Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V15_2/V15NO253.TXT

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Date: Sun, 27 Sep 92 05:02:12
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V15 #253
To: Space Digest Readers
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Space Digest                Sun, 27 Sep 92       Volume 15 : Issue 253

Today's Topics:
                              govn't R&D
 Nick Szabo Disinformation debunking (Re: Clinton and Space Funding)

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Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 02:52:00 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: govn't R&D
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,talk.politics.space,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Nick Szabo) writes...
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jason D Corley ) writes:
>>

>We're looking for stuff that is (a) useful, so people will pay for
>it and (b) builds a market for industrial capabilities like launch
>vehicles that help the entire space industry.  The answer to the
>dilemna could well be this: NASA should conduct research,
>build prototypes, and publish them; commercial industry should implement
>and operate. NASA should not presume to predict the industries of the
>future; it should follow the lead of commerce and do research in support
>of it (esp. comsats, launch vehicle technology, and the airline industry
>should be the biggest engineering programs under its charter).  It
>should also engange in exploration for it's own sake; we're not so
>poor that we can't afford to expand our horizons.
>
>
This is exactly what NASA USED to do.  The first Saturn I and Saturn V were
built at Marshall under the direction of the Von Braun team.  With the
Saturn I the production was then turned over to Chrysler.  With the Saturn V
the production was then turned over to Boeing and Rockwell.  This only
is true for the main stages, the CSM and LM were done at Rockwell Downey and
Grumman Bethpage respectively.

NASA in the seventies and eighties largely lost this capability, especially
at Marshall.  In the last few years some of this has been rebuilt with
the reactiviation of the Saturn test stands and the Solid booster work done
here.  NASA has tried to bring some of the development work for SSF back in
house as well.  They hired a whole floor of Teledyne Brown people to work
at the same job but for NASA on station.  The corporations scream bloody
murder everytime NASA tries to go further however.

Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 03:07:00 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Nick Szabo Disinformation debunking (Re: Clinton and Space Funding)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,talk.politics.space,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Nick Szabo) writes...
>In article <[e-mail]> rn11195@sage (Robert Nehls) writes:
>
>>Like it or not, the two main technology drivers for the
>>last 5 decades have been first the military and then the space program.
>
>Whether we like it or not, it's probably not true.  Most of the patents,
>and most of the important inventions like transistors and genetic

>engineering, have come outside the sphere of these programs.
>
>>Billions of dollars have been cut from the defense budget.  Where has this
>>money gone?  No one talks about that.
>
>Most of it has gone into medical care subsidies.  Unfortuneately most
>of that is for paperwork, not advancing medical technology.  There
>have also been big increases at HUD, EPA, and Education.  These easily
>dwarf the savings from defense, which is only a small fraction of
>the budget these days.  Bush and the current Congress are the most
>profligate spenders since World War II, and they're not doing anything
>as important as fighting Nazis.
>
>>[Japan's success came at end of Cold War].
>
>Not true.  Japan has been growing faster than U.S. economically
>since World War II, because the U.S. was taking more money out of
>the private sector and spending it on the Cold War.  Japan spends
>much more of its R&D funds in the private sector than the U.S., and
>most of its public-sector projects have failed just like ours
>have here (shuttle, Clinch River breeder reactor, fusion program,
>synfuels, etc. all failed to produce as promised -- public R&D
>has an incredibly dismal record!)   Since the end of the Cold War,
>Japan's stock market has crashed, in anticipation of a flux of talent
>and money into the U.S. private sector giving us a trade advantage.
>If we put that money into commercially useless projects like space
>stations and Apollo reruns, we will lose that advantage.  If we
>put it into commercially important areas like comsats and the airline
>industry, as well as judicious amounts into long-term exploration
>and research, we are much more likely to gain competitiveness.
>
>
Geez Nick

1. Shuttle is not a failure 49 out of 50 ain't bad.  Look to Congress and
Cap Wineburger for the high operational costs of the shuttle.

2. Clinch River Breeder.  Congress cut the money due to Three Mile Island and
the anti-nuclear hysteria.

3.  Synfuels.  Jimmy Carter's idea to destroy mountains in the west for
shale oil.  Would have been so toxic to the environment that even the
oil companies did not want to deal with it.  Bad idea pushed by so called
environmentalist President (can you name his latter day descendant?) Of Gore
you can.

4. Fusion.  Still the best long term solution to both terrestrial energy
needs and intra-solar system propulsion systems.  No failures in the technology
just failure of will in Congress to fund this needed technology.

Sorry Nick to keep doing this but as I have written him in personal mail, we
look at the same evidence and most of the time come up with the opposite
conclusions.  Only history will prove which is right.

When Government R&D has been given a specific, concrete goal and has been
given the resources to carry it out, (Early American canal system, Railroads,
Panama canal, WWII, A bombs, H Bombs, Apollo) it has been wildly successful.
The common denomonator in the above so called failures is a lack of will and
lack of vision (sense of purpose) in carrying the effort to its finish.

Where government has been a dismal failure is in pursing general goals using
the specific goal approach, (war on poverty, Great Society, Welfare system,
income redistribution,)  This was very well laid out in the book " Heavens and
the Earth".

Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville

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End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 253
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