IF Sean O'Keefe, the new chief of the world's most powerful space agency, has never read Mary Shelley's haunting Victorian novel, here's a summary for him. When the young Swiss student Victor Frankenstein discovers the secret of life, he assembles a giant using body parts stolen from graveyards, dissecting rooms and slaughterhouses. But when he finally brings it to life, Frankenstein realises he has manufactured a monster and flees. The tormented creature pursues him onto the ice floes of the North Pole and Frankenstein dies with the monster standing over his body—destroyed by his outrageous creation.
For O'Keefe, the story may have a curious resonance. Imagine the US space agency NASA as the young Victor Frankenstein, and think of its progeny as the International Space Station, brought to life using parts gathered from space agencies around the world. If Shelley's story is anything to go by, NASA will die a ...
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