HIGGINS@FNAL.BITNET (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) (03/30/89)
Peter Yee (trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov) posted a NASA press
release by Sarah Keegan and Jeffrey Carr about Capt. Frederick Hauck, USN.
"In November 1984, Hauck was STS-51A mission commander, the
first space salvage mission in history. Hauck and crew retrieved
and returned to Earth the Palapa B-2 and Westar VI communications
satellites after deploying Anik D-2 and LEASAT-1 satellites."
Apollo 12 landed on the Moon near the old Surveyor 3 spacecraft, and Bean
and Shepard removed a few parts for study on Earth. Doesn't this count
as "the first space salvage mission?" I think if you try to deny it, you'll
find yourself getting real fussy about the definition of "salvage."
I'm a little disturbed that the people writing NASA's press releases still
emphasize "firsts" so often, despite all the criticism lobbed at such practices
over the years.
The 14 March release (by Charles Redmond and James Hartsfield) Peter posted in
Space Digest v9 n301 was even worse: "DISCOVERY'S RETURN-TO-FLIGHT PHOTOGRAPHS
RECORD MANY FIRSTS...For the first time in Shuttle history, Africa's Niger
river was photographed in full flood and out of its banks...for the first time,
an aircraft was photographed generating a contrail..."
There's a basic dichotomy that Space Cadets suffer. Space flights should be
Special Events, and we should drop everything else and watch them, and soak up
every detail we can find, because we want to share in the great adventure.
(Remember getting a TV in your classroom to watch Mercury and Gemini launches?)
But space flights should be Routine Events, a part of everyday life, a casually
accepted reminder that our race can get people and hardware into orbit any time
it really wants to.
We love to hear about every detail of this stuff, but we also want our world to
become a "spacefaring civilization," and in a spacefaring civlization one more
launch or one more landing would be no big deal. Our press seems to have come
down mostly on the side of No Big Deal, leaving us space freaks to scramble for
information wherever we can get it. Reporters don't cover every moment of a
transatlantic marine voyage. And if you hung out at the airport, interviewing
pilots, crew, and mechanics about this afternoon's upcoming flight to Podunk,
and asking them their opinion about the future of aviation (sometimes known as
"the U.S. manned air program")-- well, you'd be considered dotty at best. See
the paradox?
I suppose we should be grateful for NASA Select, and sci.space, and the few
magazines that do cater to the likes of us. And to those NASA publicists
tirelessly searching for new "firsts."
______meson Bill Higgins
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