🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <26JAN199319493864@judy.uh.edu> wingo%cspara@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov writes:

>Allan if you have looked at any of the information that has been put out
>about SSF in the last decade you will see that the PRIMARY mission of
>SSF is to be a laboratory in space.

Actually, if you look at the information that has been put out about
SSF in the last decade you will see that the PRIMARY mission of SSF is...

A. Life science (at least to the life science community).
B. Microgravity (at least to the microgravity people)
C. Assembly point for Moon/Mars (At least to the manned space crowd)
D. A mechanism to teach us how to live and work in space (at least to
   the space colonization crwod)
E. Well paying jobs for your district (at least to Congress).
F. (insert your favoriet special interest here)

In short, Fred was to be everything to everybody. Your belief that
a particular one of these was actually (we mean it this time) the
primary mission requires very very selective reading of history.

>Allen building SSF or any other large structure in space is a mere engineering
>exercise that we learned long ago. 

So why is the truss work package over a billion over budget and still
out of control? No Denis, since nothing like this has ever been build
in space before it cannot be called 'mere engineering'. 

>There are no mysteries involved in the process. 

Except for why in hell it takes twice as long and costs three times
what it is supposed to. (Although given NASA's poor performance in
almost every aspect of cost estimating and management maybe this
isn't that strange).

>Your analogy of the 
>house is an apt one. A house may keep you warm and dry, but if it is empty
>or the television does not work and the bed is broken and the lights don't 
>work you only have an empty shell which does nothing for the occupants or
>the people in general.

You mean aside from keeping them warm and dry? Most would consider a
house which keeps you warm and dry a resounding success. I myself would
prefer the above to a house which is cold and wet but has a working
television. Especially when you realize that the TV won't last long
in the wet house.

  Allen
-- 
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves        |
|  aws@iti.org     |  nothing undone"                                       |
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