[FPSPACE] The New York Review of Books: Stumbling into Space

[LARRY KLAES]

The New York Review of Books

April 29, 2004

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17059?email<http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17059?email>

Stumbling into Space

By Timothy Ferris

George W. Bush's January 14 speech at NASA headquarters, in which he 
set the manned space program on a new trajectory, was an oddly 
dissociated event. NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe stood alone at 
stage left with his arms hanging limply at his sides and his fingers 
curled, looking like an eagle that has just eaten a gratifyingly plump 
mouse but is having trouble digesting it. The President, adopting his 
customary tank-window squint, briefly praised shuttle astronauts for 
conducting 'important research' and helping to build the International 
Space Station --and then enthused about the 'stunning images' from 
NASA space telescopes and the investigations being conducted by its 
probes of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The odd thing was that aside from 
Bush's tip of the hat to the shuttle and the station--whose death 
warrants he was signing--all the triumphs he cited were the work of 
unmanned robotic spacecraft.

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