> i have to ask: are those hosts running caching nameservers?

falcon.dol-esa.gov      -- yes

; type          domain                  source host/file        backup file

directory                               /etc/domain
cache           .                       named.ca

cais3.cais.com          -- yes

;       boot file for name server
directory                               /usr/sprint
cache     .                             db.cache

leidecker.gsfc.nasa.gov -- can't determine. (it's just a resolv.conf client)

> if not, are they behind slow links

falcon.dol-esa.gov      -- 56Kbps/sec
cais3.cais.com          -- 45Mbps/sec
leidecker.gsfc.nasa.gov -- can't determine, but I imagine it's pretty fast

> are the nameservers that they make requests to
>	    particularly heavily loaded

You ask a lot of hard questions :-) This one would require interacting
with a lot of people in an effort to find out who about knows what.

Try running ``whois "dom cais.com"'' etc. to see who's feeding who.

> It sounds like your local name server is doing something Very Wrong.
                 ^^^^
Funny, I don't remember configuring two out of three of these machines
at all.  And I didn't setup the one I did configure.  They must be 
donations. :-)

Would you like me to mail you the config files from the two machines
that I can access them on?

> how long is 'a while'?

Good question.  Seems the name will timeout in seconds if you get
unlucky.  Maybe a week at the longest; maybe three days?

~Ken