eugene@ames.UUCP (Eugene Miya) (12/16/85)
The machine which I normally read news on (aurora) is going thru
a disk crunch, so I have to resort to an old 11/70 (ames). There
have been many good postings to net.space and let me try to answer
them a briefly as possible.
1) Yes, there are lots of idea within NASA about the use of the external
tank in orbit. Some of the problems have been mentioned, but these
applications and ideas have existed over 5 years and probably earlier,
getting money is the hard part.
2) No the space station will not present a significant cross-section
as the planes of the various orbits do not intersect as a plane
and the times of intersections are not significant. Space junk
however presents a major problem at all altitudes.
3) No the space station has nothing to do with SDI. It's a sitting
duck, for one thing. The plan is to make it another NASA Center
like the other earth-based NASA Centers: interesting network domain
problems for address: person@site.EARTH ..... :-)
4) Neither the USSR nor the US nor the other space nations make much about
flying over each other's airspace. Yes it is a problem, and these issues
were brought up in the early days of "legal space," but these nations
choose to be quiet over the matter for a mixture of reasons: spying:
both military and economic, diplomatic relations: arms control and the
fact that your neighbor cannot easily choose flight paths, and so forth.
You can obtain Landsat images of the Soviet Union and the USSR does buy
them.
Hopefully, I will be able news on aurora again shortly as reading
news on an ARPA mail interface is stupid. Be seeing you.
From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
--eugene miya
NASA Ames Research Center
{hplabs,ihnp4,dual,hao,decwrl,allegra}!ames!aurora!eugene
emiya@ames-vmsb.ARPA