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From: lindsay@gandalf.cs.cmu.edu (Donald Lindsay)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Space Station mission
Message-ID: <11042@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: 9 Nov 90 22:30:30 GMT
References: <2669@polari.UUCP> <9011072124.AA13810@iti.org> <2688@polari.UUCP>
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 25

In article <2688@polari.UUCP> crad@polari.UUCP (Charles Radley) writes:
>It looks more like Freedom and LLNL could be COMPLIMENTARY, since 
>they appear to have different missions.  The question is, which 
>mission(s) is/are the right ones.

Speaking as a scientist, I think that we will get a lot more science if:
- a station is actually lofted. Freedom is looking doomed.
- continuous, permanent manned presence in space is THE PRIMARY goal.
  Congress can postpone the next wonder toy, but they can't call the
  crews home. Besides, what _I_ want researched, is how to live off-
  Earth. Now, there's a mission.

>You get cheap empty shells, it costs plenty to fit them out with 
>state of the art scientific equipment. LLNL may be lighter and 
>cheaper  than using metal modules a' la Freedom, but most of 
>Freedom's weight and cost is in the science and support equipment, 
>the module structure is small fraction of the total.

I think you have just destroyed your argument that LLNL will wind
up as expensive as Freedom. LLNL won't loft the science equipment.
This is smart: the alternative is no space station, and then there
_really_ won't be any science done.

-- 
Don		D.C.Lindsay