HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jechilde@unccsun.uncc.edu (Jr Childers)
Subject: Re: The story on Oxygen Was Re: Lunar "colony" reality check
Organization: University of NC at Charlotte
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 00:36:07 GMT

In article <1992Nov12.011647.2397@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> knapp@spot.Colorado.EDU (David Knapp) writes:
>In article <1992Nov11.222130.8652@infodev.cam.ac.uk> sl25@cus.cam.ac.uk (Steve Linton) writes:

[ A very good correction to the O2 noise cut due to common sense. ]

>I'm not sure if it[helium] dissolves less into blood than N2 but I know that 
>decompression is still an issue using heliox mixes.
>
>-- 
>David Knapp                                   University of Colorado, Boulder
>Perpetual Student                                 knapp@spot.colorado.edu
>Looks like hate *is* a family value after all and Colorado families are for it.
>

Helium being a much smaller molecule than N2 will diffuse into and out of
blood, bone nerves, and anything else much more quickly than N2.  This makes 
decompression more of a problem for helium.

And thankyou for some clear and accurate information.

John Childers				 | We're sorry,  
University of North Carolina at Charlotte| all quotes are on 
Electrical Engineering Department	 | backorder.
Charlotte NC 28223			 |
Internet? Try john@opticslab1.uncc.edu	 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Xref: sparky sci.space:15429 sci.astro:11740 alt.sci.planetary:239 sci.geo.geology:2317
From: knapp@spot.Colorado.EDU (David Knapp)
Subject: Re: Lunar "colony" reality check
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 16:44:26 GMT

In article <1992Nov10.152154.9709@eng.ufl.edu> joev@sioux.eel.ufl.edu (Joseph Versagg) writes:
>Sorry for rehashing what was posted earlier, or , even worse, what may now
>be common knowladge, but what is this about ice at the poles of Mercury?
>Since Mercury rotates, although slowly, ice would be baked off the surface,
>then would leak into space due to the low gravity.

Since the obliquity is almost exactly 90 degrees, there are regions, in the
shadows of craters, etc, which literally never see light. In fact, a recent
paper in Science magazine reports that water ice may be stable in those regions
on the order of a billion years. (not bad)

Pick up last week's Science as there are three articles, back to back,
on this subject.

-- 
David Knapp                                      University of Colorado, Boulder
Perpetual Student                                   knapp@spot.colorado.edu
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: 0004244402@mcimail.com (Karl Dishaw)
Subject: Japanese 1990 Lunar Probe
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Organization: [via International Space University]
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU
Distribution: sci
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 18:58:43 GMT

I saw a UPI dispatch saying that Japan launched two satellites to the 
Moon in January 1990, but there wasn't anything in the FAQ about them.  
Does anybody know what happened on that mission and whether they got 
any useful data?

Karl

Newsgroups: sci.space
From: crispin@csd.uwo.ca (Crispin Cowan)
Subject: Re: astronauts voting
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Western Ontario, London
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 19:38:10 GMT

In article <1992Nov9.180712.18824@julian.uwo.ca> jdnicoll@prism.ccs.uwo.ca (James Davis Nicoll) writes:
>In article <1992Nov5.202148.2629@sfu.ca> palmer@sfu.ca (Leigh Palmer) writes:
>>Steve Maclean (probably misspelled) was actually in orbit when Canada held its
>>recent "referendum" on constitutional matters. If the Canadian Space Agency was
>>on its toes then he must have cast an absentee ballot. Not to have done so
>>would have been politically incorrect.
>	With the exception of voters in  Quebec (Quebec ran its own
>'referendum' with slightly different rules), I do not think Canadians
>were allowed absentee ballots  in  the recent 'referendum'.
>
>						James Nicoll

This is false.  I have two friends who used absentee ballots for the
referendum.

Crispin
-----
Crispin Cowan, CS grad student, University of Western Ontario
Phyz-mail:  Middlesex College, MC28-C, London, Ontario, N6A 5B7
E-mail:     crispin@csd.uwo.ca          Voice:  519-661-3342
"Clearly, no system can be totally fault tolerant.  For instance, had
the Silver Surfer not developed an affection for the people of Earth,
all computing systems would have failed more or less permanently in the
digestive tract of his evil planet-eating master, Galactus\cite{surfer}!"
        --Andy Lowry, _Generic Support for Optimistic Computations_
Xref: sparky sci.space:15551 alt.sci.planetary:251
From: dj@ekcolor.ssd.kodak.com (Dave Jones)
Subject: Re: NASA Coverup
Organization: Vonnegut Tent Rentals, Inc.
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 92 19:46:19 GMT

snarfy@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us wrote:
> 
>    As promised ,here come the ...
> 
>                     TEN EMBARRASSING QUESTIONS ABOUT THE MOON
>
When this all started I thought of that nonsensical 70's paperback
that pushed the idea of a hollow moon as a giant starship.  On reading
the "questions" it's apparent, dear Snarfy, that you're either reading
that book, or else reading one which, in the best Bermuda Triangle
tradition, is simply rehashing it.  When will you start quoting the
suspicious transcripts from the Apollo missions?
 
||Halloween Candy: the office snack    |
||from Nov. 1st onwards............... |Puff the Magic Dragon
||-------------------------------------|Lived by the sea
||Dave Jones (dj@ekcolor.ssd.kodak.com)|Who knows what's in the autumn mists
||Eastman Kodak Co. Rochester, NY      |In the mind of Yadallee?
Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.sci.planetary
From: davem@ee.ubc.ca (david michelson)
Subject: Re: Lunar "colony" reality check
Organization: University of BC, Electrical Engineering
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 01:50:30 GMT

In article <1992Nov9.180901@betsy.gsfc.nasa.gov> giglio@betsy.gsfc.nasa.gov (Louis Giglio) writes:
>In article <1992Nov9.192439.1354@iti.org>, aws@iti.org (Allen W.
>Sherzer) writes:
>
>|> >* A livable atmosphere is mostly nitrogen, not oxygen.
>|> 
>|> Which comes as a rude suprise to the astronaust who lived
>|> weeks on end on pure oxygen.
>                   ^^^^ ^^^^^^
>
>I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with either party, but I want to point
>out that
>this can't possibly be correct.  The oxygen had to be diluted with
>something.
>They would have died otherwise.
>
>Louis Giglio
>Severe Storms Branch
>NASA/GSFC


Suffice it to say that Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo astronauts worked in a
5 psi pure O2 environment.  This simplified the environmental control system
and eliminated the need to purge N2 prior to EVA.  

Didn't Skylab add a small amount of nitrogen to the mixture in an effort to
reduce the fire hazard and improve the acoustics?  Perhaps someone can fill
in the details.
 
--
 
Dave Michelson
davem@ee.ubc.ca 
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: murty@ecf.toronto.edu (MURTY Hema Sandhyarani)
Subject: Names for Venus Features
Organization: University of Toronto, Engineering Computing Facility
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 01:45:52 GMT

	Does anyone have information concerning a recent request
	for names for features on Venus?  Is the search still
	active and if so, where do we send the names to?  I recall
	that the names had to meet certain criteria.



Newsgroups: sci.space
From: rborden@ra.UVic.CA (Ross Borden)
Subject: gloves in space
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Organization: [via International Space University]
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU
Distribution: sci
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 01:37:43 GMT

Bill Higgins writes:

>The reason I'm writing, instead of just allowing the discussion to
>peter out, is to mention that a suggestion of Hermann Oberth's:
>Astronauts might wear spacesuits without gloves for delicate work!
>
>He reasoned that your skin can stand up to low pressure without major
>medical problems, so maybe you could work without pressure gloves in
>space.  You'd have to wear thin gloves for thermal and UV protection,
>and making a good wrist seal on your spacesuit might be tough-- but
>maybe not as hard as the problem of making a really flexible pressure
>glove! I think this was in his Fifties book *Man in Space*.

	Interesting, but I think I'll let you try it first :-)

	A better idea might be to cast a glove from heat shrink plastic.
It would be just large enough for an astronaut to fit his hand into.
The cuff of the glove would have a seal to attach it to the sleave of his
suit.  After fitting it on, he would gently heat the glove to form it to
his hand.
	It should provide a few atmospheres, enough to prevent damage.
The glove would be destroyed getting it off, so they would have to be
disposable.
	There might be problem with flexiblity of the plastic.  The stuff
I've worked with tends to crack if flexed a lot.  Strength and tear resistance
might also be a problem.  Of course, thermal and
UV protection are still necessary.
	A much better solution is electro-responsive plastics that expand
and contract at will, but they're ways off yet.

_______________________________________________________________________________
|                   .sig?  I don't need no stinking .sig!                     |
|                           rborden@ra.uvic.ca                                |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: mheney@access.digex.com (Michael K. Heney)
Subject: Re: Space suit research?
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
Distribution: sci
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 14:00:12 GMT

In article <BxL47u.6Fs.1@cs.cmu.edu> roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov (John Roberts) writes:
>
>In the NASA Select coverage of a Shuttle mission (this year, I think) in which
>EVAs were used, I believe the commentator remarked that with something other 
>than the usual pre-EVA cabin depressurization, only about half an hour of
>EVA pre-breathe was required. I considered that to be an astounding
>statement, but I never heard any followup. (I'm pretty sure that the mission
>was STS-49, and the cabin pressure was 10.2 psi.)
 
I remember that, too - I recall that the Shuttle cabin pressure was reduced
to 8.4 (?) psi, which gretly reduced the pre-breathe times.  Given the
number of EVA's they had to do on that flight (Intelsat rescue), this
was a Very Good Thing.
-- 
Mike Heney                |   Senior Systems Analyst and     |  Reach for the
mheney@access.digex.com   |  Space Activist / Entrepreneur   |  Stars, eh?
Kensington, MD (near DC)  |     * Will Work for Money *      |
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov (John Roberts)
Subject: Re: reality check
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology formerly National Bureau of Standards
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU
Distribution: sci
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 04:53:52 GMT


-From: jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Josh 'K' Hopkins)
-Subject: Re: Lunar "colony" reality check
-Date: 8 Nov 92 22:27:41 GMT
-Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana

-szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) writes:
->* Because of transportation costs for recycling equipment,
->  recycling on the moon is far more expensive than recycling on 
->  earth.  Even on earth the best attempt at building a livable, 
->  working biosphere masses hundreds of thousands of tons and leaks 
->  over tens of tons of air per year.

-This Biosphere was of course designed for Earth conditions.  A lunar station 
-won't have plate glass windows or it's own rainforest.  Besides, using current
-launch costs only proves that Moon bases aren't economical now -- something I
-won't debate you on.  Assuimg that none of the current attempts to lower launch
-costs will succeed is as ludicrous as auuming they all will.

Biosphere II was in the news again last week. They had trouble a while back
with excess production of carbon dioxide. Now the problem is decreasing
oxygen levels. Apparently some of the team members are breathing supplementary
oxygen.

->* Hydrogen is extremely innefficient to transport from
->  earth.

-So get it from comets.  If we don't colonize the moon, just what do you think 
-will be the market for your comet resources?

So ship it in the form of nylon. Plenty of hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon,
and able to withstand high impact velocity, which should save considerably
on delta-v to land it on the moon.

John Roberts
roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov
From: sl25@cus.cam.ac.uk (Steve Linton)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Metric again
Date: 8 Nov 92 22:22:19 GMT
Organization: U of Cambridge, England

In article <17268@mindlink.bc.ca>, Bruce_Dunn@mindlink.bc.ca (Bruce Dunn) writes:
|> > John Roberts writes:
|> >
|> > By the way, I think you'll be much happier in the long run if you do your
|> > calculations in SI (metric) units. I often do simple calculations in
|> > standard
|> > units, but the tough problems are much more easily handled using SI.
|> 
|> 
|>         I am delighted to find that NASA seem finally to be moving toward
|> metric, not just in theory but in reality.  Ron Baalke's postings about
|> various spacecraft now use metric units as the primary system, with
|> traditional American units in brackets.  About a week ago I joined a public
|> tour through the Goddard Space Flight Center (just north of Washington DC).
|> Goddard has a backup Shuttle mission control center which can take over
|> Shuttle operations if the Houston center is down.  There was a Shuttle up at
|> the time, and data related to the mission were being displayed in real time
|> on a large display at the front of the control room (the tour saw the room
|> from behind a glass wall).  Shuttle altitute was listed in km, and velocity
|> was listed in km/sec.
|>         Does anyone know if NASA uses degrees C for reporting things like the
|> Shuttle cabin temperature and the temperature of experiments?

Of course they should use Kelvins (:-)).

My main beef about NASA metrication concerns precision. How often have you seen
"This tiny widget, only about 1 inch (2.54cm) across"? If the diameter is given
as "about 1 inch" the implied precision is about +-25%. As such, the proper
metric form is "two or three centimeters" or "a couple of centimeters". 2.54cm
implies a precision that just isn't there.
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: moroney@ramblr.enet.dec.com
Subject: Re: NASA Coverup
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 20:01:37 GMT

In article <1992Nov9.133331.1039@cs.rochester.edu>, dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes...
>In article <1992Nov9.031208.23856@engage.pko.dec.com> moroney@ramblr.enet.dec.com writes:
> > Wouldn't a collision with something that size totally destroyed the Earth,
> > blasting it (and the Mars-sized thing) out of existance leaving not
> > much more than an asteroid belt?  If not, wouldn't the system be in a
> > rather elliptical orbit?
> 
>Answered in order: (1) no, there is insufficient energy available
>(recall that the gravitational binding energy of a sphere at constant
>density goes as the 5/3 power of the mass), and (2) the earth *is* in
>an elliptical orbit.  Just how elliptical would depend on when the
>earth was hit.  A collision near apohelion of the proto-earth's orbit
>could decrease, rather than increase, eccentricity.


I was thinking of the Voyager picture of one of the outer moons (forgot which
one) which has a comparatively huge impact crater, and it was stated that if
the impacting body was much larger the moon would have been shattered.
Typically impact craters are larger than the body itself so the radius ratio
and thus the mass ratio would have been quite large.

Mars has about 1/6th the mass of Earth if I remember correctly, and if the
impact of a measly comet (Swith-Tuttle) is measured by the popular press in
millions of Hiroshima-bombs, I'd think something the size of Mars would
obliterate both bodies unless the closing speed was really low.  But Earth is
much larger than that moon, maybe the 5/3 power is enough to "save" it, even
from a Mars.

> >Could the Earth have captured the Moon if the Moon was originally a separate
> >planet in "somewhat the same orbit" as the Vice President would say, and
> >eventually the Earth-moon perturbed each other into a common orbit?

> >Also the process that forms binary stars must be common, why not have the
> >same process form a sort-of binary planet?

>Capture without some sort of dissipation (like collision) is very
>difficult; this has effectively ruled out this theory.

Just out of curiosity, what would happen in the solar system if there was
an Earth-sized body (with no moon) at 1AU, and a Moon-sized body at 0.95 AU
or 1.1 AU?  Such orbits are unstable, correct?

>Binary stars coaccrete; they don't form then become bound (well,
>except in very dense cores of globular star clusters where 3-body
>collisions can occur).

I consider the binary accretation as a separate theory from the "somewhat
the same orbit" capture.  A cloud of gas, dust, planetesimals coaccrete
into 2 bodies in orbit instead of one planet perhaps by whatever process forms
binary stars.

I realize the missing volatiles is evidence against the last 2 theories.

How about all the other moons that the outer planets have?  Any theories
to what created all of them?  I lost count of the total # of known moons there
are in the solar system.  A collision with a gas giant seems unlikely to
create them.  I realize many are just glorified captured asteroids.

-Mike
From: andrew@mks.com (Andrew Hamilton-Wright)
Subject: Re: Lunar "colony" reality check
Organization: Mortice Kern Systems Inc., Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 16:42:26 GMT

In article <1992Nov12.045803.1096@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:
>The inverse square law is a hard master. A microwave array on the Moon
>
>Satellite power systems are of dubious economic viability at best. Placing
>one on such a distant satellite is lunacy. [I kill me. :-)]

One of the important benifits of a lunar ground based (and therefore
more easily maintained, IF there is some kind of permenant base on
the moon) power, is the possibility of powering obital or other craft
with power requirements exceeding feasible solar cell array production.

An excess(!) of power could even be used to supply power to incoming
craft landing on the moon - thereby reducing total craft weight by 
reducing fuel carried.

-andrew



-- 
    /||  // // ,'/""\'   Andrew Hamilton-Wright  andrew@mks.com  (519)884-2251 
   / ||/// //\' `\\\     Database(Admin),        Mortice Kern Systems Inc.
  /  |/ /_//  \\___/     56 Scottsdale, Guelph,Ont.   
o/ "Everything is possible except skiing through a revolving door"
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: prb@access.digex.com (Pat)
Subject: Re: oxygen atmospheres
Organization: UDSI
Distribution: sci
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 16:59:16 GMT

In article <BxJ3FF.DH9.1@cs.cmu.edu> roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov (John Roberts) writes:
>
>-From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
>-Subject: oxygen atmospheres
>-Date: 10 Nov 92 21:29:43 GMT
>
>-Neither.  In space, the Apollo spacecraft used the atmosphere it was
>-designed for:  low-pressure pure oxygen.  It wasn't feasible to run that
>-way on the pad, though, because the spacecraft wasn't built to stand an
>-external pressure exceeding internal pressure.  After some attempts to
>-fireproof the interior for 1atm of oxygen -- abandoned as impossibly
>-difficult -- they switched to using a mixed-gas atmosphere before and
>-during launch, with switchover to low-pressure pure oxygen on the way up.
>

Why didn't the SHuttle do this?  i would have thought following apollo's
lead, of  reducing cabin pressure and going to pure O2, you could
reduce the difficulty of  EVA  which is a primary shuttle mission.

what win do they get out of having a 1 atm cabin at 80/20 N2/O2?
From: Lauren.Podolak@mechanic.Fidonet.org (Lauren Podolak)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Drop nuc waste into
Date: Wed, 04 Nov 92 16:03:02 PDT
Organization: Mechanic: The Usenet<->Fidonet Gateway oF St. Pete Florida

HS>Actually, as Larry Niven pointed out, if you can get the stuff as far as
HS>Venus, you might as well just fly it *into* Venus.  It's not as if Venus
HS>is good for anything else.  (Although one would want to do rather more
HS>thorough studies of Venus before starting to use it as a dump...)


Why do that?  Conceivably Venusian terraforming could be done and now
you've contaminated it with radioactives.  If dumping is the solution
dump on an airless body.

Lauren
___
 X OLX 2.1 TD X Unable to locate Coca Cola -- Operator Halted!

--  
Internet: Lauren.Podolak@mechanic.Fidonet.org
UUCP:     ...!myrddin!tct!mechanic!Lauren.Podolak
Note: Mechanic is a free gateway between USENET & FIdonet.
      For information write to chief@mechanic.fidonet.org
Organisation: European Space Technology Centre (E.S.T.E.C)
Date: Wednesday, 11 Nov 1992 13:53:16 CET
From: C R Francis <RFRANCIS@ESTEC.BITNET>
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Metric again
 <sturges-091192110833@158.185.20.239>

In article <sturges-091192110833@158.185.20.239>,
sturges@master.lds-az.loral.com (Jim Sturges) says:
>
>From the society for the preservation of purity in language.....
>
>ALL measuring systems are "metric." What we're talking about is the
>difference between SI and English?
>

Strangely enough the system you call English is not used in England.  The
system slowly being phased out in the UK is called Imperial, and is slightly
different from the US 'English' system (eg some units of volume have the same
name but different size).

-------------------------------------        Richard Francis
Internet: rfrancis@estec.estec.esa.nl        European Space Research and
Bitnet  : rfrancis@estec.bitnet                Technology Centre (ESTEC)
SPAN    : ESTERS::FRANCIS
smail   : C R Francis, OEE/JWP, ESTEC, Keplerlaan 1, 2200AG NOORDWIJK NL
Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.sci.planetary
From: jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Josh 'K' Hopkins)
Subject: Re: Lunar "colony" reality check
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 00:02:19 GMT

carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick) writes:

>Power produced on the lunar surface and beamed directly to earth would have a
>number of drawbacks:
>	1)  You'd need a very tight beam, which you'd have to be able to aim.

This is supposedly possible if you have very large antennas, something that is
much easier on the Moon than in orbit.

>	2)  Even if you manage to take care of 1), the energy would be
>	    available at any particular place on Earth only 12 hours out of the
>	    day, with efficiency of the microwave link going down toward the
>	    ends of the period. 

Which is a good reason to use interconnected power networks.  

>	3)  Any particular lunar installation will be inoperative for half of
>	    every lunar month, with decreasing efficiencies toward either end
>	    of the period in which it's operational.

True, but if you can build one you can build two.  Alternatively you can do
interesting things with polar stations. However, I suspect that it would just be
easier to have multiple stations.

Mind you, I'm not saying lunar power is a great idea, but most of the technical
difficulties can be worked around.

-- 
Josh Hopkins                                          jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu

The only thing worse than writing a program that is constantly crashing on user
     errors is remembering that you're the only one who uses the program.