HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: pgf@srl02.cacs.usl.edu (Phil G. Fraering)
Subject: Re: Leftover Martians
Organization: Univ. of Southwestern Louisiana
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 00:16:06 GMT

Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca (Nick Janow) writes:

>brad.thornborrow@rose.com (brad thornborrow) writes:

>> I havn't been following the entire conversation here, but it seems to me
>> everybody is missing the gravity problem.  Last time I checked, Mars' gravity
>> was not strong enough to keep oxygen molecules from escaping into space over
>> time.  So, even if one could start plant-life on Mars, you'd have to have a
>> heck of a lot of it to keep the oxygen from just "floating away"!!!

Actually, most of Mars' current atmospheric loss is apparently due
to its lack of a magnetic field. _Please_ check out the _Nature_
that dealt with the Phobos probe data. Phobos returned a lot of
data noone knew about, and was a lot more of a success than everyone
seems to think it was. 

It got a heck of a lot done before the aliens ate it.

--
Phil Fraering pgf@srl0x.cacs.usl.edu where the x is a number from 1-5.
Phone: 318/365-5418 SnailMail: 2408 Blue Haven Dr., New Iberia, La. 70560

           --> Support UN military force against Doug Mohney <--
From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Is NASA really planning to Terraform Mars?
Date: 15 Sep 92 19:18:30 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Department University of Rochester


In article <1992Sep15.140127.3073@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:

 > The shortage in subsistence communities is almost always labor. Only
 > 6% of the arable land in Africa is farmed. That's because there isn't
 > enough labor available to productively use the land with pre-industrial
 > techniques. Using standard Green Revolution techniques, Africa should
 > easily be able to increase it's yield of foodstuffs by 40 times it's
 > current production.

Actually, about 30% or so of the arable land in Africa is currently
farmed (the 6% figure refers to one of the countries where food prices
are being held artificially low.)  Africa has about twice as much
arable land as the far east, but has a lower population.

There are two major problems with African agriculture.  The first is
that the soil is mostly poor.  Unlike the temperate regions, the soil
has been leached for millenia by tropical rains without replenishment
from glaciation (which grinds up nutrient-rich bedrock and spreads it
across the land).  African soils are often red and acidic, and in some
places nutrient mining is occuring, with declining yields.  The upside
of this is that the land responds readily to fertilizer, properly
applied.

The second problem is that 80% of farming in Africa uses manual labor;
not even animal labor (due to the tsetse fly).  This is the reason for
the unused land; a family can farm only about 2 1/2 acres without
animals.

The Op-Ed page of the NY Times yesterday (9/14/92) had a piece on Dr.
Norman Borlaug (1970 Nobel Peace Prize winner for hybrid wheat, which
has helped China to become the world's leading grain producer and
India to quintuple wheat production since 1967), who is trying to get
Africa to use existing knowledge on fertilizers, plant varieties, pest
and moisture management.  His team has applied this knowledge to
150,000 farms in Africa, increasing the yield by an average of 2.5
times.  Borlaug started in 1986 with wheat and sorghum in the Sudan
and maize in Ghana.  Ghana's maize production is up 40%; wheat
production in the Sudan increased from 160,000 tons in 1986 to 800,000
tons in March of this year.


	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@cs.rochester.edu
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: jsbell@acs.ucalgary.ca (Joshua Bell)
Subject: Probes - self portraits?
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 92 19:41:16 GMT
Organization: The University of Calgary, Alberta

I've often wondered, especially in the wake of Gallileo's stuck
HGA, but also after Voyager 2 headed off into never-never land
past Neptune, why the cameras on these craft are unable to be
located so that they can take images of the craft itself, for
self-diagnosis, and also for PR - I would have LOVED a rather
non-scientific shot of Voyager 2 looking back over its own
shoulder towards Neptune, or during the fly-by, so we can see the
various parts of the craft. Venera landers returned pictures of
their own shadows (I'm sure others did as well, but I remember
the Venera pic best), and Viking was designed to look at parts of
itself (eg, the color bar, the sample arm, etc) - is there no
hope for non-lander probes? Must we be content with the animation
(I'm still in awe of James Blin's [did I spell it right?] Voyager
2 animation tho. :)

Joshua
| Tremble only if you build false accounts and stand pridefully upon them    |
|                                       - Lord Leto II, God Emperor of Dune  |
|                                                                            |
| jsbell@acs.ucalgary.ca  Academic Computing Services, University of Calgary |
From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Sizing of launch vehicles (was Saturn Class)
Date: 6 Sep 92 09:04:07 GMT
Article-I.D.: techbook.1992Sep6.090407.25462
Distribution: na
Organization: TECHbooks --- Public Access UNIX --- (503) 220-0636

In article <1579@hsvaic.boeing.com> eder@hsvaic.boeing.com (Dani Eder) writes:

>[USAF study of developing a new launcher]
>[SSF]...you have a total delivery requirement of 750 tons, or 750,000 kg.
>To find total cost, we need to add recurring and development costs,
>with the development cost spread over the launched mass:
>
>Payload (kg)	Launch $/kg	Develop $/kg	Total $/kg
>4,536		5,082		2,733		7,816
>9,072		4,128		3,400		7,528
>13,608		3,655		3,987		7,642
>18,144		3,353		4,506		7,860
>22,680		3,136		4,987		8,122
>
>So, considering the Space Station delivery job only, the optimum
>size seems to be around 10 tons payload.

Interesting analysis, but one flaw pops out right away: we have to
amortize the development costs, not just add them.  U.S. bonds are 
running at 6-7%, I believe; a commercial venture would have to
pay 10-15%.    

Also, I should mention my earlier contention that there is only
about 13% chance of NASA buying HLV for SSF if somebody did this
on their own.  (50% chance of SSF flying, 25% chance of NASA
outsourcing instead of using Shuttle).  Another point I didn't
mention before is that redesigning  SSF around a hypothetical
launcher might be considered too risky.

Interestingly enough, Ariane 44L is right there, 9,600 kg to LEO.
It also costs $6,500/kg, so it is already cheaper than this hypothetical
launcher.  Titan IV is more politically correct; 17,900 kg to LEO
and $8,400/kg (according to my reference, but that seems a little
low given all the pad mods and cost overruns).  None of these save on 
station assembly effort, which was a major reason for looking at HLV for SSF.

Ref:  _Space Mission Analysis and Design_, Wertz & Larson eds., Kluwer 1991


-- 
szabo@techbook.COM  Public Access User --- Not affiliated with TECHbooks
Public Access UNIX and Internet at (503) 644-8135 (1200/2400, N81) 
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Pluto Direct Propulsion Options
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 23:20:25 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <BuH6nK.C65.1@cs.cmu.edu> pgf@srl03.cacs.usl.edu ("Phil G. Fraering") writes:
>>... is there a way to convince them to use post-early-
>>1960's technology, like an ion drive of some sort?
>
>\Not until somebody space-qualifies modern hardware of that sort...
>
>But they apparently intend to use very new modern hardware for
>the sensors. Why is this not "risky" but propulsion is?

Would you believe "because"? :-)

I haven't seen specs for the sensors proposed, but I'd bet they aren't
too far from things already flying.  This is an area where there has been
active development, only somewhat retarded by spacecraft planners'
conservative impulses.  (You realize, I trust, that the only reason
Galileo uses solid-stage imaging sensors is that JPL's favorite imaging
tubes had gone out of production?)  Something like ion propulsion would
be a radical change from existing space systems.

>[power-source problem]
>Use solar. I'm currently thinking along the lines of a Pluto flyby,
>but with ion drives instead of solid rockets for the final kick...

Remember that you don't get a "kick" from ion rockets. :-)  Any mission
using them gets to spend months or years accelerating, and has to have
power until the end of that phase.  Given a desire to fly to Pluto in
under a decade, the sunlight's going to be getting pretty dim by the end
of the acceleration phase.

>Using advanced propulsion, instead of just another set of solid
>rockets, would, if it turned out to be a mistake, at least be
>a _new_ mistake. 

Amen.  But NASA isn't allowed to make mistakes any more.  Of course,
they still do... but *deliberately* doing something risky and having
it fail is much worse (politically) than having a conservative mission
fail in some unexpected way.  At least, that's the perception.

This is, of course, a recipe for bringing progress nearly to a halt.
To make progress, you have to accept risks.
-- 
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
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Pluto Direct/ options
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 23:03:23 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1992Sep7.173253.1837@access.digex.com> prb@access.digex.com (Pat) writes:
>Did they consider using energia?  most of the charts I remember
>were using titan or delta class launchers?

Any use of Energia entails the sort of political complications that I
imagine JPL would rather avoid...  I mean complications *within the US*,
not the negotiations with the Russians, which ought to be straightforward
as long as you bring money.  (That was how things worked *before* the
breakup of the USSR, and I imagine it's even more so now...)
-- 
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
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: pgf@srl03.cacs.usl.edu ("Phil G. Fraering")
Subject: Pluto Direct Propulsion Options Part II: The Silly Season
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Organization: [via International Space University]
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU
Distribution: sci
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 18:13:42 GMT


hs>It is extremely difficult to combine a reasonable payload and a manageably
hs>short trip time with an orbiter mission.  Pluto is *a long way away*; to
hs>get there in under a decade, the probe has to be fast.  Killing all that
hs>velocity is inordinately expensive in mass. 

dm>Aerobrake? 

dm>                 Support U.N. military force against Serbia

dm>-- >                  SYSMGR@CADLAB.ENG.UMD.EDU                        < --

Since Nick hasn't said it yet, I will...

Lithobrake!

-- 
Phil Fraering pgf@srl0x.cacs.usl.edu where the x is a number from 1-5.
Phone: 318/365-5418 SnailMail: 2408 Blue Haven Dr., New Iberia, La. 70560
If seven maids with seven brooms swept for half a year,
do you think, the Walrus asked, that they could make it clear?
I doubt it, said the Carpenter, and shed a bitter tear.
---------
"NOAH!"                        \           \ Lewis Carrol
"Yes lord?"                     > Bill Cosby, The Story of Noah
"HOW LONG CAN YOU TREAD WATER?"/




Newsgroups: sci.space
From: pgf@srl02.cacs.usl.edu (Phil G. Fraering)
Subject: Re: space news from Aug 10 AW&ST
Organization: Univ. of Southwestern Louisiana
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 17:26:43 GMT

henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:

>Frankly, it's not
>clear to me how much they're going to learn from this.  Air drag is going
>to dominate sail thrust at that altitude; conventional solar sails are
>pretty useless below about 1000km.]

They'll have at least tested a deployment mechanism... and remember, the
CIS people are just as if not more interested in "Lunettas" for
ground-side illumination as in solar sails.

--
Phil Fraering pgf@srl0x.cacs.usl.edu where the x is a number from 1-5.
Phone: 318/365-5418 SnailMail: 2408 Blue Haven Dr., New Iberia, La. 70560
"NOAH!"
"Yes Lord?"                          - Bill Cosby
"HOW LONG CAN YOU TREAD WATER?"
Xref: sparky sci.space:12480 comp.robotics:1721
From: sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu (Doug Mohney)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Pluto Fast Flyby mission goals...
Date: 14 Sep 92 16:26:01 GMT
Reply-To: sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu
Organization: Computer Aided Design Lab, U. of Maryland College Park

In article <pgf.716428013@srl02.cacs.usl.edu>, pgf@srl02.cacs.usl.edu (Phil G. Fraering) writes:
>--
>Phil Fraering pgf@srl0x.cacs.usl.edu where the x is a number from 1-5.
>Phone: 318/365-5418 SnailMail: 2408 Blue Haven Dr., New Iberia, La. 70560
>
>           --> Support UN military force against Doug Mohney <--

Gee, and I was starting to feel sorry for the folks who got hit by Hurricane
Andrew down in Swampland U.S.A.....:->

                 Play in the intelluctual sandbox of Usenet 

  -- >                  SYSMGR@CADLAB.ENG.UMD.EDU                        < --
Newsgroups: sci.space,rec.travel,soc.misc
From: meadows@asdsun.larc.nasa.gov (Byron Meadows)
Subject: Re: Business Travel?
Organization: NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA  USA
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 02:13:28 GMT

In article <5545@ssc-bee.ssc-vax.boeing.com> mattb@ssc-vax.boeing.com (Matt Baney) writes:
>
>I'm trying to get some information about how other companies treat
>employees traveling on company business; so I have a couple
>questions:
>
>Does the Frequent-Flyer mileage earned for company travel go to the
>employee for his/her private use or is it retained by the company? 


 Working for the gov't, we aren't suppose to use the FF mileage for ourselves
 but the system is not set up for the gov't to keep track of them or use them.

>
>What type of rental car do you get?
>  Cheapest possible (  )
>  What ever the traveler desires (  )
>  ??
>
 A mid-size is the standard rental.  Usually a Ford Tempo(yuch!!) Sometimes
 if your lucky a Ford Probe or Mustang--you get the idea. 


>What is the policy for eating/living expenses when travelling??
>
>  (  ) Flat rate per diem and you can spend it however you like 
>       How much per day $(_____)
>
>  (  ) Actuals, company pays whatever amounts the employee acrues during
>  the business trip.  receipts required yes( )  no( ),
>  daily maximum no( )   yes( )-how much $( )
>
>  Any restrictions on what is allowed/ paid for, etc??


NASA uses the per diem system which is broken down into 2 parts. We receive
an allowance for lodging that is not to exceed a predetermined amount
depending on the cost of living for the area--higher in places like NY or
DC lower in less urban areas.  Any cost above the maximum allowable comes out
of your own pocket.  If you stay in a hotel that is below the maximum you 
only receive that amount (you don't get to keep the rest).

We also receive an allowance for Meal and Incidental Expenses (M&IE). This 
is also based on the cost of living for the area.  However, whatever of this 
amount we don't spend we keep.


>Are there any restrictions/policies about when trips should be
>scheduled, ie. do you have to fly on your own time, or is travel
>done on company time, or whenever is convienient??


Travel is scheduled based on when the work dictates we need to be there.
Unfortunately, as we have complained before, if we travel on the weekend
we are on our own time unless we report to work directly after arriving at
our destination.

>  ----------------------------------------------
>
>  Just a few questions I was curious about??  Anyone out there have
>  any thoughts/comments
>
>
>
Hope this helps,
Byron
From: amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Terraforming needs to begin now
Date: 13 Sep 92 12:14:25 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.BuInCM.H0q.1
Distribution: sci
Organization: [via International Space University]
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU

>On the wall of a nearby office is this neat picture of a planet with
>large amounts of liquid water, but large portions of the land mass  
is
>brown -- dry, relatively lifeless desert.  How about some ideas on  
how
>to terraform good old earth?  Starting with the Sahara or  
Austrailia's
>outback.

Ahh. I might point out that someone already owns the outback so it  
might be nice to ask them first. Not that anyone often bothers to ask  
the Australian aborigines what they want. I got an earful from one  
with whom I reached a state of Irish nirvana with (ie we didn't keel  
over until 7am)

Pragmatically speaking though, no one WOULD ask them, OR recognize  
their property rights. The Australian government has an attitude  
towards the aborigines reminiscent of the US approach to the american  
indian in the last century.

PS: Ever tried to blow a digeridoo? Pant, gasp, choke...
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke)
Subject: Re: QUERY Re: Pluto Direct/ options
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-4   
Reply-To: baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 23:48:38 GMT

In article <1992Sep10.135754.1491@eng.umd.edu>, sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu (Doug Mohney) writes...
>In article <BuC31F.2L5@zoo.toronto.edu>, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>
>>It is extremely difficult to combine a reasonable payload and a manageably
>>short trip time with an orbiter mission.  Pluto is *a long way away*; to
>>get there in under a decade, the probe has to be fast.  Killing all that
>>velocity is inordinately expensive in mass. 
> 
>Aerobrake? 
> 

We don't have that much practical experience with aerobraking into orbit 
capture - it has never been attempted before.  If given the chance, Magellan
will perform a number of aerobrake maneuvers through the atmosphere of
Venus to circularize its orbit, but the uncertainty is so great that we
can only estimate that it will take from 100 to 300 days.  Pluto does have a 
tentative atmosphere, but we know so little about it.  A flyby mission will 
help to enlighten us.  If you haven't noticed already, the basic blueprint
for planetary exploration is to do a flyby first, then follow it up with
an orbiting mission, and then follow that up with a lander.
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | Anything is impossible if
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | you don't attempt it.
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     |
From: steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Is NASA really planning to Terraform Mars?
Date: 12 Sep 92 22:11:45 GMT
	<BuH7oH.J9@news.cso.uiuc.edu> <1992Sep12.190225.14734@cs.rochester.edu>
Organization: Lick Observatory/UCO
NNTP-Posting-Host: topaz.ucsc.edu
In-reply-to: dietz@cs.rochester.edu's message of Sat, 12 Sep 1992 19:02:25 GMT

In article <1992Sep12.190225.14734@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes:

   In article <BuH7oH.J9@news.cso.uiuc.edu> jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Josh 'K' Hopkins) writes:

   > I think my question was legitimate.  Do you believe the situation is going to
   > improve as population gets larger?  I'm not so worried about "overpopulation"
   > per se.  What I do believe is that allowing people to have control of the 
   > number of children they raise will result in a lower growth rate, which I 
   > believe to be an improvement.

   I see no reason why it should get worse.  To first order, and within
   limits, the population doesn't matter, because food production

Here's some data recently posted:

>From: howard@titan.hal.com (Howard Gayle)
>Newsgroups: sci.environment
>Subject: Chronic undernutrition in developing regions


>The 14 August 1992 issue of Science has (p. 876) a table from an
>FAO report of 26 July 1992.  Here's part of the table, for all
>developing regions:

>Period   Total population (10^6)    Chronically undernourished (%)
>------------------------------------------------------------------
>1969-71     2 609                   36
>1979-81     3 262                   26
>1988-90     3 938                   20

>In each region, even though the population is increased, the
>fraction of the population that was chronically undernourished
>decreased.


Interestingly here are the absolute numbers of undernourished...

1969-1971	939M
1979-1981	848M
1988-1990	788M

Absolute numbers are decreasing! This was a surprise.

|  Steinn Sigurdsson	|I saw two shooting stars last night		|
|  Lick Observatory	|I wished on them but they were only satellites	|
| steinly@lick.ucsc.edu |Is it wrong to wish on space hardware?		|
| "standard disclaimer"	|I wish, I wish, I wish you'd care - B.B. 1983	|
From: nicho@VNET.IBM.COM
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Is NASA really planning to Terraform Mars?
Date: 14 Sep 92 08:39:16 GMT
Reply-To: nicho@vnet.ibm.com

In <k7vn88l.tomk@netcom.com> Thomas H. Kunich writes:
>In article <BuFoFx.2Mr@news.cso.uiuc.edu> jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Josh 'K' Hopkins) writes:
>>I've always wondered about logic like this.  I suppose the increasing
>>population in sub-saharan Africa to going to stabilize politics thus
>>making food available?  Sure.  Makes sense to me.
>This is the point I've been listening for. It really doesn't matter what
>the reasons for starvation are. It is happening.

  Au contraire .. It very much _does_ matter what the reasons are. It
is not possible to devise a long term solution to a problem, if you
don't understand what the problem is, or are attempting to solve the
wrong problem.
 -----------------------------------------------------------------
               ** Of course I don't speak for IBM **
Greg Nicholls ... nicho@vnet.ibm.com or nicho@cix.compulink.co.uk
                  voice/fax: 44-794-516038
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Josh 'K' Hopkins)
Subject: Re: Pluto Direct/ options
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 04:51:02 GMT

prb@access.digex.com (Pat) writes:

>I saw parts of the pluto direct flyby talk by staehle from JPL.
>they are talking of sending a 1-200 kg orbiter to pluto.

Actually, they'd like to send two so that they can image both sides of the 
planet.

>Did they consider using energia?  most of the charts I remember
>were using titan or delta class launchers?

The two options are Titan IV and Proton (which is a Soviet rocket with a
smaller fan club than Energia).  They would prefer to use a Proton because of 
pricing, but they're unsure of the performance of Proton upper stages.  

>I was thinking an energia would allow a bigger bird or possibility of
>more thrust to slow down the encounter.  

The problem is that a bigger probe is much more expensive, and you can't
really slow down the encounter much without extending the trip time greatly.

-- 
Josh Hopkins           "If you are sitting in an exit row and you cannot read
                       this card or cannot see well enough to follow these
		       instructions, please tell a crew member."
j-hopkins@uiuc.edu                       -United Airlines safety instructions
Newsgroups: sci.space