🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <ggm2ljr@rpi.edu> strider@clotho.acm.rpi.edu (Greg Moore) writes:
>	Another question though:  Am I correct in recalling that the goal is
>to use pilots, and not astronauts (at least in the NASA sense) to fly the 
>proposed DC-1? 

Correct.  Astronauts are too expensive and too scarce.

>Who will do satellite repair?

Satellite technicians, who know how to do it right.

Except for a few of the most dedicated and conscientious ones, astronauts
make poor substitutes for people who know what they're doing.  You don't
hear much about the times when astronauts screw things up because they're
sure they know what they're doing even when they don't... but it happens.

>Who pays for training? The
>customer, or will McD (or whoever operates it) have "on-call techs" that
>you can pay extra for...

I don't think McDD plans to be in the operations business for the DCs,
any more than they are for their airliners.

In practice, it would probably make sense to have both.  Some jobs will
be involved enough to require giving specialists a crash course in
spaceflight; for simple things it will be more cost-effective to give
space-trained generalists a crash course in the particular job.
-- 
"God willing... we shall return."       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
       -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry