[FPSPACE] Revised EVA header

[DSFPortree at aol.com]

John:

> I favor the old-style header.  It may be as relevant to place the EVA in 
> the
> context of a particular mission ("Skylab 3 EVA 2") or program ("Skylab EVA
> 3") as to know which EVA this is since 1965 ("EVA 34")--in fact, I think
> that the tally since 1965 is possibly the least relevant metric.

I guess I just get a buzz from watching the total mounting up. By the time 
this book is out, we'll have 250 EVAs!

Another person favored the EVA count for a particular mission, so I will do 
that. They questioned including the entire crew roster - I think that that's 
relevant because often intravehicular people have key roles in EVAs (for 
example, operating the RMS).

Program EVAs - I think I agree that that's useful, too. But I definitely want 
to drop the broader categories (lunar surface EVA, space station EVA, Russian 
EVA, American EVA). 

I want to drop U.S. and Russian EVA counts because keeping track of which is 
which is increasingly hairy in these days of ISS. It's like asking whether ISS 
is really a Russian station or a U.S. station. How do you judge? By which 
bits could survive if all the other country's bits were removed, by tonnage, by 
who pays for the most, etc.?

David

David S. F. Portree
Science writer & historian
dsfportree at aol.com
Flagstaff Arizona USA

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