🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1529@ubu.warwick.UUCP> arg@opal.UUCP (Ruaraidh Gillies) writes:
>>>The fact is that there's a helluva difference between airlines sending up
>>>non-airline people and space agencies sending up non-space people...
>>
>>Please explain:  what *is* the difference?
>
>The difference is that the airlines are set up as passenger movement
>companies...

They are set up as passenger and freight movement companies, actually.
The Soviet space-launch operation appears to be set up the same way.
The US shuttle tries to work that way, despite various protestations
to the contrary motivated by recent politics.

>NASA is an organisation with the job of implementing the
>American Space Program. Space flight is risky stuff, and whilst flying from
>Heathrow to JFK is no walk in the park, it's an awful lot easier and common.

Didn't used to be.  Airlines got started back when airflight was also
risky and uncommon.

>>The Soviets have been flying Soyuz missions for a [long time].
>Yes but they haven't been trading as a flashy airline (who wants to take
>off from Baikonur and land in Soviet Central Asia for the sheer hell of it?
>:-])

They've been trading as a boring, drab, state-run airline, actually.
What else?  As for the location, what matters is not the destination but
the ride!  Perhaps you wouldn't take that ride if offered; I would!!
I couldn't care less how boring the starting and ending points are.
(Come to that, central Florida isn't too thrilling a place, either.
I've been there.  I wasn't bored; I had launch 41C to keep me interested.
I wouldn't expect to be bored at Baikonur, either.)

>... When an entire orbital vehicle explodes, killing all aboard, many
>people are too shocked to think about getting back to business.

Curiously so, since the same effect doesn't operate for oh-so-much-more-
reliable airliners.

> I remember
>Sally Ride said that no astronaut was going to get in a Shuttle until they
>were sure it was safe.

Sally Ride did not speak for all the astronauts.  If post-Challenger
flights had continued, urgent payloads only, volunteer crews only,
there would have been no shortage of astronauts volunteering.  Some
of them said so at the time (quietly, because the official NASA
position was as Sally Ride described).  Remember, many of these people
are/were test pilots, accustomed to flying vehicles which are known to
be risky.  Others were scientists who simply wanted to fly again, and
if that meant some risks, fine.  Taken at literal face value, Ride's
statement is nonsense -- the shuttle is not, and will never be, safe
in any absolute sense.  Just like aircraft.

>>(Apollo 1 put the US space program back only 18 months
>  ^^^^^^^^
>  Was this the launch pad fire that killed Grissom et al?

Yes.

>I still stick by my original thinking that nothing good will come of
>sending civilians into space for nothing more than propaganda and adventure

I still stick by *my* response, that nothing good comes of sending civilians
up in aircraft for nothing more than visiting relatives, and this obviously
should be forbidden as a silly waste of resources, even if said civilians
can pay the fare and the airline is making a profit on it.

[From Rick Wojcik's posting, same theme:]

>>Why [are space flights] "priceless"?  The Soviets have had no hesitation in
>>putting a price on it...
>
>Soviet politicians, like ours, wish to exploit the space program to achieve
>short term political goals.  Right now, it tickles their fancy to have the
>appearance of routine space flights when our program is in disarray...

What on Earth (or in space :-)) are you talking about?  They don't need
to have the "appearance" of routine space flights -- they have routine
space flights, and have had them for years.

>They
>aren't just selling flights.  They are broadcasting a propaganda message.  How
>much profit do you think they make by 'selling' their flights to to
>Westerners?  This is not a commercial exercise.  It is a propaganda exercise.

I don't deny that they are exploiting it for all the political gain they
can get.  However, it is a mistake to assume that they're subsidizing it.
I've previously posted a back-of-the-envelope calculation showing that,
at their current prices, it is almost impossible for them to be losing
money on it.  I, for one, think they're making a real, cash profit.

>Each space flight is priceless because we can only afford to support a limited
>number...

What do you mean "we", comrade? :-)  Speak for your own country, which flies
fewer payloads in a year than the Soviets fly in a month.  Saying something
is "priceless" is a debating tactic, not a statement of fact.  There is
always a price.

>We know so little about space and its effects on humans that we need
>every opportunity to expand our knowledge...

Don't you think this knowledge is likely to be expanded by flying a wider
cross-section of people than athletic professional astronauts?

>... There is
>always the danger that space flight will be ended permanently because we can
>no longer afford the resources to sustain it.

Nonsense.  Spaceflight consumes an utterly negligible fraction of the
world's resources, especially when it is done economically and efficiently
(not a US specialty).  What is dangerously low is not resources, but will.
In the US, that is.

>Even Jake Garn did some 'useful' things.  But there is enough work up there so
>that it is more cost-effective to let scientists perform the experiments.
>They, at least, know what they are doing.

Tell that to NASA, which prefers professional astronauts (who are *not*,
repeat *not*, scientists -- ask a scientist).

>>Speak for your own country, comrade. :-)  Truly spacefaring nations (there
>>is currently one on Earth) can afford to use space for many purposes.
>
>You insist that the space program turns a profit?  Do you have an estimate on
>how much money it brings into the national treasury?  How much do you think
>the Soviets are making?  This is indeed good news.

It certainly doesn't bring any money into the US treasury; note that my
comments addressed only spacefaring nations, which the US is not, despite
clumsy attempts in that direction.  As for the Soviets, they're working
on it.  Remember that their treasury and their economy are one and the
same, so they can count up indirect benefits as well as direct ones.

>>... The USSR is selling
>>commercial flights into space, today.  This is a verifiable fact; call them
>>up and ask them.
>
>Call up who?  Pravda?  The Soviet Embassy in Washington? ...

The embassy could probably refer you to the right place:  Space Commerce
Corp. in Houston, the US representatives for most Soviet space services.

>...  The point
>of putting a civilian teacher up there was to demonstrate the safety and
>competence of our space program.

I've heard this theory a number of times since Challenger, but as near
as I can tell it was never advanced earlier.  The real motive behind
the Citizens In Space program (of which Teacher In Space was the first
phase) was to give US citizens some feeling of involvement in a program
that they had no hope of ever participating in personally.  Certainly
the participants had no illusions about it being safe -- note that
practically none of the applicants withdrew after Challenger.

>The public really had their attention focused on that flight.

Really?  I detected no signs of such great excitement at the time.
"Another shuttle flight?  Yawn.  Oh, the teacher is going up on this
one?  Must be thrilling for her students.  Yawn."

>Do you really think that this is the time to send up
>a bunch of entertainers?

Why not, if they make it clear that they understand the risks?

>Another disaster with them, and you can kiss our
>space program goodbye. 

If it happened in the US, perhaps.  But the problem will be the same if
that disaster happens with only professional astronauts aboard.

>The idea of getting people to "take over" our space
>program, operating it as a commercial venture, went out the window because it
>was impractical.  It was dreamed up by people who thought that the free market
>was the answer to everything...

Yes, ridiculous uncommercial people like Boeing.  And it went out the
window because NASA wasn't interested in relinquishing control, despite
a few encouraging noises early on.
-- 
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