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From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: How to solve NASA's budget problems
Message-ID: <3740@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 12-Apr-84 16:43:21 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.3740
Posted: Thu Apr 12 16:43:21 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 12-Apr-84 16:43:21 EST
References: <536@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 20

Rich Wales comments:

   As far as I can tell, there is no way to earmark such a contribution as
   being specifically for NASA.  And I don't know whether there is any
   other mechanism available for contributing directly to this or that fed-
   eral agency.  (I suspect there is not.)

I believe this is correct.  Several years ago, when the Viking Fund was
collecting money to try to keep the Viking Lander operating, they found
that it wasn't at all easy to donate the money for that purpose and only
that purpose.  I think it was finally done by a complex circumlocution
involving having the V.F. contract with NASA for a specific piece of
research.  It "happened" that the group that was keeping the Lander
running was the logical group to do this particular bit of research,
and that it was something they wanted to do anyway.  I don't vouch for
all the details, but I think that's roughly how it worked.  I believe
it was the first time anything like this had been done.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry