Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site rabbit.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!rabbit!wolit From: wolit@rabbit.UUCP (Jan Wolitzky) Newsgroups: net.space Subject: Re: Shuttle Snafu Message-ID: <2505@rabbit.UUCP> Date: Fri, 10-Feb-84 14:34:00 EST Article-I.D.: rabbit.2505 Posted: Fri Feb 10 14:34:00 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 11-Feb-84 08:41:49 EST Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill Lines: 33 I detect a strong odor of bureaucratese coming from NASA spokesbeings this week, and am a little distressed that some of the cognoscenti on this net seem to be falling for it. This all falls into the purview of the "There's No Bad News Here" department. The official word from NASA appears to be that everything's just A-OK with the shuttle; the reason that there's twenty Megabucks worth of additional spacejunk out there is that something went wrong with one of those PAMs, which are made by some aerospace hamburger outfit, and not with the Shuttle, which is made by NASA (!). No, no, say the trivia freaks, McDonnell-(Remember the good ol' DC-3?)-Douglas just puts the PAMs together; the part that malfunctioned was the rocket ("I thought that's what we were talking about," says the Man on the Street) which was made by Thiokol. (I wonder who sold that bad batch of titanium to Thiokol...) My point here is that NASA is being a little disingenuous in claiming responsibility for everything that works right, and disavowing any blame for everything that works wrong, and it's not our place to encourage them in this. We're still a long way from the day that NASA is just another overnight delivery company, and everyone here knows it. Ronald ("Isn't he that hamburger company's clown?") Whatsisname has decided that if Buck Rogers was good enough for JFK, it's good enough for him, and NASA is far from displeased by this shift in the winds of fortune; they're gonna do everything possible to keep their newly-re-shined image from tarnishing. If that includes calling a glaring failure an overwhelming success because they managed to replicate Ed White's space walk of twenty years ago (at no more than a few orders of magnitude greater cost), well, that's what it takes. As for us, unless we work for NASA, we should call 'em as we see 'em. Jan Wolitzky, AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ