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Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: space news from July 17 AW&ST
Message-ID: <1989Aug21.165937.6564@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1989Aug21.022319.22222@utzoo.uucp> <1989Aug21.111229.17764@cs.rochester.edu>
Date: Mon, 21 Aug 89 16:59:37 GMT

In article <1989Aug21.111229.17764@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu.UUCP (Paul Dietz) writes:
>>to say, and urging action rather than talk.  "Undertakings of this scale
>>are never going to get any cheaper.  The time to start is now...
>     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>Isn't this obviously false?  For example, wouldn't cheaper launch
>vehicles reduce the cost considerably? 

Undoubtedly, but NASA and its counterparts elsewhere largely deny that
such things are possible.  Given that attitude, they can't possibly base
serious future plans on them.

> And does AW&ST view
>chemical propulsion as the ultimate for interplanetary travel?

Probably.  Certainly NASA does.  (In the sense that virtually no effort
is going into developing anything better, and all current plans rely on
chemical propulsion except for one or two long-term studies of things
for which it's obviously impossible.)  AW&ST is thinking of a standard
NASA effort using standard NASA approaches.  Given that assumption, it
is undoubtedly true that it's never going to get any cheaper.
-- 
V7 /bin/mail source: 554 lines.|     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
1989 X.400 specs: 2200+ pages. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu