Steve Greenberg, “Commercial spaceflights.”
Just a reminder that government can always do the job cheaper and more efficiently than private enterprise — and altruistically, too. Government’s job is not to turn a profit.
Mars-Bound Rover in Home Stretch of Red Planet Voyage
NASA’s newest Mars rover is entering the final leg of its space cruise, with just over three months remaining until it touches down on the Red Planet.
The huge Curiosity rover launched in November and is slated to land at Mars’ Gale Crater on the night of Aug. 5. Curiosity’s mission team is working hard to prepare for the impending arrival, practicing the rover’s unconventional landing and mapping out just what it will do on the Red Planet’s surface.
(via zeitvox)
A letter from former administrators, astronauts, and engineers at NASA expressing climate change scepticism does not deserve parity with the agency’s peer-reviewed climate scientists.
Watch 131 Years of Global Warming in 26 Seconds
(Via Mother Jones’ Mutant Heat Wave Shattering Records)
These tornadoes are made of plasma and some are as large as the Earth itself.
“The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred on January 28, 1986, when Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of its seven crew members.”
Read the President’s statement on NASA’s Day of Remembrance here.
“NASA launches largest-ever Mars rover.” More on the Curiosity rover here.
Here’s a collection of NASA sounds from historic spaceflights and current missions. You can hear the roar of a space shuttle launch or Neil Armstrong’s “One small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind” every time you get a phone call. Or, you can hear the memorable words “Houston, we’ve had a problem,” every time you make an error on your computer. We have included both MP3 and M4R (iPhone) sound files to download.
NBC Nightly News: The End of Mission Control
NASA’s James Webb telescope, the successor to the Hubble, is on the chopping block. With the U.S. Congress arguing over fiscal matters, one of the things that may get cut is NASA’s budget, with the expensive James Webb telescope potentially getting the ax. If that happens, a generation of scientific discoveries about the nature of the universe may need to be put on hold.
Right now the future of the Webb telescope, scheduled to launch in 2018, is uncertain…
With the Webb in jeopardy, its mission to find out more about the nature of the universe may be postponed. The telescope is fundamentally different from Hubble, scanning the infrared spectrum rather than visual light. Being able to see in infrared is the key to the Webb making new discoveries. For example, it will be able to penetrate dust clouds that are opaque to normal telescopes.
Why Shuttles Are Being Retired, What’s Next
Q: Who decided to stop flying the shuttles?
A: President George W. Bush made the decision in 2004. He wanted astronauts to go back to the moon, and eventually to Mars. But President Barack Obama dropped the moon mission. His plan has NASA building a giant rocket to send astronauts to an asteroid, and eventually Mars, while turning over to private companies the job of carrying cargo and astronauts to the space station.
For all the rightards whining that Obama killed the Shuttle program.
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