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From: desj@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (David desJardins)
Newsgroups: net.columbia
Subject: Re: Losing a shuttle
Message-ID: <12534@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Fri, 21-Mar-86 17:41:43 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.12534
Posted: Fri Mar 21 17:41:43 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Mar-86 23:00:36 EST
References: <259@noscvax.UUCP> <12386@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <271@noscvax.UUCP>
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Reply-To: desj@brahms.UUCP (David desJardins)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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rupp@noscvax.UUCP (William L. Rupp) in <271@noscvax.UUCP> (> = Rupp, >> = me):
>>    The hold is indefinite, but certainly no more than 1-2 years. 
>One or two years!!!! Did you read about the Cosmonauts in orbit RIGHT NOW!
>What makes you think a pause counted in years is not serious?

   What do cosmonauts in space have to do with our space program??  The
two seem completely unrelated (unless you are saying that we should run
our space program more like the Soviet one, which seems unlikely).

>> I don't agree that "any amount of compromise in shuttle development ...
>> would have been better than what we have now."  If we had only two
>> orbiters instead of four we *might* have been able to use this money to
>> maintain an expendable rocket program (duplicating the ESA effort).
>> "Might" since these things are not simple tradeoffs; it is not clear
>> that NASA could have gotten as much funding from Congress for that type
>> of a program.  But this would leave us ...
>
>Interesting points here, but the fact is that we should have had at least
>some vestigial expendable booster program.  What I was trying to say was that
>the consequences of all shuttles grounded and no solid rocket boosters to
>speak of leaves us in a very precarious position.  I surely hope we do not
>have an international crisis soon in which many destroyed recon satellites 
>must be replaced quickly.
>I, too, would like to put more money into research.  How about a permanent
>space station, etc.?  But let's keep more balance in the program from now
>on.  I find it interesting that I, a strong advocate of space exploration by
>humans, should be speaking in favor of more unmanned vehicles.  We need 
>a strong capability in both types of space craft, since each can do certain
>things better than the other.

   You have ignored the issue.  Stop bringing in military applications;
NASA is a civilian agency.  It is up to the Air Force to build more
expendable boosters if it feels it needs them!
   "Balance" is a euphonism for less of what we have and more of something
else.  Are you or are you not saying that you would trade two of the
remaining three orbiters for an expendable booster program?  I certainly
would not; I consider NASA's decision to start building expendable boosters
(which essentially mean giving up on new orbiters, or even a replacement)
almost as much of a catastrophe as the explosion!

   -- David desJardins