Goldin 20 years.

Some good news is out there... Mars Express will take pictures of Phobos;
c.f., http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=5104.

Ron Menich

rmenich@...
08:30 AM
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One thing I noticed recently is that the press coverage of the NEAR
Shoemaker mission was pretty abysmal. Each week that Atlanta newspapers
have some article or another on the Shuttle or ISS, but only thrice did I
see anything in the local paper concerning NEAR Shoemaker. The NEAR
Shoemaker project was a complete success, exceeding expectations despite a
harrowing beginning, and it did all this on a small budget ($223 million,
soup to nuts). NEAR Shoemaker was a whole lot closer to the type of
project that will open up the High Frontier than are ISS or the Shuttle,
but the press coverage of NEAR Shoemaker was a small fraction of these
other projects. NASA plays no small part in determining what appears in
local newspapers through the process of press releases, press conferences,
etc.

What I deduct is that NASA in general wants to do popular missions, and
things that are popular with the hoi polloi are
* People in space
* Mars
* The search for life (e.g., Mars, Europa)
Goldin is running an entertainment enterprise.

I heard that Goldin has never been too fond of the idea of a Pluto probe
because "no one gives a **** about Pluto", or some such comment. He only
changed his mind when the scientific community screamed after the
cancellation. It is interesting that the scientific community has such
clout that they can get probes to Pluto and Mercury authorized, despite
what I perceive to be lack of extensive public support for such projects.
I guess we need our own powerful special interest group ...

Ron Menich

"Zachary

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years.
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06/11/01

04:41 PM

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I have just finished reading about Dan Goldin's speech at the MIT
graduation.
This is what he said: "You will make my dream come true, not in 50 years,
but in the next 10 to 20,". Apparently the statement was met with great
applause.
He made a reference to how a person in a spacesuit's would climb down a
latter and 'her' boot would make a crunching noise as it touched the
ground.
I am very enthusiastic about the idea of a woman touching the ground first
at Mars, I would not have it any other way, but I would rather that this
women be followed by 9,999 other people just like me, ordinary space
citizens, and for this to happen 50 or even 100 years from now (even if I
could live forever I would have no intentions of going to mars, except of
course to ski mons olympus, but lets say I did.) Dan Goldin would like to
see this women followed by perhaps 5-10 other 'astronauts', and for this to
happen in only 20 years: monopolizing global space resources for these very
patriotic and selective few.
People seem to enthusiastically support such ideas because they
cannot see
any other options: go to mars or do nothing. People who I have talked to
do
not even understand why I would believe in such things as space colonies,
as
if I was talking about the moon missions being faked because the Klingons
have a base on the far side of the moon! They ask ignorant questions
before
I can say the bitat in 'Space Habitat' my favorite being 'but wouldn't it
just be easier to terraform another planet'. Call me ignorant, but I don't
see how planets that are naturally hostile to life (supposedly) could ever
maintain a stable ecosystem before crashing every 500 years!
I know this is all old news, but I get so worked up when I read
about these
things. If I ever needed to play a grumpy old man in a movie I would just
have to LOOK at a picture of Dan Goldin (I'm sure he's a nice guy)! Again
I
apologize to this list.