Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!killer!ames!amdahl!pyramid!pyrnj!dasys1!tneff
From: tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Letter to Congress, et. al.
Keywords: space station, politics
Message-ID: <6156@dasys1.UUCP>
Date: 30 Aug 88 18:28:24 GMT
References: <1365@eos.UUCP>
Reply-To: tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff)
Organization: Independent Users Guild
Lines: 75

Well, wasn't THAT special.  :-)

I'll tell you exactly what I think about this proposed "letter to
Congress et al." (from a NASA employee no less): it will get circular
filed promptly on receipt, and for good reason.  Any Congressperson who
wants to hear that line rehashed only has to sit in on the next
subcommittee meeting.  NASA spouts it all the time.  If you want to do
some good for the space program via letter writing, you would be better
off visiting your local elementary or junior high school and asking a
science teacher to have the class write their own letters in their own
words.  The only thing the letter writing American people can do to
help NASA is to put some *convincing* evidence of individual interest
on their representatives' desks.  These guys turn a deaf ear to mass
postcard mailings because they know it's orchestrated, and they SURE as
hell don't need to be told that some guy out at Ames thinks we need the
Station!  Now if Brody write a virulent ANTI-station letter, that might
get some attention... :-)

Anyway, not only is the text itself mostly preaching to the converted
(or the unconvertible), but it's a tissue of half-truths to boot.  Jorge
pasted it pretty good so I'm not going to cover the same ground, but
let me just make a couple of points:

 * The Eurojaps and others are STAYING in the private launch business.
   Nothing Congress can do with the Station budget is going to make a
   bit of difference.  Smell the coffee folks.

 * The Russians are GOING to Mars.  We can go, we can stay, we can
   cooperate or we can reivent the wheel ourselves at ruinous expense.
   Congress doesn't need reminders from you or me about how far ahead
   the Soviet program is; all they need to do is turn on CNN.

 * We don't need to spend billions and wait a decade to find out about
   the effects of long term weightlessness on the human body: what we
   need is a library card in Star City.  Good God, man, their database
   *dwarfs* ours!  There are certainly things we can do better than the
   Soviets, but the "man in a can" race is over, and they won.  Better
   to cooperate -- our NMR scanners, their Mir-athons -- and really get
   moving.

 * Don't tell us what the Station is going to "give," because what it's
   really going to do is TAKE, TAKE and TAKE until Congress either
   gives up in disgust or eviscerates what's left of the space program
   to keep it going.  It happened with the Shuttle and I can

                       * FLAT * DAMN * GUARANTEE *

   you it'll happen again with the Station, because once again we have
   that special NASA albatross, the Platform Without a Mission.

 * You want industry in space?  Fine, drop the theatrics and build the
   ISF plus a fleet of cheap, reliable ELV's.  Corporate America has no
   time to spend as hostage to Space Station Maybe.  If "Freedom"
   <gick> ever does get built, it will still probably be unsafe for
   most of the things industry would like to do up there, so you'll be
   back to Square One and staring AD 2020 in the face.

 * You want prestige?  Fine, get Hubble, Magellan, Solar Polar, VRM,
   Mars Observer, Ulysses, and Ride's Mission to Planet Earth up
   there.  The hardware for an unprecedented Golden Age of exploration
   is sitting in the hangars while you guys debate whether beige or
   mauve looks better in 0g.  [A cheap shot, folks, but worth it.  :-)] 

 * You want consistent funding?  Try establishing a track record of
   setting affordable goals, then bringing them in on time and within
   budget.

I'm happy to see individual initiative at the worker level, and I
appreciate Brody's enthusiasm. The above unvarnished opinions are not
intended as a personal attack, but only to reframe the issue perhaps a
little closer to reality.  I also welcome comments.
-- 
Tom Neff			UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff
	"None of your toys	CIS: 76556,2536	       MCI: TNEFF
	 will function..."	GEnie: TOMNEFF	       BIX: t.neff (no kidding)