jones <[e-mail]>
Subject: Soyuz I re-entry
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, David.Anderman@ofa123 writes:
[...]
>
>Interestingly, the Soviets *had* a reserve Soyuz loaded and ready to go,
>so rescue was possible.

I'm not sure if the Soviets or Russians ever acknowledged this, but it's
generally accepted (and there is some pretty suggestive photographic evidence
to back it up) that Soyuz 1 was supposed to be the first of a double flight
involving rendezvous, docking, and crew exchange (a mission later accomplished
by Soyuzes 4 and 5).  So, there would indeed have been another Soyuz available.
HOWEVER...  I don't believe there had ever been a completely successful
unmanned flight of the Soyuz (and there had been at least two pretty sobering
failures), there had been resistance to launching the Soyuz 1 flight at all,
which was overriden from above for political reasons, and the flight that did
take place was reportedly problem-plagued from the start.  Trying to launch a
(from all evidence) unreliable spacecraft to rendezvous and perhaps dock with a
malfunctioning spacecraft seems awfully foolhardy.  The Soviets were probably
doing the best they could do simply by trying to get Komarov back alive (unless
you believe that they and he knew he was doomed in any case).

I recall reading in Oberg's book on Soviet coverups that reports of Komarov's
transmissions picked up during reentry by ground stations in Europe are not
very believable because the reentry on the 18th orbit (rather than the more
normal 16th) meant the ground track wasn't favorable for such listening in.
--
Chris Jones    [e-mail]

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

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1993 15:37:14 GMT
From: Jeffrey David Hagen <[e-mail]>
Subject: space station cut, goldin to stay on at NASA
Newsgroups: talk.politics.space,sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Pat) writes:
|>
|> Todays washington post reported that "NASA Director Goldin in a move
|> that looks to save his job"  has promised that NASA can deliver
|> a space station for 40% less then current estimates".
|> Goldin says eliminating "the controversial truss structure"
|> in favor of a "wo/man in a can" format will provide faster
|> cheaper access.
|>
|> the article also quoted "Morale had been very bad at the centers
|> and contractors" due to proposed cuts and overruns to date,
|> including a most recent 500 million dollar over-run.
|>
|> So, if Freedom tosses the truss,  how different does it become
|> from MIR?

Who says the truss structure is contoversial?
I doubt Goldin is stupid enough to think that a redesign of this magnitude at this late of a date is going to save any money in the long run.

Jeff Hagen
Rice University

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End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 187
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