Tag: NASA

The Magic of Space Travel

~ J.S. Pailly ~ 1 Comment

In the last few years, we’ve heard a lot of bad news about NASA.  Every federal agency has suffered budget cuts, and NASA is no exception.  The Space Shuttle program has ended, the ExoMars mission has been canceled, and the cost of the James Webb Space Telescope has skyrocketed so much it sucks up most of whatever money NASA has left.

But yesterday the Space Shuttle Discovery, perched atop a modified 747, flew over Washington D.C.  It was something of a victory lap before the veteran spacecraft went into retirement as a museum piece at the Smithsonian.  People skipped work and pulled their kids out of school to see it.  Politicians snapped photos from their office windows and tweeted about it.  The FAA reportedly broke its own rules to allow the shuttle to fly so low over so many government buildings.

Despite all the money and despite the fact that the shuttle program never lived up to expectations, people cheered for Discovery.  Some cried.  There is something magical about space travel, something that transcends recessions, political squabbles, and even science itself.

In a few years, private companies will take over where the space shuttles left off, taxiing astronauts to the International Space Station and conducting experiments in Earth orbit for businesses, universities, and the government.  For a mere $200,000, they’ll even take you into space (rumor has it that the price will drop significantly as space travel becomes more common).

A new space race is beginning, with China talking about building a Moon base to mine the Moon’s resources.  The United States wants to visit an asteroid; asteroids could also be a source of valuable resources.  One expert described the future as a game of “Solar System Monopoly” with various countries competing over economic interests in space.

No matter what the future brings, no matter what economic interests are involved, human beings will never lose their romantic love of space.  Our true destiny is out there among the stars.  The Space Shuttle Discovery brought us one step closer to getting there.

Videos courtesy of NASA Television.

Stop Wasting NASA’s Money

~ J.S. Pailly ~ Leave a comment

Dear Federal Government,

Once again, you are cutting funding for one of NASA’s most exciting and promising projects.  This time, it’s ExoMars, a project done in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA).  The ExoMars Mission was to determine if life exists or ever did exist on Mars.

Although I am disappointed, I do understand, and I certainly can’t say NASA is being treated unfairly.  The budgets of almost every government agency, at both the state and federal level, are being slashed, and with the national debt as high as it is the US must try to reduce spending.  As important as ExoMars is, I know other important programs are suffering too.

However, tens of millions of dollars were already spent on ExoMars, according to Dr. G. Scott Hubbard, a planetary scientist for NASA and a professor at Stanford University, in addition to a reported 200 million euros spent by ESA.  An estimated $10 billion was already spent on the Constellation program, NASA’s effort to return to the Moon, before that was cut last year.

So, Federal Government, whatever program you decide to let NASA work on next, give them a chance to finish it.  It is a far greater waste of money to cancel one program after another than to allow one of them run to completion.

Signed,

James S. Pailly

Science Enthusiast and Concerned Citizen.

Earth’s Neighbor

~ J.S. Pailly ~ Leave a comment

You may think of the Moon as old news.  It’s extremely close to Earth, and we’ve been studying it for centuries.  Human beings have landed there and brought back samples.  What more is there to learn?  A great deal, it turns out.

Image courtesy of wpclipart.com

First of all, where the heck did it come from?  Scientists developed a workable theory on that within the last few decades, but unlike evolution this theory is still open to debate (click here for the Giant Impact Theory).  Also, why does the far side look completely different from the side facing Earth?  A theory explaining that was first published only last year (click here for the Double Moon Theory).  Lastly, although we’ve studied the surface of the Moon in great detail, we have no idea what’s inside.

As planet Earth rang in the New Year, a pair of NASA spacecraft entered lunar orbit to begin finding some answers.  The probes, named Grail-A and Grail-B, will orbit the Moon, making detailed measurements of the Moon’s gravitational field.  From that data, researchers say they can map the Moon’s interior.

Seeing the inside of the Moon should give us a much clearer idea of how the Moon formed and changed over it’s history.  It will answer a lot of questions.  It will probably raise a lot of new questions too when we find things we weren’t expecting.  Click here for more on the Grail mission.

P.S.: Students at participating schools get to take part in the Grail Mission.  For more on that, click here.