"Your agency is billions of dollars overbudget on that space station," he said. "Now, I don't think the American people expected to sacrifice their defense capabilities just so you can tinker around there with your nifty lab experiments. This is supposed to be an international effort, isn't it? Well, far as I can see, we're picking up most of the tab. How am I supposed to justify this elephant to the good folks of South Carolina?"

NASA administrator Cornell responded with a camera-ready smile. He was a political animal, the glad-hander whose personal charm and charisma made him a star with the press and in Washington, where he spent most of his time cajoling Congress and White House for more money, ever more money, to fund the space agency's perennially insufficient budget. His was the public face NASA, while Ken Blankenship, the man in charge of day-to-day operations at JSC, was the private face known only to agency insiders. They were the yin and yang of NASA leadership, so different in temperament it was hard to imagine how they functioned as a team. The inside joke at NASA was that Leroy Cornell was all style and no substance, and Blankenship was all substance and no style.

Cornell smoothly responded to Senator Parish's question. "You asked why other countries aren't contributing. Senator, the reason is, they already have. This truly is an international space station. Yes, the Russians are badly strapped for cash. Yes, we had to up the difference. But they're committed to this station. They've got a cosmonaut up there now, and they have every reason to help us keep ISS running. As for why we need the station, just look at the research that's being conducted in biology and medicine. Materials science. Geophysics.