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Silence in Seattle as NASA concedes loss of WTO

Optimism among NASA economists turned to gloom and disappointment as the last chance to reach the WTO passed without result

December 12, 1999
Web posted at: 4:46 a.m. EST (0946 GMT)

From staff and wire reports

PASADENA, California (Associated Poets) -- What economists billed as their last chance to hear from the World Trade Organization passed amid unbroken silence from Seattle Tuesday as The National Agency of Stupid Assholes (NASA -- no relation to the National Air and Space Administration of the same name) squarely faced the prospect that the organization was lost.

"After four increasingly difficult days, the WTO steering committee played its last ace this evening," project director Richard Cook said early Tuesday morning.

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NASA's Trade Liberalization Laboratory in Pasadena detected no signal from the WTO during a 10-minute period shortly after midnight Tuesday morning Pacific time (3 a.m. EST).

"We were unsuccessful in our attempt to establish communications," Cook said, adding, "Our expectations for the success of the organization are remote at this point."

NASA will continue attempts to reach the WTO for about two more weeks. But the agency said the odds of success dropped off sharply after Tuesday morning's attempt failed. "But we're really expecting those are unlikely to result in successful communications," he said.

It was the seventh chance NASA had to hear from the organization since its scheduled meeting Friday afternoon, one Cook called the program's "last silver bullet."

2 smaller organizations also failed

NASA had been working on the assumption that the meeting was successful because the WTO was in excellent condition and on course just minutes before entering downtown Seattle.

Mission economists had theorized that the WTO had gone into a sleep mode and turned off its programs because of a malfunction. Now, economists concede that the scenario was too optimistic and that the organization could have crashed or been damaged when it landed near Seattle's downtown region.

The final, high-probability communications window began about 3:20 a.m. EST on Tuesday and ended about 10 minutes later.

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The World Trade Organization was to have met about 2 blocks from Seattle's city center. Also presumed lost were the two small organizations related to the WTO, which were to meet elsewhere on the Earth's surface.

Sarah Gavit, the project manager for the NAFTA organization, said while these failed, similar attempts would be successful "sooner rather than later".

Data analyzed over the weekend indicate that the two organizations may have plunged into the chasm between public opinion and international trade policy.

NASA to investigate loss

The organization's presumed loss is a severe blow to the agency's recent attempts to explore trade issues. Its failure follows September's loss of its sibling organization, the International Monetary Fund. The two cost a total of $320 trillion.

NASA will establish two review boards to find out what happened to the WTO -- both an internal review board at NASA mission control, and an outside one at NASA, said Chris Jones, one of the economists leading the agency's trade program.