Aucbvax.4171
fa.space
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!space
Fri Oct 2 04:13:06 1981
SPACE Digest V2 #2
>From OTA@SU-AI Fri Oct 2 04:06:02 1981
SPACE Digest Volume 2 : Issue 2
Today's Topics:
Remove me from list
Against the Halley Probe
Better than the dinosaurs
Down to the wire with Halley - M. Mitchell Waldrop article in SCIENCE
Proxmire
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Date: 1 October 1981 1359-EDT (Thursday)
From: Gregg.Podnar at CMU-10A
To: space-enthusiasts at mit-mc
Subject: Remove me from list
Message-Id: <01OCT81 135909 GP0E@CMU-10A>
Please remove me from the direct mailing list of the Space Digest as
my time and disk allocation are too full to read them often or store
them long enough to read them. Thanks very much but I'll have to catch
up on the bb from elsewhere. Keep 'em flying, Gregg
------------------------------
Date: 1 Oct 1981 1417-PDT
From: DIETZ at USC-ECL
Subject: Against the Halley Probe
To: space at MIT-MC
Granted, it would be nice to send a probe to Halley's comet. Granted,
Halley's comet only visits once every 76 years. But, is this probe
a good idea? I'd say NO.
What we need includes:
o Lunar polar orbiter (to look for ice at the moon's poles,
among other things).
o Asteroid rendevous (preferably with an apollo asteroid)
o A space station in low earth orbit
Every dollar spent on the halley probe is a dollar not spent on these
vital efforts. Admittedly, they are not as sexy as a halley probe -
but consider that the sexiest program of them all, the apollo program,
set our space program back ten years. It won't be long (if it hasn't
happened already) before people start thinking about space probes as
they did about apollo - a useless waste of taxpayer's dollars.
Our limited funds should be spent to enhance our future space effort,
not for the immediate gratification of nifty but less immediately useful
missions. And the national prestige argument is just plain silly.
I'm sure that spending $300 million on foreign aid would boost the world's
opinion of the US a lot more.
Any rebuttals?
-------
------------------------------
Date: 1 Oct 1981 16:51:08-PDT
From: decvax!yale-comix!bj at Berkeley
To: decvax!ucbvax!space-enthusiasts@Berkeley
Subject: Better than the dinosaurs
Cc: decvax!ucbvax!space@Berkeley
In yesterdays space digest, DIETZ at USC-ECL said:
Intelligence implies incredible adaptibility - so we are in
much better shape than the dinosaurs.
That may be true, but although we may not be able to wipe out humanity,
we can come close. The dinosaurs died, but only after about a hundred
million years. We are now in a situation where most of humanity could
be wiped out in a day. Just think what our intelligence will enable
us to destroy a hundred years from now.
B.J.
------------------------------
Date: 2 October 1981 01:48-EDT
From: Jerry E. Pournelle <POURNE MIT-MC AT>
Subject: Down to the wire with Halley - M. Mitchell Waldrop article in SCIENCE
To: AMSLER at SRI-AI
cc: "REPLY-TO:" at MIT-MC, SPACE at MIT-MC
I hate to say it, but Halley is dead given the budget cuts.
Dead, dead, dead. Which is no fun, but the NASA people on top do
put LEO base as a top priority.
I have to confess that if one MUST choose, they have made right
choice. Not that I like the choices, but at 20% interest rates...
------------------------------
Date: 2 October 1981 02:59 edt
From: Tavares.Multics at MIT-Multics
Subject: Proxmire
To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC
In-Reply-To: Message of 1 October 1981 07:02 edt from Ted Anderson
"Proxmired down" is a low pun. However, I like the innocent one
in the original message that mentioned "Proxmia Centauri". I propose
we christen that a "Galilean Slip".
------------------------------
End of SPACE Digest
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