Letters: Feb. 2, 1981

To the Editors:

With the launching of the space shuttle this year [Jan. 12], Americans will once again be migrating to a new frontier. As in California more than a century ago, the colonization of space offers the same hope for new resources, new industry and a renewed sense of national spirit.

William N. Ellis Huron, Ohio

When you described the space shuttle, you were blind to its most poetic resemblance. It looks like the Taj Mahal.

Leslie Riley Cannon Cincinnati

Some people loudly object to NASA and the shuttle, saying the money should be spent elsewhere. From the beginning of the manned space program in the late '50s until the end of Project Skylab in 1979, NASA spent approximately $60 billion. This sounds like a lot until one considers that today $60 billion would last four months in the Department of Health and Human Services.

Kenneth P. Myers Houston

The U.S. space-shuttle program is fascinating, but it also calls to mind the adage: In the land of the blind, the one-eyed is king. Little wonder that the Soviet Union should be so eager to get its own project off the ground. For the rest of us, the prospect of two purblind princelings contending high above for the throne of the kingdom is terrifying.

John Beattie Foix, France

I find it deplorable but typical that the Government would shortchange the space program in favor of the welfare system or Chrysler Corp., thus allowing other countries to surpass us in developing space technology.

Edward B. Marsh Ipswich, Mass.

Reagan's Ranch

Ronald Reagan's love of the wildness at his Rancho del Cielo and his designation of James Watt as Secretary of the Interior represent a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality [Jan. 51. How would Reagan feel if his "ranch in the sky" were sacrificed to the drillers, diggers and scrapers as an insignificant contribution to a short-term energy solution?

Robert Carlyle Day Martelle, Iowa

Sunbelt vs. Snowbelt

The proposal to help the urban poor to migrate to the Sunbelt [Jan. 12] could be the Snowbelt's blessing in disguise. If Chairman William McGill's commission can create an efficient and economical enticement for all the poor of the Northeast to migrate to the Sunbelt, where the work is, perhaps the urban communities of the North can survive after all.

John Mitchell Glen Cove, N. Y.

No one section of the U.S. has a monopoly on where people live, work and play, but the migration pattern clearly indicates a preference for the Sunbelt. It is people who need assistance, not the supercities and their satellites.

Lawrence W. Hester Cookeville, Tenn.

Having lived in the Sunbelt and the Snowbelt, I think one has as much to offer as the other. If U.S. resources can't meet demands in the North, how can they in the South and West? It takes energy to air-condition as well as to heat. Not everybody can live in the South. Nor does everybody want to. What the North lacks in January, it makes up for in June.

Regina P. Hickey Menomonie, Wis.

Second Opinions