HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: Jay@deepthot.cary.nc.us (Jay Denebeim)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re:  Solar Power Satellites... what do *you* know?
Date: 11 Apr 92 05:04:01 GMT
Organization: The Software Distillery

In article <53206@hydra.gatech.EDU> ccoprmd@prism.gatech.EDU (Matthew DeLuca) writes:
>The fear is that solar power satellites are infinitely more vulnerable
>to foreign military attack than are Earthbound power plants within one's
>national borders.  Short of launching a nuclear-tipped ICBM, it would
>be very difficult for a foreign power to fry the Vogtle nuclear power
>plant here in Georgia by direct military means.  

I sorta doubt it would have to be nuclear tipped.  Conventional explosives
would do just fine, thank you.

>                                                 It would, however, be
>trivially easy to sweep the entire geostationary belt 

Yup, all it would take is a rocket.  Of course it would have to be a bigger
rocket than the one that it would take to whipe out the nuclear power
plant.

I just don't see your point.  Sounds to me like they're about as easy
in either case.

>SPS's would be located) clean of functioning satellites.  I fully support
>developing SPS as a viable power source, but it will be a near-impossibility
>to defend.
>
>Your 'psychological failure mode' is simply people realizing what you 
>don't.
>
>-- 
>Matthew DeLuca                      "Being next to Dorsai is a slow form of
>Georgia Institute of Technology      the 'dissolve' command..."
>Office of Information Technology    
>Internet: ccoprmd@prism.gatech.edu                  - Banzai, Merc V

--

 |_o_o|\\
 |. o.| || The           Jay Denebeim
 | .  | ||  Software
 | o  | ||   Distillery
 |    |//        Address: UUCP:     duke!wolves!deepthot!jay
 ======                   Internet: jay@deepthot.cary.nc.us
                 BBS:(919)-460-7430      VOICE:(919)-460-6934
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: pgf@usl.edu (Phil G. Fraering)
Subject: Re: DCX and making Boeing do something as well...
Organization: Univ. of Southwestern Louisiana
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 22:04:21 GMT

jimj@cleanplate.EBay.Sun.COM (James D. Jones) writes:

>In article <11453@ksr.com> jfw@ksr.com (John F. Woods) writes:
>>games@max.u.washington.edu writes:
> 
>=There are managers at Boeing who are aware of the potential market in space
>=travel, I'm sure, and if there is a real opportunity for them to make money
>=in launchers, I'd think there's a good chance they'd go for it (after all,
>=they would have instant credibility).  They will, however, probably want
>=to see binding offers of cash on the barrel (if not cash up front) from
>=customers before they try it, just like they do with airplanes.

>I seem to recall, several years ago, one of those gosh-wow Popular Science
>cover stories about a one-man shuttle project that Boeing was trying 
>to interest the government in.  In this plan, the craft was to be 
>small, cheap, -- and air-launched from the back of a 747.  Obviously a 
>_wonderful_ concept from Boeing's viewpoint.  I never heard another thing
>about it, though. 


Boeing might have looked into something similar, but this was
Space Van, thought up by MMI...



--
Phil Fraering pgf@srl05.cacs.usl.edu 318/365-5418
"I'm a personal visionary. I can see into the future, only way off
to the side." - Stephen Wright
"How about a dragon that breathes neutrons instead of fire?  Kills the
elves, leaves the buildings intact..." - Nick Szabo
From: roberts@CMR.NCSL.NIST.GOV (John Roberts)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Human UV vision
Date: 14 Apr 92 01:19:02 GMT
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology
	formerly National Bureau of Standards


-From: wa2ise@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (robert.f.casey)
-Subject: Re: Human UV vision
-Date: 8 Apr 92 03:46:02 GMT
-Organization: AT&T

-In article <1992Apr6.174236.23885@aio.jsc.nasa.gov> hack@arabia.uucp (Edmund Hack) writes:
->
->Use of local anesthesia is standard procedure these days for cataract surgery.
->However, the patient is usually given sedation ahead of time, so they are kind
->of dopey and placid.  The eye is then anesthetized and the surgery done.  The
->most common sedative is Versed, a Valium derivative that is very fast acting,
->has a very short half-life and produces amnesia in 90%+ of patients given it.
->My wife is an anesthesiologist and said Versed is one of the big breakthrus
->in the last 10 years in anesthesia - it sedates the patient, but blocks short
->term memory, so they forget things a few seconds after they happen.
->
-I've had one cataract and two retina detachment repair jobs done in the past
-few years, each under local.  And they gave me some "I don't care what you
-do to me" sedation industrial strength drug of some sort.  And yes, I can see
-more blue and violet with the eye with the plastic lens in it, and the focus
-range isn't too bad considering it's not adjustable.  

Wow - I guess that confirms the theory. Strange that they don't put a (fully
effective) UV filter in the plastic. Can you see those patterns in flowers
that honeybees are supposed to see?

-Ah.. to bring some sci.space content to this, what if an astronaut gets
-a serious problem like retina detachnents en route to Mars?  

The astronaut is probably instructed to use the other eye to carefully read
the fine print of the contract... :-(

Health concerns are a major issue in space travel, especially for long 
missions. Having someone along with surgical skills will probably be a
requirement. Still, the situation may come up where a total abort of an
extremely expensive mission *might* save a person's life, at which time a
very difficult decision has to be made.

John Roberts
roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov
From: reeder@reed.edu (Doug Reeder)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Delta Clipper Lecture
Date: 6 Apr 92 06:40:07 GMT
Article-I.D.: reed.1992Apr6.064007.14421
Distribution: or
Organization: Tether Propulsion Division, Institute of Knowledge, Jinx


William Gaubatz, McDonnell-Douglas Program Manager for the Delta
Clipper single stage to orbit vehicle, will give a lecture on the
Delta Clipper program on Saturday, April 11 at 2 pm, at OMSI in
Portland.  The general lecture will last about an hour, followed by
roughly an hour of technical nitty-gritty.  Admission is free, tell
the ticket-takers you are there for the Oregon L-5 Society meeting.
The lecture is sponsored by the Oregon L-5 Society, a chapter of the
National Space Society.

-- 
Doug Reeder                                   USENET: ...!tektronix!reed!reeder
Internet: reeder@reed.EDU                     BITNET: reeder@reed.BITNET
I'm looking for a grad school or a job as a research assistant where I can work
on tethers for space propulsion or robotics, in particular, walking machines.
From: dswartz@sw.stratus.com (Dan Swartzendruber)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Delta Clipper Lecture
Date: 7 Apr 92 18:26:36 GMT
Distribution: or
Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who would appreciate details posted by some
lucky attendee...

-- 

Dan S.
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: RFD: Space Colonists' Association
Date: 13 Apr 92 22:14:08 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <4137@ucsbcsl.ucsb.edu> 3001crad@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (Charles Frank Radley) writes:
>Jerry Pournelle and a few others got pretty upset
>about the L-5 merger with NSI.
>I believe they have started a group called the Lunar Society...

I believe the Lunar Society is dormant at the moment.  Same problem as
everyone else:  can't get anywhere until launch costs and launch
bureaucracy come down.
-- 
GCC 2.0 is to C as SVR4 is to Unix.     | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
                             -Dick Dunn |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
From: mwallis@clubzen.fidonet.org (Michael Wallis)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: SDI update
Date: Mon, 06 Apr 92 14:10:22 PST
Organization: Club Zen BBS - Santa Clara, CA - +1 408 248 9213

sequent!techbook.com!szabo@uunet.UU.NET (Nick Szabo) writes:

>                                                    Brilliant Pebbles
> can knock down any missile that exceeds 80 km altitude for more than 3 
> minutes.  That translates to missiles with 500 km range at minimum
> energy trajectory, or 700-800 km range for depressed trajectories.
> This covers all ICBMs and most IRBMs in the world's inventories.
> The BP constellation can shoot down a 20-missile volley of Chinese CSS-2 
> missiles without becoming saturated.  

Hmmm ...  how will BP handle traffic to and from LEO by things like
NASPs and DC-1s? What's the launch saturation point for friendly
vehicles? What steps are being taken now to ensure this system
doesn't accidently shoot down a shuttle?

Again, we see that C3I hasn't been thoroughly thought out against
future demands on the system, just against current capabilities.

        Michael

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Wallis                               |UUCP:    mwallis@clubzen.UUCP
Computer Consultant, Santa Clara, CA         |#include <Standard/Disclaimer.h>
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.physics
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Moon Market Survey
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 15:31:28 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1992Apr14.041211.14901@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov> baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov writes:
>>>How much would you be willing to pay for a small amount of moon dust?
>>All items brought back from the moon, even a speck of
>>moon dust, are Property of the US Government...
>
>I believe you are referring to the Apollo missions... [note Soviet missions]
>There were also some meteorites discovered in Antarctica and western
>Australia that have been determined to have come from the Moon...

However, all but one of those meteorites were likewise found by government
expeditions and are government property, I believe.

>...  And then there was a story about someone who had some 
>moon dust on tape that his father collected from the spacesuits when he was 
>cleaning  them.  There was some controversy about who really owned the moon 
>dust, and I never did hear outcome of that one...

I believe there is precedent on this one:  the government asserts ownership
of *all* lunar material from the Apollo expeditions, whether it is samples
deliberately collected or dust off the suits.

There are also well-substantiated rumors that some of the lunar samples
allocated to scientific procedures that would destroy the sample were
not 100% destroyed -- the investigators kept some souvenirs.  These
would be, technically, stolen property.

>There is also a rumor that 
>some of the Apollo astronauts were allowed to keep some small rocks...

If one carefully reads an authoritative discussion of where the lunar
samples went -- such as the one in Lunar Sourcebook -- one finds a bit
of vague mumbling about a few samples distributed to world leaders and
such.  I'd expect the Apollo astronauts were quietly told they could
keep a souvenir apiece.
-- 
GCC 2.0 is to C as SVR4 is to Unix.     | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
                             -Dick Dunn |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: SDI update
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 20:31:38 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <92100.134741DOCTORJ@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU> DOCTORJ@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU (Jon J Thaler) writes:
>> ...seems to be adequate for existing systems that most people consider
>> acceptable.  If you insist that a missile-defense system *has* to be
>> still better, please explain why.
>
>Considering that BP hasn't had *ANY* tests that bear on its reliability,
>you are very confident of its performance.

I have no idea whether actual hardware, if and when built, will meet
reasonable specifications.  My point is that the specifications should
be reasonable, not fantasies demanding absolute perfection.  Existing
life-critical systems, such as those used to control ICBMs and antiaircraft
missiles, are not held to standards anywhere near as harsh as those some
people propose to apply to missile defence.

Missile-defense hardware should be called on to meet standards similar
to those of existing systems with similar potential of harm, e.g. anti-
aircraft defences and strategic missiles, with testing by similar criteria.
(That last means, for example, willingness to extrapolate from limited
testing under less-than-worst-case conditions.)  If you believe those
standards and criteria are inadequate, you should be campaigning to
get them tightened up for existing systems too.  Claiming that vastly
stiffer standards should be applied to missile defence and only missile
defence indicates either lack of thought or a hidden agenda.

>These technology arguments beg the main issue, parts of which have been
>raised by other posters.  Namely, even if BP were to work as advertised,
>would we be getting our money's worth?  There are matters of other delivery
>methods ("suitcase" bombs), and other interception methods...

Yes, there are other threats; nobody is suggesting dropping the rest of
our defences in favor of BP.  So long as even the most advanced countries
remain defenceless against ballistic missiles, however, they will remain
an attractive delivery method:  they can be used to hit multiple targets
selected on very short notice, they need only limited expertise, and
attack preparations take so little time that there is little chance
of an attack being detected and stopped by countermeasures.  There is
good reason to want at least limited defences against ballistic missiles.

What form defences should take is a more debatable point, although it
is awkward to defend very large areas (e.g. North America) from a small
number of surface sites.  The best time to attack a ballistic missile
is definitely during its ascent, and doing that from the ground is
virtually impossible unless you can guarantee to have an interceptor
base right in the attacker's back yard.  Whether less-than-best methods
will suffice depends on your idea of how sophisticated the attacker is
going to be.
-- 
GCC 2.0 is to C as SVR4 is to Unix.     | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
                             -Dick Dunn |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
From: nicho@VNET.IBM.COM
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: SHOULD WE FURTHER EXPLORE MARS ???
Date: 9 Apr 92 13:00:13 GMT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.9204091259.AA17221
Reply-To: nicho@vnet.ibm.com

In <88650015@hpcupt3.cup.hp.com> Jim McCauley writes:
>And a truly smart bomb would never let itself be dropped or
>detonated -- unless it had been programmed into mental disturbance,
>like the overzealous planet-destroying bomb in the hilarious film,
>"Dark Star."
 Strewth ... what an awesome amount of presumption to be contained
in a single sentence.

 -----------------------------------------------------------------
               ** 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: ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright)
Subject: Re: DCX and making Boeing do something as well...
Organization: Engineering, CONVEX Computer Corp., Richardson, Tx., USA
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1992 15:48:45 GMT
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.

In <1992Apr15.182757.1@fnalf.fnal.gov> higgins@fnalf.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes:

>>>I seem to recall, several years ago, one of those gosh-wow Popular Science
>>>cover stories about a one-man shuttle project that Boeing was trying 
>>>to interest the government in.  In this plan, the craft was to be 
>>>small, cheap, -- and air-launched from the back of a 747.  
 
>> Boeing might have looked into something similar, but this was
>> Space Van, thought up by MMI...
 
>Boeing did indeed do this.  It was discussed extensively in *AvWeek*
>in the early Eighties.  I heard a rumor that described the RL-10-powered
>spacecraft as "just about able to lift its own paint into orbit."  
>It was fairly similar to Space Van, but I heard of it well before I 
>heard of MMI's plans.

Okay, here's the real story.

The Space Van did indeed come first, and was the brainchild of Len
Cormier, president of TranSpace, Inc. (later called Third Millenium
or MMI -- that's the Roman numeral 2001).  Cormier was also a consultant
at a Washington, DC think tank called ANSER, working on space studies for 
the Air Force.  Boeing's vehicle (whose name slips my mind at the moment)
came out of one of these studies. 

MMI later changed its design to a winged two-stage vehicle, similiar to
a scaled-down version of NASA's original shuttle design, which would
have been launched from a barge near American Samoa.  I haven't heard
anything about them in several years, though.



Newsgroups: sci.space
From: wreck@fmsrl7.srl.ford.com (R. Cage)
Subject: Re: SDI update
Summary: Not a problem.
Organization: Ford Motor Company Scientific Research Labs, Dearborn, MI
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 14:14:20 GMT

In article <1992Apr13.012430.27814@watdragon.waterloo.edu> jdnicoll@watyew.uwaterloo.ca (James Davis Nicoll) writes:
>	How many BPs are we talking about? A fission-explosive driven
>cannon might be able to loft several hundred tonnes of glowing rock
>into orbit...

That's using a pile driver to swat a gnat.  It would be much
better to use one of our F-15 launched satellite interceptors
to take out the malfunctioning satellite.  Either it would
shoot at the interceptor (using up the BP's on board) or be
rendered inert.  Problem solved.

>	Some wiseass sabotaging the ocassional BP to zap 747s could be a pain...

I've seen mockups of a BP; it is all rocket nozzles and lenses,
not aerodynamic in the least.  There is about zero chance that
one could survive entry in condition to hit an aircraft.
Xref: sparky sci.space:7479 sci.physics.fusion:997 sci.research:503 sci.energy:2492
From: alvin@stanton.UUCP (The Chipmunk)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.physics.fusion,alt.politics,sci.research,sci.energy
Subject: Re: Disincentives
Date: 13 Apr 92 05:06:03 GMT
Followup-To: sci.space
Organization: Foundation for the Increased Wealth of Chipmunks

Written in article <g57ViB1w164w@netlink.cts.com>
    by jim@netlink.cts.com (Jim Bowery):

: [...fusion and space lack-of-progress from govt-sponsored sources...]


: Is it just stupid, short-sighted porkbarrel politics?
:  

Of course it is!

Which is why NASA _et_al_ are a waste of tax-dollars, even tho I risk
severe flames from the techo-crowd for saying that.


== The Chipmunk
INTERNET:alvin@stanton.cts.com
Advertisement: The most truthful part of a newspaper
    -- Thomas Jefferson
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer)
Subject: Re: Mars for $30M ???
Organization: Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 14:16:21 GMT

In article <1992Apr13.190016.5739@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> tjn32113@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Thomas J. Nugent) writes:

>I think you're talking about Griffin's proposal to send probes to the moon
>for $30M each (not sure about that - might be $50M each) which is a very
>good deal, relatively speaking.  

Griffin is proposing four missions for $500M over about four years. Still
an excellent deal.

>These probes would provide detailed maps
>of the Moon's surface, and perform analyses of the chemical makeup of the
>Moon, including the poles.

The project is for a chemical, gravity, and terain maps of the moon along
with a common lander to put 400 pound payloads on the moon.

  Allen
-- 
+          They're just jealous because they don't have three               +
|          wise men and a virgin in the whole organization                  |
|     --Vincent Cianci on the ACLU suit to remove a nativity scene          |
+----------------------390 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: gabriele@aero.org (Mark Gabriele)
Subject: Re: SDI update
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
	<1992Apr8.054146.8156@zoo.toronto.edu>
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 19:03:15 GMT

Henry responds:

>>... What steps are being taken now to ensure this system
>>doesn't accidently shoot down a shuttle?

>About the same ones taken to make sure that Patriot doesn't accidentally
>shoot down an airliner.

Which isn't really correct.  You see, when you have an independent
space-based system comprised of several thousand autonomous pieces all
whizzing around 100+ miles up, it's rather difficult to pull the plug
on them.  You rely on controls, certainly.  But these controls are NOT
(no way, no how, can't be) as good as the very simple control of
having the device under your physical control.

I will provide a simple example.  Say that a hypothetical space-based
system consists of a thousand units, which have a mean time between
failure of 100 years.  Then we can expect that some of them will begin
to fail soon.  More than that.  It could be that some of them choose
to fail in an unsafe fashion.  The odds of this might be very poor -
call it 1 in a million per year - but again, you're still gambling,
and people get (un)lucky all the time.  Careful design cannot prevent
that.  Unfortunately, if one of these things decides that the shuttle
is an Enemy Attacker, nobody can do much to stop it from going off and
killing the thing - it's not like you can walk up and pull out the
plug.

Contrast this with a Patriot system.  Say our Patriot has a failure
and decides that Air Force One is the Enemy.  (ok, this might be a
feature rather than a bug  :)  Our Patriot might mark the target and
say to its operator:  "I am going to engage this target in 10 seconds
and there is nothing you can do to stop me".  But there *is*.  The
operator can, if necessary, drop a grenade on top of it.  It's messy,
but it works.  

The moral is that strategic weapons should *always* be kept under
physical control.  Proposals to do otherwise are just dangerous.

=Mark
(gabriele@aero.org)
From: jfw@ksr.com (John F. Woods)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: "The Machine That Changed The World" - inaccuracy?
Date: 15 Apr 92 13:29:11 EDT

rhl@d62wdf.mitre.org (Roger H. Lincoln) writes:
>Has anyone seen the PBS series "The Machine That Changed The World"?
>Last night (episode 2 I think) told about the role that the Apollo
>moon project had in miniaturizing the computer.  The told (and showed)
>how the on-board computer was responsible for guiding the lander down
>to the surface of the moon.  The concluded by saying "it performed
>flawlessly". 
>I seem to recall an episode of Nova in 1989 about the first moon
>landing where they told how the on-board computer was overloaded by
>all the incoming data and flatlined seconds before landing so that the
>pilot had to land manually.

Hmm.  I'll have to check my references to make sure, but:  the computer did
overload (that's the meaning of the "17 alarm" (I think that's the number)
you hear repeated in the tapes of the landing), but it didn't "flatline" or
crash, it just ceased to be useful because it was lagging behind real time.
As I recall, this turned out to be because a switch hadn't been set to
disconnect some trivial information sources before the landing, resulting in
it being flooded with an event rate it wasn't designed for.  The manual landing
was, as I recall, motivated by the fact that Neil Armstrong noticed that the
oh-so-carefully selected landing point, chosen by satellite photos, was right
on top of a LEM-sized boulder, which would have been a disaster.  In fact, that
whole area was strewn with boulders, just barely too small to be photographed,
which resulted in it taking a LONG time to find a clear spot (they had, what,
7 seconds of fuel left when they shut the engine down?).

>Which story is correct?  Or is there a new definition of the word
>"flawlessly" that I wasn't previously aware of?

Well, I suppose it correctly indicated that it was overloaded, as opposed
to incorrectly pretending it was still coping, or incorrectly emitting smoke.
:-)