Tag Archives: obama

Kepler is dead

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The Kepler mission has been epic.

Kepler pioneered the search for exo-planets.  WIth a few years, thousands of planets had been discovered.  Several hundred potentials for life.

Now, it has died.  There is enough data to stretch the discoveries out another couple of years.  But, Kepler is essentially non-functional.  Now, in days gone past, read pre-Obama, we could have sent a shuttle up there, grabbed ahold of it ala repairing the Hubble telescope, and fixed it.  Now, due to the complete lack of vision and direction from Obama, we are completely incapable of doing so.  Even if we wanted to retrofit some rocket and send guys up there, stabilizing something that big is impossible.  It is just as dead as NASA’s vision under Obama.

And, I’m going to bet, none of the liberal arts trained astronomers, and you guys know who you are, will complain out loud about the fact that you have PROFOUNDLY less assets to work with now as they did under Bush, who they DID complain about.  The Republican war on science is penny ante stuff compared to what Obama is doing to you guys.  That wonderful telescope that was supposed to replace Kepler that you guys say renders my gripe moot, was mothballed so that NASA could spend more time touting global warming.

Asteroids are nature’s way of saying “How’s that space program coming along?”

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First of all, I’m doing this:
2012DA14
So don’t judge me.

But given all the references to Bruce Willis in Armageddon, I felt compelled to point out the obvious.  Since Obama’s president, we have no way to get there now.  Bruce, like the rest of us, would have to just sit and watch it hit.

Which makes this little poster I found today all that much more perfect:
asteroids and nasa

Greenland’s Ice melt aka NASA drinks the kool-aid

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On July 24, 2012, NASA ran this visual and accompanying story:

Satellites See Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt

The text was not too subtle:

Satellites See Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt

And NASA tears into several paragraphs of how extensive this event is.  As if that were not clear enough, they later refer to the event on their Facebook page as “the record surface ice melt”.

Tucked away in it all was this little bit at the end of the first article:

“Ice cores from Summit show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average. With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time,” says Lora Koenig, a Goddard glaciologist and a member of the research team analyzing the satellite data.

OK, which is it?  A “record” or something repetitive?  Maybe this post explains it a lot more clearly:

The President’s Budget will also increase NASA’s funding, accelerating work — constrained for years due to the budget demands of Constellation — on climate science, green aviation, science education, and other priorities.

Remember when Obama slashed space flight and funded climate research?  Apparently NASA didn’t.

 

International Space Station loses its ammonia

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International Space Station

NASA said it plans to send astronauts aboard the International Space Station on an emergency spacewalk this week to repair a cooling system that failed Saturday.

The space agency added that ISS’s current residents—three U.S. astronauts and three Russian cosmonauts—were not in any danger.

NASA said the problem began when a circuit breaker tripped on Saturday night, causing the failure of a pump that feeds an ammonia-based coolant solution to key systems and avionics instruments. Crewmembers attempted to reset the breaker and restart the pump on Sunday but the effort was not successful.

Despite the breakdown, NASA said the ISS remains in a “stable configuration,” with backup systems working to ensure that critical components on the ISS don’t overheat.

In the meantime, the ISS is a completely useless $100 billion piece of junk.  They may or may not be able to fix it.  ISS is slated to close up shop at the end of 2015.  That’s five years.  Given the current political climate, I don’t see Obama, Bolden, or whoever claims to be in charge of NASA‘s lack of direction coming up with anything beyond next week as far as planning goes.  As with everything else science under Obama’s administration, it will just die.  The argument could easily be made to just let it die now instead of wasting more money over the next five years.

However, I’ve got that special something Charles Bolden and Obama do not.  I’ve got vision.  Rather than simply letting it die along with the Shuttles, turn it into a Mosque where Muslim kids can go to feel good about their contributions to science.  Rather than the Muslims spending millions of dollars building a Mosque in Manhatten where a LOT of people don’t want them, spend that money keeping up ISS and the Shuttles.

Win, Win, Win.

If that doesn’t fly based on separation of government and religion  issues ( for some reason that doesn’t apply with NASA this year  ), we could always lease it out to Richard Branson and Paris Hilton so they could make the first space hotel.  I’m sure Richard would want to call it Virgin Space, but if Hilton’s involved, that just wouldn’t seem quite right.

And of course there’s always Plan C.  Use it for science research that can not possibly be done on Earth and expand it to be a base for satellites like Hubble that need regular maintenance.  However, I realize how silly that sounds under an Obama led NASA.

NASA is hoping a spacewalk will allow them to fix the problem.  If not, with this administration, they may as well come home.

Space X launch

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This is kinda cool:
falconX

Been watching this on and off for a while.  It’s just a screen cap, but I’m watching the streaming video of Obama’s vision for replacing the NASA’s manned rocket launches.  Sure, it’s kinda little.  Sure, it’s still sitting there 3 hours after lanch time.  Sure, it’s not quite as powerful or as complex as NASA’s simplest rocket.  But, by golly, it’s private sector!

( My gut feeling watching this is we are so screwed for about thirty years. First of all, this is rocket science.  Obama can’t keep everyone employed at NASA and expect the private sector to be anywhere near the experience NASA is.  Second, this costs a LOT of money.  People aren’t going to dick around a whole lot blowing up stuff to work the kinks out.  )

Very shortly after my post, SpaceX sent Falcon 9 into orbit flawlessly.

Beautiful launch peeps! ( But I STILL want my Shuttles! )

Fixing the leak

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So it’s day 40 something of the BP oil leak in the Gulf Coast.  They are still clueless what to do.  Obama has declared he’s in charge, but it’s BP’s fault.  Regardless, it’s still gushing.  They have tried putting a concrete suction cup on it.  That didn’t work.  Now they’re trying to fill it with mud, that didn’t work.  Now they’re going to cut it in half and put new release valves on it.  They’re not sure if that will work or not.  It’s never been tried before.

Now, I’m no scientist.  But, I do know this.  If they had dropped a concrete box on that thing day one and and started covering it in mud and dirt, it wouldn’t be leaking now anything remotely to what it is now, if at all.  And if it was, add more concrete.  It really is that simple.

Jupiter’s strip show

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This is Jupiter in November 2009:

jupiter 20091107

This is Jupiter a couple of weeks ago:

jupiter 20100509

Notice something missing?  Pretty dramatic huh.

This wasn’t brought to our attention by NASA.  They’re too busy these days shrilling for Barack Obama’s cap and trade legislation.  This was discovered by an amateur astronomer in Australia by the name of Anthony Wesley.