From: amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Nasa Coverup
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Organization: [via International Space University]
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU
Distribution: sci
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 16:58:44 GMT

>     This is about the last sort of opinion I would expect from someone  from
>    New  Zealand ,of all places. When did you get to vote on what agencies we
>    need in MY government? If you want a National  Security  Agency  in  YOUR
>    government  in charge of keeping embarrassing information hidden from the
>    general public , you are more than welcome to start lobbying for one over
>    there. None of my business.  I suggest you mind yours.
> 


If you are going to argue on the net, you had better get damned used to the fact  
that national borders don't exist out here in cyperspace. You are not posting to  
americans. You are posting to Terrans. I don't think the USA needs any such  
organization as NSA either (although I am presently outside of it's facist sphere  
of influence, or at least mostly. Besides which, I voted for Marrou.). I would  
argue with our New Zealand friend's opinion, but *NOT* with his right to state  
it. Nationalism is for Homo Neanderthalis. No...I wouldn't even insult a  
neanderthal with the accusation of being in favor of nationalism.

You are arguing your case with a chip on your shoulder. State it if you wish,  
argue it if you wish, and be prepared to take the intellectual rough and tumble  
of the net. If you can't stand the heat, tough. Most of the rest of us developed  
asbetos covered bottoms years ago. 


The people you are arguing with are people who deal with the numbers like lunar  
gravity every day. How about the ISEE probe that was turned into ICE by multiple  
lunar gravity assists? That required very precise knowledge of lunar gravity. The  
FAINTEST of inaccuracies would have caused failure. And then there is the huge  
mass of gravimetric data gathered by the Lunar Orbiters before the Apollo  
flights. All the MASCON data and such was openly available and used (probably by  
people who you are are posting to) in many technical papers. ICE was done  
flawlessly, and was mostly the work of one or more key people at JPL (you have  
some damn smart cookies out there guys!)

If you are not getting much satisfaction, it is because there are people in this  
group capable of doing those same orbital calculations themselves, some of whom  
have written their own codes for doing them. Some of who have done it for real  
launches. A discrepency such as you describe is simply far too obvious to have  
been missed. 


I mentioned Paul Deitz: he is part of our community here, and is a very respected  
part of it at that. If he is not busy with life outside of cyberspace, I'm sure  
he could address what you have said, and far better than most of us. If he is  
listening in now, it is up to him. Henry (Spencer) is also pretty good, as is Ron  
Baalke and a number of other JPL types. Not to mention several dozen real life  
professional astronomers.

Neither Buzz nor any of the Apollo astronauts are on the net, to my knowledge.  
The truth is that I find some of them unfortuneately too conservative  
technologically for my taste. Which doesn't mean that I don't have a lot of  
respect for them. They are NOT liars, and they are not the sort to hold with  
coverups.

You wished to know about Buzz's problem? Well after he came back, there was no  
place to go. No Mars trip that would come in his professional lifetime. A moon  
program that was closing down. He had hit the top and had nowhere else to go. So  
he climbed into a bottle for awhile. But he got over that and is about as fine a  
person as you would want to know. His wife is charming as well. No, he is not a  
personal friend, but I have had a chance to chat with him one on one and we (and  
Bill Higgins and a few others in the Space Digest) move in some of the same  
physical circles. Oh, and none of the above about Buzz is private info. You can  
find out as much in public sources. But I'll vouch for it.

And if you are going to try to lump me in as part of your conspiracy, fine. But  
t'would be rather strange since I'm a well known (if easy going) libertarian  
anarchist with impeccable anti-all-government-smash-the-state credentials. As I'm  
sure many old timers here can testify :-)