Re: Obs on 'T L S' - six points of folly, I don't think so

Um... Tasha... I was talking about UFO and how with similar leadership
behaviors some of the odd behaviors of the aliens could be easily
explained.

...But if Marc will permit it I will briefly-as-I-can rebut the comments
and relate them to UFO as I see it where possible. I will also happily
debate with you Tasha, off-list, about these points and all things space if
you wish as I happen to be fairly close to the U.S. space program and am
indeed a big fan of it's accomplishments. It is my very great familiarity
with it that allows me to see its less publicized shortcomings and equally
amazing nearly unknown successes.

1a) I disagree here I'm afraid; at the program level, the US gov is often
very disorganized, both military and civilian. Lots of projects started,
aborted, restarted, changed, abandoned, etc. [i.e. SDI, X33, X34, X38, ISS,
Shuttle, Galileo, Pluto probe, SSC, aurora] if that's not disorganized I
don't know what is. Often these programs have spent 100s of millions of
dollars before cancellation or are continued at 2-3 times their originally
estimated cost and often this is a political game rather than tech problem.
1b) The US military operationally runs very VERY well but in R&D programs
it's as changeable as a politicians whims, literally. (which was what I was
getting at). If the aliens 'Long-Sleep-bomb' was handled like one of these
then it's no real surprise that no new detonator was sent. Their
day-to-day operations seem to go well too as UFOs just keep coming.

2) I don't believe I intoned that the military ran NASA, if there was
confusion, I'm sorry. They are however steered by the government, and the
military does play a significant part in NASA activities.

3) The Shuttle's big success is that when it works it works well
technically. But: It is vastly more expensive than originally planned,
launches 1/10 as often as envisioned and there is nothing it does that
couldn't have been accomplished by slightly evolved 1960s launch tech.
(even ISS & Hubble) An evolved Apollo based capsule would even be
reusable.

4) You precisely made my point with relating this to UFO program problems
and changes. With diminishing support of any program for any reason, you
cannot expect proper completion, human endeavor or alien. The US is
repeatedly altering ISS's design to reduce, remove or redefine whatever
looks bad on our scorecard. Modules have been cut, stripped-down or
outsourced, and the crew return vehicle was cancelled completely which
reduced the ISS crew from 7 to 3, now only 2. Sounds pretty disorganized
as a program. ...And as for late delivery; the US is actually much farther
behind than the Russians. 90% of the issues are monetary and they are most
often politically caused. Just think of how many times the aliens could
have taken over the earth if they wouldn't just walk away from a plan after
the first bump. They even had effective mind control but after the first
glitch in each program, cut it too, a point that Gerry and the writers
never seemed to notice or follow up on.

5) Here, yes complete agreement. Saturn5 had a perfect safety record and
only a couple of non-mission-ending engine failures. It was fault tolerant
and those issues now would have been overcome if in current production. S5
would've and other boosters did, benefit from the economy of scale. The
entire launch boon came and went, riding 99.8% on expendables because the
shuttle couldn't play, S5 could've. (N1 was stillborn at inception.)

6) expendable vehicles; I could go on here for pages but suffice it to say
we jumped on the shuttle too soon and Made It Work even though it has
deficiencies and cost too much, 10 years later would've been better. The
Russians had a shuttle of their own and it was just too expensive compared
to their expendable vehicles, they shelved it after one unmanned flight.
The total cost per shuttle flight greatly exceeds the total cost per flight
of even the heaviest lift expendable vehicle. In UFO it was seen that a
large Saturn5 similar booster was in use, even Gerry didn't see his
reusable LM replacing big dumb rockets. (I'd also enjoy chatting with you
about space only vehicles, a whole other subject)

An uneducated (perhaps lethargic) public is certainly one problem but
shifty (that's shi-F-ty) politicians and erratic money-grubbing
constituents' priorities are the biggest hurdle to getting the good science
done in real life. On UFO, I clearly see the potential for a political
alien government to exhibit a similar erratic behavior in all of its
observed programs attacking the Earth. That was the real point I was
trying to make.

BTW; The Chinese space program is using a core of Russian technology,
upgraded with US, French and even Japanese tech, they have in-effect, an
'Evolved Soyuz'. They will be big players eventually, but are still 5-10
years from equal, they only lack the experience (that we have largely
forgotten). The ESA seems pragmatic on space tech, they don't stick their
neck out too far, JAXA is still a bit player and the others don't count...
yet. (India bears watching)

If you wish Tasha, I will expand upon, provide evidence for and debate any
of these things or anything I missed... off list though, as we don't want
to annoy our kind host and benefactor of the list any further.
S