[bruces at well.com: Dead Media Working Note 15.4]

[Paul DiFilippo]

    ================= Begin forwarded message =================

    From: bruces at well.com (Bruce Sterling)
    To: dead-media at Fringeware.COM (Dead Media List)
    Subject:  Dead Media Working Note 15.4
    Date: Sun, 01 Dec

    
    Dead medium:  American Missile Mail
    
    From: griker at MICROSOFT.com (Greg Riker)
    
    Source:  US Postal Service,
    http://www.usps.gov/history/his1.htm
    
        "Throughout its history, the Postal Service 
    enthusiastically has explored faster, more efficient forms 
    of mail transportation.  Technologies now commonplace == 
    railroads, automobiles, and airplanes == were embraced by 
    the Post Office Department at their radical birth, when 
    they were considered new-fangled, unworkable contraptions 
    by many.
    
         "One such technology, however, remains only a 
    footnote in the history of mail delivery.  On June 8, 
    1959, in a move a postal official heralded as 'of historic 
    significance to the peoples of the entire world,' the Navy 
    submarine U.S.S. Barbero fired a guided missile carrying 
    3,000 letters at the Naval Auxiliary Air Station in 
    Mayport, Florida. 'Before man reaches the moon,' the 
    official was quoted as saying, 'mail will be delivered 
    within hours from New York to California, to Britain, to 
    India or Australia by guided missiles.'
    
         "History proved differently, but this experiment with 
    missile mail exemplifies the pioneering spirit of the Post 
    Office Department when it came to developing faster, 
    better ways of moving the mail."
    
    Greg Riker (griker at MICROSOFT.com)
    
    
    
    
***Di Filippo here****  Thought this would be of V-2-ical 
interest to the list.

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