The Shuttle And The Media

Throughout this past week, as the launch of the final space shuttle mission approached, the major television networks covered the upcoming event as it only rarely covered the program over its thirty year run. Partly, that was NASA's fault. The agency had sold the program to Congress as a way to make human spaceflight "routine." The shuttle did nothing of the sort, of course, but NASA flew it well enough that the television networks gave shuttle missions less and less coverage. They seem to have bought NASA's line, if only because doing so may have fit their overall business strategy. Only occasional events-- the repair of the Hubble Space Telescope, the twin tragedies of Challenger and Columbia-- brought the networks back full steam.

That distance from the program, and from space in general, may have helped shape this week's coverage. For instance, the program has been scheduled to end around this time for several years, yet a focus of the coverage was how many shuttle workers were going to lose their jobs. True, the present economic situation has made the situation worse, but NASA, the rest of the federal government, and the workers themselves had time to plan-- perhaps the networks missed a story somewhere back there. If U. S. astronauts depending on the Russian Soyuz for access to space somehow seems wrong, perhaps the networks missed another story a while back. A more consistent approach to covering policy in general and space in particular-- as opposed to concentrating on drama-- might be more useful.