DarkMatter wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jan 2004 02:50:39 GMT, Jack Crenshaw <jcrens@earthlink.net>
Gave us:

Surely the decision by Congress not to even fund the mission to reboost Skylab has got to be one of the dumbest ever made.  Instead of using it as the basis for a space station, we all stood back and allowed it to reenter.  Dumb!

Jack

  Some of the same idiots were going to let all 24?  Motorola birds
fall back down, 'cause the LEO phone thing didn't go over big enough.

An outstanding point.

  Unreal.  Just as they were about to do so, the military bailed them
out.  I think it is back to private ownership now, however.

  Well still have a LEO worldwide phone system in place.

  Yet another mistake was the killing of the particle accelerator in
Texas.  They were nearly done with the damned thing.   Big mistake.

I can't speak so much to that one, because I can't be sure that the SSC would have actually helped push science forward.  But you may well be right.  It certainly seemed that it would have been about as cheap to finish it as to crate and box it all up.

Jack