Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!seismo!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!postman@UCLA-CS From: postman%UCLA-CS@sri-unix.UUCP Newsgroups: net.space Subject: Undeliverable mail Message-ID: <15629@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Tue, 17-Jan-84 06:22:25 EST Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.15629 Posted: Tue Jan 17 06:22:25 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 19-Jan-84 01:19:37 EST Lines: 276 From: Mail Handler ===== POSTMAN output follows ===== AERROR - (n < SLOCKTRIES) CAN NOT GET LCK.SEQL mailers/ucla: error writing to UMAIL "v.Burris": not delivered ===== unsent message follows ===== Received: from S1-A by SU-AI with TCP/SMTP; 17 Jan 84 03:05:56 PST Date: 17 Jan 84 0303 PST From: Ted Anderson Subject: SPACE Digest V4 #93 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 93 Today's Topics: Re: interstellar misquote of Dietz by me Re: Re: "Rights" of planets? Re: "Rights" of planets? Right of planet? destroying planets? Made in Space Satellite killer ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 16 Jan 84 11:05 EST From: Gocek.Henr@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: Re: interstellar misquote of Dietz by me To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Sorry, I misread the century that you thought the first interstellar flight would occur in. By the way, open minded scientists, please stop beating the Phoenicians and their ocean crossing canoes down my throat. I made a mistake when I stated that the first oceanic crossing was not in a canoe. I still won't go on an interstellar flight that won't return. Gary ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jan 84 11:28:50 EST (Monday) From: Heiny.Henr@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: Re: Re: "Rights" of planets? In-reply-to: DMS%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA's message To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: DMS%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA, Heiny.Henr@PARC-MAXC.ARPA "If some other lifeform came along back then and attempted a major experiment on this planet, we might not be around today." But then again, that might be why we ARE around today. By the same logic you use, I shouldn't clean my bathtub in order to keep the descendents of the bacteria therein around, even though they seem worthless today. Chris ------------------------------ Date: Mon 16 Jan 84 11:27:04-CST From: Art Flatau Subject: Re: "Rights" of planets? To: space@UTEXAS-20.ARPA In-Reply-To: Message from "David Siegel " of Sun 15 Jan 84 06:05:50-CST Who is to say that Venus is certainly a lifeless, inanimate object anyway? In the early days of our planet's life it too may have seemed worthless. If some other lifeform came along back then and attempted a major experiment on this planet, we might not be around today. Don't forget, nature has always seemed to be wiser than humans in the past! Who's to say that some other lifeform came along, and did attempt a major experiment on this planet and that's why we are around today. Just a thought! ------- ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jan 1984 20:06:22-EST From: Marty.Uram at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Right of planet? Date: 16 Jan 1984 8:15 EST From: Marty Uram @CMU-RI-FAS To:Space bboard Subject: Siegel on "'Right' of planet?" from Siegel Who is to say that Venus is certainly a lifeless, inanimate object anyway? In the early days of our planet's life it too may have seemed worthless. If some other lifeform came along back then and attempted a major experiment on this planet, we might not be around today. Don't forget, nature has always seemed to be wiser than humans in the past! Who's to say we "humans" aren't the result of some other lifeform's "major experiment?" ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jan 84 11:28:56-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!unc!mcnc!duke!crm @ Ucb-Vax Subject: destroying planets? What is the difference between "destroying" an environment and "changing" an environment? I suspect that what I see as "controlling my environment" and thereby ensuring the survival of my progeny (and thereby, the human race) might very well be something like the sort of desctruction others have derided. I believe that humans are more valuable than uninhabited planets. I amke no immediate claim that this is logical, and in fact suspect it is at essence a religious question. However, anyone who believes that mankind shouldn't change things to suit themselves is cordially invited to stay the hell outa my garden. Charlie Martin ------------------------------ Date: Tuesday, 17 January 1984 05:47:05 EST From: Hans.Moravec@CMU-RI-ROVER To: space@mc Subject: Made in Space Message-ID: <1984.1.17.10.45.26.Hans.Moravec@CMU-RI-ROVER> a028 0120 17 Jan 84 PM-Made in Space, Bjt,500 'Made in Space' Label to Appear Soon By HARRY F. ROSENTHAL Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Plastic beads so tiny that millions fit in bottles smaller than your little finger will earn NASA $210,000 next year as the first commercial product entitled to the label: Made in Space. Nowhere else could they have been made uniform and perfectly round. They were created in four flights of the space shuttle, and the only thing that remains before they can be put to use is that they be measured and their size guaranteed. In the hands of medical researchers, the beads will be put to such exotic uses as measuring the ''exit channels'' of the eyes of glaucoma victims and determining the size of the pores of stomach and intestinal walls in cancer studies. They will be used to calibrate industrial and electronic instruments and devices that measure pollution. With ceremony appropriate to the occasion, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration soon will turn over 25 grams of beads - less than one ounce - to the National Bureau of Standards. The bureau will certify their 10 micrometer size within one hundred-millionth of a meter, said Stan Raspberry, chief of the office of standard reference materials. A micrometer equals one-millionth of a meter. When that project is completed in 1985, the beads will be divided into 600 units and sold to private researchers for $350 a unit. While technology developed for space has found applications on Earth, the latex beads created in the shuttle's ''monodisperse latex reactor'' are the first true space products to find commercial uses. There are many more such products to follow, however, including drugs made with a purity obtainable only in space. On Earth, it is possible only to make latex beads up to three micrometers because gravity tends to make larger sizes egg-shaped and irregular. The beads created in the microgravity in which the shuttle flies can be made in uniform, perfectly round sizes in large quantities. John W. Vanderhoff, a professor of chemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and chief scientist of the latex bead producing project, said the beads will be made in ever-larger sizes on four future flights. He compared the manufacture to the seeding process in which oysters are forced to create pearls. ''The pearl oyster gets a grain that acts as an irritant,'' he said. ''In this, we prepare a nucleus and it grows to larger size.'' The beads are made of polystyrenes, the same material used in foam drinking cups. ''Let's say you are interested in calibrating an electronic particle counter in a hospital,'' he said. ''It's desirable to calibrate it once in a while with a particle of known size.'' Raspberry said eventually the Bureau of Standards expects to certify space-produced spheres of 30 and 100 micrometers. To measure the tiny spheres, technicians at the bureau will use a number of sophisticated methods. One technique uses the angle at which light is scattered off the beads to record the diameter of the beads. Another uses a scanning electron microscope. The beads then will go into the bureau's inventory of materials that are yardsticks against which similar materials are measured. ap-ny-01-17 0420EST *************** ------------------------------ Date: Tuesday, 17 January 1984 05:55:38 EST From: Hans.Moravec@CMU-RI-ROVER To: space@mc, arms-d@mc Subject: Satellite killer Message-ID: <1984.1.17.10.54.25.Hans.Moravec@CMU-RI-ROVER> a019 2345 16 Jan 84 PM-Anti-Satellite, Bjt,510 Force Ready To Test Satellite Killer By TIM AHERN Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - After months of delay, the Air Force is ready to flight test its new satellite killer - a weapon launched from a fighter jet which hunts down and explodes objects in space. The Pentagon says it needs the weapon to keep pace with the Soviets, but arms control advocates fear it will lead to a new weapons race. The U.S. anti-satellite weapon will be fired from under a high-flying F-15 jet and the first two stages of the three-stage weapon will be ignited, but no warhead will be exploded, according to officials who declined to be identified. The test, which may be this week, has been scheduled since last summer, but was postponed because of operational problems which now appear to have been solved, the officials said. In later tests, the weapon's effectiveness will be judged as it is fired against high-altitude balloons. The Soviet Union and the United States rely heavily on satellites for communications and reconnaissance, particularly in systems designed to warn against nuclear attack. The U.S. anti-satellite system, designed to be operating by 1987, has become more controversial in recent months as arms control advocates argue that it may touch off an expensive new round of weapons competition by the two superpowers. Last year, as it approved the Pentagon's budget authorization bill, Congress banned all tests ''against objects in space'' until the White House tried to negotiate a ban of such weapons with the Soviet Union. But the Pentagon has interpreted the language to allow the first round of flight tests. Soviet President Yuri Andropov last year called for negotiations to limit the weapons. While the United States officially said it would study any serious Soviet proposal, U.S. officials have cautioned that such a treaty would be difficult to verify and there are no current negotiations under way. The $4 billion U.S. system uses an 18-foot, three-stage rocket slung beneath an F-15, the top Air Force fighter, that fires it from about 60,000 feet. The rocket then hunts down its target and explodes it. The Soviets, by contrast, have an anti-satellite weapon which Pentagon officials say is operational, but which arms control advocates say is far less effective than the U.S. plan. The Soviet weapon, launched atop a large booster rocket, goes into low orbit, maneuvers near its target, and then explodes, destroying both itself and the target, according to Pentagon officials. About half of the 20 tests the Soviets have conducted since 1968 have been successful, according to published figures. The Soviet system, according to Pentagon officials who declined to be named, is relatively cumbersome, since the time it takes to prepare and launch it allows for observation by American satellites. By contrast, the officials say, the American weapon could be stored at various sites and attached quickly to any F-15, meaning the U.S. system is more mobile. The Soviets generally have lower orbits for their satellites, meaning more would be within range of the U.S. system. American military satellites are commonly in higher orbits, making them relatively safe from the current Soviet system. ap-ny-01-17 0246EST *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest *******************