Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!wrgate!mrloog!dant
From: dant@mrloog.WR.TEK.COM (Dan Tilque)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Mate-Demate Facility
Message-ID: <1360@wrgate.WR.TEK.COM>
Date: 13 Jan 90 00:07:01 GMT
References: <675@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov>
Sender: nobody@wrgate.WR.TEK.COM
Reply-To: dant@mrloog.WR.TEK.COM (Dan Tilque)
Organization: Scalp Tonic Interdiction Agency
Lines: 37

packer@chrpserv.gsfc.nasa.gov (Charles Packer) writes:
>In the course of seeing innumerable pictures of the shuttle 
>riding on the back of the 747 over the years, I gradually
>became aware of something missing in the media coverage
>of the shuttle: there was never a picture of the actual 
>process of lifting the shuttle onto the back of the 747.
>Every other event in the mission cycle seemed to be well-
>covered and well-photographed.

Well this is actually a tabu subject for newspapers.  They may
occasionally mention mating/demating of necessity, but they won't show
pictures.  I suppose you could find pictures in Playshuttle magazine,
but I don't read that kind of stuff.

One wonders what they would do if they'd made a movie about the
shuttle back in the 50's:  

	"Ok, now it's time for the mating, pan the camera over to the
	window and show the curtains blowing in the breeze."

	"But there are no curtain on the mating facility."

	"Well, we'd better put some on, hadn't we?"

[For those who don't know it, a standard symbol of sex in the bedroom
for movies up until the late 60's was to pan the camera over to the
windows and show the curtains blowing in the breeze.  If they were on
the beach, they showed waves.]

---
Dan Tilque	--	dant@mrloog.WR.TEK.COM

"The Mars mission won't be cheap -- the cost is currently estimated at
$400 billion, not including reality -- but the potential benefits are
enormous.  For openers, we will earn as a nation, more than 500 million
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				-- Dave Barry