Newsgroups: sci.space
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: space news from June 19 AW&ST, and Apollo-anniversary editorial
Message-ID: <1989Jul23.215443.15698@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1989Jul21.031420.1292@utzoo.uucp> <14479@bfmny0.UUCP> <1989Jul22.231302.24043@utzoo.uucp> <33400@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 89 21:54:43 GMT

In article <33400@apple.Apple.COM> leech@Apple.COM (Jonathan Patrick Leech) writes:
>>(Voyager) is an Apollo-era leftover with *NO* planned followup.
>
>    What are Galileo and Cassini, chopped liver?

I hope not, they'll never meet Shuttle safety specs that way... :-)

The two of them together are half a followup.  Assuming Cassini ever gets
off the ground, that is.  Galileo at least seems pretty definite, assuming
it works -- there is no backup, and that half-spinning design gives me the
creeps.  But what about the other half?  Where are the Uranus and Neptune
missions?  (Answer:  nowhere, not even on paper.)  Where is the Pluto mission?
(Answer:  abandoned and forgotten.)  For that matter, Galileo has been
almost-ready-to-fly for a decade now -- where is *its* followup?  (Answer:
there isn't one.)

I plead guilty to slight exaggeration for rhetorical purposes, but only
slight.  As I've said before, one major problem with the US planetary
program -- what's left of it -- is its complete lack of any systematic
plan for future missions.  What comes after Cassini?  "We'll study that
when the time comes."
-- 
1961-1969: 8 years of Apollo.  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
1969-1989: 20 years of nothing.| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu