From: tjn32113@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Thomas J. Nugent)
Subject: Re: "What's New" July-24-1992
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 23:08:51 GMT

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
Newsgroups: sci.physics