Space: Goodbye to Nasa's Glory Days

New U.S. plans boost private firms at the agency's expense

Insiders predicted the announcement would come in the State of the Union address in January. But the President's speech passed with no mention of the much touted space initiative. When the plan was finally unveiled at the White House last week, the reason for delay became clear: the President's new space policy so downplayed the role of NASA, once the unchallenged ruler of the space program, that NASA Administrator James Fletcher had been waging a last- ditch fight against aspects of it. Even so, in the end good soldier Fletcher declared, "We're all working together. The military is going to be...

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