Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: NASA ASRM production and testing sites announced (Forwarded)
Message-ID: <1988Jul29.023325.15525@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <12358@ames.arc.nasa.gov> <3417@cadnetix.COM>
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 88 02:33:25 GMT

In article <3417@cadnetix.COM> beres@cadnetix.COM (Tim Beres) writes:
>I am curious to know if there is *perhaps* a proliferation of centers,
>plants, labs, authorities and what not.  Could this be due to pork-barrel
>politics?  Would centralizing some of the facilities make sense from
>an administrative and/or technical aspect?  Congress likes to make lots
>of noise about how much ~space~ costs, but do they get totally apoplectic
>when cutting fat from their district?  

Need you even ask?

You may notice that Johnson Space Center is in Lyndon Johnson's state.
You may also notice that the Stennis Space Center (nee National Space
Technology Labs -- test site for big rocket engines) is in Stennis's
state.  The stillborn NASA electronics center was going to be in
Massachusetts, coincidentally Edward Kennedy's state.  And so forth.

Frankly, the sensible thing to do would be to put it all within fifty
miles of the Cape.  Fat chance.
-- 
MSDOS is not dead, it just     |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
smells that way.               | uunet!mnetor!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu