The Education Master 1994 (4th Edition)/EDUCATIONS_MASTER_4TH_EDITION.bin/files/educnomy/halleyds/chapter.011

Text File | 1993-05-14 | 11KB | 175 lines

********************************* CHAPTER XI ********************************
=============================================================================
**************************  EFFECT OF THE ACCIDENT  *************************


     In September 1981, Voyager I began sending back information from Jupiter,
but only a pair of four to six month Venus probes were launched after that.
Money spent on the civilian space program was directed to the Shuttle
development program although the Shuttles only go a few hundred miles into
space.  They could go up to 600 miles up but their practical working orbits
are limited to several hundred miles.  A space station which would follow the
Shuttle development would eat up most of the future funds for interplanetary
exploration, but it would provide a base for deep space probes while
establishing a working habitat in space.

     Among other uses of the Shuttle, is the deployment of satellites with
lookdown capabilities.  The military applications of this technology has
given some real muscle to arms limitations agreements and they can monitor
troop movements as well as weapons installations.  Other uses include the
prediction of crop failures in different countries.  That information can be
used as political currency or for speculation on the crops of various regions.
Much of the food program which the U.S. government has used in the third
world holds political price tags.  To supply a country with food has much the
same effect as supplying arms because it allows the receiver more
discretionary capital for the purchase of arms.  The U.S. has long supplied
governments who claim to be anti-communist with food aid, leaving them more
resources available to bolster their military capabilities.

     Exploitation of the third world by multinational corporations in search
of geologic bonanzas is perhaps inevitable since remote sensing technology is
beyond the means of most third world countries.  Speculation has been
extensive as to the possibilities that this technology has for monitoring
pollution and polluters.  Where politics, greed and money are involved, it is
hard to imagine an unbiased approach to such policing.  So much use of the
technology by corporate giants has caused many to complain of the inaccessible
costs to research branches of universities and those who monitor geophysical
events.  It is fairly evident that who is in charge and how the system
operates will determine how beneficial the space program becomes.

     NASA had intended to rendezvous with Halley's comet nearly from the
outset of America's entry into space.  Halley's regularity, size and makeup
has piqued the curiosity of astronomers for centuries and such a probe would
have been of tremendous importance to the study of space science and the
investigation of the interaction of the solar wind with the comet's tail.
Halley's plasma tail is ideal for plasma physics studies and extraterrestrial
space is believed to be composed almost entirely of material in a plasma
state.  Much could have been gained from close observations of the
interactions of the dust tail, the plasma tail and the solar wind.  The
decoupling which is observed when the sun's magnetic polarity undergoes
regional shifts has important scientific implications.  The pressure of the
solar radiation is insufficient to account for the knots and corkscrew
patterns which occur in the comet's tail and close scrutiny of this
phenomenon might unravel this mystery.

     Because comets appear to be composed of the same type of material that
outer planets are composed of, it is believed that they may inform as to the
nebular origin of the solar system and give insights into how life developed.
American scientists had developed many ingenious ideas on how they could
exploit this event for important scientific research and had designed
innovative devices to do close up studies of the comet.

     While there are some 100 short term comets with orbital periods of less
than 200 years, Halley's is the only one of such unique prominence and
documentation to permit the kind of preparation and advance planning needed
to achieve really coordinated and thorough observations.  Since the late
1960's and the launching of the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory 2, comets
have been studied outside the earth's atmosphere.  The discovery of a 13
million kilometer gas tail extending from comet Bennett, made by the Orbiting
Geophysical Observatory 5, added new dimensions to the study of plasmas in
space.  Studies of Kahoutec by the crew of Skylab gave a deeper insight into
the understanding of magnetic fluctuations in the solar wind.

     Kahoutec was thought to be a comet that would put on a spectacular
display, but it proved to be a visual disappointment.  It had outgassed most
of its exotic gases when it was still quite distant from the sun.  Comets
which are newly arrived from space and do not normally orbit the sun tend to
still be laden with gasses.  This makes them brighter than those which have
older orbits and have frequently outgassed during perihelion.  The type of
material from which the comet's tail is derived determines at what orbital
distance from the sun it begins to outgas.  For instance, around Saturn,
methane starts to liquify and it becomes gaseous around Jupiter's orbit.  The
material in the tail of the comet starts to become visible as it fluoresces
in visible light somewhere around three astronomical units from the sun.
Somewhere around the orbital distance of the asteroid belt, water begins to
vaporize and is doing so rapidly around the earth's orbital distance from the
sun.

     Long before Halley's passing, NASA had lofty plans for the 1985 launching
of the Halley Intercept.  This probe would send data and closeup photos back
from Halley's after Halley's had reached perihelion.  It would then continue
on to rendezvous with Enke and possibly comets Borrelly and Temple 2 in 1988.
Cuts had begun in the Carter period, but the Reagan administration ravaged
the remaining civilian space programs.  This included the hoped for encounter
with Halley's, which would not return for another 76 years.  Halley's will
not be seen again until around 2061.

     In 1986, there was still the 51-L payload, which carried a Spartan
satellite that was to be deployed in low earth orbit, for monitoring Halley's
when it was too close to the sun for other observatories to see it.  The
Spartan would be put in place with the remote manipulator system, and
retrieved by a subsequent Shuttle flight.  There was also to be an astronomy
lab called Astro 1 sent up by NASA in the cargo bay of the Columbia flight
scheduled for March 6, 1986.  Three scientists would have used ultraviolet
telescopes and two cameras for a seven day mission to coincide with the
closing in on the comet by the five unmanned flights sent by the Soviets,
Japan and the Europeans.  The dismal showing on the part of the Americans was
largely due to the budgetary cuts that resulted when the government attempted
to build up its Star Wars defense against the "evil empire".  Despite the
prominence which the U.S. played in the early development of space, and its
sophisticated technical capabilities, it took a back seat in one of the major
astronomical events of the 20th century.

     Following the Challenger accident, NASA had only a handful of rockets
with the capability of putting large payloads into orbit.  With the advent of
the Shuttle, the design of satellites took Shuttle deliver and retrieval into
account.  The situation worsened with several rocket accidents which followed.
A Titan 34-D exploded just seconds after launch on April 18th and another had
blown up in August 1985.  On May 3, 1986, a Delta 3920 failed 70 seconds into
its flight from what appeared to have been an electrical failure.  Of the 103
times in which earth orbit was reached by launches in 1986, 91 of those were
by the Soviet Union.  This was a six year low for them and was a year in
which other countries were active.  The Soviets lack the sophistication of
the U.S., but they hold many records in things like long duration space
activity and have done extensive pioneering studies in the affects of
weightlessness.  They mass produced reusable rockets and had a separate
manned space program.  They have extensive experience in docking and
undocking, repairing, and resupplying their spacecrafts and in spacewalking.

     Following the Challenger accident the U.S. was without a means of
deploying its S.D.I. technology that had been designed for the Shuttle.  Thus,
there was a compelling need for the U.S. to respect Gorbachev's overtures.
Military and economic realities made the Reagan administration's "evil
empire" rhetoric patently absurd.  Without a tested and safe delivery system,
deployment of a major program became inherently vulnerable and risky at best.
Also, if the Pentagon was deploying neutron bombs or other nuclear weaponry,
the risks became strikingly evident.  After the Shuttle disaster, the Air
Force sought even greater control over the Shuttle design while seeking a
booster that could lift up to 150,000 pounds into orbit.  This amounted to
about three times the Shuttle payload and was supposed to be necessary for
S.D.I. projects.

     The military expenditures which occurred during the Reagan years have
meant deep cuts in already diminished social programs.  Now homelessness,
hunger and poverty abound in the U.S. where once prosperity reigned.  Racism
and environmental neglect have reemerged along with a steady decline in
American productivity.  In major U.S. cities, teenagers are being mugged and
killed for articles of clothing such as athletic shoes, jogging suits and
sports jackets.

     The need for an arms race at a time when the American economy was in
decline is highly questionable.  It began largely because the Soviets were
reported to have a very extensive conventional force.  This is hardly
surprising due to the deterioration in their relations with the Chinese.
Internal strife in the Soviet Union was very evident at the time but the one
problem which bothered most military planners seemed to be the War in
Afghanistan.  Control of the Kybur Pass has long been the key to a successful
military invasion into the Persian Gulf or into India.  It wasn't until 1989
that the Soviets finally withdrew from the region.  It could have had little
to do with the threat of S.D.I. since the U.S. was unable to deploy any such
hardware.  In the meantime, the U.S. has diminished as an economic power and
the institutions which Americans hold dear have weakened accordingly.  The
recent Gulf War has been used to exorcise the Vietnam malaise but the economy
continues its decline.  As long as the U.S. has no cutting edge space program
which produces technological spinoffs, and fails to halt what is essentially
a trade war by not instituting reciprocal trade agreements with our major
trading partners, we shall remain a nation in decline.




=============================================================================
     end of chapter