Posted on 05/29/2011 12:24:40 AM PDT by Niuhuru
These stunning images capture the final stage of the construction of the International Space Station.
But as they marked the beginning of a new era in space exploration, the spacewalk undertaken by Gregory Chamitoff and Mike Fincke also represented an end - of Nasa's 30-year shuttle programme.
All future spacewalks - including one during the final shuttle voyage this summer - will be performed by full-time space station residents.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
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And after 30 years, they finally have a worthwhile scientific experiment on the ISS, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer.
Serious question by an ignorant jerk, but what have been the benefits of this pinnacle of achievement?
It has been sad but inevitable to watch NASA devolve from a hard-charging goal-oriented group to another federal alphabet bureaucracy interested in little more than exhausting this year’s budget with a constant eye on next year’s budget.
Contrast the leaps made from Mercury to Gemini to Apollo in under a decade with the 30-year make-work project known as the shuttle. No space mission is routine as Challenger and Columbia demonstrated but the marginal benefit of the program decreased with each successive flight. NASA PR knew this and drowned us in a sea of chirpy PC treacle and lame stunts like the wake-up music.
It’s ironic that any scientific gains made from the program have been marginalized by NASA’s happy talk and so-called outreach programs.
The “so called outreach programs” may involved Muslims riding their horse Moonbot to the ISS and back using the moon as their watering hole.
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