HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: bjohnson@casper.cs.uct.ac.za (B Johnson)
Subject: What about the time ? (ETI)
Summary: What about the time problems involved ?
Keywords: ETI
Organization: Computer Science Department, University of Cape Town
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 09:33:15 GMT

I've been reading about this ETI question, and it seems to centre on whether
or not these amino acids etc. can spontaneously join. To me it seems
unlikely.

However one question that seems to be ignored is the length of time that
the intelligence would hang around for. 
Take earth as an example...
Universe created circa 15 billion years ago
Earth formed circa 5 billion years ago
Projected sun-life another 5 billion years. ie at max we have 5B years to
find out how to leave, where to go and how to get there.
Man emerges circa several thousand years ago (controversy on this point
but safe to say less than a million.
Takes most of that time to develop up to the industrial revolution.
Only been able to fly 89 years (excepting ballons), leave the atmosphere
about 30 years. Radio telescopes etc used for trying to find ETI all
developed this centuary.

Projected stay on earth ? Considering Ozone, CO2, over population, 
desertification, exhaustion of natural resources etc etc we seem to
have a few problems. (ps lets not leave out Nuclear war ?). Now
assuming we manage to solve these problems (and we probably will
one way or another ) the question is how close did we come ? and how
often ? to destroying ourselves ?

OK so for life to be out there it has to have developed in a similar 
timescale - if we want to hear it, it has to have broadcast xx years
ago, to get here conveniently in time for us to develop the tech. to
listen. Then they have to survive long enough for the message to get
here, and for us to do something about it. What do we do ? E-Mail
back ??? Plug them into INTERNET ?? 

Now here's the crux. Even if we discover "life exists *there*"
do we believe in travel at speeds faster than light. And
disbelieve all the wacko time effects Albert E. would have us 
believe. Yes ? No ? So does it matter even if they were there.
Does it affect us ??

Bruce
<bjohnson@casper.cs.uct.ac.za>
From: roberts@CMR.NCSL.NIST.GOV (John Roberts)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Calendar and Zodiac
Date: 29 Jul 92 05:49:46 GMT
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology
	formerly National Bureau of Standards


-From: dj@ssd.kodak.com (Dave Jones)
-Subject: Re: Calendar and Zodiak
-Date: 28 Jul 92 19:47:36 GMT

-[Dennis]
->Today in the Northern Hemisphere's summer, the earth is at the apogee of its 
->orbit around the sun.  As the precession continues on its merry way this will
->be the main parameter that will change. In 12,900 years the northern hemisphere
->will be in its summer when the Earth is at perigee. (I know these are the wrong
->terms, I just don't remember the right ones for sun centered orbits).
->
-Aphelion and Perihelion.  We're going to need generic terms for nearest
-& farthest points from the primary.  Perigee, periselenion, perihelion,
-perijove, periarion (?)........betcha everyone just says apogee and
-perigee in the end.

It's apoapsis and periapsis, with the plurals (gag) apoapsides and
(choke) periapsides. I would strongly support the use of apogee/apogees
and perigee/perigees as the generic terms. (After all, "geology" is tending
to become an acceptable term for the study of rock formations on other
worlds.) Note that apogee and perigee have been part of the English language
so long that English-style plurals have become acceptable.

John Roberts
roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov
From: glennc@cs.sfu.ca (Glenn Chapman)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Russian/French mission to Mir: agreement signed for future ones
Keywords: Space, Russian, French
Date: 30 Jul 92 20:30:19 GMT
Organization: CSS, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada


     The Russian/French Soyuz TM-15 mission to the CIS (Commonwealth of 
Independent States) Mir space station has begun its research.  French 
President Mitterand spoke with the crew, cosmonauts Anatoli Solovyov, Sergei 
Avdeyev from the Soyuz TM-15, long term crew Alexander Viktorenko and 
Alexander Kaleri, plus French "spationaut" Michel Tognini.  Viktorenko and 
Kaleri, and Tognini will return in the Soyuz TM-14 on Aug. 10th.  On July 
29th French and CIS officials signed an agreement to send joint missions of 14 
day duration to Mir every two years for the next eight years, paid for by 
the French. Solovyov and Avdeyev will stay up until January, which means they 
may not return with the scheduled Israeli mission in November or that mission 
has been delayed until January. (From Radio Moscow reports).
     Since Mir is currently occupied by two crews a year the French/CIS 
agreement means that half of the cosmonaut replacement missions for the rest 
of this decade are payed for.  

                                                        Glenn Chapman
                                                        School Eng. Science
                                                        Simon Fraser U.
                                                        Burnaby, B.C., Canada
                                                        glennc@cs.sfu.ca
From: gmcquary@Ingres.COM (George F. McQuary)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Calendar and Zodiac
Date: 28 Jul 92 20:10:48 GMT
Reply-To: gmcquary@Ingres.COM (George F. McQuary)
Organization: Ask Computer Systems Inc., Ingres Division, Alameda CA 94501

The main question is will the seasons occur in other months of the year than
currently. The answer is no. The Gregorian year is defined as starting
exactly ten days after the winter solstice. The current system of leap days is
a forecast of how to maintain the constant of Dec 21, but would change if
necessary. (If a large enough metor hit the earth to change the current
forecasts, however, there would probably be larger problems to deal with than
resetting the calendar...) As long as the calendar is kept in sync with the
sun, the rhythm of the seasons will continue to occur at the same time in the
calendar.

There is no link between our calendar system and the position of the
sun in the zodiac, although there will be strong coincidence for the average
observer over the course of a lifetime.

It is true that astronomers use more accuate time systems than the Gregorian
calendar (use of atomic clocks has been mentioned), but they have transcended
the concept of "years" entirely. Calculations are normally done entirely in 
"Julian Days", and then translated to the Gregorian Calendar with its
messy but more convient concept of years, etc. later. JD are so abstract you
can think of them as the metric system of time. (In fact, a new set of constants
for the Julian system was announced a few years ago, and astronomers are still
trying to figure them out.)

--
George F. McQuary 
"He is mad, bad and dangerous to know." -Lady Caroline Lamb
From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Imminent demise of comsats predicted (for the dozenth time :-)
Date: 23 Jul 92 09:19:25 GMT
Article-I.D.: techbook.1992Jul23.091925.2503
Organization: TECHbooks --- Public Access UNIX --- (503) 644-8135

In article <20831@suned1.Nswses.Navy.MIL> slb@suned1.UUCP (Shari L Brooks) writes:

>As an aside.  The value (or rather, usefulness) of COMSATs is decreasing, not
>increasing; also, they are getting more expensive relative to the superior 
>communications offered by fiber optics.  

The second point is valid for point-to-point communications, but the
first is false.  Wall Street is bullish on space communications.
Comsat stock is near its all-time high, and large amounts of new
capital are going into mobile-communications ventures like American
Mobile Satellite Corp., Alpha Lyracom, European/Loral Globalstar,
Motorolla/Lockheed Iridium, Orbital Sciences Corp. Orbcomm, and even
more $billions are going into foreign ventures.  The mobile and broadcast 
functions of comsats are not being replaced by fiber, and are expanding 
far faster than the point-to-point market is moving to fiber.  The
"unused capacity" Gary keeps harping on has always been a normal part
of the comsat business; backups are necessary because of the unreliable
nature of launch services.  Both the builders and operators are making 
money despite that constraint, but costs would come down even farther,
and the market expand more quickly, by making launchers more reliable.

For a successful, $multi-billion space program that pays for itself,
comsats sure get dismissed a lot. In my more derogatory moments, I start 
thinking that some fans of other parts of the space program can't 
stand success.  :-)


-- 
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: ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright)
Subject: Re: Visual acuity for MS
Organization: Engineering, CONVEX Computer Corp., Richardson, Tx., USA
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 22:49:05 GMT
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.

In <Brr7K9.BGn@zoo.toronto.edu> kcarroll@zoo.toronto.edu (Kieran A. Carroll) writes:

>Good point. One practical use of such a requirement, however, might
>be to provide a guideline for deciding when an active astronaut
>should retire. A number of the astronauts wear glasses on-orbit;
>likely many of them due to deteriorating eye-sight as they grow
>older. Even if all new-hires had 20-20 uncorrected vision, once they're
>in their 40's it'd start getting worse. The requirement may apply
>less to new-hires than to old hands.

On the contrary, the requirements are for new hires are much stricter
than the requirements for old hands.  NASA, like the USAF, requires 
*uncorrected* 20/20 for all pilot candidates, but a number of pilot 
astronauts (including John Young, who was head of the astronaut office) 
started wearing glasses as they got older.  To the best of my knowledge, 
none were ever dropped from the program because of deteriorating vision.

Requirements for perfect uncorrected vision are pretty silly; 
the chances of a pilot having to fly with uncorrected vision
are pretty remote.  (There are many thousands of civilain pilots
with less-than-perfect vision, and I have never heard of a plane
crashing as a result.)  But NASA wants to maintain the image of
astronauts as physically perfect supermen and women for public-
relations purposes.

As a side note, even astronauts with perfect vision (on Earth)
usually wear contact lenses on orbit because the shape of the
eyeball changes when there is no gravity to distort it.

  


Newsgroups: sci.space
From: phfrom@nyx.uni-konstanz.de (Hartmut Frommert)
Subject: Re: Magellan successors? (was Re: Support Lunar Resource Mapper Too!)
Organization: Dept. of Physics, University of Constance
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 13:21:10 GMT

higgins@fnala.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes:

[..]

>Venus orbiters and landers have given a pretty good view of the
>planet.  I suppose having an orbiter in place to give long-term
>information about the atmosphere and magnetosphere would be a good
>idea-- Pioneer Venus Orbiter is about to die.   

I would support the quest for such a permanent orbiter survey -- with 
diverse measurement equipment, in the orbit around Venus as well as near 
Mars, the Moon, and perhaps Mercury. The latter 2 resp. 3 should also be 
equipped with optical cameras. It would be nice to have continous orbiter
survey also in the outer Solar System, but I can't say how to get the
funds needed.
 
[..] 

>I'm really
>unhappy about the lack of priority given to studies of small bodies. 
>CRAF is dead, Vesta doesn't look too healthy, and Rosetta seems
>awfully far away.  Maybe there is hope in the new smaller, faster,
>allegedly-cheaper probes like SDIO's Clementine or the one APL is
>supposed to be cooking up for NASA (LEAP, was it?).

I would also be more happy if the smaller bodies got more attention.

The problem on hand seems to be that there's a major lack of funding for 
all scientific space research (manned as well as unmanned, at ESA or Russia 
the same as at NASA). If we cannot overcome this permanent shortage I don't 
see a bright light. 
--
 Hartmut Frommert, Physics, Univ of Constance, | + Whale killing is murder. +
 P.O.Box 55 60, D-W-7750 Konstanz, Germany | + Eat whale killers, not whales.
 E-Mail: <phfrom@dknkurz1.bitnet> or <phfrom@nyx.uni-konstanz.de>
+    "Windows NoT" expands in German to "Windows Noch Teurer"
+                                                ^even   ^more expensive
Newsgroups: sci.space,news.groups,sci.astro
From: dominop@en.ecn.purdue.edu (Philippos A. Peleties)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: ESA Future
Date: 21 Jul 92 16:00:23 GMT
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network

In article <63941@hydra.gatech.EDU> ccoprmd@prism.gatech.EDU (Matthew DeLuca) writes:
>In article <Brp9K9.3IF@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>>In article <63877@hydra.gatech.EDU> ccoprmd@prism.gatech.EDU (Matthew DeLuca) writes:
>>>Well, yes, but then they don't have independent acess to space, which was one
>>>of the reasons ESA was founded in the first place.  Sort of pointless.
>
>>Not at all.  Just make Russia an ESA member.  It *is* a European country!
>
>Well, geographically it is partly in Europe, (it's as much Asian as
>European, if we want to get picky) but socially, economically, and 
>culturally it is pretty far off...I can't see them getting into the ESA, 
>especially with all the petty bickering and infighting among the member
>nations.
>
>Besides...you'd have to get Ukraine in there as well, since they make
>some of the rockets, and nobody knows how long Russia and they are going
>to remain on speaking terms...
>
>The best bet for Europe is to get their act together, decide what they 
>*really* want, and get it done, and not look to the outside for help.
>


The point is this: ex-Soviet (Russian/Ukranian) technology most likely
will be used in some rather substantial capacity and some combination
of the above countries will become ESA members whether they are geographically
located in Europe or not.

It makes sense economically, politically and any other way there is to
measure things.


>-- 
>Matthew DeLuca                      "I'd hire the Dorsai, if I knew their 
>Georgia Institute of Technology      P.O. box."
>Office of Information Technology                - Zebediah Carter, 
>Internet: ccoprmd@prism.gatech.edu              _The Number of the Beast_


Philip Peleties
-- 


I speak for myself, I think for myself, I work for myself ... but I don't want
to play by myself ... so bring your toys and let's share ...
From: richard@technology.com (Richard Murphy)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: TSS-1 launch time
Date: 24 Jul 92 16:39:52 GMT
Organization: Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas

TSS-1 is set for launch at 13:56 GMT July 31. The satellite
deployment should begin early on Aug. 2.

R. Murphy
From: rmartin@thor.Rational.COM (Bob Martin)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Antimatter (was propulsion questions)
Date: 22 Jul 92 20:06:49 GMT
Distribution: na

pgf@srl03.cacs.usl.edu (Phil G. Fraering) writes:

|sichase@csa2.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE) writes:

|>In article <Brp9H4.3GM@zoo.toronto.edu>, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes...
|>> 
|>>Antimatter isn't a very efficient explosive.  If you dropped an anti-iron
|>>cannonball, it would just sit there and sizzle.  (The radiation would make

|>This doesn't sound right.  What makes you think that the energy release would
|>be so slow?  The outer surface would be continuously annihilating with 
|>air and whatever surface you drop it on.  It's not at all clear that
|>things would be so nice as you describe.


|It's called the Leidenfrost effect. The idea is, the outer layer blows
|off and creates a thin vacuum-density layer of plasma insulating the
|antimatter from the surrounding atmosphere...

|BTW, Antimatter should also be rather stable at low temperatures.
|Some of the positrons should boil off and be annihilated, leaving the
|rest of the antimatter with a net negative charge. This should keep
|electrons away, while keeping enough positrons bound to the set of
|molecules to "screen" away protons and other positive nuclei...

I'm beginning to think that this stuff is so stable that you could use
it as a food additive.  Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, where is the kaboom it
gives.

Is antimatter too stable to be used as a propellent?  Would we have to
work hard just to get sufficient annihilations to do useful work?


--
+---Robert C. Martin---+-RRR---CCC-M-----M-| R.C.M. Consulting         |
| rmartin@rational.com |-R--R-C----M-M-M-M-| C++/C/Unix Engineering    |
|     (Uncle Bob.)     |-RRR--C----M--M--M-| OOA/OOD/OOP Training      |
+----------------------+-R--R--CCC-M-----M-| Product Design & Devel.   |
From: trujillo@optima.UUCP (Clorinda Trujillo)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Star Trek Realism
Date: 27 Jul 92 23:23:54 GMT
Distribution: sci

From article <1992Jul27.165309.106551@cs.cmu.edu>, by 18084TM@msu.edu (tom):
> When the ship is streaming through space, stars moving past
> at several per second, how is it that the ship is steadily lit from one
> side?  What is the source for this light?  It's pretty bad when you aren't
> even into the actual show, and it's already violating known principles :-)
> 
> -Tommy Mac                     .  "  Malcolm X:      +

I believe the ship has outside lights which shine on it.
I can't remember in what movie it happened, but the crew boarded a 
dark Enterprise and turned on the lights.  They probably did this
in order to explain how why it was possible.

- Clo
From: ddavey@iscp.bellcore.com (Doug Davey)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: censorship, yet again
Date: 29 Jul 92 18:59:35 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.1992Jul29.190456.169231
Distribution: sci
Organization: [via International Space University]
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU


Rich:
You're right.  I've posted an apology to Henry in talk.politics.space
(which is where Henry redirected the discussion).  In case you don't
get talk.politics.space, I've included a copy of the apology below.
I hope this sets things straight. Me, a censor, Yikes! What was I thinking!

= ==================================================================== =
Newsgroups: talk.politics.space
Distribution: usa
Followup-To: 
From: ddavey@iscp.bellcore.com (Doug Davey)
Reply-To: ddavey@iscp.bellcore.com
Organization: Bell Communications Research
Subject: Re: Clinton Space Position
Keywords: 

In article <Bs498B.4DI@zoo.toronto.edu>, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
> In article <1992Jul28.143654.17945@walter.bellcore.com> ddavey@iscp.bellcore.com writes:
> >...I would respectfully ask that those who neither pay the taxes
> >nor vote in the elections kindly refrain from posting politcal analyses
> >of political statements from the USAian election campaign...
> 
> Political analyses?  Heaven forbid.  I don't understand US politics well
> enough to analyze them. :-)  I was merely translating some of the Clinton
> position from campaignspeak (which is as international as graft, stupidity,
> shortsightedness, and voter ignorance and apathy) into the sci.space
> vernacular.  I wasn't making any attempt to read between the lines or infer
> an overall position -- just pointing out what the statement's own words
> clearly mean.  Do you really think any of my translations are wrong?

Henry,
Please note that I didn't challenge your translations.  In fact, I believe
they are accurate.  What I challenged was what I saw as an inappropriate
attempt to influence another country's politics.  (An infraction of which
the US has, er, occasionally, been guilty itself. :-) ) However, now that
you have moved the discussion to talk.politics.space and out of sci.space
(where it never belonged).  I'm persuaded by the argument put forth by
games@max.u.washington.edu (John) (see below) that you have an obligation
to humanity (Jeepers! I hope I never have one of those) to post your  
analyses, whether they are political or technical.

In article <1992Jul28.121753.1@max.u.washington.edu>, games@max.u.washington.edu writes:
> As an affected party, Mr. Spencer certainly has the right to comment upon
> the platforms proposed by the parties.
> 
> And if you don't like the above logic, then as an "expert" commentator in the
> field, he has not only the right, but the duty to comment upon the platforms,
> in order to help clarify what they mean for the rest of us who choose not to
> take quite as much time deciphering the reading between the lines.

-- 
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
  Doug Davey        ddavey@iscp.bellcore.com         bcr!iscp!ddavey
From: dj@ssd.kodak.com (Dave Jones)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Antiproton-boosted fission
Date: 23 Jul 92 15:42:33 GMT
Organization: :noitazinagrO

In article <9207230112.AA03442@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov> roberts@CMR.NCSL.NIST.GOV (John Roberts) writes:
>
>-From: bwood@diva.Berkeley.EDU (Blake Philip Wood)
>-Subject: Antiproton-Boosted Microfission (was: Antimatter ...)
>-Date: 22 Jul 92 13:05:55 GMT
>
>-All the postings so far have missed the most realistic application of
>-antimatter to space propulsion:  antiproton-boosted microfission.
>-This is being investigated by a number of folks at Penn State, in
>-collaboration with some people at Phillips Lab in Albuquerque.
>-The Penn State lead is R.A. Lewis.  The reference I happen to have 
>-on hand is from Nuclear Science and Engineering, (109) p.411 (1991).
>-The basic idea is that hitting a U235 or Plutonium nucleus with an
>-antiproton makes it so unstable that you get an average of 16 neutrons
>-out of the resulting fission, as opposed to the usual 2-3.  This means
>-that the critical mass which can be completely fissioned is very
>-small.  
>-The article above quotes
>-results from another paper which suggests that fissioning one
>-70mg Plutonium pellet per second in this fashion, each event requiring
>-only 2e8 antiprotons, could yield 5GW of power in a complete propulsion
>-system with a specific mass of only 0.07 kg/kW.
>
>Great! Now we can build hand-held tactical nuclear machine guns. (One shot
>destroys a building several miles away.)  :-(  (Another E.E. Smith idea,
>this time from the Skylark series.)
>
>Maybe they ought to be careful of who gets hold of the technology.
>
You missed out a few details: the trick involves inertial confinement
(ICF in the original posting) so you need megawatt lasers as well as
the 10 Gev accelerator that makes the antiprotons.  I suppose you could
use ion beam ICF and make the accelerator do double duty.  Hardly a
portable weapon though.


-- 
||))) If you build it                          )))))))))))))))))))))))))))))|
||))) They will cancel it   - Field of Dweebs. )))))))))))))))))))))))))))))|
||))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))|
||Dave Jones (dj@ekcolor.ssd.kodak.com) | Eastman Kodak Co. Rochester, NY   |
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Propulsion questions
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 16:14:06 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <cbeale.711757918@vela> cbeale@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Christopher Beale) writes:
>I think there is some research going on somewhere with inertial propulsion.
>As it turns out, the old right-hand-rule with spinning disks appears to
>exert a minute force without the classical mass expulsion conservation of
>momentum deal...

I'd be very surprised to see any reputable research being done on such
subjects.  The slightest hint of a violation of conservation of momentum
would be screaming front-page news in physics, and there's been no such
news as far as I know.
-- 
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: paulg@griffin.demon.co.uk ("Paul J. Gravestock")