Phil writes:

> If Carly Fiorina can rise to the top of HP, why can't a black man get paid
>  a fat salary despite a low level of knowledge and skill?
>
>  Read the complete blog entry at:
>
>  http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2003/08/29#a1429

As a part of that blog, the following appears:

======================================

The editorial page has some really thoughtful witers, notably a former NASA
employee saying that the Shuttle is NASA's Vietnam.  It will never work because
the reusable rocket idea is flawed, Homer Hickam notes, and the Shuttle is
parked in the middle of a bunch of explosive rocketry rather than safely perched
on top of all the nasty stuff.  "Simply put, had that spaceplane been on top
of the stack, the destruction of Challenger and Columbia wouldn't have
occurred."  He advocates replacing the Shuttle with expendable launchers and a new
spaceplane.

=======================================

Despite the scoffing tone, Homer Hickam is not to be readily dismissed. He's
quite bright and was a NASA rocket design engineer for all of his working
life. There's been a movie made about his teenage years called "October Sky"
that's worth watching if you have the time. In the interim, see:

     http://www.imsa.edu/team/greatminds/hickam.html

However I've heard another criticism of the shuttle design, one that I
consider particularly cogent: it is the very reusability of the shuttle's design
that has also been it's most significant constraint as well. During the Apollo
era, when every spaceship was used only once and was a throwaway afterwards,
during a period when we were going to the moon every six months, the rate of
incorporation of new technologies and new designs into the spacecraft was much,
much greater than it has been with the shuttle fleet. Indeed, the incorporation
of new technology has proven to be so difficult and so expensive with the
shuttles that it's done only once a decade or so.

Wirt Atmar

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *