And what did Weiler’s folks do when the kid arrived there? They put the seventeen-year-old in a room with six adults, six NASA bureaucrats, and they began questioning him: “Who put you up to this? Why are you coming here out of nowhere? Who’s backing you? Who paid for your trip?” And the kid responded saying something like, “It’s just me. I want to see Pluto explored, and you have dashed my dream. How could you?” Nichols himself and that dream of his became a media story that personalized the cancellation, embodying the disappointment of youth.
