Washington Post: Obama may be wobbling a bit as some in Congress recoil over NASA’s retrenchment of astronaut plans for Moon, US spaceships
Try deconstructing this sentence, the lede to a WaPost story today by Joel Achenbach, which on its face seems to say one thing but could mean quite another: “Harrison Schmitt’s credentials as a space policy analyst include several days of walking on the moon.”
Hmm, well okay. Plus, as Achenbach adds, he is a former Senator. But really, walking on the moon makes one a space policy analyst … or merely an advocate? One might as well write, “Al Unser Jr.’s credentials as a mass transit analyst include a victory in the Indy 500.” Which is to say, Achenbach could be making a sly point about lack of credentials. Or not. Hard to say.
The story is about the intense reaction, including by Schmitt, against the administration’s drive to pole-ax NASA’s new human-rated rockets before they even reach the launch pad, and to re-think the whole return to the Moon and then on-to-Mars plan it inherited from the last administration.
The evasive tone of the lede fits an article that doesn’t overtly lead where one might expect. It starts with accounts of the powerful forces and emotions working against the proposed alteration of focus at NASA. But then it says the fight is over public relations, hardly a metric for substance. Following along are some calmly recited budget facts and other factors that tend to defuse some arguments from the protesters. We read that much of it is about jobs, and about the ability to carry Florida by any who can be linked by party to the President.
And finally, to get back to the story’s top, the first quote from Schmitt is his distress that Obama seems not to believe in American exceptionalism. That, too, is a term that, depending on whom one consults, may have little to do with rational analysis and a lot to do with hubris and emotion. The ending is provided by private entrepreneur Elon Musk, he of SpaceX and a nice new launcher that may or may not work in an upcoming test – and who is eager to try to fill the void left by any designed-to-NASA specs (and some would therefore snort, “socialist”) rocket. Does Musk represent a new and better, entrepreneurial future? A foe of exceptionalism? What?
The story is entertaining to me because it seems mischievous, hard to judge, a chameleon – it’s meaning likely to shift widely and according to the perception and background of the reader.
Minor, interesting Grist for the Mill:
SpaceX update on an abort to a static test yesterday for the new Falcon 9 launcher.
Pic: Falcon9 on pad, source ;
- Charlie Petit
