HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: hangfore@spf.trw.com (John Stevenson)
Subject: Re: New lunar spacecraft (& old data formats)
Reply-To: hangfore@spf.trw.com (John Stevenson)
Organization: TRW Inc., Redondo Beach, CA
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 92 22:00:31 GMT

In article <1992Sep13.231311.13575@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov>  
baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke) writes:
> The results of the Lunar Orbiter gravity data was published in 1968 and  
1969,
> and there's a nice map of the gravity field on page 605 in the Lunar
> Sourcebook.  Note that there has been *no* gravity mapping of the Moon's
> farside.  This is because lunar spacecraft were either too far from the
> surface when on the farside, or the Moon itself blocked any radio  
transmissions
> to Earth.
>      ___    _____     ___
>     /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         |  
baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov
>     | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
>  ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | Anything is  
impossible if
> /___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | you don't attempt  
it.
> |_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     | 

Dennis -
Thanks, it was Lunar Orbiter 4 and 5.

Ron -
From "Lunar Observer: A Comprehensive Orbital Survey of the Moon", JPL  
D-8607, April 15, 1991:
pg. A-2: "The availability of potentially useful newer techniques, plus  
much more powerful computers, makes it a very attractive option now to try  
reprocessing the old lunar data, and especially the Lunar Orbiter 4 and 5  
high inclination data."
pg A-4: ".. a major conclusion, both from the minsymposium on gravity  
fields and from our own analysis, is that reprocessing some of the old  
data promises to yield an improvement in the lunar gravity field  
estimate."

Fred - 
from the same reference:
pg A-6: ".. however an excellent source turned out to be the National  
Space Science Data Center. Their purpose is to collect and archive  
existing space science data, and the data are kept there with some care."

The reference goes on to note that the radionavigation data was acquired  
from the NSDC on 7 track tapes, which no one any longer had the software (  
or even tape drives?) to read.  The reference then goes on to discuss the  
various boxes of punched cards which may or may not contain the required  
data. So it appears that the information is not yet lost, but the will (  
or dollars) to recover it may be.

This information on the lunar gravity field is crucial for orbit design  
and propellant sizing for upcoming lunar missions.

Henry -
Love your sigs, but how 'bout a new one?

John Stevenson
hangfore@spf.trw.com
From: rabjab@golem.ucsd.edu (Jeff Bytof)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Bioeffects of magnetic field deprivation
Date: 15 Sep 1992 07:37:44 GMT
Organization: sio
NNTP-Posting-Host: lutherlab.ucsd.edu



>I'm not terribly impressed.  For one thing, it's really easy to figure
>out ways to run much better experiments, avoiding problems like possible
>chemical toxicity (e.g., house all animals in aluminum cylinders, and
>put mu-metal casings around the *outside* of some of them).  For another,
>if it does turn out to be an issue, simulating Earth's field should not
>be a big problem -- it's pretty feeble.

The US and Japan have excellent room-sized magnetically shielded
facilities.  Dr. Asashima used one for his newt experiments.  Even
UC San Diego (my alma mater and current employer) has one, but
it's used mainly for physics experiments.    

As far as space travel is concerned, I agree that it would be very 
easy to produce the appropriate Earth-like field in small volumes,
like a spacecraft cabin or small surface station on Moon or Mars.
It would be harder to generate a planet-sized field, which is what
you would like if you are terraforming.

This is an area were some good experiments could be done.  The 
experiments don't have to go up on a shuttle.  It would be very
interesting to study and understand just how a magnetic field
interacts with biological processes, quite aside from the 
implications for extended stays in deep space, where the natural field
strengths are generally quite low, compared with Earth.

Jeff Bytof
rabjab@golem.ucsd.edu 





Xref: sparky sci.space:12991 sci.astro:9709
From: jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Josh 'K' Hopkins)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro
Subject: Re: Pluto Direct Propulsion Options
Date: 15 Sep 92 20:03:32 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana

fcrary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Frank Crary) writes:
[on the subject of Pluto's atmosphere]

>Yes: There was a stellar occultation in 1990 (? might have been 1989).
>The gradual drop in the observed light not only demonstrated the
>existance of an atmosphere, but also suggested some kind of structure
>(odd density-temperature profile or a haze layer...)


Do we need to worry about pulling another Titan?  It would be kind of 
embarrassing to dedicate a half billion, two probes and ten years of ops, only
to find out that Pluto's atmosphere is opaque :)


-- 
Josh Hopkins              "I believe that there are moments in history when 
                           challenges occur of such a compelling nature that to 
                           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: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: QUERY Re: Pluto Direct/ options
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 23:10:23 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <Bu9ADv.6M1@world.std.com> tombaker@world.std.com (Tom A Baker) writes:
>Could you clarify whether this craft is supposed to just flyby (a la
>Voyager) or is truly a Pluto "orbiter"? ...

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.  You really cannot do a Pluto
orbiter in a reasonable amount of time with 1960s propulsion technology,
which is what all currently-planned missions use.
-- 
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: wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov
Subject: Re: 3 Booster Questions
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: University of Houston
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 17:15:00 GMT

In article <BuFp57.2zt@news.cso.uiuc.edu>, jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Josh 'K' Hopkins) writes...
>wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov writes:
> 
>>In response to Josh's statment about single engines for the booster phase of an
>>HLV.  
> 
>>Josh the NLS one booster which as an Atlas II class launcher only uses one
>>STME booster (600,000 lbs thrust) for 20,000 lbs to orbit.
> 
>[Stuff Deleted]
> 
>>Dennis, University of Alabama Huntsville
> 
>I know Dennis. However, I don't consider this a Heavy Lift Vehicle.  I can't
>calulate how much a single F-1 can put into orbit without knowing what else
>you have in mind, but I don't think the extra thrust is enough to put it in
>the HLV class either.
> 
> 
The Baby Saturn with an STME upper stage is between 52-65,000 lbs to LEO, 
depending on the materials used in the stages themselves.  This is more than
a Titan IV at a fraction of the cost.  Even if I make Allen happy and add
20 million per launch, the costs are still only 75-85 million per launch. With
this lift capability we get two Hughes 601's to GEO.  This replaces two
Atlas IIAs launches with one baby saturn.  

You design the baby saturn to take Two F1As from the beginning by stretching
the tanks (this is the least expensive method of incremental improvement for
all launchers, proven by GD and MacDac) Also, you have the plumbing and 
launch platform set up for it.  Then for a very small incremental cost you
get 2 F1A'a and Two or One STME's on the upper stage for about 110,000 to
125,000 lbs to orbit.  This is certainly in the small HLV range and is the
same or a little more than Titan V or HLV Delta.

Then This sets the stage for incremental improvement II.  You tool for a 
Short fat booster for a Three Engine F1A and STME bird.  Same pads same
infrastructure same engines.  The only cost is the new jigs for the
larger diameter tanks.  Then you can icrementally grow to the full Saturn
V configuration as the market evolves to need the demand.  This is the
pattern of all of Allen's HLV plans BUT with the use of a far more powerful
and flexible system for improvments in mass to orbit.  Also the system
is far more environmentally friendly by having no pesky polluting Ammonium
Perchlorate solid boosters.

Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville

Newsgroups: sci.space
From: tomk@netcom.com (Thomas H. Kunich)
Subject: Re: Is NASA really planning to Terraform Mars?
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 92 20:20:48 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)

In article <14941@mindlink.bc.ca> Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca (Nick Janow) writes:
>knapp@spot.Colorado.EDU (David Knapp) enquires:
>
>> Thomas, would you expound on which bacteria or fungi can exist in a hot
>> sulfuric acid/sulfur dioxide environment [Venus' upper atmosphere]?
>
>I don't know if there are any microorganisms that can survive those conditions
>(I don't know that there aren't, either).  However, Perhaps advances in

Back when the Viking lander was on Mars and they began saying that there
were 'life-like' processes occuring in the on-board bio-lab I said that
that was probably proof positive that life didn't exist on Mars.

My line of thinking was the following: Life probably evolved from
a chemical process. These chemical processes would, no doubt, have
first used up all of the cheap energy gradients, so simple chemical
processes releasing energy are rare on earth while they may be plentiful
on any planet where life never existed.

It has been stated that there are more organisms still to be discovered
right here on earth than have been catagorized yet. So not knowing
any specific organism isn't necessarily an inhibiting factor.

It was scant years ago when the idea of living organisms existing in
volcano vents would have brought on derision of the first water. Now
there are several sciences (PCR for one) founded upon this discovery.
From: sk4i+@andrew.cmu.edu (Samuel John Kass)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: CFC replacement
Date: 6 Sep 92 13:00:35 GMT
Article-I.D.: andrew.oeeb5n_00WBO838agh
Organization: Sophomore, Math/Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

On 06-Sep-92 in Re: CFC replacement          
user John Roberts@CMR.NCSL.NI writes:
>There are usable replacements that are safe for the ozone layer - NIST has
>one, and there are others. However the NIST material is flammable, so it's
>not as safe *to use* as CFCs. It's probably fair to say that there's not 
>yet a *fully satisfactory* replacement. Obviously, it would be desirable
>to come up with something that will work in existing systems. I don't know
>whether any of the current candidates can be used for this.
> 
>John Roberts
>roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov

There was an article in a recent "We" (Russian/US newspaper) about a
competition for the first non-CFC refrigerator that operated like a CFC
refrigerator.  I forget how much money was offered, but details can be
requested from:

SERP, Inc.
2856 Arden Way
Suite 200
Sacramento, CA 95825
Fax: 916-481-5869

I'm sorry, but I don't have the date of the "We" that the article
appeared in, but it was sometime this summer.

    --Sam Kass
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: tholen@hale.ifa.hawaii.edu (Dave Tholen)
Subject: Re: QUERY Re: Pluto Direct/ options
Organization: Institute for Astronomy, Hawaii
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 20:24:54 GMT

Shawn McCarthy writes:

> Has the possibility of a light-sail been looked into? use it for accelleration
> from the 'bright' area near the earth, then brake off Jupiter's light... (more
> complex than that, but thats the general idea)...

Jupiter's light is nothing more than reflected sunlight (at least at visible
wavelengths), and since half of Jupiter is in darkness, there's not much to
use once you get past Jupiter, which is only one-sixth of the travel distance
under optimum alignment.  The effiency of a light-sail drops off with the
square of the distance from the Sun, rendering it impractical for an outer
Solar System mission (unless you want to make it ENORMOUS, but NASA won't
be too keen on a deployable anything).
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Is NASA really planning to Terraform Mars?
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Organization: [via International Space University]
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU
Distribution: sci
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 13:04:27 GMT

> I don't believe that Venus could ever be made earthlike. I see the  
chance, however, of seeding life there and letting it make it's own  
way.
> 

I would be careful with such strong statements about times far in the  
future.

> The same with Mars. All of the grandiose plans aside I can't see
> the bulk of the necessary machinery being transported to Mars to
> terraform it and then the project continued for thousands of years.
> 

If done in the far future I expect at least some or all of it to be  
done using nanotechnology. If started near term it would be a  
bootstrapping operation with small initial equipment from Earth and  
everything else done indigenously. And somewhere in between there  
will be a time when space transport is common enough that maybe even  
the massive loads would be possible. After all, with Orion we could  
have put the weight of a naval destroyer on Mars by the late 60's or  
early 70's. What might be possible in a century by colonists who have  
escaped the fearful, inward looking societies of Earth?

And if it takes thousands of years, so what? It will just be a day to  
day matter for the millions living there, something to be cared for  
like the dikes of Holland or the Mississippi levees. Each generation  
(assuming lifespans are not drastically increased in the near future)  
will know that the gains it has from the previous generation must be  
preserved to keep things at least as comfortable as they are, and  
improvements might be rapid enough that small effects would be seen  
over a lifetime.

If you refer to Dr. Robert Zubrin's work and agree with his results,  
then we find that the turnover to a warm, wet CO2 planet is rapid  
compared to a human lifespan, ie a few decades at most. The turnover  
to an Earthlike world using plants and genetic engineering would  
indeed be the work of many generations (if you assume serious limits  
to the eventual capability of nanotechnology).

Martians would also need to find a way to solve problem of success  
(as I noted before). An O2 atmosphere will become transparent and  
will lose much of it's greenhouse capacity.

Maybe it will be the patriotic duty of every Martian to own a leaky  
CFC refrigerator, raise cattle and drive a poorly tuned 1950's  
Cadillac. :-)
From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Is NASA really planning to Terraform Mars?
Date: 15 Sep 92 14:01:27 GMT
Article-I.D.: ke4zv.1992Sep15.140127.3073
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <BuH7oH.J9@news.cso.uiuc.edu> jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Josh 'K' Hopkins) writes:
>dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes:
>>Your non sequitur appears to be the following: If there is
>>overpopulation, then people would starve.  People are starving.
>>Therefore, there is overpopulation.
>
>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.

Two things. As world population has grown, both the percentage and the
absolute numbers of malnurished people have diminished. I won't attempt
to imply causation here, just reporting the fact. The second thing is 
more to the point. In subsistence agricultural communities with poor
health care and a non-existant social safety net, having more children
is an *advantage* for the people. The high birth rate makes up for the
high infant mortality rate and provides them with additional laborers 
in the fields and a fairly large group of descendants to take care of 
them in their old age. Merely providing birth control without also 
supplying these other necessities would be doing these people a
disservice. 

Farm family size in the US has decreased as mechanization and social 
services have improved. This is also true of non-farm families.
The shortage in subsistence communities is almost always labor. Only
6% of the arable land in Africa is farmed. That's because there isn't
enough labor available to productively use the land with pre-industrial
techniques. Using standard Green Revolution techniques, Africa should
easily be able to increase it's yield of foodstuffs by 40 times it's
current production. Minus the effects of tribal warfare, current farm
production in Africa is sufficient for the current population. This isn't
meant to imply that increasing Africa's population by 40 fold would
necessarily be a good thing, but it is possible for them to feed that
many with known techniques.

Gary
From: pgf@srl02.cacs.usl.edu ("Phil G. Fraering")
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Nasa's Apollo rerun vs. Zubrin...
Date: 14 Sep 92 00:05:47 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.BuJKB5.E7v.1
Distribution: sci
Organization: [via International Space University]
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU


\Those expecting a lunar base out of NASA's proposed "return to the
/moon" are in for a big disappointment, according to a recent Aviation
\Week article.  It describes FLO, which stands for "First Lunar
/Operations", apparently because it repeats in form and function
\our first lunar operations, Apollo.

/The missions would have a crew of four instead of a crew of three, in
\an enlarged Apollo-style capsule.  The craft would land directly on
/the surface instead of doing Apollo's lunar-orbit rendesvous, increasing
\costs but allowing the craft to land at lattitudes higher than the
/equator.  The system requires -- get this -- a launcher 1.5 times the
\size of Saturn 5!

[Gore-y details deleted]

\They would try out
/tiny experiments in making LOX and lunar soil bricks, as a sop to
\those who want a real lunar base.  No production plants, no
/mass driver, and no biosphere.  Most time at the "base"
\would be spent by the astronauts huddled in their capsules, 
/studying each other.  There would be no revenue or commercial
\interest in the project.

I suspect they're trying to attack Robert Zubrin's _Moon Direct_
scenario. This effectively refutes it, because if it were worth doing,
"we High Priests would have considered doing it by now.  Except we
haven't. We looked at his stuff, and we deceided we didn't want to do
it that way, so his way musn't be any good.  We'll do as much
materials research as the state of the art permits, as long as we
don't have to leave the stone age."

[reformatting Nick...]

\ They propose a monster rocket 1.5 times the capability of Saturn 5,
/which would not be used by anybody outside NASA.  Thus, I would give a

...

Nick, don't you think it's funny that they think they need a rocket
1.5 times the size of the Saturn 5 to return to the moon?

These guys couldn't even return to the moon if you gave them a
full-size, fully operational moon rocket. They'd complain about
how it was too small for the job.

BTW, Zubrin's Moon Direct uses 2 Titan IV's, or 1 Titan IV and
one shuttle. And in-situ fuel production for the return trip.
Check it out.

-- 
Phil Fraering pgf@srl0x.cacs.usl.edu where the x is a number from 1-5.
Phone: 318/365-5418 SnailMail: 2408 Blue Haven Dr., New Iberia, La. 70560

           --> Support UN military force against Doug Mohney <--
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader)
Subject: Re: QUERY Re: Pluto Direct/ options
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 92 05:51:45 GMT

Several slingshot trajectories have been proposed as alternatives to the
direct Pluto flight, but not the one that I would have thought obvious:
a simple Jupiter slingshot.  Jupiter should be in the right position
for a period of, I would guess, some weeks or months, at intervals of
about 12 years.

Is it the case that, by the time a probe could be readied, we would have
just missed the launch window?  Or is there some other objection to this
method this time?

-- 
Mark Brader		For I do not believe that the stars are spread over a
Toronto			spherical surface at equal distances from one center;
utzoo!sq!msb		I suppose their distances from us to vary so much that
msb@sq.com		some are 2 or 3 times as remote as others.   -- Galileo

This article is in the public domain.
From: Mark Goodman <mwgoodman@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: sci.space
Date: 08 Sep 92 19:31 PDT
Subject: Special Relativity
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1469100014:000:909
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!mwgoodman    Sep  8 19:31:00 1992


Reply-To: mwgoodman@igc.org

Alan Barclay writes

>A recent SF book used relativistic mass to produce black holes.
>i.e. accelerate a spaceship until it's massive enough to collapse
>into a singularity.  Something seems missing in this equation.
>Could it happen?

The short answer is no.

It is a common (because it appears in many textbooks) misconception
that the mass of an object changes when its velocity changes.  In
fact, what increases is the time component of the energy-momentum
4-vector (E,p ,p ,p ).  The invariant mass is defined by
             x  y  z

   2  2    2
  m =E -|p|

and is independent of the frame of reference.  The confusion is
caused by Einstein's famous identity

      2
  E=mc

which holds only in an object's rest frame.  It would be more
precise to write this explicitly as

       2 
  E =mc
   0

where E  is the energy of the object at rest.
       0

Mark W. Goodman


Newsgroups: sci.space
From: pgf@srl07.cacs.usl.edu (Phil G. Fraering)
Subject: Re: Is NASA really planning to Terraform Mars?
Organization: Univ. of Southwestern Louisiana
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 15:28:10 GMT

sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu (Doug Mohney) writes:

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

>>You do not know there is no life on Mars or anywhere else other than Earth.
>>I don't see the relevance of arguing over the label of 'back yard'.  I don't
>>think as a society, or even a planet, we have yet learned how to manage our
>>*own* planet, not even a *little*.  Because of this I don't think we are
>>qualified to begin applying our ignorance to anther planet.
>>
>>Luckily, this will not be an issue for many years.

>Naw, you'd better line up now to put Saturn's rings off-limits to Szabo's Ice
>Mining, Inc. And then prepare to go out there and enforce your law, hm?

>                 Support U.N. military force against Serbia

It's enough to make me go work for Nick just to get
people like that aggravated when we get the first
shipment of "ring ice" in. I've been thinking, might
there be a market in Japan for ice cubes of the stuff?

I mean, it's been ice a lot longer than the alaskan 
glaciers, right? And besides, it's only rings...


--
Phil Fraering pgf@srl0x.cacs.usl.edu where the x is a number from 1-5.
Phone: 318/365-5418 SnailMail: 2408 Blue Haven Dr., New Iberia, La. 70560
If seven maids with seven brooms swept for half a year,
do you think, the Walrus asked, that they could make it clear?
I doubt it, said the Carpenter, and shed a bitter tear.
---------
"NOAH!"                        \           \ Lewis Carrol
"Yes lord?"                     > Bill Cosby, The Story of Noah
"HOW LONG CAN YOU TREAD WATER?"/