HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: 18084TM@msu.edu (Tom)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Terra-forming, The E-car
Date: 14 Sep 92 20:24:37 GMT
Distribution: sci
Organization: [via International Space University]
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU

>>Perhaps Mars has life already.  So what?  ...

>At the cost of possibly destroying a life form of which we know nothing,
>thus costing science a golden possibility of examining, firsthand, an
>extra-terrestrial life form.

Sure, I believe in knowledge for it's own sake.  But in the above discussion,
I was assuming that understanding potential Mars-life would be a pre-requisite
to terraforming, and possibly destroying any life there.  Once that life is
understood, maybe sampled, kept in a 'zoo', why not kill it, if we have to,
to terra-form Mars?  What has it done for us lately? :-)

>Unfortunately, electric cars depend on energy even more than fossil-fuel cars,
>>as they are less efficient (from the orignal source) than oil-powered
cars now.
>>To really get pollution-advantages from electric cars requires a new energy
>>source, not a new way of using more coal and oil.

>EXCUSE ME?  Please support this.  Every TECHNICAL article I've read on the
>subject says the opposte - that seperating the power generation into a more
>effecient (because car engines aren't) means of generating electricity, then
>using an effecient electric motor would save energy.

Perhaps the GM Impact, which doesn't use gears or brakes, but rather puts
braking energy back into the motor, may have increased the efficiency of
electric cars to near-fossil levels.

But everything I've ever read says that converting crude oil into burnable
fossil fuels, then converting that into electricity, then converting that
into motion, is less efficient than skipping the electric step.  With ceramic
car engines (higher engine temperatures) I'm not sure how burning-in-the-
plant will be more efficient than buring-in-the car.  Perhaps you could
post some excerpts from your TECHNICAL articles?

As long as were at it, please include the energy-use and polluting
potential for millions of pounds of lead batteries that must be replaced
every year...

And, I mis-spoke (wrote?)  I should have said 'efficiency advantage', above,
rather than pollution-advantage.  The burn-in-a-plant scheme MAY have
pollution advantages over burn-in-a-car, just because of the ease of
putting the exhaust system in one place.

-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
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Pluto Direct/ options
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 23:19:30 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <9SEP199210572154@iago.caltech.edu> irwin@iago.caltech.edu (Horowitz, Irwin Kenneth) writes:
>The problem with Galileo was that it required a Venus flyby to get enough
>energy to go to Jupiter.  This necessitated folding up the main antenna so
>that it wouldn't be damaged by the close approach to the sun...

Actually, no, the problem with Galileo was that the combination of data
rate, transmitter power, and size constraints made a rigid antenna
impossible.  The Voyager design had the biggest rigid antenna that would
fit in a Centaur payload shroud; nothing in the US inventory could carry
a Galileo-size antenna unless it was folded.

The effect of the Venus flyby was to require that the antenna *stay*
folded for the first year or so in space.  This may or may not have
contributed to the problem.  The back-and-forth shipping needed to make
those modifications quite possibly contributed to the problem.
-- 
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: RL-10
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 22:41:31 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <pgf.716231716@srl02.cacs.usl.edu> pgf@srl02.cacs.usl.edu (Phil G. Fraering) writes:
>>RL-10 failures? What does that do to Allen's statistics for the reliability
>>of the engine to be used for DCX?
>
>They may be _electronics_ failures of some sort. I don't think
>we've gotten enough parts back to find out for sure.
>
>If they ever actually used the shuttle for retrieval like all
>the people here talk about how they need to spend 5 billion a
>year to the end of time on the shuttle for payload retrieval,
>we'd know what the problem was.

The shuttle is not good at retrieving things from the bottom of the ocean,
unfortunately, which is where those Centaurs ended up...

The first one was thought to be ice, or something, in the turbopumps
interfering with startup.  I haven't heard any verdict yet on the second
one; I know they were taking pretty stringent precautions against pump
contamination in the wake of the first one.
-- 
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: higgins@fnala.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Who's an L5er? (was Re: Truax)
Date: 15 Sep 92 07:30:56 GMT
Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

In article <pgf.715990836@srl07.cacs.usl.edu>, pgf@srl07.cacs.usl.edu (Phil G. Fraering) writes:
> al@sys6626.bison.mb.ca (Haus Der Luge) writes:
> 
>>PS:  On the subject of Truax ... are there any L-5 types around here ???
> 
> Yah, but we're outnumbered by the local friendly "Just lie back
> and NASA will fix everything with Freedom and NLS" crowd.

I'm here.  Am I an "L-5 type?"  I was a member before the L5 Society
went away. I co-wrote the song parody "Home on Lagrange" (which
actually pokes fun at ardent L5ers).  I'm a friend of Keith Henson's. 
I love indulging in far-reaching technical speculation.

But I'm kind of conservative when it comes to space policy.  And I
once shook hands with Wernher von Braun, which should put me on the
dull NSI (National Space Institute) side of things, right?

On the other hand, I stuck my neck out raising funds for Lunar
Prospector.  

So how can I tell whether I'm an L5 type or not?

Submarines, flying boats, robots, talking         Bill Higgins
pictures, radio, television, bouncing radar       Fermilab
vibrations off the moon, rocket ships, and        HIGGINS@FNALB.BITNET
atom-splitting-- all in our time.  But nobody     HIGGINS@FNAL.FNAL.GOV
has yet been able to figure out a music           SPAN:  43011::HIGGINS
holder for a marching piccolo player. 
                     --Meredith Willson, 1948
From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: With telepresence, who needs people in Earth orbit?
Date: 5 Sep 92 13:24:10 GMT
Article-I.D.: ke4zv.1992Sep5.132410.17048
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <1992Sep3.142820.19532@techbook.com> szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) writes:
>
>The lean/mean planetary projects, like NEAR, MESUR, lunar orbiter, and 
>Artemis lander _still_ have difficulty getting funded, because they don't 
>use Shuttle or SSF, even after all of the realization of the cost-effectiveness
>of small, quick exploration.  Planetary science has plucked out the mite in its own eye, but it is still being destroyed by the mote in the astronaut-world's
>eye.  We need the strategy of frequency and simplicity in all of NASA if 
>we are to have effective NASA programs.

Well, the lunar orbiters were funded because of the inability of more
complex unmanned systems to deliver the data needed for Apollo, six failed
Rangers in a row and Centaur booster failures left and right. So you could 
say that that program got funding solely because of the needs of manned space.

As a side note, most of the data from lunar probes, and some probes of
other bodies, lies rusting away on reels of magnetic tape that no current
machine can read in some musty warehouse. The most cost effective way to
do lunar scientific research would be to mine that warehouse first before
launching more probes.

Gary
From: amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Old data formats (was New lunar spacecraft)
Date: 13 Sep 92 15:43:18 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.BuIx0n.L11.1
Distribution: sci
Organization: [via International Space University]
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU

> 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.  
:-(
> 


This reminds me of a personal data retrieval problem. Does anyone out  
there have access to an old PDP-10 with DecTape drives? I have about  
a dozen of them with data I'd love to retrieve (for sentimental  
reasons: my first real system is on them)
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: abian@iastate.edu (Alexander Abian)
Subject:    PUTTING VENUS IN AN ORBIT SIMILAR TO THE ORBIT OF THE EARTH
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 22:22:51 GMT

 In our Solar System, the planet VENUS is the only planet which sizewise,
masswise and substancewise closely resembles our planet Earth.
     The main difference between Venus and Earth lies in their orbits around
the Sun.  For one thing, Venus stays around 67 million miles away from the
Sun, whereas Earth stays around 93 million miles away from the Sun.  As a
consequence of the corresponding greenhouse effects, Venus' average surface
temperature is around 900 degrees F, whereas Earth's is around 60 degrees F.
Venus, being an extraordinarily hot planet is unsuitable for sustaining life
(as we know it).
     However, if we alter Venus' orbit and make it similar to the Earth's
orbit, then the gradual process of generating life sustaining ecology on
Venus will evolve automatically.  As a result, a second Earth-like planet
will be created which, in due course, will be readily and easily populated
by the human species.
     The present-day tendencies of Space Scientists and Space Technology
consist in keeping Venus or Mars in their existing orbits and trying to install
on them machinery which will produce life-sustaining conditions.  This approach
most likely will not yield the desired results.  Indeed, creating life-
sustaining ecology on the planets (like Venus or Mars) whose present cosmic
parameters, to begin with do not allow the existence of life on them, seems
improbable and impractical.
     As mentioned above, a practical way for creating a life-sustaining ecology
say, on Venus, is to put Venus in an orbit similar to the Earth's orbit, to
begin with.  This is the way, the only way.

      Philosophically:

     THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF NATURAL SELECTION, OR THE PRESERVATION
OF FAVOURED RACES IN THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE.
                                               C. DARWIN (1859)

     THE FUTURE OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF RATIONAL ALTERATION OF COSMOS, OR
THE PRESERVATION OF INTELLIGENT RACES IN THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE.

                                               A. ABIAN (1992)

Dr. Alexander Abian
Professor of Mathematics
Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa  50011
USA

phone: (515) 294-8135
<abian@iastate.edu>




Newsgroups: sci.space
From: baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke)
Subject: Re: Pluto Direct/ options
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-4   
Reply-To: baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 23:21:11 GMT

In article <1992Sep7.173253.1837@access.digex.com>, prb@access.digex.com (Pat) writes...
> 
>I saw parts of the pluto direct flyby talk by staehle from JPL.
>they are talking of sending a 1-200 kg orbiter to pluto.
> 
>Did they consider using energia?  most of the charts I remember
>were using titan or delta class launchers?

A Pluto mission has always been a high priority since it is the only
planet we have not sent a probe to.  Also, since 1979, Pluto is closer to the
Sun than Neptune and will not cross back over until February 10, 1999, and
this is the closest Pluto will be for another 248 years.  The proposed plan
is to send two small spacecraft on a direct trajectory to Pluto for a
flyby encounter.  There will be no gravity assists, not even
from Jupiter.  The cruise time would be from 7 to 8 years with a
Titan-4/Centaur launch, or 10 to 12 years with a backup Proton/D1E launch 
vehicle.   Each spacecraft would weigh 330 pounds and carry a science payload 
of 15 pounds consisting of an imaging system (expected resolution at 1km), an 
infrared spectrometer and an ultraviolet spectrometer.  The atmosphere of 
Pluto would also be studied with radio occultation.  The reason for two
spacecraft is that Pluto/Charon have a 6.4 day rotation rate, and a
single spacecraft can only study one side from close range with a flyby
encounter.  The launches of the two spacecraft will be staggered by 3.2
days to allow observations of both sides of Pluto and Charon.
The total cost of the mission would be no more than 400 million dollars
and the launch dates would be in 1998 or 1999.  
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     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.
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     |
From: c2xdwd@kocrsv01.delcoelect.com (Dale Deutscher)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Anyone know the address of John Hunter
Date: 14 Sep 92 19:04:46 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Delco Electronics Corp.
Originator: c2xdwd@koptsw29


Hello,
   Does anyone have the address for John W. Hunter at Lawrence
Livermore National Labs? He is the principal scientist on the
SHARP project.

Thanks.

Dale Deutscher     (No sig yet)
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: fcrary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Frank Crary)
Subject: Re: SSTO has been achieved
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 23:03:39 GMT

In article <1992Sep10.211155.23609@cco.caltech.edu> kwp@wag.caltech.edu (Kevin W. Plaxco) writes:
>But what about a martian SSTO?  I have seen several discussions 
>about the logistics of a manned (or even unmanned return) mars 
>mission, but I have never seen a proposal for how to achieve 
>mars orbit after the mission has ended.  How difficult will this be?

Not very difficult at all. In fact, I can't recall any manned 
architectures that use multi-stage rockets for this. (Mars Direct
uses a two-stage rocket but to enter a Earth-return trajectory,
not just to enter Martian orbit.)

                                                 Frank Crary
                                                 CU Boulder
From: roberts@CMR.NCSL.NIST.GOV (John Roberts)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Dry DNA
Date: 10 Sep 92 04:09:05 GMT
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology
	formerly National Bureau of Standards


-From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz)
-Subject: Re: Is NASA really planning to Terraform Mars?
-Date: 8 Sep 92 00:43:18 GMT

-The surface of Mars is extremely dry.  All terrestrial life requires
-liquid water to survive.  Even bacterial spores are quickly rendered
-nonviable in extreme dryness: experiments that place spores in air of
-near-zero relative humidity at 25 C find that the DNA begins to
-degrade, and the spores become nonviable within weeks (for this
-reason, the bacteria that supposedly survived in the Surveyor on the
-moon were likely post-recovery contaminants).

I hadn't heard that one before. What about lotus seeds and water bears?
I understood water bears could survive dehydration indefinitely if placed
in a non-oxygen atmosphere. Lotus seeds have a mechanism that tends to make
them increasingly dry over time, yet remain viable for thousands of years.
A lotus seed in a sheltered spot in the Egyptian desert ought to get pretty
dry over time. I believe brine shrimp eggs last quite a while when dry
too. Mars tends to be drier than Earth, but also colder.

I understand researchers recently recovered DNA sequences from ancient bees
that were trapped in amber millions of years ago.

I agree with you that there's no known location on Mars where any known form
of Earth life could be active.

John Roberts
roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov

Xref: sparky sci.space:12581 sci.astro:9572 sci.geo.geology:1922
From: jmcd@cea.berkeley.edu (John McDonald)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,sci.geo.geology
Subject: Landsat Pictures?
Date: 9 Sep 92 19:37:20 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Center for EUV Astrophysics

Years ago, i had information on obtaining Landsat photos based
on long-lat information.  I seem to recall the address being in
Colorado somewhere...

Could anyone send me information on getting Landsat photos 
nowadays? 

Please e-mail...
Thanks!

Johnny.

begin 664 signature.uu
M:F]H;E\M7U\M7U\M7U\M7U\M7U\M7U\M7U\M7U\M7U\M7VUC9&]N86QD"@E!
M<G1I<W1S(%!R;W9O:V4@06QI96YS"E]?+5]?+5]?+5]?+5]?+5]?+5]?+5]?
M+5]?+5]?+5]?+5]?+5]?+5]?+0IC96YT97(@(" @("!F;W(@(" @("!E=78@
2(" @("!A<W1R;W!H>7-I8W,*
From: nicho@VNET.IBM.COM
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Terraforming needs to begin now
Date: 10 Sep 92 08:32:13 GMT
Reply-To: nicho@vnet.ibm.com

In <JGJ.92Sep9190252@rcx1.ssd.csd.harris.com> Jeff Jackson writes:
> -- description of terraforming the outback deleted for brevity --
  Believe it or not, in OZ we actually think about things like this.
   Our problem is that the outback is dead flat. There's nothing to
interrupt the moisture laden air coming off the coast. Without this,
it cannot rise and precipitate.
   The coolest idea I know of, was to cover vast (strategically located)
areas with tar/black paint etc. to create hot spots that would form
artificial mountains. Do this properly and you can get a convection
cycle going, that will bring moisture laden air in from the coast,
and cause it to precipitate on the upwind border of your 'parking lot'
 -----------------------------------------------------------------
               ** Of course I don't speak for IBM **
Greg Nicholls ... nicho@vnet.ibm.com or nicho@cix.compulink.co.uk
                  voice/fax: 44-794-516038
From: pgf@srl02.cacs.usl.edu (Phil G. Fraering)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Pluto Fast Flyby mission goals...
Date: 13 Sep 92 23:46:53 GMT
Organization: Univ. of Southwestern Louisiana

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


>The mission has only been proposed.  If it is approved, then the mission won't
>officially start until around 1994.

That's the time limit for talking them into using ion drive?

Heck, in those two years, you could prob. run a test mission
for the hall effect thrusters...

--
Phil Fraering pgf@srl0x.cacs.usl.edu where the x is a number from 1-5.
Phone: 318/365-5418 SnailMail: 2408 Blue Haven Dr., New Iberia, La. 70560

           --> Support UN military force against Doug Mohney <--
From: tomk@netcom.com (Thomas H. Kunich)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Is NASA really planning to Terraform Mars?
Date: 8 Sep 92 22:42:56 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)

In article <1992Sep8.210313.4979@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> fcrary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Frank Crary) writes:
>
>Not that we know of, just water ice and permafrost. There is some,
>distant theoretical possibility of sub-surface water (liquid). But 
>the evidence for this isn't too substantial...

Frank, I seem to remember clouds at the atmospheric boundary
on Olympus Monds (sp?). Certainly that indicates that there is
some water vapor there.

I also recall that there was speculation that the most verdent
growth on earth during the ice ages was directly in the narrow
band adjacent to the advancing glaciers. This was because most of
the water was tied up in the ice and there was little free water in
the atmosphere. Humidity was extremely low. 

During warm spells the ice would melt enough to water the surrounding
narrow band and this drew large numbers of animals. When the wind changed
and blew _off_ of the glaciers it would often kill the animals with
cold and so we find so many animals frozen in glacier ice.

If such things happen here it would give _some_ hope that such
conditions might exist on Mars.
From: fcrary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Frank Crary)
Subject: Re: Shuttle tank for habitation; was Inflatable Space Stations
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 05:08:08 GMT

In article <1992Sep5.014529.26001@porthos.cc.bellcore.com> netnews@porthos.cc.bellcore.com (USENET System Software) writes:
>Why not orbit the tank with solid fule trap-on boosters and
>build them with an access hatch?

There are two problems (neither unsolvable): There would be no 
internal hardware (live support, research equipment, etc...) and
there would be a pressing, immediate need for station keeping
rockets: Due to the low mass/cross sectional area of an external
tank, one on orbit would de-orbit from atmospheric drag very
soon (months I think).

                                              Frank Crary
                                              CU Boulder
From: baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Probes - self portraits?
Date: 16 Sep 92 04:55:44 GMT
Reply-To: baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-4

In article <92Sep15.194116.34318@acs.ucalgary.ca>, jsbell@acs.ucalgary.ca (Joshua Bell) writes...
>I've often wondered, especially in the wake of Gallileo's stuck
>HGA, but also after Voyager 2 headed off into never-never land
>past Neptune, why the cameras on these craft are unable to be
>located so that they can take images of the craft itself, for
>self-diagnosis, and also for PR - I would have LOVED a rather
>non-scientific shot of Voyager 2 looking back over its own
>shoulder towards Neptune, or during the fly-by, so we can see the
>various parts of the craft. 

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

However, Galileo did take a self-portrait using its NIMS instrument.  The
image was a thermal image and was used to verify that the High Gain
antenna was partially deployed.
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | Quiet people aren't the
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | only ones who don't say
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     | much.
From: waterman@titan.ksc.nasa.gov
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Airiane Launch Viewing
Date: 7 Sep 92 00:10:01 EST
Organization: NASA, Kennedy Space Center


Sep 7, 1992 0010 EST

Someone posted a while back that all the Airiane
launches could be picked up on satelite.

Does anyone know which satelite and transponder
it might be on?

_________________________________
Bob Waterman [Aqua]
waterman@titan.ksc.nasa.gov

Newsgroups: sci.space