HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dmc@dynamo.ecn.purdue.edu (David M Chelberg)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: NASA speakers sought
Keywords: NASA, Speakers, cs
Date: 1 Sep 92 16:16:25 GMT
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network


I am interested in finding out if NASA has any program to allow their
researchers to give talks at Universities.  What policies does NASA
follow with regards to invited lectures from their scientists?  Does
NASA have some kind of distinguished speaker program?  I would think
that they do, as it would be great publicity, and work well with their
educational goals.  If anyone has information on how to arrange NASA
speakers, please email me.  In particular, I am interested in speakers
with a CS emphasis.  Thanks,

 -- Prof. David Chelberg (dmc@ecn.purdue.edu)
   __                     _ _ _        __          _
  /  )              /    ' ) ) )      /  ) /      // /
 /  / __. , __o  __/      / / /      /    /_  _  // /___/> __  _,
/__/_(_/|_\/ <__(_/_     / ' ( o    (__/ / /_</_</_/_) (__/ (_(_)_
                                                               /|
                                                              |/
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: kwp@wag.caltech.edu (Kevin W. Plaxco)
Subject: Re: Laser distance record?
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 22:11:57 GMT

>To date, what is the farthest that a laser has been seen from?
>
>I recall a successful experiment sending a laser beam from the
>Earth to a Surveyor lander on the Moon in the sixties.  That would
>make the current record approx. 384,400 km?

With the use of one mirror and a rather large reciever signals are
regularly sent and recieved at twice that distance.

-Kevin
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: sbirkett@cix.compulink.co.uk (Stuart Birkett)
Subject: Re: Deep-sea Diving on Europa
Reply-To: sbirkett@cix.compulink.co.uk
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 20:48:00 +0000

My mistake... According to "The photographic Atlas of the planets" 
Europa is an ice world. The smoothness of the surface and lack of craters
suggest upsurges of water. Water under the ice crust could be a result of
tidal fluctuations as it passes Jupiter and the other moons. Could also be 
a result of internal heating due to a molten core due to radioactive decay.
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
| Dean Haley              | University Of New England, Armidale  _--_|\   |
| dhaley@mihi.une.edu.au  | N.S.W, Australia.                   /      \  |
|                         |                                     \_.--.^/  |
|                         |                                           @   |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
|"Well, you presumably believe that the best solution that this omnipotent| 
|God could find to the problem of Adam eating an apple, was to pop down to|
|Earth as a man, get nailed to a cross, come alive again, and then ascend |
|into Heaven.  You presumably believe that it is immensely important to   |
|this omnibenevolent God that you believe the above unlikely tale, else he| 
|might toss you into a lake of fire where there will be much weeping and  | 
|gnashing of teeth.  Try as I might, I can't see too much reason in this. |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 

Newsgroups: sci.space
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: What happened to Viking?
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1992 23:26:49 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1992Aug21.222739.19157@nas.nasa.gov> eugene@wilbur.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya) writes:
>>What happened the Viking spacecraft?  
>
>Both lands and orbiters were shut down for lack of funds and the need to use
>the antenna resources for other projects (Galileo, Magellan, power
>distribution experiments, SETI, etc.)
>
>>I heard through the grapevine that someone sent a bogus signal to it which  
>>turned the antenna away from Earth, resulting in LOS.
>
>That was Voyager II (briefly).

Eugene, are you getting enough sleep? :-)  This does *not* correspond to
the history of Viking as I'm aware of it.

Although antenna coverage was reduced as the Viking primary mission was
completed, it wasn't eliminated.  And although there was *talk* of shutting
down the program for funding reasons, it never quite happened.

Both the Viking orbiters were shut down when, as expected, they ran out of
attitude-control fuel after lengthy and successful missions.  The second
lander had some sort of electrical problem that cut its life short; I don't
remember the details.  The first one lasted several more years, in a low-
activity mission that did weather reporting and an occasional image, using
modest funding and very little antenna time.  It was during this phase that
there was some threat of shutting it off due to funding shortages, but
politicking (including the Viking Fund's fundraising activity, which had
far more significance as a political message than as an actual source of
money) averted that.  What finally happened was that a routine contact
to pick up recent weather data couldn't get an answer from the lander,
all attempts to reach it failed, and it was eventually declared dead.
I believe it *was* eventually established that this was due to a command
error that fouled up antenna pointing, although this was not obvious at
the time.
-- 
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
Xref: sparky sci.space:12393 news.answers:2756
From: tjn32113@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Tom Nugent       )
Subject: Senate vote on Freedom
Summary: Senate vote on Freedom
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 03:45:09 GMT

The full Senate will vote Tuesday September 8th on funding for Space Station
Freedom.  Please call both your Senators _today_ (Friday) (because this is
the last working day before the vote) and ask for full funding for Freedom.
Thanks.

-- 
Tom Nugent	voice:(217)328-0994	e-mail:tjn32113@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu 
"To be average scares the hell out of me." -- Anonymous
From: roberts@CMR.NCSL.NIST.GOV (John Roberts)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Iridium
Date: 4 Sep 92 03:19:34 GMT
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology
	formerly National Bureau of Standards


-From: clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke)
-Subject: Re: With telepresence, who needs people in Earth orbit?
-Date: 3 Sep 92 15:21:29 GMT
-Organization: University of Central Florida

-In article <1992Sep1.193908.25701@clipper.ingr.com> arnold@clipper.ingr.com  
-(Roger Arnold) writes:
-> Build a necklace of
-> co-orbiting microsats to relay signals from the facility to whichever
-> satellite is currently in position to downlink.  It's easiest if the
-> orbit is equatorial, and so what if that means using Pegasus or Ariane
-> for launches?  

-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.

The main question is whether Iridium can support a video link. I saw some
Iridium people, and meant to ask them, but they were busy and I was in a hurry,
so I didn't get a chance.

Another question is whether it will allow you to set up a link with a
guaranteed maximum transfer time. If the switching algorithm does not 
allow for this, and there is a risk that the feedback channel or the control
channel will be automatically switched to a much longer path, you might
lose control of whatever you're trying to operate. The other Clarke
(Arthur C.) describes this scenario in the beginning of "Meeting with Medusa".

John Roberts
roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov
From: rabjab@golem.ucsd.edu (Jeff Bytof)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Laser distance record?
Date: 3 Sep 92 19:47:59 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: sio
NNTP-Posting-Host: lutherlab.ucsd.edu


 

>In article <rabjab.77.0@golem.ucsd.edu>, rabjab@golem.ucsd.edu (Jeff Bytof) writes...
>>To date, what is the farthest that a laser has been seen from?
>> 
>>I recall a successful experiment sending a laser beam from the
>>Earth to a Surveyor lander on the Moon in the sixties.  That would
>>make the current record approx. 384,400 km?

>If you allow masers, then the answer is best measured in parsecs.  Oh... you
>want man-made lasers.  Never mind.

I mean the "link distance" between a transmitter and an actual reciever.

Jeff Bytof
rabjab@golem.ucsd.edu
From: wolfone@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Patrick Chester)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Who went to Rio
Date: 3 Sep 92 03:01:29 GMT
Reply-To: wolfone@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Patrick Chester)
Distribution: usa
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX
Originator: wolfone@huey.cc.utexas.edu

I'll make this brief. I just would like to know if any spaceflight advocacy
groups like the L-5 Society or the Lunar Society made it to the Earth Summit
in Rio last June. I was hoping someone tried to inject some other views on 
saving the environment there (like moving some industry off Earth and getting
resources from the asteroids, etc.) Just wondering.
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: sheppamj@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Matthew Sheppard)
Subject: Shuttle traking programs
Organization: Clarkson University
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 19:18:54 GMT

I had in my possesion a shareware version of a program that showed the
shuttles current location on a world map.  You had to supply it with
certian numbers about the launch such as time and things and it kept
track of where it was.  

Could someone point me to where I could find this program or even it's
name so I could find it on ARCHIE?  Please mail responses if possible,
and post them too.

--
| 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: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: space news from July 20 AW&ST
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 18:47:12 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1992Aug26.172520.28932@walter.bellcore.com> ddavey@iscp.bellcore.com writes:
>> Big article on the Tethered Satellite project.  This actually isn't the
>> first test of tethers in space -- that was done on Gemini...
>
>Are you speaking of Ed White, Mike Collins, & friends floating around at
>the end of their umbilical cords?  Or, was there an actual deployment of a
>tethered satellite that I've forgotten? ...

Neither one exactly.  On some of the later missions, they connected a
tether between the Agena docking target and the Gemini while docked, and
then separated and flew them as a tethered system for a while.  It sort
of worked; the tethers weren't too long and there was difficulty keeping
them taut.
-- 
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: sispas@lsil.com (Steve Ispas)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Size,Mass,and velocity....
Date: 28 Aug 92 17:30:02 GMT
Reply-To: sispas@lsil.com
Organization: LSI Logic Corporation

I think Tom Nugent is right when he writes:

Flame on!}

I don't mean to flame, but this seems to be a big waste of bandwidth.  You
can find things like this just about anywhere.  Surely in an encyclopedia,
if not a good dictionary.  Call up your local library (you don't even have
to leave home) and they may be willing to give it to you over the phone.
Otherwise, go to the library, and look it up along with ten zillion other 
neat things about space you can find there.

{Flame off!}

The idea is not that he is a spoilsport.  The idea is that he is helping by pointing out the library, which is an excellent source of information rather than putting it on the network.  It's not a matter of wasting bandwidth, but if someone is interested in that kind of statistical information he/she would find so much in a library, or encyclopedia.  


******************************************************************************
* Steve Ispas 				                           +-----+   * 	
* LSI Logic Corporation          Phone    : (408) 433-8799        LSI LOGIC
* 1501 McCarthy Blvd.            FAX      : (408) 433-6802         |     |   *
* M/S E-192                      email    : sispas@qafs2           +-----+   *
* Milpitas, Ca.  95035           internet : sispas@lsil.com                  *
******************************************************************************
From: harlan@oberon.cs.wisc.edu (Harlan Harris)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Chase planes (was Re: Need GIF (JPG, whatever) of Shuttle Landing)
Date: 26 Aug 92 18:12:56 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.1992Aug26.181256.15567
Distribution: sci.space
Organization: University of Wisconsin, Madison -- Computer Sciences Dept.

In article <26AUG199212415150@lims01.lerc.nasa.gov> afwendy@lims01.lerc.nasa.gov (WENDY WARTNICK) writes:
>
>wouldn't it be cool if NASA or the Air Force or someone would send up some 
>sort of high altitude/space chase plane for cool space shots.  Yeah, I know 
>there is no feasable reason for this, but I am mighty tired of artists' 
>renditions.  Also, that way we could watch the shuttle go all of the way up
>  Can't satellites watch (disregarding the cost factor)?
>
>		just a random thought'
>	
>			wendy

I seem to remember that in the first few flights they did have some sort of
chase planes. I don't recall if they had them during the actual launch, but
I'm fairly sure they had several jets fly down to Edwards with the shuttle
during the landing. I would imagine that it's too expensive to do normally,
and not real safe during a launch. Goldin would call that "waste"...

As for satellites, the only people that might have one with decent resolution
and the ability to track an object going Mach 20 or so are the DoD, and 
there's no chance they'd release an actual photograph from a spysat. 
However, I've heard that amateur astronomers with telescopes get enough 
resolution to figure out what kind of military satellites are being released
from the shuttle, on the ground. 

I know what you mean though. After a minute or two, the launch gets boring.
Take a look at the footage out the window during a launch from one of the 
IMAX films, though. It shows the earth start to curve and the atmosphere 
disappear, which is just as neat.

 -Harlan
From: spark@spuddy.uucp (Steve)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: What is the speed of light measured from?
Date: 30 Aug 92 13:05:55 GMT
Organization: Spuddy's Public Usenet Domain



OK. Someone can perhaps clear this little nagging thought in my head.

I haven't done any relativity, or any complicated physics, so please
keep it simple.

Even though I'm sitting down, I'm still travelling at about (say) 300m/s,
as the Earth is rotating. Furthermore, the Earth orbits the Sun, so, I'm
travelling at, say 20km/s (or whatever, + my 300m/s)

Now, of course, the Solar System is orbiting around the centre of the Milky,
Way, so add another 150km/s.

So, really to answer the question 'how fast am I travelling', I have to
specify - relative to what.


But here's the bit that's troubling me.

The speed of light is said to be the fastest anything can go, but no-one
ever mentions in which direction. As I am travelling already at anything up
to 150km/s, if I turn on a torch, pointed in the direction I am travelling,
will the light from it travel at a different speed than if I pointed it
backwards?

Where is the speed of light measured relative to?

If I travel at near the speed of light, and look behind me, at something on the
other side of the universe, which is also travelling at near the speed of light,
but in the other direction, it will look as if it is going twice as fast as
the speed of light.

Do designers of particle accellerators have to take the rotation of the earth
etc. into account when they are measuring the speed their particles have reached?

Ugh.

Steve

-- 

        ---- Steve Parkinson (spark%spuddy.uucp@uknet.ac.uk) ----
        ----- Call Spuddy for Free UK USENET on 0203 638780 -----
From: Shawn.McCarthy@p902.f349.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Shawn McCarthy)
Sender: Uucp@blkcat.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Laser distance record?
Date: Thu, 03 Sep 1992 19:25:00 -0500

 > To date, what is the farthest that a laser has been seen from?

 > I recall a successful experiment sending a laser beam from the
 > Earth to a Surveyor lander on the Moon in the sixties.  That
 > would make the current record approx. 384,400 km?
if i remember, a laser was bounced off mirrors on the moon and seen on earth..
so probably twice that.
From: higgins@fnala.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Photos of spacecra(was Re: Need GIF (JPG, whatever) of Shuttle Landing)
Date: 26 Aug 92 18:35:55 GMT
Distribution: sci.space
Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

In article <26AUG199212415150@lims01.lerc.nasa.gov>, afwendy@lims01.lerc.nasa.gov (WENDY WARTNICK) writes:
> wouldn't it be cool if NASA or the Air Force or someone would send up some 
> sort of high altitude/space chase plane for cool space shots.  Yeah, I know 
> there is no feasable reason for this, but I am mighty tired of artists' 
> renditions.  Also, that way we could watch the shuttle go all of the way up
>   Can't satellites watch (disregarding the cost factor)?

The video that Artsebarski and Krikalev brought to the Chicago area
has lots of neat shots of the whole Mir station taken from Soyuz, and
lots of neat shots of Soyuz and Progress operations taken from Mir.

The SPAS pallet deployed and retrieved again from the Shuttle in the
early Eighties took photos of the Shuttle from a distance.  More!
More!

During the first and second stage         Bill Higgins   
flights of the vehicle, if a serious      Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
irretrievable fault should occur and      HIGGINS@FNALB.BITNET
the deviation of the flight attitude of   HIGGINS@FNAL.FNAL.GOV
the vehicle exceeds a predetermined       SPAN/Hepnet: 43011::HIGGINS 
value, the attitude self-destruction
system will make the vehicle
self-destroyed. 
     --Long March 3 User's Manual
     Ministry of Astronautics, People's Republic of China (1985)
From: Frederick.A.Ringwald@dartmouth.edu (Frederick A. Ringwald)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: SPS
Date: 2 Sep 92 14:41:54 GMT
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
X-Posted-From: InterNews1.0a2@newshost.dartmouth.edu

In article <9209020213.AA15023@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov>
roberts@CMR.NCSL.NIST.GOV (John Roberts) writes:

> -SPS is also not without its own unique problems. Microwave power
> -transmission presents safety problems, and terawatts of transmitted
> -power may well generate enough static to interfere with
> -telecommunications, not to mention cause the demise of ground-based
> -(i.e., inexpensive) radio astronomy. 
> 
> You would handle it like microwave ovens - allocate a narrow frequency
> band for the transmission of power. Well away from that band, there 
> shouldn't be much of a problem.

Well, I don't know. The 1991 November Physics Today (v.44, p. 41)
addresses this issue in an article on interference in radio astronomy.
Of course, radio astronomers have very low thresholds of pain, but
we're talking gigawatts-to-terawatts of power, more than enough to
generate plenty of static even far off band. The particulars will
depend on the particular transmitters: masers or lasers might help
here, but even so, I think we've got more immediate problems to worry
about.

Like for example, why is ground-based astronomy in the U.S. being
allowed to die on the vine, and just as revolutionary new techniques
are coming out? These include 8-m class telescopes and adaptive optics,
both of which will rival Hubble Space Telescope in power in the optical
and near-IR (but importantly, not in the UV), and at a tiny fraction of
its cost. 

This throws plans for astronomy from the Moon, on the cover of the 1992
September Sky & Telescope, into sharp relief: nothing like the cold
light of reality intruding into otherwise neat ideas. If you can't
afford a $30 million a year program of demonstrated scientific merit,
how are you going to construct a $100 billion plus base, except
strictly as a paper dream? (Yeah, I know, they could take over 3000
years to do it...and in the meantime, do no science at all!)

Fred
From: stgprao@st.unocal.COM (Richard Ottolini)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: What is the speed of light measured from?
Date: 2 Sep 92 15:31:42 GMT
Article-I.D.: unocal.1992Sep2.153142.7358
Organization: Unocal Corporation

In article <2SEP199204264283@reg.triumf.ca> vincent@reg.triumf.ca (pete) writes:
>Neglecting the engineering problems of high speed travel through an
>imperfect vacuum, you can travel light centuries in subjective
>hours if you accelerate long enough. If you arrive at the Andromeda
>galaxy 2 weeks after leaving earth, you could be justified in
>thinking you travelled faster than c. It's just that the rest of 
>the universe will have aged 2x10^8 years.

No. You would not feel you are going faaster, but the universe got smaller
and slower.  These are stardard result of Special Relativity.
From: Frederick.A.Ringwald@dartmouth.edu (Frederick A. Ringwald)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Antarctica (was: SPS)
Date: 3 Sep 92 04:39:51 GMT
 <1992Sep2.144506.19052@dartvax.dartmouth.edu>  
 <1992Sep2.224907.1937@ucsu.Colorado.EDU>
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
X-Posted-From: InterNews1.0a2@newshost.dartmouth.edu

In article <1992Sep2.224907.1937@ucsu.Colorado.EDU>
fcrary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Frank Crary) writes:

> It has already been explored 

So has the Moon, albeit to a lesser extent.

> and all colonization/private
> property is _illegal_ under international treaty.

Come on: since when did that ever stop anyone? If it became
technologically feasible to make a profit from extracting petroleum
there, that treaty would be abrogated faster than Greenpeace could let
out a good whine. Besides, most international treaties can be LEGALLY
abrogated, given 90 days' notice.