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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: space news from Oct 6 AW&ST
Message-ID: <1990Dec6.174515.2343@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1990Dec4.025945.15482@zoo.toronto.edu> <20634@crg5.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 6 Dec 90 17:45:15 GMT

In article <20634@crg5.UUCP> szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes:
>>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.  :-)   

"I don't make the news, I just report it."  The comment was in the original.

Committee-stacking is a venerable tradition in the government, but the
Planetary Society only undermines its position as a source of honest
advice by such tactics.

>Nobody wants "Fred" anymore....
>We are coming to the realization that the "space station" concept is an 
>obsolete 19th-century idea...

Nonsense.  We are coming to the conclusion that trying to build a space
station that is all things to all people -- most notably, a reliable
source of income for the NASA centers and their contractors -- is a lousy
way to explore space.  That in no way indicates any fundamental failing
in the concept of a space station as a useful resource.  Even -- dare I
say it -- the Planetary Society has proposed a suitably designed space 
station as an important part of their headlong-race-to-Mars project.
-- 
"The average pointer, statistically,    |Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
points somewhere in X." -Hugh Redelmeier| henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry