Posts in "NASA"

By Barry Kuzay at 1:54PM

Apr 29, 2010

The Government Tries to Launch a Balloon

NASA's latest multimillion-dollar stratosphere-bound balloon launch has gone horribly wrong and crashed into a car, turning it over and narrowly missing two elderly people who were observing the launch. The payload fared worse, reportedly being smashed into a 'thousand pieces.'

Video of their hilarious attempt is available here.

Contrast this with an individual enthusiast who spent just $750 to send a balloon into space and captured images like the one below. NASA then called him and begged him to tell them how he did it.

stratosphere

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By Joseph Gauthier at 8:06AM

Feb 5, 2010

Should NASA Return to the Moon?

As an aerospace engineering student at The University of Texas at Austin, I am particularly affected by this decision. In addition, I have reaped the benefits associated with funding NASA:

zerogravity
(this picture was taken aboard NASA's Weightless Wonder)

I will admit that I once dreamed of working at NASA. Not anymore. In approaching any problem, I often desire to comprehend the underlying principles. This time is no different. One cannot deny that there are benefits to returning to the moon. According to NASA, a few reasons to return to the moon are:

To "[extend] human presence to the moon to enable eventual settlement."
To "[pursue] scientific activities that address fundamental questions about the history of Earth, the solar system and the universe - and about our place in them."

So this is Life...

October 9, 2009, will go down as a the day Obama was announced the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Winner and.....we bombed the moon. Friday morning we bombed the moon in hopes of finding ice amongst the debris.

CNN reported:

NASA said Friday's rocket and satellite strike on the moon was a success, kicking up enough dust for scientists to determine whether or not there is water on the moon.
"We have the data we need to actually address the questions we set out to address," said Anthony Colaprete, principal investigator for the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, mission.

Take a guess at how much this all cost? $79 million. Thats right, $79 million. Hmm, what could we do with that money here at home?

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