Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site rabbit.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!alice!rabbit!wolit From: wolit@rabbit.UUCP (Jan Wolitzky) Newsgroups: net.space Subject: Space Station (continued) Message-ID: <2582@rabbit.UUCP> Date: Fri, 9-Mar-84 11:15:17 EST Article-I.D.: rabbit.2582 Posted: Fri Mar 9 11:15:17 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 10-Mar-84 12:34:12 EST Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill Lines: 56 Responding to Roger Noe (who was responding to me): > But from where did the technology [for unmanned space probes] come? > The manned space program. First of all, that's wrong. There were unmanned probes and satellites long before there were manned ones. Besides, you could trace all modern technology back to primitive levers, wheels, etc., and that still doesn't mean that NASA should spend its money building wheels. > Manned space exploration draws money to unmanned space science > and produces money for unmanned space missions. This is trickle-down budgeting. It's also voodoo. If I have one dollar for a NASA budget and I give 90 cents to the space station project, I have only ten cents left for science, not another dollar. [Scientists are not the ones behind a station.] > Bull. A most concise argument, but not compelling. > What the hell do biology texts have to do with space stations? Very simply, anyone working to have evolution removed from science textbooks is clearly NOT interested in advancing science, and cannot claim that as a justification for a space station. I thought my point was clear. Do you understand now? > Manned space exploration has the potential to be the greatest pacifying > influence on mankind ever seen. The potential, maybe. But over two decades of manned space programs has had anything but this effect in practice. Certainly, increasing the role of the military in the US space program, as Reagan wants, would have exactly the opposite result. > To forever deny people the opportunity to boldly go where no human has > gone before is to lower them to the level of the cockroaches. I have no desire to deny anyone such an opportunity. I simply refuse to pay for what I consider to be a boondoggle. If you want to build a Star Ship, and pay for it yourself, go right ahead. As I said, I'm 100% behind the private commercialization of space. My company makes a lot of its money that way. If the government had built the comsats, it would have a claim to the profits, which we want for ourselves and deserve, since we took the risk. Claiming that we all benefit from some technology does not mean that the government should get involved: we all benefit from automobiles, yet I don't want the US going into competition with General Motors. (By the way, you might note that cockroaches do indeed have the ability to "boldly go where no man has gone before" -- try following one some day!) Jan Wolitzky, AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ