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From: al@ames.UUCP (Al Globus)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: The Government in Space
Message-ID: <479@ames.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 16-Aug-84 22:30:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: ames.479
Posted: Thu Aug 16 22:30:29 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 19-Aug-84 01:29:05 EDT
References: <12396@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA
Lines: 27

Many writers to the net, including the one I'm responding to, claim that
government cannot develop space.  One wonders, in that case, how we went
in only 25 years from nothing at all to:
	o A half dozen moon landings (manned).
	o Two Mars landings.
	o Several Venus landings (USSR)
	o Several space stations (Skylab and Salyuts)
	o A reuseable space plane (Shuttle)
	o Three visits to Saturn and Jupiter
	o Visits to Mercury
	o An in space infra-red map of the heavens (IRAS)
	o Regular and frequent manned missions to low Earth orbit.
with strictly government projects.

I believe that the time has come for private enterprise to enter space, but
it is unproductive and inaccurate to denigrate the contribution that 
government has and will continue to make to space development.

Also, as private firms get real experience in space I think you may find
that they may not out perform NASA as much as some believe.
For example, the recent 
Starstruct launch - all of 3 seconds of perfect flight followed by another
11 seconds with a failed valve - cost (according to Space Calendar) 3-4 times
as much as expected and and took 3-4 times as long as expected.

Many a flame could be avoided by good hard data and real hands on
experiance.