Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: launch rates
Message-ID: <1990Oct2.031535.6556@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <10195.26fde341@pbs.org> <1990Sep25.033816.16652@zoo.toronto.edu> <1990Oct1.191917.24542@cimage.com>
Date: Tue, 2 Oct 90 03:15:35 GMT

In article <1990Oct1.191917.24542@cimage.com> gregc@dgsi.UUCP (Greg Cronau/10000) writes:
>... The *FACTS* are that the average number of shuttle launches
>per year is nearly double what the average number of Saturn launches were.

That is a fact.  A thoroughly meaningless one.  Ask any statistician what
he thinks of an average as a useful measure of such an uneven distribution.
or see any modern book on data analysis.


>I think these discussions should be based on "what is" rather than "what could
>have been".

Yup.  "What is" is that the Saturn V achieved 5/year, briefly, from late
1968 to late 1969.  "What is" is that the shuttle has only once exceeded
that rate, and the evidence clearly shows that this overstrained the system.
Now, personally I suspect that the sustainable shuttle launch rate is
higher than that, but if we are to be obsessed with numbers to the exclusion
of thinking about what they mean, we can't consider that.
-- 
Imagine life with OS/360 the standard  | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
operating system.  Now think about X.  |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry