The View From Missive Control

The month of July passed, with much space related fanfare. Yet, in some ways, it passed uneventfully. True, Shoemaker-Levy 9 did its dive into our Jovian neighbor. But Jupiter didn’t blow up, go reeling of course, or suddenly have its atmosphere peeled off to head out into the Oort cloud. And there were folk out there predicting such excitement. I even picked up a little sidebar in a local religious paper which quotes one Rabbi Shmuel Butman, a local Lubavitch Hasidic rabbi, who says the whole comet thing was predicted in the 13th century in one of the ancient Jewish mystical texts, the Zohar. The fulfillment of this prophecy, he apparently claims, means that redemption is near. Perhaps.

The Apollo program was duly commemorated, with interviews of former astronauts, pieces in local papers giving so-called expert opinions about those same astronauts, quotes from various scientists and political figures about what they think about where the space program has gone, and some wretchedly inaccurate TV productions (Moon Shot, For All Mankind, for example). Most seemed to feel that while much is happening, the public not only doesn’t know, but doesn’t care. They may be right, and that’s where SFS comes in. It is, I think, time that we (once again?) go for a major membership boost. One on one recruitment is fine to a point, but at times it seems we are losing as many old members as we are gaining new. If you’ve been following Carolyn Josephs’ update on the Education Committee, you know that big doings are afoot to engage teachers and through them, students, in our future in space.

None of this is to suggest that things are gloomy. If you check out the current space news, you’ll see we have good news on the Delta Clipper, the Space Station, and a couple other goodies. David Anderman contacted me last minute to let me know that the “Back to the Moon”ill has been accepted by the House Committee on Space & Science…

The Lunar Resources Data Purchase Act is a bill to encourage the development of a commercial space industry in the United States, and to regain the leadership of the United States in the field of lunar science. The bill has been incorporated in the House of Representatives version of the NASA Authorization for Fiscal Year 1995. If the U.S. Senate passes a NASA Authorization for Fiscal Year 1995, then a congresional committee to reconcile the two versions of the NASA Authorization is expected to keep the Back to the Moon bill in the final law. Space activists are requested to send a letter to their Senators asking them to pass a NASA Authorization for Fiscal Year 195 that includes the Lunar Resources Data Purchase Act.