The Joint Newsletter of
The Seattle Area Chapters of
The National Space Society
NSS Seattle
And
The Mars Society Puget Sound
»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»» June 1999 «««««««««««««««««««««
Volume 1, Issue I (total XXXI)
Contents:
Page 2 NSS Seattle Proceedings
Pages 3 Mars Society Proceedings
Pages 4 – 8 Mission updates, events, etc.
A short ISDC report
by Randy Rumley
I went. It was fun. I came back. It was nice to be in a place where many similar minded people were gathered. I felt that it was organized quite well and having the AIAA attached as a first day set the stage nicely. I attended mostly the technological tracks. I recorded about two hours worth each day on Hi-8. These will eventually be shown at our regular meetings. Quite a bit of politicking went on also. David attended the Chapter business meetings, and there was also a long board meeting (I'm sure what was accomplished there will show up in Ad Astra).
The fun part was the trip to Johnson Space Center. Dave, Jim Burk, and I went on Monday. Due to it being a holiday, the people who were supposed to meet us and discuss the various aspects on the tour were not there. We did have a tour member who worked at JSC, and provided as much detail as he could (a lot). We looked at the X-38 demonstrator construction building, the Vacuum Chamber (where TransHab was recently tested), and finally, the FICR (Mission Control). We watched as shift change and preparations for awakening the astronauts went on. Unfortunately, we had to get back to the main tourist area to catch a bus back to the hotel before they were awakened. The JSC tour was just too fast to see much. I would recommend going for all day. We were only there from 1:45 to 4:30.
The flights in and out were red-eyes, so we arrived sleep deprived, went through the first day in a daze, and finally slept Friday night.
Other comments: I don't much care for the Houston freeway system (especially tollways). The side roads are one way with no way to turn around for miles. Did (after getting lost) find a good restaurant called Branigans. Met many interesting people, only one I wanted to strangle.
In all, it was worth the trip. Much information dispensed there, some absorbed.
NSS SEATTLE Proceedings
The National Space Society is an international
membership group
dedicated to furthering the exploration and development of space.
The Seattle
chapter mission is to facilitate Space Activism and all pro-Space
activities; and to provide
a gathering place for space enthusiasts to meet, exchange
information and ideas.
President:
Vince Creisler
vincelc@galaxy-7.net
Vice President: Chris Vancil
CLVANCIL@aol.com
Secretary/Editor:
Randy Rumley
rjrumley@juno.com
Treasurer:
David Stuart
DSTUART@prodigy.net
Special Projects Manager:
Christopher Erickson aster@wolfenet.com
----------Board of Directors---------
Kelly Caviezel Gary Harrison Christopher Erickson
Susan Harrison Toni Rusi
------------Advisors------------
Terry Burlison
Chapter meetings are held at 7:00 PM on the second Sunday of each month, at the
Museum of Flight; parking is available in the lot North of the museum. To receive
information regarding upcoming events please send your name and addresses
to: Randy Rumley; 12008 S.E. 223rd Drive Kent, WA 98031
so·journ(sò jûrn), to stay for a time in a place; live temporarily.
President's Message
Tonight's meeting is likely our last on Saturday night. We have moved our future meeting night to the second Sunday of each month at the Museum of Flight's request. The Museum's new educational program "Sleepover in Space" for kids requires the Red Barn Classroom on future Saturday nights. As Space Enthusiasts, we can only support such an effort to interest and educate children about Space.
After a period of adjustment, I'm sure we can all adapt to our new meeting schedule. But, if there is broad agreement about a need to change to a different night or location we can certainly pursue the matter further.
An Item of Interest:
Erik Lindbergh (Grandson of Charles Lindbergh) and Zack Brettler will be giving an X-Prize talk at the Museum of Flight on Saturday, June 19th at 2 PM.
Vince Creisler
President NSS Seattle
May 8, 1999 Meeting
Last month we had Brian Tillotson from Boeing who discussed various applications of diamagnetic forces in reduced gravity, including a current NASA contract to separate air from water using the magnetic force on water and other aspects of materials processing in freefall. Brian is currently assigned to Airborne Surveillance Testbed and a couple of small NASA research contracts, too.
June 12, 1999 Meeting
This month, we have the President of the local Mars Society Chapter speaking to us. Jim Burk will be speaking about Mars exploration history and plans to get people to the red planet. Jim does many things for the Mars Society; he put together (and keeps updated) the MarsNews web site, he is working on the first issue of the Electronic Magazine "Ares", and also put together the local chapter's website www.jburk.com/mars. Jim is a software developer for a large northwest company (you guess which one).
As always, we will continue discussion of various space-related subjects until we are kicked out of the room.
We will also have our 'Let's go to the new world' T-shirts available, and The Mars Society Puget Sound Chapter will have a couple of interesting books on Mars available for sale.
Mars Society Puget Sound Proceedings
The Mars Society was founded in August 1998 and is an international organization dedicated to furthering the goal of the exploration and settlement of the Red Planet.
This will be done by:
*Broad public outreach to instill the vision of pioneering Mars.
*Support of ever more aggressive government-funded Mars exploration programs around the
world.
*Conducting Mars exploration on a private basis.
Officers of Mars Society Puget Sound
Jim Burk, President
Dustin Green, Vice President
V Mark Tye, Secretary
David Stuart, Treasurer
Randy Rumley, Editor, Sojourner
President's Report
This past month, the Mars Society has become more active online, moving towards the goal of becoming an "Internet Superpower". Our MarsNews.com website continues to win awards and gain new readers. We've established an IRC chat room that we're starting to use for online meetings between Mars Society members in different parts of the country and world. Also, we've made contacts with people from the Space.com effort founded by former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs. After it launches July 20, Space.com is poised to become the only major media outlet focused on space related news.
Our fledging CD-ROM Magazine project is getting off the ground, and with the help of Dean Calahan, Chris Vancil, and others in the chapter, we'll be producing something that every Mars Society member will receive and enjoy. The CD-ROM will also be given to students and teachers and sold at convention tables to assist with our public outreach goals.
The Mars Society and Artemis Society (our moon-focused counterparts) have entered into an informal partership agreement where we'll share our experience and resources. The most visible change will happen soon as we begin to use more of Artemis's resources on the Internet to host our chapter websites, online meetings, and email discussion lists.
The second annual Mars Society convention is this August 12-15 in Boulder, CO. An organized expedition from the Seattle area will be traversing to that Mars-like region. If you're interested in joining us for the trip and convention, contact us at marspuget@egroups.com
Until next month, On to Mars!
Jim Burk
President, Mars Society Puget Sound
Meeting # 11 Minutes
Submitted by V. Mark Tye Secretary, MSPS
May 15, 1999 (Third Saturday, 2:00PM)
Bellevue Regional Library Rm. 4
Bellevue, WA 98004
1111 – 110th Ave. NE (425)450-1765
Prior to the official start of the meeting there was discussion of things that needed to be done or looked into such as:
Print out a poster to put in the meeting room door/window identifying the group as the Mars Society and inviting new comers.
Purchase some "white board" markers.
Make a door wedge (you just can't believe how important this trivial object has become).
See about paper models of a Mars Mission launch vehicle and Mars Habitat.
At 1410 the meeting started with seven members present including the four Chapter officers. An open discussion on several items followed:
CD – ROM project browser requirements and display issues. It was decided that those working on the project would be the best judges of what software tools to use to develop and maintain the various releases because of the wide range of technical issues both now and in the future.
The Martian Chronicle News Letter. We need short articles for the paper or even just the URL where something interesting was found. Send them to jburk@jburk.com.
ISDC. There are three people from the Seattle Chapter who are going; J. Burk, R. Rumley, and D. Stuart. We expect a report upon your return, gentlemen.
Books/Videos. Which books and mars videos to buy/replenish was discussed with further evaluations to be made after a better inventory.
Constitution and Bylaws. See the updates on the Chapter web site.
Name of our Chapter. The proposal to change the name of Mars Society Puget Sound to Seattle Mars Society has been informally dropped primarily due to the hassles of changing banking and billing accounts and web sites but we will informally use the latter term. The National has been referring to us that way for a long time now.
National – Chapter Contacts. If anyone wants to be added to any of the National's e-mail lists (they have lots of interesting task groups) see the latest E – groups mail about the procedures.
Jim Burk made a practice presentation on Mars Exploration in preparation for the Everett Library talk while the remainder of the group emulated the expected antsy/unruly behavior of a young audience. We dutifully provided lots of heckling, smart aleck comments, and the expected range of bizarre questions, all of which he handled with good-natured aplomb. This practice session also allowed us to evaluate some timing issues, provide feedback, and check out the set of transparencies that will be used.
Lots of fun for all.
The CD – ROM project came up again. Further coordination with the CD maker will be made later in June and the second CD is expected to have more teachers' material and possibly a simulation project.
At 1650 we unofficially adjourned and scurried out the door before the head librarian came around with her broom at closing time.
Martian Sounds
Submitted by V. M. Tye
Emkay Products press release
Emkay's electret EK-3132 Mars Microphone is on board the NASA Mars Polar Lander which should reach the surface of Mars near the end of this year.
Mark Johnson, marketing manager for Emkay, said "our microphone will pick up not only sounds from the Lander itself, e.g. motors, robotic arm and other mechanical parts, but also sand blown against the Lander and the surrounding terrain, other wind sounds, and possible sounds from electrical discharges in the dust clouds. We may even pick some unexpected sounds as well!"
Any sounds captured will be transmitted back to earth and made available on web site http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/marsmic. The experiment consists of a tiny microphone plus a circuit board that contains the necessary electronics to operate the microphone. The microphone will be attached to the LIDAR experiment on the Mars Surveyor 1998 Lander, called MVACS after the main payload. The microphone will be able to operate only for short periods because of the strict data-transmitting constraints on the Lander. It will both listen (for periods of about 10 seconds each), and record occasional frequency spectrum information (telling us what tones are in the sound, but not the details.
Current and possible projects
For NSS Seattle and/or Mars Society Puget Sound
by Randy Rumley
Mass Mapper -- Currently on hiatus due to design rework
Displays at public events -- looking at Renton River Days, UW street fairs, etc.
Educational programs –looking for some sort of 1 day demonstration or continuing.
Gravity Race entry at SeaFair -- No power, downhill, artistic design (Moon rovers, Mars rovers anyone?) (Online Editor Note: I think Randy means Bumbershoot not SeaFair)
Projects with other local organizations -- Seattle Rocketry society, Robotics Society, Astronomic Society
Anyone wanting to lead the charge on any listed project, or with ideas for others, please let me know by e-mail, snail mail, or phone.
Robotic Spacecraft Mission updates
Compiled from:
Media Relations Office
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
California Institute of Technology
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Pasadena, Calif. 91109 Telephone (818) 354-5011
Remote Agent Experiment Meets All Objectives
Release, June 7, 1999
As scientists and science fiction buffs alike have long suspected, artificial intelligence software can indeed operate a spacecraft millions of miles from Earth.
During the week of May 17, experts from NASA's Ames Research Center and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) pooled their expertise to conduct Remote Agent, an experiment designed to push the limits of spacecraft autonomy. Their efforts, involving commanding of NASA's Deep Space 1 spacecraft, proved that this sophisticated artificial intelligence software is capable of achieving high-level goals by issuing spacecraft commands. Perhaps more importantly, however, they demonstrated that Remote Agent can also play doctor, diagnosing its own problems and developing effective action plans to regain its own good health.
The latter attribute proved unexpectedly handy less than 24 hours into the experiment, when the synthetic intelligence succeeded in firing Deep Space 1's ion engine on but failed to turn it back off. With 70 percent of objectives met and the experiment paused starting the afternoon of May 18, it was clear that some type of computer bug had settled in and caused this glitch -- but what, exactly, was the problem?
In an impressive show of its own strength, Remote Agent itself provided all the clues for scientists to diagnose and resolve the situation precisely.
"Remote Agent showed us how powerful it is by providing a list of possible reasons for the bug," said computer scientist Nicola Muscettola at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, where much of the Remote Agent code was written. Scientists found that the bug was related to a timing error when two parts of the program were exchanging information -- easy to fix permanently in coming months, and safe for completing tests the week of May 17 without immediate modifications. "After defining the bug, our experiment team was confident we could complete the flight test. We asked Remote Agent to develop a new plan and then to fly Deep Space 1 solo for six more hours."
The happy end result: In 29 hours starting at 11 a.m. on Monday, May 17, and in six hours on Friday, May 21, the remote agent team met 100 percent of their experiment objectives.
To demonstrate Remote Agent's versatility, the tests threw unique challenges in the software's path. Scientists created four simulated failures designed to test Remote Agent's mettle to the max.
On May 17, the spacecraft's camera appeared to be stuck in the "on" position. Remote Agent craftily responded by formulating and executing a new plan that accounted for the fact that the camera could not be turned off, thus impacting total spacecraft power availability.
Then, on May 21, "when the artificial intelligence detected that an electronics unit had 'failed,' the software fixed the unit by reactivating it, not unlike rebooting a personal computer after the screen freezes," said Dr. Marc Rayman, Deep Space 1 deputy mission manager and chief mission engineer at JPL, Pasadena, CA. "Next, a sensor 'failed,' and Remote Agent correctly recognized the sensor was the problem, not the device it was sensing. This pair of problems is akin to finding that the engine warning light has come on in your car. The light can mean one of two things: either the engine has a problem, or the sensor that triggers the light has a problem. In each case, Remote Agent correctly distinguished which situation it was in."
The final simulated failure was a thruster stuck in the "off" position, which Remote Agent detected and for which it compensated by switching to a different set of thrusters.
"This technology will allow us to pursue Solar System exploration missions that only a few years ago would have been considered too elaborate, too costly or too dependent on teams of Earth-bound controllers," said Dr. Doug Bernard, Remote Agent manager at JPL.
An Internet web page contains a log of events on Deep Space 1 during the ambitious artificial intelligence test: http://rax.arc.nasa.gov
Editors Note: I saw an update with more information on Deep Space 1 at ISDC. I also recorded it. If anyone is interested, let me know.
NASA'S New Ocean-Observing Satellite Set To Chase The Wind
Release June 3, 1999
Built in record time in just 12 months, QuikScat, NASA's new ocean-observing satellite, will be launched on a Titan II rocket from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base at 7:15 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time on June 18. This satellite will be NASA's next "El Niño watcher" and will be used to better understand global weather abnormalities.
The Quick Scatterometer, or QuikScat, will provide climatologists, meteorologists and oceanographers with daily, detailed snapshots of ocean winds as they swirl above the world's oceans. The mission will greatly improve weather forecasting.
Winds play a major role in every aspect of weather on Earth. They directly affect the turbulent exchanges of heat, moisture and greenhouse gases between Earth's atmosphere and the ocean. To better understand their impact on oceans and improve weather forecasting, the satellite carries a state-of-the-art radar instrument called a scatterometer for a two-year science mission.
"Knowledge about which way the wind blows and how hard is it blowing may seem simple, but this kind of information is actually a critical tool in improved weather forecasting, early storm detection and identifying subtle changes in global climate," said Dr. Ghassem Asrar, associate administrator of NASA's Office of Earth Science, Washington, DC.
The mission will help Earth scientists determine the location, structure and strength of severe marine storms - hurricanes in the Atlantic, typhoons near Asia and mid-latitude cyclones worldwide - which are among the most destructive of all natural phenomena. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a chief partner in the QuikScat mission, will use mission data for improved weather forecasting and storm warning, helping forecasters to more accurately determine the paths and intensities of tropical storms and hurricanes.
The satellite is the first obtained under NASA's Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity program for rapid delivery of satellite core systems. The procurement method provides NASA with a faster, better and cheaper method for the purchase of satellite systems through a "catalog," allowing for shorter turnaround time from mission conception to launch. Total mission cost for QuikScat is $93 million.
By combining QuikScat's wind data with information on ocean height from another ocean-observing satellite, the joint NASA-French TOPEX/Poseidon mission, scientists will be able to obtain a more complete, near-real-time look at wind patterns and their effects on ocean waves and currents, said Dr. Timothy Liu, QuikScat project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. He added that QuikScat will complement data being collected by other Earth-monitoring satellites such as NASA's currently orbiting Tropical Rain Measurement Mission (TRMM) and Terra, which will be launched later this year.
The 870-kilogram (1,910-pound) QuikScat satellite, provided by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, CO, with its 200-kilogram (450-pound) radar instrument, called SeaWinds, will be placed in a circular, near-polar orbit with a ground speed of 6.6 kilometers per second (14,750 miles per hour). The satellite will circle Earth every 101 minutes at an altitude of 800 kilometers (500 miles).
A press kit with detailed information on the QuikScat launch and mission is available on the Internet at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/files/misc/qslaunch.pdf .
First Global 3-D View Of Mars Reveals Deep Basin, Pathways For Water Flow
Release May 27, 1999
An impact basin deep enough to swallow Mount Everest and surprising slopes in Valles Marineris highlight a global map of Mars that will influence scientific understanding of the red planet for years.
Generated by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA), an instrument aboard NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, the high-resolution map represents 27 million elevation measurements gathered in 1998 and 1999. The data were assembled into a global grid with each point spaced 60 kilometers (37 miles) apart at the equator, and less elsewhere. Each elevation point is known with an accuracy of 13 meters (42 feet) in general, with large areas of the flat northern hemisphere known to better than two meters (six feet).
"This incredible database means that we now know the topography of Mars better than many continental regions on Earth," said Dr. Carl Pilcher, Science Director for Solar System Exploration at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. "The data will serve as a basic reference book for Mars scientists for many years, and should inspire a variety of new insights about the planet's geologic history and the ways that water has flowed across its surface during the past four billion years."
"The full range of topography on Mars is about 30 kilometers (19 miles), one and a half times the range of elevations found on Earth," noted Dr. David Smith of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, the principal investigator for MOLA and lead author of a study to be published in the May 28, 1999, issue of Science.
"The most curious aspect of the topographic map is the striking difference between the planet's low, smooth Northern Hemisphere and the heavily cratered Southern Hemisphere," which sits, on average, about five kilometers (three miles) higher than the north, Smith added. The MOLA data show that the Northern Hemisphere depression is distinctly not circular, and suggest that it was shaped by internal geologic processes during the earliest stages of martian evolution.
The massive Hellas impact basin in the Southern Hemisphere is another striking feature of the map. Nearly nine kilometers (six miles) deep and 2,100 kilometers (1,300 miles) across, the basin is surrounded by a ring of material that rises about two kilometers (1.25 miles) above the surroundings and stretches out to 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) from the basin center.
This ring of material, likely thrown out of the basin during the impact of an asteroid, has a volume equivalent to a 3.5-kilometer (two-mile) thick layer spread over the continental United States, and it contributes significantly to the high topography in the Southern Hemisphere.
The difference in elevation between the hemispheres results in a slope from the South Pole to North Pole that was the major influence on the global-scale flow of water early in martian history. Scientific models of watersheds using the new elevation map show that the Northern Hemisphere lowlands would have drained three-quarters of the martian surface.
On a more regional scale, the new data show that the eastern part of the vast Valles Marineris canyon slopes away from nearby outflow channels, with part of it lying about one kilometer (a half-mile) below the level of the outflow channels.
"While water flowed south to north in general, the data clearly reveal the localized areas where water may have once formed ponds," explained Dr. Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, and Goddard.
The amount of water on Mars can be estimated using the new data about the south polar cap and information about the North Pole released last year. While the poles appear very different from each other visually, they show a striking similarity in elevation profiles. Based on recent understanding of the North Pole, this suggests that the South Pole has a significant water ice component, in addition to carbon dioxide ice.
The upper limit on the present amount of water on the martian surface is 3.2 to 4.7 million cubic kilometers (800,000 to 1.2 million cubic miles), or about 1.5 times the amount of ice covering Greenland. If both caps are composed completely of water, the combined volumes are equivalent to a global layer 22 to 33 meters (66 to 100 feet) deep, about one-third the minimum volume of a proposed ancient ocean on Mars.
MOLA images are at: http://pao.gsfc.nasa.gov/gsfc/spacesci/pictures/mola/mars3d.htm
More information about the Mars Global Surveyor mission can be found at: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov
Astronomers Find Sun's Coolest Neighbors
Release June 1, 1999
A pair of near-infrared telescopes sponsored by NASA and the National Science Foundation has detected the coolest brown dwarfs ever seen -- celestial objects that are neither fish nor fowl, or in this case, neither planet nor star.
Brown dwarfs are often thought of as "stellar wannabes." They are failed stars that never got hot enough to ignite the nuclear fusion process that makes stars shine brightly. On the other hand, they tend to be more massive than planets and do not form around a star, as the planets in our solar system did.
"These latest discoveries are merging the fields of stellar astronomy and planetary science," said Adam Burgasser, physics graduate student at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA. He is leading the hunt for these objects along with Dr. Davy Kirkpatrick, senior staff scientist at the JPL/Caltech Infrared Processing and Analysis Center.
After sorting through millions of celestial objects, Burgasser discovered four brown dwarfs in images taken by a pair of 1.3-meter (51-inch) telescopes near Tucson, AZ, and at Cerro Tololo, Chile. The telescopes, used for the Two-Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), study near-infrared wavelengths that can't be seen by the naked eye. They sense heat and thus detect heat-emitting objects like stars and galaxies normally hidden by curtains of cold dust. In this case, the brown dwarfs are too cold to be seen in visible wavelengths, but 2MASS was able to detect the small amounts of heat they emit.
Armed with this information, Michael Brown, Caltech assistant professor of planetary astronomy, studied the objects using the Keck Telescope atop Mauna Kea, HI, to look for the presence of methane, a telltale chemical fingerprint of very cool brown dwarfs.
"Methane forms only in objects cooler than 900 degrees Celsius (1,652 Fahrenheit)," Burgasser said. "That's only four times hotter than the maximum setting on a conventional kitchen oven."
"We think these brown dwarfs are only 30 light years away," said Kirkpatrick. "Because our telescopes can only see the closest examples, this means the Milky Way must be brimming with objects like these." The newly discovered brown dwarfs are located in the constellations of Ursa Major (the Big Dipper), Leo, Virgo, and Corvus.
The 2MASS telescopes are in the midst of a 3-1/2-year survey of the entire sky. The survey is designed to catalog one million galaxies, 300 million stars, and other celestial objects throughout our Milky Way galaxy. The 2MASS telescopes actually discovered five methane brown dwarfs, but one of them had been found previously by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, also supported by NASA and the National Science Foundation.
The current images, and additional 2MASS information and images are available at the following website: http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/2mass
2MASS information and images are also available at: http://pegasus.phast.umass.edu
International Space Station update
STS-96 Report
Compiled by: R. Rumley
Discovery's astronauts closed the hatches leading into the International Space Station and boosted the station into a higher orbit to set the stage for a planned arrival of the Russian-built Zvezda (the Service Module) later this year.
The astronauts spent a total of 79 hours, 30 minutes inside the station during this flight. Combined with the 28 hours, 30 minutes the STS-88 astronauts spent on board during the first ISS assembly flight last December, the total human occupation time for the new station stands at 108 hours.
During four days of transfer work, the astronauts moved more than 4,500 pounds of equipment, hardware and supplies intended for the station's first resident crew. Of that total weight, 3,567 pounds of material, including 686 pounds of water, were transferred from Discovery to the station; 18 items weighing 197 pounds were moved from the station to Discovery for a return to Earth; and 662 pounds of supplies were mounted to the station during a spacewalk by astronauts Tammy Jernigan and Dan Barry.
Commander Kent Rominger and Pilot Rick Husband commanded a series of 17 pulses of Discovery's reaction control system jets to boost the station's orbit. When the reboost was complete about 37 minutes later, the station and shuttle were in an orbit of approximately 246 by 241 statute miles, within 57 feet of the original target. Flight controllers estimate the station will be at an altitude of 222 statute miles late this year when Zvezda is scheduled to be launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Discovery has since undocked from the station and landed. Discovery was docked for six days of operations inside and outside. The ISS is currently composed of Zarya (Functional Cargo Block), and Unity (Node 1).
International Space Station Trivia
Compiled by: V. M. Tye
Inside the two grippers at the ends of the arms of the dexterous manipulator, which will be mounted at the end of the space station arm, manufactured by Spar of Canada, are 7/16"sockets which will mate with a corresponding nut on the device being handled. Every device that is to be handled by the grippers must have this 7/16 nut for locking. Most of the 17 countries building various modules for the space station use the metric system and with a 30 year life span projected for the ISS it appears that one of the last places an imperial threaded fastener will be used is in earth orbit.
Other Information from NASA
Magnetic Sleds
Compiled from NASA reports by V. M. Tye
Magnetic levitation (maglev) trains have been experimented with for many years but building one on a large scale is extremely expensive. The main drawback usually has to do with the electromagnets used for levitating the rail car above the tracks. Electromagnetic systems typically consume large amounts of power unless superconducting magnets are used but the equipment needed for maintaining the low temperatures over a large area is also very expensive. A physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Richard Post, has suggested using permanent magnets instead. In the past, permanent magnet systems were too weak to be practical but by adapting and building on the work of another physicist, Klaus Halbach, Post devised and built a 20 meter test track to evaluate ideas and equipment. Halbach's work was associated with particle accelerators where he devised an arrangement of permanent magnets to concentrate their combined fields in one direction. Halbach arrays on the sides and bottom of the rail car support and center it on the track. When the car moves it induces currents in track coils below the car, lifting it several centimeters. When the car is stopped no levitation occurs so auxilliary wheels are needed for support. Forward propulsion is created by electromagnets in the track at short intervals. These electromagnets are pulsed so that they interact with the Halbach fields on the rail car. Based on the success of Post's work on his demonstration track NASA has awarded a three year contract to his team at Livermore to explore this concept to launch satellites. In this approach, a reusable launcher would be propelled down a magnetic track to almost mach 1 before the main rocket engines were fired.
In a related matter, NASA plans to test the X-37 hypersonic flight demonstrator with a rocket based combined cycle engine in 2005. This effort supports work on a launcher that would use a magnetic-levitated sled to accelerate the launch vehicle along with engines that can work as either a rocket or as a ramjet, all to reduce weight and flight costs.
Note:
We will welcome any articles, editorials, referrals, or new web sites from any Chapters member. Please let us know. If you have ideas for speakers and/or projects for the chapter, let any officer know by E-mail, or in person at a meeting. Thank you.
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