🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3015@eos.UUCP> steve@eos.UUCP (Steve Philipson) writes:
>> ... Airlines got started back when airflight was also risky and uncommon.
>
>   True, but aircraft could be bought in quantity by single companies with
>the express intent of making a profit.  Space flight has taken considerably
>larger investment to get going, with a large percentage of it coming from
>public funds...

Aircraft capable of carrying useful passenger loads were more expensive
than you think, especially compared to the purchasing power of the fledgling
airlines.  The fact is, airlines which tried to make money carrying
passengers and ordinary freight consistently went broke in the early years.
The US airline industry, and its aircraft suppliers, were kept alive by
lucrative government air-mail contracts.  No equivalent for spaceflight
has yet appeared.

>Perhaps we haven't let private companies jump into space,
>but the government hasn't been overwhelmed with requests from companies 
>desiring to build AND FINANCE entire launch systems (including launch pads 
>and recovery facilities) on their own.  

There has been ample interest, but a distinct lack of cooperation from the
government.  Remember the proposals for privately-financed shuttle orbiters?
NASA basically "considered" them until they died.  Amroc *wanted* to set up
their own launch facility, as I recall, but ran into so many government
obstacles that they gave up and are building a launch pad at Vandenberg
instead, under the government's thumb (precisely where the government
wants them, of course).

>> ... NASA, which prefers professional astronauts (who are *not*,
>> repeat *not*, scientists -- ask a scientist).
>
>   Tell *that* to Taylor Wang at JPL.  If he's not a professional scientist,
>who is? ...

I'm not familiar with Wang's status -- is he a mission specialist, or just
a payload specialist?  (The latter will fly damn seldom under NASA's post-
Challenger policies:  only when NASA can't find any excuse to avoid it.)
If he's a career astronaut (mission specialist or pilot), he will probably
find it impossible to maintain an active scientific career -- that's been
the experience of others.

>... "Seafaring" as a noun is defined "a mariner's calling". "Spacefaring"
>could thus be defined as an astronaut's calling.  The US has career
>astronauts, we have been sending them into space for some two and a half
>decades, and we continue to do so.  Perhaps we don't do it at the rate
>that the Soviets do, but does that mean it isn't happening? ...

One did not call a nation "seafaring" because it occasionally sent out
a small ship on a brief voyage.  That term was applied only when the
nation was persistently active on a considerable scale, so that the
nation and its people had routine access to the seas for any purpose
that appeared worthwhile.  The US does not have routine access to space
(the shuttle program specifically promised it, and failed to deliver).
It has occasional, brief, extremely expensive access to space for a few
people.  Take a look at the backlog of payloads if you doubt this -- and
those were the payloads that had already fought their way through the
enormous bureaucracy that surrounds the shuttle.  Then talk to the
US microgravity experimenters who are booking payload space on Soyuz
flights to Mir because they can't get it on the shuttle.

>  [re: the last flight of Challenger and the Teacher In Space program]
> 
>> 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."
>
>   If you had read the papers at the time, or watched TV news, you might
>have noticed that her students were cheering wildly at launch...

I'd probably be cheering at the launch too, if my sister were going up.
So what?  I was talking about general public interest, not that of a handful
of people with indirect personal involvement.

>   Citizens in this country can, and do, work to get more support for 
>space activities, but we work within the constraints of our system.  You 
>seem to be upset with us for not doing enough.  So what are YOU doing to 
>promote space exploration?

For one thing, I keep trying to prod people into looking at the situation
in the US and realizing just how bad it really is.  Never mind the really
optimistic predictions; merely looking at the predictions made early in
the current shuttle program is enough to make you cry.  The dream may be
alive, but not at NASA headquarters.
-- 
Welcome to Mars!  Your         |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
passport and visa, comrade?    | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu