🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <402@nysernic>, weltyc@nic.nyser.net (Christopher A. Welty) writes:
> <excerpts>
> >> I don't know where you're getting your information...
> >> but the Soviets have NOTHING that can compare to the shuttle...
> >> There is nothing on the pad
> >> anywhere in the Soviet Union that even remotely resembles the shuttle...

James Oberg [Red Star in Orbit, etc.] thinks that the Russians have no real
plans for a shuttle.  What we're seeing (in Soviet Military Power and such)
is a product of

1) American arrogance (of _course_ they're trying to copy us!)
2) Soviet disinformation
3) intell people misinterpreting very limited data.

I don't necessarily agree, but I thought I'd pass it along.  He goes through
it all in an article in Aerospace America (the AIAA member magazine)
June 1987, pages 24-28.

The Energia booster is clearly useful with or without a shuttle attached.


-- 
| Stewart Cobb    (Hacking GNC for STS)  ... sun!housun!nuchat!splut!stu
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| << Insert the usual disclaimer >>  ... hoptoad!academ /
| Sattinger's Law:  It works better if you plug it in.