HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke)
Subject: Magellan Begins Gravity Mapping of Venus
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-4   
Keywords:  Magellan, JPL
Reply-To: baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1992 04:37:18 GMT

Michael Braukus
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.           September 15, 1992
(Phone:  202/358-1547)

Jim Doyle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
(Phone:  818/354-5011)

RELEASE:  92-148

NASA SPACECRAFT BEGINS GRAVITY MAPPING OF VENUS

    The Magellan spacecraft's orbit at its closest approach
to Venus was lowered Monday and today it began a full 243-
day cycle of gravity mapping, project officials at NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., said.

     Magellan has now completed three cycles of mapping
with its  radar, covering 99 percent of the surface of
Venus.  Monday, controllers ordered a 1-hour orbit
adjustment burn to lower its periapsis -- closest approach
to the planet -- altitude from 160 miles (258 kilometers)
to 113 miles (182 kilometers).

     "That will help us obtain the best possible resolution
in the equatorial latitude gravity map," Project Manager
Doug Griffith said.

     The objective of cycle 4, which extends to May 15,
1993, is to obtain a global map of the Venus gravity field
from the elliptical orbit.  The orbit apoapsis, or furthest
point from the planet, remains the same, 5,296 miles (8,543
kilometers).

     During this fourth cycle, variations in the
gravitational pull experienced by the spacecraft are being
recorded by carefully tracking the Doppler shift of a radio
signal that Magellan will constantly beam to the Deep Space
Network tracking stations.

     When Magellan passes over a dense region of Venus'
interior, for example, the spacecraft accelerates in its
orbit and the location of the denser region is mapped.

     Over the course of the 243-day cycle, one rotation of
Venus, variations in the planet's density will be mapped at
a resolution much higher than achieved by previous
missions.

     Looking at the interior with gravity observations is
expected to provide an improved understanding of the forces
of tectonics and volcanism that shape the planet.

     Magellan is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
for NASA's Office of Space Science and Applications,
Washington, D.C.
- end -
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | Quiet people aren't the
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | only ones who don't say
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     | much.
From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Terraforming
Date: 11 Sep 92 17:25:16 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Department University of Rochester

On the subject of contaminating Mars with life...

I understand the Europeans are pushing to relax the sterilization
requirements for Mars landers (they have a spacecraft planned that may
be cancelled if they have to sterilize it).  A study just came out
concluding that the only landers that have to be sterilized are those
doing exobiology experiments.  It concluded that contaminants from
other landers would not spread.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@cs.rochester.edu
From: slb@slced1.nswses.navy.mil (Shari L Brooks)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: stuck antennae
Summary: KICK IT!
Date: 11 Sep 92 23:57:18 GMT
Organization: Naval Satellite Operations Center, Point Mugu, CA, USA

In article <BuC37u.2nC@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) 
writes:

>  The antenna on Compton stuck too -- although
>in a somewhat different way -- and the shuttle crew went out and fixed it.

Ah, I remember that!  I was in Washington, D.C., at the time, watching CNN...
the main thing that struck me, is that good-ole American fix-it philosophy...
If there's something wrong with the thing, Kick It!  It works on TVs, it
should work on satellites!  

Maybe that's what we should do to Galileo....too bad we can't rendezvous with
it on its next flyby.

--
  Shari L Brooks                   |   slb%suned1.nswses.navy.mil@nosc.mil
  NAVSOC code NSOC323D             |   shari@caspar.nosc.mil
  NAWS Pt Mugu, CA 93042-5013      |   
--> All statements/opinions above are mine and mine only, not the US Navy's.
From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Space markets
Date: 4 Sep 92 16:54:53 GMT
Article-I.D.: techbook.1992Sep4.165453.2505
Organization: TECHbooks --- Public Access UNIX --- (503) 220-0636

In article <1992Aug26.175857.5940@eng.umd.edu> sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu writes:
>
>Fine. Come up with PRIVATE money, not public funds to build and launch the
>station. According to you and Mr. Szabo, it's a goldmine of opportunites out
>there. 

There is a goldmine of opportunity up there, but it's not coming from space 
stations.  It's coming from commercial satellites, primarily in the
communications business.  The U.S. commercial space sector is growing at 
the phenomenal rate of 20%/year during a recession, according to U.S. 
Dept. of Commerce figures. 

The market for mobile communications, including establishment of good
telephone service in the 4/5 of the world that doesn't now have it,
and direct broadcast is potentially in the high $10's of billions per
year.  This is much higher than NASA's budget, and in the private sector.
The main drivers in this biz are launch cost and reliability -- a factor
of two improvement in each could make a tremendous difference -- and
communications tech like compression and circuit design.  

There might be a small market for automated space manufacturing
platforms, a la COMET and Fairchild Leasecraft, but NASA and SSF
have distorted that market beyond recognition.  In the next century,
there is vast potential for manufacturing from materials native
to space, but again NASA is ignoring that potential in favor of
the obsolete vision of astronaut-driven space development.

There is no need for tiny-market HLVs; commerce can share launchers with the 
military and civilian space agencies.  The civilian agencies should be 
following the lead of military and commerce, instead of living in their 
own world building space stations, then building HLVs to support them, 
none of it relevent to the commercial market.


-- 
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: QUERY Re: Pluto Direct/ options
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 21:04:15 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <716176102.F00002@blkcat.UUCP> Shawn.McCarthy@p902.f349.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Shawn McCarthy) writes:
>Has the possibility of a light-sail been looked into? use it for accelleration
>from the 'bright' area near the earth, then brake off Jupiter's light...

Nothing in the solar system except the Sun emits/reflects enough light to
be useful for a lightsail.

Besides, braking at Jupiter doesn't do you any *good*.  The outer solar
system is *enormous*, far larger than the inner solar system.  Jupiter's
distance is only a small fraction of the distance to Pluto.
-- 
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: Bioeffects of magnetic field deprivation
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 20:39:20 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <rabjab.97.0@golem.ucsd.edu> rabjab@golem.ucsd.edu (Jeff Bytof) writes:
>... I've been looking into some rather astounding 
>results offered by experimenters working in the area of the bioeffects
>of magnetic field deprivation.  In view of the relevance to
>manned lunar and interplanetary exploration and biological research...

I'm not terribly impressed.  For one thing, it's really easy to figure
out ways to run much better experiments, avoiding problems like possible
chemical toxicity (e.g., house all animals in aluminum cylinders, and
put mu-metal casings around the *outside* of some of them).  For another,
if it does turn out to be an issue, simulating Earth's field should not
be a big problem -- it's pretty feeble.
-- 
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: sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu (Doug Mohney)
Subject: Re: Nasa's Apollo rerun vs. Zubrin...
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 92 16:32:51 GMT
Organization: Computer Aided Design Lab, U. of Maryland College Park
Distribution: sci
Reply-To: sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu

In article <BuJKB5.E7v.1@cs.cmu.edu>, pgf@srl02.cacs.usl.edu ("Phil G. Fraering") writes:
>
>Nick, don't you think it's funny that they think they need a rocket
>1.5 times the size of the Saturn 5 to return to the moon?

>These guys couldn't even return to the moon if you gave them a
>full-size, fully operational moon rocket. They'd complain about
>how it was too small for the job.

They're also putting a LOT more mass up there too. Four people, lots of
instruments, groceries for 15-30-45 days. Pilot projects. We're talking serious
camping and roaming around. 

If you want to do serious exploration, you have to bring something more than
duct tape, a screwdriver, and a copy of "The moon on $5 a day" by Shezer &
Szabo.

                 Play in the intelluctual sandbox of Usenet 

  -- >                  SYSMGR@CADLAB.ENG.UMD.EDU                        < --
From: higgins@fnala.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Ley and *Engineers' Dreams* (was Re: Terraforming needs to begin now)
Date: 15 Sep 92 07:00:51 GMT
Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

Is this thread getting away from space?  Is there a civil engineering
newsgroup?

In article <BuF5J6.50L@watdragon.uwaterloo.ca>,
jdnicoll@watyew.uwaterloo.ca (James Davis Nicoll) writes:
> In article <JGJ.92Sep9190252@rcx1.ssd.csd.harris.com> jgj@ssd.csd.harris.com (Jeff Jackson) writes:
> 
> 	On terraforming  the  unpleasant bits of Earth:
>>I'm envisioning long salt-water canals running from the Med. Sea, or
>>Oceans running hundreds of miles inland.  
> 
> 	I  think  the French have looked at digging a channel from  the
> Med to the depression between Libya and Egypt (Nuclear demo charges 
> could do this quickly, but  I think they intended on using more mundane
> tools). 

See Willy Ley's 1954 book *Engineers' Dreams*, a tome to make any good
Nineties environmentalist shudder.  Ley, of course, was the great
correspondent and historian of early rocketry, which provides a slim
connection to this newsgroup, but his principal career was pop-science
author.  His strengths were spaceflight, astronomy, and paleontology,
but this book was a foray into the Big Ideas of civil engineering--
what Frank Davidson later called "macroengineering." 

Did you know that the Mediterranean loses more water to evaporation
than is replaced by the rivers flowing into it?  The difference is
made up from Atlantic waters.  Dam the Straits of Gibraltar and the
Med will gradually shrink, revealing new farmland all around its
shores.  

Swell book, but hardly p.c. these days!  Since it deals with
engineering projects on a sub-continent scale, it might be worth
study by young terraformers before they tackle those planet-sized
jobs.  Jim Oberg's *New Earths* is of course obligatory, and Frank
Davidson's *Macro* might be of interest too.

     O~~*           /_) ' / /   /_/ '  ,   ,  ' ,_  _           \|/
   - ~ -~~~~~~~~~~~/_) / / /   / / / (_) (_) / / / _\~~~~~~~~~~~zap!
 /       \                          (_) (_)                    / | \
 |       |     Bill Higgins   Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
 \       /     Bitnet:     HIGGINS@FNAL.BITNET
   -   -       Internet:  HIGGINS@FNAL.FNAL.GOV
     ~         SPAN/Hepnet:      43011::HIGGINS 
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo)
Subject: Re: Is NASA really planning to Terraform Mars?
Organization: TECHbooks --- Public Access UNIX --- (503) 220-0636
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 15:05:40 GMT

In article <jvrnh5#.tomk@netcom.com> tomk@netcom.com (Thomas H. Kunich) writes:

>Without references it is difficult to remember, but isn't there
>water, water vapor and possible liquid water along the interface of
>the Martian north pole? 

There is water ice (as well as CO2 ice) at the north pole, and ice
clouds and water frost in many parts of the planet.  There is no known
liquid water; the temperature and pressure are both too low.


-- 
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: sheppamj@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Matthew Sheppard)
Subject: THANKS on shuttle traking program
Organization: Clarkson University
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 22:23:35 GMT

Thanks for all the responses on the shuttle traking program.

I found it at ames.arc.nasa.gov , and it was called stsorbit.arc.

Thanks again.

--
| Matthew Sheppard  CLARKSON UNIVERSITY  sheppamj@sun.soe.clarkson.edu |
| I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.ANoN |
| I don't want a pickle. DoD#477 TEP#477 RIDE FREE (8^]..etcetera..    |
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: pgf@srl02.cacs.usl.edu (Phil G. Fraering)
Subject: Re: RL-10
Organization: Univ. of Southwestern Louisiana
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 17:15:16 GMT

roberts@CMR.NCSL.NIST.GOV (John Roberts) writes:


>-From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
>-Subject: Re: 3 booster questions
>-Date: 10 Sep 92 15:59:12 GMT

>->[2].Atlas still goes *boom* a lot?  Is this inherent to the design of having
>->two of the engines fall off and the difficulty in shutting off the fuel flow
>->to these engines?

>-Neither.  The recent failures have been Centaur problems.  They're a bit
>-surprising, since the RL10 has been a very reliable engine.

>RL-10 failures? What does that do to Allen's statistics for the reliability
>of the engine to be used for DCX?

>John Roberts
>roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov

They may be _electronics_ failures of some sort. I don't think
we've gotten enough parts back to find out for sure.

If they ever actually used the shuttle for retrieval like all
the people here talk about how they need to spend 5 billion a
year to the end of time on the shuttle for payload retrieval,
we'd know what the problem was.

--
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?"/
From: Alan_Barclay@mindlink.bc.ca (Alan Barclay)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Is NASA really planning to Terraform Mars?
Date: 7 Sep 92 04:46:18 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Distribution: world

barry@chezmoto.ai.mit.edu (Barry Kort) writes:
>A colleague of mine, who claims to be knowledgeable in such matters
>tells me:
>        A fairly large team <at NASA>, is planning the terraforming
>        of Mars, which involves destroying the planet as we know it.
>        Mars will be rasied 20 degrees C.  And with minimal study of
>        that planet it becomes clear what chain of events will occur.
>        After this chain Mars will be 'polluted' with earth-based
>        micro-organisms and rugged plant life.
>Can anyone confirm, deny, or refute the above, or otherwise
>elaborate on NASA's plans with respect to Mars?

The answer, I suspect, is no.  This rumour probably started from an
incomplete reading of an article that appeared in _Discover_
September 1992, vol 13, Number 9, pages 70-75 called "Mars in Earth's
Image"

The article begins by describing how poor the prospect of funding even
a manned visit to mars is. Then discusses a recent paper called:

"Making Mars Habitable." Christopher McKay, Owen Toon, and James Kasting
_Nature_, August 8, 1991.

Discover says McKay and Toon are from NASA's Ames Research Center.

Discover outlines the project: using chlorofluorocarbons released from Mar's
soil to boost the greenhouse effect, bioengineering plants to release
oxygen from CO2 at an accellerated rate.  They figure it might only take a
thousand years or so.  Discover never portrays the project as more than a
what-if.  I doubt McKay et al did either.

The terraforming of Mars will probably not become an environmental issue
for another century or two, when some group actually has the resources to
consider doing it.  Maybe you want to start a UN lobby for ethical use
of extra-terristrial resources (I'm not being sarcastic, I have a
suspicion there already is such a body.)

This is the value of speculative research.



Alan



Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,talk.politics.space,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton
From: dgary@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (D Gary Grady)
Subject: Re: Clinton and Space Funding
Organization: Datalytics, Inc.
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 23:00:19 GMT

In article <1992Sep13.222223.24418@usl.edu> pssres12@ucs.usl.edu (Vignes Gerard M) writes:
>	Clinton is a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat
>	---a liberal and a populist---and he's not about
>	to favor technology and investment
>	over traditional social goals.

All it takes is a little familiarity with Clinton's strongly
pro-business, pro-investment record as governor to see that this is
utter nonsense.  You've been paying too much attention to George Bush's
speechwriters and not enough to observable reality.

It doesn't surprise me that the Republican Party propagates this sort
of disinformation, but it does surprise me that otherwise intelligent
people take it seriously without checking it out.
-- 
D Gary Grady
(919) 286-4296
dgary@ecsvax.uncecs.edu
From: pgf@srl07.cacs.usl.edu (Phil G. Fraering)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Pluto Direct Propulsion Options
Date: 11 Sep 92 15:50:19 GMT
Distribution: sci
Organization: Univ. of Southwestern Louisiana

baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke) writes:

>In article <BuDKLJ.KKw.1@cs.cmu.edu>, pgf@srl03.cacs.usl.edu ("Phil G. Fraering") writes...
>>Henry Spencer, net.authority, pontificates:
>>/You really cannot do a Pluto
>>\orbiter in a reasonable amount of time with 1960s propulsion technology,
>>/which is what all currently-planned missions use.

>>Just out of curiosity, is there a way to convince them to use post-early-
>>1960's technology, like an ion drive of some sort?

>JPL is currently studying the stationary plasma thrusters that the
>Department of Defense recently obtained from the Soviets.  These plasma
>thrusters perform better than ion thrusters and are in a small package about
>10 times smaller, and they weigh only 4 kg.  The plan is to build scaled-up 
>versions of the Soviet thrusters that would provide the primary propulsion for
>spacecraft for transfer to geosynchronous orbit.   
>     ___    _____     ___
>    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     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.
>|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     | 

1. Where can I get more info on these beasties?

(BTW, how much better are they than our MPD stuff? If their
advantage only that they haven't been afraid to actually
run tests? )

(For those who don't know, Ron seems to be comparing them to ion
drives, which have a lot more volume and mass than plasma arcjets of
_any_ sort, for a lot of reasons. It would be more appropriate
to compare their MPD stuff to our MPD stuff...


--
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: taylors@hubcap.clemson.edu (C. Taylor Sutherland III)
Subject: Re: new name for NASA?
Keywords: NASA
Organization: Clemson University
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 03:11:23 GMT


New name for NASA:

WAFS

We Ain't Found Shit!

copied without permission from SpaceBalls:  The Movie.

No, no.  I got it.

SBSA

SpaceBalls:  the Space Administration.

Oh shit.  There goes the planet.


-- 
	We're not hitchhiking anymore.  We're riding!
		-the immor(t)al Ren & Stimpy
The Fly Boy  <| E-MAIL:  taylors@hubcap.clemson.edu |>
+--<| My life is a math question with one equation and 42 unknowns. |>--+
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: phfrom@nyx.uni-konstanz.de (Hartmut Frommert)
Subject: Re: Relativity
Organization: Dept. of Physics, University of Constance
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 11:39:01 GMT

Shawn.McCarthy@p902.f349.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Shawn McCarthy) writes:

>Ok.. you look like you know what ur talking about (considerably more than i do
>anyway.. :>  ) got a question: what if that train is moving just 5mph slower
>than c (as measured from the station) and i run forwards at 6mph? According to
>the train, i am moving at 6mph.. what does the station see? (or move a flag
>foreward at that speed on the outside, so they can see it) ... when the object
>(me or the flag) moves past c according to the station, what happens? or is that
>a case of the train being shorter (from the station) so the speed really ISN'T
>faster than c..?

given:
  station velocity relative to observer:     v_1
  your velocity relative to station:         v_2
-->
  your velocity relative to observer:
         v = (v_1 + v_2) / [1 + (v_1*v_2 / c^2)]
i.e.
  v = (c+1 mph) / (1+6 mph/c-30 (mph/c)^2) = c - 4.99999968 mph

which is clearly *slower* than c.
--
 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 --
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: SPS
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 22:38:30 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <BuDoKx.qA.1@cs.cmu.edu> amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk writes:
>> Actually, you don't have to fool around with aluminum-oxygen (which  
>is
>> a hassle as a rocket fuel, because both the aluminum and the  
>aluminum
>> oxide are solids, where you'd really like liquid and gas  
>respectively).
>
>The fuel consists of, roughly speaking, tightly wrapped aluminum  
>foil. The oxidizer is water that is introduced to a lithium igniter...

For launching from the lunar surface, though, this is not what we want.
The aluminum-water rocket needs *hydrogen*, which is scarce on the Moon.
The whole attraction of the aluminum-oxygen rocket is that it uses only
elements which we know are abundant on the lunar surface.  (The existence
of frozen volatiles at the poles is uncertain and controversial.)  If we
have hydrogen, an LH2-LOX rocket works fine.
-- 
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