HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: collins@well.sf.ca.us (Steve Collins)
Subject: Mars Observer trajectory
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 03:31:27 GMT


I have some information on the Mars Observer trajectory.
The nav guys I have talked with indicate that the transfer trajectory
is optimized to minimize the total required spacecraft delta-v.
That is the delta-v after the TOS burnout. The largest component is the
delta-v for injection into Mars orbit (MOI). The out and back arises
mostly from this optimization, and from the fact that Earth and Mars's
orbits are not quite coplanar.
The project is also considering a plan called the "power in" option.
This plan retargets our last TCM and MOI to change the arrival orbit
plane's orientation to the sun. Power in will get us to our desired
mapping orbit earlier than the the nominal plan, and may be selected
when we see how we are doing on propellant when we get farther along in
cruise.
Now for the data. I snagged the latest trajectory and have the
the following spacecraft state information:
Epoch: 10/5/92 00:00:00 UTC
Position: 1.46030475e8 3.16372935e7 1.30237608e7   km
Velocity -7.02799688e0 3.00312953e1 1.22052289e1   km/sec
relative to the sun in the J2000 coordinate frame.
I belive (but am not sure...) that this is relative to the center of the
sun rather than the solar system barycenter for orbit types...

The vector from Earth to MO at that same epoch is :
-7.84913829e-2 9.79318425e-1 1.86479291e-1
also in J2000 and referenced to the center of the Earth.

These can be expressed as classical elements about the sun, but I am
not familiar with the nomenclature that the available software uses.

This state will be valid till saturday when TCM 1 occurs (hopefully) I
will post the state again after we get a good post TCM track next week.

Hope this is of interest and use to folks. Feel free to transform this
info to whatever format (eg RA and DEC) that people might be able to use.
I unfortunately don't have time to do it myself...

Off to design snap rolls for Mag calibration
           steve collins MO Spacecraft Team (AACS)
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space
From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo)
Subject: Re: Lunar landing in 2002
Followup-To: talk.politics.space
Organization: TECHbooks --- Public Access UNIX --- (503) 220-0636
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 20:36:23 GMT

>>[FLO Apollo rerun]

In article <Bv3pqq.Cs2@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>Nobody, repeat nobody, has agreed to *fund* anything of the kind.
>
>Indeed, it is proving difficult to get funding for even the tiniest initial
>steps, because Congress is largely hostile to the idea.

True, nobody wants to shell out $270 billion to do an Apollo rerun, gaining
practically no revenue in return.  With the "camel's nose under the tent" 
syndrome, we are again seeing how astronauts are a political liability to 
government funding of space, not its prime motivator as has been commonly 
believed.  

>There is some hope for action on it if Bush gets reelected.  Nothing is going
>to happen on it for quite a while if Clinton replaces him.  

Well, then, come on down and cast a vote for Bush! :-)
Or, perhaps you could get Canada to foot the bill.  There's the ticket!
After all, who's counting?   If we are going to spend orders of
magnitude more money on a single waterless, airless moon than is rational, 
we might as well get it from someplace with an order of magnitude less to 
spend.  :-)

Seriously, Bush can't do much without getting a Republican Congress,
but the Republicans are running on a plank of cutting the budget. Bush
probably won't be reelected, anyway.  The next Congress is going to be
looking for visible programs to cut, so they can claim to be fiscally
responsible.  If Clinton gets in, anything visible started by Reagan or 
Bush (such as SSF and SEI) are prime targets.

When we fund something politically, it's got to be "cheaper, faster,
better" and get launched within the President's term.  Contrary to
popular belief, government is very poor when it comes to doing things
long-term.  It seems to be  poor at doing things in general, unless 
people are shooting at it.

Independence for the Quebecious!  ;-)


-- 
szabo@techbook.COM  	  Tuesday, November third  ##  Libertarian  $$  vote
Tuesday  ^^ Libertarian  --  change  **  choice && November 3rd @@Libertarian
From: bwallet@apssgi.nswc.navy.mil (Brad Wallet)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Alleged Benefits of Military $
Date: 2 Oct 92 17:41:28 GMT
Organization: Naval Surface Warfare Center

In article <1469100017@igc.apc.org>, mwgoodman@igc.apc.org (Mark Goodman) writes:
|> 
|> Reply-To: mwgoodman@igc.org
|> 
|> Gary writes:
|> 
|> > Military and aerospace dollars have a particularly
|> >high multiplier, 7x, because the jobs pay well and allow the workers
|> >more discresionary income that can be spent in the civilian economy.
|> >Direct public assistance funds have a much smaller multiplier, around
|> >2x, because the recipients don't have large discressionary funds for
|> >major capital purchases, they mostly pay rent and buy food.
|> 
|> I wonder where these numbers come from.  They seem implausible
|> to me, and would in any case be very hard to measure.  Everything
|> I have read suggests precisely the opposite, that money spent on
|> the military and other unproductive high-technology efforts (read
|> NASA) is particularly unbeneficial to the economy.

You may dispute his numbers, but atleast he offered some data.  To
simple say "I have read" simply will not do.  Offer either data or
logical reasoning.

In an earlier posting, you said you worked in Congress.  No doubt you
are pushing sometime of political agenda.  I respect that you admit 
that you are going to be biased.  Undoubtable, some will accuse me of
being biased because I work for the military.  I just want to state
that I work for the military because I believe what it does is necessary.
Not vice versa.

Brad
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: fcrary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Frank Crary)
Subject: Re: Laser Space Mirror
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 03:24:53 GMT

In article <a9774633@Kralizec.fido.zeta.org.au> ralph.buttigieg@f635.n713.z3.fido.zeta.org.au (Ralph Buttigieg) writes:
>Put a flat optical mirror in Clarke orbit. Build a laser transmitters near a
>ground based power station. Beam the generated energy to the mirror which
>can then reflect it to a receiving station. This would be part of a global
>power grid...

I've heard a very similar idea, but beaming the power to other satellites,
instead of back to the ground. That would reduce the mass and increase
the available power of and involved satellite.

                                                Frank Crary
                                                CU Boulder

Newsgroups: sci.space
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Goddard's influence or lack thereof
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 03:44:29 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1992Oct1.121929.18735@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:
>>>... like someone belittling Goddard because it was
>>>Von Braun who capitalized on his work...
>>
>>early practical development of rockets in both Germany and the US did not
>>owe much to Goddard except a few bits of basic concept and inspiration,
>>because Goddard published hardly anything about his later work.  Von Braun
>>drew much more on the early experimental work of the VfR -- which he was
>>personally involved in -- than on Goddard's more advanced but little-known
>>efforts.
>
>I had the impression from reading several histories of rocketry that
>Goddard and Oberth carried on a lively correspondence through the 
>BIS. Thus I assumed that Von Braun benefited from Goddard's work...

I'd be interested to see references on this.  I checked the obvious source:
Willy Ley's "Rockets, Missiles, and Men in Space"... obvious because Ley
was *there*, involved with the VfR from the start.  He says that the VfR
thought they were the first in the world to fly liquid-fuel rockets, because
essentially nothing was known of Goddard's experimental work until his
Guggenheim report in 1936.  By then, the VfR was defunct and von Braun's
military team was already flying technology demonstrators and working on
preliminary design of the A4 (aka V-2).

In 1929, Ley says that Goddard "curtly declined" to correspond with the
VfR on the subject.  He may have corresponded with Oberth about theoretical
issues, but he appears to have been entirely uncommunicative about the
practical side.
-- 
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: bill.nunnelee@the-matrix.com (Bill Nunnelee)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: MYSTERY OBJECT
Date: 3 Oct 92 14:09:00 GMT
Article-I.D.: the-matr.6636.409.uupcb
Reply-To: bill.nunnelee@the-matrix.com (Bill Nunnelee)
Distribution: world
Organization: The MATRIX BBS - Birmingham, AL - 205-323-2016


    Several members of the Birmingham Astronomical Society observed an
unusual fireball, or possibily reentering space debris, on the night of
Wednesday September 30th at 8:17 CDT.  Six of us were at a location
just south of the city when an object was noticed traveling across the
northern sky in an easterly direction (roughly from Corona Borealis to
Aries and passing very near the Andromeda Galaxy).  The object was
approximately magnitude -1 or -2 and consisted of a pointlike head and a
30 degree or so "vapor trail"-like tail.  It moved at a speed consitent
with a satellite in low Earth orbit...which is to say, fast for an
aircraft, yet very slow for a meteor.  Of course, there was no source
for reflected light, and the object did not dim in what would have been
the Earth's shadow; in fact, its appearance remained extremely constant
from horizon to horizon (no tumbling, breaking up, lingering train, wind
dispersion of the trail, or noise).  One observer using binoculars said
that it looked the same through them.
    What really makes it interesting is that a second group of three
B.A.S.ers happened to see the same object from a location about 50
miles to the northeast.  There, it took a more southerly path across the
sky.  It passed between Beta and Gamma Lyrae, near Gamma Cygni, and near
Alpha Andromedae...in other words, parallel and roughly 20 degrees south
of the first track.  This would seem to rule out any sort of high-flying
aircraft.  One observer was even able to capture several seconds of it
on video.  Since he had previously been recording other objects with the
same settings (Venus and crescent Moon at sunset), it should be possible
to get a good fix on its brightness.
    We would very much be interested in any other observations of this
objects from amateur astronomers across the southeastern U.S.  If we
could get good timings and/or positions, it should be possible to
determine its altitude precisely and perhaps its orbit as well.  Also,
is anyone aware of a satellite, upper stage, etc., that might have
reentered the atmosphere at that time?
                                                                                  
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Controversy over V-2 anniversary
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Organization: [via International Space University]
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU
Distribution: sci
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 11:53:50 GMT

> That still doesn't make it right.  Not persecuting people for crimes
> against humanity because they may be useful to you is wrong.  Period.
> 


I am in agreement. However my reading of history does not place the VfR group  
very much in this. As was stated, they were not in SS, and in fact there were  
attempts to take them over. Von Braun and the commander there had to play some  
Byzantine politics to try to stay independant. Remember that the SS existed  
because the German Army was not considered "reliable" enough to do Hitler's real  
dirty work.

> Furthermore, I think this attitude of yours that nobody's hands are
> clean so people can't be criticized without an understanding of their
> history is in large part responsible for the decline of modern
> morality.  You have to step up and take responsibility for your actions,
> no matter what--you can't wuss out with an unhappy childhood or a mean
> mommy or "everybody's doing it".  If it's wrong, it's wrong.
> 


I don't think that is quite what Dennis said. He was defending the rocket team  
in particular. My own readings of history place me firmly in agreement with him  
on this. But I do agree with you in other cases: ie see my posting about the  
unindicted war criminals from OUR side in WWII. The victors define morality to  
be very simply 


	what we did   == good or at least necessary
	what they did == evil and unjustifiable

The above is what society ACTUALLY did, and that is true moral relativism. I  
don't think that anyone is implying that Nazism was anything but the most evil  
and perverted government, over all, of any in recent history. But one must still  
deal with individuals as individuals, apart from their cause, and judge them  
only on their acts and against a well defined legal standard. Had we done that,  
I am confident the same number of Nazi's would have swung on the ends of ropes  
after Nuremberg. The difference is they would have been joined by a couple Brits  
and Americans.

After all, can anyone say the perpetrators of Dresden were other than pure evil?  
A century hence their names will be damned in the history books and they will be  
equated with the worst of their Nazi peers. Please note that I do not place much  
blame on the pilots who flew that terrible mission. The blame is reserved for  
the officers and planners who knew what they were doing and why they were doing  
it.

Von Braun, in my mind, was one of the good guys who happened to be on the wrong  
side at the time.
From: urf@icl.se (Urban F)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Controversy over V-2 anniversary
Date: 29 Sep 92 17:57:17 GMT
Organization: None. On USENET I speak only for myself.

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

>Monday I heard a news account that ceremonies to celebrate this
>event have become a matter of controversy. 

Yes, and so much that the German aerospace industry has cancelled
its plans on any celebrations on Oct 3:rd.

>In this country, the Confederate Air Force is allowed to tell us what
>a great plane the B-17 was without visible interference...

Well, you aren't currently trying to enter a union with those who
got bombed by it, are you? And didn't the CAF get some interference
when they wanted to celebrate by dropping a simulated A-bomb from
a B-29?
--
 Urban Fredriksson   urf@icl.se  (n.g.u.fredriksson.swe2001@oasis.icl.co.uk)
 "In order to make someone a nervous wreck, apologize while they still 
  haven't used their best arguments." -- Runer Jonsson
From: scott@psy.uwa.oz.au (Scott Fisher)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: another sad anniversary
Date: 1 Oct 1992 02:19:15 GMT
Organization: The University of Westrn Australia
NNTP-Posting-Host: wapsy.psy.uwa.oz.au

baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke) writes:

>May 15, 1993 may mark another sad anniversary.  That's when Magellan is
>scheduled to be turned off.  It will be the first time that NASA has turned
>off a functioning spacecraft.  NASA has recently communicated to JPL that
>this will still happen.  The reason is similiar, to save money.

How do you save money by turning off a spacecraft or an instrument on the moon,
is someone charging for the bandwith they take up in the electromagnetic
spectrum? :-)  I can understand that there may nolonger be funding to
operate the craft/instruments but who cares if it is sending back a stream
of data that nobody is listening to?  Why not get some amatures/groups
around the world to take on the projects?

Regards Scott.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Scott Fisher [scott@psy.uwa.oz.au]  PH: Aus [61] Perth (09) Local (380 3272).                
                                                             _--_|\       N
Department of Psychology                                    /      \    W + E
University of Western Australia.                 Perth -->  *_.--._/      S
Nedlands, 6009.  PERTH, W.A.                                      v       

Joy is a Jaguar XJ-6 with a flat battery, a blown oil seal and an unsympathetic wife, 9km outside of a small remote town, 3:15am on a cold wet winters morning.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: whitmeye@den.mmc.com (Richard Whitmeyer)
Subject: Re: what use is Freedom?
Originator: whitmeye@surf
Organization: MMAG, VAFB
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 03:17:17 GMT


In a post I've lost track of, Andy Cohen writes:

|> First of all the press makes the program look real bad when a redesign is
|> announced...

Yeah, too bad. The press had us destroying SLC-6 years ago. They need real
science editors, not just attractive readers. I miss Jules Bergman.

|> Truth is, the redesign of a little while ago was way overdue
|> and caused by the group think notion of the astronaut building the station
|> rather than it being prebuilt on the ground.... The old design would NEVER
|> have worked.  Since we had to redesign AND keep to the schedule of a first
|> launch in 1995 (now 1996) we are all scrambling to complete the design in
|> an environment which seems dead set against us.... funds are shrinking,
|> schedule slips are taboo and most importantly...we are STILL learning about
|> how to do it..... Now.....learning how to do it should stick in your
|> mind........ 

You've got my moral support, and my sympathy.

|> Space Station Freedom is big....REALLY BIG...I mean, it's not just some
|> skylab or something....listen...  We are talking about something the size
|> and mass of a building for cripes sake!  AND....it is orbiting within the
|> altitude envelope of the shuttle.....that means there is an atmosphere
|> hitting up against all those surfaces making the guidance and navigation a
|> very tricky prospect indeed.  However, technically it IS feasible and once
|> we got it....WE GOT IT!!!  Not only do we know how to do it once it's
|> up....we also have the standards for all manned space endeavers for the
|> future....the power systems, the avionics...the modules...the environmental
|> control...the truss assemblies...the launch capacities...I can go on and
|> on.... all can be off-the-shelf for a moon base....for a moon orbiting
|> station...for an interplanetary jump-off platform...for orbiting
|> factories....and yes don't forget Mars..

Possible use as propelled craft?

|>.. Please....don't just attack this program.....ask questions.  I'll
answer what I can.


|> Andy Cohen.....these are MY opinions expressed....NOT MDSSC!!!


OK, I do have some questions, 
1.   How come the interior appointments create the same impact on the senses
     as my new Kenmore fridge?  I mean, were's the softness? Any wood grain?
     
2.   Any plans for one in polar orbit? (I'm at Vandenberg, so there 'may be'
     some self interests in this question.)

3.   What happened to the large service bays visible on the early models?

4.   Can I too see or experience the mockups? How about my kids.

5.   How visible will this thing be from the ground?

6.   How big can it get, when the currently planned size is too crowded?

7.   What CAD software package(s) is used for design?

Well keep up the good work and while you're at it, WORK HARDER, we're all
paying for this! (Just kidding)
Please keep sharing the insights, much enjoyed.

Rich Whitmeyer                Views expressed are solely my own.
whitmeye@figueroa.vbg.mmc.com or whitmeye@everest.den.mmc.com
From: amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Nick Szabo Disinformation debunking (Re: Clinton and Space Funding)
Date: 29 Sep 92 17:04:09 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.BvCp7D.FCn.1
Distribution: sci
Organization: [via International Space University]
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU

> Fission drive has been fully tested and flight qualified. It was  
abandoned
> shortly thereafter. NERVA was to supplant the S III stage on the  
saturn V 

> for Apollo twenty, upping the delivered payload to the moon to 98  
tons,
> from the baseline Saturn V's 48 tons. Not bad, not bad. There were 

> movies of the test of the Nerva at the World Space Congress.  It  
was a 

> completely successful full power 265 minute or hour I forget which  
test. Do
> you remember Bill? 

> 


I can't speak for Bill, but I had a BROTHER-INLAW named Bill who  
worked on the project for Westinghouse Astronuclear in Large,  
Pennsylvania (just outside Pittsburgh). He travelled out to Jackass  
Flats for the tests. I saw *LOTS* of pictures and info on those  
tests. I wish I had some of that stuff myself...
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: what use is Freedom?
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 22:02:53 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <Cohena-011092082052@l30346.mdc.com> Cohena@mdc.com (Andy Cohen) writes:
>Space Station Freedom is big....REALLY BIG...I mean, it's not just some
>skylab or something...

Darn right it's not Skylab.  Skylab's habitable volume was larger.

Admittedly, Fred does add some useful things, like more power, more
places to mount things, and -- very important -- resupply capability.
(Most of Skylab's supplies were launched with it... necessarily, for
lack of any equivalent of the Russian Progress freighters.)  On the
whole it's a better station.  But let us not get carried away with
how tremendous it is.
-- 
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: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Magellan
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 03:22:40 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1992Oct1.224613.29180@unocal.com> stgprao@st.unocal.COM (Richard Ottolini) writes:
>How does Magellan move its radar attena to transmit results to earth?

The antenna is fixed to the spacecraft; Magellan as a whole rotates to
point at Earth.

>Is it an electric motor powered by solar power or thrusters?

Magellan's rotation is done with momentum wheels, although it's necessary
to desaturate them from time to time using thrusters.  This does set an
ultimate limit on its life.  In Magellan's case, equipment failures will
probably kill it before then, and budget failures will probably silence
it even sooner.
-- 
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: amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Nick Szabo Disinformation debunking (Re: Clinton and Space Funding)
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Organization: [via International Space University]
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU
Distribution: sci
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 17:18:41 GMT

> When Government R&D has been given a specific, concrete goal and has been
> given the resources to carry it out, (Early American canal system, Railroads,
> Panama canal, WWII, A bombs, H Bombs, Apollo) it has been wildly successful.
> The common denomonator in the above so called failures is a lack of will and
> lack of vision (sense of purpose) in carrying the effort to its finish.
>

The point is not that government, or ANY OTHER institution, cannot be wildly successful  
if conditions are right. It is that the political coalitions required make such  
conditions extremely rare.

Even if a coalition does come together, the end result is not necessarily a good one.  
The forging of a coalition can easily turn an initially elegant solution into a  
committee'd monstrosity to get a large enough constituency on board. The shuttle is an  
excellent example of this.

The point is not that a government program can NEVER succeed. It is that it USUALLY  
doesn't succeed.