HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace)
Subject: Re: ET's, life in space
Organization: Trinity College, Dublin
Distribution: sci
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 22:23:50 GMT

In <30JUL199214461107@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov> bhill@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov (Robert S. Hill) writes:

>>In <1992Jul29.225958.20821@cs.cmu.edu> 18084TM@msu.edu (Tom) writes:
>>>>>Given that for evolution of life to start, a simple living organism must
>>>>>come together from amino acids etc. by accident; and that for any
>>>Not accident.  Think in statistics.  Given umpteen billion gallons
>>>of warm, super gunky sea, what are the possibilities that any one
>>>group of amino acids could form self-replicating protiens...

>In article <rwallace.712484402@unix1.tcd.ie>, 
>rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace) writes...
>>I *am* thinking in statistics. If the smallest possible self-replicator
>>is 1000 amino acids in size, and there is only one self-replicator of
>>that size, and supposing there are 20 possible amino acids, then the
>>odds against any 1000-amino acid chain being a self-replicator are
>>20^1000 to 1. Against this statistic, the total number of molecules that
>>can have been formed in the visible universe since the beginning of
>>time is insignificant.

>Any time I see the phrase `the odds against X,' a little alarm bell
>goes off in my head.  Let's postulate a situation and do the combinatorics.

>Suppose the `reaction vessel' contains 1E6 molecules of each of 20
>amino acids.  Suppose that our magic polypeptide contains 1000 amino
>acids, 50 of each kind for simplicity.  Let C(N,n) mean the combinations
>in N objects taken n at a time (since it's a little hard to make double-
>height parentheses on my terminal). ^ is exponentiation operator.

>   Prob(magic molecule) = C(1E6,50)^20 / C(2E7,1000)

I think you're using combinations, where permutations would be more
appropriate (given that it's not only how many molecules of each type
you select that's important, but also what order you arrange them in).


--
"To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem"
Russell Wallace, Trinity College, Dublin
rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Russian/French Soyuz TM-15 mission launched to Mir station
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 19:58:41 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1992Jul28.145328.4322@news.cs.brandeis.edu> chimps@binah.cc.brandeis.edu writes:
>>Alexander Viktorenko and Alexander Kaleri, who are in their 5th month in 
>>space (since Mar. 17th). 
>
>What are the physical effects, if any, of being in space for so long?
>Are the men able to function normally upon return to Earth, or
>can they not handle the increase in gravity?

Five months is no big deal.  Cosmonauts have been up for over a year.
There are some problems on return, but they appear to be controllable.
-- 
There is nothing wrong with making      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
mistakes, but... make *new* ones. -D.Sim|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
From: martin@space.ualberta.ca (Martin Connors)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Magellan successors? (was Re: Support Lunar Resource Mapper Too!)
Date: 22 Jul 92 15:56:54 GMT
Reply-To: martin@space.ualberta.ca (Martin Connors)
Organization: University Of Alberta, Edmonton Canada

In article <1992Jul22.151603.23977@kakwa.ucs.ualberta.ca>  
martin@space.ualberta.ca (Martin Connors) writes:
> It is not certain, however, that the data will be so widely or freely  
> distributed as that of Magellan, as RADARsat has a profit motive. We may  
> end up in more of a Landsat or SPOT-like situation, where there is great  
> interest in the data but thinking people cannot afford to get them.

I note with interest in the EOS (Jul 7 1992) that arrived just after I  
posted this, the new US National Landsat Policy Act, which will change how  
Landsat data is available...to quote from the article:

"The Landsat Policy Act repeals provisions concerning commercialization of  
Landsat data and requires that all data gathered by federal agencies be  
made available to non-profit organizations at marginal cost, provided the  
agency that collected the data deems that it will not be used  
commercially."

The comments on RADARsat may still hold though. Even if Canada follows in  
the US' footsteps in this, RADARsat is actually to be run by a separate  
corporation...

 Martin Connors - Space Research - University of Alberta
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace)
Subject: Re: Whales (SETI)
Organization: Trinity College, Dublin
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1992 23:19:22 GMT

In <13691@mindlink.bc.ca> Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca (Nick Janow) writes:

>rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace) writes:

>> Whales are _not_ intelligent in any significant sense of the word. If they
>> were, they could prove it in about 30 seconds, by any number of means (e.g.
>> whistle the prime numbers, *-* *-*-* *-*-*-*-* etc. - for that matter just
>> whistle the numbers from 1 to 10). In fact, if they were intelligent, since
>> they were physically quite a lot tougher than the whaling ships of the 18th
>> and 19th centuries, they could have developed tactics to defeat them (e.g.
>> several whales surround a whaling ship and clobber it, rather than all the
>> whales trying to dive, and the ship gets one of them).

>That doesn't prove that they are not intelligent.  They could have reasons for
>letting men kill them; reasons that they understand but we don't.  Look at all
>the absurd things humans do in the name of religion.  Aliens judging humans by
>a few religious fanatics might decide that humans aren't intelligent.  :)

By that argument, you could suggest that chairs are intelligent, but for
reasons we do not understand choose not to reveal that intelligence, and
instead let humans sit on them and push them around. I would suggest
that there is absolutely no reason to believe whales are intelligent,
and that furthermore they definitely do not do certain things that can
reasonably be regarded as showing intelligence, such as using it to
preserve their lives (when humans evolved intelligence, this was the
*first* thing we use it for), and that therefore it is reasonable to
conclude that whales are not intelligent, unless and until we find some
evidence that they are.

(You make suggestions about aliens judging humans by a few religious
fanatics. It isn't just a few whales that have been killed by whaling
ships, it's thousands of whales, of many different species, in areas
separated by thousands of miles.)








--
"To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem"
Russell Wallace, Trinity College, Dublin
rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: parkins@theory.TC.Cornell.EDU (David Parkins)
Subject: Re: Clinton Space Position
Organization: Cornell Theory Center
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 12:37:15 GMT

In article <1992Jul28.143654.17945@walter.bellcore.com> ddavey@iscp.bellcore.com writes:
>
>Henry, your technical postings are probably the best things in sci.space.*.
>However, I would respectfully ask that those who neither pay the taxes
>nor vote in the elections kindly refrain from posting politcal analyses
>of political statements from the USAian election campaign.  If you have a
>technical reason why something a candidate proposes is a good or bad idea,
>fine.  However, a cross border political analysis is rude at best.  Thanks.
>
>-- 
>+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
>  Doug Davey        ddavey@iscp.bellcore.com         bcr!iscp!ddavey
>


I disagree. You don't need to be a US citizen or resident to both have
and vocalize an opinion of US politics or anything else. Shutting someone
up for any reason is reprehensible. Are you saying this because you
feel Henry is uninformed or does he hold a view contrary to yours. If
we were all in a room carrying on a conversation about US politics
(imagine if this group were really just a few people) would you expect
Henry to keep his mouth shut because he is Canadian. And what about
our periodic non-technical discussions regarding other countries. Since
they are not always technical in nature should not discuss them.

go for it Henry. Spout off all you want.
dave parkins
From: schumach@convex.com (Richard A. Schumacher)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Biogenesis (was: ETs and Radio)
Date: 30 Jul 92 16:44:02 GMT
Organization: CONVEX Computer Corporation, Richardson, Tx., USA
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.

Obvoiusly Mr. Wallace wants to have the exact story of biogenesis
handed to him. We'd all like to see it, but the chemists and
biologists have not yet worked it out. In the meantime, us lay
people (of whom Mr. Wallace most certainly is one) will either have
to be content with the partial answers and plausibility arguments
that the professionals find compelling, or undertake serious reasearch
on their own. Trotting out old arguments or well-known current
problems to the Net does not constitute research.
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: ETs and Radio
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 21:53:06 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <rwallace.712411796@unix1.tcd.ie> rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace) writes:
>However, one crystal is pretty much the same as another; none of them
>actually do anything (in the absence of humans to make use of them).

You've obviously never studied crystal properties.  They can be complex
and strange.  Incidentally, in some circumstances they can even display
a limited form of self-reproduction.

>... You actually need something like a cell to have
>self-reproduction at all, where by "self-reproduction", I mean
>non-trivial self-reproduction, not things like crystal growth...

Sorry, this simply isn't true.  Simple molecules in solution can reproduce
themselves, given favorable conditions.  RNA, in particular, does this.
Not well, and not quickly, by itself... but it does do it.

>for non-trivial self-reproduction to occur, the following must be present:
>An information storage unit which stores information on how to build the
>organism.
>Some machinery to construct a new organism.

With sufficiently favorable conditions or sufficient patience, the machinery
need be little more than a supply of suitable raw materials.  Don't confuse
a self-reproducing *system* with a self-reproducing *organism*; just because
you can't draw a line around it and say "this is where it ends and the rest
of the world begins" doesn't mean it's not a real system, capable of
both reproduction and evolution.

>In organic life forms, DNA is the blueprint, which is interpreted by the
>transcription process, and copied by splitting the strands and adding
>matching nucleotides to each. The enzymes are the machinery, and there
>is a cell membrane around the whole thing (which is needed, otherwise
>the enzymes will float away and be lost).

If circumstances are favorable, you don't need the cell membrane.  There
is no fundamental problem with just having the blueprint and the machinery
floating free in solution, if it's concentrated enough (the proverbial
"small warm pond").  The cell membrane does confer a very important
advantage -- the benefits of better machinery are available only to the
blueprint that produced them, not to all blueprints at large -- but it
is not essential to the first stages.

Both DNA and RNA are used as blueprints in organic life, actually, and
RNA almost certainly came first.  DNA is better, but it needs elaborate
support machinery.  RNA can perform enzymatic functions all by itself.
The latest relevant research result is that the ribosome -- the center
point of the transcription process -- appears to be primarily RNA with
some proteins to assist, not vice versa as once thought.  The first
identifiable life was almost certainly mostly or entirely RNA.
-- 
There is nothing wrong with making      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
mistakes, but... make *new* ones. -D.Sim|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
From: nagy@nagy.fnal.gov (Frank J. Nagy:VAX Wizard&Loose Cannon)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Muon-catalyzed fusion
Date: 21 Jul 92 13:50:10 GMT
Organization: Fermilab Computing Division

There was a question recently (I've lost the reference) as to what
exactly is muon-catalyzed fusion.

This effect has been observed directly (well, as directly as it can
be) in liquid hydrogen (and liquid deuterium?) bubble chambers with
stopping muons.  A muon is basically a heavy electron (with same
negative charge) and a stopping muon can replace the electron in
a hydrogen atom.  The resulting muonic atom is much smaller than
the normal electronic atom since the muon is much more massive
than the electon so its charge density envelope is much denser
around the nucleus.  This provides greater shielding of the positive
charge of the nucleus allowing the muonic atom to slip within the
electonic cloud of the other atom in the LH2/LD2 molecule (for
instance).  In fact, the muon does such a good job of neutralizing
the positive charge of the nucleus that the two nuclei get close
enough together for there to be a significant chance for them to
undergo a nuclear interact - ergo, fusion.

= Dr. Frank J. Nagy   "VAX Guru & Wizard, Loose Cannon"  {{Group Leader!}}
= Fermilab Computing Division/Distributed Computing Dept/Special Projects Grp
= HEPnet/SPAN: FNDCD::NAGY (43123::NAGY) or FNAL::NAGY (43009::NAGY)
= Internet: NAGY@FNAL.FNAL.GOV            = BitNet: NAGY@FNAL
= USnail: Fermilab POB 500 MS/234 Batavia, IL 60510
From: amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Radiative heat loss
Date: 27 Jul 92 13:32:19 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.1992Jul27.133551.254041
Distribution: sci
Organization: [via International Space University]
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU

> Fourth power, not a linear relationship in any event.
> 

> Gary
> 


Oh, well, I knew it was I higher power at least :-)
Xref: sparky sci.space:10684 sci.physics:11439 sci.space.shuttle:1953
From: michael@vk2bea.UUCP (Michael G. Katzmann)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.physics,sci.space.shuttle
Subject: What's the date on the moon?
Keywords: Apollo11 moon
Date: 21 Jul 92 18:24:06 GMT
Followup-To: sci.space.shuttle
Organization: Broadcast Sports Technology., Crofton, MD

The newspapers and broadcast media were celebrating yesterday, July
20th as the 23rd aniversary of the first moon walk by Armstrong and
Aldrin of Apollo 11.

I remember the moon walk as occuring on Monday July 21st.  I was
in Australia in 1969, and watched it on television at around 3pm
(0200 GMT) July 21st. Since US EDT would be 4 hours behind this 
( 10pm July 20th ), Americans remember July 20th as the aniversary.

The television signals from the moon were first received on the earth
by the CSIRO's radio telescope at Parks, west of Sydney (Australia), 
therefore the moon would have been over Australia at the time.

So what is the date on the moon?  One might guess that it is the
same as the point on the earth that it is directly above, or one
might conceivably use GMT (UTC) as moon time but I doubt one uses
US EDT.  Therefore please adjust your history books to read the
first step on the moon took place JULY 21 1969.

P.S. If my memory serves me correct, during the mission the used
     G.E.T. (Ground Elapsed Time)
-- 
Michael Katzmann	  >	Broadcast Sports Technology Inc.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~	 <	Crofton, Maryland. U.S.A
Amateur Radio Stations:   >
NV3Z / VK2BEA / G4NYV	 <	opel!vk2bea!michael@uunet.uu.net
From: Frederick.A.Ringwald@dartmouth.edu (Frederick A. Ringwald)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Martino's lunar suicide (was Re: message from Space Digest)
Date: 31 Jul 92 09:24:42 GMT
Article-I.D.: dartvax.1992Jul31.092442.7512
 <1992Jul23.173503.17904@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>  
 <1992Jul27.042457.1@fnala.fnal.gov>
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

Shoot, guys, why bother with a pound of anything? Why not open up a
vent valve and let all the air out?
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: bell@nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov (E. V. Bell, II - NSSDC/HSTX/GSFC/NASA - (301)513-1663)
Subject: Re: Geotail launch
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: NASA - Goddard Space Flight Center
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 12:50:00 GMT

In article <1992Jul30.081946.19335@nic.funet.fi>, siili@sumppu.fmi.fi (Tero Siili) writes...
> 
>Question: was last Friday's Geotail launch (on Delta, I think) succesful?  I found nothing in sci.space.news on the topic, although no news is often good news...
> 
>Respond preferably by e-mail to Tero.Siili@fmi.fi
> 
>Best regards,
> 
>Tero Siili
>Finnish Meteorological Institute

	I watched the launch on NASA Select at Goddard and the launch
	was picture perfect! Not a hitch. Now as far as to whether or
	not the spacecraft is operating as planned, I haven't heard
	since. By the way, the launch time was 10:26 EDT (14:26 UTC)
	on 24-July-1992 for those who may care and don't know.

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Dr. Edwin V. Bell, II	|  E-mail:				       |
|  Mail Code 633.9		|	(SPAN) NCF::Bell		       |
|  National Space Science	|	or   NSSDC::Bell		       |
|    Data Center		|	or  NSSDCA::Bell		       |
|  NASA				|	or  NSSDCB::Bell		       |
|  Goddard Space Flight Center	|   (Internet) Bell@NSSDCA.GSFC.NASA.GOV       |
|  Greenbelt, MD   20771	|					       |
|  (301) 513-1663		|					       |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: felix@crowfix.com (Felix Finch)
Subject: Re: Space position
Organization: Scarecrow Repair, Dutch Flat.
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 05:53:55 GMT

>>>>> John Roberts said:

> Actually, it's an ongoing problem for the US. As Japan comes to own more and
> more of the US, it has an increasing ability to influence US politics and
> policies.

I'll be more impressed by your paranoia when you worry more about
Britain (which owns more of the US than Japan) or The Netherlands
(which owns more per capita).  Of course, you'll probably be more
impressed by my statistics when I can give references, but I like
the trade-off :-).

-- 

            ... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
   Felix Finch, scarecrow repairer / felix@crowfix.com / uunet!crowfix!felix
From: slb@suned1.nswses.navy.MIL (Shari L Brooks)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Solar Power Satellites
Summary: How much earth material to GEO?
Date: 21 Jul 92 23:51:59 GMT
Reply-To: slb@suned1.UUCP (Shari L Brooks)
Organization: Naval Satellite Operations Center, Point Mugu, CA, USA

In article <14d6jmINN65f@agate.berkeley.edu> gwh@soda.berkeley.edu (George William Herbert) writes:

>*Re: costs; Interesting new work suggests that it's possible to build
>a SPS in the 5 gigawat range (sort of standard sized) with about 85,000
^^^^^^^
>tons of mass, 99.4+-% of which can be lunar.  Thus the potential cost
>is as low as 540 tons to GEO, plus lunar & L2 factories, plus the space
>transportration infrastructure to move stuff from a L2 factory to GEO.
>Which is half to an eighth of what earlier estimates looked like.
>The estimated cost of building an SPS is coming down, presuming that
>lunar materials work...

Does this new work assume that more than one will be built?  The 540 tons
to GEO, does that cover only building the powersat or is it also including
whatever materials necessary to build the factories?  Or is it assumeing
the infrastructure has already been in place and this is what it takes to
build one?

-- 
  Shari L Brooks                   |   slb%suned1.nswses.navy.mil@nosc.mil
  NAVSOC code NSOC323D             |   shari@caspar.nosc.mil
  NAWS Pt Mugu, CA 93042-5013      |   
--> All statements/opinions above are mine and mine only, not the US Navy's.
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: russ@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Jeff Russ)
Subject: Does any Apollo-11 telemetry exist?
Originator: russ@silver.ucs.indiana.edu
Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington IN.
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 04:30:17 GMT

Does anyone know what happened to the telemetry from the Apollo 11
flight?   For the upcoming 25'th anniversary I've been toying with the
idea of developing some X based clients for displaying the data in
realtime (except with a 25 year delay).  If the telemetry data still exists
what form is it in?  Where would one find detailed planning information on
the flight such as the minute by minute mission schedule, transcripts of the
radio transmissions, orbits and trajectories?   If this information still
exists it should be possible to replay history in realtime on a workstation.

The basic idea would be to load the telemetry on to one of our local UNIX
systems and then transmit it over the network in realtime to monitoring
workstations which would format and display the data in some meaningful
way.

The information to be displayed would consist of the following windows:

  1) spacecraft telemetry data: temperatures, pressures, voltages, etc.

  2) Biomedical data display.

  3) newswire: displays news reports from AP & UPI and major papers from
     around the world.

  4) Orbit/Trajectory plots showing the location of the spacecraft.

  5) Earth/Apollo-11 radio transmissions transcripts.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff Russ				russ@silver.ucs.indiana.edu
University Computing Services		PHONE: (812) 855-2733
Indiana University, Bloomington, IN     I want to buy old PDP[4-9] systems.
From: sailor@cellar.org (Rick Emerson)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Wanted satellite tracking program for GPS sats
Keywords: GPS
Date: 28 Jul 92 16:54:04 GMT
Organization: The Cellar BBS and public access system

mike@execu.execu.com (Mike McCants) writes:

> In article <1402@lewis.OZ> steve@lewis.OZ (Steve Pattinson) writes:
> >Can anybody please tell me where I can get a satellite tracking program
> >suitable for use with GPS satellites.
> 
> I'm sure I can fix up a program to do what you want - no charge.
> 
> >Please don't e-mail me - incoming messages are broke!
> 
> My user name on Celestial is Mike McCants.
> My email address is mike@comshare.com.

I have Paul Traufler's TrakSat which does a very good job of displaying data
in a number of ways (graphics and tabular o/p) for PC's.  Address *email*
requests to wxsat-admin@ssg.com.  NOTE: ssg.com is *not* ftp capable.

 | Richard B. Emerson     | Reply to Rick@SSG.com                           |
 | System Support Group   |-------------------------------------------------+
 | Post Office Box 180    |   "Choose to chance the rapids                  |
 | Lansdale, PA 19446 USA |    And dare to dance the tide." -- Garth Brooks |
From: jfw@ksr.com (John F. Woods)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Clinton Space Position
Date: 28 Jul 92 13:49:07 EDT
Distribution: usa

ddavey@iscp.bellcore.com (Doug Davey) writes:
>Henry, your technical postings are probably the best things in sci.space.*.
> However, a cross border political analysis is rude at best.

Especially when he has the gall to be dead on the mark.

>Stop Canadian Imperialism!

Keep that up and they'll take back the Canadarm.
Newsgroups: sci.space