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From: neal@lynx.uucp (Neal Woodall)
Newsgroups: sci.space,rec.ham-radio,talk.rumors,misc.headlines
Subject: Re: Discovery - UFO Close Encounter?
Summary: Contact or heavy partying???
Message-ID: <5382@lynx.UUCP>
Date: 30 Mar 89 23:15:26 GMT
References: <4440@drivax.UUCP> <7751@pyr.gatech.EDU> <5373@lynx.UUCP> <7769@pyr.gatech.EDU>
Reply-To: neal@lynx.UUCP (Neal Woodall)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Lynx Real-Time Systems Inc, Campbell CA
Lines: 42

In article <7769@pyr.gatech.EDU> ccoprmd@pyr.UUCP (Matthew T. DeLuca) writes:
>In article <5373@lynx.UUCP> neal@lynx.UUCP (Neal Woodall) writes:

>>What do you mean "not equipped for alien contact." (maybe you have been
>>reading too much science fiction) I didn't know that our government or space
>>program even had any "rules" for alien contact, much less that they have
>>special "equipped for alien contact" shuttles!

>What I mean by 'not equipped for alien contact' is just that.  What do aliens
>breathe?  Are they radioactive?  Do they have microbes that could cause disease
>in humans?  What do they eat?  Before you let aliens in the shuttle with you,
>you had better know these things, or at least be prepared to deal with them,
>or you're asking for real trouble.

Who said anything about letting them into the shuttle? It seems to me that if
you were to establish communications with the hypothetical aliens, then this
is "contact". Since we don't know what kind of communication the aliens
might use, I guess you could be "equipped for alien contact" if you had all
sorts of communication gear (radio frequency stuff, computers, lights you
can flash, etc)....it seems to me that the shuttle is already equipped with
some of these things (admittedly, most of it not designed for "general use").

>You'd want a quarantine area, for starters,
>most likely special atmospheric requirements for the aliens, and some idea of
>how to speak with them.

Since you would need to communicate with them aliens to determine things like
atosphere requirements, need for quaretine, how to "speak" to them, etc., I
think that most "preparations" would be a shot in the dark....how would you
know requriement unless there had been previous communications?

>It's even possible that the psychological shock of
>meeting alien life forms could be too much for some people; you'd want very
>stable types on a meeting team.

Astronauts would be pretty stable, don't you think? The government trusts them
with a multi-billion dollar space craft, and they are picked for their
scientific curiosity and sharp minds.



Neal