Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V16_5/V16NO548.TXT

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Date: Sat,  8 May 93 05:33:56
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V16 #548
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Sat,  8 May 93       Volume 16 : Issue 548

Today's Topics:
                    April Air and Space Articles.
                           Astronaut Visas
      Boeing TSTO (Was: Words from Chairman of Boeing) (2 msgs)
         HST Servicing Mission Scheduled for 11 Days (2 msgs)
              Mothership for Flybys and cutting costs..
            Need help on information about satellite cost
                       Pegasus, ALEXIS, trouble
                        Space Digest V16 #534
                         Vandalizing the Sky
                         Vandalizing the sky.
                      Was Joan Rivers Abducted?

    Welcome to the Space Digest!!  Please send your messages to
    "[e-mail]", and (un)subscription requests of the form
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Date: Sun, 2 May 1993 07:00:25 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: April Air and Space Articles.

Interesting articles in Air & Space (this month (april?)).

I liekt he Heliophase continuing mission of Pioneer 11, 12 and Voyager 1,2.
Nice reusing old missions for new missions..

==
Michael Adams, [e-mail] -- I'm not high, just jacked


PS: Yes I now subscribe to Air and Space, so I will be more dangerous (grin)..

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

Date: Thu, 6 May 1993 13:12:28 -0800
From: [e-mail] (Max Nelson)
Subject: Astronaut Visas

>I have a question that has been ringing in my
>head for a while. What if after a launch, there is
>one of these nasty aborts and the Shuttle has
>to land in a foreign country (Spain or Morroco).
>Do the astronauts need a visa for staying there
>or NASA has some kind of special arrangement
>with the governments of these countries???
>
>[e-mail]

International Law has been developed through the UN COPUOS to deal
with such a contingency for years.  The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 states
that astro/cosmonauts shall be considered Envoys to Mankind.  Thus, when on a
mission, they have global citizenship and are free from the restrictions of
customs, visas etc... ("Have you anything to declare?"..."Nah, just a few
pounds of moon rock - is that restricted?").  However, International Law
has no enforcement methods, so States will do what they've always done -
whatever the hell they think is in their interests at the time.
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
Max Nelson                     |  "Great Spirits have always
Doctoral Fellow,               |   encountered violent opposition
RAND Corporation               |   from mediocre minds."
1700 Main Street               |        - Albert Einstein
PO Box 2138                    |
Santa Monica, CA               |  "I drank what?"
90407-2138                     |        - Socrates
p) [phone] ext.7191     |
f) [phone]              |  "Back off man....Don't make me use this!"
Internet: [e-mail]         |        - Ren Hoek
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
=+

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

Date: Sat, 8 May 1993 06:11:43 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Boeing TSTO (Was: Words from Chairman of Boeing)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <1sev55$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pat) writes:
>so why is the paperwork so much harder on rockets?  who
>issues it?  DOT/office of comemrcial space transport?
>or FAA.  i doubt FAA has jurisdiction.

Rocket paperwork comes from (more precisely, goes to) OCST.

The difference is basically because airplanes are thought of as vehicles
and there is a long tradition of private experimenting in aviation, while
rockets are thought of as missiles and were essentially a government
monopoly for a long time.  A lightweight structure stuffed with fuel is
treated with mild caution if it is labelled "airplane" and paranoid fear
if it is labelled "rocket".  And if it's an airplane, that's your own
private business provided you don't endanger others, while if it's a
rocket, then details of what you're doing and how you're doing it are
of vital interest to the government and you must beg for approval every
step of the way.  Don't expect it to make sense; it doesn't.

Gary Hudson, after many years championing wingless SSTO designs similar
to DC-X, is now working on things with wings.  Reading between the lines
of what he said at Making Orbit, he doesn't think it's as good an approach,
but he does think it's workable.  And one major reason for the switch was
the realization that a rocket-powered experimental aircraft... even a
*very* *high* *performance* rocket-powered experimental aircraft... is
still an aircraft by the FAA's reckoning, and thus is covered by the
simple and lenient experimental-aircraft rules.
--
SVR4 resembles a high-speed collision   | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
between SVR3 and SunOS.    - Dick Dunn  |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 8 May 1993 03:21:05 -0400
From: Matthew DeLuca <[e-mail]>
Subject: Boeing TSTO (Was: Words from Chairman of Boeing)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:

>A lightweight structure stuffed with fuel is
>treated with mild caution if it is labelled "airplane" and paranoid fear
>if it is labelled "rocket".  And if it's an airplane, that's your own
>private business provided you don't endanger others, while if it's a
>rocket, then details of what you're doing and how you're doing it are
>of vital interest to the government and you must beg for approval every
>step of the way.  Don't expect it to make sense; it doesn't.

Naturally, there's no difference between an aircraft loaded with a fuel
that is likely less flammable than gasoline with a trained pilot on board
who can push the 'off' switch if something goes wrong and a rocket loaded
with fuels of far higher energy and (in many cases) toxicity with no human
on-board control that can easily land hundreds of miles away in populated
areas.

Yes, there is too much paperwork, but let's not oversimplify the situation;
the two fields of endeavor are not the same and shouldn't be treated that way.
--
Matthew DeLuca
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp:      ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!matthew
Internet: [e-mail]

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

Date: 7 May 1993 12:25:13 -0400
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: HST Servicing Mission Scheduled for 11 Days
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle,sci.astro

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
|In <1s60eg$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pat) writes:
|
|>>
|>maybe they could create an inflatable spatter shield,  to
|>divert  reaction byproducts  far away from the HST.
|
|Maybe they should just do it the way that works and quit trying to
|make the 'Pat Plan' work?
|

Gee fred.  Do you Hate everyone or just everyone who has
the gall to disagree with you?  As i last checked, NASA is
doing it there way.  My name is not Goldin,  and I am not
the command pilot of the discovery.  What i am doing is engaging
in a little intellectual speculation, for which i lack enough
data to do the full analysis.  I thought it might be a good idea
to look into other ideas,  but i forgot.  fred McCall hates
new ideas.  I am so sorry fred.

Oh and by the way.  According to someone i spoke to at lockheed,
the Condensed volatile material fraction from hydrazine is small
enough that it doesn't affect their optical packages.  considering
they built HST,  and build most spysats, i'd take that to indicate
it's not a real big problem.

|>it may be insovable,  it may not be a problem.  it needs proper
|>engineering analysis.
|
|I'm not convinced you know what that phrase means; you just mouth it
|every time you want something different than what is being done.
|

Oh well, i guess we could get a PE to sign off on the design.;-]

and as for the proper engineering analysis.  I imagine that was done
when teh SMT was first proposed.  The thing i was proposing
was to use a BUs 1 spacecraft as a cheap SMT.  wether it could
fit the problem specs,  is a question that is still awaiting
the declassification of data.

Fred.  Do you think a SMT is not do-able?

|>>I'm curious.  What would be your reaction if they took your advice,
|>>had some whiz kids cobble together something, slapped it on the butt
|>>of the HST, and it screwed up?  I suspect you'd be the first person
|>It depends, on what you mean by screwed up?   if it didn't work at all.
|>well, back to the drawing boards.
|Except, of course, that you've now wasted a flight plus all that
|development money when you have a perfectly good way to do the reboost
|in hand already.
|

Depends again on how much it screwed up.  if it just didn't work,  you junk it
and  see how much contingency fuel you can use on a re-boost.
Considering the re-boost is not needed until 1997,  it is do-able.
i spoke with some people who said a re-boost is not needed at this time
but that they would like to do it now,  rather then wait until the
second servicing mission.

so if the re-boost fails,  you kick it to the second servicing
mission,  which is needed for more instrument changeouts.
if the first servicing mission though fails because of a lack
of EVA's to finish the job, it means 3 more years of degraded
science return.

|>if it pushed it into a higher
|>but wrong orbit,   i suppose that would be tolerable.
|
|I'd say that's rather a function of just where it put it, wouldn't
|you?
|

I was supposing.  given that right now it's in a 300 miles circular
orbit,  that seems  the best.  adding inclination wouldn't
hurt it,  nor should adding some eccentricity to the orbit.
you'd just need to improve the software for pointing.

but there could be some real bad high orbits,  mostly  where it
is beyond shuttle srevice access,  shortly after some critical
part fails.

but i doubt an SMT vehicle would carry enough fuel to  put
the HST out of range.

|>Now if it pushed it into earth's atmosphere,  then that would be
|>a bigger problem.
|
|Not necessarily.  You've ignored a lot of possibilities.  What it if
|tumbles and is thus useless?  What if your 'cobbled together' rig
|contaminates the instruments and ruins them?  What if the motor blows
|up?  So much for that "proper engineering analysis" you're so fond of.
|

somehow, i think the HST could de-tumble after awhile.  the magnetotorquers
are fairly strong.  the key question is how long the batteries
are good for while not in full sun.  there are heaters that need to
keep the instruments warm.  that is a possible contingency problem there.

if you use cryo fuels,  you shouldn't have contaminiation.  and  hydrazine
shouldn't be a big problem either.  fred, you seem to worry
a lot about contamination.  you aren't drinking distilled water and
vodka are you?  I wouldn't want you tolose your Purity Of Essence.

And given the Bus1,  has a several year track record,  it should
be as safe as the STS.

|>now if it de-orbited and the HST hit your house, while you were sleeping
|>in the living room,  well, I guess we put that on the list of
|>major engineering blunders and get to working on a replacement HST.
|
|Flame bait, Pat?  Feel free to take your cat and shove it.
|
You mean,  take my cat, and shove him.

Get a clue fred.  it was a joke.  if you can't take a joke,
get off of usenet.

|>And besides,  these "cobbled together" projects  have a reasonably good
|>record.  voyager,  magellan, skylab, ASTM were all cobbled together.
|
|Ah, yes.  One big difference, Small One.  Those were all to do
|something we didn't otherwise have capability to do, and if those are
|your idea of 'cobbled together' I would say that perhaps we should
|just build a laser launcher and throw gold tola bars at HST until we
|bounce it into the right orbit.  Damned expensive 'cobbles' you have
|there.


I think you had better explain yourself.  I didn't understand
anything you said here.  Too much Vodka and distilled water ;-)

Voyager wasa real cut down,  from either the Grand TOur spacecraft
or even the concept vehicles for carrying orbiters to the planets.

magellan was cobbled together from spares in the JPL  garage, compared
to the Venus ORbiting Radar.  One dish, not two.  much less weight to
orbit.

Skylab was  put together with spares  from apollo,  and is damn cheap
compared to Fred, your namesake.

ASTM  was a quick and dirty, fast mission and id on't recall
gigabucks being spent on the adapter.

and as for a space manuevering tug,  it would be  doing something
we don't have the capacity to do.  tow masses around in orbit
where a shuttle can't go.

pat

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

Date: 7 May 1993 12:28:53 -0400
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: HST Servicing Mission Scheduled for 11 Days
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle,sci.astro

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
|I have finally been informed this morning that a reboost IS a low
|priority option on the servicing mission, pending time and fuel
|availabilty.  See, the system DOES work - keep asking the questions
|enough times and some one will come up with an answer.  (Now how
|did so many other people "know" this well before the backroom
|here get clued in?  - We're the ones who NEED to know where it
|is to perform the observation scheduling....)
|


Well, i read Av Week  and SPace News. Plus i watch a lot of NASA
select.

William,  what you are discovering is that the communication
methods in NASA are not real efficient.  now imagine.  a bit of
information like that, that is important to your Job, does not
get to you until you read about it out here.  Now think of
something big, like SPace Station Fred.  How much imformation
that should be going to the right people isnt.

now you know why many of us are critical of NASA.

pat

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

Date: Sun, 2 May 1993 08:15:02 GMT
From: Dave Michelson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Mothership for Flybys and cutting costs..

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>by what the Voyagers did:  they exploited a lineup that occurs only
>every couple of centuries, and even so Voyager 2 took a rather indirect
>route to Neptune.

Indirect compared to what?  Did Voyager 2 traverse a substantially greater
distance than, say, a Hohmann orbit?  I've never heard Voyager's path
described as "indirect" before...

--
Dave Michelson  --  [e-mail]  --  University of British Columbia

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

Date: 7 May 1993 12:40:43 -0400
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: Need help on information about satellite cost
Newsgroups: sci.space

Here is a quick rule of thumb.

Commercial comsats cost  30,000 dollars/lb.

Science sats (Non- Gov)  cost about 10,000/lb

NASA  Birds costs 20-50 K/lb

Black Birds run up to 100K/lb.

I heard this from Pete Aldridge,  CEO of the Aerospace Corp.
although, i might have messed up one of the numbers.

pat

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

Date: 8 May 1993 02:46:10 GMT
From: "David M. Palmer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Pegasus, ALEXIS, trouble
Newsgroups: sci.space

On April 26, a Pegasus launched the ALEXIS X-ray astronomy satellite.
Video from a camera mounted inside the Pegasus second stage showed that
one of Alexis's solar panels had detatched before separation.
That solar panel contained one of the communications antennas
and a magnetometer system used for attitude control.

As of press-time for the latest Aviation Week and Space News issues,
ground controllers have not been able to re-establish contact
with the spacecraft.

--
        David M. Palmer        [e-mail]
                    [e-mail]

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

Date: Thu, 6 May 1993 10:52:23 -0800
From: [e-mail] (Max Nelson)
Subject: Space Digest V16 #534

>Date: 5 May 1993 21:33:29 GMT
>From: Claudio Oliveira Egalon <[e-mail]>
>Subject: Visas for astronauts after an abort
>Newsgroups: sci.space
>
>I have a question that has been ringing in my
>head for a while. What if after a launch, there is
>one of these nasty aborts and the Shuttle has
>to land in a foreign country (Spain or Morroco).
>Do the astronauts need a visa for staying there
>or NASA has some kind of special arrangement
>with the governments of these countries???
>
>[e-mail]
>
>I've read that the crews' passports are kept in a pouch at launch, ready
>to be flown to an abort landing site.  I always thought that pretty strange
>since it would be pretty clear and documented in the media who these people
>are and from whence they came.  This issue invites further questions:
>When the President flys overseas, does he, and those with him carry
>passports.  What about military people?  It must have been a nightmare
>having 100,000 passports for US GIs in the Persian Gulf!


International Law has been developed through the UN COPUOS to deal with
such a contingency for years.  The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 states that
astro/cosmonauts shall be considered Envoys to Mankind.  Thus, when on a
mission, they have global citizenship and are free from the restrictions of
customs, visas etc... ("Have you anything to declare?"..."Nah, just a few
pounds of moon rock - is that restricted?").
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
Max Nelson                     |  "Great Spirits have always
Doctoral Fellow,               |   encountered violent opposition
RAND Corporation               |   from mediocre minds."
1700 Main Street               |        - Albert Einstein
PO Box 2138                    |
Santa Monica, CA               |  "I drank what?"
90407-2138                     |        - Socrates
p) [phone] ext.7191     |
f) [phone]              |  "Back off man....Don't make me use this!"
Internet: [e-mail]         |        - Ren Hoek
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
=+

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

Date: Sat, 8 May 1993 03:20:51 GMT
From: Garrett Wollman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Vandalizing the Sky
Newsgroups: sci.space

[I told myself I wasn't going to respond to Fred's inevitable response
to my posting, but it so fun to have these public flame-fests...]

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:

>Given your description, yes, I think I would be opposed to that sort
>of zoning.  Seems if the area was zoned for the mall they could put
>their exit anyplace they wanted onto a public street.

Fred would not like to be a developer in Vermont, I can tell you.  As
it happens, in Vermont this is not the purvey of local zoning boards,
but rather, the district Environmental Commission, which is the body
which enforces Act 250, our growth-control law.  (Yes, I'm getting to
the point...)  Here in Vermont, any development of any kind can be
rejected by the Commission on the basis of several criteria, including
traffic volumes, air quality, sewage capacity, and /aesthetics/ (if
sufficiently out-of-place).  We never had the huge boom that
Massachusetts and New Hampshire had during the 1980s, but we never had
the bust that they had, either.

The reason for the law---and a good reason to oppose orbiting
billboards, too---is that the second-largest industry in Vermont is
tourism.  That industry depends on our reputation as a clean place
with attractive scenery and plentiful outdoor recreation.  People do
NOT go to New Jersey for these reasons (Cape May excepted).

>Can you say
>'reductio ad absurdem' and 'inappropriate analogy'?  Yeah, I thought
>you could.

Not only that, I can even spell it right!  (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

>That's nice.  Would you be happy to give up everything in your life
>that is produced by or developed with help from things that you would
>appear to me to disapprove of?  After all, we must stand in the way of
>any advancement until we can achieve perfect safety and zero impact on
>the most recalcitrant luddite.

To quote Fred himself, ``Can you say `reductio ad absurdem [sic]' and
`inappropriate analogy'?''

No, we must not stand in the way of any advancement until we can
achieve perfect safety and zero impact blah blah blah.  Neither must
we permit /gratuitous/ destruction of a beautiful (and in some places
valuable(*)) outdoor sight just because some people are unable to get
funding for their research.  (I've got news for you: we all have
trouble getting funding in this economy.)  ``Millions for defense; not
a penny for tribute!'' comes to mind, although I'm sure that Fred will
try to reply ``inappropriate analogy'' to that as well.

-GAWollman

(*)I am somewhat uncomfortable with this phrase.  I personally believe
that the night sky is inherently worth preserving in and of itself;
its value is independent of any economic benefit it might have to some
people.  However, this idea is unlikely to gain my much support in the
crowd of raving Libertarian flamers that sci.space has become...

--
Garrett A. Wollman   | Shashish is simple, it's discreet, it's brief. ...
[e-mail] | Shashish is the bonding of hearts in spite of distance.
uvm-gen!wollman      | It is a bond more powerful than absence.  We like people
UVM disagrees.       | who like Shashish.  - Claude McKenzie + Florent Vollant

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

Date: Sat, 8 May 1993 09:50:20 GMT
From: Joe Dellinger <[e-mail]>
Subject: Vandalizing the sky.
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space

    In Hawaii billboards of any kind are illegal. If a space-billboard's
orbit carried it over Hawaii (which it almost certainly would) could they
be prosecuted for violating Hawaii state law?

     /\    /\    /\/\/\/\/\/\/\.-.-.-.-.......___________
    /  \  /  \  /Hawaii Institute of Geophysics, Honolulu\/\/\.-.-....__
___/    \/    \/Joe Dellinger, Internet: [e-mail]\/\.-.__

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

Date: Mon, 03 May 1993 10:18:21 -0400
Subject: Was Joan Rivers Abducted?
Newsgroups: sci.space

Well, not quite, but as a member of this board, and her show, I must
tell you to tune in to our show on Thursday, May 6 for some
fascinating stories of abductions.  Also, not to put them in the same
category, but you may also want to tune in on Thursday, May 13 when Joan
describes her night with a ghost!  Let me know your comments!


 * Origin: The Space Academy BBS - Cocoa, FL [phone](1:374/40)

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


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The Soviets have proposed replacing the SRB's on the shuttle
with Zenith  boosters,  Apparently this will improve safety
and Cargo capacity.

Does anyone know the details,  the talk i saw, the guy was going
to fast to follow.

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

End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 548
------------------------------