HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: 18084TM@msu.edu (Tom)
Subject: Arbitration in Action on the Extropians List
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Organization: [via International Space University]
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU
Distribution: sci
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 22:54:20 GMT

>This is a private mailing list. It isn't run by a government -- its
>run by The Extropy Institute (aka ExI), which has set up private rules
>and regulations regarding its use. Part of its rules call for people
>to behave in a civilized way, and provide for mechanisms, all private,
                ^^^^^^^^^
>to deal with people who don't behave that way. The way in which self

Is it even possible to behave in an uncivilized way, while typing on a
highly complex electronic machine, communicating (if you want to
call it that) with others in a common language, sometimes over vast
distances?

I mean, we can't hit each other over the computer, right?

-Tommy Mac
------------------------------===========================================
Tom McWilliams               | Those who beleive        ' are the  ".   |
18084tm@ibm.cl.msu.edu       | in the      ,  .        .  ones  .*'  .  |
(517) 355-2178 -or- 353-2986 | Balance   '. '  . .        that , don't  |
a scrub Astronomy undergrad  |   of            ,        +         get   |
at Michigan State University | Nature                  '.  , .' eaten   |
------------------------------===========================================
From: wats@scicom.AlphaCDC.COM (Bruce Watson)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: V-2 anniversary
Date: 14 Oct 92 17:45:46 GMT
Organization: Alpha Science Computer Network, Denver, Co.

In article <2560007@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com+ rrr@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com (Rudi Rynders) writes:
+###/ hpdmd48:sci.space / techno@zelator.in-berlin.de (Frank Dahncke) / 10:37 am  Oct  4, 1992 /
+###In <28165@scicom.AlphaCDC.COM- wats@scicom.AlphaCDC.COM (Bruce Watson) writes:
+###
+###-Trivia question: Which city was targeted and hit by the most number
+###-of V-2s?
+###
+###Amsterdam, Holland.
+###
+###							  Techno
+###-- 
+###| techno@zelator.in-berlin.de ||| Please do not e-mail from outside Germany ! |
+###| techno@lime.in-berlin.de   / | \  Hardcore ST user ! ====================== | 
+###| Nothing that's real is ever for free, you just have to pay for it sometime. |
+###|                                       (Al Stewart)                          | 
+###----------
+You can be sure that is was NOT Amsterdam. I witnessed many launchings of V-2's
+during 1944 and the first half of 1945 from around The Hague, and while some
+malfunctioning ones landed in The Hague, I can not remember any falling on
+Amsterdam. Furthermore Amsterdam is more than 90 degrees from the bearing for
+England from  most launching sites.
+London was the biggest target within the actionradius of the V-2,
+and it took quite a few hits. However since this is a trivia question , the poser
+is probably thinking of one the industrial cities in southern England.
+
+Rudi Rynders (rrr@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com)

Amsterdam in incorrect and Antwerp took more hits than London. See my previous post.

-- 
Bruce Watson (wats@scicom)  Tumbra, Zorkovick; Sparkula zoom krackadomando.
From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: What use is Freedom?
Date: 13 Oct 92 14:47:26 GMT
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <1469100023@igc.apc.org> mwgoodman@igc.apc.org (Mark Goodman) writes:
>
>I have followed this thread with some amusement.  The answers
>offered to the question "What good is Fred?" seem to focus on the
>question of its size.  What does that have to do with anything?
>
>The question ought to be: "What useful things can you do with
>Fred?"  Size may be an issue, but in the tradeoff of capability
>versus cost, bigger is not obviously better.
>
>So does anyone care to venture an answer to the question as I have
>posed it?

Fred is a very large engineering test bed designed to gather experience
in constructing and operating large habitable structures in space. It 
has minor uses as a science platform in addition, but that's strictly 
secondary. Politically, the reason for Fred is to keep an aerospace
engineering capability alive in the US during a time of reduced military
spending.

Gary
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu (Doug Mohney)
Subject: Re: Bootstrap hardware for LunaBase
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 19:34:28 GMT
Organization: Computer Aided Design Lab, U. of Maryland College Park
Reply-To: sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu

In article <1992Oct10.120449.597@iti.org>, aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) writes:
>In article <1992Oct10.014257.7624@techbook.com> szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) writes:
>>and do
>>not change the comparison of lunar mining vs. alternatives.
>
>Also correct. However the advantage of the moon isn't cost, is't time.
>
>Eventually we will make extensive use of asteroids and comets. But first
>we will use the advantage of close Lunar material because it's faster
>and provides easier access to the people needed to operate and debug
>the facility.

Shhhhhhshhh... now that makes sense... :)


                 Play in the intelluctual sandbox of Usenet 

  -- >                  SYSMGR@CADLAB.ENG.UMD.EDU                        < --
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro
From: dah@tko.vtt.fi (David Harwood)
Subject: Re: HRMS/SETI Answers
Organization: VTT
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 16:41:15 GMT

In article <1992Oct9.145536.19786@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov> eto@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov (Edward T. Olsen) writes:
[...]
>
><Is HRMS capable of detecting signals of power equivalent to terrestial
><broadcasts (different frequencies) at distances of say 50 light years or so?
>
>YES or NO, depending upon which mode of NASA HRMS you are considering,
>and more importantly, what terrestrial signals you choose to include
>in your list of broadcast signals.
>
>Neither component is capable of detecting the leakage of our
>commercial broadcasts at interstellar distances. However, there have
>been highly beamed, strong signals emitted from the Earth which both
>components are capable of detecting. The strongest signal emitted from
>the Earth is the Arecibo planetary radar, EIRP = 10**13 W. The strongest
>commercial broadcasts eminate from UHF television stations, and have
>EIRP = 10**6 W to 10**7 W. The sky survey could detect Arecibo at
>approximately 50 ly, and the targeted search could do so at
>approximately 1000 ly.
>
>The strong military radars which have been used over the last decades
>to detect possible bomber attacks and ICBM attacks are another source
>of signals which HRMS could detect from nearby stars. Woody Sullivan
>published an interesting article some time back in Science which
>discussed this (Science, 199, pp377-388, 27 Jan 1978). Tarter and
>Billingham also gave a paper at the 40th congress if the International
>Astronautical Federation in 1989, whose publication reference escapes
>me at this moment. These radars have EIRP levels of approximately
>10**11 W. There is a torus around the north pole which has been
>illuminated thusly for a few decades. Any advanced civilization within
>20 ly within that torus would have been able to determine not only
>that our solar system is inhabited by intelligences using the
>electromagnetic spectrum, but would also have been able to determine
>the parameters of our planetary orbit and rotation, our sun's mass
>and infer the temperature of the earth.
>
\\\\\\\\\\\

Thanks for your reply. I hope NASA will keep the international
community of scientists and engineers, many of whom read Usenet,
informed of technical developments and findings. For example, as
a specialist in computer pattern recognition (image analysis) I'd
be interested to hear about algorithms which discriminate signals.

Considering your examples, as well probable compression and EC encoding
of communications (images, linguistic data), is HRMS restricted to 
detecting deep-space ranging signals, or perhaps synchronization signals?

[I suppose that inhabited planets would track all natural and artificial
objects of their solar systems, for which they might employ advanced
deep-space radar. For example, we will want to avoid being hit by large
meteors or asteriods here or elsewhere.]

D.H.



Newsgroups: sci.space
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Bootstrap hardware for LunaBase
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 00:02:46 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1992Oct10.231941.1467@techbook.com> szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) writes:
>>As Allen pointed out, there's more than enough money there
>>for commercial development of a dozen new launch systems.
>
>More than enough money _where_?  The SEI budget is in the $10's
>of millions.  Commercial funding for moon ventures is zero.  

Nick, that's not what we were talking about.  (If you wonder why I usually
ignore your postings, it's because any debate with you seems to be fraught
with these sudden changes of subject whenever you start losing.)  We were
talking about your bloated cost estimates for the projects you don't like.

Nobody will ever quote a hundred billion dollars to launch a moon base (or
whatever) at current launch prices, because a fraction of that amount of
money is enough to build much cheaper launchers.  At the very least, if you
want an *honest* comparison rather than transparently-biased salesmanure
for your own projects, you should discount today's launch prices by a
substantial factor (2 at least, more probably 5 or 10) for economies of
scale in bulk use of existing launchers.  Some sort of allowance for the
development of whole new launch systems would be more realistic, though.
For ten billion, we could fund three SSTO-sized projects at 100% overrun
as far as flight demonstrators, and almost certainly one of them would
work, destroying the entire basis for your cost estimates.

Any combination of irrationality and bloat capable of maintaining prices
despite such an enormous increase in volume would be potent enough to have
similar effects on your favorite projects 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
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk
Subject: Re: LunaOne: Beyond Boostrap
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Organization: [via International Space University]
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU
Distribution: sci
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 17:32:03 GMT

> How are you going to get the millions of tons of fab equipment to
> the moon?
> 


It's not millions of tons for IC production and probably never was.  
Grad students made simple IC's in the lab at the CMU EE department  
back in 1974. I once helped unload one of the few REALLY big pieces  
of equipment, an Ion Implantation Device. That did way a ton or two.  
But the rest of the lab put together would have gone up in a shuttle  
bay, clean room and all.

Production facilities need not be all that much more. And besides,  
the technologies have improved and the equipment is getting smaller.  
Although some of the really advanced stuff is getting pretty pricey.  
It might almost cost a few tenths of a percent of its launch cost :-)

The silicon refining is usually done one silicon bar at time in a  
zone refining furnace. Then you need to cut it into planchets with  
precision equipment. The masking and etching processes are no big  
deal; implantation and epitaxial growth do not require huge  
equipment; new Near Field Optic techniques will probably make the  
X-ray etching unnecessary for the next generation; testing and dicing  
is no particular problem. A hundred tons max for a minimal production  
line is my guess. You could do research quantity production on a few  
tens of tons.

All that said, I'm not sure I'd see much market for complex chips on  
the moon and I doubt they could compete (within the next 30 years)  
with Earth based technology as an export unless there was a big R&D  
base and the Lunies kept their own trade secrets. ie if they made a 4  
terrabyte Ram chip and no one else did. Not very likely for a  
colonial outpost.

It would make sense to make solar cells for local use locally. The  
processing for them is much simpler than for complex IC's.

Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro
From: hughes@jupiter.ral.rpi.edu (Declan Hughes)
Subject: Re: SETI positive?
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 00:06:05 GMT


 danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock) writes

>   I keep hearing rumors and there's this story in Newsweak (that our lackwit
>bookstore can't get til friday).  Allegedy we have a potential hit on a SETI
>search and a multi-telescope confimation is planned Oct 12-???
>  Any information?

  Sure, It is God on the way for the October 28th second coming,
 apparently even It cannot travel faster than the speed of light !

Declan
hughes@ral.rpi.edu
From: davidhe@ac.dal.ca
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Where can I find space files?
Date: 12 Oct 92 16:39:16 -0300
Organization: Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

This is probably a FAQ, but where can I find graphic files and other files 
concerning space? (e.g. animation files text files, etc) 

*****************************************************************************
Lucas Dambergs 
      AKA     
The Supreme Cow

Absence makes the heart grow fungus.    -- The Barenaked Ladies
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, North America, Sol III (Earth), Terran System
*****************************************************************************
From: m0102@tnc.UUCP (FRANK NEY)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: another sad anniversary
Date: 7 Oct 92 12:52:27 GMT
Reply-To: m0102@tnc.UUCP (FRANK NEY)
Organization: The Next Challenge, Fairfax, Va.


So how about landing a series of corner reflector arrays set to the
EME sub bands from 50Mhz to 20GHz or whatever?
 
Should take care of the scatter....

Frank Ney N4ZHG EMT-A  LPVa NRA ILA GOA CCRTKBA "M-O-U-S-E"
Commandant and Acting President, Northern Virginia Free Militia
Send e-mail for an application and more information
----------------------------------------------------------------
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Newsgroups: sci.space
From: marcus@illusion.chi.il.us (Marcus Hall)
Subject: Re: Switching ALSEP back on (was Re: another sad anniversary)
Reply-To: marcus@illusion.UUCP (Marcus Hall)
Organization: Magic Numbers Software, Bloomingdale, IL
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 19:37:27 GMT

In article <BvMqJ2.Dx@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <1689@tnc.UUCP> m0102@tnc.UUCP (FRANK NEY) writes:
>>Is there any way to turn ALSEP back on once we get the ground station
>>set up properly?  Or was it a no-return type of prodedure?
>
>Such turnoff procedures are usually irreversible, I believe, to minimize
>the chances of dying hardware later reversing them on its own.  I'm not
>sure about ALSEP in particular.

For what it's worth, on the Kennedy Space center tour, there is a display
with a flight qualified LEM and CM/SM.  The tour guide mentioned that the
landing sites had left instruments on the moon [undoubtedly ALSEP] that
had been switched off but could be switched back on whenever more data
was wanted.

Now, I wouldn't put a lot of faith in this statement, but they did seem to
know alot about what they were talking about on other things.  I only
mention it here for what it's worth...

marcus hall

Newsgroups: sci.space
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Transportation on the Moon.
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 02:42:59 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <rabjab.31.718664682@golem.ucsd.edu> rabjab@golem.ucsd.edu (Jeff Bytof) writes:
>My God, as far as we know the Moon's as dry as a bone, and we're talking
>about mining ice on it!  Even if there IS ice, how do we know there's
>going to be enough to support whatever operation is proposed?  

If you know there's no ice at the lunar poles, you are one up on the
entire lunar-science community.  It's distinctly possible; see any good
technical discussion of lunar resources.  Arguments have been advanced
both pro and con, but the general consensus is that nothing short of a
suitable remote-sensing mission will settle the question.  Why do you
think flying a gamma-ray spectrometer in low lunar orbit rates such a
high priority from almost everyone interested in lunar exploration?

(How would the ice get there?  It's vapor from comet impacts on the Moon,
frozen out in the bottoms of permanently-shadowed polar craters and then
buried by impact debris.  There are some ifs and maybes, but the basic
scenario is plausible.)

As for whether there's enough to support the kind of operation proposed,
he said quite explicitly that this was handed to them as an assumption,
not as something they were charged with investigating.

>My guess is that whatever ice there was at the Lunar poles has
>been blasted to Kingdom Come. 

Stop guessing and start reading some of the technical literature on the
subject.  Yes, there *are* people who claim that frozen cometary volatiles
wouldn't persist.  But not everyone who has studied the matter agrees.
-- 
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: Galileo's antenna (was Re: Gallileo's antenna)
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 15:50:32 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1992Oct16.143422.6294@eng.umd.edu> sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu writes:
>ASSUMING opening of the HGA, 
>Would it be useful to use the HGA in combination with some of the on-the-fly
>"improvements" to pump back more data? I'd think of the options listed above,
>the data compression technique might be able to provide more data...

I doubt that the onboard computers have the horsepower to do the data
compression at HGA speeds.  I could be wrong.
-- 
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: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: SPS
Date: 10 Oct 92 15:02:17 GMT
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <9210070441.AA10031@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov> roberts@CMR.NCSL.NIST.GOV (John Roberts) writes:
>
>- But how do you convert the laser light back into electricity?
>- Photovoltics? Does not sound very efficiant to me.
>
>I was referring to the following device (repost):
>...............
>
>ELECTROMAGNETICS: "Smallest Antennas Imitate Insect Communication"
>
>"Using tools developed for fabricating electronic integrated circuits, NIST
>scientists have produced microantennas the size of a grain of sand and only
>60 micrometers across (about the diameter of a human hair). At this tiny size,
>these "world's smallest" antennas can capture the extremely short (about 3 to
>30 micrometers) wavelengths of infrared radiation. Their development paves
>the way for novel infrared detectors that rely on antennas to "see" images
>of heat radiating from all warm objects such as people, animals, and buildings.
>Such detectors have many applications, including satellite observation of 
>Earth, astronomy, medicine, and national defense. There is evidence that 
>insects evolved microantennas, similar to the NIST devices, to enhance their
>infrared pickup, allow them to see in darkness, and give them a survival 
>advantage. The NIST work proves that such tiny insect structures can function
>efficiently for infrared wavelengths."
>...............
>
>Essentially, the infrared radiation is treated as *very* short wavelength
>microwaves. Perhaps the beam needs to be polarized for best results.
>The article didn't mention applicability for power reception - that such a
>detector might be useful for this is speculation on my part. 

While such a detector could approach 90% collection efficiency, the problem 
is in the power handling capacity of the tiny antennas and with the junction
capacitance of the rectifying diodes. A structure micrometers in size
can't carry much current. More importantly, we don't know how to fabricate
diodes with a small enough junction capacitance to be efficient rectifiers
at infrared frequencies. So, because of current carrying limits, the
beam intensity can't be high, probably not as high as normal sunlight,
and because of rectifier junction capacitance, the diodes won't be very
efficient, probably less than 1%. Great sensors, lousy power converters.

Gary
From: roberts@CMR.NCSL.NIST.GOV (John Roberts)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: All systems are what?
Date: 9 Oct 92 14:44:40 GMT
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology
	formerly National Bureau of Standards


-From: higgins@fnalo.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey)
-Subject: All systems are what? (was Re: Mars Observer Update #2 - 10/07/92)
-Date: 8 Oct 92 17:45:14 GMT
-Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

-In article <1992Oct7.234649.18675@news.arc.nasa.gov>, baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke) writes:
->
-> The updated spacecraft status, as reported by the Spacecraft Team, is
-> that all subsystems are "Go".

-Is this terminology really in use officially?  It sounds like a holdover
-from the days of Col. John "Shorty" Powers...  Ungrammatical.  One
-should say "all systems are Going," no?

-And what does it mean?  If a subsystem is not "Go,"  what else could
-it be?  I mean, what other values X might "All subsystems are X" have?

"No Go." I'm pretty sure that's the terminology they use when polling launch
team members for a Shuttle or unmanned booster. Unfortunately, I'm too lazy
to rummage through my video tape collection just to find that out. Maybe
next time I look at them or watch coverage of a new launch, I'll remember
to check for that.

According to Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, the term "go" in
this usage ("(adj.) functioning properly: being in good and ready condition
<declared all systems go>") dates from 1961.

Sure, it sounds a little strange, but it contains fewer syllables than
"spiffy" or "tubular" or "just peachy", and thus aids in more efficient 
systems polls.

I consider the communications protocol that has evolved to handle time-
and safety-critical operations such as launches to be a fascinating topic.
It isn't exactly English - think of it as being a highly stylized subset
of English, probably descended from military communications protocols.
(Tango, X-ray, Niner, etc.)

John Roberts              | OK: adj [abbr. of "oll korrect", alter. of "all
roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov | correct"] (1839): all right

Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.research,sci.physics,sci.med,sci.engr.chem,sci.chem,sci.astro
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Roswell
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 18:55:40 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <140532.2AD87F0D@paranet.FIDONET.ORG> Michael.Corbin@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Michael Corbin) writes:
>... Below is a reprint of an article which appeared in a "science" magazine
>about the crash recovery investigation being conducted by a retired Air
>Force Intelligence officer. Although there is *no* hard evidence that the
>vehicle recovered was an extraterrestrial spacecraft...

Come now.  If you're going to reprint stuff from Air&Space, have the decency
to at least summarize the whole article, rather than taking part of it out
of context.  Much the most interesting thing in that article was the
observation that a crash of a hush-hush *US* project could easily account
for the fuss and the secrecy... especially since the location was ideal for
such a thing to happen.  Roswell is in the middle of an area that includes
White Sands Missile Range, Los Alamos, and an airbase that then housed the
world's only operational nuclear-bomber force.

It's silly to invoke crashed UFOs when Earthly causes provide quite an
adequate explanation.
-- 
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