On Mar 22, 12:19 pm, "
wrote:
On Mar 12, 7:28 am, wrote:

The purpose of the space shuttle was to transition our man in space
activity away from ambitious interplanetary development schemes to
general disillusionment with space travel and spread the gospel of the
ultimate futility of interplanetary development, with its basic tenets
marginalized by science fiction and ufo cultism.

I'm finding the first part of your above statement a bit confusing. To
me, the purpose you claim for the space shuttle -- "to transition our
man in space activity away from ambitious interplanetary development
schemes" -- ignores the established fact that at the time, "our man in
space activity" had been limited to earth orbit and moon travel.
(Realistically, "general disillusionment with space travel" seems to
decry moon travel, not "interplanetary schemes.")

The last part of your statement is similarly difficult to accept.
Although some have "marginalized by science fiction and UFO cultism,"
didn't they mostly do so with respect to moon landings and earth
sightings reported prior to Nixon, rather than "interplanetary
development schemes?"

I guess I'm a bit too well grounded in "creep before you crawl" to
ignore the value of having a functional space shuttle and an
operational space station prior to full-blown moon exploration, let
alone travel to a nearby planet. At work, I had friends with advanced
degrees from Cal Tech. Their families suffered hardship when the MOL
was canceled, but they picked up the pieces and started over.

JTM

I totally agree with your "creep before you crawl" policy, especially
if it's my frail DNA that's going out on that firing line.

What's your best swag or give and take on behalf of our doing a Moon
L1 platform, or call it an outpost/depot sort of oasis gateway of
mostly rad-hard robotics that can take the unavoidable double-IR heat
as well as the gamma saturated environment, eventually along with an
extremely well shielded human habitat module?
.. - Brad Guth