Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V16_6/V16NO608.TXT

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Date: Sat, 22 May 93 05:00:13
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V16 #608
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Sat, 22 May 93       Volume 16 : Issue 608

Today's Topics:
              Impediments to NASA productivity (2 msgs)
                           murder in space
                            R101 (2 msgs)
           Russian Mars Rover Telepresence Test - 05/21/93
            Satellite Capabilities-Patriot Games (2 msgs)
                Soyuz and Shuttle Comparisons (3 msgs)
                 Space Marketing would be wonderfull.
                           The Oregon Trail
                     WANTED: Book on navigation.
           Why Government? Re: Shuttle, "Centoxin" (3 msgs)

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Date: Fri, 21 May 1993 13:02:19 GMT
From: fred j mccall 575-3539 <[e-mail]>
Subject: Impediments to NASA productivity
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

In <1tg9sf$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pat) writes:

>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>>out of work," are all phrases which come to mind.  Every time a change
>>is proposed, our NASA culture has taught us to shoot holes in it,
>>inventing reasons why the change will not work.  (For numerous


>Gee,  I wonder if [e-mail] is really a sendmail alias
>for [e-mail]?

Gee, I wonder what this is supposed to have to do with the rest of the
post?  Must be another one of those little snipes^H^H^H^H^H^Hjokes
from 'Pat'.  Yeah, I'm *real* impressed . . .

--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[e-mail] - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 21 May 93 09:07:41 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Jim Bowery)
Subject: Impediments to NASA productivity

The single most important impediment to NASA producitivity is the
systemic violation of the intent of the Hatch Act of 1939 that pervades
all sectors of our our government, not just NASA.

All of the most damaging problems that seem NASA-specific have their
roots in this central theme.

For those who don't know about The Hatch Act's intent:  It was
set up, in the wake of the New Deal programs, as a way of breaking
a positive feedback loop of corruption in government via taxpayer
funds being increasingly diverted to political activities.  The cold
war (the military industrial complex) and the Great Society (and the
 welfare bureacracy it created) have found it is actually more efficient
to buy political support by using their funds to create incentives for
such support outside of their civil servant bureaucracies, ie: contractors
and benefit recipients respectively (although the welfare bureacracy
itself is relatively large compared to most).  This is the real cause
of the takeover of government by "special interest lobbyists".  NASA is
(and indeed must be) right up there with the rest of them -- even with
its own internal people flying to Washington to lobby aggressively.

(BTW: Given my history of "hate speech" against NASA, many may find
 it surprising that I appear to be a NASA apologist here.  My ethics
 don't prevent me from being, or allowing others to be, competitive.
 They just prevent me, and would prevent others, from winning cut-
 throat competition and then taking no responsibility for changing the
 rules that make for street brawls and select winners based on all the
 wrong characteristics.  NASA has shown no such ethical integrity, and
 is therefore worthy of contempt -- all the more so since if NASA
 didn't exist at all, it would not be capable of suppressing competition
 as it has been doing in proportion to its funding since the mid to
 late 60's.)

The importance of technical merit becomes disappearingly small in a
ballooning system of political feedback which, in evolutionary terms,
selects for the political expert over the technical expert -- against
positive-sum and for negative-sum gamesmanship.  An immensely damaging
consequence of this, specific to civilian technology agencies such as
NASA, is that being a supposedly technical organization, the people at
the top are quite threatened by the technical experts they displace
through political means, since hard technical results are more difficult
to "argue away" when you are wrong, than "softer" results in other parts
of government.  Being proven wrong in the public eye COMPARED TO YOUR
COMPETITORS is political death.  That is why substantive competition must
be suppressed, at all costs, so that technical disasters, like the
Challenger, can be argued away as "doing the best at a really hard job
that NO ONE could do any better -- just give us more money next and less
pressure next time."

Let's trace NASA's problem from "the top", in the House SubCommittee
for appropriations for HUD and Independent Agencies:

People frequently complain that NASA shouldn't be grouped with
welfare bureaucracies in the appropriations process.

The actual reason this is damaging to NASA is because all of these
agencies are allowed to, and therefore must, violate the intent
of the Hatch Act of 1939 in order to remain competitive in
the appropriations process.  The specific grouping doesn't
matter as a first order cause.

The sense in which NASA is at a special disadvantage in the
HUD subcommittee is that is must pay more for its supporters than
typical welfare bureaucracies.  An engineer in a defense contractor
costs more than a typical welfare queen, so he isn't as efficient
a way to buy support.  Also, (and this is causally related to the
 previous fact) welfare bureaucracies don't really have to DO
much of anything for which they can be held accountable by the
public.  Vague assertions that HUD is doing some good, for
example (perhaps buttressed by government-funded social studies),
are easy and cheap to defend to political standards of acceptability.
NASA has the possibility of failing in its missions in ways that
are relatively obvious to the public, on the rare occasions it must
attempt to fly missions.  (DoD is even more inherently accountable
 since so many of its people could actually die if they don't do
 their jobs with a modicum of competence.)

In this respect, NASA could probably get more money if it were
placed in more direct political competition with DoD since the military
industrial complex does, ultimately, have to pay more attention to
actual performance than civilian technology agencies do.  But this would
only make NASA's performance worse since it would give it more money
without changing the incentives that reward and therefore select for
political over technical merit.

Given that NASA must achieve political excellence while avoiding
actual tests of its technical abilities as much as possible, the
behaviors rewarded in NASA are the following (all are highly
 correlated):

* Maximize the number of congressional districts included in any
  single mission/project.
* Use the existing political expertise to suppress competition which
  would be politically embarrassing.
* Minimize the number of missions/projects.
* Minimize the number of alternate routes for obtaining funding.
* Minimize the amount of freedom of technical exploration, ensuring
  that all technology projects are directly attributable to one of
  the few large programs and are unlikely to alter the technical
  tradeoffs in such a way as to disrupt political deals with
  contractors in various congressional districts.
* Maximize the duration of single missions/projects.
* Maximize funding per mission/project.
* Minimize the clarity with which mission/project objectives are
  specified.

Over 20 years of such incentives have produced the NASA of today with
its terminal symptoms of bureaucratic cancer and technical incompetence.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 21 May 1993 09:40:38 GMT
From: Alan Carter <[e-mail]>
Subject: murder in space
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
|> >Wouldn't Discovery (with nobody on board besides HAL, a computer) be an
|> >abandoned vessel which anybody could pick up for its scrap value?
|>
|> As I recall, space law differs from sea law in this area.  The country
|> that launches it, owns it until reentry or doomsday.
|>
|> This is a stupid approach, and it will probably end up being changed
|> eventually (especially with the USSR no longer around as the champion
|> of state-owned everything), but right now it's still in effect.

I wouldn't want anyone salvaging my comsat or trying to classify my
mothballed construction shack as a derelict. How do we distinguish?

   Alan

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1 Belle Vue Court    |"We've entered a synchronous  | Home: 0684 564438
32 Belle Vue Terrace | orbit above the southern     | Away: 0628 784351
Great Malvern        | pole."                       | Work: 0628 794137
Worcestershire       |                              |
WR14 4PZ             | Lt. Commander Geordi LaForge | Temporary: [e-mail]
England              | Star Trek The Next Generation| Permanent: [e-mail]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 21 May 1993 12:03:14 GMT
From: Del Cotter <[e-mail]>
Subject: R101
Newsgroups: sci.space

<1tgtp4$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Palmer T. Davis) writes:

>In fact, that's how R101 wound up with diesel engines.  The design team
>had originally planned to use them, and several articles were published
>lauding their improved safety.  When it was discovered that the diesels
>were too heavy, the design team tried to switch to the Rolls-Royce gasoline
>engines that the Vickers team was using on the R100, the Air Ministry
>squashed the idea.  Consequently, the R101 wound up with a total usable
>lift of less than 35 tons, versus 57 on the R100....

Then there was the extra engine whose *only* purpose was to provide
reverse thrust at the end of the journey...

--
 ',' ' ',','  |                                                |  ',' ' ',','
   ', ,','    |      Del Cotter      [e-mail]      |    ', ,','
     ','      |                                                |      ','

------------------------------

Date: 21 May 1993 11:06:56 -0400
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: R101
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <1tgnri$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Palmer T. Davis) writes:
>
>trouble for months.  By contrast, the Space Shuttle had been flying
>successfully for almost five years with few indications of trouble.
>(Granted, those that there were were ignored.)  A better parallel for the
>end of the R101 would be the voyage of RMS _Titanic_ a generation earlier.


I don't think so.

The shuttle SSME's  have always been ectremely marginal.

The nose gear  was kinda weak,  and had numerous ops problems until
it was recently upgraded.

The brakes were too weak,  the new brakes and drogue chute fix that.

The aft attach struts were too weak  even by NASA standards.

is that enough trouble points for you?

pat

------------------------------

Date: 21 May 1993 15:22 UT
From: Ron Baalke <[e-mail]>
Subject: Russian Mars Rover Telepresence Test - 05/21/93
Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.sci.planetary,comp.robotics

Status report on Russian Mars rover telepresence test
between Ames and Moscow:

Dave Lavery, Headquarters Office of Advanced Concepts and
Technology robotics program manager, reports that Ames
conducted the first test on Wednesday afternoon of a
remote virtual reality control system which is being
tested to operate a prototype Mars rover located in
Moscow.

This first test involved establishing a computer
connection from the control workstation located at Ames
across the Internet to the CNES facility in Toulouse,
France, and from there through a repeater to the IKI
laboratory in Moscow.

The first test was to drive the rover down a hallway in
the laboratory.  A scene description model (a computer
representation of the physical conditions) of the hallway
was downloaded from the Internet from Moscow to the
workstation at Ames and was used to construct a virtual
environment at Ames of the Moscow hallway.  The computer
environment was then used by the Ames operator to
visually command the rover to drive down the length of
the hallway.

(of note:  This same methodology was used in this past
December's Dante robot experiment by operators from
Carnegie Mellon University located at Goddard Space
Flight Center to perform a robot control test of the
Dante robot located on the rim of Mt. Erebus in the
Antarctic.  In this instance, though, the computer link
was made through the TDRS satellite.)

The only feedback to the Ames operator during the Mars
Russian rover test was a set of numerical position sensor
readings being displayed on the operator's computer
workstation monitor.  Video compression and transmission
hardware and software will be installed on the rover next
week to allow the Ames remote operator to view the actual
operation of the rover as commands are sent over the
Internet.


Chas Redmond
OACT PAO
5/21/93
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | Never laugh at anyone's
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | dreams.
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     |

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 21 May 1993 12:45:59 GMT
From: fred j mccall 575-3539 <[e-mail]>
Subject: Satellite Capabilities-Patriot Games
Newsgroups: sci.space

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Dean Adams) writes:

>Another question is whats the NEED for "live video" from space?  The primary
>job for these sats is to produce high resolution images (i.e. stills) of
>areas for detailed analysis, to build up various maps and datasets, and to
>be able to compare images of the same region from multiple satellite passes
>in order to highlight any changes and such.  None of these missions would
>be particularly enhanced by "video"...

Don't forget the desires of the politicos.  Note that the big, fancy
war room with all those fancy electronic maps doesn't particularly
'enhance the mission', either; in point of fact, when they don't have
Congress or Executive staff (like the Prez or VP) in, the work takes
place elsewhere.  I would assume that real-time imaging at high frame
rates would have a similar motivation -- because the 'amateurs' like
to watch.

[Since most of the real work is done by lots of people doing boring
work with stereo lenses in back rooms, there's actually no need for
'real-time imagery' at all -- store and forward would be plenty good
enough, since the time consumer is going to be the analysis on the
ground, anyway.]

--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[e-mail] - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 21 May 1993 14:49:36 GMT
From: fred j mccall 575-3539 <[e-mail]>
Subject: Satellite Capabilities-Patriot Games
Newsgroups: sci.space

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Scott Smith) writes:

>>words, are you asserting as fact that no such system exists?
>[Live video assertations removed]
>>
>>[Note that I am *not* asserting the fact of the existence of such a
>>system with a 30fps or similar frame rate.  However, I can think of
>>situations where such a system would be useful or desirable by people
>>who could get allocation for funding of such a project and can think
>>of no specific technological impossibilities involved in its creation.
>>You may feel free to draw your own conclusions from there, however it
>>seems a reasonably safe bet, unless you can come up with reasons why
>>such a system would be impossible, that such a system exists.]

>Live video as shown in Patriot Games most likely is possible.  From a
>satellite, improbable.  Think about a satellite in low earth orbit, which
>the US recon satellites supposedly orbit.  Think about the period of said
>orbit.  How many minutes is the scene in Patriot Games last?  Do you think
>that the satellite could actually maintain pointing on that one spot for
>that long without varying the resolution, etc.?  Do you think that the
>satellite is capable of those kinds of body rates to do this?

Nobody said the picture would look like what you saw in the movie.  We
*know* that was faked.  I'm curious, though.  Have you computed the
'body rate' required of the satellite to see if it's so outrageous, or
did you just take the linear velocity (high) and say, "Wow, that's a
really big number -- it can't do that!"

>The average period of a low earth orbit is around 90 minutes, with an
>average velocity of 17,000 mph (give or take).  Think about what kinds
>of capability would be required to give live video with that kind of
>resolution.  I think that Real Time means that the image is collected
>at the time that it is taken and not dropped off on some film cartridge
>for later retrieval.

Ok, let's think about what kinds of capability would be required.
There are really only two numbers that are germane to this.  Angular
rate of change required of the satellite and height of orbit.  These
are, of course, interrelated, but I don't want to do a rigorous
mathematical treatment -- just enough to show how easy it would be.

First, the average angular rotation rate required of the satellite to
keep a specific point on the surface of the earth in view.  Since you
give the average period at around 90 minutes, that says that the
satellite must be capable of 360/5400 degrees of slew per second, if
we assume that the surface of the Earth is stationary (it's not, but
more on that later).  That gives a rough average of about seven
hudredths of a degree per second.  Now, this does not seem to me to be
a hideously difficult rate of slew.  Note that the required slew rate
will be lower than this when the satellite is low on the horizon with
respect to the target and higher when it is overhead, but even so,
these do not seem all that difficult to sustain.

Of course, there is also some 'side to side' slew necessary, since the
Earth is spinning at right angles to the path of flight of the
satellite (we usually put these things in polar orbit), but once
again, that is a predictable (and not particularly large) number.

In any case, the actual slew rates required at any given time (as well
as the changes in distance from the imaged site) are going to be
dependent upon the altitude of the satellite -- several hundred miles.
If you treat the Earth as approximately flat when the satellite is
overhead and work out the vectors, you get a rate of change for the
angle when overhead of about 15 degrees a second, which is somewhat
high but not all that outrageous.  However, the rate of change of that
rate of change is rather high when directly overhead, which seems to
lead to the conclusion that they would not image in that mode when
directly overhead, but rather from slightly further down on the
horizon after the required angular acceleration needed to keep the
site in view has dropped significantly.

The conclusion seems obvious.  If you can do single images of a quite
specific spot on the surface of the Earth, you can also do 30 frames
per second imaging.


--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[e-mail] - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 21 May 93 12:06:37 GMT
From: George Hastings <[e-mail]>
Subject: Soyuz and Shuttle Comparisons
Newsgroups: sci.space

> >The most revealing comparison between Shuttle and Soyuz is cost. All
> >other comparisons are apples and oranges.
>
> I like this statement, though for my own reasons.  Cost comparisons depend
> a lot on whether the two options are similar, and *then* it becomes very
> revealing to consider what their differences are.  Can Soyuz launch the
> Long Exposure Facility?  Course not.  Will the Shuttle take my television
> relay to LEO by year's end?  Almost certainly not, but the Russians are
> pretty good about making space accessible on a tight schedule.

   This whole thread of discussion is really analagous to
comparing apples and oranges! Shuttles and the Soyuz-TM both
carry people. The Soyuz-TM has carried VERY small payloads to
MIR which were launched directly from one of the scintific
airlock ports of the space station, but the Soyuz-TM really
doesn't LAUNCH anything.
  The Soyuz-TM spacecraft is lifted into orbit by PROTON, which
has some fairly impressive heavy-lift capabilities. The PROTON
was used to loft the MIR main core module, which weighed 21
tons, the KVANT 1, KVANT 2, and KRISTAL modules into orbit.

 Here are the specs:

First Stage
    Engine            RD-253
    Propellants        Nitrogen Tetroxide/UDMH
    Thrust            167 tons
    Burn time        130 seconds
    Specific Impulse    316 seconds
    Length            20.2 Meters
    Diameter         7.4 Meters
    Dry Mass        43.4 tons
    Propellant Mass           412.2 tons
Second Stage
    Engine            Kosberg Bureau
    Propellants        Nitrogen Tetroxide/UDMH
    Thrust            240 tons
    Burn time        208 seconds
    Specific Impulse    333 seconds
    Length            13.7 Meters
    Diameter        4.15 Meters
    Dry Mass        13.2 tons
    Propellant Mass        152.4 tons
Third Stage
    Engine            Kosberg Bureau
    Propellants        Nitrogen Tetroxide/UDMH
    Thrust             64 tons
    Burn Time        254 seconds
    Specific Impulse    344 seconds
    Length            6.4 Meters
    Diameter        4.15 Meters
    Dry Mass        5.6 Tons
    Propellant Mass        47.5 Tons

Payload Mass            21 Tons
Shroud Mass             3 Tons
Total Launch Mass        698 Tons
Total Launch Vehicle Langth    59.8 Meters


 ____________________________________________________________
| George Hastings        [e-mail] |
| Space Science Teacher        [e-mail]      |  If it's not
| Mathematics & Science Center     STAREACH BBS: 804-343-6533   |   FUN, it's
| 2304 Hartman Street        OFFICE:       804-343-6525   |  probably not
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 ------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 21 May 93 10:28:05 EDT
From: Chris Jones <[e-mail]>
Subject: Soyuz and Shuttle Comparisons
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, ghasting@vdoe386 (George Hastings) writes:
>  The Soyuz-TM spacecraft is lifted into orbit by PROTON, which
>has some fairly impressive heavy-lift capabilities.

The Proton would certainly be overkill for the Soyuz TM.  All Soyuzes (Soyuzi?)
have been launched by (suprise) Soyuz boosters (a/k/a SL-4, a/k/a A-2).
--
Chris Jones    [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: 21 May 1993 16:43:47 GMT
From: Pawel Moskalik <[e-mail]>
Subject: Soyuz and Shuttle Comparisons
Newsgroups: sci.space

>>   This whole thread of discussion is really analagous to
>> comparing apples and oranges! Shuttles and the Soyuz-TM both
>> carry people. The Soyuz-TM has carried VERY small payloads to

    Yes and now. Shuttle is the only US manned spacecraft and Soyuz
  is the only Russian manned spacecraft. Thus, comparing their
  manned operations makes sence. Of course, Soyuz does not stand
  on its own, it is a part of a system including MIR space station.
  So we should rather comapre Mir/Soyuz with Shuttle.
    Comparing cargo capabilities of shuttle and Soyuz spacecraft
  does not make sense (Soyuz spacecraft is not designed for cargo
  operations). Here the Shuttle should be compared against TITAN or
  Russian PROTON launcher.

>>  The Soyuz-TM spacecraft is lifted into orbit by PROTON, which
>> has some fairly impressive heavy-lift capabilities. The PROTON


No !!  Soyuz SPACECRAFT is launch by a Soyuz ROCKET.  Why would anybody
use a 21ton-capable PROTON rocket to launch 6.5ton Soyuz spacecraft ?????

The name SOYUZ is used for two different things.

First, there is a Soyuz SPACECRAFT. It is a manned spacecraft for 3 people.
It carries no cargo. Currently used version is called Soyuz-TM.

Second, there is a Soyuz ROCKET. It is a three-stage rocket with a
cargo capability of about 7tons to LEO. It is used to launch Soyuz spacecraft,
but it also launches about 30-40 other payloads every year. It has also a
four-stage version sometimes called Molniya. This is by far the most
used space launcher in history. According to Flight Internationsl Launcher
Directory, Soyuz/Molnia has been launched 1260 times (as of Apr 93) with 16
failures reported.


Pawel Moskalik

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 21 May 1993 14:35:44 GMT
From: Nick Haines <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Marketing would be wonderfull.
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space,rec.backcountry

A few years back [86? 87?], a company in Cambridge (England) making
high-power lasers had an employee who was arrested by a foreign
government after a demonstration of their lasers went badly wrong (I
think I'm remembering that right). In order to draw attention to the
case, the company took a bunch of their lasers and waved them about
the sky every night for quite a while (months). OK, they weren't
nearly as bright as the full moon, but a lot of people never even
noticed them.

Nick Haines [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 21 May 93 09:59:30 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Jim Bowery)
Subject: The Oregon Trail

Pat <[e-mail]> writes:
>Ken  proposes in essence implementation of Performance
>based budgeting systems,  wherein,  budget requests
>are tied to previous performance.
>
>It's very messy.  I like it myself,  but it's not as easy as
>you think.  The launch pressure  from missing reagans state of the
>union speech,  contributed to the loss of 51-L.  What makes you
>think that a loss of direct budget due to a slipped  deadline won't
>make things worse?

Yeah, sort of like not giving a junkie or alcoholic or smoker his
substance of abuse makes things worse for awhile.

Do you have any idea how many people died on the Oregon Trail?

------------------------------

Date: 21 May 1993 12:49:21 GMT
From: Bill Williams <[e-mail]>
Subject: WANTED: Book on navigation.
Newsgroups: alt.books.technical,aus.aviation,aus.wanted,rec.boats,rec.travel,sci.astro,sci.space

In article <1thin8$[e-mail]> Johnathon Goldstein,
[e-mail] writes:
> Can someone please recommend a book that will teach me all I need
> to know about navigation?

:-)

The American Practical Navigator ("Bowditch") published in two volumes
by my very own United States Government.

:-)
___________________________________
William E. Williams, [e-mail]
Divison of Natural Sciences and Mathematics
St. Mary's College of Maryland
St. Mary's City, MD 20686

------------------------------

Date: 21 May 1993 11:00:08 -0400
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: Why Government? Re: Shuttle, "Centoxin"
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

Doug comments on how the japanese and germans didn't have to pay for
a defense.

True.  But each had  even larger difficulties to overcome.

Post war,  the european and asian economies were pathetic.  THey needed
to  build products and support R&D on economies 1/10th ours.
New Zealand, Australia,  and the Philippines did not pay for
their defense either,  but their economies are in the  S***TEr.

Obviously free defense  is not the only thing.

France Paid  most of their own defense costs.  They lost wars in both algeria
and Vietnam, and underwrote a world class nuclear and space program.
Their economy is quite fine.

Obviously paying for defense is not the only thing.

THe germans and japanese companies invested smart,  played the long game
and didn't over pay their CEO's.   WE helped them, sure,  the same way
the government helps you go to school.  But once you graduate
your on your own.

pat

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 21 May 1993 15:33:30 GMT
From: fred j mccall 575-3539 <[e-mail]>
Subject: Why Government? Re: Shuttle, "Centoxin"
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Timothy J Brent) writes:

>In article <1tghgs$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ken Hayashida) writes:
>
>>Jim, do you want tens of thousands of people on welfare?  You and
>>other liberal democrats want to cut defense spending, kill our nation's
>>greatest assets in science and technology, put hundreds of thousands
>>of skilled engineers + blue collar guys on the assembly lines out of
>>work, and then tax us more.  Get a damn clue.  I am so sick and tired
>>of this blantly false rhetoric about how bad the shuttle program is.

>Boy, this guys a textbook example of how the Republicans were allowed
>to screw us for the past decade or so (not that the Democrats will
>likely be any better).  Why don't you try to take a more objective view
>of the situation.

Well, I have to agree that Ken's remarks were just a little beyond
logic, but I'm afraid I don't find yours much more accurate.

>Sure defense spending promotes new technologies but so do the national
>labs.  Sure they put people to work but they don't really earn us any
>thing.  It's a kind of welfare in itself as it keeps people employed
>yet does nothing to even out the trade deficit with other nations.

Uh, don't look now, but we sure seem to do a lot of business selling
weapons systems to other countries.  You might also want to examine
the trade deficit with regard to Europe.  You'll find we sell them a
lot more than they sell us and that part of what we sell them is
things like F-16 fighters, radar sets, etc.

So we see that Ken is pro-Defense and you are basically anti-Defense,
and neither one of you is really looking at the objective picture.

[Don't rely on my being 100% objective, either, although I try to be.
After all, I build weapons, so I do have some interest in our policies
in that area.]

--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[e-mail] - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 21 May 1993 15:37:00 GMT
From: fred j mccall 575-3539 <[e-mail]>
Subject: Why Government? Re: Shuttle, "Centoxin"
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Doug Mohney) writes:

>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Timothy J Brent) writes:

>> Does it bother you that the
>>first commercial maglev in the world will operate in the US but be
>>of German origin?

>If the Germans had carried their fair share of defense before the fall of the
>Soviet Union, they wouldn't be building maglevs for us, but that's a whole
>'nother story.

Excuse me?  The Germans had (and probably still have) the largest
military force in Europe, not to mention that we were going to get to
fight on *their* homes (and not ours).  If you want to grouse about
someone not paying 'their fair share', talk to the French or the
Japanese.

--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[e-mail] - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.

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End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 608
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