Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!rutgers!gatech!prism!ccoprmd
From: ccoprmd@prism.gatech.EDU (Matthew DeLuca)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Skeptical Shuttle Enquirer
Message-ID: <25875@hydra.gatech.EDU>
Date: 9 Apr 91 16:03:03 GMT
References: <910@idacrd.UUCP>
Organization: The Dorsai Grey Captains
Lines: 24

In article <910@idacrd.UUCP> mac@idacrd.UUCP (Robert McGwier) writes:
>If you were a truly cynical person, and you were extremely worried about the
>manned space budgets during these times, and if you needed a GOLDEN opportunity
>to demonstrate why man needs to be launching satellites (HEY!  James Pike
>says so, it must be true now), and you knew you could rig the release clamp
>so that it released but the spring mechanism could be fouled and that it
>would be trivial for a spacewalker to fix it and OH BY THE WAY we just planned
>many hours of space walks . . . .   I hate to be such a cynic and a skeptic
>but it is just too much like a choreographed melodrama for me.

Perhaps I'm not as cynical [:-)] as you are, but I doubt that this is the 
case; there's any number of instances in recent history ('flyswat' operation
on dead satellite, Skylab repairs, Mir hatch problems...) that demonstrate that
there's no substitute for manned presence in space.  Staging a stunt that 
runs the risk of damaging a very important observatory, as well as exposing
astronauts to unnecessary hazards, seems to be a little too much for a 
NASA stunt.


-- 
Matthew DeLuca                   
Georgia Institute of Technology      "I'd hire the Dorsai, if I knew their
Office of Information Technology      P.O. box."  - Zebadiah Carter,
Internet: ccoprmd@prism.gatech.edu    _The Number of the Beast_