Enlistment?

[TSara]

Well, if they have one and have not made it public, I would be concerned about its content.

IF they have one and are keeping quite about it it could be for any number of reasons.

One being the fact that if they admitted they did it might cause some sort of panic.

Not too many people are comfortable with the idea that we might not be alone in the universe.


I could see why Uncle Sam might neither confirm not deny the existence of "first contact" orders.

[Elessar]

Well, if they have one and have not made it public, I would be concerned about its content.

IF they have one and are keeping quite about it it could be for any number of reasons.

One being the fact that if they admitted they did it might cause some sort of panic.

Not too many people are comfortable with the idea that we might not be alone in the universe.


I could see why Uncle Sam might neither confirm not deny the existence of "first contact" orders.

I'd like to see a global poll - and never have. I don't think people would panic as much as most people do at the knowledge divorced of whether our first impression is "good/bad". Religious radicals on all sides would probably react radically but... that's what they do... they're radicals

This thread's pretty OT, anyone have anything else to add with respect to enlistment? It's interesting to note that the current space shuttle goes up with only officers (Naval and AF). There are no enlistees as specialists or technicians... perhaps because it's too specialized with respect to the rest of what Naval or AF enlistees might be doing compared with the fact that Starfleet is MEANT to go out into space? Interesting thought.

The whole "Marines in space" thing would definitely involve enlistees in space, obviously. Probably a recon platoon...

[CX]

Modern space exploration is such that they don't need enlisted military personnel. The guys that actually fly the shuttle are going to be officers because both the AF and the Navy requires that all their pilots be officers.

[Elessar]

Modern space exploration is such that they don't need enlisted military personnel. The guys that actually fly the shuttle are going to be officers because both the AF and the Navy requires that all their pilots be officers.

True but not all shuttle astronauts are pilots, only 1 or 2. The other 4 or 5 are specialists, which does not immediately entail that they must be officers, but they're (I think) usually civilians. So hypothetically, mission specialists could be enlisted inasmuch as they don't have to be pilots, but they are still never enlisted because I don't think there are any jobs in the Navy or AF that train an enlistee in such a way that they could perform an analogous job (like computer spec?) on the shuttle, since the shuttle is such a completely different environment and equipment than an enlistee would ever run into in any other part of the service, which was what I was getting at.