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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