Contra The Times' Paul Thornton, returning to the moon is a very
worthwhile expenditure of tax money, argues the author of "Rocket
Boys."
By Homer Hickam
August 28, 2007
snip
I read the La Times opinion by Homer Hickam and the comments that followed.
If you have opinions on the subject you might like to read as well.
- LRK -
-----------------------------------------
NSS gets an endorsement from "Rocket Boys/October Sky" author Homer
Posted by: "WSpaceport@aol.com" WSpaceport@aol.com jimspellman
Tue Aug 28, 2007 7:32 pm (PST)
Go to:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-hickam28aug28,0,4502531.story?coll=la
-promo-opinion
and scroll down to the comments section, or go directly to:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-bback28aug28,0,3020443.graffitiboard?
coll=la-promo-opinion
BTW -- Feel free to pass these links along to others?and ask?them to
contribute their viewpoints?to help sustain this discussion (Hey, it's
not?often?the L.A. Times?gives us a forum -- therefore, we need to
take advantage of it, NOW!).
Regards,
~JS~
Jim Spellman
-----------------------------------------
Should you care to read Paul Thorton's opinion article to go along
with the contra opinions.
- LRK -
------------------------------------------
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-thornton22aug22,0,7312645.story
Opinion Daily
Space program lunacy
How the shuttle program and pipe dreams of the moon bleed research for
this planet.
By Paul Thornton
August 22, 2007
Hurricane Dean's march toward the Gulf Coast couldn't have provided a
more ironic backdrop for Space Shuttle Endeavour's early touchdown
Tuesday afternoon. Endeavour, originally scheduled to return to Earth
today, landed in Florida a day early in anticipation of Dean's
possible landfall over Houston, where NASA's Johnson Space Center
handles the orbiter's reentry into the atmosphere. In the event of a
Houston landfall, NASA would have had to close the space center for
the storm's duration.
-----------------------------------
FOR THE RECORD:
The original version of this article incorrectly laid responsibility
for replacing the QuikSCAT satellite on NASA. The National Oceaning
and Atmospheric Administration, which is under the U.S. Department of
Commerce, operates QuikSCAT and is responsible for replacing the
satellite.
-----------------------------------
Neither NASA nor anyone else could have so thoroughly observed Dean
and altered the shuttle's flight plan without the help of QuikSCAT, a
low-Earth-orbit satellite operated by the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration that observes wind speed and direction over
the planet's oceans. But thanks to the Bush administration's focus on
manned spaceflight � including the costly maintenance required to
launch aging shuttles like Endeavour into space just a few times a
year, and the even more science-fictional development of a program to
put humans back on the moon more than a decade from now � the future
of the network of aging weather satellites that monitor weather
patterns such as hurricanes is in serious jeopardy.
Snip
------------------------------------------
Well just thought I would liven up your day since I have been busy
with two grandchildren getting started in fifth and sixth grades here
in California away from their folks who are in the process of
deploying to Iraq.
And one talks about budget costs. hmmmm, best not go there.
- LRK -
Larry Kellogg
Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsletter: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
==============================================================
http://feeds.latimes.com/OpinionLa
Spirits having blown back
Posted: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 17:35:51 -0700
http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2007/08/spirits-having-.html
Our relatively newish Blowback feature -- or, as Jeff Jarvis describes
it, a "lame" and "very controlling effort to add just a little bit of
interactivity" to L.A. Times content -- has its latest installment up
now: Rocket Boys author Homer Hickam giving our beleaguered Paul
Thornton a what-for about the wisdom of NASA re-conquering the moon.
This Hickam passage is well worth the price of admission:
When I was a West Virginia lad of 17, I met a Massachusetts lad of
42 by the name of John F. Kennedy. At the time, I was in a bright
orange suit that I had just purchased to wear to the 1960 National
Science Fair, where I hoped my home-built rockets would win a medal.
Kennedy was in West Virginia trying to win the state's presidential
primary. We met just as he finished a speech designed to convince a
crowd of less-than-enthusiastic coal miners to give him their vote.
When he asked for questions, I raised my hand and, for some reason, he
noticed me right off. Because I was a rocket boy, I asked him what he
thought we should do in space. He turned it around and asked me what I
thought we should do, and I said we should go to the moon. When he
asked me why, I looked around at all those coal miners and said, well,
we ought to go up there and just mine the blamed thing! The miners all
laughed, and so did Kennedy, and when he agreed with me, he secured
all their votes that day. For the longest time, I took credit for the
Apollo moon program and, though I'd been shipped off to Vietnam when
we got there, I followed the moon flights with a certain personal
pride.
Other recent highlights from the Blowback archive -- Diane von
Furstenberg disagrees with our editorial against fashion copyrights,
Riverside professor R. Stephen White rebuts our "No to nukes"
editorial, and dog-lover Robert Hotckiss challenges Joel Stein to
pistols at dawn.
Snip
==============================================================
And more opinions, should you care to read. - LRK -
--------------------------------------------------------------
http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2007/08/paul-this-missi.html
latimes.com Opinion LA blog
� DHS objections, and paternity horror stories | Main | When you let
kids write about education.... �
Paul, this mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it
Not since Frank Gorshin and some other guy played the black/white,
white/black haters on Star Trek have space people been as fired-up as
they are over Paul Thornton's Opinion Daily "Space program lunacy."
And some of the rage is warranted: Our gaffe in the original story
about the connections and lack thereof between NOAA, NASA and the
QuikSCAT satellite has been corrected, and we apologize for the error.
Paul knows he's made some very poor decisions recently, but he can
give you his complete assurance that his work will be back to normal.
He's still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission.
Wendy Dunham gives Paul a Gopher State whuppin':
Yeah, and I can write an article that reports what NASA actually
HAS done for the Earth that would blow this article out of the water.
Obviously, a good word smith can spin a story like this any way you
like, talk about the million dollar toilet, etc, focus on the seeming
wastes, but if you dug down into the facts and saw all the stuff that
HAS come from NASA that is improving the real world (and it's a lot
more than pens that write upside down or Tang), that list that would
eclipse any further "what have they done" articles. Dig, people, dig,
The truth is out there.
Wendy Dunham
Minneapolis, MN
Snip
==============================================================
WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK
==============================================================
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Monday, August 27, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
Pioneering NASA Spacecraft Mark Thirty Years of Flight
Gene Nelson reminded me of the above NASA Bulletin. I have been so busy with 5th and 6th graders and their school requirements that I almost missed it. My thanks to Gene for reminding me. (Laptop display quit too, so used that as an excuse to buy a new one for the kids/me to use so learning how to navigate the HP Pavilian Entertainment PC that has more memory, disk space, and speed than the two year old laptop that should be back from repair in three weeks or so.)
- LRK -
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/voyager/index.html
Pioneering NASA Spacecraft Mark 30 Years of Flight
08.20.07 -- NASA's two venerable Voyager spacecraft are celebrating three decades of flight as they head toward interstellar space. Their ongoing odysseys mark an unprecedented and historic accomplishment.
+ Full story
+ NASA Blog: What would you put on Voyager's Golden Record?
+ Voyager's Many Discoveries+ Audio clips for media
Snip
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As I mentioned to Gene, it was always interesting when both Pioneer 10/11 and the Voyagers were competing for furthest out that either Ames (Pioneers) or JPL (Voyagers) would miss mentioning that the others spacecraft existed. Now the Pioneers are silent and the Voyagers are still talking.
We almost lost that too when NASA didn't seem to have the money to continue funding. The Voyagers are the furthest out of any spacecraft we have sent and it would be a shame to lose the information of what is out there just because there was no money to get the data and look at it.
I can think of places we could save a LOT of money but then someone would tell me to get off the soap box.
- LRK -
Thanks for looking up and or down, if need be.
- LRK -
Larry Kellogg
Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsletter: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
==============================================================
NASA - Pioneering NASA Spacecraft Mark Thirty Years of FlightPioneering
NASA Spacecraft Mark Thirty Years of Flight
WASHINGTON - NASA's two venerable Voyager spacecraft are celebrating three decades of flight as they ...
www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2007/aug/HQ_07205_Voyager_30th.html -
Snip
==============================================================
Passed on the NASA News list. - LRK -
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aug. 20, 2007
Dwayne Brown
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov
Carolina Martinez/Jane Platt
Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-9382/0880
mhtml:%7BC5AC42F2-B2CF-4B2E-BF7A-CF5E6B9DEF58%7Dmid://00000331/!x-usc:mailto:carolina.martinez@jpl.nasa.gov, jane.platt@jpl.nasa.gov
RELEASE: 07-205
PIONEERING NASA SPACECRAFT MARK THIRTY YEARS OF FLIGHT
WASHINGTON - NASA's two venerable Voyager spacecraft are celebrating three decades of flight as they head toward interstellar space. Their ongoing odysseys mark an unprecedented and historic accomplishment.
Voyager 2 launched on Aug. 20, 1977, and Voyager 1 launched on Sept.5, 1977. They continue to return information from distances more than three times farther away than Pluto.
"The Voyager mission is a legend in the annals of space exploration. It opened our eyes to the scientific richness of the outer solarsystem, and it has pioneered the deepest exploration of the sun's domain ever conducted," said Alan Stern, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. "It's a testament to Voyager's designers, builders and operators that both spacecraft continue to deliver important findings more than 25 years after their primary mission to Jupiter and Saturn concluded."
During their first dozen years of flight, the spacecraft made detailed explorations of Jupiter, Saturn, and their moons, and conducted the first explorations of Uranus and Neptune. These planets were previously unknown worlds. The Voyagers returned never-before-seen images and scientific data, making fundamental discoveries about the outer planets and their moons. The spacecraft revealed Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere, which includes dozens of interacting hurricane-like storm systems, and erupting volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io. They also showed waves and fine structure in Saturn's icy rings from the tugs of nearby moons.
For the past 19 years, the twin Voyagers have been probing the sun's outer heliosphere and its boundary with interstellar space. BothVoyagers remain healthy and are returning scientific data 30 years after their launches.
Voyager 1 currently is the farthest human-made object at a distance from the sun of about 9.7 billion miles. Voyager 2 is about 7.8 billion miles from the sun. Originally designed as a four-year mission to Jupiter and Saturn, the Voyager tours were extended because of their successful achievements and a rare planetary alignment. The two-planet mission eventually became a four-planet grand tour. After completing that extended mission, the two spacecraft began the task of exploring the outer heliosphere."
The Voyager mission has opened up our solar system in a way not possible before the Space Age," said Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. "It revealed our neighbors in the outer solar system and showed us how much there is to learn and how diverse the bodies are that share the solar system with our own planet Earth."In December 2004, Voyager 1 began crossing the solar system's final frontier. Called the heliosheath, this turbulent area, approximately 8.7 billion miles from the sun, is where the solar wind slows as it crashes into the thin gas that fills the space between stars. Voyager 2 could reach this boundary later this year, putting both Voyagers on their final leg toward interstellar space.
Each spacecraft carries five fully functioning science instruments that study the solar wind, energetic particles, magnetic fields and radio waves as they cruise through this unexplored region of deepspace. The spacecraft are too far from the sun to use solar power. They run on less than 300 watts, the amount of power needed to lightup a bright light bulb. Their long-lived radioisotope thermoelectric generators provide the power.
"The continued operation of these spacecraft and the flow of data to the scientists is a testament to the skills and dedication of the small operations team," said Ed Massey, Voyager project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Massey oversees a team of nearly a dozen people in the day-to-day Voyager spacecraft operations.
The Voyagers call home via NASA's Deep Space Network, a system of antennas around the world. The spacecraft are so distant thatcommands from Earth, traveling at light speed, take 14 hours one-wayto reach Voyager 1 and 12 hours to reach Voyager 2. Each Voyager logsapproximately 1 million miles per day.
Each of the Voyagers carries a golden record that is a time capsule with greetings, images and sounds from Earth. The records also have directions on how to find Earth if the spacecraft is recovered bysomething or someone.
NASA's next outer planet exploration mission is New Horizons, which is now well past Jupiter and headed for a historic exploration of thePluto system in July 2015.
For a complete listing of Voyager discoveries and mission information,visit the Internet at:http://www.nasa.gov/voyager
-end-
To subscribe to the list, send a message to:hqnews-subscribe@mediaservices.nasa.gov
Snip
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NASA press releases and other information are available automatically by sending a blank e-mail message to hqnews-subscribe@mediaservices.nasa.gov.
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send a blank e-mail message to
hqnews-unsubscribe@mediaservices.nasa.gov.
==============================================================
WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK
==============================================================
- LRK -
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/voyager/index.html
Pioneering NASA Spacecraft Mark 30 Years of Flight
08.20.07 -- NASA's two venerable Voyager spacecraft are celebrating three decades of flight as they head toward interstellar space. Their ongoing odysseys mark an unprecedented and historic accomplishment.
+ Full story
+ NASA Blog: What would you put on Voyager's Golden Record?
+ Voyager's Many Discoveries+ Audio clips for media
Snip
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As I mentioned to Gene, it was always interesting when both Pioneer 10/11 and the Voyagers were competing for furthest out that either Ames (Pioneers) or JPL (Voyagers) would miss mentioning that the others spacecraft existed. Now the Pioneers are silent and the Voyagers are still talking.
We almost lost that too when NASA didn't seem to have the money to continue funding. The Voyagers are the furthest out of any spacecraft we have sent and it would be a shame to lose the information of what is out there just because there was no money to get the data and look at it.
I can think of places we could save a LOT of money but then someone would tell me to get off the soap box.
- LRK -
Thanks for looking up and or down, if need be.
- LRK -
Larry Kellogg
Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsletter: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
==============================================================
NASA - Pioneering NASA Spacecraft Mark Thirty Years of FlightPioneering
NASA Spacecraft Mark Thirty Years of Flight
WASHINGTON - NASA's two venerable Voyager spacecraft are celebrating three decades of flight as they ...
www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2007/aug/HQ_07205_Voyager_30th.html -
Snip
==============================================================
Passed on the NASA News list. - LRK -
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aug. 20, 2007
Dwayne Brown
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov
Carolina Martinez/Jane Platt
Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-9382/0880
mhtml:%7BC5AC42F2-B2CF-4B2E-BF7A-CF5E6B9DEF58%7Dmid://00000331/!x-usc:mailto:carolina.martinez@jpl.nasa.gov, jane.platt@jpl.nasa.gov
RELEASE: 07-205
PIONEERING NASA SPACECRAFT MARK THIRTY YEARS OF FLIGHT
WASHINGTON - NASA's two venerable Voyager spacecraft are celebrating three decades of flight as they head toward interstellar space. Their ongoing odysseys mark an unprecedented and historic accomplishment.
Voyager 2 launched on Aug. 20, 1977, and Voyager 1 launched on Sept.5, 1977. They continue to return information from distances more than three times farther away than Pluto.
"The Voyager mission is a legend in the annals of space exploration. It opened our eyes to the scientific richness of the outer solarsystem, and it has pioneered the deepest exploration of the sun's domain ever conducted," said Alan Stern, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. "It's a testament to Voyager's designers, builders and operators that both spacecraft continue to deliver important findings more than 25 years after their primary mission to Jupiter and Saturn concluded."
During their first dozen years of flight, the spacecraft made detailed explorations of Jupiter, Saturn, and their moons, and conducted the first explorations of Uranus and Neptune. These planets were previously unknown worlds. The Voyagers returned never-before-seen images and scientific data, making fundamental discoveries about the outer planets and their moons. The spacecraft revealed Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere, which includes dozens of interacting hurricane-like storm systems, and erupting volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io. They also showed waves and fine structure in Saturn's icy rings from the tugs of nearby moons.
For the past 19 years, the twin Voyagers have been probing the sun's outer heliosphere and its boundary with interstellar space. BothVoyagers remain healthy and are returning scientific data 30 years after their launches.
Voyager 1 currently is the farthest human-made object at a distance from the sun of about 9.7 billion miles. Voyager 2 is about 7.8 billion miles from the sun. Originally designed as a four-year mission to Jupiter and Saturn, the Voyager tours were extended because of their successful achievements and a rare planetary alignment. The two-planet mission eventually became a four-planet grand tour. After completing that extended mission, the two spacecraft began the task of exploring the outer heliosphere."
The Voyager mission has opened up our solar system in a way not possible before the Space Age," said Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. "It revealed our neighbors in the outer solar system and showed us how much there is to learn and how diverse the bodies are that share the solar system with our own planet Earth."In December 2004, Voyager 1 began crossing the solar system's final frontier. Called the heliosheath, this turbulent area, approximately 8.7 billion miles from the sun, is where the solar wind slows as it crashes into the thin gas that fills the space between stars. Voyager 2 could reach this boundary later this year, putting both Voyagers on their final leg toward interstellar space.
Each spacecraft carries five fully functioning science instruments that study the solar wind, energetic particles, magnetic fields and radio waves as they cruise through this unexplored region of deepspace. The spacecraft are too far from the sun to use solar power. They run on less than 300 watts, the amount of power needed to lightup a bright light bulb. Their long-lived radioisotope thermoelectric generators provide the power.
"The continued operation of these spacecraft and the flow of data to the scientists is a testament to the skills and dedication of the small operations team," said Ed Massey, Voyager project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Massey oversees a team of nearly a dozen people in the day-to-day Voyager spacecraft operations.
The Voyagers call home via NASA's Deep Space Network, a system of antennas around the world. The spacecraft are so distant thatcommands from Earth, traveling at light speed, take 14 hours one-wayto reach Voyager 1 and 12 hours to reach Voyager 2. Each Voyager logsapproximately 1 million miles per day.
Each of the Voyagers carries a golden record that is a time capsule with greetings, images and sounds from Earth. The records also have directions on how to find Earth if the spacecraft is recovered bysomething or someone.
NASA's next outer planet exploration mission is New Horizons, which is now well past Jupiter and headed for a historic exploration of thePluto system in July 2015.
For a complete listing of Voyager discoveries and mission information,visit the Internet at:http://www.nasa.gov/voyager
-end-
To subscribe to the list, send a message to:hqnews-subscribe@mediaservices.nasa.gov
Snip
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NASA press releases and other information are available automatically by sending a blank e-mail message to hqnews-subscribe@mediaservices.nasa.gov.
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send a blank e-mail message to
hqnews-unsubscribe@mediaservices.nasa.gov.
Snip
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------==============================================================
WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK
==============================================================
Friday, August 17, 2007
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Monday, August 06, 2007
Diversifying our planetary portfolio
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/927/1
by Nader Elhefnawy
Monday, August 6, 2007
If you subscribe to Jeff Foust's "The Space Review" you probably read the
article at the link and some of those I posted below.
- LRK -
http://www.thespacereview.com/archive/317a.jpg
Sunday, August 05, 2007
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