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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 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 ******************* ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.