<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">Popular urban myth has it that many years ago, for the construction of an early ‘Mariner’ Venus lander, NASA purchased a small diamond spectrosope window from Amsterdam (as the only transparent material capable of remaining unetched by Venus’s corrosive atmosphere). When it was duly delivered to the USA, NASA was charged an enormous sum of import duty. As soon as the Mariner craft was launched, NASA requested a rebate on the basis of having re-exported the diamond. The rebate was paid, thus demonstrating that wherever space is, it ain’t in America.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Phil M1GWZ</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On 13 Jul 2017, at 19:31, RICHARD BARTH <<a href="mailto:w3hwn@comcast.net" class="">w3hwn@comcast.net</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class="">
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<div class=""><p class=""><span id="_mce_caret" class=""><span style="font-size: 14pt;" class="">Is outer space "foreign" or just "far out"?</span></span><br class=""></p></div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></body></html>