HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: Eric_S_Klien@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Alcor Nevada
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 92 13:25:24 PDT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Distribution: world

Alcor Nevada will be meeting Sunday April 12th at 5 PM at the 
Riverside Casino owned by Don Laughlin in Laughlin, Nevada.  Don 
Laughlin will be attending our meeting.  The use of cryonic 
suspension for long duration space travel will be discussed.  For 
more info call Eric Klien at (702) 255-1355.
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: U.S. black programs
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 15:30:29 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1992Apr13.163747.22616@access.digex.com> prb@access.digex.com (Pat) writes:
>The A-12, I am talking about was the one fopr a new navy attack jet.
>i think somewhere around 1-3 billion was spent on design before they
>figured out it would never happen...

Wups, forgot about that one.  However, it doesn't prove much:  even black
projects can be mismanaged, as this one surely was.  (Telling the Secretary
of Defense "everything's fine" a month or two before major problems hit
the headlines is not the sign of a well-managed project; the A-12 might
have survived if not for that blunder.)

>...I dont think a program has to be black to keep out the gold platers.

Perhaps not, but it sure does help.  The big problem isn't the gold platers,
by the way, but the micromanagers.  The big wins for "skunk works" projects
are less paperwork and freedom to change one's mind.

>the Saturn was built by a small gang at MSFC and it was 99% open.

If you're thinking of the Saturn V, it was built by a small army at MSFC
and the contractors.  Even the Saturn I wasn't a particularly small project.
More to the point, you're talking about projects that happened nearly 30
years ago.  Things have changed, and not for the better.

>Maybe congress interferes, but I see more stupid design conditions
>put in by the bureaucrats.  congress mostly screws with people 
>by funding on a year to year basis....

And by calling a Congressional inquiry if anyone dares to admit having
made a mistake, i.e. having "wasted the taxpayers' money".

>Congress funded endeavor and something else on a multi-year basis and
>they worked better.  maybe if congress did that for all programs,
>then we would see where the other problems are.

Congress does not want to do this and isn't going to.  They don't want
to give up their right to meddle, even if it would get better results.
-- 
ISDN, n:  Incredibly Slow and Dumb      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
Networking                              |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
From: eder@hsvaic.boeing.com (Dani Eder)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Solar Power Satellites... what do *you* know?
Date: 8 Apr 92 13:16:45 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Boeing AI Center, Huntsville, AL

ccoprmd@prism.gatech.EDU (Matthew DeLuca) writes:

>Is it?  Are you saying that nuking Washington and New York (in the part of 
>your post I deleted) is equivalent to toasting some (presumably) unmanned
>satellites?  

In an era where there are large numbers of solr power satellites in
Earth orbit, there would likely be a significant number of people in
those orbits also, if for no other reason than to be the maintenance
crews for the satellites.  And the construction crews working on new
satellites.  An the military observation posts.

On the latter, I have been informed by strategic defense types that
the NORAD people would rather have a major at GEO with binoculars
to be a human confirmation of what the early warning satellites
signal: "Yes, general, I can see the plumes of the rockets rising
from Russia".  It costs too much today, though, so they have not
done it.  In an era of SPS it will necessarily not be too expensive
to keep a few people in GEO.

Also, GEO is not the only orbit for power satellites.  In order
to pack more of them in, inclined 24 hour orbits may be used.  The
satellite may wander north and south as seen from the ground, but
this doesn't matter.  Rectenna's are not too directional.  The
inclined orbits would allow reaching polar regions with powersats.
You would need to have several of them wnadering N-S out of phase
so that one was always in sight of polar receivers.

Dani

-- 
Dani Eder/Boeing/Advanced Civil Space/(205)464-2697(w)/232-7467(h)/
Rt.1, Box 188-2, Athens AL 35611/Member: Space Studies Institute
Physical Location: 34deg 37' N 86deg 43' W +100m alt.
***THE ABOVE IS NOT THE OPINION OF THE BOEING COMPANY OR ITS MANAGEMENT.***
From: ggm@brolga.cc.uq.oz.au (George Michaelson)
Subject: space-resident automatic beam-making devices
Organization: Prentice Centre, University of Queensland
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 00:23:04 GMT


My "kiddy-book of space" (complete with mandatory intro by ACClarke)
has natty pictures of a triangular cross-section beam welder gizmo
which takes rolls of flat metal/plastic tape, deforms them into L section
and then spot welds to construct  meccano-type beams. I think it was
even flight-tested.

Whats stopping a few handfuls of these from blasting up, unattended to
litter the skyline with a few pre-built RSJs to play with? Seems to me
99% of any space stations going to be a connective frame, and the frame
might as well be up there as not. Does it *really* make so much difference
if the dimensions vary a bit? 

lets have some LEGO in space now!

	-George
--
                         George Michaelson
G.Michaelson@cc.uq.oz.au The Prentice Centre      | There's no  market for
                         University of Queensland | hippos in Philadelphia
Phone: +61 7 365 4079    QLD Australia 4072       |          -Bertold Brecht
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro
From: baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke)
Subject: Ulysses Update - 04/09/92
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-4   
Keywords:  Ulysses, JPL, ESA
Reply-To: baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1992 00:07:58 GMT

Forwarded from:
PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011

                     ULYSSES MISSION STATUS
                          April 9, 1992

     Checkout of spacecraft subsystems after Ulysses' flight past
Jupiter continued this week.  Testing of the attitude and orbit
control system began today.  The anomaly in the backup telemetry
subsystem's central terminal unit is still under investigation.   

     A routine Earth-pointing maneuver was performed today.  The
next maneuver is scheduled for Monday, April 13.

     Today Ulysses is about 700 million kilometers (435 million
miles) from Earth, traveling at a heliocentric velocity of about
29,000 kilometers per hour (18,500 miles per hour).  The
spacecraft is about 500 million miles from the sun.

                              #####
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | People will believe
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | anything if you whisper it.
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     | 

Xref: sparky sci.space:7430 sci.physics.fusion:988 sci.research:496 sci.energy:2477
From: steve@unidata.ucar.edu (Steve Emmerson)
Subject: Re: SDI update
Organization: University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 03:59:58 GMT

henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:

>In article <steve.703216904@unidata.ucar.edu> steve@unidata.ucar.edu 
(Steve Emmerson) writes:

>>Even Saddam and Khadhafi have exhibited self-restraint when the
>>alternative was suicide.

>Uh, say what?  Just when did Saddam exhibit visible restraint?

He didn't use the chemical weapons that he could have.  I believe he
correctly concluded that to do so would have resulted in his death.

The same goes for ballistic nuclear weapons.
--

Steve Emmerson        steve@unidata.ucar.edu        ...!ncar!unidata!steve
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: yee@spectre.arc.nasa.gov (Peter Yee)
Subject: Re: Help finding NASA GIF files
Reply-To: yee@spectre.arc.nasa.gov (Peter Yee)
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 00:27:29 GMT

In article <1992Apr13.020603.6818@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, jcm3r@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU (John Carl Martin) writes:
|> On Sunday night, I was FTPing to the ames.arc.nasa.gov to download
|> some GIF files that I had picked out.  I expected to find these
|> files in the directory /pub/SPACE/GIF but the directory was empty,
|> except for the INDEX file which read:
|>        total: 0
|> 
|> Only two days before, the files that I had wanted where in this directory    
|> along with many others.  The files in the /pub/GIF directory are not the
|> ones that I am looking for.  Does anyone out there know what happened to
|> all those GIF files?  Thanks.

Yeah, on occasion the VAX that hosts the GIF disk has troubles with NFS
support.  The files were not deleted, it is just that the partition does
not always mount correctly.  Fixed now, I believe.  Drop me a line if it
goes off-line -- I don't always look for it.

							-Peter Yee
							yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro
From: dj@ssd.kodak.com (Dave Jones)
Subject: Re: Isaac Asimov, Science fact and fiction writer
Organization: :noitazinagrO
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 92 14:15:57 GMT

In article <1992Apr7.172847.27466@cbfsb.cb.att.com> wa2ise@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (robert.f.casey) writes:
>I suppose an asteroid could be named after him, in his honor.

Only if the asteroid was inhabited by a small talking rock.....

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
We can defeat gravity.  The problem is the paperwork involved.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

-- 
||Dave Jones (dj@ekcolor.ssd.kodak.com)    ||-------------------------------|
||Eastman Kodak Co. Rochester, NY 14653-7300|-------------------------------|
|| If Unix is a computer system            ||-------------------------------|
|| then a pile of bricks is a house        ||-------------------------------|
From: fcrary@ocf.berkeley.edu (Frank Crary)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: SHOULD WE FURTHER EXPLORE MARS ???
Date: 7 Apr 92 17:17:34 GMT
Article-I.D.: agate.rslfeINNb7i
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: sandstorm.berkeley.edu

In article <1992Apr5.140732.5872@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:
>>>Let's assume that, in the past, water was indeed plentiful upon the surface
>>>of Mars. Do we yet have any idea how long ago this era could have been?
>>A good guess would be 3 to 3.5 billion years ago.
>I recall estimates around the time of Viking of on the order of 250,000
>years for the departure of flowing water from the Martian surface.

By 3 to 3.5 billion years, I meant how long ago Mars was wet and "Earthlike."
There was, no doubt, some liquid water present later. In fact, some features
are consistant with underground sources of liquid water breaking out, and
flooding for a distance, untill all the water boiled off (i.e. after Mars's
atmosphere was too thin to support liquid water.) McKay, at NASA/Ames has 
spent several years studying the lakes in the Antarctic, and found that a
thick layer of ice will insolate the water, and keep it at a higher pressure
(gases in the water are forced out as it freezes, and act to pressurize the
liquid water). If similar lakes existed on Mars, there should have been 
water there longer. I remember a number of ~2.5 billion years ago from one
of McKay's talks.

						       Frank Crary
						       UC Berkeley
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Gaia with morning sickness
From: repalmer@oread.cc.ukans.edu
Date: 8 Apr 92 12:16:36 CST
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Serces

 
>>>>> But wait....  Maybe the chemicals (signals) are pollutants, and the
>>>>> eco-pagans, by trying to shut down industries, are Gaia's way of starting

>>>>Or maybe, it's not so much a case of Gaia gearing up for the birthing
>>>>process (from all the pollutants we've dumped in the environment) as it is

>>>Or humans are a cancer (cells growing uncontollably) that must be treated

>>>Maybe it's just morning sickness :-)
>>
>>AIDS IS GAIA'S AUTO-IMMUNE RESPONSE!
>   
>    . . . and you guys criticize root@devl3.UUCP (Super user) for *his*
>    religious views!                                                   
> 
>    All of the above, along with notions of "ultimate destiny" out among
>    the stars are all religious: just attempts to attach some greater
>    meaning or significance to your lives and activities than might
>    otherwise be warranted.  
> 
>    Look, rationally, pollution, and AIDS, and all the rest are simple 
>    cause-and-effect.  If you generate more waste than the environment
> 
>    Of course consequences may be good, too -- work hard, study dili-
>    gently, plan well, invest prudently, and you may enjoy success as
>    a *consequence*.  
> 
>    The point is that the things that happen to us, good or bad, are
>    not the result of some deistic or spiritual or abstract force; they
> 
>    Having spent years freeing myself from the propaganda of childhood
>    Sunday school classes, I'm not about to adopt some "green" 
>    religion with its own icons, deities, and anthropomorphisms. 

Lightn up Peter, don't you know that the laws of natural population control
state that when a species over extends its range its numbers will be reduced
through-famine, violence, or disease. 

There just wasting some time having some fun.  Religion is based on
faith...Gaia is based on reinterpretation of what constitutes an organism.
From: jim@netlink.cts.com (Jim Bowery)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: The Final Solution for the Final Frontier?
Date: 17 Apr 92 19:24:23 GMT
Article-I.D.: netlink.cR4DJB1w164w
Organization: NetLink Online Communications, San Diego CA

There are some friends of mine who work in aerospace that are kind
of worrying me.  Increasingly, whenever we talk, they seem to
always get onto the subject of how they would, like, love to just take
an AK47 and mow down a whole bunch of NASA bureaucrats.  This used 
to be sort of fun to kid around about, but they don't seem to want 
to talk about technical problems much anymore.
 
Has anyone else noticed this trend among aerospace technologists and
scientists working at the "front lines" so to speak?

--                    
INTERNET:  jim@netlink.cts.com (Jim Bowery)
UUCP:   ...!nosc!ryptyde!netlink!jim
NetLink Online Communications * Public Access in San Diego, CA (619) 435-6181
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro
From: SCHLEGEL@Zeus.unomaha.edu (Mark)
Subject: Isaac Asimov, Science fact and fiction writer, dead at 72
Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 16:39:06 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.11


Yesterday(Mon Apr 6th) at 2.20am, the prolific science fact and fiction
writer Isaac Asimov died at the age of 72 of heart and kidney failure.
He was at the New York University hospital at the time.

His total accomplishments in writing include nearly 500 books and about 400
columns and articles to "Fantasy and Science Fiction" magazine alone.
His final novel was "Forward the Foundation" coming out later this year.


Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.geo.meteorology
From: mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Doug McDonald)
Subject: Re: Human UV vision
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 14:14:02 GMT


In article <1992Apr7.012105.10946@pixar.com> loren@pixar.com (Loren Carpenter) writes:
>In article <9204030413.AA14725@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov> roberts@CMR.NCSL.NIST.GOV (John Roberts) writes:
>>
>>[This was originally a discussion on whether organisms from other planets
>>might see the same spectral range that we do.]
>>
>>-From: LOPEZ@HWS.BITNET
>>
>>-          In a previous post Mr. Roberts mentioned that the retina
>>-can detect UV rays but the lens filters this out.  He then asked cataract
>>-surgery patients to send him information on this.  Well this jogged my
>>-memory about an essay Arthur C. Clarke wrote in his anthology _Report on
>>-Planet Three_.  In it he wrote an essay about frequencies that humans could
>>-not percieve with their senses.  This was in the last half of the book, Mr.
>>-Roberts for you to check.
>>
>>-Cal Lopez
>>-Sophomore Hobart&Wm Smith Clgs
>>
>>Thanks for your reply. Now I wonder what the "color" of UV is! (My guess would
>>be blue.)
>>
>>John Roberts
>>roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov
>>
>
>It's an electric indigo.  Near IR is an electric magenta pink.  At least
>that's what I see doing the following...
>
>	Obtain a Wratten 18A filter, preferably 3"x3" glass.  It is a 
>		notch filter for visible wavelengths.  I don't have the
>		parameters handy, but the glass looks real black.  I got
>		mine from Kodak about 20 years ago.
>
>	Get a simple glass prism and hold it against the filter.
>
>	Look at a bright white light source, through the prism and the
>		filter.  I looked at the sun, but you might not want to
>		be that adventurous.
>
>	What I see is 2 images of the light source, one corresponding
>		to UV and the other to IR.  The UV one is fuzzier than
>		the IR one, probably due to being more out of focus.
>
>
>Since color perception is kind of a personal thing, you have to try this
>for yourself.
>
>p.s.  I haven't noticed any visual impairment since I did this, but I
>	can't guarantee you won't.
>
>
>		Loren Carpenter
>		loren@pixar.com

When I was in high shcool, I had a fairly good grating spectrograph/
spectroscope, that would resolve about 1 Angstrom. At that time
I could see well into the UV - far beyond the H and K calcium lines
of the sun. Everything beyond 400 nm looked the same shade of violet.
I can still see light at 384nm (0-0 band of CN) at it still is
clear violet.

In the red, I could - and still can - see to about 850 nm if the light is 
bright enough, such as a laser. This looks the same color as light
at 650 nm, slightly less "orange" than a HeNe laser at 633 nm.

Doug McDonald
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: A quick question about distances
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 23:18:48 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <15APR199210560872@iago.caltech.edu> irwin@iago.caltech.edu (Horowitz, Irwin Kenneth) writes:
>The largest measurable distance is the "Hubble distance", basically, the
>size of the universe (about 10-20 Billion ly.).

Okay... the yoctometer (yottameter?) is about 100 million ly, so the
Hubble distance is 100-200 Ym.  I think we can safely say that we have
adequately large units of distance available. :-)
-- 
ISDN, n:  Incredibly Slow and Dumb      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
Networking                              |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
From: willner@cfa.harvard.edu (Steve Willner)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Censure the sensor censors
Date: 6 Apr 92 17:28:32 GMT
Article-I.D.: cfa203.1992Apr6.172832.21908
Organization: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA,  USA


In article <9204041523.AA27585@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov>,
roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov (John Roberts) writes: 
(A great subject line, by the way.)

> OK, so you just use the "electrostatic cooling" (also mentioned in the item
> on optical telescopes) to cool the whole camera to -20 C or whatever 

If you only want -20 C, thermoelectric coolers work just fine.  At
these temperatures, the background is so high that detectors don't
have to be very good for their noise to be trivial.  Thermal emission
is about 20 mW per cm^2 - that's a LOT of photons.  (Quick estimate
gives around 10^18 per second.)

Better coolers would be nice, but neither better coolers nor detectors
will improve performance.

Now if you want -200 C (or colder!), better coolers would be great.
Existing coolers all have significant disadvantages, and we often use
liquid cryogens as the least of evils.  The original quotation,
however, seemed to be promising _sensors_ with _improved
performance_.  Cheaper sensors or ones with other advantages like
simplicity of operation are still worth having, but that's not what
was said.

>  How do current thermal infrared imagers produce the image?

I don't know about the commercial products, since I work in astronomy
research, but making infrared lenses is actually much easier than
visible light lenses.  Typical materials are germanium, silicon, and
zinc selenide, all of which have refractive indices greater than 2.5
and acceptable mechanical and chemical properties.

> a "pinhole camera" like pit vipers? (Note that pit vipers have a body
> temperature only slightly lower than the objects they're trying to image.

Yes, this is truly remarkable.  However, even a small temperature
difference, which is what is being sensed, is still a big difference
in photon emission rate at some wavelengths.  The sensitivity of pit
vipers and commercial thermal imagers is nowhere near really good
detectors.  There exist, for example, "solid state photomultipliers,"
which can count single photons.  Monolithic detector arrays with read
noise below 50 electrons per pixel also exist.  There are several
development efforts that aim do even better, but improving sensor
sensitivity doesn't matter unless the environment is cold.
-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123         Bitnet:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                 Internet: willner@cfa.harvard.edu
  member, League for Programming Freedom; contact league@prep.ai.mit.edu
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: gabriele@aero.org (Mark Gabriele)
Subject: Re: SDI update
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
	<1992Apr8.054146.8156@zoo.toronto.edu>
	<GABRIELE.92Apr8110315@solecism.aero.org>
	<1992Apr9.015456.19418@zoo.toronto.edu>
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 17:43:52 GMT

Paul Dietz points out that it is unlikely that interceptors will be
able to hit an errant one of their own, so I won't repeat that
rebuttal here.

Later in his post, Henry Spencer writes:

>For another, if worst comes to worst, you can always send a maintenance
>crew up to hit it with a rock.  The Russians will undoubtedly sell you
>a short-notice Soyuz launch if you offer them enough hard cash.  It's
>not as if we were putting the things on Alpha Centauri.

This assumes that you *can* send up a maintenance crew, and that the
system doesn't think that they are an enemy and try to shoot them
down.  That's the problem with this system - if it all goes haywire,
there's NO WAY to turn it off.  You either send up enough things to
exhaust its supply of interceptors, or you wait for the orbits to
decay.  Those are the only 100% certain ways to deactivate it.

Henry points out that there are other circumstances, like space
launchers, that could go haywire and take out a big chunk of a major
city.  He's right.  But in those cases, we weigh the risks of disaster
against the possible gains and decide to do it.  In this case, you are
dealing with a weapon.  The only possible gain is that in the event of
a missile attack, then, maybe, if it's the right kind of attack, we
can engage the enemy and (again maybe) hit some percentage of his
weapons.

It's a judgement call.  

=Mark
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Mars for $30M ???
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 16:21:44 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <32431@darkstar.ucsc.edu> speth@cats.ucsc.edu (James Gustave) writes:
>A poster (sorry, I don't remember who) recently talked about a proposal by
>Griffin to go to Mars for $30M.  I assumed this meant $30 million.
>Is this correct?  What did the proposal involve (ie. equipment, crew, etc.)?

Uh, I think you're a little confused.  $30M is what Griffin wants *this
year* to get *started* on lunar exploration; it's basically startup money
for the small unmanned precursor missions he wants to fly.
-- 
GCC 2.0 is to C as SVR4 is to Unix.     | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
                             -Dick Dunn |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry