Xref: utzoo rec.ham-radio:20768 sci.astro:7608 sci.electronics:12200
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!munnari.oz.au!uhccux!ames!cincsac.arc.nasa.gov!medin
From: medin@cincsac.arc.nasa.gov (Milo S. Medin)
Newsgroups: rec.ham-radio,sci.astro,sci.electronics
Subject: Re: HST transmissions
Message-ID: <50750@ames.arc.nasa.gov>
Date: 2 Jun 90 05:38:52 GMT
References: <2631@orbit.cts.com> <1990May30.174352.9182@portia.Stanford.EDU>
Sender: usenet@ames.arc.nasa.gov
Reply-To: medin@cincsac.arc.nasa.gov (Milo S. Medin)
Followup-To: rec.ham-radio
Organization: NASA Science Internet Project Office
Lines: 26

In article <1990May30.174352.9182@portia.Stanford.EDU> paulf@jessica.stanford.edu (Paul Flaherty) writes:

>HST uses the Tracking Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS), which is 
>encrypted (with something presumably stronger than DES).  It would be
>the proverbial good thing if someone at STSCI would make some of the 
>images available via anonymous ftp....


Paul, the HST PI's have exclusive access to HST data for a year after it's 
acquisition I believe.  This is inline with NASA policy for spacecraft data.
This is the reason that no images of the voyager Neptune encounter (except
those digitized from NASA Select video by Stanford) have been released
to the public (except for press photos).  If the PI's choose to release data
early, I guess this could be made available.

This is designed to protect scientists who may have waited years for their
experiment to fly, and not allow some 3rd party to quickly analyze the
data and publish before the PI can.  I think this is reasonable, but
it certainly can be frustrating.  Perhaps it would be possible to get some
low resolution bitmaps of press photos released to the public.  

						Thanks,
						   Milo

PS Usual disclaimers about this not representing NASA or Government policies
or positions apple of course.