Because of this political aspect, NASA's primary product was never actual "space exploration." Instead, NASA produced public-relations spectaculars. The Apollo project was the premiere example. The astonishing feat of landing men on the moon was a tremendous public-relations achievement, and it pretty much crushed the Soviet opposition, at least as far as "space-racing" went.

On the other hand, like most "spectaculars," Apollo delivered rather little in the way of permanent achievement. There was flag-waving, speeches, and plaque-laying; a lot of wonderful TV coverage; and then the works went into mothballs. We no longer have the capacity to fly human beings to the moon. No one else seems particularly interested in repeating this feat, either; even though the Europeans, Indians, Chinese and Japanese all have their own space programs today. (Even the Arabs, Canadians, Australians and Indonesians have their own satellites now.)

In 1991, NASA remains firmly in the grip of the "Apollo Paradigm." The assumption was (and is) that only large, spectacular missions with human crews aboard can secure political support for NASA, and deliver the necessary funding to support its eleven-billion-dollar-a-year bureaucracy. "No Buck Rogers, no bucks."

The march of science -- the urge to actually find things out about our solar system and our universe -- has never been the driving force for NASA. NASA has been a very political animal; the space-science community has fed on its scraps.

Unfortunately for NASA, a few historical home truths are catching up with the high-tech white-knights.

First and foremost, the Space Race is over. There is no more need for this particular tournament in 1992, because the Soviet opposition is in abject ruins. The Americans won the Cold War. In 1992, everyone in the world knows this. And yet NASA is still running