home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Newsgroups: sci.physics
- Path: sparky!uunet!usc!sdd.hp.com!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!news.cso.uiuc.edu!uxa.cso.uiuc.edu!tjn32113
- From: tjn32113@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Thomas J. Nugent)
- Subject: Re: "What's New" July-24-1992
- References: <92206.204426WTU@psuvm.psu.edu>
- Message-ID: <Bs2LMs.rs@news.cso.uiuc.edu>
- Sender: usenet@news.cso.uiuc.edu (Net Noise owner)
- Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
- Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 23:08:51 GMT
- Lines: 95
-
- WTU@psuvm.psu.edu writes:
-
- > WHAT'S NEW, Friday, 24 July 1992 Washington, DC
-
- > 1. PHYSICISTS IN EUROPE, JAPAN AND CANADA OPPOSE SPACE STATION!
- > In an unprecedented joint statement issued today, the Presidents
- > of a group of major scientific societies, including The American
- > Physical Society, fired a blast at Space Station Freedom. That's
- > hardly news; they do it every year. But this time, the statement
- > was accompanied by the translation of a statement adopted by the
- > German Physical Society. Like their American colleagues, German
- > physicists contend Space Station Freedom cannot be justified on
- > the basis of economics or science. And it didn't stop with the
- > Germans! The strongly worded German statement was endorsed by
- > the Executive Committee of the European Physical Society, and by
- > the Presidents of the Physical Society of Japan, the Canadian
- > Association of Physicists, and the American Physical Society;
- > Japan, Europe and Canada are "partners" with the United States in
- > the space station. Meanwhile, at a Capitol Hill press conference,
- > Rep. Howard Wolpe (D-MI) released a letter signed by 75 of the
- > most distinguished American space scientists; their letter
- > contends the space station cannot be justified on the basis of
- > its scientific usefulness or its importance to space exploration.
-
- > 2. BUT PROPONENTS OF THE SPACE STATION HAVE NOT BEEN IDLE EITHER.
- > On Tuesday, NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin and NIH Director
- > Bernadine Healy signed a Memorandum of Understanding Regarding
- > Biomedical`x}d Behavioral Research. The matchmakers were none
- > other than Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Jake Garn (R-UT), the top
- > space station tub thumpers in the Senate. The agreement, which
- > Mikulski hailed as "historic," is little more than a pledge to
- > cooperate, but it is meant to give credibility to claims that
- > space research will somehow lead to cures for disease on Earth.
- > At the Hill press conference, Rep. Durbin (D-IL) commented that,
- > "Cancer cures are the last refuge of budgetary scoundrels."
-
- It seems that many (but not necessarily all, or even most) scientists
- oppose SSF because they actually think that the money will then be
- available for their own scientific projects. They are wrong. In all
- attempts to kill Freedom, the money was either going to be redirected to
- other parts of NASA, or to social programs. (I think)
-
- There may be reasons to oppose Freedom. But there are also _alot_ of reasons
- to support it. Many people have said that it won't be able to achieve
- microgravity levels. Relatively recent (within last year or so) studies
- have shown that microgravity will be able to be achieved on SSF. If you want,
- I could find the reference(s) for that.
-
- We desperately need the data on the long term effects of weightlessness on the
- human body. The (ex-)Soviets have had people up in space for as much as a
- year at a time, but unfortunately they didn't perform much (at least compared
- to what NASA would do) in the way of experiments on the astronauts while
- they were up there. They did a respectable amount of research on them when
- they came down, but they don't know things like how the body changed while
- up there (I mean, not to a great degree). It seems that the Russian
- cosmonauts were more resistent to the idea of being guinea pigs than were
- American astronauts.
-
- Possibly even more importantly, there are our international considerations.
- Both the Japanese and the Europeans have already spent billion(s) on their
- parts of SSF, and if it were cancelled now, they would have a fit. The
- Japanese nearly died last year when it looked like Freedom would be killed.
- They are slowing learning how screwy the US way of funding things is.
- If we were to cancel Freedom, they might not help fund the supercollidor or
-
- They are slowing learning how screwy the US way of funding things is.
- If we were to cancel Freedom, they might not help fund the supercollidor or
- any other projects. I think that they've just about said as much. They
- won't be able to trust us anymore. (See, in Japan, when they decide that
- something is worth funding in a big way, they then fund it until it is
- finished - they don't decide whether or not to kill it every year.)
-
- Also, there is the matter of jobs. Spending $2B per year is not a trivial
- influence on the economy.
- With the large cuts going on in the aerospace industry,
- many 'defense' workers are losing jobs. Cutting Freedom will just put
- more people out of work. These are, for the most part, a diverse work
- forcee - from engineers to secretaries to machinists, etc.
-
- There are also the 'vision' reasons - mankind is destined to go to the stars,
- this is the next frontier, etc. etc. I am personally of the belief that
- America is still at heart a frontier society, and if we don't get a new
- frontier soon, we will stagnate (more than we already have) and become
- just like every other nation in the world. The problem with these arguments
- is that they don't convince politicians, and in these hard times, they don't
- convince many people either.
-
- "[The space program] can help counter the head-on collision with the
- environmental chaos we now face; spearhead technological, competitive, and
- political leadership; stimulate young minds to excellence; and forge cultural
- bonds between nations for the benefit of all humanity."
- - Leonard David
- --
- "To be average scares the hell out of me." -- Anonymous
- Tom Nugent e-mail: tjn32113@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
-