Spectators watch as the Orion spacecraft is launched into space from Cape Canaveral, Fla., last Friday. (Smiley N. Pool, Houston Chronicle)
Re: “Successful Orion flight was another “Apollo moment” for space science,” and “Orion went to space. Now what?,” Dec. 6 news stories.
Not many years ago we learned that the peanuts on our next flight may not be served by a stewardess, but there would definitely be a flight attendant. These days the secretary of defense does not announce how many men are being sent to battle, but how many troops will be deployed. And now, following the successful test flight of the Orion spacecraft, one article notes that this “brings NASA one step closer to the goal of manned spaceflight by 2021,” while another says that “The success of EFT-1 brings NASA one step closer to the goal of crewed deep-space flight.” We may wonder whether this term will become standard NASA-ese, since, when spoken aloud, its homophone may not be the descriptor NASA intends for its space ventures.
Richard McMahan, Fort Collins
This letter was published in the Dec. 10 edition.
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