Columbia ejection seats - NOT -- NAC!!!!

[Michael Riebs / AudiV8]

Jim,
Please, before putting your mouth in gear, engage brain!

> I'm not sure that we ought to continue making so many of these flights.  The
> most immediate return on investment that I see is for the aggrandizement of
> those who do the flights.  What in the hell can the investors, us stupid
> taxpayers, get out of it?  And, it costs a ton.

Have you ever heard of any of the following:
weather satellites?
Cell-phones?
Handheld navigation systems?
"Lo-Jack" - a system to locate stolen cars with a "homing device"?
Satellite TV?
Most of these use satellites which are either shot into orbit with the "Arianne" rocket or similar, or in many cases placed into orbit from the shuttle.

Many experiments take place, including ones pertaining to alternative energy sources - remember the mission a few years ago, where the shuttle had a several mile long tether, and was dragging some ballast on the end of that? Well, that was an attempt to find an alternate source of electric energy!

"We the people" get many, many benefits from shuttle missions which are dangerous, as well as from Formula 1 development, which is equally dangerous - and in which more people have lost their lives than in the shuttle program! So - should we just discontinue F-1 racing? THAT is ALSO very expensive - and WE DO pay for it - in the cost of our cars!

Remember what the price of a Ford Model T was? About $800. So why is it that today's Ford costs more than 20 times that? Yes, let's inhibit technological development, because 14 people have died in the past 20 years, and "it's expensive".

WAKE UP!

Michael L. Riebs
Grand Rapids, Michigan

'90 V8Q
'98 A6QA

www.1stchoicegranite.com