HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: juan@nuala.hal.COM (John Thompson Reynolds)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Obscure Help  Needed
Date: 20 Nov 92 16:45:17 GMT
Organization: HaL Computer Systems, Inc.


Has anybody out there seen any slide rules for sale?  The closest
thing I've been able to find is a simple circular slide rule included in a 
"basic navigation kit".

|> In article <1992Nov11.172831.14882@julian.uwo.ca> jdnicoll@prism.ccs.uwo.ca (James Davis Nicoll) writes:
|> 	   I still find it hard to believe that I could so completely
|>    forget a skill I used every day not so  long ago. It's also hard to
|>    believe no book store seems to stock books on the subject anymore.
|>    Are there no slide-rule makers left?
|> --
From: pgf@srl01.cacs.usl.edu ("Phil G. Fraering")
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: golden oldie: more on spaceports
Date: 23 Nov 92 22:20:28 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.By6wyD.IBr.1
Distribution: sci
Organization: [via International Space University]
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU


>Date: 19 December 1981 03:10-EST
>From: Robert Elton Maas <REM at MIT-MC>
>Subject: Spaceports
>To: Hans Moravec at CMU-10A
>cc: SPACE at MIT-MC

Even if the mass and complexity of the 600 km linear accellerator is
the same as the rotating&dipping cable in orbit, the l.a. is much
easier to build. Why? (1) It can be built and tested incrementaly.
Each piece can be installed in sequence and suborbital test flights
of cheap passive material (dirt, rock) can be made. When enough
sections are installed to achieve orbital velocity, it becomes
operational. The dipping cable, on the other hand, must be built
and installed as one big piece somehow. (2) The cable must be put
into space somehow whereas the linear accellerator can be installed
by conventional means such as bulldozers cranes trucks etc. Thus
the linear accellerator can be started now without needing the
shuttle whereas the dipping cable will DETRACT from shuttle payload
capacity by diverting capacity from normal use to cable use, and can't
be started anyway until the shuttle is operational. Thus I don't
think the cable should be done until after we are well out into
space, whereas unemployed construction workers could be assigned
to the accellerator in 1982. We could use the shuttle for delicate
equipment and people, and the linear accellerator for bulk materials.
(I'm not sure whether we should do the Earth-based accellerator now
and use it for bootstrapping ourselves into space industry, or
go instead with the moon-based accellerator which WILL need a
few shuttle payloads to get it installed but possibly be more
effective due to lower moon gravity and lack of atmospheric friction.)
-- 
Phil Fraering
"...drag them, kicking and screaming, into the Century of the Fruitbat."
<<- Terry Pratchett, _Reaper Man_
From: jmd@bear.com (Josh Diamond)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Breasts in zero-g
Date: 18 Nov 92 22:18:45 GMT
Distribution: sci
Organization: Bear, Stearns & Co. - FAST
In-reply-to: roelle@uars_mag.jhuapl.edu's message of 18 Nov 92 19:59:31 GMT


In article <roelle.722116771@uars_mag> roelle@uars_mag.jhuapl.edu (Curtis Roelle) writes:

[intro to stuff about breasts in zero-G eliminated...]

                                          The use of a brazier is
   still required...				       ^^^^^^^
							      OUCH!!!

I presume that you mean _brassiere_ (the women's undergarment
supporting the breasts) rather than _brazier_ (a basket-like stand
holding burning coals)!



Spidey!!!


--
 /\ \  / /\  Josh Diamond                                          jmd@bear.com
//\\ .. //\\ AKA Spidey!!!                        ...!ctr.columbia.edu!ursa!jmd
//\((  ))/\\
/  < `' >  \                                              Do whatever it takes.
From: jfw@ksr.com (John F. Woods)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: What kind of computers are in the shuttle?
Date: 16 Nov 92 10:31:01 EST

henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <1992Nov14.165511.23013@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> rbw3q@rayleigh.mech.Virginia.EDU (Brad Whitehurst) writes:
>>... I seem to remember that the
>>old computer's memory was the old style magnetic "core" memory.  Is
>>that correct?  And what kind of memory does the new unit use?  That
>>could explain a lot of the power consumption!
>The old ones used plated-wire memory, I believe.  (This was a relative of
>magnetic-core memory, one that didn't catch on except in specialized
>applications.)  The new ones use rad-hard SRAM memory.

Rad-hard SRAM, 50 bits of ECC for each 32 bits of memory, *and* a background
scrub cycle every two seconds.  They didn't buy this at "BACK OF THE TRUCK
PEECEES, LIMITED", nosir!
From: U01105%FRCCSC21.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU (Andre HECK)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Please clean up |
Date: 15 Nov 92 22:15:36 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.Bxs37A.M5t.1
Distribution: sci
Organization: [via International Space University]
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU

To anyone feeling concerned:

I have subscribed to this space-digest not so long ago and I am appalled
by the quantity of rubbish I have been receiving since. Is no-one
filtering the inputs for this digest? Frankly pollution of information
seems to be an ignored concept here.

There is an enormous duplication of text in the sense that messages
answering others repeat in extenso the contents of the latter ones.
A concise reference would do.

If reports on spacecraft status are perfectly in line with what one
could expect from such a space-digest, the exchange on how to use
slide-rules (v15 #420) is definitely out of place. Please, are we still
kids jumping on line without thinking it over twice beforehand?

I shall maintain my subscription for some time, but if the situation
does not improve, I shall signoff as I am convinced many did before
without voicing their reasons.

Regards. AH.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof. Andre HECK          -+-  *    Phone (direct)     +33-88.35.82.22
Observatoire Astronomique    *      Phone (Secretary)  +33-88.35.82.18
11, rue de l'Universite   -+-   *   Fax (direct)       +33-88.49.12.55
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Newsgroups: sci.space
From: ednclark@kraken.itc.gu.edu.au (Jeffrey Clark)
Subject: Two sticky questions on astrophysics
Organization: ITC, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia
Date: 16 Nov 92 12:21:34 GMT

This may display my ignorance but:

1. Nothing can travel faster then the speed of light. Therefore
gravitational influence takes time to travel. Therefore the influence of
objects on the other side of the galaxy are being felt in our solar system
as those far flung objects were some 80,000 years ago, yes? More to the
point the massive centre of our galaxy (possibly contains a mega-black hole)
will not influence us from it's current position for another 30,000 years.
Now this (according to my naive musings) should not present a problem if we
are orbiting the centre of our galaxy in a near perfect circular orbit, but
I would surmise that our solar system would have some eccentricity in it's
orbit. According to me the solar system is falling toward a non-existant
centre and has been doing this (as all galactic objects do) since the
beginning of galactic history.  Should this not cause orbital deviations
that are measurable? Can someone help me out here please am I missing some
obvious relativistic point?

2. An object is detected 15 billion light years away, pushing the beginning
of time to at least that many years ago. But surely it pushes that time to
double 15 billion years (ie 30 billion years). Nothing can travel faster
than light. The object that generated that radiation did so 15 billion years
ago from 15 billion light years away. But first we had to get 15 billion
light years away from this object. Both the object and the particles that we
consist of must have been together at the Big bang. In order for the light
to have taken 15 billion years to reach us, the object must have been 15
billion light years away from our current position 15 billion years ago. In
other words the earth and the object relative to each other must have been
travelling for some 15 billion years (at least) to get that far apart before
the light was emmitted from far-flung object. Once again am I missing some
obvious relativistic point or have I just doubled the age of the universe?


Jeff. These couple of questions have bugged me for years and I finally got
       sick of them. Depending on the answers I've got some other queries as
       well.




Newsgroups: sci.space
From: pyron@skndiv.dseg.ti.com (Dillon Pyron)
Subject: Re: Nasa Coverup
Reply-To: pyron@skndiv.dseg.ti.com
Organization: TI/DSEG VAX Support
Distribution: sci
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 19:53:18 GMT


In article <BxL54M.700.1@cs.cmu.edu>, amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk writes:
  [various discussion deleted]
>
>>   10. Is there anything "funny" about the moon?
>
>Yes. We should have bases there by now.

That's not all that funny.  "Funny", yes.  Like that "funny" sound of a land
mine arming itself.
--
Dillon Pyron                      | The opinions expressed are those of the
TI/DSEG Lewisville VAX Support    | sender unless otherwise stated.
(214)462-3556 (when I'm here)     |
(214)492-4656 (when I'm home)     |"Pacts with the devil are not legally
pyron@skndiv.dseg.ti.com          |binding!"
PADI DM-54909                     |-Friar Tuck   _Robin Hood:The Hooded Man_

Newsgroups: sci.space
From: aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer)
Subject: Re: Reality check (2)
Organization: Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow
Distribution: sci
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 14:16:46 GMT

In article <BxKxDv.14u.1@cs.cmu.edu> roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov (John Roberts) writes:

>-True enough for electricity but that's not what I had in mind. At first
>-electricity will be hard to get (until the solar cell plant becomes
>-operational) but raw heat is abundantly available with a few light weight
>-mirrors. Many processes can use heat.

>Like burning nylon, for instance. :-)  

Exactly! I think that's a great idea.

>One such application was mentioned
>on "Space Age" - using solar mirrors to heat lunar soil until it partially
>fuses, forming a building material that's stronger than concrete.

That was the SSI funded work done by McDonnell Douglas. You could also
heat the regolith to melting, spin it, cool it and differentiate the
components that way. 

>I think a lot of the initial work could be done with robots, more cheaply than
>sending humans there right away. (Once we know more, and hopefully have more
>appropriate launchers, we can send humans.)

Absolutely. Almost all the serious Lunar colony approaches I have seen
use autonomous and tele-operated robots for site characterization and
site prep.

Both robots and people will be needed to do the job. (At least until
Nick allows the robots to do a heart bypas on him).

   Allen

-- 
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves        |
|  aws@iti.org     |  nothing undone"                                       |
+----------------------159 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+
From: wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Laser Divergence
Date: 21 Nov 1992 19:44 CST
Organization: University of Houston
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: judy.uh.edu
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <By3BGq.CwH@zoo.toronto.edu>, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes...
>In article <By38BE.Kyy.1@cs.cmu.edu> GFH101@URIACC.URI.EDU (Paul Klinkman) writes:
>>I'm looking for information about interstellar lasers.

>Run it through the right optics -- basically, a telescope -- and divergence
>will be much slower.  You can't get rid of all of it, because of diffraction,
>but your laser's unassisted output is definitely not "diffraction-limited"
>quality.  A modest astronomical telescope can hold a visible laser down to
>a 1-2km spot size on the Moon.
>-- 

The articles that I have been reading about Lunar power beaming state that the
divergence of a laser beam, with a modest mirror system (I forgot how big)
would keep the divergece from the Moon down to 38 meters.

Also, in Conversations with folks at JPL in 1989, I found out that the 
divergence from Saturn with a 800 mw Solid state laser would be 14,000 miles.
This assumed relatively poor (read light weight) optics on the transmitter.
This laser was proposed for Cassini in the early days.

Just some random information that I have.

Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville
From: amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: FREE-ENERGY TECHNOLOGY For Spacecraft
Date: 20 Nov 92 14:24:25 GMT
Distribution: sci
Organization: [via International Space University]
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU

> The only vested interest the utilities have is to their past investment of
> money in their power plants.  But the above advantages reduce operating costs
> SO much that they would jump at it.  (imagine an electric plant that doesn't 

> need to buy any coal, has virtually no cost related to safety equipment,  
spends
> nothing on environmental technology, and still charges what it used  
to)==profit!
> 


I agree. EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute) funds all sorts of  
technology, some of it things that government$ and $tati$t$ won't fund because  
of the politic$ involved. For instance, EPRI are still funding cold fusion  
experiments because the  chance that it might work out is, as you put it,  
something they would virtually kill for.

I have this disturbing impression that this McElwaine fellow sounds like the La  
Rouchians, although Lyndon's conspiracy theories only had to do with politics  
and economics. His science was usually not that bad, and Fusion Magazine was  
actually quite good when it stayed away from his politics. (As an old L5  
Society activist, I'm still waiting for my "psycho-sexual gratification" :-)
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: roelle@uars_mag.jhuapl.edu (Curtis Roelle)
Subject: Re: Moon Capture Theory
Organization: Johns Hopkins University
Distribution: sci
Date: 23 Nov 92 15:36:40 GMT

jdnicoll@prism.ccs.uwo.ca (James Davis Nicoll) writes:

>>>I seem to remember some theory a while back that the moon was actually
>>>*captured* by Earth at some stage (I think it was about 800 million
>>>years ago), which also has corollaries in some of the very early
>>>human legends.

>	I  find  it *very* difficult  to believe  that events  800
>million  years ago would  have corollaries  in  the myths of  a species
>4  orders of magnitude less old, except  perhaps by co-incidence. 

Perhaps these corollaries originated from an intelligent species of lizard
wiped out without a single trace by the Mother of all Extinction Events.
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: shuttle computers
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 20:36:47 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1992Nov20.204227.19785@sol.UVic.CA> borden@sol.UVic.CA (Ross Borden) writes:
>>They are routinely reloaded with different software from onboard storage
>>(tape, I think)...
>
>	Do the GPC's have hard drives?  If so, how do they guard against
>shock, vibration, etc?

I don't believe there are any hard drives currently in existence that can
meet the reliability specs under those conditions.  The GPCs have none.
-- 
MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s.      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
              -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Lunar "colony" reality check, part 2
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Organization: [via International Space University]
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU
Distribution: sci
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 17:10:09 GMT

-* Unlike the intrepid Biosphereans, lunar astronauts will
-  not be able to cheat and come back to civilization to
-  find good medical care.  In a lunabago will be found
-  little more than a part-time doctor and a first-aid kit.

I seem to remember seeing this same line before and my reply is the  
same. It would be criminal not to insist on someone losing a finger tip  
in order to keep the experiment pure. We know the answer to the question  
for colonists, lunar, asteroidal or otherwise... They lose the finger  
tip and might even die from complications. That is the price you pay and  
one you had better accept. Anyone who can't do so can stay in their  
comfy earthworm-city condominium with a nearby LifeFlite to rush them to  
the Trauma Center.

-* Submarines get to surface every month or more, and can come back to 

-  port for food & sex.  Nobody has a "submarine colony", even though
-  it would be far less expensive and more functional than a lunar 

-  "colony".

Wrong. John Roberts is correct. I had an office mate who was  
ex-hunter-killer. Hunter-Killer subs surface now and then. Strategic  
boats go out, dive deep and stay there for the entire tour unless there  
is an emergency... Oh,yeah, they have had incidents like burst appendix  
when they surfaced and had the crewman taken off. Guess they weren't  
being serious enough about the Cold War :-) Seriously though, it was  
(is?) a very deadly game. Near collisions at depth were not all that  
uncommon. The USSR boats couldn't hear the US ones even when they were  
almost literally on their tail. Sometimes they would suddenly reverse  
direction...

Missile boats don't leave station until the next boat comes out and is  
sure it has no tails.
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: bbbehr@sunspot.noao.edu (Bradford B. Behr)
Subject: Re: Minority Kids into Techies (was Re: Free Middle/High School Broadcasts)
Organization: National Solar Observatory/SP, Sunspot NM, USA
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 16:46:11 GMT

In article <1edo1sINNgf0@transfer.stratus.com>
  det@phlan.sw.stratus.com (David Toland) writes:
>
>Why would ANYONE want to REDUCE the number of students (white or otherwise)
>studying to enter science and technology fields???  We have few enough
>students graduating with even minimal competence in mathematics and
>the physical sciences.

I agree about the "minimal competence" issue -- the percentage of
people who are technologically illiterate in our increasingly
technological society is sad and is going to (already has) lead to
some mighty big problems. But on the other side, there's been a lot of
posting recently on sci.research.careers about the glut of physics and
csci PhDs, and how jobs for PhDs are hard to come by these days.
Unless research and related  opportunities are expanded, encouraging
students (regardless of race, sex, or species) to go into the sciences
could lead to a new population of unemployed.

'Tis a puzzlement. Solutions, anyone?

Brad


-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  Bradford B. Behr                   bbbehr@sunspot.sunspot.noao.edu
     Sacramento Peak National Solar Observatory, Sunspot NM 88349
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Xref: sparky sci.space:16114 alt.conspiracy:12327
From: plutchak@pilsner.geo.brown.edu (Joel Plutchak)
Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.conspiracy
Subject: Re: NASA Coverup
Date: 19 Nov 1992 19:41:59 GMT
Organization: Brown University Planetary Geology
NNTP-Posting-Host: pilsner.geo.brown.edu
Keywords: snarfy concedes

In article <4608@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us> snarfy@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us writes:
>    I  am  , at least,gratified to learn that Velikovsky's idea of planetary
>   collisions , long scorned and ridiculed by the scientific community ,  is
>   now the prevailing theory explaining the origin of the moon.
>
>   snarfy

  >- chuckle! -<
--
Joel Plutchak, Research Programmer/Analyst
From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: SATELLITE PHOTO
Date: 18 Nov 92 20:34:18 GMT
Article-I.D.: ke4zv.1992Nov18.203418.13263
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <16NOV92.12028663.0072@VM1.MCGILL.CA> IEGS@MUSICB.MCGILL.CA (IEGS000) writes:
>COULD SOMEONE HELP ME: SUPPOSE A HURRICANE JUST BLEW IN! WHERE CAN I
>FIND A SATELLITE PHOTOS OF IT'S PROGRESS?

Try the Weather Channel, or if you don't have cable, your local broadcast
TV station's weathercast.

Gary
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: det@phlan.sw.stratus.com (David Toland)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Minority Kids into Techies (was Re: Free Middle/High School Broadcasts)
Date: 18 Nov 92 15:38:36 GMT
Article-I.D.: transfer.1edo1sINNgf0
Organization: Stratus Computer, Software Engineering
NNTP-Posting-Host: phlan.sw.stratus.com


Why would ANYONE want to REDUCE the number of students (white or otherwise)
studying to enter science and technology fields???  We have few enough
students graduating with even minimal competence in mathematics and
the physical sciences.

I encourage - no, make that CHALLENGE - as many humans (no, I'm no xenophobe
either, but until we have some ET applicants...) as possible to try the
limits of the University of their choice.  If you can't come up with
questions your professors cannot answer, you're not trying hard enough.
When you find an interesting question, explore it, try to answer it.
Even if you do not succeed, you will win, and it's extermely likely
that your explorations will find something that no one else has discovered.
It may not open up gravitic technology or lead to pocket fusion batteries,
but it will be a new frontier.

The point of this?  Scientists and engineers become a commodity when
they innovate.  This creates opportunities.  There is always a market
for innovation, and its raw materials are knowledge, training, and
imagination.  Knowledge is the result of previous innovation, recorded
and passed on.  Training results from serious study, rigorous application
of theory, experimentation, and time.  Imagination varies from one
individual to another.  Maybe it can be taught, certainly it can be
nurtured, but IMO it cannot spring into being from nothing.

I don't really think minority status should ever enter into it.

-- 
det@phlan.sw.stratus.com   |  "Laddie, you'll be needin' something to wash
                           |  that doon with."
Xref: sparky sci.space:16244 sci.astro:12297 sci.space.shuttle:2817