HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: bruceh@mothra.rose.hp.com (Bruce Hendler)
Subject: Water and Moon Rocks?
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 23:20:17 GMT
Organization: HP - Systems Technology Division
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1.8 PL6]


The other evening I was watching a PBS special about the moon.  I briefly
caught a portion of the program about some scientists creating water
from moon rocks brought back by one of the Apollo missions. It was being
done by introducing hydrogen into the rock.  They showed this working...      
you could see water dripping from the moon rock.  Could someone please
explain this in more detail.  Like I said, I only caught a glimpse of it and it
totally amazed me.

Thanks in advance...

Bruce

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| Bruce Hendler                        | E-Mail: bruceh@mothra.rose.hp.com    |
| Mfg Systems Engineering Dept.        | HPDESK: Bruce Hendler/HP5200/08      |
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Newsgroups: sci.space
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Low-Pressure O2 Atmosphere
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 21:29:55 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1992Nov10.232426.20495@infodev.cam.ac.uk> sl25@cus.cam.ac.uk (Steve Linton) writes:
>... Later Appolo designs 
>used 1atm of air on the pad, reducing to 0.2atm of O2 after launch.

Actually, the on-the-pad mix wasn't normal air, it was something like
40% nitrogen 60% oxygen.  It was the lowest nitrogen percentage they
could get away with and still keep flammability problems under control.
-- 
MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s.      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
              -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
From: rkolker@nuchat.sccsi.com (Rich Kolker)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Positioning Satellites?
Date: 12 Nov 92 04:49:13 GMT
Article-I.D.: nuchat.1992Nov12.044913.18190
Organization: South Coast Computing Services, Inc.

In article <1992Nov11.193843.8381@spuddy.uucp> chris@spuddy.uucp (Chris Allen) writes:
>
>Can anybody help me? (perhaps by telling me which group this *should* be in :)
>
>I have heard people mention a satellite or satellites whose signal enables
>you to find your position wherever you happen to be.
>
>Can anybody tell me more - or point me to papers or references?
>
>many thanks,
>
>
>chris allen.
>
>-- 
>
> * Meeeow ! Call Spuddy on (0203) 638780/682331 for FREE mail & Usenet access *

The Global positioning system will do just that.  You can buy a receiver at 
any nautical supply or aviation supply house.  I'm sure others will fill 
you in on the theory.

++rich
-------------------------------------------------------------------
   rich kolker       rkolker@nuchat.sccsi.com
                          It's been a long, long time
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.sci.planetary
From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo)
Subject: Lunar "colony" reality check
Organization: TECHbooks of Beaverton Oregon - Public Access Unix
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 18:07:19 GMT

Lunar "colony" reality check:

* The moon has no significant sources of hydrogen, nitrogen,
  or carbon.  Wishful thinking about polar volatiles or
  scrounging solar wind particles are hardly significant.
* A livable atmosphere is mostly nitrogen, not oxygen.
* Plants and animals need copious amounts of hydrogen, nitrogen,
  and carbon.
* There is no affordable way to crack oxygen out of lunar
  rock or to recycle it.  This would cost, at bare minimum,
  tens of millions of dollars per astronaut per year.  
* Because of transportation costs for recycling equipment,
  recycling on the moon is far more expensive than recycling on 
  earth.  Even on earth the best attempt at building a livable, 
  working biosphere masses hundreds of thousands of tons and leaks 
  over tens of tons of air per year.
* Hydrogen is extremely innefficient to transport from
  earth.  The stoichiometric volume of LH to make water is
  _larger_ than the volume of oxygen; huge amounts will
  be wasted on tankage.  Much of the LH will leak before
  it can be used; it's extremely difficult and expensive
  to store even for the few days trip. 
* The annual per capita consumption of water in the
  U.S. is over 500 tons.  In this as in many other
  areas, the "colony" will be living in abject 
  poverty despite the $billions spent on its
  construction.
* It takes more than a rocket payload full of hydrogen
  to make the water needed by industry.  If we're to have any 
  significant manufacturing industry in space, we're going to need 
  tons of volatiles.  For example, here is the water used to make 
  a few kinds of products on earth:

			gallons/unit
			------------
finished steel, ton	40,000
automobiles, unit	12,000
trucks, buses, unit	20,000
ref: Mark's Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers, 1987

* There is no signficant economic resource on the moon. 
  Revenues as a percentage of costs will be 0%.
* SSF bare-bones habitat operations costs will be $2 billion
  per year.  Scaling for transport costs gives over $10 billion
  per year for a bare-bones lunar "base".   Redesign will cost
  even more than SSF cost,  since industry has no reason to
  participate beyond the usual NASA-contractor mode.
* Calling a few astronauts huddled in a Winnebago a "base" is
  a major exaggeration.  Calling it a "colony" is an abominable 
  misuse of the word.

There are dozens of other pathways to space colonization.
Fixation on obsolete concepts like the "lunar base" and oxymoronic
concepts like the "lunar colony" is one of the main reasons why
the space colonization movement lies mired in failure.


-- 
Nick Szabo					 szabo@techboook.com
Hold Your Nose: vote Republocrat  ////////  Breathe Free: vote Libertarian
From: moroney@ramblr.enet.dec.com
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: NASA Coverup
Date: 9 Nov 92 02:54:53 GMT
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation

In article <1992Nov8.231645.27341@ke4zv.uucp>, gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman) writes...
>A capture theory requires the influence of a third body, or as you state,
>artificially generated thrust. Both are extremely unlikely. Currently,
>the most popular theory is that the Moon is a result of a collision with
>the primordial Earth by a third body similar in mass to the present day
>Mars. The result of the collision is the much smaller present day Earth
>and the Moon.

Wouldn't a collision with something that size totally destroyed the Earth,
blasting it (and the Mars-sized thing) out of existance leaving not
much more than an asteroid belt?  If not, wouldn't the system be in a
rather elliptical orbit?

Could the Earth have captured the Moon if the Moon was originally a separate
planet in "somewhat the same orbit" as the Vice President would say, and
eventually the Earth-moon perturbed each other into a common orbit?

Also the process that forms binary stars must be common, why not have the
same process form a sort-of binary planet?

I realize the composition of the Moon is evidence against the last 2,
I'm wondering if there more such evidence.

-Mike
From: drg@biomath.mda.uth.tmc.edu (David Gutierrez)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: NASA COVERUP
Date: 5 Nov 1992 18:48:30 GMT
Organization: Univ. Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center

I think the mass of the moon HAS changed, due to the HEAVY BOOTS the astronauts
left behind.

BTW, that's also why they couldn't do backflips - their boots were too HEAVY.

(Is that enough CAPS? :-)

David Gutierrez
drg@biomath.mda.uth.tmc.edu

"Only fools are positive." - Moe Howard

Newsgroups: sci.space
From: dkelo@pepvax.pepperdine.edu (Dan Kelo)
Subject: Republican Calendar
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Organization: [via International Space University]
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU
Distribution: sci
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 16:32:32 GMT

Could someone please e-mail me the French Republican Calendar Info???
Thanks,
Dan

P.S. To David Knapp:You may print photos, I lost your e-mail address.
____________________________________________
dkelo@pepvax.pepperdine.edu
____________________________________________
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer)
Subject: Re: reality check (2)
Organization: Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow
Distribution: sci
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 15:04:10 GMT

In article <BxHJsu.D5G.1@cs.cmu.edu> roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov (John Roberts) writes:

>-Most of this is for processes which will have lunar equivalents which
>-don't use water. Abundant and cheap solar energy will provide alternatives.

>Abundant - yes, cheap - no (at least by Earth standards). It may actually
>make sense to start with fission and imported fuel (or a combination of
>fission and solar power - performing the energy-intensive tasks only
>during the day), until large power storage facilities can be brought on line.

True enough for electricity but that's not what I had in mind. At first
electricity will be hard to get (until the solar cell plant becomes
operational) but raw heat is abundantly available with a few light weight
mirrors. Many processes can use heat.

>I'm in favor of establishing permanent human settlements on the moon, but I
>think there's a tendency to underplay the problems (or overplay them :-).

Granted but I believe that we won't know what the problems are until we
actually do it. If we sit here and wait until all the problems are solved
then we won't ever go.

>I have a neutral opinion on whether asteroid mining should be a precursor
>to lunar settlement - I'm sure it will be important in the long run.

Asteroids will eventyally be important but the first facilities will 
need to be on the moon. We need a site close by to learn how to do it.
If nothing else, a lunar base will be needed to test the automated
asteroid mining equipment.

   Allen
-- 
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves        |
|  aws@iti.org     |  nothing undone"                                       |
+----------------------164 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Man in space ... 
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 21:37:50 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1992Nov9.182037.19085@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov> jenkins@fritz (Steve Jenkins) writes:
>... At normal arterial O2 partial pressure (about 100 mmHg),
>the blood is almost completely saturated with oxygen.  You can raise
>the partial pressure by hyperventilating, but not the oxygen content.

How do the breath-holding effects of hyperventilation work, then?
Flushing CO2 out to suppress the desire to breathe, as opposed to
providing more internal oxygen to eliminate the need to breathe?
Certainly the desire to breathe can be suppressed for surprisingly
long periods by hyperventilating first, even if you're holding
breath *out* to minimize oxygen in the lungs.

>The best you could do in anticipation is to prepare to hold your
>breath (carefully!) so as to maintain some O2 pressure in the lungs...

Probably a bad idea, since it doesn't take very much internal overpressure
to cause serious lung damage.
-- 
MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s.      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
              -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: andy@osea.demon.co.uk (Andrew Haveland-Robinson)
Subject: More lunar gravity questions 
Distribution: world
Organization: Haveland-Robinson Associates
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 03:32:12 +0000


In article <BxEyEE.6C9.1@cs.cmu.edu> roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov writes:

>-From: andy@osea.demon.co.uk (Andrew Haveland-Robinson)
>-Subject: Ten embarrassed questions about the moon (very long)
>-Date: 8 Nov 92 03:34:44 GMT
>-Organization: Haveland-Robinson Associates
>
>-In article <BxD5Hz.Ewt.1@cs.cmu.edu> roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov writes:
>-...
>-An excellent article!  I have a couple of questions...
>
>-What is the ratio of density of the mascons to the "masdeps" (depletions)?
>
>Here's what I can find in the reference:
>
Lots of interesting stuff unfortunately deleted :-)

Thanks very much for the comprehensive article John, I wish I had more
time to comment on it... :-(

I have no idea what a mgal is either (apart from being a unit of some
gravity!), mG is almost ambiguous...

Interior viscous motion within the bodies must have caused the locking,
and this massaging would coax heavier masses closer to the Earth.
If there were a tectonic system hundred of millions of years ago then
perhaps the denser plates would have "slid" round to face the Earth after
locking had stabilised, much of the moon's mass would have been molten
after the severe tidal squidging...

Perhaps the thicker and lighter crust on the far side of the Moon is
caused in much the same way that there is always a high tide on far side
of the Earth?

I think that this would explain why the masscons are located just beneath
the surface, and spread out...

(If the moon were totally solid it wouldn't lock, its local axis rotation
velocity would oscillate continuously, the difference of 2000 mile diameter
over 230,000 distance would be a very small difference in gravitational
potential - perhaps this would be enough to keep it locked?)

Andy.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
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| 54 Greenfield Road, London     |        ahaveland@cix.compulink.co.uk |
| N15 5EP England. 081-800 1708  | Also:  0621-88756 081-802 4502       |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
>>>> Those that can, use applications. Those that can't, write them! <<<<
> Some dream of doing great things, while others stay awake and do them <
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov
Subject: Re: Ten embarrassed questions about the moon (very long)
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: University of Houston
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 05:58:00 GMT

In article <BxDGx1.5wz@zoo.toronto.edu>, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes...
>In article <BxD5Hz.Ewt.1@cs.cmu.edu> roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov (John Roberts) writes:
>>Henry will probably sneer.....
>Finally, there is a well-known and well-understood
>human tendency to remember the unusual and forget the mundane.  Yes, odd
>things sometimes happen at the full moon... but to draw any meaningful
>conclusions from this, you have to figure in the times when odd things
>happened without a full moon, or the times when nothing noteworthy happened
>during a full moon.  Coincidences do happen; to establish correlation, you
>have to look at the non-coincidences too.
>-- 
>MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s.      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
>              -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry


Poor Henry, a romantic you are not. :)

Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville




Newsgroups: sci.space
From: hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
Subject: Re: newsgroups
Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department
Distribution: sci
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 16:21:59 GMT

In article <BxKq81.HK7.1@cs.cmu.edu> roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov (John Roberts) writes:

>-From: knapp@spot.Colorado.EDU (David Knapp)
>-Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.sci.planetary
>-Subject: Edit your newsgroup header, please  was Re: Lunar "colony" reality check and Apollo fire
>-Date: 11 Nov 92 05:46:46 GMT
>-Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder

>-There is no reason to have a thread going exactly and totally into two 
>-different newsgroups. If you see this happening, please edit your headers 
>-so we can limit the thread to one group or the other.

>Keeping the non-planetary stuff out of alt.sci.planetary is good, but
>please don't try to keep the planetary stuff out of sci.space/SPACE Digest.

It is not inappropriate to have a discussion going on with the articles
jointly posted to many newsgroups, if it is relevant to all of them.
It IS inappropriate to post the same article separately to more than
one newsgroup.

It takes little more net resources for the transmission of an article.
How much more disk space, etc., it takes on the local installation depends
on how it is handled.
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@snap.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)  
{purdue,pur-ee}!snap.stat!hrubin(UUCP)
Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.conspiracy
From: chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg)
Subject: Re: NASA Coverup
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 17:16:45 GMT
Organization: TC Telemanagement, Clearwater, FL
Keywords: Ten Embarrassing Questions about the Moon

According to snarfy@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us:
> TEN EMBARRASSING QUESTIONS ABOUT THE MOON

I am reminded of "66 Questions and Answers about the Holocaust",
published by "revisionist" neo-nazis with a similar distaste for
simple truth.
-- 
Chip Salzenberg at Teltronics/TCT  <chip@tct.com>, <73717.366@compuserve.com>
   "I am truly as big a genius as all other Rush fans." -- Bruce Bufalini
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Hubble's mirror  or Really Costar.
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 23:59:37 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1992Nov6.213339.14863@wuecl.wustl.edu> gene@wucs1.wustl.edu (_Floor_) writes:
>] As for an annoying problem, the South Atlantic Anomaly and flapping of
>] the solar arrays give a lot more headaches around here...
>
>What is the South Atlantic Anomaly?

This is perhaps a candidate for the FAQ list...

Most people know that the Earth's magnetic poles aren't located at its
geographic poles, but it's less well-known that Earth's magnetic center
is not at its geographic center either.  This means that the Van Allen
belts, which follow the magnetic field, are slightly off-center, i.e.
they are slightly closer to the Earth on one side and slightly further
away on the other side.  The area where they are closest is in the South
Atlantic.  In that area, known as the South Atlantic Anomaly, the Van Allen
belts come down low enough that radiation intensity in low Earth orbit
is noticeably greater there.  This is troublesome both to astronauts and
to sensitive electronics; for example, it's common for astronomy missions
to suspend operations during passage through the SAA because the radiation
causes unacceptably high noise levels in their sensors.

In HST's case, some of its computer hardware is more radiation-sensitive
than it was supposed to be, and this causes trouble during SAA passage.
-- 
MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s.      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
              -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Automated space station construction
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 04:59:22 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1992Nov3.084854.25275@netcom.com> hage@netcom.com (Carl Hage) writes:
>: >Can robots be launched to build the space station?
>: 
>: Robotics technology is nowhere near building robots capable of such things.
>
>Is this partly due to a focus on manned space missions? How much research
>is done on developing space based robotic/remote-operated technology and
>designing space hardware suited for robotics vs research on manned space
>technology? Could this be somewhat of a self fulfilling prophesy...

In one sense, I'd agree, because teleoperation research hasn't exactly been
vigorous and ambitious.  On the other hand... just how much *research* do
you think is being done on "manned space technology"?  Damn near zero.
Everything's being done with Apollo-vintage technology.  That's part of
the problem.

>What's the point of automating assembly of a manned space station? Wouldn't
>that be an unfair labor practice? A good part of the mission is to develop
>manned space technology, e.g. assembly.

One of the reasons why Fred is so expensive is that it is developing
technology in lots of areas where it's not at all necessary.  Look, guys,
we *know* how to do in-space assembly, as witness a wide variety of things
including the Intelsat salvage mission.  The only thing that's getting
"developed" is a lot of contractors' financial statements.
-- 
MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s.      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
              -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
From: wa2ise@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (robert.f.casey)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Ten embarrassed questions about the moon (very long)
Date: 10 Nov 92 02:24:09 GMT
Organization: AT&T Banana Labs

>In article <BxDGx1.5wz@zoo.toronto.edu>, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes...
>>Finally, there is a well-known and well-understood
>>human tendency to remember the unusual and forget the mundane.  Yes, odd
>>things sometimes happen at the full moon... but to draw any meaningful
>>conclusions from this, you have to figure in the times when odd things
>>happened without a full moon, or the times when nothing noteworthy happened
>>during a full moon.  Coincidences do happen; to establish correlation, you
>>have to look at the non-coincidences too.
>>-- 
One of my Chinese friends told me that the crescent Moon is their time for
strange events and such.  Which means that people don't agree on the
same phase of the Moon.  Which pretty much negates the Moon related
strangeness connection.
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary,alt.cd-rom
From: ckp@netcom.com (Charles Pooley)
Subject: Re: Water and Moon Rocks?
Summary: Water and Moon Rocks?   (they cheated)
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 16:44:19 GMT


Bruce, they cheated.  The idea was to use hydrogen form the earth, to
chemically reduce the mix of various oxides in the regolith somewhat. 
The product of this is, of course, water vapor.  Hydrogen is almost
nonexistant on the moon (unless it turns out that subsurface H2O does
exist in polar area). 
-- 
Charles Pooley                  ckp@netcom.com    GEnie  c.pooley
EE consultant, Los Angeles, CA
From: roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov (John Roberts)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Errors
Date: 8 Nov 92 20:11:53 GMT
Distribution: sci
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology formerly National Bureau of Standards
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU


-From: andy@osea.demon.co.uk (Andrew Haveland-Robinson)
-Subject: NASA Coverup
-Date: 8 Nov 92 03:34:51 GMT
-Organization: Haveland-Robinson Associates

-As one working in the media as a typesetter typos are a statistical fact,
-following the same lines as bugs in code - they are never eradicated, just
-get less significant.

-It is therefore reasonable to expect that out of the 1000s of articles on
-the subject and the complexity of editorial processes errors will occur.
-Some information will be inaccurate or completely wrong.

And once those errors get in, they tend to propagate indefinitely - it's
impossible to get correction notices to everybody who read the original
articles. That gives refereed publications a considerable advantage in 
accuracy.

John Roberts
roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov
Newsgroups: sci.space