The Last 10 Days In The Space Shuttle's Bunker?, Atlantis apparently to be scrapped in 2008 Options

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20060...lantis_spa.html :

"Under orders to retire the shuttle fleet by 2010, NASA plans to cancel shuttle Atlantis' next scheduled overhaul and mothball the ship in 2008.

"Rather than becoming a museum piece, however, Atlantis will serve as a spare parts donor for sister ships Discovery and Endeavour to complete assembly of the International Space Station.

" 'People are already calling us and asking us can they display one of our orbiters in their museum after we're done. I'm not giving anybody anything until we're all agreed the station is complete and the shuttles' job is done,' shuttle program manager Wayne Hale told Kennedy Space Center employees during a televised address on Friday.

" 'We're going to keep (Atlantis) in as near flight-ready condition as we can without putting it through a (modification and overhaul) so we can use those parts,' Hale said.
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Jeffrey Bell has recently finished a piece for "SpaceDaily" proclaiming that the wholesale cancellation of other NASA projects in the FY 2007 budget to keep Shuttle and ISS going is actually just part of Michael Griffin's Machiavellian strategy to get both of the cancelled, by making it clear that they can be saved now only at the cost of a swarm of other projects (including Bush's lunar program) which are now more popular. Certainly that is the overwhelming message being conveyed, whether Griffin planned it that way or not -- I haven't seen a single newspaper editorial yet that favors retaining Shuttle at this point.

(Bell also claims to see other, subtler evidence of this strategy in Griffin's moves over the last few weeks -- and also signs that he definitely plans to throw ISS from the train as well, by just giving it to the Russians half-finished in a few years and paying off the ESA and Japan for their unlaunched space lab modules. These include the fact that he's cancelled work on the unmanned cargo variant of the Crew Exploration Vehicle that will be necessary to take up replacement Control Moment Gyros to the ISS after the Shuttle is no longer available.)

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Well, I guess I'll have to stay "provocative" without "ranting", which will be an interesting balancing act.

Frankly, I'm a little baffled that I've set off such indignation here. Go to virtually any political blogsite on the Web. THERE, by God, you will find ranting. Most political blogsites serve not as a site for reasoned debate, but as coffeeklatches for people who already had the same ideological belief to congregate and stroke each other's egos by agreeing with each other, in much the same way that troops of chimpanzees cement their social ties by grooming each other. Occasionally a member of another rival ideological troop comes over and challenges the blog group, at which point there is much screaming and jumping up and down and throwing of sticks until the intruder retreats again. Two nights ago I read the suggestion that the main achievement of the Web will turn out to be the extent to which it's made it easier to assemble lynch mobs on a worldwide basis, and I'm afraid he's right. But the extent to which the members of this particular group are upset by any forceful comments at all -- by anyone, with any belief -- seems to me to have a certain Girlie Man quality to it which I really think we can't afford intellectually.

[Bob Shaw]

Well, I guess I'll have to stay "provocative" without "ranting", which will be an interesting balancing act.

Frankly, I'm a little baffled that I've set off such indignation here. Go to virtually any political blogsite on the Web. THERE, by God, you will find ranting. Most political blogsites serve not as a site for reasoned debate, but as coffeeklatches for people who already had the same ideological belief to congregate and stroke each other's egos by agreeing with each other, in much the same way that troops of chimpanzees cement their social ties by grooming each other. Occasionally a member of another rival ideological troop comes over and challenges the blog group, at which point there is much screaming and jumping up and down and throwing of sticks until the intruder retreats again. Two nights ago I read the suggestion that the main achievement of the Web will turn out to be the extent to which it's made it easier to assemble lynch mobs on a worldwide basis, and I'm afraid he's right. But the extent to which the members of this particular group are upset by any forceful comments at all -- by anyone, with any belief -- seems to me to have a certain Girlie Man quality to it which I really think we can't afford intellectually.

Bruce:

Chimps *are* fun, but Bonobos have a better way of dealing with conflict!

There's something about the WWW which causes mild remarks to be taken as gross insults, and gross insults to be taken as far worse. Perhaps it's the lack of social cues, perhaps it's the *truth* leaking out. Maybe we do all want to eat the brains of every stranger from the next valley, and rape our sisters. And then our brothers. Oh, joy!

In the meantime, may I say that I, personally, appreciate heresy. I like provocation. I enjoy robust, cruel and entirely unforgiving debate. The only thing I don't enjoy is... ...boredom. Going on and on and on and on about some fixed notion, without any let up - now, that *does* bug me! But earnestly giving hell to the sloppy-minded, no problems!

Please keep up the iconoclasm!

Bob Shaw

[David]

There's something about the WWW which causes mild remarks to be taken as gross insults, and gross insults to be taken as far worse. Perhaps it's the lack of social cues

My impression is that some people find themselves in interactions on the internet which they would not normally engage in -- perhaps they have little social interaction outside of the 'net and therefore have little practice in arts like politeness, tact, and diplomacy in speaking; or perhaps they are under the impression that ordinary rules of social interaction do not apply on the internet, because you cannot see the person you are talking to -- and you are frequently disguised by one form or another of voluntary anonymity.

The truth is, of course, quite the reverse; print tends to be a harsher medium than speech, and it takes all the tact you can manage not to come across as a fool, a buffoon, or someone careless of others' feelings. Frustration with discovering that people may take offense where you believe yourself to be doing no more than speaking the unvarnished truth may lead some to adopt intentionally abrasive personas; but this is probably not the best response. It's good to remember that what seems trivially obvious to one person may be a difficult and controversial point to another; and that minds are changed, not in a flash of logic, but through the slow persuasion that comes through an accumulation of irrefutable evidence. Or, as the old adage has it, more flies are trapped with honey than with vinegar.

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

My impression is that some people find themselves in interactions on the internet which they would not normally engage in -- perhaps they have little social interaction outside of the 'net and therefore have little practice in arts like politeness, tact, and diplomacy in speaking; or perhaps they are under the impression that ordinary rules of social interaction do not apply on the internet, because you cannot see the person you are talking to -- and you are frequently disguised by one form or another of voluntary anonymity.

I thinnk that respect of the others still apply on the internet. In the beginning there was some idea as the internet was a "free" space, so that social rules such as politeness would not apply. This is not true, as people can still be vexated by words, and it is worse because these words are in public, and public defamation is added to public insults. It is even still worse on a forum where the webmaster allows for such behaviours: even in the case you are frankly and unfairly attacked, you cannot make this recognized. I remember once I was purposelessly attacked and grossly insulted on a forum, by several persons, and the webmaster was doing as if there was no problem, I had to threaten him of a legal action to make him remove gross personnal insults and gratuitous accusations. Why it is so? Because distance or anonimity allow for sadistic people (this is not for you, Bruce) to stalk others freely and without fear of reprisals. And this situation can be very painful for the victims.

So, knowing this, I now seldom engage in an internet forum, unless I am sure that it is fairly moderated (this is for you, Doug). Discussing on Internet with people of far countries and very different cultural/experience background can on the countrary be a very pleasant and useful experience, so long as we don't enter into useless conflict.

Bruce, you should look here: http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...opic=2260&st=30If you read my interventions, especially the last, I say: I think that Homeplate is the most interesting site around, they should not depart so fast, and take the time to do what there is to do, without planning to come back one day (Spirit could stop working before). What is there to see in the hills that was not yet seen? But just after Doug comes with right the opposite argument. Would I engage in and endless debate? No, it is useless, because he is right. I am right too, but this rightness cannot stand in front of Doug's argument. So the discution naturally stops at that point.

Still for you, Bruce, please consider this thread: http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...opic=2286&st=15 where we discuss the possibility of an ancient greek philosopher (Democritus) had some kind of primitive telescope. I started the discution on this point, post Feb 23 2006, 11:41 AM. Further tty expresses some doubts in his post Feb 24 2006, 09:34 PM, Further I to find an explanation, but without contradicting him on his assertion. Then the discution stops. Why? Because I "won" and intimidated tty? so that he don't dare to reply? No, definitively not, the discution stops here because nobody have something more to add. We considered the different arguments, pro and con, and this ended the discution. Anyway it is a speculative matter and we have no evidence about what actually happened and it would be dogmaticism to grasp to such or such oppinion. But it was a pleasant exchange for me and for tty and for the others who contributed to the discution. We all won, in knowledge and in pleasure. Perhaps one day we shall find democritus tomb, with some strange lens-looking pieces of glass assembled in a bamboo tube, but this is just a wishful speculation. My opinion was rather the second alternative I evoked in this tread: Democritus pushed the use of his naked eyes to their extreme possibilities, and he made clever inferences.

You see, Bruce, how expressing opposite opinions can be a pleasant exercice, not a fight, not a vexation, if we just abandon the useless and troublesome desire of "proving that we are right and we are never false"???