🚀 go-pugleaf

All this chatter about how to take out a shuttle is going to have ears
waggling at NSA, folks.  Watch your backs!

That said, I second Jim Meritt's concern - was just about to say the
same thing.  You don't need to wait for boost phase.  Once cryos are
aboard, STS is a huge bomb.  It wouldn't take much to do the job right
there on the pad.

Nor do you really need such direct technicolor methods to "deny" the US
access to space.  There are a zillion failure points in the whole
system.  How many people wondered where the ammonium perchlorate came
from until last month?  Do we have another crawler handy?  How's the
guard on the OPF or VAB during off-mission cycles?  Are things pretty
stable politically in, say, Dakar?

As we know from nail-biting current experience, a stray puff of H2 or
an out-of-round clamp can set the schedule back days or weeks.  You have
just got to believe that if some sinister Unseen Presence ever gave the
order, we could be set back half a year or more.  Maybe a critical
half year depending on what's going on.

Nor would there likely be any conveniently incriminating Cuban SAM tailfin
lying around afterwards.  More likely you'd have yet another "terrorist
incident" with no one to go to war against.

-- 
Tom Neff			UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff
	"None of your toys	CIS: 76556,2536	       MCI: TNEFF
	 will function..."	GEnie: TOMNEFF	       BIX: t.neff (no kidding)