Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hplabs!hpda!hpcuhb!hpindda!mears
From: mears@hpindda.HP.COM (David B. Mears)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Long Duration Exposure Facility
Message-ID: <3330016@hpindda.HP.COM>
Date: 17 Feb 89 00:34:49 GMT
References: <872@blake.acs.washington.edu>
Organization: HP Information Networks, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 25

Here's a request for speculation.

When we finally get the LDEF back (assuming we are successful), there
seem to me to be at least two possibilities of what we will find.  I'm
curious what other people think.  It seems to me like we will either
find that

	1) Many (most?  all?)  of the experiments have been ruined by
	   the longer than planned exposure and that we end up not
	   gaining very much at all from the experiment.

				OR

	2) we discover some strange and completely unexpected results
	   that turn out to be very important to the scientific
	   community.  This is what I tend to call the `Penicillin
	   Syndrome'.

Personally, I hope that result 2) above is what happens, but that maybe
more wishful thinking on my part than anything else.  What do you think?

David B. Mears
Hewlett-Packard
Cupertino CA
hplabs!hpda!mears