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From: chris@umcp-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Space Station Politics
Message-ID: <2761@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 26-Sep-83 22:41:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.2761
Posted: Mon Sep 26 22:41:53 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 28-Sep-83 23:15:41 EDT
References: <11914@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Organization: Univ. of Maryland, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 51


	NEW YORK - President Reagan is reported to be under pressure
	from his political strategists to endorse a major new space
	endeavor, the orbiting space station, as a tactical move
	against Sen. John Glenn....

@begin(cynicism)
As ever, the march of science is subservient to politics....
@end(cynicism)

Well, looks like we've got a good chance of putting up a space station
(finally!).

	...  opposition has been raised by the Defense Department....
	The opponents argue that NASA has not made a convincing case to
	justify the project's estimated cost of $6 billion to $9
	billion by 1991.

$1 billion a year, and the @i[Defense Department] is screaming about
the cost?!?!

	Even if Reagan decided in favor of the space station, Glenn's
	science adviser, Lynn Weiss, said it would be ''a little late''
	to show that the administration's support for a stronger
	civilian space program was anything but lukewarm.

Actually, I doubt it.  The average guy will only remember Reagan by the
last few months of his term in office.

	[Glenn] added that a permanently manned space station in earth
	orbit was ''the key to cost-effective space operations.''

Which it is.

	But Dr. Victor M. Reis, former assistant director of the
	President's Office of Science and Technology,

Good thing it's "former"....

	[said] ''We have plenty of study and experimentation to do
	before we need to move on to another level of
	sophistication....  What corporation would spend billions to
	construct a plant before either the manufacturing technology or
	the market were even established?''

But the Defense Department does that all the time!

Chris
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci
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