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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