Newsgroups: sci.space
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: space news from June 19 AW&ST, and Apollo-anniversary editorial
Message-ID: <1989Jul22.231302.24043@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1989Jul21.031420.1292@utzoo.uucp> <14479@bfmny0.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 89 23:13:02 GMT

In article <14479@bfmny0.UUCP> tneff@bfmny0.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes:
>>            ... You can ride the bus, but you have to pay in Swiss francs
>>and learn Russian first... 
>
>The UK will be sending a cosmonaut up in 1991 (oooh, where are you Eric
>Blair!), they are not paying in SFr and although, with 13,000
>applicants[!], HMG has the luxury of making an acquaintance with Russian
>a requirement, I don't believe the Soviets themselves impose it on
>visitors.

I was exaggerating a little bit for effect; payment in "hard currency"
is what's wanted.  Rubles are specifically not included (!).  (I don't know
how they feel about US$... :-))  I believe the official price is stated in
Swiss francs.

As for speaking Russian, my understanding is that that is a non-negotiable
safety requirement, and yes, the British cosmonaut will have to either know
Russian or learn it damn fast.  In any case he's got to spend a while (one
year?) in training at Star City, and that will undoubtedly require Russian
as a practical matter.

>The most dangerous fallacy in this editorial is the equation of
>*conquering space* with *you [the reader] going.*

We have not realistically "conquered" space, in the sense that we have
conquered the oceans, until anyone with a good reason or a good credit
rating can go.  *Without* waiting years, *without* begging permission
from 57 layers of bureaucrats, and *without* having to justify it to
anyone except himself.

>It's pointless to
>cheerlead a guaranteed non-starter.  None of us will go to Mars, unless
>someone's kid is reading this. 

Some of us disagree... the odds are not good but not zero.

>But we could put a rover and sample
>return mission there before your present lawn mower gives out if we
>wanted to.  How about some space activism about THAT.

If cheerleading is what you want to do, by all means do so.  But robot
missions that are not part of any sort of ongoing plan for expanding
exploration are a spectator sport for all but a handful of scientists.
I can't get too excited about supporting spectator sports any more.
I'll watch the results, for sure, but invest effort?  No.

>>1961-1969: 8 years of Apollo.  |
>>1969-1989: 20 years of nothing.|
>
>Tell it to the boys at Taurus Littrow... to Skylab... Viking... IRAS...
>Solar Max... Mir... Voyager...  HST... Magellan... and please, don't 
>forget to tell Christa.

After discounting a bit for poetic licence in the signature -- obviously
Apollo and its brethren did not drop dead at the end of 1969 -- nearly
all of the programs you cite are remnants from those days.  Some of them
have had a very long wait in the queue.  The queue after them looks pretty
bare.

Voyager, on the other hand, is very much the sort of thing I was talking
about.  I do take my hat off to the Rutans and Yeager.  Oh, you meant the
*space mission*? :-)  Although I'm as eager as anyone to see what comes
of the Neptune encounter, I can't help remembering that (a) Voyager is the
leftovers from a rather more ambitious set of missions, (b) it is the
second project to bear that name, and frankly I'd have preferred the
first, and (c) it too is an Apollo-era leftover with *NO* planned followup.

As for Christa...  The saddest thing about her death is how *significant*
it was that a non-astronaut was finally going up on the shuttle -- the
system that was specifically meant to give non-astronauts access to space.
Followed, as a close second, by the fact that her death has effectively
ended that idea for the foreseeable future.  (NASA would like to end it
permanently, but so far hasn't quite dared to make that official.)
-- 
1961-1969: 8 years of Apollo.  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
1969-1989: 20 years of nothing.| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
