HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: higgins@fnala.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: HGA Again (was Re: Galileo's Atmospheric Probe Passes Health Checks)
Date: 17 Dec 92 11:05:51 -0600
Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
NNTP-Posting-Host: fnala.fnal.gov

In article <1992Dec17.001338.17602@cc.umontreal.ca>, dignard@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Michel Dignard) writes:
> I missed SCI.SPACE.NEWS for a few weeks in November.
> 
> I notice that no mention is made anymore of the Galileo High Gain Antenna
> problem in the recent posts nor in the health report.
> 
> Does this means that the HGA has finally deployed, or the efforts have been
> abandonned?

As newscaster Chevy Chase used to say:

"This just in from Madrid.  According to doctors attending 
Generalissimo Francisco Franco,  the former head of state 
is valiantly hanging on in his fight to remain dead."

No, it hasn't opened yet.

Starting next week and continuing through 19 January, the thermal
cycling which expands and shrinks the antenna mast will be combined
with "hammering" of the drive motor that opens the antenna.  The motor
will turn on, turn the mechanism a little bit, then sense a stall and
shut itself off.  This will be repeated perhaps a couple of thousand
times and can double the stress on the jammed ribs.  It is the best
hope to get the HGA open, especially since Galileo is now nearer the
Sun than it will ever be again (or has been in a couple of years),
hence the temperature extremes it can experience are at a maximum this
month.

If they don't get it open by January, I'm sure JPL will continue work
on the problem, but they have not announced definite plans for this.

[Thanks, and a tip o'the hat to Phil Fraering for a more accurate
*SNL* quote.  Yes, I intend to keep using this joke as long as people
keep asking the HGA question.  Fight tedium with tedium.]

Bill Higgins, Beam Jockey              | "Enough marshmallows
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory  | will kill you 
Bitnet:           HIGGINS@FNAL.BITNET  | if properly placed."
Internet:       HIGGINS@FNAL.FNAL.GOV  | --John Alexander, leader of
SPAN/Hepnet:           43011::HIGGINS  | "disabling technologies"
 [*Aviation Week*, 7 Dec 1992, p. 50]  | research, Los Alamos
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov (John Roberts)
Subject: Re: Galileo
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology formerly National Bureau of Standards
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU
Distribution: sci
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 03:44:17 GMT


-From: rkornilo@nyx.cs.du.edu (Ryan Korniloff)
-Subject: Re: Relay to Follow Galileo?
-Date: 14 Dec 92 03:49:18 GMT
-Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.

-Well why did the HGA have to be cloed up in the first place? If it is too
-big, then couldn't they have used a more powerful transmitter? I would
-have rather tried to avoid such a chance for failure. If thay don't get
-that HGA open then %30-%40 of the mission objectives will be lost. Or is
-the radio frequncy have something to do with he size of the HGA???

The *reason* the HGA was not opened while the Shuttle was there with
astronauts who could poke at it if necessary (aside from possible concerns
over stress from the initial boost) was that Galileo had to pass closer
to the sun than Earth's orbit, and the HGA in open configuration was not
rated for the expected thermal conditions that close to the sun. (Too bad -
if they'd tried to deploy even after initial boost, the high temperatures
near Venus orbit might have helped in opening the antenna.)

(Actually, I had worried about the antenna opening before the problem showed
up, but I didn't foresee the mechanism that's currently proposed as the
most likely.)

John Roberts
roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov

Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro.alt.sci.planetary
From: dong@oakhill.sps.mot.com (Don M. Gibson)
Subject: Re: Relay to Follow Galileo?
Reply-To: dong@oakhill.sps.mot.com
Organization: Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 19:43:23 GMT

In article M22079@mwvm.mitre.org, M22079@mwvm.mitre.org () writes:
>In article <n1201t@ofa123.fidonet.org>
>David.Anderman@ofa123.fidonet.org writes:
> 
>>
>>No matter which way you cut it, a TDRS is too heavy to be launched to Jupiter
>>orbit from the shuttle (remember it needs to carry fuel for Jupiter orbit
>>insertion, as well).
>>
>>One of the problems with the space activist commnity is that we tend to make
>>half-a**ed designs here on the net, instead of what we should be doing:
>>creating an environment where things simply don't go wrong in the first place.
>>That's what TQM is all about.
>>
>>--- Maximus 2.00
> 
>     I would like to see the math that shows that TDRS could not be sent to
>Jupiter, remember that a TDRS has relatively large fuel tanks, in addition to
>fuel in the IUS.
>     I believe the redesign of TDRS-F looked very complicated and was thought
>very risky.  I was not consulted and did not look into it.  The link budget
> would need to be quite a bit different than the situations for which TDRS
>was designed.
> 

as long as were at the exercise of retro-fitting a TDRS for GLL-Relay,
please post the TDRS specs for:
    wet mass:
    dry mass:
    power source:
    attitude control sensors:
    attitude controllers:
    thermal controllers:
    radiation hardness:
    antenna articulation capabilities:

thanx


Newsgroups: sci.space
From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Subject: Re: Terminal Velocity of DCX? (was Re: Shuttle ...)
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 10:23:03 GMT

In article <1992Dec16.150751.25227@iti.org> aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) writes:
>In article <1992Dec16.102412.27942@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:
>>>Also note that the cost of one Shuttle flight is about the same
>>>as the entire DC development program.
>>One Shuttle flight is a bit less than half the projected cost of DCX
>>development to flight test.
>DC-X from concept to end of flight tests costs $60 million. A Shuttle
>flight costs $550 million. 
>If you took the cost of a single Shuttle flight, put it in a good
>mutual fund for a year, you would make enough money to pay for the
>entire DC-X and then use the principle to buy the Shuttle flight.

Ok, I remembered you posting a projected SDIO budget figure of $1.2 billion.
So that's not for DCX, but through DCY. According to Wales, the Shuttle
proved in 1985 that it could fly for $170 million with 9 flights a year.
Lower flight rates mean higher per flight costs due to the high fixed
cost, but $550 million would equate to four flights a year. Shuttle is
doing better than that.

Gary
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: strider@clotho.acm.rpi.edu (Greg Moore)
Subject: Re: Terminal Velocity of DCX? (was Re: Shuttle ...)
Organization: The Voice of Fate
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 04:58:59 GMT

In article <1gvkjlINN7c@mirror.digex.com> prb@access.digex.com (Pat) writes:
>In article <7gm27s@rpi.edu> strider@clotho.acm.rpi.edu (Greg Moore) writes:
>>
>>	Given a figure of $500 Million a flight, useful work can be:
>>10 hours/day * 6 astronauts * 5 days = 300 hours.  Divide this into the
>>above number nd you get $1.6 Million.  If this is a EDO flight of 10
>>days, your on-orbit costs drop in half.  So, I'd assume that 
>>
>
>
>I think your number is a tad optimistic.  I think the shuttle suits
>are only good for 4-5 Hours, before a recharge is done.  
>Also While you have a crew of 7,  at least two would stay in board.
>The pilot and the Arm operator (He may need an assistant).
>Henry is the roving expert on this.  so I get.
>(oops,  also i guy stays suited up in the airlock  as an emergency helper.
>8 hours/day (2 suit sorties) * 4 astronauts * 5 days = 152 hrs.
>Less if you need another guy on the flight or middeck.
>so i ball park it in at 3.5 million/hour.  not counting additional
>depreciation on the suits.  
>
>I would imagine the CIS is still making a killing at 5 million/hour.
>

	When I posted the above, I was assuming on-orbit time in 
general.  It was only after I wrote that did someone point out that
the original reference was to Soviet EVA time, not plain old
on-orbit time.

	I would pick a few nits with your numbers though.
7 hours of work appears to be max.  That was about what they did on
the IntelSat Rescue.  The airlock will hold 3 suited astronauts, and
this is a tight fit.  So this means to get 4 our at a time, you'd have to
recycle the lock twice.  That gets tough on air supplies.
	BUT, I think the point is kinda moot.  So far a lot of the
work taht people want done, is in a pressurized environment:Spacelab,
SpaceHad, mid-deck experiments, etc.  The need for EVA time is much lower.
From: kentm@aix.rpi.edu (Michael V. Kent)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Chicken Guns (was Re: "trivial engineering")
Date: 15 Dec 92 19:50:40 GMT
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY

In article <1992Dec15.170452.21490@aio.jsc.nasa.gov> hack@arabia.uucp (Edmund Hack) writes:

>A former co-worker of mine worked at Pratt & Whitney on the F-100 (?)
>engine program in data acquisition for the test programs.  He said they
>all looked forward to the visit of the Air Force Chicken Cannon with
>both anticipation and dread.  Dead, fully feathered chickens are
>procured and shot into the front at high speed.  He said the noise and
>smell were quite remarkable.

Reminds me of a story I heard circulating MCAIR a few years ago.  They were
performing bird ingestion tests on (I think) the F-15 Eagle.  The engineers
and the technicians got to work and began to set up the test fixture and air
gun.  By the time they were finished, it was about noon, so they decided to hit
the local eatery before performing the tests.  So they get back from lunch,
throw a few remaining switches, and start the test.

"OK Joe -- press the button."

Thwoomp       MEEEOOOOOWWW       <indescribable sound>

Well, at least they know the F-15 can survive feline ingestion.  :)

Mike

You know, ASCII just doesn't do this story justice.

-- 
Michael Kent                                   kentm@rpi.edu
Flight Test Engineer                           Tute-Screwed Aero '92
McDonnell Douglas                              Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
These views are solely those of the author.    Apple II Forever !!
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer)
Subject: Re: Terminal Velocity of DCX? (was Re: Shuttle ...)
Organization: Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 13:42:24 GMT

In article <71695@cup.portal.com> BrianT@cup.portal.com (Brian Stuart Thorn) writes:

>>Not quite. It wold take about 1.5 years of Shuttle funding to develop DC. Now

>Assuming everything works right, Allen.

No, if everything works right then it would take about .8 years of Shuttle
funding to build DC-1. 

>In the history of spaceflight, that has seldom been the case.

True, but that has far more to do with the design process we use for
spacecraft. Shuttle is the most complex vehicle ever built according
to NASA PR (I have no idea just why NASA thinks that is worth boasting
about). There is no reason to think that building for simplicity won't
work. That is why everybody who has studied the problem believes that
a SSTO can be built either now or in the near future. Even NASA internal
assessments say it can be done.

  Allen

-- 
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves        |
|  aws@iti.org     |  nothing undone"                                       |
+----------------------130 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+
Xref: sparky sci.space:17616 sci.astro:13156 alt.sci.planetary:414
From: mccreary@sword.eng.hou.compaq.com (Ed McCreary)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary
Subject: Re: Visual inspection of Galileo?
Keywords: Galileo, JPL
Date: 7 Dec 92 15:02:14 GMT
Organization: Compaq Computer Corp.

In article <1992Dec6.220832.23849@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> blaak@csri.toronto.edu (Raymond Blaak) writes:
>Is there any way to actually get a look at Galileo as it whips by Earth?
>Maybe if a few hi-res pictures of it can be taken, we could actually SEE what
>is wrong with its antenna.

Probably not, it's moving *extremely* fast.  Also, we know exactly
what's wrong with the antenna, just not exactly how to fix it.

From what I understand, the folks at JPL plan to take another stab at
freeing the stuck ribs after the Earth encounter.  Then the spacecraft
will be warmer than it's been since the near Sun encounter.  Hopefully
that will affect the antenna enough for the motors to work.


--
Ed McCreary                                               ,__o
mccreary@sword.eng.hou.compaq.com                       _-\_<,
"If it were not for laughter, there would be no Tao."  (*)/'(*)
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: strider@clotho.acm.rpi.edu (Greg Moore)
Subject: Re: DC vs Shuttle capabilities
Organization: The Voice of Fate
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 22:52:41 GMT

In article <ewright.724705324@convex.convex.com> ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes:
>In <pgm2hxr@rpi.edu> strider@clotho.acm.rpi.edu (Greg Moore) writes:
>
>>	Gee, thanks for the snide answer.  Now, my original point was
>>on rendezvous and repair.  So, now we have to get 3 objects in close
>>proximity to each other.  You've just made the problem at least 50%
>>tougher.  And now you have to transfer between craft.  More 
>>difficuly.
>
>Last time I flew back into DFW, I saw more than three planes on
>the ground, in close proximity to one another.  I saw people and
>baggage being transferred between flights.   Looks do-able.
>
	Umm, so?  Tell me, did you see 3 aircraft landing at the same
time, or flying in formation?  Did you see baggage transferred between
them while in flight?  I'm not talking about on the ground, I'm talking
about in space.  If you recall, my original comment was about in-flight
satellite repair.

>
>>>That's what tankers are for.
>
>>	Again, another craft.
>
>I saw a *lot* of airplanes at DFW.
>
	Ayup.  And the US Air Force is the ONLY one that regularly does
inflight air-refueling.  I haven't seen Delta or Virgin Atlantic do it.
Remember, again, we are talking about in-orbit, not on the ground.

>
>>	Hint, they are flying.  You are talking about a paper=airplane
>>and saying it will do all this and more.  I'm saying, build it, fly it,
>>and see what happens.
>
>I thought that was what we were doing.
>
	No, some people are telling me, DC-1 will do this, do that, and
hey, we can add this, we can add that... it's all going to be easy.
I'ms aying, "sounds good, but prove it."

>
>>	Right, that works fine once you've built your power-plant
>>on the moon.  I'm talking at first.  It seems to me that someone
>>here is forgetting the middle step of testing and flying the thing.
>
>See above.
>
	IBID.

>There's a difference between "testing and flying the thing"
>and standing on the sidelines hurling spitballs.
>
	And there's a difference between making snide comments, and
trying to temper enthusiasm with reality.
From: wats@scicom.AlphaCDC.COM (Bruce Watson)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Air Force One
Date: 15 Dec 92 19:32:34 GMT
Distribution: sci
Organization: Alpha Science Computer Network, Denver, Co.

In article <92350.084452TNEDDERH@ESOC.BITNET| TNEDDERH@ESOC.BITNET writes:
|When I understood right the guy in Tucson at the air museum any aircraft of
|the air force where the president is still flying is called Air Force One.
|So there might not be only one B707 and one or two B747's, but still more.
|So even a fighter can wear this name. Correct me if I'm wrong.

You are right. Air Force One is not an aircraft but a flight number
(or more likely a mission number) but it must be an Air Force plane.
The president's helicopter flights are called Marine One.

-- 
Bruce Watson (wats@scicom) Bulletin 629-49 Item 6700 Extract 75,131
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: pgf@.cacs.usl.edu.cacs.usl.edu ("Phil G. Fraering")
Subject: DC-X cost figures (was : Terminal Velocity of DCX?)
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Organization: [via International Space University]
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU
Distribution: sci
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 16:10:07 GMT


>Also note that the cost of one Shuttle flight is about the same
>as the entire DC development program.

\I believe that's the cost of the DC-X development, which will not
/be manned, or achieve spaceflight.

Believe what you want, but DC-X has a budget (the last I
heard) of about $ 50 million dollars. Or 10 % the cost
(yup, 1/10th!) of a shuttle flight.

Remember, people developed the SR-71/A-12 out of much more intractable
materials than the composites being used for DC-X, with their main
design tools being pen and ink and slide rules, for a cost less than
that of launching the shuttle once.

Sooner or later someone is bound to try to use CAD/CAM and sophisticated
materials to lower costs instead of to increace them.


\   Also, if Shuttle, which is hung from the SIDE of a giant cryogenic
/   fuels tank, cannot meet safety requirements, how will DC-1, in which
\   the crew will ride sandwiched between two cryo tanks?

Actually, the way the Shuttle has the cryogenic tank hanging off to
one side is much more dangerous than DC-X, where the tanks are actually
integrated into the structure.

\   I also wonder how much safety provisions could be built for a
/   passenger module located in this area. I'm not saying Shuttle is
\   safer or more dangerous, just that both have considerable safety
/   problems to overcome, and trumpeting about DC passenger accomodations
\   is definitely premature.
/    -Brian
   
If one costs 1/10 as much to fly as the other, it could actually be
more dangerous and still pay off... the flight insurance will just
be a _little_ more expensive, that's all.

Besides, what was it that Mary Shafer said a while back?
-- 
Phil Fraering
"...drag them, kicking and screaming, into the Century of the Fruitbat."
<<- Terry Pratchett, _Reaper Man_
PGP key available if and when I ever get around to compiling PGP...
From: steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Aurora
Date: 18 Dec 92 16:19:18
Organization: Lick Observatory/UCO
	<STEINLY.92Dec16152132@topaz.ucsc.edu> <BzGHpy.BEL@brunel.ac.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: topaz.ucsc.edu
In-reply-to: mt90dac@brunel.ac.uk's message of 18 Dec 92 13:05:56 GMT

In article <BzGHpy.BEL@brunel.ac.uk> mt90dac@brunel.ac.uk (Del Cotter) writes:


   In article <STEINLY.92Dec16152132@topaz.ucsc.edu> Steinn Sigurdsson writes:
   >In article <BzCzo5.76z.1@cs.cmu.edu> nickh@CS.CMU.EDU (Nick Haines) writes:
   >
   >   Assuming that it's launching from the continental USA. Seems much more
   >   likely to me (given the sightings over the Netherlands as well) that
   >   one of the long-runway US bases in the UK or Germany is `home' to an
   >   Aurora.
   >
   >Nah, not isolated enough, rumour seems to be that the forward
   >base is a US NATO base in Scotland. 

   Yes, Scotland's still in the UK at time of writing...

But I can pretend can't I... ;-)

   (What's a US NATO base?)

Ouch, humiliation, I'll be banned from soc.culture.british,
- if it's any excuse I have vague memory of reading the original
post as "bases in the Netherlands or Germany"...

There is no such thing as a US NATO base, they are all RAF bases
I gather, but in practise some are all US (except maybe for an RAF
liasion) and nominally assigned as such through NATO rather than
a bilateral agreement...

|  Steinn Sigurdsson	|I saw two shooting stars last night		|
|  Lick Observatory	|I wished on them but they were only satellites	|
| steinly@lick.ucsc.edu |Is it wrong to wish on space hardware?		|
| "standard disclaimer"	|I wish, I wish, I wish you'd care - B.B. 1983	|

Newsgroups: sci.space
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Galileo probe imaging, lack thereof
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 22:26:03 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

I wrote:
>There is an imaging system of some sort on Huygens...
>(My personal opinion is that the omission of this on Galileo's probe was
>a mistake, although admittedly it would have taken a major redesign
>because the probe's data rate is too low for imaging.)

Actually, I'm told that there was a proposal to put an imager on the probe.
It *was* hampered by the low data rate; even with modest resolution and
heavy data compression (not easy with mid-1970s electronics!), only a small
number of images could be sent in the limited time available.  It lost
out in the instrument selection because the resulting science return was
thought to be too limited.
-- 
"God willing... we shall return."       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
       -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright)
Subject: Re: what the little bird told Henry
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 17:56:29 GMT
Organization: Engineering, CONVEX Computer Corp., Richardson, Tx., USA
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 <1992Dec10.192026.16340@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman) writes:

>They're also heavy as I recall, something you don't need in a SSTO.
>I appreciated the summary you gave earlier, Henry. It looks like they
>have a better test program planned than what has been outlined here
>before. I still think their schedule is extremely optimistic and
>success oriented, but we'll see.

I'd be curious to know the exact date, sometime in the last 20 years,
when "success oriented" became a pejorative phrase.  Yeah, the project
is success oriented.  Just like Project Apollo.  The alternative, I
guess, is for a project to be "failure oriented."  I like success better.
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Micro-g in KC-135
From: stick@lopez.marquette.MI.US (Stick,CommoSigop)
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 17:19:31 EST
Organization: Great White North/UPLink

In <Bz7v1M.6DC@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:

>In article <1gfti1INNaqj@rave.larc.nasa.gov> claudio@nmsb.larc.nasa.gov (Claudio Egalon) writes:
>>What causes the microgravity in the KC-135, the centripetal 
>>acceleration at the top of the parabola, which may cancel the gravity 
>>acceleration,  or something else???

>You don't "cancel" the gravitational acceleration, you fall with it.  The
>KC-135 flies the exact trajectory that it would follow if it were falling
>free in a vacuum.

>That trajectory isn't exactly a parabola; it is in fact a segment of an
>elliptical orbit (one that intersects the Earth's surface).  It's very
>close to being a parabola.  It would *be* a parabola if the Earth were
>flat and gravity did not diminish with altitude.

   Interesting.  The way I see it, the -135, after nosing up, pushes over
in such a manner that its acceleration towards the Earth's surface exactly
matches the acceleration of gravity.   And, I don't know for sure if its
flight path would be that of a parabola, it doesn't maintain its lateral
velocity vector.  The speed vector parallel to the Earth's surface would be
at its greatest when the aircraft was in level flight.


Newsgroups: sci.space
From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Subject: Re: Titan IV Costs
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 15:02:05 GMT

In article <n116at@ofa123.fidonet.org> Wales.Larrison@ofa123.fidonet.org writes:
>  
>    Titan IV                      $ 360 M (w/ Centaur upper stage)
>    Titan IV                      $ 315 M (no upper stage)

Do these costs include support costs at Vandenburg and Canaveral? Or
are they just purchase costs?

Gary