🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <21JAN199320444611@judy.uh.edu>  
wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov writes:
> In article <ewright.727553712@convex.convex.com>, ewright@convex.com (Edward  
V. Wright) writes...
> >In <rabjab.31.727504007@golem.ucsd.edu> rabjab@golem.ucsd.edu (rabjab)  
writes:
> > 
> >>>        B. Support completion of the space station Freedom.
> > 
> >>Looks like Clinton is going to make some rather severe cuts in space
> >>projects.  And "supporting completion" doesn't mean actual completion.
> > 
> >You don't understand.  NASA doesn't *want* Space Station Freedom
> >completed.  
> > 
> 
> No you don't understand and your statement is a prime reason people like
> you are not listened to at NASA. Even looking at the proposition from a
> pragmatical political perspective, this statment of yours is false. Why?
> 
> If NASA drags their feet and does not finish the station costs soar and
> nothing gets done. 

Space Station Freedom was originally proposed in what? 1982?, was supposed to  
be on orbit and operational in 1992, and was supposed to cost a total of $8B.  
It is now 1993, not a single actual piece of Fred has been built (much less  
placed on orbit), and the estimated total cost is $40B and rising. Q.E.D.

I used to work for NASA (as an employee of Singer/Link, the former contractor  
on the Space Shuttle Flight Simulator at JSC) and also worked at the Lunar and  
Planetary Institute next door. I have friends who are still heavily involved in  
the space industry at various levels. I happen to think that the best thing  
Clinton could do would be to kill SS Fred and offer $10B, tax-free, to the  
first US corporation or consortium to put a station on orbit and keep it  
staffed by at least X people for a year and day. He should also offer $5B to  
the second corporation/consortium to do the same thing. The government would  
spend less, create more jobs, and built an 21st century industrial base.  
..bruce..

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Bruce F. Webster             |  We hackers linger by our leading edge
CTO, Pages Software Inc      |  Forgetting what is pending in the cache
bwebster@pages.com           |  Till practice hurtles past us, and we crash.
#import <pages/disclaimer.h> |            -- Jeff Duntemann
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