uda@majestix.liu.se (Ulf Dahlen) (10/04/88)
It is really quite astonishing reading all these articles saying how awfully
stupid and ill-planned the US Space Program is, how much better everybody
else is, how absolutely sure everyone was that the SRBs was just on the verge
of falling apart and so on. Don't you Americans have any self-confidence
left? I still consider the US the leader in Space and I'm sure I'm not alone.
An accident was bound to come. But NASA has shown itself capable of handling
this. Of course there will be more accidents in the future, and of course
there will be people screwing things up. The real difference betweed US and
Russia is that your explosions are shown live on TV, Russia's are covered up
and never mentioned publically [we may see some change here though, with
Gorbatjov, glasnost and perestrojka].
Haven't you guys seen "Kelly's Heroes"? Then you should have learned not
to spread these negative vibrations around. Think positive!
I don't mean to say there isn't any problems, and that you shouldn't try
to improve the US Space Program, but I really think you are giving yourself
to hard a punishment.
The benefits of having humans, not just robots, in space are really
significant. The Space Shuttle *is* basically a good idea. In say 200
years time it will be remembered as the start of the Space Era.
[Sorry if I've misspelled anything or done some other injustice to your
language...]
__________
Ulf Dahlen
Dept of Computer & Info Science, University of Linkoping, Sweden
Troskaregatan 51:23 | uda@ida.liu.se
S-583 30 LINKOPING | uda@majestix.liu.se, uda@majestix.UUCP
SWEDEN | {mcvax,munnari,seismo}!enea!liuida!uda
"The beginning is a very delicate time."tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff) (10/10/88)
Well, the next time we need the "Kelly's Heroes"-watching Swedish academic perspective on just how much we ought to be punishing ourself over our space program's problems, we know right where to go, don't we? At any rate, I'm grateful to get filled in on the "difference" between the US and Soviet space programs. Here all this time I thought it was that they're launching about 20 times as much stuff as we are! Silly me! -- Tom Neff UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff "None of your toys CIS: 76556,2536 MCI: TNEFF will function..." GEnie: TOMNEFF BIX: t.neff (no kidding)
uda@majestix.liu.se (Ulf Dahlen) (10/12/88)
In article <6877@dasys1.UUCP> tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes: >Well, the next time we need the "Kelly's Heroes"-watching Swedish >academic perspective on just how much we ought to be punishing ourself >over our space program's problems, we know right where to go, don't we? > >At any rate, I'm grateful to get filled in on the "difference" between >the US and Soviet space programs. Here all this time I thought it was >that they're launching about 20 times as much stuff as we are! Silly me! If that is your way of telling me to go and bury myself, I would just like to point out that I was only trying to encourage you a bit. :-) on As you pointed out, we do nothing but watching stupid American movies over here. We also have no knowledge whatsoever about anything that happens in space. It's really strange that anyone in Sweden even bothers to read sci.space.shuttle. :-) off The big difference between east and west *is* the difference between democracy and dictatorship. Maybe the russians are shuffling more junk into space just now, but I am much more happy living in Sweden with NO space program, than in the Soviet Union. Of course, the facts are that you are a bit behind at the moment. The Russians and the Europeans have hade some real progress in their space programs. This is an ideal opportunity to increase the co-operation between Europe and USA *and* between East and West. That's what you ought to be doing. __________ Ulf Dahlen Dept of Computer & Info Science, University of Linkoping, Sweden Troskaregatan 51:23 | uda@ida.liu.se S-583 30 LINKOPING | uda@majestix.liu.se, uda@majestix.UUCP SWEDEN | {mcvax,munnari,seismo}!enea!liuida!uda "The beginning is a very delicate time."