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From: szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: space news from Oct 6 AW&ST
Message-ID: <20634@crg5.UUCP>
Date: 5 Dec 90 04:27:30 GMT
References: <1990Dec4.025945.15482@zoo.toronto.edu>
Reply-To: szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo)
Organization: Sequent Computer Systems, Inc
Lines: 37

In article <1990Dec4.025945.15482@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>
>Planetary Soviety invitation-only meeting to "critique" the current space
>station concludes that the current design is not viable even if nothing
>goes wrong with the shuttle, citing persistent reliance on unrealistic
>shuttle launch rates, inflexibility due to trying to meet too many users'
>needs, and inadequate consideration of alternatives.  (On the other hand,
>some of the attendees commented that the deck was stacked:  the choice
>of participants seemed to be deliberately aimed at such a conclusion.)

Isn't "invitation only" also true of NASA commitees, the Space Council, 
NSS commitees, etc.?  Your biases are showing, Henry.  :-)   

It is about time the man-in-space people started listening to the
Planetary Society folks.  While NASA has wasted most of its money on
earth-orbiting manned projects, the Planetary Society (many of them
ex-Voyager and Viking project people) have quietly pushed the 
continuation of our U.S. program that has explored most of the planets
and moons in the solar system, with only a tiny fraction of NASA's
budget.  This, and the development of the first and largest commercial space 
industry (unmanned communication satellites) have put the U.S. far 
ahead of any other country in space, yet we squander this with attention 
and money lavished on dead-end manned projects.  

Nobody wants "Fred" anymore.  The microgravity scientists want to 
get off of Fred to save their labs from vibration.  The astronauts
and deep space mission planners think Fred is useless as a "staging base".   
The Fred engineers are tired of developing a reputation for bad
design that will haunt them the rest of their careers (would you hire
an engineer who got paid for ten years of making nothing?).  The taxpayers 
don't want to waste more billions on paper redesigns and fancy graphics.  
We are coming to the realization that the "space station" concept is an 
obsolete 19th-century idea that has nothing to do with successful 20th- 
and 21st-century space exploration and industry.  The sooner "Fred" goes, 
the sooner the U.S. can devote its attention to the real space program, 
the real business of exploring space and developing industries that pay 
for themselves.