15 January 2005 - Huygens coverage
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rookie reporter: Here’s the schedule, let’s see. View of the
control room in Darmstadt as they sit around waiting for data,
and either cheer or look worried. Speeches by politicians in nine
languages. Dinner—wait, are they going to release any findings,
or not?
veteran reporter: This ain’t NASA, kid. They’ll get around to
it eventually.
rookie: Shouldn’t that be the whole point? Why should I even
go if all they do is jabber about what a great job they did?
veteran: Keep your contacts fresh, you never know when they’ll
pay off.
rookie: Well, that’ll have to do. I’m off. Wish me luck.
veteran: Ah, naptime, how I love thee.
clue:
Compared to NASA, the European Space Agency is spectacularly
bad at the public relations aspects of space exploration.
You might think it’d be easy to make hay with first-in-history,
once-in-a-lifetime kinda accomplishments, but not for Europe.
I knew this ahead of time, but a lot of space junkies, waiting
minute by minute for the next instant discovery fix, were
frustrated.
give me a clue so sweet and true
copyright 2005, 2024 Jay J.P. Scott
<jay@satirist.org>