Hello, satellite observation list--
I just subscribed to this list as part of my "return" to my old hobby of
tabulating orbited objects and keeping track of space launches. Way back in the
late 1950s and early 1960s, when the world was just getting into space
travel, I started my own table of artificial earth satellites just to keep tabs on
stuff that was being put into orbit. I visited local libraries and pored over
back issues of Aviation Week, Flight International, Spaceflight, Sky &
Telescope, Space World, and so forth, hunting for information for my table. In due
time I also got on the mailing list for the TRW Space Log, and every quarter
a brand-spanking-new issue would arrive in my mailbox.
After enrolling at MIT in 1963 (about the same time that my sub to Space Log
began), I discovered the Goddard Satellite Situation Report at a nearby NASA
space tracking office in Cambridge, Mass., and I also pestered the people at
the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory off Harvard Square each week for
information about objects newly found in orbit. I learned how to operate a
keypunch and coded up all my information on punched cards, which I ran through a
card lister for a nifty printout (the table was even then getting pretty
big--a couple of card boxes full). In time I became a professional computer
programmer and wrote some data management programs for my table. All this I did
just for interest's sake. Upon graduating from MIT in 1967, I left a final
copy of my table with the Aerospace Library there; maybe they still have it in
their files somewhere. It was printed on those old bedsheet-size computer
pages, bound in a big black binder.
Anyway, when I moved to San Diego in 1979, for some reason my subscription
to the Goddard report didn't follow me, and my sub to the TRW Space Log
stopped as well. And since I no longer had easy access to a computer (having left
programming for self-publishing), I had to let my satellite hobby lapse. At
the time, I think the spacetrack numbers were approaching 10,000, and my "couple
of card boxes" had become six drawers of punched cards, one card for each
orbited object.
Then, in the mid-1990s, say about ten years ago, I picked up a personal
computer and went online. This opened up a whole suite of different ways to
pursue my several interests (too numerous and boring to go into at length here),
and a couple of years ago, just for the hell of it, I decided to search the
Internet for satellite information. I turned up Jonathan McDowell's amazing
website, which effectively brought me up to date on what had happened in space
during the 1980s and 1990s (LOTS, over and above the obvious stuff that made
the science news everywhere), and I also turned up this here website that I
just subscribed to. Most of the postings here are too technical for me, but I
did see a couple of posts in the archives about the old TRW Space Log. There
is quite an underground community of satellite enthusiasts and dataphiles on
the Internet these days--much better than in the old days, when I pursued this
hobby pretty much on my own.
Anyway, I discovered that TRW Space Log continued to be published for
several years after my sub "ended," and recently I even found a used-book dealer
who sold me all the issues from where I had been left off through the 1994
issue, which is, I understand, the final published issue. Not having gotten in
quite on the ground floor back in 1963, however, I am still missing two issues
from its early days, namely, volume 1 number 6 and volume 2 number 1. (Other
early issues I picked up as duplicates from the MIT Aerospace Library.) If
anyone reading this happens to have spare copies of these two particular
issues, I would be interested in buying them or trading for them. I have three
duplicates in decent (close to mint) condition to offer in trade: the big 1970-71
issue (volume 10), the even bigger 1981 issue (volume 19), and the slim
1982-1983 issue (volume 20).
I also understand there's an "ashcan" issue ("volume 1 number 0"), and I'd
be interested in picking up a copy of that, too, if the price is not too
steep. And if there are any issues after the 1994 issue, I'd be interested in
those as well (though as I noted above, I think the 1994 issue was the last).
Please email me with particulars if you can be of assistance. Thanks!
George Olshevsky
Dinogeorge@aol.com
Visit my websites:
http://members.aol.com/Dinogeorge/index.html
http://members.aol.com/Polycell/next.html
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