Dale.Amon%CMU-RI-FAS@sri-unix.UUCP (04/11/84)
1) The tomato seeds (and several other plants in smaller quantities) are being orbitted by a seed company and will be given out to 100,000 schools for student biology experiments 2) The closure of the universe is still a wide open topic. "The problem of the missing mass" is relevent. Galactic clusters orbit in ways that imply much more mass than classical astronomy expected. Another instance of this problem is our own galaxy. The visible portion of it's pinwheel rotates as if most of the mass were outside of it. The rotational anomaly has led some astronomers to hypothesize that there is a shell of matter extending past the three (yes, Virginia, I said three) Magellanic clouds. Other possiblilites have been suggested, such as having the curve of mass versus stellar count continue to increase into the realm of brown dwarves. The existance of large intergalactic clouds of Nuetral Hydrogen has been suggested, and (to some extent) proven. In no case has the open/closed question been answered, however. 3) I believe that Skylab used an 3 axis inertial platform for positioning. If you push on a Gyroscope, it will move at a 90 deg angle to the applied force. Thus Skylab did not need to use thrusters to perform an attitude change. If my memory has failed me, let the NASA people out there dowse my flaming... 4) Tell your engineer friend that I'd love to keep him company. I'll bring a guitar and a deck of cards... Ad Astra, Dale Amon, Pres. Pgh L5 amon@cmu-ri-fas.ARPA