Word: nasa
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Harvard astronomers fear the government will slash funds earmarked for a National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) mission to study Haley's comet when it passes through the solar system...
That little joke is currently making the rounds at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. But the troubling fact is that U.S. officials have little to smile about when they look at the burgeoning Soviet space program. The faltering U.S. effort has been plagued by repeated delays of the space shuttle (now scheduled for launch no earlier than next March), while the Soviets have been forging steadily onward, setting the stage for permanent occupation of space...
...chemical devastation of the Vietnamese countryside, the spread of nuclear weaponry. Even the first flush of excitement about landing men on the moon quickly turned into boredom after repeated video exposure of the dusty, lifeless lunar surface. Many people pressed loudly and insistently for more attention to earthly problems. NASA is still suffering budgetary blues from this outcry. Indeed, only last week the space agency's beleaguered boss, Robert Frosch, announced he was quitting, reportedly because of lack of financial support...
...could have evolved on the primordial earth. Although he and the Russian astrophysicist I.S. Shklovskii lived half a world apart, they collaborated in writing Intelligent Life in the Universe, still probably the best treatise on the prospects for extraterrestrial life. As a planetary expert, Sagan was called upon by NASA to act as an adviser and scientific investigator on unmanned space missions. He did not always endear himself to the space agency. One irritant was his outspoken opposition to the moon landings. Robots, he argued, could do the job better and cheaper and with no risk to life...
...even without Carson's patronage, Sagan's public star would surely have risen. Just before NASA sent off its twin Pioneers 10 and 11 to Saturn and Jupiter, he had persuaded the space agency to attach plaques identifying the ships' origins on the remote chance that they might be intercepted when they finally passed out of the solar system. The idea was a triumph over bureaucratic caution. The plaques, drawn by Linda, depicted nude male and female earthlings, and provoked worldwide comment...