Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Where is Challenger?
Message-ID: <1989Apr26.232428.3073@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <11360@well.UUCP> <1989Apr23.000034.7797@utzoo.uucp> <2555@phred.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 89 23:24:28 GMT

In article <2555@phred.UUCP> petej@phred.UUCP (Pete Jarvis) writes:
>Mars in 1960's:   USA --> Mariner 4
>Mars in 1970's:   USA --> Viking I, Viking II

You forgot Mariners 6, 7, and 9, the last of which was particularly important.
Ancient history, all of them.

>Jupiter and beyond except Pluto in the 1970's & '80's:                      
>
>                  USA --> Pioneers and Voyagers and now Galileo

All launched in the 1970s except Galileo, which isn't flying (much less at
its destination) yet, and has already narrowly escaped catastrophic in-flight
failure twice.  All it has to do is slip a few months and it's 1990s.

>                          not to mention Magellan shortly on the way
>                          to Venus.

Same comment about slippage, although it doesn't look likely this time.
Also same comment about not counting birds before they fly.
-- 
Mars in 1980s:  USSR, 2 tries, |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
2 failures; USA, 0 tries.      | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu