Aucbvax.5220 fa.space utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!space Tue Nov 17 03:35:51 1981 SPACE Digest V2 #35 >From OTA@S1-A Tue Nov 17 02:52:20 1981 SPACE Digest Volume 2 : Issue 35 Today's Topics: Let the Truth be known.... Another poll News coverage of shuttle flight ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Nov 1981 1032-PST From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Let the Truth be known.... To: space at MIT-MC I heard a fellow from the Flat Earth Society on the radio this morning, talking about the second shuttle flight. He claims the following: - Columbia was launched, alright, but landed in the ocean, and was recovered shortly after launch. - It could not have orbited the Earth, (which is, of course, flat) and thus those spectacular pictures from the on-board cameras were produced (as were all the other space pictures) in a special effects studio. - Columbia was dried off, and flown to the Mojave desert, where it was dropped from the 747 (he believes in them, I guess) and glided to a landing at Edwards. - The money spent on the space program is all going to Florida, which we know is the headquarters for quite a bit of drug traffic and organized crime. This is, of course, being subsidized by NASA, since it cannot possibly have used that money to build space vehicles. Having now been told the Truth, I trust that all the readers of SPACE Digest will cancel their subscriptions and devote their energies toward the important things that can be done here on Earth, such as repealing the Laws of Physics, and making Pi equal to 3.00000..... ------------------------------ Date: 16 Nov 1981 1212-PST From: Ted Anderson Subject: Another poll To: space at MIT-MC a266 1857 13 Nov 81 AM-Poll Facts,530 With AM-Space Poll NEW YORK (AP) - Telephone interviews with 1,598 adults across the country Oct. 25-26 were the basis for the Associated Press-NBC News poll on the U.S. space program. Telephone numbers were selected for the survey in such a way as to give every household a roughly equal chance of being chosen. The sample was drawn in order to reflect accurately the makeup of the country by region and by city size. A procedure was used to give a proper balance of men and women in the sample. As with all sample surveys, the results of AP-NBC News polls can vary from the opinion of all Americans because of chance variations in the sample. For a poll based on about 1,600 interviews, the results are subject to an error margin of 3 percentage points either way because of chance variations. That is, if one could have talked this past week to all Americans with telephones, there is only 1 chance in 20 that the findings would vary by more than 3 percentage points. Of course, the results could differ from other polls for a number of reasons. Differences in the exact wording of questions, differences in when the interviews were conducted and different methods of interviewing could also cause variations. Here are some of the questions and the results from the AP-NBC News poll: 1. Do you think the space shuttle program is a good investment for this country, or don't you think so? Yes - 60 percent. No - 30 percent. Not sure - 10 percent. 2. Should the emphasis of the U.S. space program be primarily on national defense or on scientific exploration? Defense - 43 percent. Science - 40 percent. Both - 9 percent. Not sure - 8 percent. 3. Do you think the United States should keep its space program separate from other countries, or should the U.S. engage in joint space ventures with other nations? Would you favor a joint space program between the United States and the Soviet Union? Separate - 46 percent. With U.S.S.R. - 32 percent. With other countries, but not U.S.S.R. - 15 percent. Not sure - 7 percent. 4. Do you think people from Earth will eventually colonize the moon or other planets, or don't you think so? Yes - 42 percent. No - 49 percent. Not sure - 9 percent. ap-ny-11-13 2155EST *************** ------------------------------ Date: 16 November 1981 15:23-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Sender: ___103 at MIT-MC Subject: News coverage of shuttle flight To: SPACE at MIT-MC According to the noon news today on channel 5 (KPIX), the landing of the shuttle was deliberately made more difficult the second time to test it more fully. I recall they were going to land cross-wind, but changed their mind because the wind was too strong and landed into the wind just like the first time. They let the computer fly the ship during some of the descent, and they tested the full range of aerodynamic handling during re-entry, but I don't recall anything about the landing that was actually made more difficult than the first time. Is there anything I missed? Or did KPIX get sloppy and refer to the re-entry as if it were the landing? Or did KPIX forget the cross-wind landing had been cancelled? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.