From the Left to the Right: Space Shuttle

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

What’s Happening at NASA?

Written : June 5, 2013

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The International Space Station

Some of us feel a sense of disappointment over the retirement of the space shuttle – without a replacement. Minus the coverage of frequent launches on TV, you might think that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) also retired the space program. It didn’t. The sad news is that our astronauts must launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, a nation in Asia. To give a vague idea of where Kazakhstan is, look northeast of Iran, due north of Afghanistan, east of Ukraine, and northwest of China to find it. Since it is now independent of Russia, it leases its space facility to the former Soviet Union. The good news is that scientific research continues with international cooperation inside the Space Station.

In case you missed it, catch the meat of a recent episode featuring astronaut Colonel Kevin Ford on the NASA channel’s program, Gallery, here:

While channel hopping, I thought I’d only watch for a minute, but watched for the entire hour, instead. Col. Ford highlighted his trip to the Space Station as a member of a six-person crew with exciting narration and spectacular photos and videos. Ford described how astronauts travel to the station in groups of three. They join the three already there. When the more experienced crew departs, another three-person team replaces them, making the junior group the senior group, and so on. Ford described several experiments done aboard, including how a droplet of liquid burns in “zero g.” He also explained how a person feels in weightlessness and how it feels to return to the gravity of the earth. There’s even a robonaut, a space robot (android?) in human form up there to help out!

Flame droplet burning.

I’ve been critical in the past of President Obama’s lack of vision for human space exploration. However, I’m glad he didn’t cancel the program entirely. The Mars rover, Curiosity, is still going strong, and taking on a new mission on the red planet, a 5-mile drive to Mount Sharp. NASA’s website is more colorful and better than ever. They cover not only the space station, but the universe, aeronautics, technology, commercial space exploration, and the solar system. There are 6 missions to the space station currently planned, from Sep. 2013 – Dec. 2014. An asteroid retrieval mission is in the future, a new Mars lander called Insight is being readied for its mission, scheduled in the 2016-2018 time period.

The International Space Station’s relative size.

The space agency now involves itself in global warming as it tries to prove the earth is heating up, and perhaps it is. NASA scientists hint at the dangers of melting glacier ice, and its scientists predict a rise in sea levels by one foot over the next century. At least they are not freaking out about it. Maybe this is because no one has seen or shown any visible evidence of flooding caused by oceanic swelling to date. The president may be hoping the scientists on board the space station discover the replacement for gasoline on his watch. I do, too, but I don’t believe you can force such a discovery. In the meantime, NASA astronauts advance science, and therefore move mankind ahead in technology. They always do, and I salute them for the risks they take.

An astronaut during a 21st Century spacewalk.

Goodbye, Space Shuttle!

July 12, 2011

Orlando Sentinel correspondent Mark Matthews appeared solo this past January on Washington Journal, a call-in program on CSPAN, in a segment about NASA. I wrote about it on May 17. To see it, please do a find for "blog archive" in your browser and scroll down a little. Open up May. Click on: NASA: Gifts From Space. This time, CSPAN leveraged some needed expertise in calling in Scott Pace, an older and wiser gentleman, to appear with young Mr. Matthews. Mr. Pace is George Washington University's Space Policy Institute Director. Why a college might need a position such as this is way beyond me, but Mr. Pace provided plenty of respectability in the segment. Susan Swain, the host, began with a line mainly answered by the callers, and not the guests, "We're going to talk about what America gained from the Space Shuttle program…”

Mr. Matthews, the reporter, fed us some pessimism by revealing the Shuttle cost more and let us down in the safety department during its years, but he did tout the Hubble Telescope as a major achievement. There have been about a million other benefits from our space programs, such as metal alloys, smoke detectors, scratch-resistant lenses, pacemakers, and insulin pumps. I challenge you to google this, you may be surprised. Mr. Pace, the professor, educated by telling us that the Nixon Administration, where the Shuttle gained its initial support, made a mistake by concentrating on cost benefits rather than scientific gain. He therefore concluded that the Shuttle failed economically, but exceeded what it was asked to do in the technical sense.

I recall the hope and inspiration instilled in us through the space programs over my entire lifetime. Yet, both President Bush and our current president, Barack Obama, seemed content to terminate the Shuttle program by now (2010-2011). Perhaps it had already run its course. However, as early as 2004, President Bush revealed a bold vision for returning men to the moon by announcing the beginning of the Constellation program, the step beyond the Shuttle. (I’ll bet the mainstream media never told you that!) You can read his rather inspiring speech at this URL: http://history.nasa.gov/Bush SEP.htm Unfortunately, President Obama, in a fit of ignorance, and with a lack of insight, cancelled Constellation in favor of ‘investment’ in future research. This is consistent with his energy policy in some respects. Why drill for oil (an actual fuel), when you can do theoretical research instead?

In a later reconsideration, President Obama proposed we keep the Orion capsule from Constellation, but still proposed the program’s termination. To be fair, I’ll admit that Mr. Obama did commit to a new space vehicle by 2015, but his plan delays manned missions to other worlds by at least 20 years. In that time, where will our unemployed expertise go? Much of it will run away from the NASA space programs, for sure, and that’s a shame. In the mean time, Russia, and other countries, will lead the way in space for the foreseeable future. The current president seems to enjoy situations in which America is not leading. As a citizen of the U.S.A., I find that circumstance – at the very least - disappointing. It's expensive to push even an ounce of weight into space. When thinking about the final frontier, we should consider the past and future benefits of space exploration. It's always a natural result of the urgent need to miniaturize.

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Keywords: Conservatism, Conservative blog, Mark A. Cohen, From The Left to the Right, Mark Matthews, Scott Pace, NASA, Space Shuttle, President Obama, President Bush, Constellation Program

Keyword Phrases: "Conservatism”, “Conservative blog”, “Mark A. Cohen”, “From The Left to the Right”, "Mark Matthews”, “Scott Pace”, “NASA”, “Space Shuttle”, “President Obama”, “President Bush”, “Constellation Program"

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From the Left to the Right

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

What’s Happening at NASA?

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Goodbye, Space Shuttle!

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