The Sober Realities of Manned Space Flight, OpEd, The American Enterprise
“I vividly remember President Ronald Reagan going down to Texas after the Challenger disaster and memorializing the astronauts as heroes going further and faster into the unknown,” says [Planetary Society President Louis] Friedman. “Of course they were doing no such thing. They were simply launching a communications satellite and carrying on the teacher-in-space show for schoolchildren–both rather mundane tasks. But by once again evoking the exploration theme, Reagan saved the space program.
