HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: Bruce.Scott@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Bruce Scott)
Subject: Re: overpopulation
Organization: Extended Bulletin Board Service
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 16:54:20 GMT

dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes:
>Bruce.Scott@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Bruce Scott) writes:
>>But this is just because the great die-off has started.
>"Great die off" is bullshit, of course.  The world population has
>never been healthier, wealthier or longer lived, on average, and
>the trends are positive in most of the world.

Au contraire. For Asia, excepting India, you are correct. For Africa and
Brazil, you're dead wrong. I think you may be misled by trade figures
and the like in cases like India and Brazil. There is no question that
for the "middle class" in those countries things have never been better.
But this class is no larger than 30 pct for Brazil and 10 for India. Yes
I know, that is only two countries, but they are big countries and when
they go wrong it is not trivial. India has been charmed by the lack of
really big natural disasters for some time now. But in the 1950's there
was a famine whose effects were averted because the US fed the whole
population for two years. That was with 300 million people. They lose if
that happens now. I do note the absence of comment from you concerning
last year's disaster in Bangladesh. I repeat that 3 million homeless on
shifting mud flats do not happen unless population limits have already
been crossed. Unlike Floridans, many of them simply starved to death.

A little travel where things have gone wrong can really open eyes. I
suggest it, even only once. I've seen this for myself in Eastern Turkey.
These armies of dirty children who feed off passers by will not grow up
into the rosy Third-World technocrats one reads about in G Harry Stine
novels. 

Gruss,
Dr Bruce Scott                             The deadliest bullshit is
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Plasmaphysik       odorless and transparent
bds at spl6n1.aug.ipp-garching.mpg.de                 -- W Gibson

--
   The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of
     North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information
        Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service.
           internet:  bbs.oit.unc.edu or 152.2.22.80
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: roelle@uars_mag.jhuapl.edu (Curtis Roelle)
Subject: Re: Alan Bean
Organization: Johns Hopkins University
Date: 28 Sep 92 16:36:05 GMT

In 1984 I saw some examples of Alan Bean's art at a gathering of lunar
astronauts, including Bean, "Buzz" Aldrin, Sen. Schmitt, and others, at
the Air & Space Museum in Washington.  The event was to commemorate the
15th anneversary of the first manned lunar landing.

Bean said Eugene Cernan told him about a regret he had concerning his own
lunar experience.  Cernan had wished he would have inscribed his daughter's
name in the lunar soil, but of course the astronauts were too busy.  Bean
then showed a painting of Cernan, in his red-striped commander's spacesuit,
standing next to a large lunar boulder.  In his and was a hammer or some 
other tool.  On the boulder was written his daughter's name.
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: vulch@kernow.demon.co.uk (Anthony Frost)
Reply-To: vulch@kernow.demon.co.uk
Subject: Re: PUTTING VENUS IN AN ORBIT SIMILAR TO THE 
Organization: VCS Kernow
X-Mailer: ReaderS for the Acorn Archimedes
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 20:56:45 +0000

 
  > In a previous message you said that mars' gravity was too
  > light to hang on the lighter gasses, thus the atmosphere is
  > thin.  Titan, a moon of Saturn is slightly smaller than mars
  > and has an atmospheric density twice earths at the surface. 
  > How do you explain that? :) 
 
Titan benefits from the gas torus effect I believe. It loses its atmosphere
at a respectable rate, but the escaping gas is unable to escape Saturn and
remains in orbit. A lot of the trapped gas gets reaquired by Titan, so the
net loss is very small. Anything escaping from the Martian atmosphere is
lost permanently.
 
         Anthony
From: sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu (Doug Mohney)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Wealth in Space (Was Re: Clinton and Space Funding)
Date: 29 Sep 92 19:39:50 GMT
Article-I.D.: eng.1992Sep29.193950.14640
Reply-To: sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu
Distribution: sci
Organization: Computer Aided Design Lab, U. of Maryland College Park

In article <BvCoDw.EGD.1@cs.cmu.edu>, amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk writes:

>Actually it's a bit more complex than that. Prices have elasticity,
>ie, there are ranges over which there are somewhat linear changes.

[economics lecture cut for brevity :)]

>I am not implying that your statement is necessarily wrong. Just  
>indicating that the situation could be a bit less straightforward.
>
>Just another friendly minilecture in economics....

My points are:

	A) Claiming there's a gazillion dollars worth of gold out there
	   in the Asteroid El Dorido (AED) is bogus, because it won't be worth
	   a gazillion on the open market, even assuming (har har) you can
	   get one ounce of Space Gold delivered, processed, and delivered
	   for the same amount of money as one ounce of Earth Gold.

	B) You won't be able to deliver one ounce of Space Gold <= the price
 	   of Earth Gold, not for a long long time.

Delivery and initial factory start-up are, as the Greaseman puts it, "The
Squealer." 

There's a lot of helium-3 on the moon too, but until someone comes up with an
undying need for it, it'll be there for a while.

                 Play in the intelluctual sandbox of Usenet 

  -- >                  SYSMGR@CADLAB.ENG.UMD.EDU                        < --
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Atlas E and F questions ( Actually Pershing missile)
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 19:23:13 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1992Sep28.163429.14691@access.digex.com> prb@access.digex.com (Pat) writes:
>>Oh, if you let the Pershings go as government surplus at fire-sale prices,
>>they'd be cheaper than commercial sounding rockets.  Of course, this has
>>a good chance of bankrupting some of the sounding-rocket companies by
>>flooding the market with government-subsidized competition...
>
>as for the sounding rocket companies.  pay them to run the launches.
>then they get the profits from launch...

What about the ones who are neither manned nor equipped to handle Pershings?
Sounding rockets are not like jellybeans, where a different flavor just
means a different color.  While they're all broadly similar, details matter
a lot, and not every company is going to be happy if you dump a bunch of
free Pershings on its doorstep.  For that matter, how do you decide which
companies get them and how many?

The way to handle this is to think capitalist, not socialist.  Sell the
Pershings at a competitive market price for sounding rockets of that size.
Use the revenues to fund a one-time-only launch-grant program for the
experimenters:  show your payload ready for launch, get a voucher good
for $XXX toward one launch, first come first served, until the money from
the Pershings runs out.  Same net result, but without the destructive
side effects on the industry.
-- 
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: phfrom@nyx.uni-konstanz.de (Hartmut Frommert)
Subject: Re: Mars Observer orbit
Organization: Dept. of Physics, University of Constance
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 14:19:17 GMT

In article <rabjab.198.0@golem.ucsd.edu> rabjab@golem.ucsd.edu (Jeff Bytof) writes:

>The orbit is computed to minimize injection energy and Mars orbit 
>insertion delta-V.  Given that Mars' orbit is fairly elliptical and inclined 
>to the ecliptic as well, gas-guzzling transfer orbit solutions can arise 
>when the transfer angle to Mars is set too close to 180 deg.  In some
>cases, a "split-plane manuever" is required, where half-way to Mars,
>a burn is made to change the transfer orbit's inclination.  MO would
>have done a split-plane burn had it launched prior to Sept. 21.

[..]

Is there any software [PD/inexpensive SW/commercial] out there to do such 
orbital simulations, i.e. transfer orbits, approach hyperbola [dependent
of multiple params], orbits around planets or planetary satellites
[optionally also for the Jupiter system, or solar system including major 
satellites] ?
--
 Hartmut Frommert                 <phfrom@nyx.uni-konstanz.de>
 Dept of Physics, Univ of Constance, P.O.Box 55 60, D-W-7750 Konstanz, Germany
                                           -- Eat whale killers, not whales --
Xref: sparky sci.space:13629 sci.astro:10168 talk.politics.space:1295 alt.politics.bush:6816 alt.politics.clinton:7357
From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,talk.politics.space,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton
Subject: Re: Clinton and Space Funding
Date: 27 Sep 92 15:18:38 GMT
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <1992Sep27.001600.22606@techbook.com> szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) writes:
>
>Not true.  Japan has been growing faster than U.S. economically
>since World War II, because the U.S. was taking more money out of 
>the private sector and spending it on the Cold War.  Japan spends 
>much more of its R&D funds in the private sector than the U.S., and 

Voodoo economics Nick. Most US military R&D is spent in the private
sector paying private companies acting as private contractors to
the military. Cold war research money didn't just evaporate any more
than money spent during Apollo wound up on the Moon. It stayed right
here brightening private commercial firms' bottom lines making money
available to then to fund their own private R&D work if they so chose. 
Japan spends no more funds in the private sector than the US does, 
in fact our R&D expenditures are still 2.5 times as high as theirs.

>Japan's stock market has crashed, in anticipation of a flux of talent 
>and money into the U.S. private sector giving us a trade advantage.  
>If we put that money into commercially useless projects like space 
>stations and Apollo reruns, we will lose that advantage.  If we
>put it into commercially important areas like comsats and the airline
>industry, as well as judicious amounts into long-term exploration
>and research, we are much more likely to gain competitiveness.

Again wrong. The Japanese stock market crashed because of world
currency fluctuations, the worldwide recession, and the collapse of 
a massive speculative boom. Their stocks were overvalued by over 4x 
the multiplier of US stocks. If our *government* puts money into 
profitable industries like comsats and aircraft manufacture, then it 
puts itself in competition with private capitalists. Better that it let 
it's citizens invest directly and reap the rewards directly. Where the 
government should put it's money is in areas that aren't yet developed 
enough to be attractive to private investors without government subsidy 
such as space manufacturing, heavy launch systems, and space platforms for 
biological, materials, and space processing research as well as into 
exploration and prospecting for extraterrestrial materials on the Moon 
and other bodies. The government has to act on return schedules that
private investors shun, decades and centuries rather than months and
quarters.

Gary
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: shafer@rigel.dfrf.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer)
Subject: Re: Hypersonic test vehicle proposed
Organization: NASA Dryden, Edwards, Cal.
	<Bv7oyD.Erp@news.cso.uiuc.edu> <SHAFER.92Sep26190110@ra.dfrf.nasa.gov>
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 17:38:11 GMT

On Sun, 27 Sep 1992 02:01:05 GMT, shafer@rigel.dfrf.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer) said:

Mary> And to tie this to another thread, I've just been made HL-20 Chief
Mary> Engineer at Dryden.  Langley Research Center is the Lead Center for
Mary> HL-20, of course.

I thought I'd better make things more explicit for people who are
less familiar with the NASA system.

Langley Research Center, as the Lead Center on the HL-20, has quite an
effort going.  They've done the vehicle design, considering reentry
dynamics, aerodynamics, maintainability, reliability, and a host of
other issues.  Another group has designed a very nice flight control
system and examined this both analytically and in fixed- and
moving-base simulators.  They've had a mockup built to look at the
servicing issues.  They've examined thermal protection, etc.  The
HL-20 is really their baby and they've done a very nice job with it.

Dryden has me, part time (I'm Chief Engineer on the F-104 External
Vision Device and Principle Investigator and Project Engineer on the
ATLAS--Adaptable Target Lighting Array System-- program); a simulation
engineer (as soon as the CV-990 sim gets done); and a consultant
ex-lifting-body pilot.  We're going to support Langley with our efforts.

On the other hand, Dryden is the only NASA installation with real,
flown lifting bodies; we've got the HL-10 on a plinth out in front of
the Facility and the M2-F1 is tucked in a hangar, awaiting
refurbishment.

--
Mary Shafer  DoD #0362 KotFR NASA Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA
shafer@rigel.dfrf.nasa.gov                    Of course I don't speak for NASA
 "There's no kill like a guns kill." LCDR "Hoser" Satrapa, gunnery instructor
                       "A kill is a kill."  Anonymous
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: pgf@srl03.cacs.usl.edu ("Phil G. Fraering")
Subject: Mass Spectrometers
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Organization: [via International Space University]
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU
Distribution: sci
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 03:14:28 GMT

I've forgotten who was stupid enough to post this:

>Will a mass spectrometer work in the absence of a strong gravitational field?
>I guess you could rotate the spectrometer fast enough to make use of the
>centripital/centrifical forces.

Mass spectrometers use magnetic fields to sort things out.

Mass still exists in the absence of gravity, so sorting by mass
is still possible.

Any more questions? I think this one fits right in with the one about
the heavy boots the moonwalkers used to keep from floating off...

 
-- 
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
---------------------
Disclaimer: Some reasonably forseeable events may exceed this
message's capability to protect from severe injury, death, widespread
disaster, astronomically significant volumes of space approaching a
state of markedly increaced entropy, or taxes.
From: ralph.buttigieg@f635.n713.z3.fido.zeta.org.au (Ralph Buttigieg)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Laser Space Mirror
Date: 30 Sep 92 18:00:02 GMT
Organization: Fidonet. Gate admin is fido@socs.uts.edu.au

Perhaps in the short term building a Space electricity transmitter would be
better than a SPS.

Put a flat optical mirror in Clarke orbit. Build a laser transmitters near a
ground based power station. Beam the generated energy to the mirror which
can then reflect it to a receiving station. This would be part of a global
power grid, allowing more efficiant use of conventional power stations and
opening new energy sources in remote areas ie African hydro electricty
schemes.

As most of the infrastructure is on Earth, the Space cost would be minimal.
The ground laser system can be large in area, allowing a small mirror.

Questions:

1) I would think that the limiting size of the mirror would be its capacity
to withstand the waste heat. Any ideas on how small we could make the mirror
with todays technology?

2) What would be the best way to convert the infra-red light back to
electricity?

3) How efficiant would the total system be? Especially compared to current
ground based power transmission?

4) Is anyone working on such a scheme? I think SDIO was considering space
mirrors for defense purposes.

ta
Ralph Buttigieg

--- Maximus 2.01wb
 * Origin: Vulcan's World-Sydney Australia 02 635-1204 (3:713/635)
From: davem@ee.ubc.ca (david michelson)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: NASA Daily News for 10/02/92 (Forwarded)
Date: 2 Oct 92 22:02:33 GMT
Organization: University of BC, Electrical Engineering

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

 % Administrator Goldin awards astronaut John Young Leadership Medal;

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Administrator Daniel Goldin yesterday awarded the NASA Outstanding
Leadership Medal to astronaut John Young in a ceremony held at NASA
Headquarters.  Goldin said "today, we're here to honor one of NASA's
finest and an authentic American hero if there ever was one."  Young
first flew in space on the first Gemini mission in 1962.  He later flew
around the moon on the Apollo 10 mission and later still, landed on the
moon on Apollo 17 in 1972.  In 1983 Young and Robert Crippen test flew
the Columbia on the first shuttle mission.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Just a correction or two:

 - the first Gemini mission (Gemini 3) flew in March 1965  not 1962.
 
 - John Young commanded the Apollo 16 mission in April 1972 not Apollo 17.

 - the first shuttle mission (STS-1) flew in April 1981 not 1983.

I won't even *mention* his other Gemini or shuttle flights.
 
--
 
Dave Michelson
davem@ee.ubc.ca
From: amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Space platforms (political, not physical :-)
Date: 30 Sep 92 16:16:39 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.BvEGG3.KCA.1
Distribution: sci
Organization: [via International Space University]
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU

> Intersting.  Our society is now freer than at any time in our
> history.  Books that could not have been published 50 years ago
> are published.  People can say or do things in public that would
> 


Can you spell... W a r  O n  D r u g s?

How about the simple freedom to live on one's own property and do as  
one pleases. (ie, let the grass grow wild if you want, outlawed in  
some communities; water it on Sunday, outlawed in some parts of  
Germany I believe...)

How about the freedom of contract between consenting adults?

You can indeed make a case that freedom has had a rocky road in the  
USA as well as anywhere else. At different times, different parts of  
the Bill of Rights were more violated (with legal blind eye turned)  
than others.

I do not idolize the past. But I do see a trend that was downwards  
for a century or more (with the exception of some improvements in  
equality that you have mentioned) and in the post cold war world may  
be slowly turning around. With no cause celebre to rally support on  
"important issues", people are going to turn their attention back to  
the really important issues: their friends, their families, their  
homes, their neighborhoods and their home towns.

Politicians live by inventing grand causes and making them a critical  
issue. This works particularly well when a population is  
demographically young, which the US and most developed countries no  
longer are. Having lived through a number of such terrible (invented)  
crises', I can only look at the campaign rhetoric of Bush and Clinton  
and say.... <YAWN>.... 


I see some brilliant ideas of Paine, Jefferson and Franklin that were  
quickly co-opted by Madison and others with more Statist leanings.  
And not to mention that the seeds of conflict were sown from the  
first day by failing to apply that Bill of Rights equally to all,  
regardless of sex or race. If not for that mistake the USA might very  
well still be something close to laissez faire.

With many of those problems of equality solved de juris if not de  
facto, the US will probably drift back towards its' philosophical  
roots.

Those roots in individualism and self responsibility will make  
americans settlers a large part of the population on the new frontier  
regardless of whether they get their on US, Japanese or Russian  
spaceships.
From: bill.nunnelee@the-matrix.com (Bill Nunnelee)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: BLACK HOLES
Date: 5 Oct 92 23:13:00 GMT
Article-I.D.: the-matr.6731.409.uupcb
Reply-To: bill.nunnelee@the-matrix.com (Bill Nunnelee)
Distribution: world
Organization: The MATRIX BBS - Birmingham, AL - 205-323-2016

-> 1) What exactly are black holes? 2) Is there any truth in the theory
-> that they may be created by alien life forms?
-> 3) Is there a black hole close to our galaxy?

1.) A Black Hole is any sufficiently dense object whose gravity is so
powerful that nothing, not even light, can escape.   2.) Not likely
3.) There are probably many Black Holes within our galaxy, as they are
the natural result of the death of a massive star (I should know the
required number of solar masses, but I would have to look it up).  There
are several good candidates, but because a Black Hole in isolation would
be...well, black, they all involve binary systems where matter is
falling from a relatively normal star onto an unseen companion and
producing large amounts of x-rays.  It is also thought that super
massive Black Holes exist at the center of active galaxies...and even
some not so active ones.
       
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: tholen@galileo.ifa.hawaii.edu (Dave Tholen)
Subject: Re: NEAR asteroid mission (but wait! There's more!)
Organization: Institute for Astronomy, Hawaii
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 23:44:37 GMT

Nick Szabo writes:

>> Prime target is a 1998 launch to 4660 Nereus,

> Does anybody have the original designation of this asteroid (it was
> renamed after _Asteroids II_ came out)?  Has it been given a
> type (C,S,M, etc.)?  Anything else known about its composition?

(4660) Nereus = 1982 DB

No taxonomic classification yet.  If the weather cooperates, I may succeed
in collecting the data necessary to do a classification this Tuesday and
Wednesday nights.  Between now and early next year, Nereus is as bright as
it will get for the next decade.
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.geo.geology
From: joe@montebello.soest.hawaii.edu (Joe Dellinger)
Subject: Re: Amber (Was: Re: Population)
Reply-To: joe@montebello.soest.hawaii.edu
Organization: School of Ocean and Earth Science Technology
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 05:57:51 GMT

In article <9210010007.AA08683@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov>, roberts@CMR.NCSL.NIST.GOV (John Roberts) writes...
> I believe the current (and recent) record for DNA extraction is ~25 million
> years, for a termite trapped in amber. Reconstructing the entire genetic
> code from DNA fragments and using that code to produce a living organism
> are additional challenges.

	In the Sept 1992 "Natural History" magazine, Stephen J. Gould
writes that the "current" record is for chloroplast DNA from preserved tree
leaves in the Clarkia lake beds, 17-22 Million years old. The Clarkia
preservation is extremely unusual: leaves falling right into an anoxic lake
bottom, rapid burial, and an anoxic environment continuously maintained until
present. Even so they still haven't managed to get nuclear DNA.... yet.

	He says the "previous" record was from a 13000 year old Sloth.
From .013 to 22 is a pretty healthy jump!

	If as you indicate the Clarkia record has recently been broken (I'm
sure Gould would have mentioned it if he had known about it when writing
the article) I'd like to hear more details!

	If you do manage to clone an ancient termite, please don't let it
loose in Hawaii. We get dem plenty already.

     /\    /\    /\/\/\/\/\/\/\.-.-.-.-.......___________
    /  \  /  \  /Hawaii Institute of Geophysics, Honolulu\/\/\.-.-....__
___/    \/    \/Joe Dellinger, Internet: joe@montebello.soest.hawaii.edu\/\.-.__