Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site allegra.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!eagle!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!karn From: karn@allegra.UUCP (Phil Karn) Newsgroups: net.space Subject: Re: Space Station Message-ID: <2350@allegra.UUCP> Date: Thu, 8-Mar-84 23:50:02 EST Article-I.D.: allegra.2350 Posted: Thu Mar 8 23:50:02 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 10-Mar-84 08:56:08 EST References: <2578@rabbit.UUCP> <386@ihlts.UUCP> Organization: Bell Communications Research, Inc Lines: 36 This appears to be the classic "men in space" vs "machines in space" debate that has gone on since the earliest days of the space program. There are merits to the arguments on both sides, but each has some fallacies as well. There is no doubt that specific, well defined, purely scientific programs can be carried out more cheaply with unmanned spacecraft. However, as beneficial as they might be to science, unmanned programs simply don't get the media hype that much less "worthwhile" (to the scientists) manned projects get. It is this public support, sometimes bordering on the romantic, that the scientists must rely on to support their work also. I wish the machine-in-space camp would stop complaining about the relative amounts of money being allocated for the shuttle and the space station. Their time would be better spent figuring out ways to get as much scientific mileage out of them as possible, and in presenting the united front to the legislature that's needed in increasing the overall NASA budget, unmanned missions included. This is why I suggest that letters to your representatives endorse support for BOTH manned and unmanned missions. Yes, science was almost an afterthought in the Apollo program, but lunar science is still far better off than if the Apollo program never existed. Without Apollo, there probably wouldn't have been a Ranger, Surveyor or Lunar Orbiter. Them's the political facts. On the other side, I'd like to see more accomodations made by the manned space flight people to the scientists, who are after all doing much with their limited resources. I cringe when I see all that empty space in the cargo bay that could have been used by scientific payloads of opportunity (bigger than GAS cans). Scientific groups are chronically poor, and applying the same rates to them as well as to commercial customers just isn't fair. Phil