HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Launch costs to deep space
Date: 6 Sep 92 10:58:05 GMT
Article-I.D.: techbook.1992Sep6.105805.9293
Organization: TECHbooks --- Public Access UNIX --- (503) 220-0636


Ron Baalke writes for Delta-2:

>       Launch Energy, C3     Payload Mass
>        (km^2/sec^2)           (kg)
>       ------------------    -------------
>            10                   1000
>            20                    850
>            30                    650
>            40                    550

I've taken Ron's figures, extrapolated them to some other
launchers, and computed the costs.  This may slightly understate the
payload for the Centaur due to its better performance.  I have not 
accounted for weight margins (eg 300 kg for MESUR at C3=17 on Delta 2 
brings it to 622 kg instead of 922 kg).

	  Delta 2/7,PAM-D2   Atlas 2AS/Centaur	Titan 4/Centaur	Ariane 44L
GTO,kg         	1820	          3460	   	 8500		4200
C3=10,kg	1000		  1900  	 4700 		2300
C3=40,kg         550 		  1000		 2600		1300
launch cost      $55m		  $72m		 $280m		$115m
cost/kg,C3=10    $55,000	  $38,000	 $60,000	$50,000
cost/kg,C3=40	 $100,000	  $69,000	 $112,000	$91,000

C3=10 can get us to flyby, and C3=40 to rendesvous with, our choice out
of dozens of the near-earth asteroids, including several interesting C- 
and M-type asteroids, during good launch windows.  With a 400 kg weight
margin, an Atlas 2AS/Centaur could deliver at least 1,500 kg to flyby, 
or 600 kg to rendesvous, land on and sample such an asteroid, for $72 
million plus spacecraft costs.  (Compare to the Voyager spacecraft which
were 825 kg).

ref: _Space Mission Analysis and Design_, Wertz & Larson eds., Kluwer
1991, substituting more recent figure for Titan 4 cost due to overrun.


-- 
szabo@techbook.COM  Public Access User --- Not affiliated with TECHbooks
Public Access UNIX and Internet at (503) 644-8135 (1200/2400, N81)
From: Alan_Barclay@mindlink.bc.ca (Alan Barclay)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Relativity
Date: 9 Sep 92 07:21:06 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Distribution: world

4318602 from David Meiklejohn:

DM>No, his time measured is 1.95 years, as you say.  What you're missing is
that
there is no favoured frame of reference, given that he's not accelerating.
Therefore, as far as our astronaut is concerned, he's stationary, and the
universe is rushing by at 0.9 c.  Now, when you move, the only relatavistic
effect isn't time dilation.  You gain mass, and your metrics contract in the
direction of motion.  This last effect means that the observer measures the
distance between the stars as 2.17 ly.  As far as he's concerned, he's taken
1.95 years to travel between two objects 2.17 ly apart, so he's measured his
speed as 0.9 c.

DM>So, it all works out.



Yes, I sort of suspected that within the subjective relativistic frame my
observer would make measurements consistent with 0.9C.

I guess I included an assumption I failed to mention.  My observer had
measured the distance between the two stars before accelerating to 0.9C,
thus he got the result of 4 ly.  He did not measure distance during flight.

I'm trying to get at something more complicated I can't do the math for.
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.

You mentioned something about "no favored frame of reference."  I guess
my little idea only works if you use data from two different frames.
However, my observer is present in both frames, and can trace his history
from one to the next.  Is there then a dynamic frame of reference
from his point of view?


Alan

Newsgroups: sci.space
From: hangfore@spf.trw.com (John Stevenson)
Subject: Re: New lunar spacecraft 
Reply-To: hangfore@spf.trw.com (John Stevenson)
Organization: TRW Inc., Redondo Beach, CA
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 92 22:20:23 GMT

In article <1992Sep6.013607.8183@dartvax.dartmouth.edu>  
Frederick.A.Ringwald@dartmouth.edu (Frederick A. Ringwald) writes:

[stuff deleted]

> While old data sets often contain overlooked gems, for some questions,
> they will not help at all. The Lunar Orbiters did optical imaging from
> roughly equatorial orbits about the Moon; if you wanted to look for
> lunar water, you'd need a polar-orbiting spacecraft with infrared
> imaging and better, also spectroscopic instrumentation - not unlike
> what's going on the Mars Observer.
> 
Lunar Orbiters 5 and 6 were in polar orbits. The radio navigation data  
collected (which would be used to develop models of the lunar  
gravitational field) are either lost or stored on punch cards and so far  
unretrievable. JPL was attempting to recover this data in support of the  
Lunar Observer mission, which has since been cancelled. The loss of such  
pricey and important data is representative of the post Apollo era. :-(

The lunar resource mapping mission by SEI out of JSC selected two  
contractors for the next phase (not TRW :-(  ) but, of course,the  
congresscritters have decimated the SEI budget. Don't hold your breath.

John Stevenson
hangfore@spf.trw.com
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 00:13:26 GMT

In article <samw.715971213@bucket> samw@bucket.rain.com (Sam Warden) writes:
>Re Venus: We seem to know more about the Venusian atmosphere than I
>knew we knew.  :-)  Since when are the _upper_ clouds H2SO4? 

The uppermost are not.

> And,
>do we really know what the overall composition of the crust and
>atmosphere is, to say that there is somehow an "excess" of oxygen?

yes.

>Were Venus ever to cool off, I would expect ferocious amounts of
>oxidation/carbonation weathering to occur, for example.

I wouldn't hold my breath for Venus to cool off. It is locked in a stable 
greenhouse mode.


>Re Mars: I'm impressed with the Gaia approach, to this negative
>extent: the lack of a fixed atmosphere on Mars seems like strong
>evidence that life is not active there now, or it would exhale
>one.  I'm not convinced that `seeding' Mars would be impossible,
>but it would have to be not isolated spores but a complete
>ecosystem capable of maintaining its own microenvironment.  A
>blob with a crust, so to speak.  Things like the Dead Sea plankton 
>that secrete glycerol come to mind.  This is pretty dependent
>on whether the Martian crust is a pre-biotic permafrost as 
>has been speculated, but I'm uncomfortable with dismissing the
>possibility out of hand.

There is a reason why Mars doesn't have an atmosphere. Evidence seems to 
support that if we somehow put one there, it wouldn't stay.

>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.  ;-)

If you think so, make sure you consult your congressman about funding
Nasa better.

>
-- 
> 
>samw@bucket.rain.com (Sam Warden) -- and not a mere Device.
> 


-- 
David Knapp                                      University of Colorado, Boulder
Perpetual Student                                   knapp@spot.colorado.edu
From: roberts@CMR.NCSL.NIST.GOV (John Roberts)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: RL-10
Date: 11 Sep 92 13:20:48 GMT
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology
	formerly National Bureau of Standards


-From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
-Subject: Re: 3 booster questions
-Date: 10 Sep 92 15:59:12 GMT

->[2].Atlas still goes *boom* a lot?  Is this inherent to the design of having
->two of the engines fall off and the difficulty in shutting off the fuel flow
->to these engines?

-Neither.  The recent failures have been Centaur problems.  They're a bit
-surprising, since the RL10 has been a very reliable engine.

RL-10 failures? What does that do to Allen's statistics for the reliability
of the engine to be used for DCX?

John Roberts
roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov

Newsgroups: sci.space
From: tkelso@afit.af.mil (TS Kelso)
Subject: Two-Line Orbital Element Set:  Space Shuttle
Keywords: Space Shuttle, Orbital Elements, Keplerian
Organization: Air Force Institute of Technology
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 20:47:54 GMT

The most current orbital elements from the NORAD two-line element sets are
carried on the Celestial BBS, (513) 427-0674, and are updated daily (when
possible).  Documentation and tracking software are also available on this
system.  As a service to the satellite user community, the most current
elements for the current shuttle mission are provided below.  The Celestial
BBS may be accessed 24 hours/day at 300, 1200, 2400, 4800, or 9600 bps using
8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity.

Element sets (also updated daily), shuttle elements, and some documentation
and software are also available via anonymous ftp from archive.afit.af.mil
(129.92.1.66) in the directory pub/space.

STS 47     
1 22120U          92257.58333333  .00075744  00000-0  25599-3 0    51
2 22120  56.9960 103.0456 0008624 282.6993 324.3532 15.89350753   178
-- 
Dr TS Kelso                           Assistant Professor of Space Operations
tkelso@afit.af.mil                    Air Force Institute of Technology
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: strider@acm.acm.rpi.edu (Greg Moore)
Subject: Re: 20 Questions About the Delta Clipper
Organization: The Voice of Fate
Distribution: sci
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 02:06:22 GMT

In article <BuBB9n.156.1@cs.cmu.edu> amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk writes:
>> actual wear and tear on the engines.  You may find the atmospheric  
>transit
>> has strange affects (look at the British Comet) that negatively  
>affect
>> wear and tear, requiring more maintainance than required.  And this 
>
>> 
>
>
>The problem with the Comet had nothing at all to do with engines. It  
>had to do with metal fatigue on the fuselage and an insufficient  
>number of rip stops. This is not likely to be a problem on DCX as  
>materials are much better understood now. Not to mention that  
>simulation, while not perfect, allows problems like this to be  
>uncovered before prototyping. It even eliminates the need for  
>fullscale models (as has been noted by Dani I believe) and thus cuts  
>cost at the same time it cuts design risk.
>
Sorry, I was not clear above.  I did not mean that the Comet faield due
to engine problems.  The problems were partly a result of extrapolating
the known into the unknown.  THEIR engineering tests didn't indicate
the stress fatigue would be a problem.

	Bringing the anology to the DC-X and later, I'm curious as to
what problems they expect with the cycling of pressure differentials
(i.e. sea-level to vacumn) and tempature ranges will have on the 
engines.  Yes, our knowledge is better, but is it enough?

>The DCX is a simple craft using off the shelf parts and well  
>understood technology. There may be some flight regimes in which  
>there is something to be learned, but I suspect there is not much  
>from a science viewpoint. Unlike other vehicles built in the past,  
>its design is not a research project. This is a skunkworks aviation  
>project whose only goal is operational hardware.
>
	The key there is "some flight regimes in which there is
something to be learned"  I think we might learn a lot.  I just
hope known of it endangers the craft.
From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: RL-10
Date: 14 Sep 92 13:35:54 GMT
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <1992Sep13.010306.5063@iti.org> aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) writes:
>In article <1992Sep12.145556.21649@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:
>>On Atlas' first flight, June 11, 1957, it went boom. On Atlas-Centaur's
>>first flight, May 8, 1962 the Centaur went boom....
>
>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.
>
>For the state of the art, they are a hell of a lot more reliable than
>aircraft where at a similar time. That's good enough.

As I noted in the part you deleted, after 30 years they are still going
boom. After 30 years, the Wright Flyer was replaced by the DC-3. There's
a limit to how many times you stretch old designs before you get out a
clean sheet of paper and start over. Atlas, Delta, and Titan are well
past that point. Instead of stretching them again, it seems better to
me to start with a new design for a HLV, one that employs lessons learned
about rocket propulsion over the last 40 years.

Gary
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: "UTADNX::UTDSSA::GREER"@utspan.span.nasa.gov
Subject: 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: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 15:55:56 GMT


In Space Digest V15 #180,
Nick Szabo <szabo@techbook.com> writes:

>In article <samw.715971213@bucket> samw@bucket.rain.com (Sam Warden) writes:
>
>>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.
>
>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'm not sure if I would call it pollution, but "moral imperative"?
What kind of gods are you guys making up, anyway?

>szabo@techbook.COM  Public Access User --- Not affiliated with TECHbooks
>Public Access UNIX and Internet at (503) 644-8135 (1200/2400, N81) 

_____________
Dale M. Greer, whose opinions are not to be confused with those of the
Center for Space Sciences, U.T. at Dallas, UTSPAN::UTADNX::UTDSSA::GREER
                 "Pave Paradise, put up a parking lot." -- Joni Mitchell
Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.sci.planetary
From: baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke)
Subject: Magellan Science Results Published
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-4   
Keywords:  Magellan, JPL
Reply-To: baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 14:52:58 GMT

The "Journal of Geophysical Research - Planets" has dedicated two issues
of their journal to the science results of the Magellan mission.  I
have just received Part 1 today in the mail (Volume 97, Number E8, dated
August 25, 1992).  This hefty issue consists of 27 articles and over
600 pages.  
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     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.
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     | 

Newsgroups: sci.space
From: kentm@aix.rpi.edu (Michael V. Kent)
Subject: Re: farthest Laser signal
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 02:13:09 GMT

In article <BuC4sA.3EB@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <199209041812.AA18322@leibniz.cs.arizona.edu> rcs@CS.ARIZONA.EDU ("Richard Schroeppel") writes:
>>Assuming the purpose of your question is to consider "How feasible
>>are lasers for high bandwidth, semi-private, space communication?"...
>
>Feasible.  There is intense interest in the idea, and some in-space
>experiments will fly in this decade. 

Forgive my not knowing the basic vocabulary, but is this what's known as a
lidar (laser radar?)?  If so, the Lidar In-Space Technology Experiment is
scheduled for a 1994 launch.

>It's just possible that secret
>military systems might be operational already -- laser communications
>systems would have very tight beams that would be very difficult to
>eavesdrop on.)

I know work is active in this area, but has anything flown yet?

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 !!
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo)
Subject: Re: Asteroid explorer
Organization: TECHbooks --- Public Access UNIX --- (503) 220-0636
Distribution: usa
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 01:33:24 GMT

In article <STEINLY.92Sep12152615@topaz.ucsc.edu> steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson) writes:
>

>Given some recent discussion on NASA approaches, howabout the
>following for a small explorer mission:
>
>As per the AO you get $17million (1992) for hardware, R&D,
>staff etc, same again for launch; mission ops and data analysis
>are extra. So, put together a CCD camera, a (IR?) spectrometer,
>a low(medium?) gain antenna, redundant tape recorders, the best CPU
>and memory that's flight qualified (is the intel chip qualified yet?)
>and a couple of ion thrusters with as much fuel as possible - then
>go cruise asteroids, first an Earth crosser, then follow it out
>to the belt and peek around, keep going till you run out of fuel
>or something dies; main problem would be a power supply and weight
>constraints... 

Parity check: $34 million for everything except mission ops
and data analysis?  

A big problem I see here is the one I raised a few years ago, that
is we need an upper stage for the Pegasus, or we have to make a 
customized one for ourselves.  Might not be a bad test for the
Russian Hall-effect rockets that Loral and SDIO are working on
for Clarke orbit satellites.  They are going to hook it up to
Topaz 2 and  put on some high-power scientific instruments, according
to Av Week.  Of course, they have a bit more than $34 million...
Anyway, it would be rough to try to get through the Van Allen belts
with an electric rocket.

One alternative might be some of the proposed small launchers: Taurus for
$17 million, or EPAC's Eagle/S1 for $15 million, which Bowery says could
pack 6,000 lbs. to LEO. Jim, would y'all be willing to throw in an upper 
stage for $2 million?  Another alternative might be to piggyback on a 
bigger launcher to GTO, separate, and go from there, but I don't know 
how feasible that is, and we'd have to have a pretty flexible launch window.
Some of the stuff Henry worked on for the solar sail race might be
applicable here.

Also, we'd want access to JPL's mission planning software to find
the best target opportunities.  We'd want to look at something
promising that nobody's done yet, like a type C or type M (or
type D, but that might be a real stretcher for the upper stage).

>Nick, Phil? you wanna put your time where your mouth
>is?

Heck, Dennis and I could stop saying silly things about each other
and we could look at SEDSAT.  How about it, Dennis?   What's that thing's 
lifetime, and can it get through the Van Allen Belts?

I've been working about 10-20 hours per week on various space
projects such as the ice rockets, but would be happy to trade that
in for something that will fly this century.


-- 
szabo@techbook.COM  	  Tuesday, November third  ##  Libertarian  $$  vote
Tuesday  ^^ Libertarian  --  change  **  choice && November 3rd @@Libertarian 
Newsgroups: sci.space,misc.headlines
From: aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer)
Subject: Re: Alien substance from space
Organization: Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1992 02:25:37 GMT

In article <1992Sep15.165934.4132@desire.wright.edu> demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man) writes:

:	Anyone have any ideas as to what the substance found on NASA's long
:term exposure unit is?

:	Apparently it's something never before seen on Earth.

:	The substance is a few microns of crystal-like material found on a 
:piece of teflon from the structure.

You mean the green crystals that they code named Andromeda?

  Allen

-- 
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer | "If they can put a man on the Moon, why can't they     |
|  aws@iti.org     |  put a man on the Moon?"                               |
+----------------------221 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+
From: tholen@galileo.ifa.hawaii.edu (Dave Tholen)
Subject: Re: Pluto Direct Propulsion Options
Organization: Institute for Astronomy, Hawaii
Distribution: sci
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 08:43:34 GMT

Phil G. Fraering writes:

> Just out of curiosity, is there a way to convince them to use post-early-
> 1960's technology, like an ion drive of some sort?

Actually, the Outer Planet Science Working Group did get a presentation
from one of the people promoting the development of advanced ion drive
propulsion technology.  Part of the problem is the old Catch 22 situation.
Nobody wants to say that their mission REQUIRES ion drive, because of the
very real potential for cost overruns and schedule slippage, due to the
technological developments that must take place to make it feasible for
such a mission.  Since nobody needs it, no money is being spent on further
development, but further development is exactly what is needed before
people feel safe choosing it as their preferred propulsion method.

Chemical rockets can get us to Pluto, and quite fast, so ion drive has
limited appeal.  And as someone else correctly pointed out, using such
a drive for a orbital mission, as opposed to a flyby, would require that
you start to slow down after reaching roughly the halfway point.  Flight
times would be much longer, and there is a sense of urgency to get there
as soon as possible, for a variety of reasons.
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: 18084TM@msu.edu (Tom)
Subject: Space Platforms (political, not physical :-)
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Organization: [via International Space University]
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU
Distribution: sci
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 20:06:12 GMT

>>  but we also know that Clinton and Gore are...

Well, now that we've seen bandied about various versions of both the
Democratic and Republican Official Platforms Re: Space, would anyone
happen to know the Libertarian Official Space Platform?

Nick, Dale, Anyone?  Equal space for all parties, right?

If no-one knows, maybe I'll take the initiative and call the HQ myself...

-Tommy Mac                     .  "                  +
.------------------------  +                      *       +
|   Tom McWilliams; scrub       ,     .                        "        +
|  astronomy undergrad, at     *       +;.     .  '             There is
| Michigan State University   '                      .    "   no Gosh!
|   18084tm@ibm.cl.msu.edu                        '      ,   *
|       (517) 355-2178       ;  +  '                                 *
'-----------------------
Newsgroups: sci.space