Further, Jules Verne never
mentioned Cape Canaveral or the Atlantic coast of Florida in From the
Earth to the Moon as Ladwig claims. Verne chose a locale clear across
the state, Tampa, which is more than 100 miles away on the Gulf Coast of
Florida.
The article would also lead
us to believe that Kennedy actually saw a Saturn 5 moon rocket in 1963.
The Saturn 5 had not been built as of the time of Kennedy's visit to Huntsville
but a scale model Saturn was inspected by Kennedy at Marshall. The Saturn
5 is also 365 feet tall not 262 feet as Ladwig reported. See: http://mix.msfc.nasa.gov/ABSTRACTS/MSFC-00344.html
for an image of Kennedy visiting Marshall in September of 1962.
Jim McDade
Director of Technology,
School of Business
University of Alabama, Birmingham
Alan Ladwig replies:
The Federal government does
have the authority to render formal decisions on new names, proposed changes
in names, and names which are in conflict in the U.S. Their decisions define
the spellings and applications of the names for use on maps and other publications
of Federal agencies. The Board of Geographic Names has this authority.
Johnson was renaming the geographic area, not the town.
The name of the Cape's military
base changed numerous times over the years. I had originally noted many
of the changes in the article, but some were edited out due to length.
At the time of Johnson's decree, the name was Station No. 1 of the Atlantic
Missile Range.
The direct quote from Johnson's
speech is as follows: "I have today determined that Station No. 1 of the
Atlantic Missile Range and the NASA Launch Operation Center in Florida
shall hereafter be known as the John F. Kennedy Space Center. I have also
acted today with the understanding and the support of my friend, the Governor
of Florida, Farris Bryant, to change the name of Cape Canaveral. It shall
be known hereafter as Cape Kennedy."
True, the City Council of
Cape Canaveral voted not to change its name to Cape Kennedy, and I mentioned
this fact in the article.
I didn't write, or intend
to convey, that Kennedy saw an actual Saturn 5 rocket. He saw a
model of a Saturn booster.
As for Jules Verne, my primary
point was that his fiction linked space travel to Florida. However, I've
now revised my article slightly to reflect that Verne wrote about Tampa
as a launch site.
Glen Golightly's article
"Forget Me Not: NASA's Short-Term Memory" chronicled a recent visit by
SPACE.com's
Andrew Chaikin to Johnson Space Center. An official at JSC comments.
To the Editor:
While, as JSC's Records Manager
and host of Andrew Chaikin's visit, I was absolutely delighted with his
presence and remarks and quite pleased Glen Golightly covered the event,
I am disappointed that Golightly missed the entire point of Chaikin's message.
His whole underlying reason
for speaking to JSC employees in person, and all NASA employees via NASA
Select, was to stress the importance of the records we create in the course
of doing our daily jobs. His point was to let NASA civil servants and contractors
know they are creating history and that they should be sure the records
of our work are managed and dispositioned through each Center's records
manager. He even made the point that, if employees feel their material
may not be the "record" copy of information, to contact their records manager
anyway because we have close working relationships with the historians
of the agency.
Patti F. Stockman
Records Manager
Johnson Space Center
Maia Weinstock's article
"Astronomers Find Fleeting Comet" brought this response.
To the Editor:
Great article on the nearly
missed comet. Thought I might point you in the right direction for a possible
follow-up. You mentioned the Torino scale and MIT, but you may not be aware
that MIT in conjunction with the US Air Force, specifically Air Force Space
Command (AFSPC), operates a (Charged Coupled Device) CCD camera that is
the most sensitive device for finding near-Earth objects (NEOs), asteroids,
meteors and comets today. There are currently two LINEAR CCD devices loaded
onto two Air Force Geostationary Deep-Space Surveillance (GEODSS) telescopes
at our Experimental Test Site (ETS) in Socorro, New Mexico. The test site
is actually run by our 21st Space Wing at Peterson AFB in Colorado. In
the past two years, just one of the telescopes has increased by tenfold
the number of objects cataloged by the Smithsonian Minor Planet Center
(SMPC). Dr. Brian Marsden runs the SMPC and he and his staff are hard-pressed
to keep up with the deluge of new findings by LINEAR. We here at Air Force
Space Command are quite proud of the LINEAR system and it just keeps getting
better and more impressive every day.
There are several other programs
in existence, such as: SKYWATCH at the University of Arizona and NEAT,
which is a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) camera system on another
Air Force (21SW) telescope. There are also literally thousands of "amateur"
astronomers that search the skies nightly, just hoping to spot an unknown
object they can claim for their own. Just thought you would like to know,
there is someone out there watching the heavens and hopefully not too many
slip by.
P.S. Officially NASA and
the USAF have been tasked by Congress to conduct an all-sky search to find
all the NEO's that are about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) in size and could
pose a threat to the Earth. Two kilometers is about the size that could
spell the end for mankind if the conditions were right. Even with LINEAR
and NEAT and all the thousands of amateurs out there, it will still take
about 10 years to complete the project. With a third LINEAR that time might
be trimmed a little, but since no one really knows how many NEO's there
are, much less how many are greater than 2 kilometers in size, it is anybody's
guess as to how long it will really take and what we will find.
Lt. Col. Don Jewell
Deputy Chief Scientist
HQ Air Force Space Command
AFSPC/CN
Peterson AFB, Colorado
Ann Saccomano's opinion
piece "Keep On Space Trucking" drew parallels between space transportation
and other transportation industries. A reader responds.
To the Editor:
I agree that there is some
common base in both kinds of transportation.
However, there is a big difference
between them and that is the supply of the materials which have to be transported.
In common logistics, a parcel is waiting to be transported at the customer's
site but in the space industry, the "trucks" often are waiting for the
"parcels" because they are not ready yet.
As an example: Last year,
Arianespace had to cancel several launches due to the fact that the satellite
was not ready yet.
To my opinion, as long this
issue is not solved, the space industry will lack of a solid base to develop
itself as a part of the regular transportation industry.
Filip De Laet
Belgium
And one more comment in
the ongoing debate over property
rights in space.
To the Editor:
Having heard many "discussions"
on the subject of property claims in space, on various bodies (like the
moon or an asteroid), I have always been struck by one thing. Many will
state that getting a piece of property somehow claimed by an individual
or company will somehow set a precedent and 'open the doors to the settlement
of space' (or some similar rot). Problem is, to paraphrase the old saw,
"What would happen if someone made a claim in space, and everyone ignored
it?"
Without some sort of internationally
recognized framework to go from, just plopping down on some body in space
and saying "See, I/we own this" might look good on the front page of the
local newspaper, but if nobody is willing to acknowledge the claim as legitimate,
that's all it will get you.
So, for all the folks who
are claiming that they want to get humanity out into space, to get companies
setting up colonies, etc., my advice is focus your efforts for now on getting
that framework in place. Start with the much-hated Moon Treaty. You might
not like it's language, but it *is* a document that a large number of governments
around the world acknowledge, so it can form the foundation on which to
build what you want. Amend out that parts you think are too restrictive,
but get started with something along these lines. Otherwise, your colony
is going to be about as close to reality as the next science-fiction novel
about it.
Andrew Reynolds
SPACE.com welcomes
Letters
to the Editor. Letters intended for publication should be under 250 words,
and may be edited for style and clarity.
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