HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz)
Subject: Re: Is NASA really planning to Terraform Mars?
Organization: Computer Science Department University of Rochester
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 19:02:25 GMT

In article <BuH7oH.J9@news.cso.uiuc.edu> jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Josh 'K' Hopkins) writes:

> I think my question was legitimate.  Do you believe the situation is going to
> improve as population gets larger?  I'm not so worried about "overpopulation"
> per se.  What I do believe is that allowing people to have control of the 
> number of children they raise will result in a lower growth rate, which I 
> believe to be an improvement.

I see no reason why it should get worse.  To first order, and within
limits, the population doesn't matter, because food production
increases as you have more labor input (Africa is actually not that
densely populated a continent; in Zaire(?), for example, only 6% of
arable land is being farmed, although that is partly due to insane
government price controls).  Conversely, if the social organization is
such that the normal food production is disrupted, reducing population
does not help.

Larger populations also enable economies of scale that increase
efficiency.  For example, electricity distribution, water distribution
and transportation all become cheaper per capita as population density
increases.

I view blaming starvation on overpopulation as, at best, a game of
blame-the-victim, and, at worst, an expression of lazy-minded racism.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@cs.rochester.edu
From: sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu (Doug Mohney)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Is NASA really planning to Terraform Mars?
Date: 11 Sep 92 20:34:36 GMT
Reply-To: sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu
Organization: Computer Aided Design Lab, U. of Maryland College Park

In article <ryvnn1#.tomk@netcom.com>, tomk@netcom.com (Thomas H. Kunich) writes:
>In article <136017@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> roberts@phoenix.ocf.llnl.gov (Don Roberts) writes:
>>
>>Haven't we had about enough of this [Malthusianism--ed.]in the last 200
>>years?? Ever since Malthus first came up with the idea, we've been in
>>Imminent Peril of choking the planet with people. Fortunately, there have
>>been enough people (!) cleverer than ol' Tom that we've managed well enough.
>>Try telling the people in Singapore, Japan, or Taiwan that high population
>>densities guarantee abject poverty and starvation. Ever stop to think there
>>might be more to it than that?
>>
>Let's see: China and India are hovering on the raged edge of subsistance
>right now.

The chinese would find your assessment quite funny. No one starving over there.
Everyone has enough money to spoil the (one) child permitted under law. Perhaps
you envy the draconian measures taken to curb population control?

The Indian goverment has enough money to develop nuclear weapons and a budding
space program, plus purchase a surplus carrier from the (former) Soviet Union.
Now, how SHOULD they spend their resources? You also might wanna take a look at
what the Green Revolution did for India.

>Most of Africa is one meal away from starvation. -- Why that means
>that more than half of the world is bearly producing enough food to exist
>and no more.

Those parts of Africa which ARE starving are starving due to tribal political
warfare. You want to rage and foam at the mouth, why don't you take a look at
the Ethopian goverment, which blew hundreds of millions of dollars to celebrate
their reign, while their people STARVED. 

Attempts to provide food (for free) to Somalia are stopped not due to a
shortage of food but due to armed bands of tribal thugs. 

>Argentina, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States are producing
>significant surpluses of food, yet not enough to supply the rest of the
>world in a single bad harvest year.

Bogus. We annually give away food and pay (PAY!!!) farmers NOT to plant fields
so the price of grain stays stable.

>Direct extropolation of the world's population shows a doubling in the
>next 50 years.

Sure. But nothing is direct in the world. 

>With, presently, only some 25% of the world's population having good and
>sufficient food it leaves me wondering how wrong Malthus was.

If we could turn the rest of the world into good capitalists, they'd be
complaining about obesity and heart disease. 


                 Play in the intelluctual sandbox of Usenet 

  -- >                  SYSMGR@CADLAB.ENG.UMD.EDU                        < --
From: wa2ise@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (robert.f.casey)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Old data formats
Date: 15 Sep 92 03:28:11 GMT
Organization: AT&T Banana Labs

In article <1992Sep14.042211.1@fnala.fnal.gov> higgins@fnala.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes:
>
>I did meet somebody at the World Space Congress who was involved in an
>informal effort to recover the Lunar Orbiter data.  The data are
>stored in analog format on magtapes.  They've located a machine which
>may be capable of playing them back, but nobody knows whether the
>tapes are in good enough shape to read all the pictures.  The hope is
>to get the data into nice digital form so modern computers can digest
>them.  There are at least two serious lunar-mapping spacecraft
>projects underway in the U.S., and at least one in Japan, so there is
>real interest in access to these pictures.

According to what I've seen in various articles and advertisments, CD
"record" companies that re-issue old rock oldies on CDs from the 
orginal master tapes sometime run into these problems trying to play tapes 
in bad condition.  Heard that they "bake" some tapes to get them to not
fall apart upon playback.  And other tricks.  It might be possible to
ask the people at one of these record companies for advice on reading 
the poor condition space tapes.  "Rhino" in Santa Monica, CA is one.
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: farthest Laser signal
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 23:48:07 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <199209041812.AA18322@leibniz.cs.arizona.edu> rcs@CS.ARIZONA.EDU ("Richard Schroeppel") writes:
>Note that radar signals have been bounced off Venus, and were
>actually used for some mapping...

I believe JPL has done interplanetary radar work as far as Jupiter.

>Assuming the purpose of your question is to consider "How feasible
>are lasers for high bandwidth, semi-private, space communication?"...

Feasible.  There is intense interest in the idea, and some in-space
experiments will fly in this decade.  (It's just possible that secret
military systems might be operational already -- laser communications
systems would have very tight beams that would be very difficult to
eavesdrop on.)
-- 
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
From: higgins@fnala.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: With telepresence, who needs people in Earth orbit?
Date: 14 Sep 92 10:44:39 GMT
Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

In article <1992Sep3.152129.22162@cs.ucf.edu>, clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke) writes:
> In article <1992Sep1.193908.25701@clipper.ingr.com> arnold@clipper.ingr.com  
> (Roger Arnold) writes:
>> It's absurd to tie teloperation in low earth orbit to a communication
>> path involving two round trips to Clark orbit.  Build a necklace of
>> co-orbiting microsats to relay signals from the facility to whichever
>> satellite is currently in position to downlink.  
> 
> Easier still, use the Motorola Iridium constellation of 77
> satellites for teleoperation.  Iridium should work just as
> well for LEO as for "cellular phones" on the ground.

Almost true.  I talked to one of the Iridium team, Dr. Peter Swan,
about this after sci.space discussed this point last fall.  

If I understood him correctly, the Iridium satellites will have
down-pointing antennas covering overlapping cells on the ground.  At
altitudes above the ground, the antenna beams from adjacent satellites
won't necessarily overlap.  Think of each satellite as riding on top
of a big cone with its base on the Earth's surface.  People on the
ground are always inside at least one cone, but spacecraft a few
hundred miles up may break through the wall of a cone and be between
cells for a while.

Swan said that short-duration Iridium calls might be possible for
spacecraft orbiting lower than his satellites, as long as the
spacecraft took responsibility for managing its own antenna-pointing
to stay in touch with the Iridium network.  We were discussing this in
the context of a spacecraft doing brief data dumps to Earth.  You
could run a small scientific satellite or packet BBS this way without
having to maintain an elaborate downlink network.  It would be like
some of the Amsat satellites, without benefit of hams.  Maybe we could
call it Phreaksat.

This doesn't sound as though it could be adapted to teleoperation very
well, except for brief periods, unless there is a good way to solve
the problem of interruptions. (I have an image of our telepresence
operator frantically pumping dimes into an Iridium handset to prolong
contact during some crucial task...)

Also note that if you're using Iridium for teleoperation-- let's say
you're driving a bulldozer in Antarctica from your office in Florida,
or vice versa-- your delay may change as the moving cell
configurations give you a variable number of hops in your signal.  (I
could be wrong about this.)

Bill Higgins          |  If we can put a man on the Moon, why can't
Fermilab              |  we put a man on the Moon? -- Bill Engfer
higgins@fnal.fnal.gov |  If we can put a man on the Moon, why can't
higgins@fnal.Bitnet   |  we put a woman on the Moon? -- Bill Higgins
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: tomk@netcom.com (Thomas H. Kunich)
Subject: Re: Is NASA really planning to Terraform Mars?
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 92 21:18:21 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)

In article <BuD57x.MAs@trystro.uucp> rick@trystro.uucp (Richard Nickle) writes:
>
>It's you're not transporting megatons of machinery to Mars, and you
>don't have to worry about the problems of soft-landing anything on the
>surface.  Adding water requires small robot probes to go retrieve ice
>and move it to mars.  The robots would attach themselves to the appropriate
>piece of ice, and use the ice itself as reaction mass to move them from
>wherever you got them (Saturn, the belt) to Mars, whereupon they would
>fall onto mars and release tons of water.  You just set up your ice-retriever
>robot factory someplace convenient:  Lunar orbit?  And begin mass-producing
>the things.  Now, Luna doesn't have any water, right?  So, well, you pay for
>the cost of the robot factory by using the robots principally to move water
>to Luna, not Mars.  Once you've paid off all your creditors and are making

It's always nice to see people write refreshing things like, "All you have to
do is move Mars several thousand miles into a closer orbit." Or some such.
Do you remember that lunatic that was interviewed on 60 Minutes about 
the Soviet antiballistic missle system -- the one where he said, "All
you have to do is, first, contain a nuclear explosion. Then ---", I
sort of turned off at that point.

Here we are, with great difficulty even getting antennas to point in the
correct direction and this guy suggests that we can throw jillions
of tons of matter at a planet accurately. Yes indeed, really refreshing.
>
>If the robots are reusable (they can retrieve their payload and steal enough
>water to propel themselves back to where they got the ice), it's even better.
>Your number of robots working on the project continually increases, and water
>delivery to Mars begins to skyrocket.  Add any potential colonies on Mars who
>actually need the water for immediate use, delivered to a specific spot, and
>it's even better, they'll be willing to pay for the delivery system.

How do we build these water recovery robots in the first place? Hwo
do these martian colonists get to Mars? How are they supported while
you are throwing enough mass at the planet to cause cataclismic damage?

Newsgroups: sci.space
From: tombaker@world.std.com (Tom A Baker)
Subject: QUERY Re: Pluto Direct/ options
Summary: Orbiter or flyby?
Organization: Boston Chapter of National Space Society
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 10:56:18 GMT

In article <Bu8tH3.6xp@news.cso.uiuc.edu> jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
(Josh 'K' Hopkins) writes:

>prb@access.digex.com (Pat) writes:
>>they are talking of sending a 1-200 kg orbiter to pluto.
>
>Actually, they'd like to send two so that they can image both sides of the 
>planet.

>>I was thinking an energia would allow a bigger bird or possibility of
>>more thrust to slow down the encounter.  
>

Could you clarify whether this craft is supposed to just flyby (a la
Voyager) or is truly a Pluto "orbiter"?  From the discussion, it does
sound like a 'quick encounter' mission, which also makes more sense
from a budgetary standpoint.

Tom Baker
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Josh 'K' Hopkins)
Subject: Re: Nitpicking over Phobos Hopper (was Re: Soviet Rovers on Mars)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 01:33:52 GMT

higgins@fnala.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes:
>>>(I'm not familiar with their instrument load). Phobos 2 and one of the
>>>Soviet Mars landers carried tiny rovers, too.  Or do we only count
>>>spacecraft that succeeded?  ^^^^
>>                               ?
>>Tiny?  I'm not sure about Phobos 2, but 2 weeks ago I saw a Soviet Mars
>>rover at the Air Force Museum, Wright Patterson AFB and it was pretty
>>big.  Probably at least as large as a 12 - 16 hp riding lawnmower with
>>6 wheels and lots more mass.

>Nice to hear that there's some serious Soviet stuff in Dayton. I'll
>have to return to the AFM to look at it.  No, this is not what I
>meant; Larry Klaes described it in a subsequent message.

There's an exhibit of Soviet Hardware in St. Louis.  Has anyone seen it yet?
Bill, would you like to join us on a trip?

-- 
Josh Hopkins              "I believe that there are moments in history when 
                           challenges occur of such a compelling nature that to 
j-hopkins@uiuc.edu         miss them is to miss the whole meaning of an epoch.
jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu  Space is such a challenge"       - James A. Michener   
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo)
Subject: Re: new name for NASA?
Keywords: NASA
Organization: TECHbooks --- Public Access UNIX --- (503) 220-0636
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 01:48:25 GMT

In article <1992Sep13.002051.8574@cc.uow.edu.au> gkm@cc.uow.edu.au (Glen K Moore) writes:

> In the Sun Herald  (Sydney) on 13th September NASA's name was stated as 
> meaning North American Space Agency.
> Since this appeared in an article by Peter Pockley on a two page 'Science 
> and Education ' column and appeared very authoritative perhaps NASA has 
> changed its name? But then again perhaps it is just newspaper carelessness.

'Twas carelessness, but it is an interesting idea.  Since we have a 
North American Free Trade Agreement, it would make some sense to combine
our efforts in space as well.



-- 
szabo@techbook.COM  	  Tuesday, November third  ##  Libertarian  $$  vote
Tuesday  ^^ Libertarian  --  change  **  choice && November 3rd @@Libertarian 
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: roberts@phoenix.ocf.llnl.gov (Don Roberts)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Is NASA really planning to Terraform Mars?
Date: 10 Sep 92 18:27:02 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

In article <1992Sep10.145918.14933@ucsu.Colorado.EDU>
knapp@spot.Colorado.EDU (David Knapp) writes:

>You mean ignoring any possible consequences of ozone loss and maybe even
>global warming? Let's even completely ignore increasing risks of nuclear
>war (from non-NATO development) or from nuclear disaster.  We can also ignore
>steady expansionism of the populace.

Yep. Ignore it. Contrary to Chicken Little Opinion, we don't understand
global warming very well and unless you're planning to move to Antarctica,
I wouldn't get in a tizzy about the "ozone hole." [see Physics Today, Dec
'91 for a discussion of the polar stratospheric cloud mechanism for ozone
depletion by CFC's].

As for the "increasing risk of nuclear war" due to nuclear proliferation,
Nonsense. The threat of all-out thermonuclear war *is gone* (huzzah!). The
threat of despotic countries seeking to develop nuclear weapons *is* real,
and requires more stringent efforts in UN inspections, non-proliferation
research, and development of both a defense against limited strikes and
the abililty to disable a "terrorist bomb."  Complaining about the "global
threat" won't make it go away.

>Even if you ignore all the globe-threatening issues, *population* growth,
>which you can *count on*, will still be one of our greatest challenges.  It
>will keep growing until it simply *can't* and that only happens when world
>resources, particularly in food stuffs, become steadily taxed. Don't
>kid yourselves, this is *going* to happen whether you like it or agree with
>it.

Haven't we had about enough of this in the last 200 years?? Ever since
Malthus first came up with the idea, we've been in Imminent Peril of
choking the planet with people. Fortunately, there have been enough people (!)
cleverer than ol' Tom that we've managed well enough. Try telling the
people in Singapore, Japan, or Taiwan that high population densities
guarantee abject poverty and starvation. Ever stop to think there might be
more to it than that?

--
 Dr. Donald W. Roberts
   University of California                                      Physicist
   Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory         Recreational Bodybuilder
   dwr@llnl.gov                                           Renaissance Dude
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,talk.politics.space,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton
From: fcrary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Frank Crary)
Subject: Re: Clinton and Space Funding
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 04:13:28 GMT

In article <1992Sep14.000925.21854@news.columbia.edu> egl1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Elizabeth G. Levy) writes:
>Military research will probably be cut.  As I pointed out, this is not
>necessarily a very bad thing, since this kind of research is no longer
>economically beneficial.

This isn't clear in two respects: First, military research has yielded
substantial non-weapons technology (especially with respect to 
aerospace technology.) This is of great benifit to the civilian
economy. Second, I don't understand why military research is no longer
needed, simply because "the Cold War is over." If anything, the 
world seems to be more, not less, violent (with wars in Iraq, Croatia,
Bosnia, ex-Soviet Georgia, Tazakistan (sp?) and (off and on) Armenia and
Azerbijan. The primary advantage of the US military is high technology
(compared to the rest of the world), so I'm not sure why you don't
consider military research usefull.

                                                    Frank Crary
                                                    CU Boulder

Newsgroups: sci.space
From: fcrary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Frank Crary)
Subject: Re: Is NASA really planning to Terraform Mars?
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 05:04:35 GMT

In article <1992Sep9.212810.18022@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> knapp@spot.Colorado.EDU (David Knapp) writes:
>If you want to make your backyard unlivable, go ahead, but the second you are
>doing things that make *everyone's* backyard unlivable, you should expect
>a response.

I'd have to disagree on two points: I don't think there is any evdence
we are making the Earth "unlivable." In some respects, we may have
made it a less pleasent place to live, but that is a very different
thing from uninhabitable. I hope you aren't suggesting absolute
prefection with respect to the Earth's environment should be a 
pre-requsite to extra-planetary ventures.

Second, since there is no live on Mars, nor anywhere else in the
Solar System, excatly who's backyard is Mars, if not our own?

                                                    Frank Crary
                                                    CU Boulder

Newsgroups: sci.space
From: sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu (Doug Mohney)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: QUERY Re: Pluto Direct/ options
Date: 10 Sep 92 17:36:54 GMT
Reply-To: sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu
Organization: Computer Aided Design Lab, U. of Maryland College Park

In article <1992Sep10.160322.29761@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov>, baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke) writes:
>In article <1992Sep10.135754.1491@eng.umd.edu>, sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu (Doug Mohney) writes...
>>In article <BuC31F.2L5@zoo.toronto.edu>, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>>
>>>It is extremely difficult to combine a reasonable payload and a manageably
>>>short trip time with an orbiter mission.  Pluto is *a long way away*; to
>>>get there in under a decade, the probe has to be fast.  Killing all that
>>>velocity is inordinately expensive in mass. 
>> 
>>Aerobrake? 
>> 
>
>We don't have that much practical experience with aerobraking into orbit 
>capture - it has never been attempted before.  If given the chance, Magellan
>will perform a number of aerobrake maneuvers through the atmosphere of
>Venus to circularize its orbit, but the uncertainty is so great that we
>can only estimate that it will take from 100 to 300 days.  Pluto does have a 
>tentative atmosphere, but we know so little about it.  A flyby mission will 
>help to enlighten us.  If you haven't noticed already, the basic blueprint
>for planetary exploration is to do a flyby first, then follow it up with
>an orbiting mission, and then follow that up with a lander.

Wouldn't we find out more if we tried to dip the probe INTO the atmosphere?
After all, we'd get much better close-up pictures :-). As well some better feel
for the composition of the atmosphere upon entry. 

I suppose for imaging purposes, a flyby makes more sense, but if the
seat-of-the pants aerobrake worked, you get more imaging time, plus some data
on atmosphere density, etc. 

OK, it would be impolite to dump the RTGs on Pluto's surface if it doesn't
work...minor details...


                 Support U.N. military force against Serbia

  -- >                  SYSMGR@CADLAB.ENG.UMD.EDU                        < --
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo)
Subject: Re: 3 booster questions
Organization: TECHbooks --- Public Access UNIX --- (503) 220-0636
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 00:08:31 GMT

In article <1992Sep10.052322.27424@u.washington.edu> brettvs@u.washington.edu writes:
>[1].What makes Titan so expensive? 

As is normal, cost is a function of economics and politics as well
as technology.

First, Titan like Delta and Atlas is a reworked ICBM design, not
something designed from scratch as a launcher.  That may add
significantly to the cost, though there has been a notable failure
of anybody to build a launcher from scratch that gives big savings
(Ariane gives some small savings, but at the cost of reliability,
and Atlas has caught up to Ariane on cost with the 2AS).

Second, Martin Marietta has a lock on many large government contracts, 
espically the USAF Titan IV contract, for reasons having little to do with
efficiency.  The more Martin charges, the more money they make.  In
their defense, this situation is by no means unique to MM or Titan,
and Titan does have an explary reliability record, justifying a bit
higher cost per pound in the eyes of rational customers.


-- 
szabo@techbook.COM  Public Access User --- Not affiliated with TECHbooks
Public Access UNIX and Internet at (503) 644-8135 (1200/2400, N81)