2011.03.28
Monday’s feature story: Space expert to present opinions
“Has America forgotten its aspiration to become a space-faring nation?” writes Richard Cook in an essay published January in The Orlando Sentinel. “Can those days be brought back by a country that has given away its manufacturing prowess to foreign competitors like China, and that has been devastated by two decades of economic turmoil?”
The decline of the U.S. space program is a subject that Cook, 64, understands inside and out. A Roanoke resident since 2007, he once worked as a budget analyst for NASA.
Before the disastrous launch of the Challenger in 1986 that killed six astronauts and a schoolteacher, Cook warned the agency about problems with the seals in the shuttle’s rocket boosters. After the explosion, he became a whistle-blower, leaking his report to The New York Times.
In 2007, he published a book, “Challenger Revealed: An Insider’s Account of How the Reagan Administration Caused the Greatest Tragedy of the Space Age,” which Publishers Weekly called “a gripping true-life thriller.”
Cook, who also believes firmly in the existence of extraterrestrial life, will give a presentation 6 p.m. Tuesday at Roanoke’s main library on Jefferson Street titled “From Challenger to Extraterrestrials: Answering the Call of Space.”
After the presentation, he’ll head to Get coffee shop on Kirk Avenue for a more personal question-and-answer session, said River Laker, creative development director for the city libraries.
Click here to read the rest of the story.
