Aucbvax.5377 fa.space utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!space Fri Dec 4 03:45:17 1981 SPACE Digest V2 #49 >From OTA@S1-A Fri Dec 4 00:17:40 1981 SPACE Digest Volume 2 : Issue 49 Today's Topics: Air & Space Museum new Soviet rocket? Re: big projects / do everything yourself? long-term gigabucks ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 3 Dec 1981 0930-EST From: PDL at MIT-DMS (P. David Lebling) To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC Subject: Air & Space Museum Message-id: <[MIT-DMS].216913> I've been to the Air & Space Museum twice in recent years, but also visited other parts of the Smithsonian the same day. The crowds at A&S are easily double and possibly as much as ten times the crowds at the other Smithsonian sub-museums. For example, the Hirschorn Gallery was nearly deserted both times. The Natural History building probably comes closest to A&S in attendence, but is quite obviously much lower. What this says about public interest in space I can't say, though. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Dec 1981 1636-PST From: Stuart McLure Cracraft From: Tom Wadlow Subject: new Soviet rocket? To: space at MIT-MC n055 1357 03 Dec 81 BC-ROCKET (Newhouse 009) By PATRICK YOUNG Newhouse News Service WASHINGTON - The Soviet Union has resumed trying to build a giant rocket powerful enough to put a space station in orbit around the moon or send cosmonauts to Mars, U.S. space experts say. The rocket is believed to be designed to produce a thrust of 12 million to 14 million pounds, almost double the 7.6 million pound thrust of the Saturn 5 rocket that launched U.S. astronauts to the moon. Estimates place the rocket's payload capacity at up to seven times that of the U.S. space shuttle. The Soviet Union began developing a giant rocket in the early 1960s, but suspended work in 1974 after apparently suffering three launch failures and other problems, according to Charles P. Vick, an expert on the Soviet space program. One of the failures reportedly involved an explosion that killed a number of people. U.S. intelligence sources and spy satellites have confirmed the Russians are again working on a big booster. Non-government analysts of the Soviet program say reports from inside Russia and earth-resource-satellite photos from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration also confirm the effort. ''The question is whether this is a new system or an attempt to rebuild the old one,'' says James Oberg, a long-time observer of Soviet space activities who authored the recent book, ''Red Star in Orbit.'' The Defense Department publicly acknowledged the Soviet work on the giant rocket for the first time late in September. A few terse lines toward the end of a Defense report titled ''Soviet Military Power'' said the rocket was designed to launch payloads ''six to seven times the launch weight capability of the space shuttle.'' The shuttle is designed for a maximum cargo of 65,000 pounds, which would mean the new Soviet booster could launch up to 455,000 pounds. ''The new booster will be capable of putting very large permanently manned space stations into orbit,'' the report said. ''The Soviet goal of having continuously manned space stations may support both defensive and offensive weapons in space with man in the space station for target selection, repairs and adjustments and positive command and control.'' The Pentagon refuses to discuss the rocket beyond that brief statement. The Soviets have made no announcement of the rocket and have been more secretive about their plans than usual. ''They don't ever want to talk about launch vehicles,'' says a NASA official who deals with Soviet space experts. ''We don't try to find out, and they don't bring it up.'' Bits of information have leaked out, in specialized and technical Russian publications and from European space scientists with contacts inside the Soviet Union. With this information and his studies of unclassified satellite photos, Vick has been able to sketch a picture of the Soviet project. Recent photos reveal ''a tremendous amount of construction'' at the Baykonur launch site east of the Aral Sea that is apparently related to the rocket project, Vick says. This includes a 3 1/2-mile airstrip and - ''if I'm interpreting the pictures correctly'' - three and possibly four large buildings for constructing and supporting space stations. Vick, who follows the Soviet space program as a contributor to an international space encyclopedia, believes the rocket is essentially the same one the Russians worked on for a decade, which in the United States is often called Type G. ''It's the very powerful, brute-force launch vehicle talked about by the CIA years ago,'' he says. ''I would expect a test flight in 1982, and possible operations in 1983 or '84, but this thing has failed three times and I wouldn't take bets.'' Oberg says the Russians may be looking ahead to orbiting a space station around the moon and to interplanetary flights. ''I wouldn't be surprised in 10 years to see a manned fly-by of Mars as a demonstration - just out and back,'' Oberg says. ''That is still a long ways from a landing. A landing would be a gigantic effort, but this rocket would have the capability.'' Both Vick and Oberg challenge the Pentagon's estimate of the rocket's load capacity as too high. ''Based on my technical analysis, there is no way from its size that that vehicle could have that capability,'' Vick says. He suggests a maximum capacity of 356,000 pounds. Vick says the Type G booster is a three-stage rocket 307 feet tall, which can also be fired as a smaller two-stage version. Its first-stage engines, which Vick estimates number around 20, burn liquid oxygen and kerosene. Early flights of the Type G went awry, Vick says. The first failed in 1969 just after firing and ''apparently collapsed back on the launch platform and obliterated everything.'' A 1971 shot ripped apart at about 40,000 feet and a 1972 test apparently exploded 26 miles up. BJ END YOUNG nyt-12-03-81 1656est ********** ------- ------------------------------ Date: 4 December 1981 02:10-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Re: big projects / do everything yourself? To: csin!cjh at CCA-UNIX cc: SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS at MIT-MC Initially any space colony will depend on Earth for virtually all its life support and joys of life (gadgets to play with and cultural productions such as movies). Even if some people in space start making things for themselves, the variety of things they will want will greatly exceed the variety of things they can make themselves until they have a population of a billion or so, which won't be for a long time, perhaps a century. After all, Sunnyvale (near San Jose, CA) has a lot of experts, but do they make everything themselves? No, they buy just about everything from stores that are part of chains that have nationwide or worldwide. They specialize in a small number of products (a few thousand major items, mostly electronics and food-canning), and import everything else they need. The same is true of just about every other medium-sized city, even those which are moderately isolated. So don't except any space colony of a mere million people to cut itself off totally from trade with Earth unless Earth has a nuclear war. I expect a space colony will specialize in: Bulk energy and energy-intensive raw materials (Aluminum, Titanium, pure Silicon for electronics); Zero-gee sci-fi movie special effects; Ball bearings and other things best made in space, including vaccines. Astronomical observations; and import just about everything else it needs/wants from Earth. ------------------------------ Date: 4 December 1981 02:34-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: long-term gigabucks To: decvax!utzoo!henry at UCB-C70 cc: SPACE at MIT-MC Hmmm, add Boeing to my list of big companies that ought to be asked if they want to buy an orbiter (Exxon, Xerox, ITT, ...) as soon as we get Congress to permit it (after NASA finishes getting the bugs worked out of the design sometime next year). Now for the investment question. Indeed it appears billion-dollar investments aren't common but have been done a few times by Boeing and a few other giant companies. So let's concentrate on the differences between the 747 and the shuttle, let's try to find anything about the shuttle that would discourage the investment by the same company that invested in the 747. If the differences aren't big, well maybe the private-shuttle idea will work. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.