Conference back40::soapbox

    We cannot afford to not build the station in the long run.  IMO of
    course.
    
    Brian

    	The cost of space travel has become so immense, that the drain on a
    single nation can be crippling.  To make this concept work to it's
    fullest, I believe it is necessary to include a multi-national presence
    (not the token presence of today), and get on with it.  This is no easy
    task, because every nation has it's own mandate, rules and stipulations
    that it attaches to participation.  I'm not even sure if it will every
    happen, but if it doesn't, space exploration is in serious jeopardy.
    	I am afraid that another accident in the space industry will
    effectively kill it.  The general populous do not seem to support it
    like the heady times of the 60's and even the early 70's.  There have
    been great medical and technological strides made in society as a
    result of space exploration research, but the fact is you only have to
    look at inner city problems, crime and bad management by business of 
    everything from people to resources to realize that the public is 
    becoming less enthusiatic about it.
    	I'm 100% behind the space program, and wish my government would do
    more, but I honesly believe I'm in a minority, and the latest crises
    facing our country and it's government will all but relegate the space
    program to the back burner for some time to come.
    
    	I hope I'm wrong!
    
    
    Rod 

    
    
    Let private industry fund it.

    I agree.  The potential research benefits are immense, have already
    been immense; and NASA is now a bloated and inefficient bureaucracy.
    I say this from the point of view of someone who worked onsite at NASA
    Ames for 30 months.  Get government out of the space business, or at
    least out of the primary role (I'm sure there will always be military
    pilots involved in space).  Let private industry assume the risks
    and reap the benefits; they'll figure out the funding without so much
    waste on government-imposed overhead and quintuply-redundant paper.
    
    DougO

    	Space exploration/study must continue.  A space station is a
    	part of that.  I agree with a previous reply that it has to be
    	an international effort, not just USA.  And I too am unhappy
    	with the multiplication of costs due to government involvement,
    	but at the same time I think the undertaking is bigger than a
    	single business entity can manage, and I don't see a way to
    	do it without some form of government intervention.

    
    .6:
    
    I thought this was the NASA Space Station topic.  ;^)
    

    Yes, you are quite write.  I was too busy feeding my head I guess :-)

    > Yes, you are quite write.  I was too busy feeding my head I guess :-)
    
                         ^^^^^^
    
    
    Feeding that is ongoing, no doubt... :-)
    
    -b

    sigh.......yes, definitely time to go home....

    
    I think not now.  We owe 4 trillion.  We are borrowing hundreds of
    millions more a year.  We should therefore stop doing all things
    that are "nice to do", and do only those things the failure to do
    which will result in near-term damage to ourselves.  Postpone the
    rest.  Once we learn to live within our means, we can do these things.
    
      bb

re: 218.11

	I have to agree with you.  In past years I have been very supportive of
spending money for NASA.  But with us going in to hoc, we need to spend our
money on other things besides a space station...

	JMHO...

			Brian

    Huntsville, Alabama (home of Marshall and Redstone, and would-be
    home to the space station) has a lot of defense- and space-related
    companies that would probably contribute more by making a space
    station instead of refocusing efforts to things like Rhino bullets.
    .02 kb

Re: <<< Note 218.13 by PCBUOA::KRATZ >>>

>>    ...station instead of refocusing efforts to things like Rhino bullets.

You have, I assume, been informed (even by the mainstream press) that the Rhino
Bullet thing was a hoax.

If the anti-gun movement had anything substantial to put forward to support
their position they wouldn't have to lie so much.

                         Roak

Ps.  Sorry, but you brought it up.

The Rhino bullets were *not* a hoax.  I was in Huntsville over the
holidays (slow news period) when the country went ballistic (excuse
the pun) over small ex-defense company Signature, Inc.  The NRA,
in their infinite wisdom, originally claimed the whole thing was a hoax, 
citing lack of federal applications for ammunition and labelled it
as an obvious pro gun control tactic.  The poor president of Signature
(incidentally Huntsville's 1993 Businessman of the Year) had to
dig up his federal ammunition applications (which were pending approval,
had the NRA dug deep enough) to prove that the bullets were for real.
After granting one national network interview, he had to take his family
from his home in Huntsville to a motel due to death threats.  He gave
in and axed the Black Rhino (convex plastic nose) which, at $4 a bullet,
probably meant a lot of profit for his company.  Incidentally, a late
night newsrag (Nightline I think) did some gelatin mold firings, but he
said they used a preproduction bullet which used different powder and
casings.

Anyhow, it wasn't a hoax, unless you get your news exclusively from the
NRA.  kb

    Bzzzt. Sorry. The guy's a home reloader and a poor one at that.
    The whole story is in the firearms notes file, if you care to go
    looking for it. That death threat crap has as much credibility
    as it did with  Dick Swett...
    
    This guy produced a few rounds using other company's components,
    which showed very poor (and inconsistent) ballistics, and has
    never demonstrated the so-called "Black Rhino". None of the
    rounds he did show came anywhere near the claims he made.
    
    This is most definitely an anti-gun hoax. Besides Kratz, I
    thought Marshall Goldberg and I got you over this gun phobia
    years ago... :-)
    
    (Good to hear from you, BTW...)
    
    -b

    Aw crap, and it was my first ever note in SOAPBOX too.
    (Hi Brian!)

Re: <<< Note 218.15 by PCBUOA::KRATZ >>>

>>Anyhow, it wasn't a hoax, unless you get your news exclusively from the
>>NRA.  kb

Nightline too.

They didn't perform anywhere near as well as claimed.  As one person asked:
"Gee, if I tell the media I've invented a car that'll do from 0 to 60 in one
second, will they give me tha same amount of coverage without checking things
out too?"

Performance: Hoax.  Delivery: Hoax.  Manufacturers license: First I've heard
that an application was found.  More details, please.

                            Roak

Re: <<< Note 218.17 by PCBUOA::KRATZ >>>

>>    Aw crap, and it was my first ever note in SOAPBOX too.
>>    (Hi Brian!)

Rule #1:  Don't mix topics. :-)

                          Roak

    I nominate the last few notes in this topic for the Nomadic Tangent
    of the Year Award! :-)

    Minor nit.  Cars that go from 0 to 100 in one second have already been 
    invented.

    
    This is one of those general good things that are not easily done
    except by governments, and ordinarily I am attracted to pro-NASA
    political candidates.
    
    But this year, it is very important to cut even the things we like.
    If we don't cut drastically now, we'll never cut at all.
    
    So I'm with them on this.  bb

    White-collar techyuppie welfare, with almost no return-on-investment
    other than the unmanned satellite stuff.  Pitch it.
    
    Bear in mind that I was one of their biggest supporters through
    the 60's and through the mid 70's.  Good stuff back then, but like
    most things over the years it's transformed into something else,
    not worth the expense.
    
    Chris

Yup, NASA has become a bloated, entrenched bureauocracy since Apollo, with
little to do besides justify its existence. Even the post-Challeger-disaster
shakeup made little difference.

	I, for one, will say that NASA should continue to get our support.
We have had serveral technological advances because of NASA.  Plus, space
provides the perfect place to do some types of testing that cannot be done 
on Earth.

	Keep it!

ME

    Space programs keep LOTS of people off the dole - like in the tens of
    millions if you count trickledown.  Let's just shut NASA down and see
    what 20% unemployment does for the politicos' careers.
    
    Penny wise and pound foolish.

Tens of millions?  I'm skeptical.

    One small example was the company I used to work for.
    
    We made serious high-performance 16-bit realtime acquisition and
    control computers.  The photos that came back from all the Voyagers,
    all those gorgeous pix of Jupiter and Saturn and all, came through our
    machines at JPL.
    
    We also supplied large numbers of systems to the Kennedy Space Center
    and to the shuttle program - I designed the disk controller used on the
    computers that control the last 30 seconds of every shuttle launch.
    
    Our stuff was also in Houston and at Vandenberg.
    
    We also supplied machines to LTV, Northrop, Rockwell, and several other
    prime NASA hardware contractors.
    
    If all NASA purchases had stopped dead, we'd have been 1,500 people out
    of work.
    
    We were one of some 15,000 companies supplying hardware directly to
    NASA or to NASA prime contractors.
    
    It adds up.

You're basing your "tens of millions" on anecdotal evidence?

    I don't presently have copies of the balance sheets for my former
    company, but NASA-oriented stuff was for a while roughly 30% of our
    business, and without it we'd have had to fold.

re: .26
    
    >> We have had serveral technological advances because of NASA.
    
    ...which could have been done in a much more cost-effective manner
    if similar earth-based research programs had been conducted.
    
    This used to come up a lot in previous boxes... I've seen interviews
    with scientific/engineering firms where they said that getting away
    from shuttle-based research, and investing into earth-based research,
    yielded similar results for far less expenditure.
    
    
    >> Plus, space provides the perfect place to do some types of testing
    >> that cannot be done on Earth.

    Sorry to come up with a barrage of rhetorical questions, but:
    Testing what?  Is it worth a billion dollars per shot?  Are we
    getting return-on-investment?  Is any cost analysis being done?
    Even if it must be done in space, can it be done more cheaply
    than the current expensive shuttle, by using unmanned spacecraft
    and remotely controlled or robotic equipment?
    
    It's primarily the shuttle that's a huge money sink with very
    low return, and I'd be quite happy to see it go away.  The various
    unmanned programs have traditionally taken only a small percentage
    of the money, and have returned a great deal; I'd definitely like
    to see them stay funded.  In fact, increase their funding somewhat
    to compensate for getting rid of the shuttle.
    
    
    re: .27 and .29
    
    >> Space programs keep LOTS of people off the dole...
    
    If it's publicly funded and has no real return for the people
    paying for it (I'm talking about the shuttle program here, now),
    then I submit that it IS the dole.  Paying NASA techies who work
    on a "product" that falls outside the commercial market is just as
    bad as the NEA paying artists who can't find enough of a market for
    their art to support themselves.  In other words, either get marketable,
    or find something else to do.  Why should I pay for them to indulge
    themselves?
    
    
    >> We made serious high-performance 16-bit realtime acquisition and
    >> control computers.  The photos that came back from all the Voyagers,
    >> all those gorgeous pix of Jupiter and Saturn and all, came through our
    >> machines at JPL.
    
    This was good stuff.  And fortunately, it's only a small fraction
    of the current NASA budget, the lion's share of which is shoveled
    into the manned program.  The JPL and other unmanned stuff could easily
    be funded, and has real return value.
    
    
    >> If all NASA purchases had stopped dead, we'd have been 1,500
    >> people out of work.
    
    I don't want *all* NASA funding to go away, but to haul in the NEA
    analogy again:  if it's commercially desirable, then let it find
    its own place in the free market.  If 1,500 people are working on
    something for which there is no market or demand other than sheer
    bureaucratic self-perpetuation, then they should probably be doing
    something else anyway, something that's marketable and profitable.
    
    Chris

    .32
    
    > If it's publicly funded and has no real return for the people
    > paying for it...then I submit that it IS the dole.
    
    I submit that 99.75% of what goes on inside the US Capitol building
    falls into this class.  Let's shut Congress down.

    Put a fork in Huntsville, AL if the cutbacks are this large.
    
    Dan

    >> I submit that 99.75% of what goes on inside the US Capitol building
    >> falls into this class.  Let's shut Congress down.
    
    If we could isolate that 99.75% as easily as we could isolate the
    unnecessary 85-90% of NASA, it would indeed be great to shut that
    part of it down and leave the good stuff, the way we could with NASA.
    
    It would be an almost trivial task to identify the manned stuff
    in the budget and nuke it, leaving all of the satellites and other
    unmanned programs intact (in fact, we could afford to let those
    grow; for years the shuttle has inhibited unmanned programs).
    
    Chris

    	.31:
    
    	"I don't presently have copies..."
    
    	Shouldn't that be: "I don't currently have copies..." or
    	"I don't, at present, have copies..."
    
    	Hmmm. Maybe not.  The dictionary has a "usage" note that
    	says the Usage Panel (who 'dem be?) is about evenly divided
    	on the acceptability of using this word for "at the present
    	time."
    
    	Close enough for government work!

    	Economy of scale prevents much of what NASA does (or has done)
    	from being done by the private sector.  And NASA programs have
    	been the source of so very many items in everyday use now and that
    	we take for granted.
    
    	Still, EVERYTHING should be subject to cut considerations,
    	and NASA isn't so sacred that it should be exempted.  Nobody
    	is trying to eliminate it.  (Nobody worth taking seriously
    	anyway...)  It's just cuts.
    
    	The losses in the budget should be made up by forging more
    	joint ventures with other space-exploring nations, to the
    	benefit of those countries as much as the USA.

I agree that NASA, as any other beneficiary of public funding these
days, needs to put up with some cuts. However, cutting the manned
program in it's entirety is a big mistake as I see it. My concern
centers around the fact that a certain amount of momentum needs to
be maintained, else the inertia of the halted program will be almost
impossible to overcome when it becomes desireable to restart. I can
hear the cousins of the Scientific Creationists already, telling us
that if the good lord wanted us to be anywhere other than on the surface
of the earth, he would have created us with jetpacks growing out of
our spines, not to mention which the halting of the program was a
sign from god to begin with.

Cuts, yes - but totally eliminate major programs, no way.

re: .38
    
>> My concern
>> centers around the fact that a certain amount of momentum needs to
>> be maintained, else the inertia of the halted program will be almost
>> impossible to overcome when it becomes desireable to restart.
    
    Why would it ever become desirable to restart it?  There's no place
    to go.  Fifteen years of the shuttle have amply demonstrated that
    there's nothing much to do (at least cost-effectively) in earth
    orbit.  There's no planet that we can get to that's worth getting
    to, and that can't be well-explored with unmanned spacecraft anyway.
    
    We need a major breakthrough in propulsive technology (not just a
    better chemically-fueled reaction engine, but a "quantum leap" kind
    of completely new technology), to get anywhere interesting, i.e.,
    the planets orbiting another star.  That breakthrough won't be
    attained by pouring billions into the current manned program.
    
    It's not that we weren't "meant" to be out there.  It's simply that
    there's nowhere to go.  It's sad, actually.  If there were other
    reasonable places to go within our grasp (or even just beyond our
    grasp), I'd be the most ardent supporter of this activity.
    
    Chris

RE: 18.39 by AMN1::RALTO "It's a small third world after all"

> There's no planet that we can get to that's worth getting to,  

There is exactly one.  Mars.


Phil

    re: Mars
    
    The rest of my sentence that you quoted said:
    
    "...and that can't be well-explored with unmanned spacecraft anyway."
    
    I'm not convinced that a manned mission to Mars (which is somewhat
    beyond our current technology) would be worth the expense.  I'd
    definitely be interested in continuing exploration of Mars with
    unmanned spacecraft, that is assuming that any country can get one
    there without having it mysteriously disappear.
    
    Chris

>hear the cousins of the Scientific Creationists already, telling us
>that if the good lord wanted us to be anywhere other than on the surface
>of the earth, he would have created us with jetpacks growing out of
>our spines, not to mention which the halting of the program was a
>sign from god to begin with.
    
    Actually most that I talk to are opposed to NASA cuts.  Maybe if NASA
    brought back something contradictory it would be a different story.
    
    Mike

    .36
    
    Fowler says that the sense of "presently" that I employed in .31 is
    undergoing a "vigorous revival."

Chris,
   I have to agree with Phil that it makes sense to continue to target/plan
   a manned Mars expedition. All of the unmanned missions is the world will
   not be "satisfying" if it were possible to put a human bean or 2 on the
   surface of the planet. That's just the way human nature is.

    But at what cost?  Given that the Apollo program cost about
    $26 billion in 1960's dollars, and given that the hardware for
    a manned Mars spacecraft would need to be a good deal more
    sophisticated (not to mention additional long-period expendables,
    and so on), and taking inflation into account, I'd guess that
    $300 billion over the period of such a program would be a pretty
    conservative estimate.
    
    Sure, it'd be neat to have people explore Mars, especially if we
    had some real evidence that life of any kind had ever existed there.
    But with the budget the way it is, I just can't see spending that
    kind of money on this, while at the same time insisting on fiscal
    conservatism on other budget items.
    
    Chris

I don't want to spend $300B during a period which warrants fiscal
conservatism, either. But I dislike even more the idea of totally
abandoning the manned programs and then having to fight an uphill
battle to ever get a fraction of the funding back to restart the
programs at a later date. It's just too big a step backwards in
my estimation. E.G. if we happened to develop that quantum leap in
propulsion systems and needed to make use of a manned mission for
further development, and hadn't a manned program in place. Maintaining
a conservative manned program rather than abandoning it is, to me,
as sensible as maintaining a peacetime army rather than dismantling it.

    
    MacDonald has proposed a new reusable vehicle for space program. 
    It is much cheaper than the shuttle.  With what shuttle is doing
    now,  most of people don't feel it is doing anything valuable.

The shuttle itself and the main fuel cell are already reusable. What
is MacDonell-Douglas (I assume) proposing?

    
    Bring back the Dyna-Soar!
    

>    MacDonald has proposed a new reusable vehicle for space program. 
>    It is much cheaper than the shuttle.

It's made out of styrofoam that's recycled from Big Mac packages.

The McShuttle is taking off

ME

I don't think you have to be a science fiction nut to realize:

   o   We are fouling our nest at an alarming rate.

   o   Space-based manufacturing on a large scale is the future.
       - Virtually unlimited energy is available.
       - Zero-G/vacuum conditions are ideal for many manufacturing processes.
       - Huge amounts of raw materials are available, especially on the moon 
         and the asteroids, and the gas-giant atmospheres.
       - Expensive? Sure! If it is ever going to happen, it must be
         jump-started. The gov't is (well, may be) good for such things. If not,
         provide incentives for the private sector.

   o   I think that humans' spirit of exploration is a factor here as well. 
       
Some of us would be happy to undergo some belt-tightening to see
something really worthwhile in terms of the long-term future. Watching
Apollo 11 live was one of the most exciting events I remember. Much better
than worrying about making sacrifices so we can meet next year's <insert
your favorite budget boondoggle>.

    
    RE: .52
    
    I am not science fictioner, so Sorry, I can't figure it out.
    
    - Unlimited energy?  Yes,  but it still cost a lot to make it
    usable.

    re: .52
    
    Apollo 11, as well as all of the manned space program between 1961
    and 1975, also provided me with lots of exciting times as well.  I
    was a great fan of all of this back then, and it was going to be
    my career at one time.  Of course, the space program was very
    goal-oriented back then.
    
    Regarding the other items in your reply, though, they're pretty
    much the same kinds of things we've been hearing from NASA for
    the last twenty years, a twenty years during which an awful lot
    of money has been spent with very little to show for it.
    
    NASA needs to show us a financial analysis, even a speculative one,
    that can demonstrate that all of these promises and miracles are the
    least bit cost-effective or deliver any kind of return-on-investment.
    They need to make the numbers work, and make it attractive for
    private industry and investors.  They've had thirty-five years
    of "jump start" from the taxpayers.  It's not too much to ask for
    some tangible results, at long last.
    
    Chris

>    <<< Note 218.54 by DECWIN::RALTO "It's a small third world after all" >>>
>             -< Velcro would have been invented eventually anyway >-

Yup, enough is enough. We've had 20 years of interesting and exciting
unmanned projects flushed because a) we didn't get enough funding this year;
b) the shuttle costs too much; c)we screwed up project X to the tune of $1
billion, so we can't afford it.

What commercial potential there is in space is already being exploited,
namely, communications (and ground-observation) satellites. I'm sure the same
folks could work out the details of performing the launches if NASA went
away. The fact that no other products or services based in space have come
out of the last 30 years of gov't subsidization should tell us something...

    
      The shuttle finally landed this weekend, with its tail between
     its legs.  This was an embarassing series of NASA failures, the
     broken tether above all.
    
      bb

     What failures were attributable to an inept crew?

    
      Well, I'm not sure what was malfunction, what was operator error.
    
      I'm not certain I understand why the mission was curtailed, either.
    
      bb

    Me neither, which is why I question the inherent assessment of the crew
    in your title.

    I believe the mission was terminated early because one of the computers
    that controls the flight controls died.  NASA policy calls for an
    IMMEDIATE termination of the flight in this situation, but the agency
    bent the rules.
    
    Bob

    
      from the menus for the recent 17-day shuttle mission :
    
      Breakfast, Day 5 : smoked turkey (fresh), Cream of Wheat with
     brown sugar, chocolate instant breakfast, orange-mango juice.
    
      Lunch, Day 12 : shrimp cocktail, string cheese and crackers,
     beef with barbecue sauce, applesauce, grapefruit juice.
    
      Dinner, Day 14 : steak, teriyaki chicken, green beans and broccoli,
     strawberries, fatfree tapioca pudding, orange-mango juice.
    
      The astros slept 6 to 7.5 hours per day.  They tried to keep their
     heart rates up and muscles supple by frequently riding the exercise
     bike bolted to the floor of the Life and Microgravity Spacelab (LMS).
    
      bb

What, no Tang?!

Nor any Blue Nun, either.

 The 17 day mission was on Columbia





 Jim

    RE: .61

>      Breakfast, Day 5 : smoked turkey (fresh), Cream of Wheat with
>     brown sugar, chocolate instant breakfast, orange-mango juice.

    So how did they get "fresh" turkey on the 5th day?  Or is this a
    government definition of "fresh"?

    -- Dave

>>      Breakfast, Day 5 : smoked turkey (fresh), Cream of Wheat with
>>     brown sugar, chocolate instant breakfast, orange-mango juice.
>
>    So how did they get "fresh" turkey on the 5th day?  Or is this a
>    government definition of "fresh"?
    
    
    Afternoon, Day 4: slaughter turkey
    
    Evening, Day 4: spend several hours collecting floating feathers
    while the turkey is being cooked in the microwave link
    
    Morning, Day 5: wrap turkey parts in Zig Zags
    
    Breakfast, Day 5: smoke turkey

    >So how did they get "fresh" turkey on the 5th day?  Or is this a
    >government definition of "fresh"?
    
     Fresh = !frozen;
    
     Chances are it was vacuum packed.

    How do they empty the septic system?  Does everything just float away
    into oblivion?
    

    The fluids get reprocessed, some of it gets sent outside.  

    Do the solids become assteroids?
    

:-)

    Ah...  Nothing like getting hit in the head while space walking by a 
    Neil Armstrong turd doing 17,000 mph

    musta been one mall crap for man, one large turd for Madmike!