[sci.space] State SPACEPAC rankings

PJS@GROUCH.JPL.NASA.GOV (Peter Scott) (02/14/89)

This is excerpted from the space activists' digest 
(space-activists@turing.cs.rpi.edu):

>Subject: Spacepac ratings by State
>From: Scott Pace <pace%tp3@rand.org>
 
>In playing with the last set of Congressional ratings by Spacepac (1988
>edition), we took averages for each State's House delegation.  This gave us
>a rough measure of the Spacepac "rating" of each state.  Ratings of 70% or
>more were called pro-space, while 0-50% were called anti-space. This gave
>us 15 pro-space states, 9 anti-space states, and 26 "swing" states.
 
>The ranking was:
>Alaska          91    [#1]

Excuse me???  I mean, I can understand figures like

>Florida         87.6  [#3]

and naturally

>Wisconsin       43.3  [#45]

although I was surprised somewhat by the poor standing of

>California      66.5  [#20]

but why in God's name is Alaska *first*, significantly beyond the pack??
What are they doing up there to get that kind of support???!!?

Peter Scott (pjs@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov)

szabonj@minke (Nick Szabo) (02/14/89)

In article <890213103429.0000076D091@grouch.JPL.NASA.GOV> PJS@GROUCH.JPL.NASA.GOV (Peter Scott) writes:
>
>why in God's name is Alaska *first*, significantly beyond the pack??
>What are they doing up there to get that kind of support???!!?

Alaska is the only (Earth-bound) U.S. frontier.  Perhaps there is
a psychology among its residents that lends support to the opening of
still more frontiers.

Nick Szabo              szabonj@fred.cs.washington.edu

dmocsny@uceng.UC.EDU (daniel mocsny) (02/15/89)

In article <126@beaver.cs.washington.edu>, szabonj@minke (Nick Szabo) writes:
> Alaska is the only (Earth-bound) U.S. frontier. 

How about our continental shelves? International waters?  70% of our
planet's surface is essentially undeveloped. We still have geographic
frontiers (no need to get abstract, either).

Dan Mocsny
dmocsny@uceng.uc.edu