🚀 go-pugleaf

My opinion is that the physicists are mistaken about the space
station, imagining they could get some of the money saved by the
cancellation.

The reason for the space station is only marginally science and
even more marginally prestige.  The space station is a start on
human expansion into the solar system.  That is what generates
the public support for it.  It may not be the best design, but
it's the only design we have, and the scientist opposition has
made matters worse, not better.

The physicists have had their heads wedged about space ever since
World War II, perhaps from guilt feelings about the atomic bomb.
In 1955 they PSAC persuaded Eisenhower to plan for an 18 pound
satellite for the International Geophysical Year.  For some
imagined reason of purity, the project was not to use the
rockets developed for military purpose.  In 1957 the Soviets
launched the 200 pound Sputnik I shortly followed by the
2000 pound Sputnik II.  The first American orbital launch wasn't the
pure Vanguard which blew up on the pad the first two times
but the military based satellite cobbled together in a month or
two when Eisenhower finally allowed it.

I favor both, but maybe the space station and the collider will kill
each other off.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.