Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!TMCGUINNESS@USC-ISIE From: TMCGUINNESS@USC-ISIE@sri-unix.UUCP Newsgroups: net.space Subject: MAYBE WE NEED A NEW DIRECTION Message-ID: <3278@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Wed, 20-Jul-83 17:33:00 EDT Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.3278 Posted: Wed Jul 20 17:33:00 1983 Date-Received: Fri, 22-Jul-83 13:43:20 EDT Lines: 32 From: TOM MCGUINNESSHas anyone ever really considered just how expensive space exploration really is? I know that we could run three programs for the amount of money that we spend on cancer sticks,cosmetics or video games, but when you look at Government spending (non defense and non "human services",I mean the 11% that's left to run everything except DOD and HEW), NASA soaks up alot of that money. What have we got for that money? NASA says that it hopes that it will have a permanent 4-6 person space station in orbit by 1991, 30 years after Alan Shepard first took his sub-orbital flshows a committed interest in a human presence in the solar system. It seems to me that our space program has evolved into a program for developing big military or big science projects rather than viewing space as a "place" as most of us view it. I'm not against the expenditures of funds for military space programs, or for things like Space Telescope or IRAS but these projects all represent a sort of Big Think that will keep space as an area where you place sensors or weapons rather than an area for resource exploitation or human development. Perhaps we need a program, non governmental to see what the cheapest systems that could be developed; ie what is the cheapest man carrying vehicle that we could develop,or what is the least expensive space suit that can be developed. Of course the cost of this would be systems that may be considerably riskier to fly and use. Anybody know the probability of catastrophic failure that the Shuttle operates under when it flies? Try this thought experiment on yourself or someone who claims to be a "space-enthusiast", what is the maximum percentage probability of fatal accident that you would accept to live on an L-5 colony or participate in a manned lunar base? Maybe I'm missing the point but if the development of the New World in the 16th and 17th century went the way we are developing space, then I think we might still be waiting for the Jamestown colony to be founded. ==================================================================================================================================-------