From: pgf@srl03.cacs.usl.edu ("Phil G. Fraering")
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Space List Flame Wars
Date: 4 Jan 93 06:34:07 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.C0BGzz.1FA.1
Distribution: sci
Organization: [via International Space University]
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU

\I subscribed to this list in order to try to inform myself about the latest 
/news about US and other coutnries' space programs.  I thought that this would 
\be a list of technical discussions, not a religious debate that has turned 
/into ad hominem attacks and flame wars as virulent as any I've seen in the 
\religious news groups.  Then I see things like this, from Herman Rubin:

>Let those who want to support research decide.  But get the governments
>out of the way, including out of levying taxes on money going to research.
>If the government was not involved in the business of vainly trying to 
>manage charity, which it does in such a way as to make it financially
>advantageous for at least many of those on welfare to do nothing about
>the problem, and in the business of keeping our children very poorly
>educated, and in general making it expensive to do anything of which
>the government diasapproves, there would be the money for space activities.

/and this from Henry Spencer:

>We'll be mining in space long before we exploit any of the sea-bottom
>resources.  The socialists rule the oceans and don't want any dirty
>capitalist mining venture making money off the "common property of
>mankind".  The US State Department was on the brink of giving them the
>rest of the universe too, but the L5 Society (may it rest in peace)
>managed to block Senate ratification of the infamous Moon Treaty.

\Such political ranting belongs in the alt.talk.politics or alt.religion 
/groups.  Could we please take them out of the space list?

1. Henry Spencer's little excerpt isn't political ranting but a
   good summary of the facts. If you don't think so, you need to
   look at the background of the COPOUS Treaty.

2. Currently our space programs are run mainly by the government,
   and as such are currently constrained more by the sort of
   corrupt behavior normally called "the political realities
   of the situation." The people trying to push this off into
   other newsgroups, which are accesible neither for posting
   nor reading purposes to much of the internet population, are
   IMHO either ignorant of the status quo or actively supporting
   said status quo, which has spent some 200 billion dollars in
   space in the last 20 years, and couldn't do in ten years what
   was done in eight years thirty years ago (put a man on the moon).

There's a not very nice, but accurate term, for such people.

\In addition, there is much too much signal to noise ratio in the flame wars 
/and the ad hominem attacks.  Could we move them out of the list and into 
\private emails?  There is too much heat and not enough light coming out 
/of them.

I agree with you here. But the odd thing is, most of the attacks seem to
be centering around an experimental project, one of the few the gubbimint
seems to be doing right, that both has much potential to lower launch costs
and has a total cost of less than a shuttle launch.

\I know that I have now left myself wide open to being attacked from all 
/sides, but I just thought that, considering the size of the mailings that I'm 
\getting, there is too much of this stuff to wade through to get to anything 
/worth reading.

You'll probably be hearing from Euzkadi Fatherland and Liberty in the
morning. It was nice hearing from you this once, though... once... ;-)

And if he had signed his name, I could have attributed it. One of
the hazards of posting by mail...


Phil Fraering         |"...Who in the valley shed the poison tear
318/365-5418          |no one knows...
pgf@srl02.cacs.usl.edu|An old myth of a mythical hero..."
Newsgroups: sci.space