Space program lunacy

Hurricane Dean's march toward the Gulf Coast couldn't have provided a more ironic backdrop for Space Shuttle Endeavour's early touchdown Tuesday afternoon. Endeavour, originally scheduled to return to Earth today, landed in Florida a day early in anticipation of Dean's possible landfall over Houston, where NASA's Johnson Space Center handles the orbiter's reentry into the atmosphere. In the event of a Houston landfall, NASA would have had to close the space center for the storm's duration.

By Paul Thornton

August 22, 2007