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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Shuttle a mistake, says NASA head

Compiled from wire reports The Spokesman-Review

The space shuttle and International Space Station – the whole of the U.S. manned space program for the past three decades – were mistakes, NASA chief Michael Griffin said Tuesday.

In a meeting with USA Today’s editorial board, Griffin said NASA lost its way in the 1970s, when the agency ended the Apollo program of moon visits in favor of developing the shuttle and space station, which can only orbit Earth.

“It is now commonly accepted that was not the right path,” Griffin said. “We are now trying to change the path while doing as little damage as we can. It cannot be done instantaneously.”

Only now is the nation’s space program getting back on track, Griffin said. He announced last week that NASA aims to send astronauts back to the moon in 2018 in a spacecraft that would look like the Apollo capsule and would be carried into space by a rocket built from space shuttle components.

Putin says he’ll give up presidency in 2008

Moscow In a televised town hall meeting, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin on Tuesday rebuffed the idea of holding on to the presidency past 2008 and promised there is “no danger of a return to a monopoly on power.”

For months, the Russian political scene has been consumed with speculation over whether Putin would permit a democratic transition of power at the end of his second term in 2008, when the constitution requires him to step down.

“I am asking this question because in past years, you are the only leader under whose guidance the country develops steadily,” 36-year-old Igor Guchkov from the Volga River town of Ulianovsk asked during the call-in. “After 2008, we would like to continue to have confidence in the future, live in a wonderful and stable society, have a strong and smart president. Don’t you think it would be worthwhile to hold a referendum on a third term in office?”

Putin responded with characteristic dry humor.

“I do not see my goal in sitting in the Kremlin endlessly and having Channel 1, 2 and 3 constantly showing the same face, and if someone chooses a different channel, the FSB (successor to the KGB) director would appear on the screen and tell viewers to go back to the first three channels,” he said.

“As for me personally, as the military says, I will find my place in the ranks.”

Iran threatens to resume enrichment

Tehran, Iran Iran broadened its threats Tuesday over a move to refer it to the U.N. Security Council, saying that unless the U.N. atomic watchdog agency backs down, it will resume uranium enrichment, block inspections of its nuclear facilities, and cut trade with countries that supported the resolution.

Despite the threats, Russia’s minister of atomic energy and Vienna-based diplomats said Iran does not have ability to resume enrichment immediately.

“Currently Iran has no enrichment capacity – there is no possible way Iranians can enrich uranium,” said Alexander Rumyantsev, Russia’s minister of atomic energy and an expert on Tehran’s nuclear program. He said Iran’s only known enrichment facility – a small pilot project at Natanz – would take more than a year to begin operations.