arlan (04/28/83)
There are those of us who have dreamt of space travel since the 1940s. We avidly scoured magazines and libraries for the merest drops of information about rocketry, about the V2 and Viking tests at WSPG. We rejoiced at the l955 anouncement of the Vanguard Project. We also noted the next day that the Soviets had planned their own announcement months in advance. We had VERY mixed emotions when Sputnik Zemlya went into orbit; but we noted the density and decided it WAS a lump of steel with only a radio transmitter. We despised the publicity of the "grapefruit" Vanguard and were not too surprised at its demise before the world. Some of us knew of Redstone Arsenal's attempts to launch an Explorer surreptiously, and of the DoD's orders to Gen. Medaris personally to inspect the 1956 Redstone launching to prevent such a satellite attempt. We were barely surprised by the Gagarin event, but yet noted it was a rather primitive steel sphere. We have since watched the Soviets use exactly the same steel sphere design in all succeeding shots, as witness the front end of the Soyuz vehicle yet today. We have read with interest the political aims of the USSR space program during Khrushchev's regime, and how his orders caused the lack of space suits on the three cosmonauts who died in that same design of steel sphere. We loved the Mercury and Gemini launches and how most of Apollo performed, including the once per eon event of the first landing on another celestial body. We were not surprised that the USSR could not match that feat. Even today, were they to go, they would still be second, and that's no propaganda success. Yes, some of us have dreamed the dream and some of us have lived the life and some of us have seen it come true. After all that, when one person makes a joke about the Soviets' lack of advancement in space, about their failure ever to rendezvous before the US showed them how with Apollo-Soyuz hardware, let's be a little more gentle than to call him a name-calling six-year old. If the person who said that over this net has visited the launch sites, talked with the crews, tracked the missiles himself, and sweated out his designs during countdown, I will apologize to that man. If he is merely a computer jock with little or no engineering background, in design, test, or development, then I would say to him, "Who the hell is the six-year-old?" --arlan/indy
kcarroll (04/30/83)
Arlan, allow me to introduce myself: I'm somebody who's "dreamed the dream" for as long as my short lifetime has allowed me, who reads science-fiction to feed the dreams, and has become an aerospace engineer to help them to come true. I have a question for you... Which do you think is more important, that your country (I have to keep reminding myself that I don't live in the U.S.!) is beginning to reach into space, or that it is doing so ahead of the Russians? Which do you think is more important, that Spain began the exploration of the Americas, or that it started before the Dutch, and the Portugese, and the English? Do you make jokes about the feeble state of the Japanese space effort, or the British or the French? Probably not very often; they wouldn't have the same punch as a joke about the Soviets. When you're talking about something that's much larger than your country, you should try to let your viewpoint rise above the level of petty, nationalistic squabbles. And, if you don't think that they're petty, do you honestly think that in a thousand years, people will think that the fact that an ancient country called Russia was once at war with another ancient country called America, is more important than the reality of their (presumed) space-based culture? (assuming, of course, that neither of those countries decides to knock us back to the stone age in the meantime) Of course, it's obvious why you made your joke. The Russians proclaim their successes in space and hush up their failures, while the Americans televise all of their launches live, regardless of the risk of failure and disgrace, a la Vanguard, which only goes to show whose political system is morally more enlightened, doesn't it? However, objecting to your joke doesn't equate with denigrating all those who've dreamed the dream. Have you stopped to think that there are thousands of Russian engineers who've dreamed the same dream as you? Your joke insults them more than it does their ideology, which after all was your real target. There. I feel that as a gentle enough reproof, that I can do away with the "flame on/off" formalism. Kieran A. Carroll ...decvax!utzoo!kcarroll