Thursday, September 22, 2011

Congratulations to NASA. The future sounds very exciting.





Sept. 22, 2011, 2:00 p.m. EDT
..."Aquarius' salinity data are showing much higher quality than we expected to see this early in the mission," said Aquarius principal investigator Gary Lagerloef of Earth & Space Research in Seattle. "Aquarius soon will allow scientists to explore the connections between global rainfall, ocean currents and climate variations."...





Volunteer Web GroupHelps Discover Two New Planets  (click here)


September 22, 2011 10:42am EST

 …A Yale University-based online citizen science project known as Planet Hunters has done just that.
Using data from NASA's Kepler mission, volunteers discovered what they though might be two exoplanets.
That data "survived our checks for false-positives," the Yale team said in a paper submitted to the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. "The involvement of citizen scientists as part of Planet Hunters is therefore shown to be a valuable and reliable tool in exoplanet detection."
Planet Hunters, which launched in December, calls on astronomy buffs to examine the vast amounts of data collected by Kepler in the hopes of identifying new planets. Kepler, which launched in March 2009, captures information about 200,000 stars every 30 seconds, and that data has been made public. And while computers are capable of sifting through some of this data, human brains can more easily detect anomalies that might indicate the presence of a new planet….


Space flight has moved to a new era.  There is not a place for private exploration of space travel and industry.  The strides the great astronauts have made in the past were the beginnings of an entirely new way of thinking about resources.  The private sector development of space travel is a good direction.  They need engineers and a space industrial base.  The changes in where the near Earth space program takes place is unfortunately traumatizing for some, but, it is exciting for others.  


While travel to the Moon seems like the next best adventure, the resources being applied to that goal will imperil the resources to achieve higher achievements of the program.  There is nothing wrong with providing a new platform of opportunity for the private sector to achieve the same goals once held only by government while putting government resources to achieving more than it could have otherwise.


The protests by the former astronauts are understandable, but, short sighted in understanding the direction the new program is taking and the resources available to achieve it.  None of this is diminishing the USA, it is enhancing its achievements and putting in deep space far beyond anyone else.



…The two astronauts (click title to entry - thank you) appeared together before the same committee in May 2010 to make many of the same points…

…“The past year has been frustrating to NASA observers,” Armstrong told the panel, chaired by Rep. Ralph Hall, R-Rockwall. …

…Armstrong lamented the demise of the astronaut corps, with retirement of the shuttle fleet and plans to fly a manned NASA spacecraft next in 2021….

…Cernan said his criticism 16 months ago remained valid today….