Colourful NASA chief faces his toughest test

HOUSTON has a Brian O’Connell and a Sean O’Keefe. It even has a Michael Collins, once known as “the loneliest man in space” for staying in orbit during the Apollo 11 moon landing.

There are so many Irish names among the great and the good of NASA that, at times, it could double for Dublin.

The man at the helm, with family connections in Kerry, is O'Keefe, America's chief space administrator and the man chosen by vice-president Dick Cheney to clean up NASA and get it back on track.