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re moonbase race nasa resources why in article keithley kip apple com keithley apple com craig keithley writes ah there s the rub and a catch to boot for the purposes of a contest you ll probably not compete if n you can t afford the ride to get there and although lower priced delivery systems might be doable without demand its doubtful that anyone will develop a new system you re assuming that the low cost delivery system has to be a separate project but why if you are spending hundreds of millions of dollars in hopes of winning a billion dollar prize it is cheaper to develop your own launch system charging its entire development cost against your contest entry than to try to do it with existing launchers no other demand is necessary any plan for doing sustained lunar exploration using existing launch systems is wasting money in a big way this depends on the how soon the new launch system comes on line in other words perhaps a great deal of worthwhile technology life support navigation etc could be developed prior to a low cost launch system you wouldn t want to use the expensive stuff forever but i d hate to see folks waiting to do anything until a low cost mac oops i mean launch system comes on line you re assuming that it s going to take a decade to build a new launch system but why the saturn v took less than six years depending on exactly when you date its start pegasus took about three from project start to first flight before sdio chickened out on orbital development the target date for an orbital dc y flight was if you really want speed consider that the first prototypes of the thor missile still in service as the core of the delta launcher shipped to the usaf less than months after the development go ahead one of the most pernicious myths in this whole business is the belief that you can t build a launcher without taking ten years and spending billions of dollars it isn t true and never was
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re moonbase race in article hgf b w w shakala com dante shakala com charlie prael writes doug actually if memory serves the atlas is an outgrowth of the old titan icbm nope you re confusing separate programs atlas was the first generation us icbm titan i was the second generation one titan ii which all the titan launchers are based on was the third generation heavy icbm there was essentially nothing in common between these three programs yes three programs despite the similarity of names titan i and titan ii were completely different missiles they didn t even use the same fuels never mind the same launch facilities if so there s probably quite a few old pads albeit in need of some serious reconditioning still being able to buy the turf and pad and bunkers including prep facility at midwest farmland prices strikes me as pretty damned cheap sorry the titan silos a can t handle the titan launchers with their large srbs b can t handle any sort of launcher without massive violations of normal range safety rules nobody cares about such things in the event of a nuclear war but in peacetime they matter and c were scrapped years ago
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re sunrise sunset times in article r f a ai news umbc edu rouben math math umbc edu rouben rostamian writes hello i am looking for a program or algorithm that can be used to compute sunrise and sunset times here is a computation i did a long time ago that computes the length of the daylight you should be able to convert the information here to sunrise and sunset times sorry not so the changes in sunrise and sunset times are not quite synchronized for example neither the earliest sunrise nor the latest sunset comes on the longest day of the year you can derive day length from sunrise and sunset times but not vice versa
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re old spacecraft as navigation beacons in article apr aurora alaska edu nsmca aurora alaska edu writes other idea for old space crafts is as navigation beacons and such why not because to be any use as a nav point you need to know exactly where it is which means you either nail it to something that doesn t move or you watch it all the time neither of which is possible on a deactivated spacecraft then you have to know exactly how far away from it you are this may or may not be possible with the hardware on board apart from which there is absolutely no need for navigation beacons gregory bond gnb bby com au burdett buckeridge young ltd melbourne australia knox s is slick fox in sox on knox s box knox s box is very quick plays lots of lsl he s sick apologies to john iron bar mackin
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re abyss breathing fluids loss fs ece cmu edu doug loss writes besides the mechanical problems of moving so dense a medium in oan out of the lungs diaphragm fatigue etc is there likely to be a problem with the mixture i mean since the lungs never expel all the air in them the inhaled air has to mix pretty quickly with the residual air in the lungs to provide a useful partial pressure of oxygen right would this mixing be substantially faster slower at the pressures we re talking about there was an interesting article in scientific american some time ago about breathing liquid it was a few months before the abyss came out as far as i can remember they mentioned three things that were difficult to do at once with a substitute breathing fluid low viscosity if it s too difficult to force the fluid in out of the lungs you can t extract enough oxygen to power your own breathing effort let alone anything else diffusion rate obviously not all the air in your lungs is expelled when you breathe out and the part that isn t expelled is the part that s nearest the walls of the alveoli alveolus so the trip from the blood vessels to the new air has to be done by diffusion of the gas through the fluid apparently oxygen tends to diffuse more readily than co so even if you can get enough oxygen in you might not be able to get enough co out oxygen co capacity you have to be able to dissolve enough gas per unit volume oh and of course your new breathing fluid must not irritate the lungs or interfere with their healing or anything like that wim lewis wiml u washington edu
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re keeping spacecraft on after funding cuts in c w zj hhq murdoch acc virginia edu greg hennessy writes in article r aqr dnv access digex net prb access digex com pat writes the better question should be why not transfer o m of all birds to a separate agency with continous funding to support these kind of ongoing science missions since we don t have the money to keep them going now how will changing them to a seperate agency help anything how about transferring control to a non profit organisation that is able to accept donations to keep craft operational greg nicholls vidi nicho vnet ibm com or vici nicho olympus demon co uk veni
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re death and taxes was why not give billion to in article apr indyvax iupui edu tffreeba indyvax iupui edu writes in my first posting on this subject i threw out an idea of how to fund such a contest without delving to deep into the budget i mentioned granting mineral rights to the winner my actual wording was mining rights somebody pointed out quite correctly that such rights are not anybody s to grant although i imagine it would be a fait accompli situation for the winner so how about this give the winning group i can t see one company or corp doing it a or year moratorium on taxes tom freebairn who says there is no mineral rights to be given who says the un or the us government major question is if you decide to mine the moon or mars who will stop you the un can t other than legal tom foolerie can the truly inforce it if you go to the moon as declare that you are now a soverign nation who will stop you from doing it maybe not acknowledge you why can t a small company or corp or organization go an explore the great beyond of space what right does earth have to say what is legal and what is not maybe i am a few years ahead on this it is liek the old catholic church stating which was portugals and what was spains and along came the reformation and made it all null and void what can happen is to find a nation which is acknowledged and offer your services as a space miner and then go mine the asteroids mars moon or what ever as long as yur sponsor does not get in trouble basically find a country who wants to go into space but can t for soem reason or another but who will give you a home such as saudia arabia or whatever there are nations in the world who are not part of the un got to them and offer your services and such i know that sound crazy but is it also once you have the means to mine the moon or whatever then just do it the un if done right can be made to be so busy with something else they will not care if your worried about the us do the same thing why be limited by the short sighted people of earth after all they have many other things to worry about that if someone is mining the moon or mars or what ever basically what i am saying is where is that drive of yeasteryears to go a little bit farther out to do jus ta little bit more and to tell the crown to piss off if my ancestors thought the way many today think id have been born in central europe just north of the black sea i just read a good book tower of the gods interesting michael adams nsmca acad alaska edu i m not high just jacked
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re eco freaks forcing space mining in article r b v ec access digex net prb access digex com pat writes besides this was the same line of horse puckey the mining companies claimed when they were told to pay for restoring land after strip mining they still mine coal in the midwest but now it doesn t look like the moon when theyare done pat i aint talking the large or even the mining companies i am talking the small miners the people who have themselves and a few employees if at all the people who go out every year and set up thier sluice box and such and do mining the semi old fashion way okay they use modern methods toa point i am talking the guy who coem to nome evry year sets up his tent on the beach the beach was washed away last year and sets up his her sluice box and goes at it mining i know the large corps such as alaska gold company might complain to my opinions are what i learn at the local bs table my original thing idea was that the way to get space mining was to allow the eco freaks thier way as they have done with other mineral development you can t in many places can t go to the bathroom in the woods without some form of regulation covering it michael adams nsmca acad alaska edu i m not high just jacked
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billboard station space dock seems that the mile long billboard and any other inflateble space object station or what ever have the same problems other than being a little bit different than the normal space ideas such as trusses and shuttles but also dag and such why not combine the discussion of how and fesibility to the same topic i personnelly liek the idea of a billboard in space but problem how do you service it fly a shuttle dc to near it and then dismount and fly to it or what or havign a special docking section for shuttle dc docking also what if the billboard springs a leak self sealing and such just thinking okay rambling also why must the now inflated billboard not be covered in the inside by a harder substance such as a polymer or other agent and then the now hard billboard would be a now giant docking structure space dock station or am i missing something here probably am michael adams nsmca acad alaska edu i m not high just jacked
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re abyss breathing fluids are breathable liquids possible i remember seeing an old nova or the nature of things where this idea was touched upon it might have been some other tv show if nothing else i know such liquids are possible because they showed a large glass full of this liquid and put a white mouse rat in it since the liquid was not dense the mouse would float so it was held down by tongs clutching its tail the thing struggled quite a bit but it was certainly held down long enough so that it was breathing the liquid it never did slow down in its frantic attempts to swim to the top now this may not have been the most humane of demonstrations but it certainly shows breathable liquids can be made isaac kuo isaackuo math berkeley edu o twinkle twinkle little sig keep it less than lines big
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re crazy or just imaginitive apr aurora alaska edu nsmca aurora alaska edu writes so some of my ideas are a bit odd off the wall and such but so was wilbur and orville wright and quite a few others sorry if i do not have the big degrees and such but i think i might be wrong to error is human i have something that is in many ways just as important i have imagination dreams and without dreams all the knowledge is worthless oh and us with the big degrees don t got imagination huh the alleged dichotomy between imagination and knowledge is one of the most pernicious fallacys of the new age michael thanks for the generous offer but we have quite enough dreams of our own thank you you on the other hand are letting your own dreams go to waste by failing to get the maths thermodynamics chemistry your choices here which would give your imagination wings just to show this isn t a flame i leave you with a quote from invasion of the body snatchers become one of us it s not so bad you know del cotter mt dac brunel ac uk
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re vandalizing the sky i posted this over in sci astro but it didn t make it here thought you all would like my wonderful pithy commentary what you guys have never seen the goodyear blimp polluting the daytime and nightime skies actually an oribital sign would only be visible near sunset and sunrise i believe so pollution at night would be minimal if it pays for space travel go for it those who don t like spatial billboards can then head for the pristine environment of jupiter s moons thomas clarke institute for simulation and training university of central fl research parkway suite orlando fl fax clarke acme ucf edu
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vandalizing the sky from phil g fraering pgf srl cacs usl edu finally this isn t the bronze age please try to remember that there are more human activities than those practiced by the warrior caste the farming caste and the priesthood right the profiting caste is blessed by god and may freely blare its presence in the evening twilight fred baube tm
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command loss timer re galileo update in article apr kelvin jpl nasa gov baalke kelvin jpl nasa gov ron baalke writes on april a no op command was sent to reset the command loss timer to hours its planned value during this mission phase this activity is regularly reported in ron s interesting posts could someone explain what the command loss timer is thanks alan belle vue court they re unfriendly which home belle vue terrace is fortunate really they d away great malvern be difficult to like work worcestershire wr pz kerr avon blake s seven temporary agc bnr ca england permanent alan gid co uk
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re death and taxes was why not give billion to in article apr aurora alaska edu nsmca aurora alaska edu writes in article apr indyvax iupui edu tffreeba indyvax iupui edu writes somebody pointed out quite correctly that such rights are not anybody s to grant although i imagine it would be a fait accompli situation for the winner so how about this give the winning group i can t see one company or corp doing it a or year moratorium on taxes tom freebairn who says there is no mineral rights to be given who says the un or the us government tom s right about this it s only a grantable right if the granter has the will and the ability to stop anyone from taking it away from you never mind the legal status major question is if you decide to mine the moon or mars who will stop you the un can t other than legal tom foolerie can the truly inforce it nick s right about this it s always easier to obtain forgiveness than permission not many people remember that britain s king george iii expressly forbid his american subjects to cross the alleghany appalachian mountains said subjects basically said stop us if you can he couldn t if you go to the moon as declare that you are now a soverign nation who will stop you from doing it maybe not acknowledge you that s how the usa started of course that s also how the bolivarian republic started ca in central america it didn t have quite the staying power of the usa i m sure there are more examples of going far away and then ignoring authority but none jump to mind right now what can happen is to find a nation which is acknowledged and offer your services as a space miner and then go mine the asteroids mars moon or what ever as long as yur sponsor does not get in trouble or do as some whaling nations do define whatever activities you want to carry out as scientific research which just coincidentally requires the recovery of megatonnes of minerals or whatever then go at it basically find a country who wants to go into space but can t for soem reason or another but who will give you a home such as saudia arabia or whatever lute keyser had just this sort of arrangement with libya i think in the late s for his commercial space launch project one of the very earliest it was killed by soviet propaganda about nato cruise missiles in africa which made libya renege on the arrangement doug loss
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re death and taxes was why not give billion to in my last post i referred to michael adams as nick completely my error nick adams was a film and tv actor from the s and early s remember johnny yuma the rebel he was from my part of the country and michael s email address of nmsca probably helped confuse things in my mind purely user headspace error on my part sorry doug loss
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re sunrise sunset times in article apr titan tsd arlut utexas edu pearson tsd arlut utexas edu n shirlene pearson writes jpw cbis ece drexel edu joseph wetstein writes hello i am looking for a program or algorithm that can be used to compute sunrise and sunset times would you mind posting the responses you get i am also interested and there may be others thanks n shirlene pearson pearson titan tsd arlut utexas edu there is an excellent software program called astro calc that does that and much more the latest address i have is mmi corporation po box baltimore md phone van e neie ven maxwell physics purdue edu purdue university neie purccvm bitnet
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space station redesign chief resigns for health reasons writer kathy sawyer reported in today s washington post that joseph shea the head of the space station redesign has resigned for health reasons shea was hospitalized shortly after his selection in february he returned yesterday to lead the formal presentation to the independent white house panel shea s presentation was rambling and almost inaudible shea s deputy former astronaut bryan o connor will take over the effort goldin asserted that the redesign effort is on track chuck divine
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re clementine mission name wales larrison ofa fidonet org writes old pioneer song from the s or so goes as follows in a cavern in a canyon excavating for a mine dwelt a miner forty niner and his daughter clementine chorus oh my darling oh my darling oh my darling clementine you are lost and gone forever oh my darling clementine let us hope that the performance of the spacecraft follows the sentiments of the first verse miner rather than the second lost and gone forever bruce dunn vancouver canada bruce dunn mindlink bc ca
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dreams and degrees was re crazy or just imaginitive in article c xp k g brunel ac uk mt dac brunel ac uk del cotter writes apr aurora alaska edu nsmca aurora alaska edu writes sorry if i do not have the big degrees and such but i think i might be wrong to error is human i have something that is in many ways just as important i have imagination dreams and without dreams all the knowledge is worthless oh and us with the big degrees don t got imagination huh the alleged dichotomy between imagination and knowledge is one of the most pernicious fallacys of the new age michael thanks for the generous offer but we have quite enough dreams of our own thank you well said you on the other hand are letting your own dreams go to waste by failing to get the maths thermodynamics chemistry your choices here which would give your imagination wings just to show this isn t a flame i leave you with a quote from invasion of the body snatchers become one of us it s not so bad you know okay del so michael was being unfair but you are being unfair back he is taking college courses now i presume he is studying hard and his postings reveal that he is somewhat hip to the technical issues of astronautics plus he is attentively following the erudite discourse of the big brains who post to sci space is it not inevitable that he will get a splendid technical education from reading the likes of you and me like others involved in sci space mr adams shows symptoms of being a fledgling member of the technoculture and i think he s soaking it up fast i was a young guy with dreams once and they led me to get a technical education to follow them up too bad i wound up in an assembly line job stamping out identical neutrinos day after day though rumors persist that del and i are both pseudonyms of fred mccall bill higgins beam jockey we ll see you fermi national accelerator laboratory at white sands in june bitnet higgins fnal bitnet you bring your view graphs internet higgins fnal fnal gov and i ll bring my rocketship span hepnet higgins col pete worden on the dc x
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re command loss timer re galileo update in article apr bnr ca agc bmdhh bnr ca alan carter writes in article apr kelvin jpl nasa gov baalke kelvin jpl nasa gov ron baalke writes on april a no op command was sent to reset the command loss timer to hours its planned value during this mission phase this activity is regularly reported in ron s interesting posts could someone explain what the command loss timer is the command loss timer is part of the fault protection scheme of the spacecraft if the command loss timer ever countdowns to zero then the spacecraft assumes it has lost communications with earth and will go through a set of predetermined steps to try to regain contact the command loss timer is set to hours and reset about once a week during the cruise phase and is set to a lower value during an encounter phase ron baalke baalke kelvin jpl nasa gov jet propulsion lab m s telos the aweto from new zealand pasadena ca is part caterpillar and part vegetable
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re eco freaks forcing space mining in article apr aurora alaska edu nsmca aurora alaska edu writes here is a way to get the commericial companies into space and mineral exploration basically get the eco freaks to make it so hard to get the minerals on earth they aren t going to leave a loophole as glaring as space mining quite a few of those people are when you come right down to it basically against industrial civilization they won t stop with shutting down the mines here that is only a means to an end for them now the worst thing you can say to a true revolutionary is that his revolution is unnecessary that the problems can be corrected without radical change telling people that paradise can be attained without the revolution is treason of the vilest kind trying to harness these people to support spaceflight is like trying to harness a buffalo to pull your plough he s got plenty of muscle all right but the furrow will go where he wants not where you want all work is one man s work henry spencer u of toronto zoology kipling henry zoo toronto edu utzoo henry
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re keeping spacecraft on after funding cuts in article almaden ibm com nicho vnet ibm com writes since we don t have the money to keep them going now how will changing them to a seperate agency help anything how about transferring control to a non profit organisation that is able to accept donations to keep craft operational the problem is you can t raise adequate amounts of money that way the viking fund tried they did succeed in a way but only because of the political impact of their fundraising the actual amount of money they raised was fairly inconsequential it would not have kept the viking lander going by itself all work is one man s work henry spencer u of toronto zoology kipling henry zoo toronto edu utzoo henry
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re command loss timer re galileo update in article apr bnr ca agc bmdhh bnr ca alan carter writes a no op command was sent to reset the command loss timer this activity is regularly reported in ron s interesting posts could someone explain what the command loss timer is if i m not mistaken this is the usual sort of precaution against loss of communications that timer is counting down continuously if it ever hits zero that means galileo hasn t heard from earth in a suspiciously long time and it may be galileo s fault so it s time to go into a fallback mode that minimizes chances of spacecraft damage and maximizes chances of restoring contact i don t know exactly what all galileo does in such a situation but a common example is to switch receivers on the theory that maybe the one you re listening with has died all work is one man s work henry spencer u of toronto zoology kipling henry zoo toronto edu utzoo henry
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re space news from feb aw st in article c ros uy zoo toronto edu henry zoo toronto edu henry spencer writes pluto s atmosphere will start to freeze out around and after about increasing areas of both pluto and charon will be in permanent shadow that will make imaging and geochemical mapping impossible where does the shadow come from there s nothing close enough to block sunlight from hitting them i wouldn t expect there to be anything block our view of them either what am i missing jim
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re death and taxes was why not give billion nsmca aurora alaska edu university of alaska fairbanks writes a good deal of healthy if not deeply thought out idealism deleted below major question is if you decide to mine the moon or mars who will stop you can the truly inforce it if their parent company does business and they will on the face of the earth then they are vulnerable to govt sanctions yes they can be stopped if you go to the moon as declare that you are now a soverign nation who will stop you from doing it for the first imho years nobody will have to the colonists will be too dependent on earth too pull it off eventually they will history shows us that also once you have the means to mine the moon or whatever then just do it the un if done right can be made to be so busy with something else they will not care what exactly do you mean here terrorism start an international incident so your dream can come true crack a few eggs to make the omelet this sounds fairly irresponsible basically what i am saying is where is that drive of yeasteryears to go a little bit farther out to do jus ta little bit more and to tell the crown to piss off if my ancestors thought the way many today think id have been born in central europe just north of the black sea again the tie that binds will be much stronger for space colonists than any immigrants that have gone before even those intrepid asian explorers that crossed the bering land bridge did not have to carry their air on their backs michael adams nsmca acad alaska edu i m not high just jacked keep the dream alive maybe dream it a little more cogently tom freebairn there once was a man who built a boat to sail away in it sank j p donleavy fairy tale of new york maybe
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comet when did will she launch comet commercial experiment transport is to launch from wallops island virginia and orbit earth for about days it is scheduled to come down in the utah test training range west of salt lake city utah i saw a message in this group toward the end of march that it was to launch on march does anyone know if it launched on that day or if not when it is scheduled to launch and or when it will come down i would also be interested in what kind s of payload s are onboard thanks for your help norman anderson nanderso endor sim es com
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re command loss timer re galileo update interesting question about galileo galileo s hga is stuck the hga was left closed because galileo had a venus flyby if the hga were pointed att he sun near venus it would cook the foci elements question why couldn t galileo s course manuevers have been designed such that the hga did not ever do a sun point after all it would normally be aimed at earth anyway or would it be that an emergency situation i e spacecraft safing and seek might have caused an hga sun point pat
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hst servicing mission scheduled for days ed campion headquarters washington d c april phone kyle herring johnson space center houston phone release hubble telescope servicing mission scheduled for eleven days the december flight of endeavour on space shuttle mission sts to service the hubble space telescope hst has been scheduled as an day mission designed to accommodate a record five spacewalks with the capability for an additional two if needed the decision to schedule five extravehicular activities or evas was reached following extensive evaluations of underwater training maneuver times required using the shuttle s robot arm based on software simulations and actual eva tasks on previous missions basically what we ve done by going to five evas rather than three is to repackage our margin so that we have the capability to respond to the dynamics or unknowns of spacewalks mission director randy brinkley said it improves the probabilities for mission success while providing added flexibility and adaptability for reacting to real time situations in laying out the specific tasks to be completed on each of the spacewalks officials have determined that changing out the gyros solar arrays and the wide field planetary camera wf pc and installing the corrective optics space telescope axial replacement costar are priority objectives during the mission when we looked at accomplishing all of the tasks highest through lowest priority and recognizing that the major tasks gyros solar arrays wf pc and costar would consume most of the time set aside for each spacewalk five evas were deemed appropriate said milt heflin lead flight director for the mission while the five spacewalks will be unprecedented the use of two alternating spacewalk teams will alleviate placing more stress on the crew than previous missions requiring two three or four evas we have paid close attention to lessons learned during previous spacewalks and factored these into our timeline estimates for five evas heflin said in planning for all space shuttle missions it is necessary to formulate a work schedule that represents as realistic a timeline as possible to accomplish the mission objectives planning currently calls for at least five water tank training sessions that include support from the mission control center called joint integrated simulations lasting between and hours in addition many stand alone underwater training runs will practice individual tasks in each spacewalk various refinements to the specific tasks on each spacewalk will be made based on actual training experience during the months prior to the mission also lessons learned from other spacewalks leading up to the flight will be valuable in assisting the sts crew in its training techniques endeavour s june flight and discovery s july mission both will include spacewalks to evaluate some of the unique tools to be used on the hst mission the evaluations will help in better understanding the differences between the actual weightlessness of space and the ground training in the water tanks at the johnson space center houston and the marshall space flight center huntsville ala also the inflight spacewalking experiences will assist in gaining further insight into the time required for the various tasks and expand the experience levels among the astronaut corps the flight controllers and trainers designed to be serviced by a space shuttle crew hubble was built with grapple fixtures and handholds to assist in the capture and repair procedures the telescope was launched aboard discovery in april at that time the nasa mixed fleet manifest showed the first revisit mission to hst in to change out science instruments and make any repairs that may have become necessary end ron baalke baalke kelvin jpl nasa gov jet propulsion lab m s telos the aweto from new zealand pasadena ca is part caterpillar and part vegetable
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re moonbase race nasa resources why henry didn t the little joe and big joe get built in under a year months for little joe and months for big joe i thought i saw something on that for a old mercury film pat
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re eco freaks forcing space mining in article apr aurora alaska edu nsmca aurora alaska edu writes in article r b v ec access digex net prb access digex com pat writes besides this was the same line of horse puckey the mining companies claimed when they were told to pay for restoring land after strip mining i aint talking the large or even the mining companies i am talking the small miners the people who have themselves and a few employees if at all the people who go out every year and set up thier sluice box and such and do mining the semi old fashion way okay they use modern methods toa point lot s of these small miners are no longer miners they are people living rent free on federal land under the claim of being a miner the facts are many of these people do not sustaint heir income from mining do not often even live their full time and do fotentimes do a fair bit of environmental damage these minign statutes were created inthe s s when the west was uninhabited and were designed to bring people into the frontier times change people change deal you don t have a constitutional right to live off the same industry forever anyone who claims the have a right to their job in particular is spouting nonsense this has been a long term federal welfare program that has outlived it s usefulness pat
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re planets still images orbit by ether twist in sci astro dmcaloon tuba calpoly edu david mcaloon writes a nearly perfect parody needed more random caps thanks for the chuckle i loved the bit about relevance to people starving in somalia to those who ve taken this seriously read the name aloud thank you thank you i ll be here all week enjoy the buffet
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re why dc will be the way of the future in r ub mgl access digex net prb access digex com pat writes in article apr julian uwo ca jdnicoll prism ccs uwo ca james davis nicoll writes hmmm i seem to recall that the attraction of solid state record players and radios in the s wasn t better performance but lower per unit cost than vacuum tube systems i don t think so at first but solid state offered better reliabity id bet and any lower costs would be only after the processes really scaled up careful making statements about how solid state is generally more reliable than analog will get you a nasty follow up from tommy mac or pat wait a minute you are pat pleased to see that you re not suffering from the bugaboos of a small mind insisting on perfect safety is for people who don t have the balls to live in the real world mary shafer nasa ames dryden fred mccall dseg ti com i don t speak for others and they don t speak for me
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re command loss timer re galileo update in apr bnr ca agc bmdhh bnr ca alan carter writes in article apr kelvin jpl nasa gov baalke kelvin jpl nasa gov ron baalke writes on april a no op command was sent to reset the command loss timer to hours its planned value during this mission phase this activity is regularly reported in ron s interesting posts could someone explain what the command loss timer is the command loss timer is a timer that does just what its name says it indicates to the probe that it has lost its data link for receiving commands upon expiration of the command loss timer i believe the probe starts a search for earth sequence involving antenna pointing and attitude changes which consume fuel to try to reestablish communications no ops are sent periodically through those periods when there are no real commands to be sent just so the probe knows that we haven t forgotten about it hope that s clear enough to be comprehensible insisting on perfect safety is for people who don t have the balls to live in the real world mary shafer nasa ames dryden fred mccall dseg ti com i don t speak for others and they don t speak for me
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re new planet kuiper object found if the new kuiper belt object is called karla the next one should be called smiley james nicoll
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re vandalizing the sky jeff cook ftcollinsco ncr com jeff cook writes in article c t k db research canon oz au enzo research canon oz au enzo liguori writes now space marketing what about light pollution in observations i read somewhere else that it might even be visible during the day leave alone at night i can t believe that a mile long billboard would have any significant effect on the overall sky brightness venus is visible during the day but nobody complains about that besides it s in leo so it would only when i was at the texas star party a few years ago the sky was so dark that venus did indeed cause light pollution until it set even if the billboard were dark it could cause a problem imagine observing an object and halfway through your run your object was occulted i would guess that most of the people stating positive opinions are not fanatically serious observers it is so typical that the rights of the minority are extinguished by the wants of the majority no matter how ridiculous those wants might be george krumins george krumins gfk uxa cso uiuc edu
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sirtf mission is still alive from the jpl universe april sirtf is still very much in business by mark whalen in these times of extra tight nasa budgets the very survival of a number of missions has been uncertain but thanks to major design refinements implemented in recent months jpl s space infrared telescope facility sirtf a major project considered to be in trouble a couple of years ago is alive and well according to project scientist michael werner a lighter spacecraft revised orbit and shorter mission have added up to a less expensive project with tremendous scientific power and a bright future said werner designed as a follow up to the highly successful infrared astronomical satellite iras and cosmic background explorer cobe missions sirtf a cryogenically cooled observatory for infrared astronomy from space is scheduled for launch in or if plans proceed as scheduled iras pioneering work in space based infrared astronomy years ago allowed astronomers to view the milky way as never before and revealed among other things galaxies and comets it provided a sky survey times more sensitive than any previously available from ground based observations cobe has measured the infrared and microwave background radiation on large angular scales and revealed new facts about the early universe but to illuminate sirtf s potential jim evans jpl s manager of astrophysics and fundamental physics pre projects recently said that the project is to million times more capable than iras based on technological advances in infrared detector arrays however despite the enormous strides in infrared exploration sirtf promised and the fact that it was cited as the highest priority new initiative for all of astronomy in the s by the national academy of sciences it took a diet or die directive from nasa headquarters last year to keep the project going according to werner the project is now known as atlas sirtf based on the key factor in its new design the satellite will orbit the sun instead of the earth permitting the use of an atlas rocket launch instead of the formerly proposed and heavier titan the main advantage of the solar orbit is that you can use all of your launch capability for boosting the payload you don t have to carry up a second rocket to circularize the orbit werner said the other advantage to a solar orbit he said is that it s in a better thermal environment away from the heat of the earth additional major changes in sirtf s redesign include shortening the mission from five to three years and building a spacecraft that is less than half as heavy as in the original plan atlas sirtf will weigh kilograms pounds compared to titan sirtf s kilograms pounds all of that adds up to a less stressful launch environment werner said and a cost savings of more than million for the launch in addition to increased savings in the design of the smaller less massive spacecraft werner said sirtf s redesign came as a result of congress telling nasa you re trying to do too many things if you want us to support sirtf which is a good project develop a plan to see how it fits into nasa s overall strategy shortly thereafter sirtf was named as nasa s highest priority flagship scientific mission by the interdisciplinary space sciences advisory committee in addition to the blessing from the national academy of sciences while the spacecraft and its instruments required descoping to keep the project alive sirtf s major scientific contribution always promised to come about from its advanced infrared detector arrays which will allow images to be developed tens of thousands of times faster than before according to evans up until a couple of years ago werner said all infrared astronomy was done with single detectors or very small arrays of individually assembled detectors since then the department of defense has developed a program to produce arrays of tens or hundreds of thousands of detectors rather than just a few and those are very well suited for use on sirtf werner noted that in addition to dealing with budget pressures congress is currently watching nasa projects with an eye out for any technological spinoff on that question i think we have some things to say he said because the detectors we re using are straight off various military developments also sirtf will be built by the u s aerospace industry and it s a real technological and engineering challenge in addition to being a tremendous scientific project sirtf will be used by the entire astronomical community werner added but the revised three year mission puts a premium on observing time we have to educate the user community and develop a program that involves early surveys and quick turnaround of the data werner said the downsizing of the project required a reduction in scope and complexity of sirtf s three instruments the infrared spectrograph infrared array camera and multiband imaging photometer however these reductions will only result in losses of efficiency rather than capability he said the project hopes to start a phase b activity in which will provide a detailed concept for development and design building the hardware would begin about two years later projected cost estimates evans said are million million i am very optimistic about sirtf he said it will provide a tremendous return for the investment werner added that an additional benefit from the project will be the enrichment of our intellectual and cultural environment people on the street are very interested in astronomy black holes the possibility of life on other planets the origin of the universe and those are the kind of questions sirtf will help answer ron baalke baalke kelvin jpl nasa gov jet propulsion lab m s telos the aweto from new zealand pasadena ca is part caterpillar and part vegetable
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stephen hawking tours jpl from the jpl universe april cosmologist stephen hawking tours lab by karre marino some years after his first visit to jpl prof stephen hawking lucasian professor of mathematics at cambridge university and author of a brief history of time returned to the lab april on a tour hosted by jpl chief scientist dr moustafa chahine and merle mckenzie manager of the international affairs office hawking visited a variety of facilities met with lab director dr edward stone and various project scientists and managers and felt like royalty he said hawking whose theories attempt to explain the origin of distant galaxies black holes and alternate dimensions wanted to re visit jpl he explained because while i m most interested in those things in space that are farther away i know that here is where the first steps are taken hawking who was accompanied by his family two graduate students and his aides began the tour in von karman auditorium as david evans deputy assistant lab director in the office of flight projects and dr arden albee mars observer s project scientist briefed him on current and past flight projects voyager was pointed out to him with special attention paid to a gold plate with a series of engraved images should extraterrestrial life stumble upon the spacecraft evans noted they would find a variety of images that would explain something of earth the professor asked if we were still communicating with the spacecraft and evans affirmed that we are using a model of mars observer albee spent several minutes describing the project and the spacecraft s features in answer to a question from hawking chahine described a proposed drag free satellite but confirmed that at this point it s only a concept chahine who had met hawking at caltech about five years before described the professor as a living miracle of the power of the brain he s miraculous and he has such a good sense of humor the next stop a demonstration on scientific data visualization in section s digital image animation lab entertained and delighted the group as everyone donned goggles to view d images of mars project scientist dr eric de jong showed off the latest data a comet that had only recently been discovered in orbit close to jupiter hawking was curious about its composition and as he was shown how images are developed he asked several questions on their interpretation norman haynes ald office of telecommunications and data acquisition briefed the professor on the space flight operations facility and then hawking spoke with stone the day ended with two technical discussions of particular interest to the professor technical group leader dr frank estabrook and senior research scientist hugo wahlquist described a three spacecraft gravity wave experiment currently under way then planetary astronomer dr richard terrile explained the philosophy and plans for extra solar system planetary detection the hawking party which had been visiting southern california for five weeks was headquartered at caltech and planned to leave for england within a few weeks after the lab tour upon departing the cambridge based scientist promised chahine that he would return to jpl for another visit ron baalke baalke kelvin jpl nasa gov jet propulsion lab m s telos the aweto from new zealand pasadena ca is part caterpillar and part vegetable
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re sunrise sunset times in apr cbis ece drexel edu jpw cbis ece drexel edu joseph wetstein writes hello i am looking for a program or algorithm that can be used to compute sunrise and sunset times i would appreciate any advice i once thought it would be easiest fitting a sine to the times but not this gave discrepancy of upto six minutes if you fit a sine series you ll get a very good fit after just three or four terms though this presumably has to do with the eccentricity of the earths orbit simon tardell ff simon nada kth se v ga v gra cgs
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jpl s vlbi project meets with international space agencies from the jpl universe april vlbi project meets with international space agencies by ed mcnevin members of jpl s space very long baseline interferometry vlbi project team recently concluded a week long series of meetings with officials from russia and japan the meetings were part of space vlbi week held at jpl in early march and were intended to maintain cooperation between international space agencies participating in the development of the u s space vlbi project a recently approved jpl flight project set for launch in u s space vlbi will utilize two earth orbiting spacecraft the japanese vsop vlbi space observing program satellite with its meter radio telescope and a russian radioastron meter satellite both spacecraft will team up with ground based radio telescopes located around the world to create a radio telescope network that astronomers hope will expand radio telescope observing power by a factor of japan s vsop satellite will use a limited six hour orbit to conduct imaging science while the russian radioastron spacecraft will exploit a larger hour earth orbit to conduct exploratory radio astronomy each satellite will point at a source target for roughly hours while approximately ground based radio telescopes will simultaneously point at the same source object while within view on earth according to dr joel smith jpl s project manager for the u s space vlbi meetings like those held at jpl will permit japan and russia who have little previous experience in radio interferometry to establish working relationships with the radio astronomy communities that will be vital during the complex observations required by the space vlbi project one of our main activities is developing the methodology for international coordination because the two spacecraft simultaneously rely on the corresponding tracking stations while using the ground based radio telescopes to observe the same celestial objects said smith three new tracking antennas are being built at dsn facilities and other three other tracking facilities located in japan russia and green bank w va this global network of ground based radio telescopes will use precision clocks and high speed recorders to collect observation data and forward the information to a correlator located at the national radio astronomy observatory in socorro n m the correlator will combine and process data then make it available to mission investigators in moscow tokyo and jpl via electronic mail smith is optimistic that the massive radio telescope created by the space vlbi network will provide radio astronomers with better resolution than has ever been achieved before by ground based radio telescopes allowing astronomers to take a closer look at distant objects in space there is a long history of radio astronomy using ground based telescopes said smith what we intend to do is to extend radio astronomy into earth orbit our goal is to look deeper into the cores of galactic nuclei quasars and other active radio sources to understand what drives those things we have seen so far with radio astronomy smith noted that if one examines the active galactic nuclei you ll find jets appearing to spew at speeds greater than light and at energy levels that are millions of times greater than you would expect he said some astronomers believe that black holes may be located in the cores of these galaxies and that they may fuel the jets smith hopes that by using space vlbi to look further into the cores this theory may be supported or disproved russian space flight hardware including transponders and transmitters are now being tested in the united states and japanese hardware is scheduled to arrive for testing later this year analysis of this hardware will permit u s scientists and engineers to understand how to modify the high speed vlba correlator operating at the nrao in order to accommodate the odd data patterns that will originate from the more than ground based radio telescopes involved in space vlbi smith is particularly pleased that meetings with the japanese and russian space agency officials like those held at jpl in march have proceeded smoothly yet he knows that the political uncertainty in russia could jeopardize that country s participation in the project nothing is ever smooth he said but the russians have been incredibly open with us we always anticipated some likelihood that we will not succeed because of political factors beyond our control yet there tends to be a way of keeping these things going because scientists on both sides are trying hard and people recognize the value of cooperation at this level smith points out that the japanese space agency has more at stake than just fulfilling an international commitment to a science mission the japanese have been extremely cooperative since international cooperation is essential to their science mission he said but smith also noted that japanese space agency officials look at the u s space vlbi mission as an opportunity to showcase the technology involved with vsop spacecraft and their highly regarded mach v launch vehicle yet regardless of the risks involved in undertaking such an ambitious project jpl s smith is satisfied that planning for the space vlbi project is beyond the significant financial and political hurdles that otherwise might threaten the project fortunately we have the virtue of having two partners and if either falls out we would still have something with the other by themselves both spacecraft are independent scientifically exciting missions ron baalke baalke kelvin jpl nasa gov jet propulsion lab m s telos the aweto from new zealand pasadena ca is part caterpillar and part vegetable
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re keeping spacecraft on after funding cuts on fri apr bst nicho vnet ibm com greg stewart nicholls said gs how about transferring control to a non profit organisation that is gs able to accept donations to keep craft operational i seem to remember nasa considering this for some of the apollo equipment left on the moon but that they decided against it or maybe not ed mccreary o edm twisto compaq com if it were not for laughter there would be no tao
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re sunrise sunset times there is a nice little tool in lucid emacs it s called calendar on request it shows for given longitude latitude coordinates times for sunset and sunrise the code is written in lisp i don t know if you like the idea that an editor is the right program to calculate these things theo w theo wawers lahmeyer international gmbh email wawers sunny lif de lyonerstr phone d frankfurt main fax germany
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weekly reminder for frequently asked questions list this notice will be posted weekly in sci space sci astro and sci space shuttle the frequently asked questions faq list for sci space and sci astro is posted approximately monthly it also covers many questions that come up on sci space shuttle for shuttle launch dates see below the faq is posted with a long expiration date so a copy may be in your news spool directory look at old articles in sci space if not here are two ways to get a copy without waiting for the next posting if your machine is on the internet it can be obtained by anonymous ftp from the space archive at ames arc nasa gov in directory pub space faq otherwise send email to archive server ames arc nasa gov containing the single line help the archive server will return directions on how to use it to get an index of files in the faq directory send email containing the lines send space faq index send space faq faq use these files as a guide to which other files to retrieve to answer your questions shuttle launch dates are posted by ken hollis periodically in sci space shuttle a copy of his manifest is now available in the ames archive in pub space faq manifest and may be requested from the email archive server with send space faq manifest please get this document instead of posting requests for information on launches and landings do not post followups to this article respond to the author
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re sunrise sunset times in article apr cbis ece drexel edu jpw cbis ece drexel edu joseph wetstein writes hello i am looking for a program or algorithm that can be used to compute sunrise and sunset times joe wetstein there is a wonderful book by jean meeus called astronomical algorithms which i am fairly sure contains an algorithm for sunrise and sunset times dan asimov mail stop t nasa ames research center moffett field ca asimov nas nasa gov
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re level in article almaden ibm com wingert vnet ibm com bret wingert writes the onboard flight software project was rated level by a nasa team this group generates kslocs of verified code per year for nasa will someone tell an ignorant physicist where the term level comes from it sounds like the risks digest equivalent of large extra large jumbo or maybe it s like defcon i gather it means that shuttle software was developed with extreme care to have reliablility and safety and almost everything else in the computing world is level or cheesy dime store software not surprising but who is it that invents this standard and how come everyone but me seems to be familiar with it of course what shakespeare bill higgins beam jockey originally wrote was first thing fermi national accelerator laboratory we do let s kill all the editors bitnet higgins fnal bitnet but for some reason it didn t internet higgins fnal fnal gov survive past the first draft span hepnet higgins david d laserdave levine davidl ssd intel com
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space station redesign jsc alternative i have mb worth uuencode d gif images contain charts outlining one of the many alternative space station designs being considered in crystal city mr mark holderman works down the hall from me and can be reached for comment at or via e mail at mholderm jscprofs nasa gov mark proposed this design which he calls geode rough on the outside but a gem on the inside or the et strongback with integrated hab modules and centrifuge as you can see from file geodea gif it uses a space shuttle external tank et in place of much of the truss which is currently part of space station freedom the white track on the outside of the et is used by the station remonte manipulator system srms and by the reaction control system rcs pod this allows the rcs pod to move along the track so that thrusting can occur near the center of gravity cg of the station as the mass properties of the station change during assembly the inline module design allows the shuttle to dock more easily because it can approach closer to the station s cg and at a structurally strong part of the station in the current ssf design docking forces are limited to pounds which seriously constrains the design of the docking system the et would have a hatch installed pre flight with little additional launch mass we ve always had the ability to put an et into orbit contrary to some rumors which have circulated here but we ve never had a reason to do it while we have had some good reasons not to performance penalties control debris generation and eventual de orbit and impact footprint once on orbit we would vent the residual h the et insulation sofi either a erodes on orbit from impact with atomic oxygen or b stays where it is and we deploy a kevlar sheath around it to protect it and keep it from contaminating the local space environment option b has the advantage of providing further micrometeor protection the et is incredibly strong remember it supports the whole stack during launch and could serve as the nucleus for a much more ambitious design as budget permits the white module at the end of et contains a set of control moment gyros to be used for attitude control while the rcs will be used for gyro desaturation the module also contains a de orbit system which can be used at the end of the station s life to perform a controlled de orbit so we don t kill any more kangaroos like we did with skylab the centrifuge which has the same volume as a hab module could be used for long term studies of the effects of lunar or martian gravity on humans the centrifuge will be used as a momentum storage device for the whole attitude control system the centrifuge is mounted on one of the modules opposite the et and the solar panels this design uses most of the existing ssf designs for electrical data and communication systems getting leverage from the ssf work done to date mark proposed this design at joe shea s committee in crystal city and he reports that he was warmly received however the rumors i hear say that a design based on a wingless space shuttle orbiter seems more likely please note that this text is my interpretation of mark s design you should see his notes in the gif files instead of posting a mb file to sci space i tried to post these for anon ftp in ames arc nasa gov but it was out of storage space i ll let you all know when i get that done ken jenks nasa jsc gm space shuttle program office kjenks gothamcity jsc nasa gov development of the space station is as inevitable as the rising of the sun wernher von braun
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re new planet kuiper object found in a recent article jdnicoll prism ccs uwo ca james davis nicoll writes if the new kuiper belt object is called karla the next one should be called smiley unless i m imaging things always a possibility qb the kuiper belt object discovered last year is known as smiley jeff foust days you re from outer space senior planetary science caltech no i m from iowa i only work in jafoust cco caltech edu outer space jeff scn jpl nasa gov from star trek iv the voyage home
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re russian email contacts i am coordinating the space shuttle program office s e mail traffic to npo energia for our on going joint missions i have several e mail addresses for npo energia folks but i won t post them on the net for obvious reasons if you need to know give me a yell ken jenks nasa jsc gm space shuttle program office kjenks gothamcity jsc nasa gov the earth is the cradle of humanity but mankind will not stay in the cradle forever konstantin tsiolkvosky
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re vandalizing the sky in article c xr w dnw cs cmu edu flb flb optiplan fi f baube tm writes from phil g fraering pgf srl cacs usl edu finally this isn t the bronze age please try to remember that there are more human activities than those practiced by the warrior caste the farming caste and the priesthood right the profiting caste is blessed by god and may freely blare its presence in the evening twilight the priesthood has never quite forgiven the merchants aka profiting caste sic for their rise to power has it steinn sigurdsson lick observatory steinly lick ucsc edu standard disclaimer ya know you penguin types offend me my gosh life is offensive offensensitivity bb
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re new planet kuiper object found in article r de innjkv gap caltech edu jafoust cco caltech edu jeff foust writes in a recent article jdnicoll prism ccs uwo ca james davis nicoll writes if the new kuiper belt object is called karla the next one should be called smiley unless i m imaging things always a possibility qb the kuiper belt object discovered last year is known as smiley as it happens the second one is karla the first one was smiley all subject to the vagaries of the iau of course but i think they might let this one slide steinn sigurdsson lick observatory steinly lick ucsc edu standard disclaimer the worst thing you can say to a true revolutionary is that his revolution is unnecessary that the problems can be corrected without radical change telling people that paradise can be attained without revolution is treason of the vilest kind h s just had to try out my new sig on this forum
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re space news from feb aw st jbreed doink b b ingr com james b reed writes in article c ros uy zoo toronto edu henry zoo toronto edu henry spencer writes pluto s atmosphere will start to freeze out around and after about increasing areas of both pluto and charon will be in permanent shadow that will make imaging and geochemical mapping impossible it s my understanding that the freezing will start to occur because of the growing distance of pluto and charon from the sun due to it s elliptical orbit it is not due to shadowing effects where does the shadow come from there s nothing close enough to block sunlight from hitting them i wouldn t expect there to be anything block our view of them either what am i missing pluto can shadow charon and vice versa george krumins george krumins gfk uxa cso uiuc edu pufferfish observatory
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what counntries do space surveillance ethnocentric usian that i am i ve assumed that we and the xussr were the only countries with significant capabilities to track non cooperative objects in low earth orbit grazing in a couple of databases recently i found that japan has some optical capabilities along this line and also uses a radar designed for other purposes for orbital debris surveys it isn t clear whether the radar can determine orbital elements for the objects it detects abstracts of the articles are appended this leads to the more general question do yet other people than the us russia and japan do space surveillance and if so how and why allen thomson saic mclean va usa abstracts optical tracking of the experimental geodetic satellite egs takabe masao itabe toshikazu aruga tadashi radio research laboratory review issn x vol march p in japanese with abstract in english this paper reports the optical tracking results of egs experimental geodetic satellite which was launched on august by nasda the egs optical tracking experiment process and an outline of the radio research laboratory rrl optical ground station are discussed a star tracking technique for optical equipment calibration and satellite tracking technique for orbit prediction improvement are also described the accuracy of egs tracking data obtained by rrl at the request of nasda is also discussed in addition it is briefly demonstrated that the position of the japanese amateur satellite jas which was launched with the egs was accurately determined by means of a satellite tracking video it is clear from this experiment that optical observation data i e satellite direction data are very useful for satellite orbit determination during initial launch stages furthermore the results confirm the effectivenes of these two satellite optical tracking techniques mu radar measurements of orbital debris sato toru kayama hidetoshi furusawa akira kimura iwane kyoto university japan aiaa nasa and dod orbital debris conference technical issues and future directions baltimore md apr p rpn aiaa paper distributions of orbital debris versus height and scattering cross section are determined from a series of observations made with a high power vhf doppler radar mu radar of japan an automated data processing algorithm has been developed to discriminate echoes of orbiting objects from those of undesired signals such as meteor trail echoes or lightning atmospherics although the results are preliminary they showed good agreement with those from norad tracking radar observations using a much higher frequency it is found that the collision frequency of a space station of km x km size at an altitude of km with orbiting debris is expected to be as high as once per two years monitoring of the mu radar antenna pattern by satellite ohzora exos c sato t inooka y fukao s kyoto univ japan kato s kyoto univ uji japan radio atmospheric science center in international council of scientific unions middle atmosphere program handbook for map vol p publication date jun as the first attempt among mst mesosphere stratosphere troposphere type radars the mu middle and upper atmosphere radar features an active phased array system unlike the conventional large vhf radars in which output power of a large vacuum tube is distributed to individual antenna elements each of solid state power amplifier feeds each antenna element this system configuration enables very fast beam steering as well as various flexible operations by dividing the antenna into independent subarrays because phase shift and signal division combination are performed at a low signal level using electronic devices under control of a computer network the antenna beam can be switched within microsec to any direction within the zenith angle of deg since a precise phase alignment of each element is crucial to realize the excellent performance of this system careful calibration of the output phase of each power amplifier and antenna element was carried out among various aircraft which may be used for this purpose artificial satellites have an advantage of being able to make a long term monitoring with the same system an antenna pattern monitoring system for the mu radar was developed using the scientific satellite ohzora exos c a receiver named mum mu radar antenna monitor on board the satellite measures a cw signal of to watts transmitted from the mu radar the principle of the measurement and results are discussed equatorial radar system fukao shoichiro tsuda toshitaka sato toru kato susumu kyoto university uji japan cospar iaga scostep et al plenary meeting th workshops and symposium on the earth s middle atmosphere espoo finland july advances in space research issn vol no p a large clear air radar with the sensitivity of an incoherent scatter radar for observing the whole equatorial atmosphere up to km altitude is now being designed in japan the radar will be built in pontianak west kalimantan indonesia deg n deg e the system is a mhz monostatic doppler radar with an active phased array configuration similar to that of the mu radar in japan which has been in successful operation since it will have a pa product of about x to the th w sq m p average transmitter power a effective antenna aperture with a sensitivity of approximately times that of the mu radar this system configuration enables pulse to pulse beam steering within deg from the zenith as is the case of the mu radar a variety of operations will be made feasible under the supervision of the radar controller a brief description of the system configuration is presented
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mars observer update forwarded from the mars observer project mars observer status report april am pdt flight sequence c is active the spacecraft subsystems and instrument payload performing well in array normal spin and outer cruise configuration with uplink and downlink via the high gain antenna uplink at bps downlink at the k engineering data rate as a result of the spacecraft entering contingency mode on april all payload instruments were automatically powered off by on board fault protection software gamma ray spectrometer random access memory was successfully reloaded on monday april to prepare for magnetometer calibrations which were rescheduled for execution in flight sequence c on tuesday and wednesday of next week a reload of payload data system random access memory will take place this morning beginning at am over this weekend the flight team will send real time commands to perform differential one way ranging to obtain additional data for analysis by the navigation team radio science ultra stable oscillator testing will take place on monday the flight sequence c uplink will occur on sunday april with activation at midnight monday evening april c has been modified to include magnetometer calibrations which could not be performed in c due to contingency mode entry on april these magnetometer instrument calibrations will allow the instrument team to better characterize the spacecraft generated magnetic field and its effect on their instrument this information is critical to martian magnetic field measurements which occur during approach and mapping phases mag cals will require the sequence to command the spacecraft out of array normal spin state and perform slew and roll maneuvers to provide the mag team data points in varying spacecraft attitudes and orientations today the spacecraft is km mi from mars travelling at a velocity of kilometers second mph with respect to mars one way light time is approximately minutes seconds ron baalke baalke kelvin jpl nasa gov jet propulsion lab m s telos the aweto from new zealand pasadena ca is part caterpillar and part vegetable
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magellan update forwarded from doug griffith magellan project manager magellan status report april the magellan spacecraft continues to operate normally gathering gravity data to plot the density variations of venus in the mid latitudes the solar panel offpoint was returned to zero degrees and spacecraft temperatures dropped degrees c an end to end test of the delayed aerobraking data readout process was conducted this week in preparation for the transition experiment there was some difficulty locking up to the data frames and engineers are presently checking whether the problem was in equipment at the tracking station magellan has completed orbits of venus and is now days from the end of cycle and the start of the transition experiment magellan scientists were participating in the brown vernadsky microsymposium at brown university in providence ri this week this joint meeting of u s and russian venus researchers has been continuing for many years a three day simulation of transition experiment aerobraking activities is planned for next week including orbit trim maneuvers and starcal star calibration orbits ron baalke baalke kelvin jpl nasa gov jet propulsion lab m s telos the aweto from new zealand pasadena ca is part caterpillar and part vegetable
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re new planet kuiper object found in article steinly apr topaz ucsc edu steinly topaz ucsc edu steinn sigurdsson writes in article r de innjkv gap caltech edu jafoust cco caltech edu jeff foust writes in a recent article jdnicoll prism ccs uwo ca james davis nicoll writes if the new kuiper belt object is called karla the next one should be called smiley unless i m imaging things always a possibility qb the kuiper belt object discovered last year is known as smiley as it happens the second one is karla the first one was smiley all subject to the vagaries of the iau of course but i think they might let this one slide gee i feel so ignorant now research then post james nicoll
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re space station redesign chief resigns for health reasons in article c xugl jow skates gsfc nasa gov xrcjd mudpuppy gsfc nasa gov charles j divine writes writer kathy sawyer reported in today s washington post that joseph shea the head of the space station redesign has resigned for health reasons shea was hospitalized shortly after his selection in february he returned yesterday to lead the formal presentation to the independent white house panel shea s presentation was rambling and almost inaudible i missed the presentations given in the morning session when shea gave his rambling and almost inaudible presentation but i did attend the afternoon session the meeting was in a small conference room the speaker was wired with a mike and there were microphones on the table for the panel members to use peons like me sat in a foyer outside the conference room and watched the presentations on closed circuit tv in general the sound system was fair to poor and some of the other speakers like the committee member from the italian space agency also were almost inaudible shea didn t lead the formal presentation in the sense of running or guiding the presentation he didn t even attend the afternoon session vest ran the show president of mit the chair of the advisory panel shea s deputy former astronaut bryan o connor will take over the effort note that o connor has been running the day to day operations of the of the redesign team since shea got sick which was immediately after the panel was formed
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re surviving large accelerations amruth laxman al andrew cmu edu writes hi i was reading through the spaceflight handbook and somewhere in there the author discusses solar sails and the forces acting on them when and if they try to gain an initial acceleration by passing close to the sun in a hyperbolic orbit the magnitude of such accelerations he estimated to be on the order of g he also says that this is may not be a big problem for manned craft because humans and this was published in have already withstood accelerations of g all this is very long winded but here s my question finally are g accelerations in fact humanly tolerable with the aid of any mechanical devices of course if these are possible what is used to absorb the acceleration can this be extended to larger accelerations are you sure g is the right number as far as i know pilots are blackout in dives that exceed g g g seems to be out of human tolerance would anybody clarify this please lan thanks is advance amruth laxman
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re eco freaks forcing space mining in article r hb kbi access digex net prb access digex com pat writes in article apr aurora alaska edu nsmca aurora alaska edu writes in article r b v ec access digex net prb access digex com pat writes besides this was the same line of horse puckey the mining companies claimed when they were told to pay for restoring land after strip mining i aint talking the large or even the mining companies i am talking the small miners the people who have themselves and a few employees if at all the people who go out every year and set up thier sluice box and such and do mining the semi old fashion way okay they use modern methods toa point lot s of these small miners are no longer miners they are people living rent free on federal land under the claim of being a miner the facts are many of these people do not sustaint heir income from mining do not often even live their full time and do fotentimes do a fair bit of environmental damage these minign statutes were created inthe s s when the west was uninhabited and were designed to bring people into the frontier times change people change deal you don t have a constitutional right to live off the same industry forever anyone who claims the have a right to their job in particular is spouting nonsense this has been a long term federal welfare program that has outlived it s usefulness pat hum do you enjoy putting words in my mouth come to nome and meet some of these miners i am not sure how things go down south in the lower i used to visit but of course to believe the media news its going to heck or just plain crazy well it seems that alot of unionist types seem to think that having a job is a right and not a priviledge right to the same job as your forbearers see kennedy s and tel me what you see and the families they have married into there is a reason why many historians and poli sci types use unionist and socialist in the same breath the miners that i know are just your average hardworking people who pay there taxes and earn a living but taxes are not the answer but maybe we could move this discussion to some more appropriate newsgroup michael adams nsmca acad alaska edu i m not high just jacked
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re space news from feb aw st in article apr dazixco ingr com jbreed ingr com writes pluto s atmosphere will start to freeze out around and after about increasing areas of both pluto and charon will be in permanent shadow that will make imaging and geochemical mapping impossible where does the shadow come from there s nothing close enough to block sunlight from hitting them i wouldn t expect there to be anything block our view of them either what am i missing you re assuming that their normal rotation carries all areas of the surface into sunlight not so even on earth each pole gets several weeks without sunlight in mid winter pluto and charon have much more extreme axial tilt and a much longer orbit pluto s north pole for example gets over a century of darkness followed by over a century of perpetual light at the moment we re in luck pluto and charon are just past their equinox when the sun was just on the horizon at both poles of each if we get probes there soon only the immediate vicinity of one pole on each will be in long term shadow this will get steadily worse the longer we wait all work is one man s work henry spencer u of toronto zoology kipling henry zoo toronto edu utzoo henry
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space design movies is there a few grasp pictures of space related items namely space station designs so you can see the finished revolt around if you don t know what a grasp prograsm is check out some adult entertainment files and see what i mean or maybe geta few gif files and create a slide shows i think cshow can do this i liek to be able to see a space shuttle design in a autocad program or to see it revolt around and look at it michael adams nsmca acad alaska edu i m not high just jacked
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re vandalizing the sky in article c t k db research canon oz au enzo research canon oz au enzo liguori writes most of message deleted what about light pollution in observations i read somewhere else that it might even be visible during the day leave alone at night really really depressed enzo no need to be depressed about this one lights aren t on during the day so there shouldn t be any daytime light pollution
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re space station redesign jsc alternative in article apr aio jsc nasa gov kjenks gothamcity jsc nasa gov writes description of external tank option for ssf redesign deleted mark proposed this design at joe shea s committee in crystal city and he reports that he was warmly received however the rumors i hear say that a design based on a wingless space shuttle orbiter seems more likely yo ken let s keep on top of things both the external tank and wingless orbiter options have been deleted from the ssf redesign options list today s edition of the new york times reports that o connor told the panel that some redesign proposals have been dropped such as using the giant external fuel tanks used in launching space shuttles and building a station around an existing space shuttle with its wings and tail removed currently there are three options being considered as presented to the advisory panel meeting yesterday and as reported in today s times option a low cost modular approach this option is being studied by a team from msfc as an aside there are ssf redesign teams at msfc jsc and larc supporting the srt station redesign team in crystal city both lerc and reston folks are also on site at these locations helping the respective teams with their redesign activities key features of this option are uses bus a modular bus developed by lockheed that s qualified for sts and elv s the bus provides propulsion gn c communications data management lockheed developed this for the air force a power station capability is obtained in shuttle flights ssf solar arrays are used to provide kw of power the vehicle flies in an arrow mode to optimize the microgravity environment shuttle spacelab missions would utilize the vehilce as a power source for day missions human tended capability as opposed to the old ssf sexist term of man tended capability is achieved by the addition of the us common module this is a modified version of the existing ssf lab module docking ports are added for the international partners labs taking the place of the nodes on ssf the shuttle can be docked to the station for day missions the orbiter would provide crew habitability eva capability international human tended add the nasda esa modules and add another kw of power permanent human presence capability add a rd power module the u s habitation module and an acrv assured crew return vehicle option b space station freedom derived the option b team is based at larc and is lead by mike griffin this option looks alot like the existing ssf design which we have all come to know and love this option assumes a lightweight external tank is available for use on all ssf assembly flights so does option a also the number of flights is computed for a inclination orbit for both options a and b the build up occurs in six phases initial research capability reached after flights power is transferred from the vehicle to the orbiter spacelab when it visits man tended capability griffin has not yet adopted non sexist language is achieved after flights the u s lab is deployed and solar power module provides kw of power permanent human presence capability occurs after flights by keeping one orbiter on orbit to use as an acrv so sometimes there would be two orbiters on orbit the acrv and the second one that comes up for logistics re supply a two fault tolerance capability is achieved after flights with the addition of a nd power module another thermal control system radiator and more propulsion modules after flights the internationals are on board more power the habitation module and an acrv are added to finish the assembly in flights most of the systems currently on ssf are used as is in this option with the exception of the data management system which has major changes option c single core launch station this is the jsc lead option basically you take a ft diameter cylinder that s ft long slap space shuttle main engines on the backside put a nose cone on the top attached it to a regular shuttle external tank and a regular set of solid rocket motors and launch the can some key features are complete end to end ground integration and checkout tangentially mounted fixed solar panels body mounted radiators which adds protection against micrometeroid orbital debris centerline docking ports one on each end berthing ports a single pressurized volume approximately cubic feet twice the volume of skylab floors center passageway between floors kw of housekeeping power graceful degradation with failures power channels thermal loops dual environmental control life support system increased crew time for utilization micro g thru out the core module
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re vandalizing the sky newsgroups sci astro sci space subject re vandalizing the sky excerpts from posting on this topic in article c t k db research canon oz au enzo research canon oz au enzo liguori writes now space marketing is working with university of colorado and livermore engineers on a plan to place a mile long inflatable billboard in low earth orbit the real purpose of the project is to help the environment the platform will carry ozone monitors i can t believe that a mile long billboard would have any significant effect on the overall sky brightness venus is visible during the day but nobody complains about that besides it s in leo so it would only be visible during twilight when the sky is already bright and even if it would have some miniscule impact it would be only for a short time as it goes zipping across the sky i ve seen satellites at midnight they re not only in twilight o from the book prodigal genius the life of nikola tesla by john j o neill this remarkable conductivity of gases including the air at low pressures led tesla to suggest in a published statement in a system of lighting on a terrestrial scale in which he proposed to treat the whole earth with its surrounding atmosphere as if it were a single lamp the whole earth would be transformed into a giant lamp with the night sky completely illuminated making the night as bright as day now my comments i d like to add that some of the protests do not come from a strictly practical consideration of what pollution levels are acceptable for research activities by professional astronomers some of what i would complain about is rooted in aesthetics many readers may never have known a time where the heavens were pristine sacred unsullied by the actions of humans the space between the stars as profoundly black as an abyss can be with full horizons and a pure sky one could look out upon half of all creation at a time none of which had any connection with the petty matters of man any lights were supplied solely by nature uncorruptable by men whole religions were based on mortal man somehow getting up there and becoming immortal as the stars whether by apotheosis or a belief in an afterlife the space age changed all that the effect of the first sputniks and echo etc on this view could only happen once to see a light crossing the night sky and know it was put there by us puny people is still impressive and the sense of size one gets by assimilating the scales involved is also awesome even if the few hundreds or thousands of miles involved is still dwarfed by the rest of the universe but there is still a hunger for the pure beauty of a virgin sky yes i know aircraft are almost always in sight i have to live in a very populated area miles from an international airport currently where light pollution on the ground is ghastly the impact of humans is so extreme here virtually no place exists that has not been shaped sculpted modified trashed or whipped into shape by the hands of man in some places the only life forms larger than bacteria are humans cockroaches and squirrels or rats i visited some friends up in the appalacian mountains one weekend getting away from it all paved roads indoor plumbing malls and it felt good for a while then i quickly noticed the hollow was directly under the main flight path into dulles miles to the east their security light didn t help matters much either but i ve heard the artic wilderness gets lots of high air traffic so i know the skies are rarely perfect but there is still this desire to see a place that man hasn t fouled in some way i mean they ve been trying this forever like concerning tesla s idea to banish night wow i don t watch commercial television but i can imagine just how disgusting beer truck or hemmorrhoid ointment advertisements would be if seen up so high if ya gotta make a buck on it displaying products in heaven at least consider the reactions from those for whom the sky is a last beautiful refuge from the baseness of modern life to be open about this though i have here my listing of the passage of hst in the evening sky for this weekend tonight friday at p m edt it will reach an altitude of degrees on the local meridian from baltimore vicinity i ll be trying to see it if i can it is my mealticket after all so i suppose i could be called an elitist for supporting this intrusion on the night sky while complaining about billboards proposed by others be that as it may i think my point about a desire for beauty is valid even if it can t ever be perfectly achieved regards wm hathaway baltimore md
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re why not give billion to first year lo keithley apple com craig keithley writes all in all i m not certain that the single goal prize of staying on the moon for a year is wise and or useful how about a prize for the first non government sponsered unmanned moon landing then another for a manned moon landing then yet another for a system to extract consumables from lunar soil another for a reusable earth moon shuttle and so forth find some way to build civilian moonbase infrastructure having a single goal might result in a bunch of contestents giving up after one person appeared to win and for those that didn t give up i find something a little scary about a half dozen people huddling in rickety little moon shelters i d like to see as much a reward for co operation as for competition lastly about ten or fifteen years back i seem to recall that there was an english space magazine that had an on going discussion about moonbases on the cheap i recalled it discussed things like how much heat the human body produced how much lunar material it d need for protection from solar flares etc unfortunately i don t remember the name of this magazine does this ring a bell to anyone craig keithley i don t remember i don t recall apple computer inc i got no memory of anything at all keithley apple com peter gabriel third album i love the idea of progressive developmental prizes but the assumption has been all along that only the u s gummint could fund the prizes it wouldn t and couldn t do such a thing but an eccentric billionaire could offer such a prize or series of prizes anyone know h ross perot or bill gates personally john g
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re planets still images orbit by ether twist news saved at apr gmt in article apr zeus calpoly edu dmcaloon tuba calpoly edu david mcaloon writes ether implodes earth core is gravity this paper both describes how heavenly bodys can be stationary ether sucking structures and why we observe orbital motion light years between galaxies is a misnomer the distance is closer to zero as time and matter are characteristics of this phase of reality which dissipates outward with each layer of the onion defining edge ether spin to find out about all of this i recommend studying history well i m working on it but getting a little impatient so far i ve made it through egyptian chinese and greek cultures and up through the rennaisance but so far these insights just don t seem to be gelling perhaps it s in an appendix somewhere in its own right though the history is kind of fun lots of good yarns in there with varied and interesting characters and more to come
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re vandalizing the sky jeff cook ftcollinsco ncr com jeff cook writes people in primitive tribes out in the middle of nowhere as they look up and see a can of budweiser flying across the sky d seen that movie already or one just like it come to think of it they might send someone on a quest to get rid of the dang thing jeff cook jeff cook ftcollinsco ncr com phil fraering seems like every day we find out all sorts of stuff pgf srl cacs usl edu like how the ancient mayans had televison repo man
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re dreams and degrees was re crazy or just imaginitive higgins fnalf fnal gov bill higgins beam jockey writes like others involved in sci space mr adams shows symptoms of being a fledgling member of the technoculture and i think he s soaking it up fast i was a young guy with dreams once and they led me to get a technical education to follow them up too bad i wound up in an assembly line job stamping out identical neutrinos day after day how can you tell they re identical you got one of them star drek the next syndication neutrino scanners phil fraering seems like every day we find out all sorts of stuff pgf srl cacs usl edu like how the ancient mayans had televison repo man
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dc x y question i ve been following discussions about the delta clipper program and i have one small question as i understand it the dc x derived orbital vehicle dc y is to reenter the atmosphere sort of sideways not completely nose first so why is the dc y look symmetric in every drawing i ve seen i would think that an asymmetric design sort of like wingless orbiter may work better since less shielding is required on the top side can anybody explain ken kobayashi kkobayas husc harvard edu ken kobayashi kkobayas husc harvard edu there is no final frontier ibm ad
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dc y trajectory simulation i ve been to three talks in the last month which might be of interest i ve transcribed some of my notes below since my note taking ability is by no means infallible please assume that all factual errors are mine permission is granted to copy this without restriction note for newbies the delta clipper project is geared towards producing a single staget to orbit reusable launch vehicle the dc x vehicle is a scale vehicle designed to test some of the concepts invovled in ssto it is currently undergoing tests the dc y vehicle would be a full scale experimental vehicle capable of reaching orbit it has not yet been funded on april th rocky nelson of macdonnell douglas gave a talk entitled optimizing techniques for advanced space missions here at the university of illinois mr nelson s job involves using software to simulate trajectories and determine the optimal trajectory within given requirements although he is not directly involved with the delta clipper project he has spent time with them recently using his software for their applications he thus used the dc y project for most of his examples while i don t think the details of implicit trajectory simulation are of much interest to the readers i hope they aren t i fell asleep during that part i think that many of you will be interested in some of the details gleaned from the examples the first example given was the maximization of payload for a polar orbit the main restriction is that acceleration must remain below gs i assume that this is driven by passenger constraints rather than hardware constraints but i did not verify that the delta clipper y version has engines boosters and sustainers the boosters which have a lower isp are shut down in mid flight thus one critical question is when to shut them down mr nelson showed the following plot of acceleration vs time g as ascii graphs go this is actually fairly good the big difference is that the lines g made by the should be curves which are concave up the data is only approximate as the graph wasn t up for very long g g sec sec as mentioned before a critical constraint is that g levels must be kept below initially all eight engines are started as the vehicle burns fuel the accelleration increases as it gets close to g the booster engines are throtled back however they quickly become inefficient at low power so it soon makes more sense to cut them off altogether this causes the dip in accelleration at about seconds eventually the remaining sustainer engines bring the g level back up to about and then hold it there until they cut out entirely the engine cutoff does not acutally occur in orbit the trajectory is aimed for an altitude slightly higher than the nm desired and the last vestiges of air drag slow the vehicle slightly thus lowering the final altitude to that desired questions from the audience paraphrased q would it make sense to shut down the booster engines in pairs rather than all at once a very perceptive worth considering they have not yet done the simulation shutting down all four was part of the problem as given q so what was the final payload for this trajectory a can t tell us read aviation leak he also apparently had a good propulsion example but was told not to use it my question does anyone know if this security is due to sdio protecting national security or md protecting their own interests the second example was reentry simulation from orbit to just before the pitch up maneuver the biggest constraint in this one is aerodynamic heating and the parameter they were trying to maximize was crossrange he showed graphs of heating using two different models to show that both were very similar and i think we were supposed to assume that this meant they were very accurate the end result was that for a polar orbit landing at ksc the dc y would have about degrees of crossrange and would start it s reentry profile about degrees south latitude i would have asked about the landing maneuvers but he didn t know about that aspect of the flight profile josh hopkins jbh uxa cso uiuc edu find a way or make one attributed to hannibal
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rimsat us russian joint venture i ve been to three talks in the last month which might be of interest i ve transcribed some of my notes below since my note taking ability is by no means infallible please assume that all factual errors are mine permission is granted to copy this without restriction michael sternberg cheif of operations of rimsat was invited to speak at an informal lunch held by acdis here on the campus of the university of illinois acdis is an organization on campus that deals with arms control disarmament and international security rimsat was considered an appropriate topic because the company is using russian launchers and satellites i think it also helped that his daughter is a grad student in the international relations program the concept behind rimsat apparently began when matt neilson went to tonga to visit a friend while he was there he somehow ended up visiting the king who happened to be a big tv fan matt bought the king a satellite dish which the king thought was really nifty since tonga has a gnp of about million his majesty asked if there was any way to make money off this matt thought there probably was so at his suggestion tonga applied for geosynchronous satellite slots while this isn t entirely off the wall it was very unusual seeing as tonga was a tiny kingdom with no space program and is a lot of slots the whole thing was debated in the appropriate regulatory agency and carl hilliard who is apparently a respected space lawyer wrote several opinions supporting tonga s case eventually tonga ended up with slots ranging from e to e slots are designated by the longitude over which they reside according to sternberg four of these from e to e are the best in the world because they are excellently placed for communications between hawaii and the pacific rim rimsat was formed to use these slots it was officially formed in nevis as a tax haven they tried for a few years to raise funds in the west however to fill slots with western satellites launched on western launchers would have cost approximately billion it s not easy to raise that kind of money eventually they hit upon the idea of using russian hardware they began negotiating with glavkosmos for hardware mr sternberg describes operating in moscow in such harsh terms that i don t think i ll visit there for a long time besides a significant lack of creature comforts he was not happy with the way that people operate for example everybody can sell you everything everyone can show the proper documents and licenses that indicate they are the only ones who have the authority to sell what ever you want to by eventually rimsat arranged a deal with glavkosmos for satellites at a cost of million however glavkosmos lost favor after the coup sternberg says that this is because they were basically a bunch of kgb operatives who went to trade shows and picked up lots of brochures since glavkosmos was out of power he had to renegotiate the deal with the new authorities he again described life in a moscow hotel in rather unfavorable terms eventually he worked out a deal and on dec he met with koptev who heads the russian space program to sign the deal koptev insisted on a few concessions before signing and according to sternberg he arranged these new rules to allow himself to form another company to do the exact same thing as rimsat the next step was to meet with the builders of the hardware npo applied mechanics npo pm to use their acronym this organization is located in siberia can t figure out how to spell the town i need an atlas and has built about vehicles since the dawn of the space age sternberg commented that siberians are very different from musovites they are hard workers honest people who team up to get things done very much like midwesterners at this point there were some comments from the audience that agreed with his opinion on both siberians and midwesterners sternberg had lots of good things to say about npo pm his company is apparently lookng for million to invest in the firm to become partners it apparently costs the russians about million to build a satellite that would sell for million in the west if you want to give them specifications they ll build you a satellite for the particular satellites that rimsat will be using costs run about per transponder year this compares to t y in the u s they can sell their time for about million compared to million in the u s rimsat will launch their satellites on protons to get the best prices they bought in bulk they have the rights to twelve launches so if any of you need a lift i can give you their address the first launch is scheduled for october and they are getting one used satellite from the russians which is being moved into place now tidbits sternberg says this kind of thing has to be done by entrepreneurs not big business because big business is just like what they have over there except that we have better paper both in the bathroom and in the copier russian launches are self insured the promise to replace a failed launch within months major investors in rimsat include russell which is a huge retirement fund organization cellsat which is a big telecom business in southeast asia and a fund operated by some of the big names in u s aerospace which he says is sort of an insurance policy for them if this really takes off he downplayed the instabilites in the ex ussr saying that we are worried partly because we aren t used to seeing russia as anything but an unvarying monolith italy gets a new government every two weeks but we don t worry because we re used to it he predicted that once we get used to seeing what really goes on in russia we won t worry about their stability as much part of the problem with cooperative ventures is the problem of transfering money the central bank has a policy of taking hard currency payments putting in their coffers and replacing the rest with the equivalent value in rubles to get around this rimsat pays their hard currency into an austrian bank account npo pm then pays their contractors with foreign currency so that the only the contractors get swindled by the government one of the big problems rimsat has had is stonewalling by the western satellite industry however intelsat recently bought three of the same type of satellites which was rather reassuring the biggest worry most people have about russian satellites is the primitive technology and shorter lifetime the older gorizont horizon satellites have a lifetime of about years while the more modern express satellites compare well with western technology and last about years while this is much shorter than years for western satellites sternberg downplayed the difference at these prices they can afford to launch new ones in addition shorter lifetimes mean that they can replace their equipment with newer technology so they will be able to compete better than older out of date hardware josh hopkins jbh uxa cso uiuc edu find a way or make one attributed to hannibal
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re space station redesign jsc alternative dbm tm lerc nasa gov david b mckissock writes text of options a and b deleted option c single core launch station this is the jsc lead option basically you take a ft diameter cylinder that s ft long slap space shuttle main engines on the backside put a nose cone on the top attached it to a regular shuttle external tank and a regular set of solid rocket motors and launch the can some key features are complete end to end ground integration and checkout tangentially mounted fixed solar panels body mounted radiators which adds protection against micrometeroid orbital debris centerline docking ports one on each end berthing ports a single pressurized volume approximately cubic feet twice the volume of skylab floors center passageway between floors kw of housekeeping power only kw graceful degradation with failures power channels thermal loops dual environmental control life support system increased crew time for utilization micro g thru out the core module ha north america modular space station construction same apprach same reasoning construction occurs under assembly line conditions no random weather problems interupting site work on your home better quality control sounds like first point above somehow i have a strange attraction for this idea living in a modular home maybe has altered my mind the only thing that scares me is the part about simply strapping ssme s and a nosecone on it and just launching it i have this vision of something going terribly wrong with the launch resulting in the complete loss of the new modular space station not just a peice of it as would be the case with staged in orbit construction michael f santangelo internet mike cbl umd edu work dept head computer network systems mike kavishar umd edu home umcees cbl solomons island bitnet mike umuc fwd to mike cbl
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re jemison on star trek in article apr aurora alaska edu nsmca aurora alaska edu writes in article c sb p ib fs ece cmu edu loss fs ece cmu edu doug loss writes i saw in the newspaper last night that dr mae jemison the first black woman in space she s a physician and chemical engineer who flew on endeavour last year will appear as a transporter operator on the star trek the next generation episode that airs the week of may it s hardly space science i know but it s interesting doug loss interesting is rigth i wonder if they will make a mention of her being an astronaut in the credits i think it might help people connect the future of space with the present and give them an idea that we must go into space a transporter operator that better be one important transport usually it is a nameless ensign who does the job for such a guest appearance i would have expected a more visible meaningful role carlos g niederstrasser only two things are infinite princeton planetary society the universe and human stupidity and i m not sure about the former einstein carlosn phoenix princeton edu space phoenix princeton edu ad astra per ardua nostra
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re command loss timer re galileo update prb access digex com pat writes galileo s hga is stuck the hga was left closed because galileo had a venus flyby if the hga were pointed att he sun near venus it would cook the foci elements question why couldn t galileo s course manuevers have been designed such that the hga did not ever do a sun point the hga isn t all that reflective in the wavelengths that might cook the focal elements nor is its figure good on those scales the problem is that the antenna itself could not be exposed to venus level sunlight lest like icarus wings it melt i think it was glues and such as well as electronics that they were worried about thus it had to remain furled and the axis always pointed near the sun so that the small sunshade at the tip of the antenna mast would shadow the folded hga a larger sunshade beneath the antenna shielded the spacecraft bus mark looper hot rodders america s first recyclers
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gamma ray bursters where are they what evidence indicates that gamma ray bursters are very far away given the enormous power i was just wondering what if they are quantum black holes or something like that fairly close by why would they have to be at galactic ranges my own pet theory is that it s flying saucers entering hyperspace but the reason i am asking is that most everyone assumes that they are colliding nuetron stars or spinning black holes i just wondered if any mechanism could exist and place them closer in pat
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re stephen hawking tours jpl in article apr kelvin jpl nasa gov baalke kelvin jpl nasa gov ron baalke writes using a model of mars observer albee spent several minutes describing the project and the spacecraft s features in answer to a question from hawking chahine described a proposed drag free satellite but confirmed that at this point it s only a concept chahine who had met hawking at caltech about five too bad they didn t give him a tour of the cgro data i think he d be fascinated by the gamma ray bursters the mind of hawking might even propose a mechanism so what s a drag free satellite coated with wd carries an aluminum gold set of grateful dead albums inquiring minds want to know and why would mo carry any features for being drag free i thought aero braking was a possible mo experimental activity pat
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re boom whoosh in article r mcginne gap caltech edu kwp wag caltech edu kevin w plaxco writes in article scicom alphacdc com wats scicom alphacdc com bruce watson writes once inflated the substance was no longer needed since there is nothing to cause the balloon to collapse this inflatable structure could suffer multiple holes with no disastrous deflation preasure and the internal preasure that was needed to maintain a spherical shape against this resistance caused them to catastrophically deflated the large silvered shards the billboard should pop like a dime store balloon no you re wrong about this give me some time to get my references bruce watson wats scicom alphacdc com
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re level while we are on the subject of the shuttle software what ever happened to the hypothesis that the shuttle flight software was a major factor in the loss of l to wit that during the wind shear event the flight control software indicated a series of very violent engine movements that shocked and set upa harmonic resonance leading to an overstress of the struts pat
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re gravity waves was predicting gravity wave quantization cosmic noise in article c m e aud csn org et teal csn org eric h taylor writes from et teal csn org eric h taylor subject re gravity waves was predicting gravity wave quantization cosmic noise summary dong dong do i hear the death knell of relativity keywords space curvature nothing tesla date sun mar gmt in article c kvjf qo well sf ca us metares well sf ca us tom van flandern writes crb q kelvin seas virginia edu cameron randale bass writes bruce scott launchpad unc edu bruce scott writes existence is undefined unless it is synonymous with observable in physics crb dong dong dong do i hear the death knell of string theory i agree you can add dark matter and quarks and a lot of other unobservable purely theoretical constructs in physics to that list including the omni present black holes will bruce argue that their existence can be inferred from theory alone then what about my original criticism when i said curvature can only exist relative to something non curved bruce replied existence is undefined unless it is synonymous with observable in physics we cannot observe more than the four dimensions we know about at the moment i don t see a way to defend that statement and the existence of these unobservable phenomena simultaneously tom i hold that space cannot be curved for the simple reason that it can have no properties of properties we can only speak when dealing with matter filling the space to say that in the presence of large bodies space becomes curved is equivalent to stating that something can act upon nothing i for one refuse to subscribe to such a view nikola tesla et tesla was years ahead of his time perhaps now his time comes
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re gamma ray bursters where are they prb access digex com pat writes what evidence indicates that gamma ray bursters are very far away given the enormous power i was just wondering what if they are quantum black holes or something like that fairly close by why would they have to be at galactic ranges gamma ray bursts grbs are seen coming equally from all directions however given the number of bright ones there are too few faint ones to be consistent with being equally dense for as far as we can see it is as if they are all contained within a finite sphere or a sphere with fuzzy edges with us at the center these measurements are statistical and you can always hide a sufficiently small number of a different type of grb with a different origin in the data i am assuming that there is only one population of grbs the data indicates that we are less than of the radius of the center of the distribution the only things the earth is at the exact center of are the solar system at the scale of the oort cloud of comets way beyond pluto and the universe cosmological theories placing grbs throughout the universe require supernova type energies to be released over a timescale of milliseconds oort cloud models tend to be silly even by the standards of astrophysics if grbs were galactic i e distributed through the milky way galaxy you would expect them to be either concentrated in the plane of the galaxy for a disk population or towards the galactic center for a spherical halo population we don t see this so if they are galactic they must be in a halo at least light years in radius and we would probably start to see grbs from the andromeda galaxy assuming that it has a similar halo for comparison the earth is light years from the center of the galaxy my own pet theory is that it s flying saucers entering hyperspace the aren t concentrated in the known spacelanes and we don t see many coming from zeta reticuli and tau ceti but the reason i am asking is that most everyone assumes that they are colliding nuetron stars or spinning black holes i just wondered if any mechanism could exist and place them closer in there are more than grb different models in the refereed literature right now the theorists have a sort of unofficial moratorium on new models until new observational evidence comes in david m palmer palmer alumni caltech edu palmer tgrs gsfc nasa gov
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army in space i just got out of the army go signal corps or intelligence photointelligence interpretation if you go ada you might get to play with rockets but space will look pretty far away dug in the mud next to a grunt protecting the foward troops from low flying objects good luck origin americomm dallas info source
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re jemison on star trek in article apr princeton edu phoenix princeton edu carlosn carlos g niederstrasser writes a transporter operator that better be one important transport usually it is a nameless ensign who does the job for such a guest appearance i would have expected a more visible meaningful role christian slater only gota cameo on st and besides maybe she can t act pat
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re vandalizing the sky in article apr rhea arc ab ca thacker rhea arc ab ca writes in article c t k db research canon oz au enzo research canon oz au enzo liguori writes what about light pollution in observations i read somewhere else that it might even be visible during the day leave alone at night no need to be depressed about this one lights aren t on during the day so there shouldn t be any daytime light pollution thanks for these surreal moments srinivas srinivas bettadpur internet byab hermes chpc utexas edu p o box austin tx u s a tel bitnet byab uthermes
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re planets still images orbit by ether twist please get a real life
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drag free satellites was stephen hawking tours jpl in article raee b s access digex net prb access digex com pat writes in article apr kelvin jpl nasa gov baalke kelvin jpl nasa gov ron baalke writes in answer to a question from hawking chahine described a proposed drag free satellite but confirmed that at this point it s only a concept so what s a drag free satellite coated with wd i am puzzled by the term concept drag free may already have been flown it was the idea behind putting up a spacecraft that would more accurately respond to motions from the earth s gravity field and ignore drag it was proposed many years ago and involved a ball floating between sensors whose job it was to signal to little adjustment jets to keep the ball away from them the ball itself would then be in a drag free condition and respond only to gravity anisotropies whereas the spacecraft itself would be continuously adjusting its position to compensate for drag joseph cain cain geomag gly fsu edu cain fsu bitnet scri cain fax or
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russian phobos mission did the russian spacecraft s on the ill fated phobos mission a few years ago send back any images of the martian moon if so does anyone know if they re housed at an ftp site thanks
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re space debris another fish to check out is richard rast he works for lockheed missiles but is on site at nasa johnson nick johnson at kaman sciences in colo spgs and his friend darren mcknight at kaman in alexandria va good luck r landis behind every general is his wife and behind every hillary is a bill
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re soviet space book what in blazes is going on with wayne matson and gang down in alabama i also heard an unconfirmed rumor that aerospace ambassadors have disappeared can anyone else confirm rob landis stsci baltimore md
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re space station redesign jsc alternative in article apr tm lerc nasa gov dbm tm lerc nasa gov david b mckissock writes man tended capability griffin has not yet adopted non sexist language glad to see griffin is spending his time on engineering rather than on ritual purification of the language pity he got stuck with the turkey rather than one of the sensible options svr resembles a high speed collision henry spencer u of toronto zoology between svr and sunos dick dunn henry zoo toronto edu utzoo henry
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re space station redesign jsc alternative in article ralibinnc f cbl umd edu mike starburst umd edu michael f santangelo writes the only thing that scares me is the part about simply strapping ssme s and a nosecone on it and just launching it i have this vision of something going terribly wrong with the launch resulting in the complete loss of the new modular space station not just a peice of it as would be the case with staged in orbit construction it doesn t make a whole lot of difference actually since they weren t building spares of the station hardware anyway dumb at least this is only one launch to fail svr resembles a high speed collision henry spencer u of toronto zoology between svr and sunos dick dunn henry zoo toronto edu utzoo henry
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re level in article raejd bf access digex net prb access digex com pat writes what ever happened to the hypothesis that the shuttle flight software was a major factor in the loss of l to wit that during the wind shear event the flight control software indicated a series of very violent engine movements that shocked and set upa harmonic resonance leading to an overstress of the struts this sounds like another of ali abutaha s different real causes of the challenger accident as far as i know there has never been the slightest shred of evidence for a harmonic resonance having occurred the windshear induced maneuvering probably did contribute to opening up the leak path in the srb joint again it seems to have sealed itself after the puffs of smoke during liftoff but the existing explanation of this and related events seems to account for the evidence adequately svr resembles a high speed collision henry spencer u of toronto zoology between svr and sunos dick dunn henry zoo toronto edu utzoo henry
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re planets still images orbit by ether twist in apr coe montana edu uphrrmk gemini oscs montana edu jack coyote writes in sci astro dmcaloon tuba calpoly edu david mcaloon writes a nearly perfect parody needed more random caps thanks for the chuckle i loved the bit about relevance to people starving in somalia to those who ve taken this seriously read the name aloud well i thought it must have been a joke but i don t get the joke in the name read it aloud david macaloon david macalloon david macaloon i don t geddit dave empey speaking for himself thank you thank you i ll be here all week enjoy the buffet
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general information request i am looking for any information about the space program this includes nasa the shuttles history anything i would like to know if anyone could suggest books periodicals even ftp sites for a novice who is interested in the space program todd giaquinto maverick wpi wpi edu
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re gamma ray bursters where are they in article radsr att access digex net prb access digex com pat writes what evidence indicates that gamma ray bursters are very far away given the enormous power i was just wondering what if they are quantum black holes or something like that fairly close by why would they have to be at galactic ranges my own pet theory is that it s flying saucers entering hyperspace but the reason i am asking is that most everyone assumes that they are colliding nuetron stars or spinning black holes i just wondered if any mechanism could exist and place them closer in pat well lets see i took a class on this last fall and i have no notes so i ll try to wing it here s how i understand it remember from stellar evolution that black holes and neutron stars pulsars are formed from high mass stars m star m sun high mass stars live fast and burn hard taking appoximately years before going nova or supernova in this time they don t live long enough to get perturbed out of the galactic plane so any of these if assumed to be the sources of grb s will be in the plane of the galaxy then we take the catalog of bursts that have been recieved from the various satellites around the solar system pioneer venus has one either pion or ginga and of course batse and we do distribution tests on our catalog these tests all show that the bursts have an isotropic distribution evenly spread out in a radial direction and they show signs of homogeneity i e they do not clump in any one direction so unless we are sampling the area inside the disk of the galaxy we are sampling the universe not cool if you want to figure out what the hell caused these things now i suppose you are saying well we stil only may be sampling from inside the disk well not necessarily remember we have what is more or less an interplanetary network of burst detectors with a baseline that goes waaaay out to beyond pluto pioneer so we should be able with all of our detectors de tect some sort of difference in angle from satellite to satellite here s an analogy you see a plane overhead you measure the angle of the plane from the origin of your arbitrary coordinate system one of your friends a mile away sees the same plane and measures the angle from the zero point of his arbitrary system which is the same as yours the two angles are different and you should be able to triangulate the position of your burst and maybe find a source to my knowledge no one has been able to do this i should throw in why halo and corona models don t work also as i said before looking at the possible astrophysics of the bursts short timescales high energy black holes and pulsars exhibit much of this type of behavior if this is the case as i said before these stars seem to be bound to the disk of the galaxy especially the most energetic of the these sources when you look at a simulated model where the bursts are confined to the disk but you sample out to large distances say mpc you should definitely see not only an anisotropy towards you in all direction but a clumping of sources in the direction of the galactic center as i said before there is none of these characteristics i think that s all of it if someone needs clarification or knows something that i don t know by all means correct me i had the honor of taking the bursts class with the person who has done the modeling of these different distributions so we pretty much kicked around every possible distribution there was and some very outrageous sources colliding pulsars black holes pulsars that are slowing down stuff like that it s a fun field complaints and corrections to belgarath vax mankato msus edu or post here jeremy
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re hst servicing mission scheduled for days somebody mentioned a re boost of hst during this mission meaning that weight is a very tight margin on this mission how will said re boost be done grapple hst stow it in cargo bay do oms burn to high altitude unstow hst repair gyros costar install fix solar arrays then return to earth my guess is why bother with usingthe shuttle to reboost why not grapple do all said fixes bolt a small liquid fueled thruster module to hst then let it make the re boost it has to be cheaper on mass then usingthe shuttle as a tug that way now that they are going to need at least spacewalks then they can carry an edo pallet and sit on station and even maybe do the solar array tilt motor fix pat
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russian phobos mission yes the phobos mission did return some useful data including images of phobos itself the best i ve seen had a surface resolution of about meters by the way the new book entitled mars kieffer et al university of arizona press has a great chapter on spacecraft exploration of the planet the chapter is co authored by v i moroz of the space research institute in moscow and includes details never before published in the west don t know of any ftp sites with images though tom o reilly department of geology arizona state university
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how can you see the launch of the space shuttle sorry for asking a question that s not entirely based on the technical aspects of space but i couldn t find the answer on the faqs i m currently in the uk which makes seeing a space shuttle launch a little difficult however i have been selected to be an exchange student at louisiana state uni from august and i am absolutely determined to get to see a space shuttle launch sometime during the year at which i will be in america i hear there s a bit of a long mailing list so if someone can tell me how to get tickets and where to get them from then please e mail me thanks very much for your patience and if anyone else wants to know tell me and i ll summarize for you just to save all those poor people who have to pay for their links april is the cruellest month andrew wong mixing memory and desire x e mail c h a wong bradford ac uk t s eliot the wasteland
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re hst servicing mission scheduled for days in article rd g ckb access digex net prb access digex com pat writes how will said re boost be done grapple hst stow it in cargo bay do oms burn to high altitude unstow hst repair gyros costar install fix solar arrays then return to earth actually the reboost will probably be done last so that there is a fuel reserve during the evas in case they have to chase down an adrift astronaut or something like that but yes you ve got the idea the reboost is done by taking the whole shuttle up my guess is why bother with usingthe shuttle to reboost why not grapple do all said fixes bolt a small liquid fueled thruster module to hst then let it make the re boost somebody has to build that thruster module it s not an off the shelf item nor is it a trivial piece of hardware since it has to include attitude control hst s own is not strong enough to compensate for things like thruster imbalance guidance there is no provision to feed gyro data from hst s own gyros to an external device and separation you don t want it left attached afterward if only to avoid possible contamination after the telescope lid is opened again you also get to worry about whether the lid is going to open after the reboost is done and hst is inaccessible to the shuttle the lid stays closed for the duration of all of this to prevent mirror contamination from thrusters and the like the original plan was to use the orbital maneuvering vehicle to do the reboost the omv was planned to be a sort of small space tug well suited to precisely this sort of job unfortunately it was costing a lot to develop and the list of definitely known applications was relatively short so it got cancelled svr resembles a high speed collision henry spencer u of toronto zoology between svr and sunos dick dunn henry zoo toronto edu utzoo henry
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re planets still images orbit by ether twist in article apr mksol dseg ti com mccall mksol dseg ti com fred j mccall writes in apr zeus calpoly edu dmcaloon tuba calpoly edu david mcaloon writes ether implodes earth core is gravity if not for the lack of extraneously capitalized words i d swear that mcelwaine had changed his name and moved to cal poly i also find the choice of newsgroups interesting perhaps someone should tell this guy that sci astro doesn t stand for astrology it s truly frightening that posts like this are originating at what are ostensibly centers of higher learning in this country small wonder that the rest of the world thinks we re all nuts and that we have the problems that we do in case you haven t gotten it yet david i don t think this was quite appropriate for a posting to sci groups was that post for real i thought it was a late april fool joke some of it seemed a bit over the top even by mcelwaine abian etc standards ross smith wanganui nz alien acheron amigans gen nz and crawling on the planet s face some insects called the human race lost in time and lost in space rhps
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re vandalizing the sky re space billboards even easier to implement than writing messages on the moon once upon a time a group of space activists i belonged to in seattle considered a goodyear blimp in orbit the idea was to use a large structure that could carry an array of lights like the goodyear blimp has placed in a low earth orbit of high inclination it could eventually be seen by almost everyone on earth only our collective disapproval of cluttering up space with such a thing stopped us from pursuing it it had quite feasible economics which i will not post here because i don t want to encourage the idea if you want to do such a thing go figure it out for yourself dani eder dani eder meridian investment company w h rt box athens al location deg n deg w m alt
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re drag free satellites was stephen hawking tours jpl joe your description sounds like one of the gravity probe spacecraft ideas pat
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