From: seds%7977.span@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: SSF and New Industries
Summary: SSF, good way to destroy new industries (opinion of the uninformed)
Date: 12 Apr 92 18:07:00 GMT
Organization: University of Houston
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <1992Apr3.201339.28319@techbook.com>, szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) writes...
>>In article <2223@news.duke.edu>, cchung@sneezy.phy.duke.edu (Charles Chung) write
> 
>Anybody want to bet on this?  I would wager 5:1 against astronauts
>flying on Fred in this century, and the odds don't go up after that.
> 
>If it does go up, it's hardly something to look forward to.
Yea I will bet you. Take a quick look at the budget this year.
> 
>>Quick glance at what you can expect and what is already happening due to 
>>many Shuttle, SpaceHab, COMET, Sounding rocket flights.
> 
> 
>What do these have to do with SSF?  These projects make good use of
>drop towers, sounding rockets, and airplane flights. 
Drop towers are useless for anything other than fast quench metals experiments.
Then only as a test fixture for missions that actually fly.
Sounding rockets are better but the limited duration (7 minutes for CONSORT)
make it useful only for stuff like electro deposition experiments, accelerometer
calbration experiments or as test platforms for the engineering required for 
longer duration missions. (source: My two years of working on CONSORT, JOUST
with McDonnel Douglas, Teledyne Brown, and NASA)

For long duration microgravity processes, teleoperated or astronaut-tended
 platforms make a much better environment than sharing a platform with
 astronauts, and they cost less than 1/30th of SSF.
[Henry's Comment]

Source for this? I am working on COMET and they are not expecting any better
microgee environment than 10-3 g. This is because of thruster firings and the
on board operation of the experiments. Also, there is no possibilty of of 
modifying the operation of the experiment after launch, no possibility of
fixing it if it breaks, and if the return module does not work, all of your
investment is out the window. Come on get a clue at least give some reasonable
sources for your statements. (source for COMET microgee environment is 
meetings with Westinghouse, Space Industries and EER Systems. BTW I have the
acceleration measurement experiment on COMET AND SpaceHab and CONSORT)

> 
>The major stumbling block to microgravity industries is launch costs, and 
>SSF does nothing for launch costs except take money from research directed 
>at lowering them (eg NASP).  There is very little that is worthwhile
>to make when raw material and plant cost $10,000/kg to launch.

I agree with this but there are many ways to lower the cost of getting stuff
to and from the space station that are currently under consideration. Tethers
Pegasus and NASP.

>Finally, this gigaproject does nothing for our largest and fastest
>growing space industry, communications.

Hell communications does not need governement help now but the first 10 years
was TOTALLY subsidized by the government.

>SSF makes no difference to commercial space industry, except for a 
>negative impact on a possible new field of commercial endevour.
>-- 
That is one person's opinion. That is not the opinion of the microgravity
research community. We are having a conference here in Huntsville in May that
will cover this very subject. I will try to post pertinent papers to this 
group. I work for the Consortium for Commercial Development of Space, one
of the 17 NASA CCDS's for commercial developemtn of space. We will be using
all of the resources for microgravity research, including SSF. Get a clue
out there in net land and start at least researching your statements like 
some of you have bitched at me for not doing. We are going forward with
SSF with or without you. It is my suggestion that if you truly care about 
this subject that you take my challange and see what you can do to help
drive down the costs and drive up the return from SSF. All other activity
opon this subject now will do more damage to our common goal of the 
development of space.

Dennis Wingo, University of Alabama in Huntsville.