HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: With telepresence, who needs people in Earth orbit?
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 23:40:35 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1992Sep3.152129.22162@cs.ucf.edu> clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke) writes:
>> It's absurd to tie teloperation in low earth orbit to a communication
>> path involving two round trips to Clark orbit.  Build a necklace of
>> co-orbiting microsats ...
>
>Easier still, use the Motorola Iridium constellation...

Both of these ideas assume that the delay *around the Earth* is tolerable
for teleoperation.  Probably true for the simpler forms, but I've heard
some very low numbers for the tolerable delay if you're using the fancier
methods like force feedback.
-- 
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:12900 sci.aeronautics:1992
From: pgf@srl07.cacs.usl.edu (Phil G. Fraering)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.aeronautics
Subject: Re: Solar Ram Jet
Date: 14 Sep 92 15:06:58 GMT
Article-I.D.: srl07.pgf.716483218
Organization: Univ. of Southwestern Louisiana

jim@netlink.cts.com (Jim Bowery) writes:

... Throw 
>in some tethers to pick up and leave off payloads and you have a system 
>that pimply-faced boys with crushes on budding econazi girlfriends might 
>like to read about in Analog.

First, less seriously: Jim, stop the personal attacks, it does
nothing useful. I'm not pimply faced and I don't read Analog.

Second, I don't think there are any budding econazis around under
the age of 10. By 11 I think they're all at the pro level...

;-(
--
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: fcrary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Frank Crary)
Subject: Re: Is NASA really planning to Terraform Mars?
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 21:03:13 GMT

In article <jvrnh5#.tomk@netcom.com> tomk@netcom.com (Thomas H. Kunich) writes:
>Without references it is difficult to remember, but isn't there
>water, water vapor and possible liquid water along the interface of
>the Martian north pole? 

Not that we know of, just water ice and permafrost. There is some,
distant theoretical possibility of sub-surface water (liquid). But 
the evidence for this isn't too substantial...

                                                 Frank Crary
                                                 CU Boulder
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: jprekopa@admiral.uucp (Jeff Prekopa)
Subject: Help! Computone Serial Port Problems
Reply-To: jprekopa@admiral.uucp (Jeff Prekopa)
Organization: The Grid/Waffle BBS, 203-661-2873, -1279, -0450, -2967
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 17:55:16 GMT

I recently replaced a failing Computone Intelliport 16. The new board has 
more recent firmware (firmware v.3.17, driver version 4.62). The new 
firmware/driver combo doesn't initialize my "device" ports properly.
Login ports work fine, but "device" ports won't initialize at anything 
but 9600 baud.

I'm using hardware handshaking for the ports, but I doubt that is part of 
the problem. The previous firmware worked fine for 2 years.

Computone tech support bailed out with a meager "it oughta work, I 
dunno". Has anyone worked with this junk, and can offer advice?
TNX in advance.


--
jprekopa%admiral.uucp@yale.edu (Jeff Prekopa) <yale!admiral!jprekopa>
The Admiral's Public UNIX - Greenwich, CT - System Administrator: Doug Fields
(HST/V32) (203)661-2873 -- (PEP/V32) -1279 -- (V32) -0450 -- (V29/MNP6) -2967
>FREE!< Unix shell accounts, Usenet access, and Internet-style mail available
Xref: sparky sci.space:12878 sci.astro:9646 talk.politics.space:1194 alt.politics.bush:4956 alt.politics.clinton:5216
From: pgf@srl02.cacs.usl.edu (Phil G. Fraering)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,talk.politics.space,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton
Subject: Re: Clinton and Space Funding
Date: 14 Sep 92 01:31:01 GMT
Organization: Univ. of Southwestern Louisiana

egl1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Elizabeth G. Levy) writes:



>Military research will probably be cut.  As I pointed out, this is not
>necessarily a very bad thing, since this kind of research is no longer
>economically beneficial.  And you're probably totally off base, given
>the voting records and policy statements of Clinton/Gore.

Yes, but thanks to Al Gore's Porkization of the Space Program,
military research is the last refuge in the US government
of advanced propulsion research. After Gore manages to
cut that tree down, like Isle Derniere, the whole tree
is going to wash away.

I am cross-posting this back to sci.space because I think
that right now the idea of a separate talk.politics.space
is asinine.

Oh, I just checked. It's crossposted all over the place. Good.

--
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 <--
From: rabjab@golem.ucsd.edu (Jeff Bytof)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Probes - self portraits?
Date: 15 Sep 1992 21:42:31 GMT
Organization: sio
NNTP-Posting-Host: lutherlab.ucsd.edu

Ron Baalke writes: 

>Both Voyager and Galileo carried cameras with 200mm and 1500mm lenses
>that were designed to take images of objects thousands to millions of
>miles away.  They don't work too good for close distances, particulary
>as close as a few yards to do a self-portrait.

The Voyager spacecraft both had an optical calibration target which
doubled as a power supply shunt and load radiator in full view of
the scan platform.

I believe the Galileo spacecraft only uses a 1500mm lens in its CCD
camera system.

Jeff Bytof
rabjab@golem.ucsd.edu
From: Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca (Nick Janow)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Leftover Martians
Date: 13 Sep 92 07:27:14 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Distribution: world

brad.thornborrow@rose.com (brad thornborrow) writes:

> I havn't been following the entire conversation here, but it seems to me
> everybody is missing the gravity problem.  Last time I checked, Mars' gravity
> was not strong enough to keep oxygen molecules from escaping into space over
> time.  So, even if one could start plant-life on Mars, you'd have to have a
> heck of a lot of it to keep the oxygen from just "floating away"!!!

The reference material I have says that Mars can lose oxygen through
non-thermal means (such as splitting ozone), but it doesn't seem to indicate a
very fast loss mechanism.  The oxygen is replenished by the photodissociation
of water and the loss of that hydrogen.

Actually, life on Mars evolved to handle the loss of oxygen partial pressure.
They grew silica terrariums enclosing photosynthetic material, air and water.
During the day, it turns the CO2 into O2; at night or when covered by sand, it
utilizes the stored O2.  As the surface conditions worsened, the plants growing
the tallest silica projections (light pipes) survived.

Now, the bubble plants live deep beneath the surface, with roots that dig into
the permafrost layer.  Some plant colonies store the air in deep chambers, so
that the loss of leaves (air bubbles) to sandstorms is not so critical.  In
fact, the loss of those air bubbles is their form of propagation; bubbles
immediately start forming roots and fibres, hoping to form a link between water
ice and light before their reserves run out.

Now, what about predators...   :-)

--

Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: RL-10
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 01:37:47 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1992Sep13.010306.5063@iti.org> aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) writes:
>Sure they go boom. If one does, the crew will die. If you have
>a problem with that, we can all be thankful that you whern't
>around in the early days of avation.

Jerry Pournelle claims to have told Quayle, in the course of selling him
on SSX (the project that, somewhat mutated, became Delta Clipper), that
he didn't want astronauts flying it -- he wanted test pilots.  Why?
Because "astronauts are national treasures", and if you kill one, your
program grinds to a halt for a couple of years.  If you kill a test pilot,
you name a street after him at Edwards, and carry on flying.
-- 
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: jch+@cs.cmu.edu (Jonathan Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Rockwell & Lockheed investigate Soyuz as "interim rescue vehicle" for SSF
Date: 12 Sep 92 15:35:11 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.BuH1yn.1DD.2
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon

I can't find the end of the previous "Soyuz can do emergency crew
return for SSF -- no it can't -- yes it can" thread, but this just
appeared in the "Weekly Science Summary" on clari.tw.science
(copyright Clarinet, clarinews@clarinet.com):
 
>  Rockwell International says it has signed an agreement to investigate
>use of the Russian Soyuz (SAH'-yooz) spacecraft as an interim rescue
>vehicle for the Space Station Freedom.
>  The company says the discussions will be held in concert with NASA.
>  Last week, Lockheed Missiles and Space Company announced a similar
>pact with N-P-O Energia... the builder of the Soyuz. Lockheed and
>Rockwell are the NASA contractors conducting studies for the space
>station's rescue vehicle.
>  Space Station Freedom is NOT expected to be permanently occupied
>until after 1999.
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: dj@ssd.kodak.com (Dave Jones)
Subject: Re: QUERY Re: Pluto Direct/ options
Organization: :noitazinagrO
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 92 18:05:09 GMT

In article <1992Sep10.173654.4246@eng.umd.edu> sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu writes:
>
>Wouldn't we find out more if we tried to dip the probe INTO the atmosphere?
>After all, we'd get much better close-up pictures :-). As well some better feel
>for the composition of the atmosphere upon entry. 
>
>I suppose for imaging purposes, a flyby makes more sense, but if the
>seat-of-the pants aerobrake worked, you get more imaging time, plus some data
>on atmosphere density, etc. 
>
>OK, it would be impolite to dump the RTGs on Pluto's surface if it doesn't
>work...minor details...
>
Err, like not being able to get the stored pictures sent back to you.  
Remember these things aren't done in real time.  There was a mention of
several weeks playback time for data in a previous posting.  You can't
blame mission designers for avoiding the risk of losing the entire craft
by staying well away from the planet's surface.



-- 
||)) Those who wallow in ignorance      ))) Policemen are numbered in case))|
||)) must dwell in Limbaugh for a time  ))) they get lost - S. Milligan   ))|
||))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))|
||Dave Jones (dj@ekcolor.ssd.kodak.com) | Eastman Kodak Co. Rochester, NY   |
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: knapp@spot.Colorado.EDU (David Knapp)
Subject: Re: Is NASA really planning to Terraform Mars?
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 21:28:10 GMT

In article <1992Sep9.151236.18969@techbook.com> szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) writes:
>In article <samw.715971213@bucket> samw@bucket.rain.com (Sam Warden) writes:
>
>>As for the morality of this sort of thing, I don't share the
>>comfortable expectation that we as a civilization _have_
>>future centuries at our disposal for a conservative planetary
>>exploration.  The spread of terrestrial life to other 
>>now lifeless environments seems _very_ moral to me, even a
>>moral imperative, given a possibly limited window of ability
>>to do so.  My opinion; others of course are free to differ.  ;-)
>
>Even while perhaps disagreeing about the size of that window, I wholeheartedly
>agree that this is a moral imperative, not "pollution" or "ruining the planet" 
>as the politically correct would have us believe.  

I'd appreciate if you would not lump me into a PC pigeon hole because I 
prefer to maintain my life support system.  If we are to travel to and
colonize the terrestrial planets and moons, we should do it without our
thumbs up our collective ass which is how we've approached global terrestrial 
issues.  I do not trust well-meaning armchair scientists endorsing orbiting
space mirrors to solve chemical imbalances in our upper atmosphere caused
by industrial overzealousness. I see that all too often though.

If you want to make your backyard unlivable, go ahead, but the second you are
doing things that make *everyone's* backyard unlivable, you should expect
a response. If you think that this behavior is limited to vogue PC yuppies,
you are quite mistaken.



-- 
David Knapp                                      University of Colorado, Boulder
Perpetual Student                                   knapp@spot.colorado.edu
From: mcmillan@vf.jsc.nasa.gov
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: 20 Questions About the Delta Clipper
Date: 4 Sep 92 22:23:16 GMT
Organization: NASA Johnson Space Center

In article <1992Sep1.144007.3396@iti.org>, aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) writes:
> This was prepared as part of a packet of information on the SSRT project
> and the DCX and DCY vehicles. Permission is granted to reproduce and
> distribute any way you want.
> 
>    Allen
> --------------------------------
> 
>                   20  question about the Delta Clipper
> 
> 1>   What is the Delta Clipper?
>      A new spaceship that will take off straight up and land the
> same way, not gliding but under power, just like the rocketships
> in the 1950's science-fiction movies.  Because of its improved
> engines, high-tech light-weight materials, and airline-like

        (Etc.)

Good article.  How about question 21:  What type of system does DC use to
maneuver in space?  22: How does it deorbit?

-- 
Stokes McMillan
From: ccoprmd@prism.gatech.EDU (Matthew DeLuca)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: NASA Daily News for 09/14/92 (Forwarded)
Date: 14 Sep 92 20:32:39 GMT
Organization: The Dorsai Grey Captains

In article <1992Sep14.182918.26888@news.arc.nasa.gov> yee@trident.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) writes:

>A minor water cooling system leak on one of the Spacelab equipment
>racks was identified and fixed before it impacted any of the experiment
>protocols.  The leak was in one of the cooling system fittings on the
>rack with the four experiment furnaces.  The flight crew, working with
>mission controllers in Houston and Spacelab engineers in Huntsville,
>resolved the location of the leak and repaired it by tightening the
>fitting.

I think one of the greatest advances in manned spaceflight will come when
astronauts are allowed to tighten nuts and bolts all by themselves without
the advice and consent of engineers on the ground.

Haven't any of these people worked on cars or toilets before?  If it leaks, 
crank it down another turn!

-- 
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_
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo)
Subject: Re: Is NASA really planning to Terraform Mars?
Organization: TECHbooks --- Public Access UNIX --- (503) 220-0636
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 15:01:42 GMT

In article <15571@ksr.com> jfw@ksr.com (John F. Woods) writes:

>One suggestion I heard was to slam a few large comets into Venus, thus adding
>hydrogen and blowing off big chunks of the atmosphere in one fell swoop.
>Not exactly a low-budget operation, mind you...

Not at all as expensive as you might think.  The comets provide their own
propellant, so what we need are solar-powered ice processing facilities,
to convert the dusty ice into purified propellant, and several small, 
low-thrust nuclear- or solar-thermal rockets.  I've worked out several
spreadsheets for various scenarios, and the method is far superior to, 
for example, moving around asteroids with mass drivers, in terms of 
equipment mass launched from Earth.  The big markets are much
nearer term, though: just about any kind of transportation between
planets and many kinds of space industries benefit from the method.  
The industry will be quite well-developed, with bootstrapped
ice costing a few cents per thousand tonnes, before it comes time to 
terraform Venus.


-- 
szabo@techbook.COM  Public Access User --- Not affiliated with TECHbooks
Public Access UNIX and Internet at (503) 644-8135 (1200/2400, N81)
From: roberts@CMR.NCSL.NIST.GOV (John Roberts)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Relativity
Date: 10 Sep 92 04:20:45 GMT
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology
	formerly National Bureau of Standards


-From: Alan_Barclay@mindlink.bc.ca (Alan Barclay)
-Subject: Re: Relativity
-Date: 9 Sep 92 07:21:06 GMT
-Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada

-What I was trying to simplify is the following:

-1) Observer starts at v=0 relative to stars A and B.  He starts at Star A.
-2) Observer measures distance to star B = 4 ly.
-3) Observer accelerates to a high relativistic speed travelling towards
-star B, turns over halfway and decelerates to v=0 relative to star B
-adjacent to star b.  During this time he makes no measurements except to
-keep track of subjective time passed.
-4) When he steps onto the surface of a planet around star B, he can look
-back at star A, measure it as 4 ly away, and know it took him less than
-four (subjective) years to get there.

-It seems to me that it is possible to travel at greater than 1 ly per
-year FROM A CERTAIN POINT OF VIEW, and that point of view is valid,
-in that it would have real experiential consequences on a traveller.

That's true. It's also true that if human cryogenic storage is ever perfected,
the astronaut could be frozen for the entire duration of the trip on a
spacecraft moving at only a tiny fraction of c. Even if the ship's
chronometer indicates that 10000 years of ship time passed, from the 
astronaut's point of view, the trip was instantaneous, and thus the
velocity was therefore infinite.

John Roberts
roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov
From: kentm@aix.rpi.edu (Michael V. Kent)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Is NASA really planning to Terraform Mars?
Date: 11 Sep 92 20:54:12 GMT
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY

In article <ryvnn1#.tomk@netcom.com> tomk@netcom.com (Thomas H. Kunich) writes:
>>
>Let's see: China and India are hovering on the raged edge of subsistance
>right now. Most of Africa is one meal away from starvation. -- Why that means
>that more than half of the world is bearly producing enough food to exist
>and no more.

Africa has a distribution problem due largely to its long-term civil wars.
This is not a food-supply problem.

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

The per capita food consumption is higher now than it ever was, and the
UN recently released a report that global life expectancy increased
three months last year alone.  Despite all of the population growth, the
standard of living keeps improving.

Mike

-- 
Michael Kent                                   kentm@rpi.edu
McDonnell Douglas                              Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
All facts in this post are based on publicly available information.  All
opinions expressed are solely those of the author.    Apple II Forever !!
From: nicho@VNET.IBM.COM
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Terraforming needs to begin now
Date: 14 Sep 92 08:55:13 GMT
Reply-To: nicho@vnet.ibm.com

In <BuInCM.H0q.1@cs.cmu.edu> amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk writes:
>Ahh. I might point out that someone already owns the outback so it
>might be nice to ask them first. Not that anyone often bothers to ask
>the Australian aborigines what they want. I got an earful from one
>with whom I reached a state of Irish nirvana with (ie we didn't keel
>over until 7am)
 This keeps cropping up among the uniformed. Let me see if I can
phrase this succinctly. Parts of OZ are privately owned, the rest is
crown land. That means it is owned by _all_ Australians, not just by
 a minority group. The Aboriginies do _not_ , except in their
imaginations, own Australia any more. They ceased to own it some
200 odd years ago. They are one small part of a multi-cultural society,
and they're going to have to accept this fact and learn to love it.
  Guilt trips over events which happened hundreds of years ago, under
far different conditions than any of us can understand, serve no
useful purpose.
 -----------------------------------------------------------------
               ** Of course I don't speak for IBM **
Greg Nicholls ... nicho@vnet.ibm.com or nicho@cix.compulink.co.uk
                  voice/fax: 44-794-516038
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary
From: Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca (Nick Janow)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Terraforming Mars
Date: 10 Sep 92 06:58:13 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Distribution: world

roberts@CMR.NCSL.NIST.GOV (John Roberts) writes:

> It's probably harder than you think. The main challenge on Mars is not
> necessarily the scarcity of water (though that is a major problem), but
> finding a location where they can get the energy to support life processes
> without being killed by the UV in the sunlight or the reducing soil that
> destroys organic matter.

Does it destroy _all_ organic material (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen material),
or is there a molecule that can convert UV photons to chemical energy without
being destroyed?  Even if no organic molecule could manage that, there are
other possibilities.  What of a microorganism (similar to Terran types) that
fills a silicone or silica bubble with inorganic chemicals that can be split to
form useful chemical energy (H2 and O2, for example)?  It could shove the
bubbles above the sand, while the body is deep below, connected by silicone
tubes.

The entire organism could be underground, using silica fibres to the surface as
light pipes.  I think some Terran life forms use something like this (there are
plants that use light pipes).

Limiting your thoughts to Terran organic processes leaves out a _lot_ of
possibilities.

--

Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca
Newsgroups: sci.space