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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