Tag Archives: shuttle

Kepler is dead

Posted on by
Reply


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?”

Posted on by
Reply

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

The Future of Human Spaceflight is bright?

Posted on by
Reply

That’s the words this man had to say this past week:

I kept trying to figure a way to get a piece of the article, detailed enough to get the point across, but not so much to violate the intent of copyrights.  I can’t do it.  It’s just too absurd.  So, here’s the whole thing with the link to space.com to make it theirs.

Even though NASA’s iconic space shuttle program is ending in a matter of weeks, the future of American human spaceflight remains bright, according to NASA chief Charlie Bolden.

Private spaceflight firms will pick up NASA’s slack before too long, ferrying humans to low-Earth orbit and back relatively cheaply and efficiently, Bolden told reporters here at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Thursday (July 7).

And handing off that taxi service to commercial companies, Bolden added, will free the space agency up to do what it was meant to do: explore further afield in our solar system. So the nation is not abandoning human spaceflight, despite a pervasive public perception to the contrary, he said.

“The future of human spaceflight is bright,” Bolden said. “You’ll hear me say that over and over and over again.”

You get that?  Although the US won’t be doing any more human space flights, the nation is not abandoning humanspace flight BECAUSE someone else will still be doing it.  Virgin Galactic is NOT a US company.  I think most people are pretty aware SIR Richard Branson is a Brit.  What if Iran buys out SpaceX?  Does he REALLY think SpaceX can compete with the Chinese?

Given the ball for a buzzer beating half court shot to save NASA, Charles Bolden, rather than shooting the ball, would rather tell us how great someone else could have shot it.

The space race is over.  If you want to go to space now, you have to make your reservation with Russia.

<a href="http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/do-you-think-the-future-of-human-space-flight-in-the-united-states-is-bright/question-1964369/" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.sodahead.com']);" title="Do you think the future of human space flight in the United States is "bright"?">Do you think the future of human space flight in the United States is &#8220;bright&#8221;?</a>
QuestionsView Results

X-37B sure looks like a shuttle to me

Posted on by
Reply

This more or less fell out of the sky a day or two ago.  It landed with very little to no fanfare.  Practically no one knew it had been flying around in space for seven months totally unoccupied.

101203-space-x37b-1130a.grid-7x2

For those unaware, it’s the X-37B.  It belongs to the Air Force.  That’s not to be confused with NASA.  It looks like a shuttle, not to be confused with these:

Space Shuttle

Everyone knows the Shuttles have been cancelled.  Everyone also knows Obama killed NASA’s next heavy lifter as well.  So, why do we have something that looks a lot like a shuttle being operated not by NASA, or as Obama stated he preferred, the private sector?  Now, granted, I know the obvious difference between the two.  The X-37B is kind of small.  Right now it’d probably only be used for recon.  But, if I were the guys at SpaceX, I’d be really pissed right now.  Although Obama might be willing to kill off all space flight by the US and it’s military, it looks like the military’s not so quick to oblige.  Thank God for our Air Force.

QuestionsView Results