Word: visione
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...move the White House probably saw as an election-year head snapper, President George W. Bush sketched out a long-term vision for manned spaceflight that goes far beyond the dog paddling in near-Earth orbit to which the space agency has confined itself since the 1970s. Back on the table is human exploration of the moon; back on the table is human exploration of Mars. Swept to the floor--or at least to the side--is the overbudget, underproducing International Space Station and the increasingly creaky, increasingly lethal shuttle fleet...
...plan with so much vision done so cheaply was heralded as everything from election-year hokum to signature Bush policy--a bold stroke accompanied by incremental steps to measure results. The idea is that while the earthbound Democratic presidential candidates are having their down-in-the-dirt primary fight, arguing about the past, George Bush is charting a future course for the heavens. "We will build new ships to carry man forward into the universe, to gain a new foothold on the moon and to prepare for new journeys to worlds beyond our own," said Bush...
Space-exploration proponents deride as lack of vision the mention of technical barriers or the insistence that needs on Earth come first. Not so. The former is rationality, the latter the setting of priorities. If Mars proponents want to raise $600 billion privately and stage their own expedition, more power to them; many of the great expeditions of the past were privately mounted. If Mars proponents expect taxpayers to foot their bill, then they must make their case against the many other competing needs for money. And against the needs for health care, education, poverty reduction, reinforcement of the military...
Studio executives, no strangers to melodrama, have begun to talk about movie piracy the way FBI agents talk about terrorism: they watch the Web for "chatter," they embed films with hidden "fingerprints," and they speak without irony about "changing hearts and minds." They even use night-vision goggles. It's not going too far to say they are completely paranoid, which doesn't mean they are wrong...
...lobbies, moviegoers were siphoned through metal detectors. Camera phones were confiscated. As the lights went down and Cruise and his movie-star teeth flickered onto the screen, men and women in dark blazers walked solemnly down the aisles, searching for the pale glow of camcorders through their night-vision goggles. Maybe because this was Los Angeles, the moviegoers didn't seem to notice the paramilitary scene unfolding beside their military fiction...