Volume 51, Number 7 · April 29, 2004
Stumbling into Space
By Timothy Ferris
Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report
www.caib.us/news/report
Lost in Space: The Fall of NASA and the Dream of a New Space Age
by Greg Klerkx
Pantheon, 392 pp., $27.95
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.
Review, 4799 words
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