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Posted by tourdemars to General News at June 7, 2004 11:49 AM
In the coming days our nation will pause to mourn the loss and honor the tremendous legacy of our 40th President, Ronald Wilson Reagan. President Reagan's boundless optimism about America manifested itself in many ways. Among them was his energetic and unbridled support for NASA's space exploration program. Less than three months after he took the oath of office, on April 12, 1981, the Space Shuttle Columbia launched on its first mission, and after a six-year hiatus, Americans were back in space to stay.TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.marsnews.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/593
Along with this is to be noted a delay in the MoontoMars report due out on the 10th waiting until monday the 14th to be issued.
Spacepolitics.com
Reagan and the Aldridge Commission
An acquaintance pointed out at dinner last night that the public release of the Aldridge Commission's final report will take place as preparations for the late President Reagan's funeral approach their climax, and thus is in danger of being ignored. The day of the release and press conference, Thursday, is the same day Reagan's body will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda; the funeral will take place on Friday, with the federal government closing for the day. It would appear that most of the media's bandwidth Thursday will be taken up with those events, with the closing of the G-8 summit absorbing most of the rest.
Although there's no indication that the commission plans to delay the release of their report, it might be prudent from a public relations standpoint for them to wait until the following Monday, June 14. While the aerospace trade media, as well as those few reporters whose beat is primarily space, will be available to cover its release, the broader media will likely devote little attention to it; what coverage they can offer will be drowned out by other events. (A counterpoint is that its quite possible the broader media would give the commission's report little coverage in any event.) NASA had planned to deliver a response to the report on Friday, which will almost certainly be delayed given the funeral and government closure that day.
One scenario would be to have the commission release its report Monday morning, and have NASA deliver its response that afternoon. This assumes that NASA would get a copy of the report in advance of its (delayed) public release. This might also provide some momentum and additional interest in the Centennial Challenges workshop Tuesday and Wednesday, particularly if the commission comes out as strongly in favor of prizes as has been rumored…
Update 3:30 pm June 7: According to both SPACE.com http://space.com/news/commission_delay_040607.html and the commission's web site http://www.moontomars.org/ , the release of the report has been delayed until some time next week.
Posted by: Harold LaValley at June 7, 2004 12:36 PM