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From: ucbesvax.turner@ucbcad.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Test pilot astronauts - (nf)
Message-ID: <118@ucbcad.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 21-Jun-83 07:05:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbcad.118
Posted: Tue Jun 21 07:05:49 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 27-Jun-83 02:31:39 EDT
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#R:gummo:-81700:ucbesvax:8700002:000:1530
ucbesvax!turner    Jun 21 01:56:00 1983

	On the question of how many astronauts have been test-pilots, at
on time or another, I can only say that it's probably a slimmer majority
now than before the shuttle.

	I was surprised to see how many shuttlenauts are Navy officers.
Or I *was* surprised, until I remembered that the early days of the space
program were enlivened by a competition between the Air Force and the
Navy.  NASA was, I think, created to resolve this tension.

	When you think of how the Russians have been doing soft ground-
landings almost from the start, and how "splash-down" was SOP for the
U.S. until the shuttle, one wonders whether the Navy didn't have some-
thing to do with the American Way of Re-entry.  Pomp and Circumstance
for an event of indefinite location is a little easier to arrange on a
movable surface like an aircraft carrier.  Those Siberian Plump-Downs
must be rather dismal affairs by comparison.

	Another interesting thing (to me): as far as I know, there has
not yet been a non-U.S. citizen put into orbit by NASA (though I've heard
that a Puerto Rican is cheduled).   By contrast, the USSR has launched
astronauts from most Eastern Bloc countries, as well as one Mongolian and
one Frenchman.  (-: I can't wait for the first Palestinian.  Maybe Arafat
will start talking about a homeland in one of the Earth-Luna libration
points, assuming Israel doesn't get there first. :-)

	Michael Turner
	ucbvax!ucbesvax.turner

P.S.  If a computer can make Time's "Man of the Year" cover, surely
      Dr. Ride will have no trouble.