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From: wex@milano.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.columbia
Subject: Re: Support for Shuttle
Message-ID: <784@milano.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 6-Feb-86 10:58:59 EST
Article-I.D.: milano.784
Posted: Thu Feb  6 10:58:59 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Feb-86 05:44:03 EST
References: <394@tekigm2.UUCP>, <3276@teklabs.UUCP> <6345@utzoo.UUCP>
Sender: wex@milano.UUCP
Organization: MCC, Austin, TX
Lines: 24
Summary: Mr. Rockwell gets into the act

In article <6345@utzoo.UUCP>, henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
> There is no mechanism, and I believe no legal possibility, for NASA to accept
> donations towards a specific cause -- the only way to give money to the
> government is to put it into the general pot.  The Viking Fund got around
> this, I believe, by contracting to have NASA do specific work for a fee...

Your memory agrees with mine on this.  Last night, on CNN, I saw Mr. Rockwell
(the guy who founded the firm of the same name, but who now has a new
aerospace company) at a news conference.  He offered to enter into a $1 billion
"contract" with NASA to build a new shuttle.  Apparently, there is a stock of
spare parts that could be used, thus significantly reducing the $2.2 billion
price tag for a new orbiter.  The completed shuttle would then be "leased" to
NASA by Mr. Rockwell's new company, on a lease-to-buy scheme.  (IE Rockwell's
company makes back its bucks, NASA gets to keep the orbiter in the end.)

Note, these are my recollections of a 60-second blurb on CNN, and might not
be completely correct.

-- 
Alan Wexelblat
ARPA: WEX@MCC.ARPA
UUCP: {ihnp4, seismo, harvard, gatech, pyramid}!ut-sally!im4u!milano!wex
"Once in a while, you get shown the light.
 In the strangest of places, if you look at it right."