Reading Journal - Feature Stories

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/science/space/24astronaut.html?_r=2&ref=global-home

'Coolest Job Ever' Ending, Astronauts Seeking Frontier

Kenneth Chang at the New York Times writes about how astronaut positions at NASA are winding down, partly due to Obama's budget cuts for the Aeronautics Administration.

Two things attracted me to the article: first, the headline.

The headline is divided in two parts; the first part is pretty casual and 'coolest job ever' is purposely in single quotes. The second part of the headline is a bit more serious, but still a tad ambiguous (my thought process was around the lines of: "'seeking a frontier'? you mean physically?").

The second thing that drew me to this article was the lede, or lack thereof. There is a feature lede, but it is placed after the first line of the article, a 'rhetorical' question: "What happens when you have the right stuff at the wrong time?" Again, at this point reading the article you're not really sure what it's exactly about; perhaps this question would make sense to someone who has been following the stories about used space shuttles becoming museum pieces. After the question, the writer compacts the feature in a ''nut graph":

Members of NASA’s astronaut corps have been asking just that, now that the space shuttle program is ending and their odds of flying anywhere good anytime soon are getting smaller. The Endeavour is scheduled to launch this week, and the Atlantis is supposed to fly the last shuttle mission in June — and all the seats are spoken for.

Then, the writer puts this story into political/economic context by bringing up the fact that funding for NASA's human spaceflight has been "curtailed" or cut. This is a very minor critique, but i think the word "curtailed" does not fit into such a casually-toned article; or am I just reading too much into it?

The writer then continues the article with snippets of interviews to astronauts about the change in the industry--that works, gives the second part of the article a 'face', a more human side.

However, to be completely honest, I look at the end of the article, and back at the initial question and I can't seem to make the connection.

This article is certainly timely and attempts to put things into perspective: the fate of the NASA and aspiring astronauts/veteran astronauts. However, it is missing a little bit more clarity in terms of content, why exactly the budget cuts by Obama's Administration? There is no linked story when the president is mentioned. But overall it is a cohesive story that starts out with a general claim and then zooms in on individuals.

Julia