Letter to the editor: Where are the investigative reporters on space flight?
· The Washington TimesOPINION:
The late ABC News Science Editor Jules Bergman was an investigative reporter who covered the early manned spaceflight years at NASA.
As a NASA Johnson Space Center mission planner, I remember many of my managers harshly criticizing much of Bergman’s reporting.
Bergman may not have always gotten his NASA story right, but he did keep NASA management aware that it was being watched and that any mismanagement would be reported to that most feared judge: the U.S. taxpayer.
Unfortunately, Bergman passed away in 1987, and for various reasons, critical media investigations of NASA human space flight endeavors seem to have passed away with him.
If Bergman were alive today, he surely would have reported on the failure of NASA management to develop the commercial space shuttle, a totally reusable launch system that would have increased flight safety and significantly reduced launch costs.
He would likely have reported that NASA’s plan to return humans to the moon for colonization was fatally flawed and that the idea of using expendable Saturn V class launchers was unfeasible because of the manufacturing cost.
More importantly, if someone had investigated the rumors of moon/Mars colonization being impossible because of the fatal effects of long-term micro-gravity, I believe that reporter would have a Pulitzer Prize-winning story to report.
But there seem to be no Jules Bergman-style investigative reporters following NASA manned space flight.
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DON A. NELSON
Alvin, Texas