Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!mips!pacbell.com!att!emory!gatech!prism!ccoprmd
From: ccoprmd@prism.gatech.EDU (Matthew DeLuca)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Access to Space
Message-ID: <31516@hydra.gatech.EDU>
Date: 18 Jun 91 00:37:59 GMT
References: <2980@ke4zv.UUCP> <1991Jun17.152849.11430@sequent.com> <1991Jun17.165036.6816@iti.org> <1991Jun17.220510.15128@sequent.com>
Organization: The Dorsai Grey Captains
Lines: 55

In article <1991Jun17.220510.15128@sequent.com> szabo@sequent.com writes:
[In reply to Allen Sherzer]

>We need self-sufficient infrastructure, which is what I have been 
>advocating.  You have been promoting 1960's tin cans, which have
>nothing to do with infrastructure or the economical habitation of space.

Well, let me think.  Past technology is right out, (as it should be, IMHO)
and current technology is out, so what does that leave for development 
of manned presence in space?  We'll never get to space if we don't try 
to learn about it, and that's what we're doing right now.  Each step in 
the manned space program (X-15/manned capsules/Shuttle/NASP) is or 
will be another step towards a viable manned presence, each of which built
on the program before it.  There will always be unmanned projects worthy 
of funding, but if we follow your logic then there will never be a manned
one worthy of it.  I much prefer the way we do things now.

>Meanwhile, most of the technology and exploration needed to expand our
>self-sufficient infrastructure remains unfunded, due to the neglect of the 
>NASA leadership and promoters of astronaut programs such as yourself,
>greedily soaking up the bulk of the funds for short-term, astronauts-now
>projects.

Yeah, yeah, and if we did things your way, the technology and development 
needed to improve our manned capabilities in space would remain unfunded, 
due to the absorption of funds by greedy unmanned-science types.  Where's 
the gain?  Fund them *both*, as we are now.

>Furthermore, over 90% of the self-sufficient industry is in GEO and SSO,
>not LEO.   Putting $multi-billion centralized satellites in LEO is 
>pork barrel, not infrastructure.

Communications satellites are a pretty loose defintion of 'industry'; I 
am not terribly impressed by an example that uses passive objects in high 
orbit that do little more than bounce and amplify signals sent from the 
ground.  

GEO is easier to reach, safer for both manned and unmanned endeavours, 
and easier to get back from; I see nothing wrong with working in it.

>>And yet they still feel the need to build Hermes so they can have a manned
>>program.

>Only as a sad mimicry of the U.S.   Europe (largely France) also has

And the Soviet Union.  China and Japan are also working on manned 
space programs.  Great Britain is considering launching manned vehicles
from the back of a Soviet transport craft.  But hey, they're all just 
copying the U.S., so we can dismiss their efforts as pork-barreling 
and groupiness, too.
-- 
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_