Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/pc/text/spacedig/v16_6/v16no603.txt

Internet Message Format | 1993-07-13 | 31KB

Date: Fri, 21 May 93 05:34:04
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V16 #603
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Fri, 21 May 93       Volume 16 : Issue 603

Today's Topics:
                      About the mercury program
                       Dark sky property rights
                    Draft of SSTO report language
                   Impediments to NASA productivity
                  Ion-photon rockets, what are they?
     Liberal President murders spaceflight? (was Re: SDIO kaput!)
                           Murder in space
                      Orion Spacecraft (3 msgs)
                    Questions for KC-135 veterans
                 Satellite Capabilities-Patriot Games
                   SDI RIP.  So what happens to DC?
            Space Billboards and Low-Cost Access to Orbit
           Vandalizing the sky-something is moving (2 msgs)
           Why Government? Re: Shuttle, "Centoxin" (2 msgs)

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

Date: 20 May 1993 12:25:10 -0400
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: About the mercury program
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Chris Jones) writes:
|In article <1tb0uo$[e-mail]>, prb@access (Pat) writes:
|>
|>
|>a few questions.
|>
|>    When Glenn flew in Friendship 7,  he spotted a large
|>cloud of "fireflies".  What were they?
|
|On the next flight, Carpenter was able to reproduce them by banging on the
|inside walls of his capsule.  I believe they were concluded to be ice
|particles.
|

Where were the ice crystals coming from?  Condensed humidity
from the air,  flash freezing at altitude???  or were there
some cryo tanks, soemwhere aft for O2?

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

Date: Thu, 20 May 1993 16:27:00 GMT
From: Jim Hart <[e-mail]>
Subject: Dark sky property rights
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space,sci.econ

[e-mail] (Tom Tilley) writes:

>So instead of passing a law to regulate the commons, we pass a law
>defining a form of "sight-line property" (which is really, by its
>nature, a commons regardless of what we want to call it)?

No, it's a specific divisible, fungible, tradeable  property, in units of
artificial or reflected megacandles (physical units of light).  Line
of site is not involved except in terms of time-of-day, but that
to do with other sources of light (eg astronomers more likely
to sell megacandles at sunrise, sunset, full moon, etc.) not
with defining one individual's right to an entire dark sky,
which would be a nonsensical, unenforceable right.

Since shares are fungible, an individual share would typically
only account for a tiny fraction of the megacandles (see below).
So your refusal to sell, or another's decision to sell, would
only have a minor impact; the conensus reached by the
active astronomers as to the value of night sky vs. the value
of, eg new equipment would go farthest towards determining how many
megacandles of ad "space" are made available to commerce.  And, on
the demand side, how much advertisers are willing too pay -- not much,
probably, it's a pretty poor medium, I doubt they'll even be able to
afford to launch the satellite, much less buy a significant number
of megacandles.

>["nature lover"],
>so I guess I hold an ownership share.

Sorry, you can't simply claim a share, we are not talking here
about socialist utopian notions like "the common heritage of
mankind."  You have to demonstrate that you've made an investment
in the use of dark sky.  I've suggested distributing shares to
organizations and individuals in proportion to the amount of money
they've invested in ground-based astronomy equipment.  That's simple,
measurable, and reasonably fair.  There may be other good ways to
distribute the dark sky, based on measuring the amount invested in using
or improving our view of the sky, based on the common-law tradition of
right-by-usage.

Jim Hart
[e-mail]

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

Date: 20 May 1993 12:12:34 -0400
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: Draft of SSTO report language
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

You can't tell the players without a ScoreCard.

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

Date: 20 May 1993 11:59:11 -0400
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: Impediments to NASA productivity
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>out of work," are all phrases which come to mind.  Every time a change
>is proposed, our NASA culture has taught us to shoot holes in it,
>inventing reasons why the change will not work.  (For numerous


Gee,  I wonder if [e-mail] is really a sendmail alias
for [e-mail]?

Ken  proposes in essence implementation of Performance
based budgeting systems,  wherein,  budget requests
are tied to previous performance.

It's very messy.  I like it myself,  but it's not as easy as
you think.  The launch pressure  from missing reagans state of the
union speech,  contributed to the loss of 51-L.  What makes you
think that a loss of direct budget due to a slipped  deadline won't
make things worse?

But certainly,  numerous programs  could use PBBS.

pat

Oh and as for procurement.  Low cost is non-sense.  Every Bid has
purchase criteria,  and the experience of the  contractor management team,
prevvious history on similiar projects,  and solution quality are
often 2/3rds of the bid selection criteria.  I worked for years in a
small company,  that  was turned down for  bids, based on these
very arbitrary  criteria.  We ended up going into commercial
work,  because  there was less  non-sense on the procurements.
award cycles took 30 days,  you'd get your checks monthly.

pat

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

Date: 20 May 93 15:21:45 GMT
From: Gopinath Kuduvalli <[e-mail]>
Subject: Ion-photon rockets, what are they?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In the late sixties and early seventies, when space was considered the
next frontier to explore, there were a number of ideas of floating around
as promising for long distance space travel. One of the concepts heard at
that time was called "ion-photon rocket," if I remember right. I think
the idea was that ion-photon mehcanism (whatever that is) gave a slow
and sustained acceleration that resulted in very high velocity given
enough time. Does anybody know anything about the concept? If so, can you
describe it in a few words? Or give some references?

Cheers,

-- Gopi

Dr. Gopi Kuduvalli         |e-mail: [e-mail]
MacDonald Dettwiler & Associates |Phone: [phone] (Office)
13800 Commerce Pkwy         |     [phone] (Home)
Richmond, BC V7C 1G4, CANADA     |Fax:     [phone]

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

Date: Thu, 20 May 1993 17:34:14 GMT
From: Herman Rubin <[e-mail]>
Subject: Liberal President murders spaceflight? (was Re: SDIO kaput!)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <1tepf5$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pat) writes:
>In article <1tdnpb$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Charles J. Divine) writes:
>|Carter himself did not seem that protechnology in general.  His
>|general approach to problems seemed to be puritanical preaching --
>|not let's see what we can do.

>Let's not forget,  Carter was a nuclear engineer,
>and seemed a whole lot more realistic  about what could be done
>as opposed to reagan  who had no idea  what the laws of physics were.

Carter' knowledge of nuclear engineering corresponds to that of the
person who runs a locomotive about what is usually called engineering.
He was not antitechnology, but he had the layman's attitude about R&D.
--
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: [phone]
[e-mail] (Internet, bitnet)
{purdue,pur-ee}!snap.stat!hrubin(UUCP)

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

Date: 20 May 1993 19:04:55 GMT
From: "Palmer T. Davis" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Murder in space
Newsgroups: sci.space

In a previous article, [e-mail] (Steven Fisk) says:
>
>  For example, assuming that the
>  murderer was the only one left aboard one of the space shuttles, how are
>  you going to get him/her to land the thing?! I realize that eventually all
>  of the oxygen, food, water, etc. would be used up, but the murderer might
>  also decide that going back to earth and facing an arrest not to mention
>  the electric chair would be just as bad or worse than dying in space.

There is, of course, no guarantee that the murderer would indeed receive
the death penalty; relatively few murders actually result in such a sentence.
A more likely outcome might be the murderer landing or ditching the orbiter
in some place with no extradition treaty with the United States (or with
an unfriendly government willing to harbor this individual in return for
the orbiter).
--
Palmer T. Davis      ___      UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of
<[e-mail]>   \X/   this IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED.

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

Date: Thu, 20 May 1993 15:33:32 GMT
From: fred j mccall 575-3539 <[e-mail]>
Subject: Orion Spacecraft
Newsgroups: sci.space

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Colby Hayward) writes:

>    This is sort of a crossover from a question I asked on sci.military;
>If anyone here has heard of the proposed Orion spacecraft, they may be
>wondering the same thing.

>    Apparently, the Orion has a large "pusher plate" (read: shock
>absorber) built into the rear of the vessel.  It propels (sp?) itself by
>dropping nukes out the back, and detonating them at (relatively) short
>range.  The shockwave is supposed to propel the ship forward.

>    WHAT shockwave?  Aren't we in near vaccuum, here?  :)

Expanding plasma from the explosion is all the shockwave you need.
These things are exploded *close*.  It works the same way any other
rocket does, except that it's pulsed and the combustion chamber is
'slightly' more external than most.

--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[e-mail] - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.

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

Date: Thu, 20 May 1993 13:13:03 -0400
From: Kevin William Ryan <[e-mail]>
Subject: Orion Spacecraft
Newsgroups: sci.space

    Sorry about the previous aborted reply - there are days when I
_hate_ that editor...

[e-mail] (Colby Hayward)
>    Apparently, the Orion has a large "pusher plate" (read: shock
>absorber) built into the rear of the vessel.  It propels (sp?) itself by
>dropping nukes out the back, and detonating them at (relatively) short
>range.  The shockwave is supposed to propel the ship forward.
>
>    WHAT shockwave?  Aren't we in near vaccuum, here?  :)

    The idea was to use the shockwave to some extent while lifting off
through the atmosphere, and to use parts of the bomb as reaction mass in
vaccuum. The following attempt at an ascii graphic might explain:


                        III
          /===I         III==I---\
        * ====I         III  I    I         (Not to scale)
          \===I         III==I---/
                        III

     Bomb  Mass       Plate   Ship

    The bomb has a wad of reaction mass that will be vaporized and
thrown against the pusher plate, thus accelerating the ship. I don't
recall what they were considering for reaction mass off hand,
unfortunately. This would also have the desirable effect of spreading
the impulse over time, reducing the load on the plate and ship. The
impact of vaporized metal, water, and whatever would be much better for
propulsion than just X-rays, ionized gas, and various nuclear particles
whacking the plate. Note that there are to be LARGE shock absorbers
between the plate and the ship.

    As I recall, the estimated Isp for the Orion would be about 2000 for
the first models with an upper limit of about 10,000 Isp for ones with
optimized design, shaped nuclear charges, etc.. Also in the numbers I
read were estimates of 5 million pounds to LEO, 2 million pounds to the
Lunar surface (no shock waves to help there).

                                                    kwr

Internet: [e-mail]

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

Date: Thu, 20 May 1993 16:54:05 GMT
From: Leigh Palmer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Orion Spacecraft
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> Colby
Hayward, [e-mail] writes:
>    This is sort of a crossover from a question I asked on sci.military;
>If anyone here has heard of the proposed Orion spacecraft, they may be
>wondering the same thing.
>
>    Apparently, the Orion has a large "pusher plate" (read: shock
>absorber) built into the rear of the vessel.  It propels (sp?) itself by
>dropping nukes out the back, and detonating them at (relatively) short
>range.  The shockwave is supposed to propel the ship forward.
>
>    WHAT shockwave?  Aren't we in near vaccuum, here?  :)
>
>    Someone care to explain this to me?

"Shockwave" is a poor term for this purpose since it does imply that a
medium exists. The bomb itself throws material into the pusher plate.
Another contributor mentioned that reaction mass was to be added to the
bombs to be used. I guess that's sort of an inverse tamper. I would call
it an impedance matching technique.

I visited the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum hoping to see
the film of the Orion test I had been told* was showing there. The test
craft itself is up on the wall, with a minimal graphic explaining the
experiment. A curator assured me that they did not have a film of the
experiment. Anyone knowing the whereabouts of such a film should try to
get the owner to provide a copy to the NASM, and I'd still really like
to see it myself. According to the graphic the experiment was performed
in 1959, which was the year after I left General Atomic, so now I don't
feel so badly about having been left out of the fun.

Leigh

*in this group

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

Date: 20 May 1993 12:21:21 -0400
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: Questions for KC-135 veterans
Newsgroups: sci.space

 If you are really, considered about drive survival,
write to tape.  I bet that would hold up  well.

look dor weight balanced torsioners, on the drive path,
or maybe 8mm tape.

pat

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

Date: Thu, 20 May 93 11:30:48 PDT
From: Charlie Prael <[e-mail]>
Subject: Satellite Capabilities-Patriot Games
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (Scott Smith) writes:

> Live video as shown in Patriot Games most likely is possible.  From a
> satellite, improbable.  Think about a satellite in low earth orbit, which
> the US recon satellites supposedly orbit.  Think about the period of said
> orbit.  How many minutes is the scene in Patriot Games last?  Do you think
> that the satellite could actually maintain pointing on that one spot for
> that long without varying the resolution, etc.?  Do you think that the
> satellite is capable of those kinds of body rates to do this?
>
> The average period of a low earth orbit is around 90 minutes, with an
> average velocity of 17,000 mph (give or take).  Think about what kinds
> of capability would be required to give live video with that kind of
> resolution.  I think that Real Time means that the image is collected
> at the time that it is taken and not dropped off on some film cartridge
> for later retrieval.
>
> I would guess that a video image like shown in Patriot Games would more
> likely come from a blackbird or similar airplane, not from space.
> --
> Scott Smith
> [e-mail]

Scott-- You're ignoring several things that make live 30fps video
realitstic.  Those things are the military communications satellite array
that is normally used for transmitting data.  The TDRS series, for
instance, provide high data-rate transmission capabilities to both NASA
and the USAF.  There's LOT of ways to get 30fps video down in realtime.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Charlie Prael  - [e-mail]
Shakala BBS (ClanZen Radio Network) Sunnyvale, CA [phone]

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

Date: 20 May 1993 18:59:13 GMT
From: "Palmer T. Davis" <[e-mail]>
Subject: SDI RIP.  So what happens to DC?
Newsgroups: sci.space

With space-based SDI now a thing of the past (or, more accurately, of
the past's future :-) ), what is going to happen to programs like Delta
Clipper and Clementine?  Does the new Ballistic Missile Defense Organization
have any sort of mandate to keep these programs going?  Might they be
picked up by some other agency, like NASA or the Air Force?  Or will they
go the way of the X-20 and the MOL?

-- PTD --
--
Palmer T. Davis      ___      UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of
<[e-mail]>   \X/   this IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED.

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

Date: 20 May 93 14:42:19
From: Brian Yamauchi <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Billboards and Low-Cost Access to Orbit
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Sheaf) writes:
>I think "visiting LEO" would be still be wishful thinking in 100 years,
>let alone 10-20... especially if the only technology we're
>talking about developing here is how to put stuff in orbit more cheaply.

If you reduce the cost of orbit to a sufficiently low level, it
becomes economical to launch passengers into orbit...

>A commercial launching venture is not going to put money into R&D for
>spacetravel,

No, but they can provide a potential market for launch vehicles using
new technology, like the Delta Clipper.

>which still has major, possibly insurmountable technological
>barriers.

What "insurmountable technological barriers"?  MDAC's SSTO group
doesn't seem to see any.  DC-X flies in less than a month...
--
_______________________________________________________________________________

Brian Yamauchi            Case Western Reserve University
[e-mail]    Department of Computer Engineering and Science
_______________________________________________________________________________

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

Date: Thu, 20 May 1993 14:40:44 GMT
From: Jim Hart <[e-mail]>
Subject: Vandalizing the sky-something is moving
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space

>from What's new 14 May 1993, in sci.physics:

>>[space as "common heritage"...]
>>and Alice Harding, chair of the APS Division of
>>Astrophysics, points out that it would also set a dangerous
>>precedent for the unregulated commercialism of outer space.

Astronomers have all sorts of legitimate objections they can
raise against the adsat, and instead they bring up the dreaded
prospect of voluntary commerce in space?    Astronomy vs.
capitalism, gosh I wonder who will win.

Hey, we astronomers have a wonderful solution to this problem,
listen up.  We'll put 99.9999....% of the universe under the
control of all-knowing central planning bureaucrats.  Perhaps one
of Us will even get a seat on the Council, seeing as how we know so
much about space!

Not to be picking on astronomers or APS; alas this kind of view is
endemic in the world of science.

BTW, astronomers might find that making space a "common heritage" won't
leave much room left for their uncommon practice.  If astronomers
don't claim their legitimate *ownership* of the view of space, instead
of this fuzzy-minded crap where nobody knows who controls what,
astronomers may eventually *lose* their rights without compensation.

Astronomers have already lost much with the light pollution around big
cities, and with all their loud complaining doing little to
stave off the trend.  Unless they start defining *specifically*
what they have a right to, turning it into enforceable, tradeable
property rights, they will be at the mercy of politicians who
care more about their reelection than they do about astronomy.

And you know, some voters out here, like a majority, think that
there is *too much* regulation on business, in space or down
here.  Astronomers, gaze back down
at earth for a bit to reflect on your goal in this fight:
is your purpose to maintain your right to study the stars, or is it
to impose a political regime for space?  If it's the latter, be
prepared to set down your telescope, you'll need to learn
other tools, to take up other occupations to fight that fight.
If it's to maintain your right to gaze at the stars, start
dealing with the problem in terms of the free market and
property rights, not by sniping against the alleged evils of
commerce, not in terms of the socialist utopian nonsense like
"common heritage" which most of us would like to leave on the
scrapheap of history.


Jim Hart
[e-mail]

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

Date: Thu, 20 May 1993 16:39:29 GMT
From: "George F. Krumins" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Vandalizing the sky-something is moving
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space

[e-mail] (Jim Hart) writes:

(stuff deleted)
>Astronomers, gaze back down at earth... (stuff deleted)

    "...Oh my God, it's full of stars..."
--
"While we sleep, they go to work    If one can grasp it...
We're legally crippled,            Up the hill backwards,
It's the death of love,            It's no game..."
It'got nothing do with you,        -- David Bowie, from _Scary Monsters_

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

Date: Thu, 20 May 1993 15:13:27 GMT
From: Jim Hart <[e-mail]>
Subject: Why Government? Re: Shuttle, "Centoxin"
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

[e-mail] (Ken Hayashida) writes:

>As a minority person who is critical of
>shuttle, you must accept the majority's view that it is a worthwhile
>program worthy of continued funding.

There sad irony in you saying this about minorities, given what
we did in WWII, but sticking to the main issue here I'll point out that
most people don't give a flying f*ck one way or another about the Shuttle,
it crosses their minds about an order of magnitude less often than, for
example, their local basketball team.

The main priority with the vast majority is cutting the deficit.  If Clinton
cancelled the Shuttle tommorrow as a highly visible way to help cut
the deficit, he'd probably get majority support, and help give him
an image he badly wants, as somebody who cares about cutting the deficit
not just raising taxes.    In fact, cutting the Shuttle would go much
farther in terms of that image than cutting just about any other
comparably sized government program, *because* it is such a visible
program.

I can't believe after what's happened to the incredibly shrinking
space station, and all these other budget-bloated failures over the
last decade there are people who still place confidence in the
ability of government pork to make their dreams come true.  It's
also difficult to fathom, but here we have people who think their own
strongly held beleifs are automatically held by the majority, and
if not by golly they *should* be, and furthermore should be imposed
on the minority, who are obviously wrong since they're not the majority.
Wake up you people, get a sniff of reality!   The majority does agree
just because you wish something, the government does not necessarily do
what the majority wants, and things don't get done just because the
government wants or tries to do them!  Outside the walls of Washington
D.C. and Johnson Space Center there is a real world out here, and we're
actually getting some things done, even if (or more likely because
of) it has nothing to do with what you want us all to do, or what
the majority wants us to do, or what the politicians think is best
for us.

>You should also not criticize the Food and Drug Administration for electing
>to perform high levels of testing before allowing the wide spread use
>of centoxin.  Do you know what thalidomide is?

Do you know that (a) FDA would approve thalidomide for use today,
just as it has a number of other important drugs that should not
be used by pregnant women, and (b) would not have approved penicillin
or aspirin, which are too dangerous by modern drug testing standards.
The FDA has kept drugs off the market what would have saved millions,
but in doing so has saved few.  Stop mouthing off about how ignorant
you think other people are and start learning some things for yourself.

Jim Hart
[e-mail]

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

Date: 20 May 1993 11:09:32 -0700
From: Ken Hayashida <[e-mail]>
Subject: Why Government? Re: Shuttle, "Centoxin"
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space

[e-mail] (Jim Hart) writes:
Generally about how shuttle program should be ended due to Budget
Deficit issues.
>I can't believe after what's happened to the incredibly shrinking
>space station, and all these other budget-bloated failures over the
>last decade there are people who still place confidence in the
>ability of government pork to make their dreams come true.  It's
>also difficult to fathom, but here we have people who think their own
>strongly held beleifs are automatically held by the majority, and
>if not by golly they *should* be, and furthermore should be imposed
>on the minority, who are obviously wrong since they're not the majority.
>Wake up you people, get a sniff of reality!   The majority does agree
>just because you wish something, the government does not necessarily do
>what the majority wants, and things don't get done just because the
>government wants or tries to do them!  Outside the walls of Washington
>D.C. and Johnson Space Center there is a real world out here, and we're
>actually getting some things done, even if (or more likely because
>of) it has nothing to do with what you want us all to do, or what
>the majority wants us to do, or what the politicians think is best
>for us.

Jim, do you want tens of thousands of people on welfare?  You and
other liberal democrats want to cut defense spending, kill our nation's
greatest assets in science and technology, put hundreds of thousands
of skilled engineers + blue collar guys on the assembly lines out of
work, and then tax us more.  Get a damn clue.  I am so sick and tired
of this blantly false rhetoric about how bad the shuttle program is.

It is rather infuriating that people on this network could be so insensitive
as to kill major sources of income to huge communities across this nation.

Jim and other shuttle critics, after you've killed space station, space
shuttle, and NASA in general...what are you proposing to replace it with?

You can't supply the capital necessary to fund ANY program to replace NASA.

I am not interested in seeing my dad out of work, my friends on welfare,
and my community destroyed by people who would wield a budgetary ax
without understanding where they are chopping!

You fit this category.

Think about the tens of thousands who are dependent on a vigorous space program
for their very existance.  How do you make money?  You would not like it
if I proposed to kill your job and your parents living and your friend's
hopes for tommorrow.

>Do you know that (a) FDA would approve thalidomide for use today,
>just as it has a number of other important drugs that should not
>be used by pregnant women, and (b) would not have approved penicillin
>or aspirin, which are too dangerous by modern drug testing standards.
>The FDA has kept drugs off the market what would have saved millions,
>but in doing so has saved few.  Stop mouthing off about how ignorant
>you think other people are and start learning some things for yourself.

Jim, are you a doctor?  Are you a pharmacist?  If you are, then I'll allow
you opinion to stand.  However, I am a doctor.  I know thalidomide, I know
penicillin and I've prescribed it.  Don't tell me the FDA is turning down
drugs that "would have saved millions"

Before you make an statement as this, you should cite an example,
give the literature reference and then post regarding your view with
cited examples.  Until you do, do attempt to confuse sci.space readers
with this gibberish!

CHALLENGE:  which drugs would have saved millions and were prevented
from use in the US by the FDA?  I want to know so I can learn from
you.   Tell me.

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

Newsgroups: sci.space

From: fred j mccall 575-3539 <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Down in flames
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Organization: Texas Instruments Inc
References: <[e-mail]>
Distribution: sci
Date: Thu, 20 May 1993 15:13:37 GMT
Lines: 38
Sender: [e-mail]
Source-Info:  Sender is really [e-mail]

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Tom) writes:


>>>Fred responds:
>>>>Hey, a gadget designed to make you barf and it's named PAT.  Now,
>>>>that's so nigh-on to a perfect straight line that I can't pass up
>>>>comment.  ;-)

>>>This from the same guy that interprets anyone's jokes as 'flame-bait'.
>>>Control your emotions, Fred.

>>My emotions are fine, Tommy, but you seem to be having trouble with
>>yours...

>Not really.  I feel no compulsion to flame or insult people for little or
>no reason, ad infinitum.

Funny, but neither do I.  Of course, I'm not the one who initiated
several long threads of snotty mail and is now back to sniping in
public now that his mail is no longer being accepted, am I?  That guy
is named Tommy Mac.

>>[Once again, someone who calls sniping at me 'jokes' and my doing the
>>same thing back 'flames'.  Shove it, Tommy.]

>I didn't call anything 'jokes'.  You did, when you make comments like the
>above, but then you get all bent if someone does the same towards you.
>Wintess your referral to what they thought was joking as 'sniping'.  Why
>the double standard?

There isn't one.  Why yours?  And have you figured out why I asked you
the "are you still beating your girlfriend" question yet?

--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
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[e-mail] - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.

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End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 603
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