Posted by jburk to General News at January 19, 2006 07:56 PM

When Dr Michael Griffin took charge of the US space agency (Nasa) last year, it seemed as if he was being handed a poison chalice. Whereas some of his predecessors had been in charge of heroic expeditions to the Moon - he had inherited a grounded shuttle fleet that was soon to be scrapped and a partially built International Space Station that critics were labelling expensive and pointless.