waashk/20ng huggingface dataset:
In <1993May1.051312.1@aurora.alaska.edu> nsmca@aurora.alaska.edu writes:  > Getting wierd again? >  > Okay what about launching one probe with multiple parts.. Kind of liek the old > MIRV principle of old Cold War Days.  > Basically what I mean is design a mother ship that has piggy backed probes for > different missions,namely different planets. Each probe would be tied in with > the mother ship (or earth as the case may be).. This is good when and if we go > for Mars (the MArs mission can act as either Mother ship or relay point for the > probes.  I can't see the need for a single (big? expensive? heavy?) "mothership" except for Voyager style flyby missions. A few years ago, I did some calculations on a "Grand Tour" space probe launched by a Saturn V in 1975-76. At the time,I felt  that the idea of a big "mother ship" had some merit - the Voyagers had to be rather small, lightweight craft due to the limitations imposed by using weak Titan III/Centaur launchers. The concept I examined (and Michael's?) had a lot in common with the British Interplanetary Society's Daedalus project for sending a probe to Barnard's Star - i.e. a large "bus" spacecraft carrying several smaller probes to be dispatched when the ship arrives at its destination. The Saturn V supposedly would have been able to launch a 10-ton payload towards Jupiter and beyond. The "bus" could have included far more powerful cameras/telescopes/scientific equipment and a heavier/more powerful power source than the Voyagers as there would be no limitations on weight anymore. Extremely important as the Voyagers had to perform most of their measurements within a couple of weeks before and after planetary encounter, and usually at a relatively great distance. --- The smaller probes carried aboard might have been based on the "real" Voyagers, and an even smaller version like the one scheduled for launch towards Pluto in the early 21st century, and would have been released at various points during the mission. The advantages are obvious: the bus would have carried out the same basic Jupiter-Saturn-Uranus-Neptune mission than Voyager 2 did, but in addition two "sub-probes" could have been relased at Saturn, examining that planet's south polar regions before moving on to Pluto. This would have enabled NASA to map both hemispheres of Pluto/Charon by 1986...and several other probes could have examined parts of the Jupiter/Saturn/Uranus/Neptune systems that weren't examined in great detail by the Voyagers due to trajectory-related factors. A small "swarm" of camera-equipped miniature space probes released a month before encounter would have been too costly for a  small Voyager-type mission but entirely feasible if launched from a heavy,  well-equipped spacecraft. And would we have learned a lot more about the outer planets! The reason why the Grand Tour was cancelled was lack of money, of course.   MARCU$
In <1qkn6rINNett@mojo.eng.umd.edu> sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu writes:  > In article <1993Apr15.170048.1@fnalf.fnal.gov>, higgins@fnalf.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) writes: >  > >This was known as *Journey to the Far Side of the Sun* in the United > >States and as *Doppelganger* in the U.K... Later, they went > >on to do more live-action SF series: *UFO* and *Space: 1999*. > > > >The astronomy was lousy, but the lifting-body spacecraft, VTOL > >airliners, and mighty Portugese launch complex were *wonderful* to > >look at.  Exactly. Some of the SPACE:1999 effects remain first-rate even today.    > They recycled a lot of models and theme music for UFO.  Some of the > concepts even showed up in SPACE: 1999.  >   Later on, the Andersons tried to shed their reputation as creators of some of the worst pseudo-scientific shows in TV history by flying "Into Infinity." This was a one-off thing done as part of BBC's "educational SF" series "The Day After Tomorrow." The Anderson episode dealt with a spaceship capable of reaching the speed of light ("lightship Altares"), the four-man crew eventually  journeyed into a black hole and ended up on the far side of the galaxy (I think). I saw this as a 9-year-old back in 1976 and liked it very much, but then again I was a fan of SPACE:1999 so I guess I was easily satisfied in those days:-) --- Does anyone know if "Into Infinity" has been released on video? I have some SPACE:1999 shows on VHS and know that Thunderbirds etc. also are available in England.
In article <1993Apr27.185721.15511@cs.ucf.edu> clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke) writes: >Now, if they wanted to paint the CocaCola symbol on the >moon in lampblack, that would give me pause...  Wouldn't bother me.  I'd laugh.  It wouldn't work -- the surface of the Moon is *already* pretty dark, and the contrast would be so poor you couldn't possibly see it.  The only reason the Moon looks bright is that it's in bright sunlight against an otherwise-dark sky.  Evidently Heinlein didn't know that...
If gamma ray bursters are extragalactic, would absorption from the galaxy be expected?  How transparent is the galactic core to gamma rays?  How much energy does a burster put out?  I know energy depends on distance, which is unknown.  An answer of the form _X_ ergs per megaparsec^2 is OK.
In article <23APR199317452695@tm0006.lerc.nasa.gov> dbm0000@tm0006.lerc.nasa.gov (David B. Mckissock) writes: >  -  Man-Tended Capability (Griffin has not yet adopted non-sexist >     language) ...  Glad to see Griffin is spending his time on engineering rather than on ritual purification of the language.  Pity he got stuck with the turkey rather than one of the sensible options.
In article <6ZV82B2w165w@theporch.raider.net>, gene@theporch.raider.net (Gene Wright) writes: > With the continuin talk about the "End of the Space Age" and complaints  > by government over the large cost, why not try something I read about  > that might just work. >  > Announce that a reward of $1 billion would go to the first corporation  > who successfully keeps at least 1 person alive on the moon for a year.  > Then you'd see some of the inexpensive but not popular technologies begin  > to be developed. THere'd be a different kind of space race then! >  > -- >   gene@theporch.raider.net (Gene Wright) > theporch.raider.net  615/297-7951 The MacInteresteds of Nashville ==== If that were true, I'd go for it.. I have a few friends who we could pool our resources and do it.. Maybe make it a prize kind of liek the "Solar Car Race" in Australia.. Anybody game for a contest!
In article <1993Apr26.200406.1@vax1.mankato.msus.edu> belgarath@vax1.mankato.msus.edu writes: |energetic for close by.  for the coronal model, we found around 10^43 erg/sec. |And lastly, for the cosmological model an L=10^53. That's what you'd call |moderately energetic, I'd say.  Any suggestions about what could put out that |much energy in one second?  >                                                -jeremy   big Capacitor :-)   Real Big  capacitor.
Just a pointer to the article in the current Science News article on Federal R&D funding.  Very briefly, all R&D is being shifted to gaining current  competitive advantage from things like military and other work that does not have as much commercial utility.
In article <C663u5.IKC@zoo.toronto.edu>, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >>... C'mon. Allen is telling us how cheap we can get improved this >>or that...  > >Sure, you can get a heavylift launcher fairly cheap if you do it privately >rather than as a gummint project.  But we're still talking about something >that will cost nine digits per launch, unless you can guarantee a large >market to justify volume production.  "Let's make a deal!"  If you're going to put up a billion, I'd want to budget the whole sheebang for $450-600 million.  If I have that much money to throw around in the first place, you betcha I'm going to sign a contract committing to volume production...
How 'bout some more info on that alleged supernova in M-81? I might just break out the scope for this one. ____________________________________________________ "No sir, I don't like it! "-- Mr. Horse Dan Kelo     dkelo@pepvax.pepperdine.edu ____________________________________________________
In article <93089.204431GRV101@psuvm.psu.edu> Callec Dradja <GRV101@psuvm.psu.edu> writes: >I am a bit nervous about posting this beacause it is begining to >stray fron the topic of space but then again that doesn't seem to >stop alot of other people. :-) > >With all of this talk about breathing at high pressures, I began >to think about the movie Abyss. If you remember, in that movie one >of the characters dove to great depths by wearing a suit that used >a fluid that carries oxegen as opposed to some sort of gas. Now I >have heard that mice can breath this fluid but for some reason, humans >are unable to. Does anyone know more details about this? > >Gregson Vaux >  I believe the reason is that the lung diaphram gets too tired to pump the liquid in and out and simply stops breathing after 2-3 minutes. So if your in the vehicle ready to go they better not put you on  hold, or else!! That's about it. Remember a liquid is several more times as dense as a gas by its very nature. ~10 I think, depending on the gas and liquid comparision of course!
ajjb@adam4.bnsc.rl.ac.uk (Andrew Broderick) writes:  >In article <1993Apr15.051746.29848@news.duc.auburn.edu> snydefj@eng.auburn.edu writes: >> >>I am looking for any information concerning projects involving Solar >> Sails  >I was at an interesting seminar at work (UK's R.A.L. Space Science >Dept.) on this subject, specifically on a small-scale Solar Sail >proposed as a student space project. The guy giving the talk was keen to >generate interest in the project. I'll typein the handout he gave out at >the meeting. Here goes :   [Stuff deleted]   >However it is more difficult to design a practical solar sail than most >people realize. The pressure of sunlight is only about one kilogram per >square kilometer.     ^^^^                                   ^^^^      I'm glad to see that someone is working on this.  However, it would be nice if he got his units right.
On Sat, 1 May 1993 23:13:39 GMT, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) said:  > No.  A "dragless" satellite does not magically have no drag; it burns fuel > constantly to fight drag, maintaining the exact orbit it would have *if* > there was no drag.         Well, almost. It turns out that clever orbital mechanics can  engineer things so that resonant interactions with the higher order  harmonics of the Earth's gravitational field can pump energy into a  satellite, and keep it from experiencing drag effects for periods of  months to years.        My favorite example of this is the Soviet/Russian heavy ELINT  satellites of the Cosmos 1603 class, which are in 14:1 resonance. In  particular, C1833 has undergone two periods of prolonged *gain* in  altitude, the current one having started in June 1991; the mean altitude  of the satellite is now as high as it has ever been since launch on 18  March 1987. (Looking at the elements for C1833 also shows the  limitations of NORAD's software -- but that's another story.)       This probably has little relevance to space stations, since the 71  degree orbits of the C1603 satellites are at 850 km, which is  unacceptably far into the inner van Allen belt for manned platforms. But  it's kind of interesting from the point of view of the physics of the  situation.       (Orbital elements for these satellites are available on request.)    Allen Thomson                  SAIC                       McLean, VA
Hi Folks,                Last year America bought two  "Hall Generators" which are used as thrusters for space vehicles from former USSR,if I could recall correctly these devices were sent to JPL,Pasadena labs for testing and evaluation.                     I am just curious to know  how these devices work and what what principle is involved .what became of them.There was also some controversy that the Russian actually cheated,sold inferior devices and not the one they use in there space vehicles.  Any info will be appreciated...   ok   {                         Thank{ in advance... Tamoor A Zaidi Lockheed Commercial Aircraft Center Norton AFB,San Bernardino
In article <1993Apr22.162501.747@indyvax.iupui.edu> tffreeba@indyvax.iupui.edu writes:     ...  So how about this?  Give the winning group    (I can't see one company or corp doing it) a 10, 20, or 50 year    moratorium on taxes.  You are talking about the bozos who can't even manage in November to keep promises about taxes made in October, and you expect them to make (and keep!) a 50-year promise like that?  Your faith in the political system is much higher than mine.  I wouldn't even begin to expect that in Australia, and we don't have institutionalised corruption like you do.
In article <STEINLY.93Apr27121443@topaz.ucsc.edu> steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson) writes:     _The_ problem with Oort cloud sources is that absolutely    no plausible mechanism has been proposed. It would have    to involve new physics as far as I can tell. Closest to    "conventional" Oort sources is a model of B-field pinching    by comets, it's got too many holes in it to count, but at    least it was a good try...  So you have a plausible model for GRB's at astronomical distances? Recent observations have just about ruled out the merging neutron star hypothesis, which had a lot of problems, anyhow.  We have to look for implausible models and what is fundamentally allowed independent of models.  A paper on the possibility of GRB's in the Oort cloud just came through the astrophysics abstract service.  To get a copy of this paper, send a message to astro-ph@babbage.sissa.it with the subject line    get 9304001   Here is the abstract of that paper.     The currently favored explanation for the origin of \GRBs puts them    at cosmological distances;    but as long as there is no distance    indicator to these events all possible sources which are    isotropically distributed should remain under consideration. This is    why the Oort cloud of comets is kept on the list,    although there is no known mechanism for generating \GRBs    from cometary nuclei. Unlikely as it may seem, the possibility that \GRBs    originate in the solar cometary cloud    cannot be excluded until it is disproved.     We use the available data on the distribution of \GRBs (the BATSE    catalogue up to March, 1992), and    the Catalogue of Cometary Orbits  by Marsden and Williams (1992) to    investigate whether there is any observational indication for correlations    between the angular distributions of \GRBs and comets' aphelia,    assuming that the distribution of aphelia direction reflect,    at least to some extent, true variations    in the column density of the Oort cloud. We also apply the $\vov$    test to both distributions.
There is a nice little tool in Lucid emacs. It's called "calendar". On request it shows for given longitude/latitude coordinates times for sunset and sunrise. The code is written in lisp. I don't know if you like the idea that an editor is the right program to calculate these things.   Theo W.
[Space ad proposed]  This is undoubtedly the sickest thing to come down the marketing pipe in years, and the best reason for resurrecting the "Star Wars" killer satellite system.
In article <STEINLY.93Apr28150743@topaz.ucsc.edu> steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson) writes:     This does not propose a _mechanism_ for GRBs in the Oort (and, no,    anti-matter annihilation does not fit the spectra at least as far    as I understand annihilation spectra...). Big difference.    That's ignoring the question of how you fit a distribution    to the Oort distribution when the Oort distribution is not well    known - in particular comet aphelia (which are not well known)    are not a good measure of the Oort cloud distribution...  Merging neutron stars is at least a mechanism with about the right energy, except it doesn't explain why there is no apparent correlation with galaxies or galaxy structure, there is no mechanism for getting all the energy out in gamma rays (with any significant amount of baryons around there will be a lot of pair production, which makes a plasma, which thermalizes the energy), it has trouble generating enough energy to explain the most powerful bursts (10^52-53 ergs), it happens too fast compared to the burst duration, and it is hard to make tight-binaries of neutron stars.  Another cosmological mechinism is the catalytic conversion of a neutron star to a strange star or the merger of two strange stars, but that uses pretty far-out physics.  My point is that we don't have a good mechanism at any distance, so GRB's are likely to be happening by an unknown mechanism, so we can't rule out the Oort cloud.  What would be the spectrum of an event which converts a comet to strange matter?  The spectra for primordial black holes eating comets and antimatter comets colliding with matter comets aren't quite right, but perhaps there is an unusual mechanism which modifies the spectrum.  The energy matches very well for both of these mechanisms.  According to Trevor Weeks, if the "Tunguska Meteorite" was a mini-black hole collision with the earth, then there are likely to be enough mini-black holes around that the rate for BH-comet collisions matches the GRB rate well.  The fact that we don't know the distribution of comets in the Oort cloud isn't a reason to rule them out; it makes it harder to rule them out.  The point of the cited paper was that if we assume they got the right distribution for the Oort cloud, it is hard but not impossible to match that up with the distribution of GRB's.  If they got the wrong distribution for the Oort cloud, they can't constrain any Oort- cloud GRB's at all.
>>if you think you may have some problems you may want to make it stand up on the >>side so that the Gees won't affect too much the writing on the disk or on the >>hard disk.... >  >Hmm.  I would think being on edge would be *worse*, since that might >make the tracks unsymmetrical around the spindle due to the sideways >force on the head.  Older drives used to tell you to reformat if you >were going to stand the drive on edge; at 3+g, this side force might >even be a problem for new drives.   well it seemed to work for the Mac II installation I was talking about. Oh yeah there is something I forgot to mention : even though you're not suppposed to have water around, there IS  some condenstion d dripping from the roof of the plane make sure that your hardware is covered. Make also sure that your keyboards are protected from the two-phase flow coming out of sick people. It happened to us.....  Good luck.
In article <C5rHoC.Fty@news.cso.uiuc.edu> jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Josh Hopkins) writes:   >I remeber reading the comment that General Dynamics was tied into this, in  >connection with their proposal for an early manned landing.  Sorry I don't  >rember where I heard this, but I'm fairly sure it was somewhere reputable.  >Anyone else know anything on this angle?  If by that you mean anything on the GD approach, there was an article on it in a recent Avation Week. I don't remember the exact date but it was recent.   Allen
In article <1r9de3INNjkv@gap.caltech.edu> jafoust@cco.caltech.edu (Jeff Foust) writes:     In a recent article jdnicoll@prism.ccs.uwo.ca (James Davis Nicoll) writes:    >	If the  new  Kuiper belt object *is*  called 'Karla', the next    >one  should be called 'Smiley'.     Unless I'm imaging things, (always a possibility =) 1992 QB1, the Kuiper Belt    object discovered last year, is known as Smiley.  As it happens the _second_ one is Karla. The first one was Smiley. All subject to the vagaries of the IAU of course, but I think they might let this one slide...  *  Steinn Sigurdsson   			Lick Observatory      	          * *  steinly@lick.ucsc.edu		"standard disclaimer"  	          * *  "The worst thing you can say to a true revolutionary is that his 	  * *  revolution is unnecessary, that the problems can be corrected without  * *  radical change. Telling people that paradise can be attained without   * *  revolution is treason of the vilest kind."  -- H.S. 1993		  *
In article <1993Apr30.004311.1@aurora.alaska.edu>, nsmca@aurora.alaska.edu writes... >  >Is there a plan to put a satellite around each planet in the solar system to >keep watch? I help it better to ask questions before I spout an opinion.  We've been progressing towards that goal for 30 years now.  We precede any orbiting mission with flyby missions.  Of course, it gets harder to do as we work our way farther away from Earth.  We're just starting to work out to the outer planets: Galileo will orbit Jupiter, and Cassini around  Saturn.    >How about a mission (unmanned) to Pluto to stay in orbit and record things >around and near and on Pluto..
I propose that PepsiCo, Mcdonalds and other companies could put  into orbit banners that have timely political messages, such as,       "Stop the slaughter in Bosnia!"  , etc.
From the "JPL Universe" April 23, 1993  VLBI project meets with international space agencies
I have before me a pertinent report from the United States General Accounting Office:  National Aero-Space Plane: Restructuring Future Research and Development Efforts December 1992 Report number GAO/NSIAD-93-71  In the back it lists the following related reports:  NASP: Key Issues Facing the Program (31 Mar 92) GAO/T-NSIAD-92-26  Aerospace Plane Technology: R&D Efforts in Japan and Australia (4 Oct 91) GAO/NSIAD-92-5  Aerospace Plane Technology: R&D Efforts in Europe (25 July 91) GAO/NSIAD-91-194  Aerospace Technology: Technical Data and Information on Foreign Test Facilities (22 Jun 90) GAO/NSIAD-90-71FS  Investment in Foreign Aerospace Vehicle Research and Technological Development Efforts (2 Aug 89) GAO/T-NSIAD-89-43  NASP: A Technology Development and Demonstration Program to Build the X-30 (27 Apr 88) GAO/NSIAD-88-122   On the inside back cover, under "Ordering Information" it says  "The first copy of each GAO report is free.  . . .  Orders may also be placed by calling (202)275-6241 "  Dani
Hi,      I'm writing a science fiction script and I'm looking for some answers to questions regarding the Moon and Earth. My starting point is an impossible situation.  [I checked with a professor at berkeley and his response was a VERY helpful "can't happen".] If you enjoy playing with unusual ideas and are willing answer some questions please contact me via e-mail (jennise@dgi.com).    I get extremely annoyed when screen and tele-plays ignore basic facts about computers that I'm determined to be as scientifically accurate as I can.     Sorry for being vague, but I'd like to protect my idea as much as I can until I'm ready to sell it (hopefully).
In article <1qnb9tINN7ff@rave.larc.nasa.gov> C.O.EGALON@LARC.NASA.GOV (CLAUDIO OLIVEIRA EGALON) writes: >> there is no such thing as a stable lunar orbit > >Is it right??? That is new stuff for me. So it means that  you just can  >not put a sattellite around around the Moon for too long because its  >orbit will be unstable??? If so, what is the reason??? Is that because  >the combined gravitacional atraction of the Sun,Moon and Earth  >that does not provide a stable  orbit around the Moon???  Any lunar satellite needs fuel to do regular orbit corrections, and when its fuel runs out it will crash within months.  The orbits of the Apollo motherships changed noticeably during lunar missions lasting only a few days.  It is *possible* that there are stable orbits here and there -- the Moon's gravitational field is poorly mapped -- but we know of none.  Perturbations from Sun and Earth are relatively minor issues at low altitudes.  The big problem is that the Moon's own gravitational field is quite lumpy due to the irregular distribution of mass within the Moon.