http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/nasa/ en-us Tue, 5 Jan 2010 05:14:29 GMT Focus Forum 15 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421145/posts The U.S. Air Force will contract to have its Space Based Space Surveillance (SBSS) system satellite placed into storage due to continued technical difficulties with the Minotaur 4 rocket that have delayed the spacecraft’s launch indefinitely, according to government documents. The Minotaur 4 rocket, built by Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., and based in part on excess missile motors, was originally planned to debut in October 2009 with the SBSS launch. But the Air Force issued a statement that month saying the rocket had problems and would remain grounded indefinitely, though no further explanation was given. In a solicitation... Space War http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421145/posts#comment Tue, 5 Jan 2010 05:14:29 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2420347/posts For some time, NASA has focused much of its limited aeronautics research budget on the blended wing-body configuration, believing it has the best chance of meeting its aggressive environmental targets for commercial aircraft entering development after 2025. These include reductions exceeding 70% in fuel burn, 75% in emissions and 71dB in airport noise compared to today's airliners. Now the agency is broadening its search to include other alternatives to the ubiquitous tube-and-wing layout. And one of those is the truss-braced wing (TBW), or strut-braced wing (SBW), a concept that allows a substantially longer span for significantly higher lift-to-drag (L/D) ratio.... Aviation Week and Space Technology http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2420347/posts#comment Mon, 4 Jan 2010 03:28:32 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2419884/posts If there was an award for best quote of the year, our money would be on Richard Fisher, the director of NASA's Heliophysics Division. Fisher was interviewed in October by National Public Radio after NASA scientists discovered a mysterious ribbon of hydrogen around our solar system. The layer, a sort of protective barrier called the heliosphere, shields us from harmful cosmic radiation. Its existence defies all expectations about what the edge of the solar system might look like. Fisher's response: "We thought we knew everything about everything, and it turned out that there were unknown unknowns." In other words: We... ATT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2419884/posts#comment Sun, 3 Jan 2010 10:09:21 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2415693/posts February 24, 2009, NASA's 280 million dollar Orbiting Carbon Observatory fell into the Antarctic after it failed to make orbit. Now, I'm not a Truther who believes 9/11 was an inside job produced by George Bush, nor am I certain BO is a U.S. citizen, but where there's smoke, there's fire from a burning birth certificate somewhere . . . NASA's carbon checking satellite was launched with the intention of definitively mapping the amount and effects of that evil atom, carbon, on the earth, which has alone been responsible for loading western universities with a non diversity of well funded... JoeClarke.Net http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2415693/posts#comment Sun, 27 Dec 2009 13:08:55 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2414278/posts December 23, 2009: The solar system is passing through an interstellar cloud that physics says should not exist. In the Dec. 24th issue of Nature, a team of scientists reveal how NASA's Voyager spacecraft have solved the mystery. "Using data from Voyager, we have discovered a strong magnetic field just outside the solar system," explains lead author Merav Opher, a NASA Heliophysics Guest Investigator from George Mason University. "This magnetic field holds the interstellar cloud together and solves the long-standing puzzle of how it can exist at all." The discovery has implications for the future when the solar system will... Science@NASA http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2414278/posts#comment Thu, 24 Dec 2009 04:42:00 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2413589/posts NASA’s managers have settled on a fix they say will protect astronauts from potentially dangerous levels of vibrations that could otherwise reach the planned Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle during its climb to orbit atop the Ares 1 rocket, according to information posted on a NASA Web site. NASA Constellation program officials decided Dec. 17 to update the Ares 1 vehicle design to include upper-plane C-spring isolators and an upper-stage liquid oxygen (LOX) damper intended to keep vibrations originating in the Ares 1 main stage from reaching Orion and its crew. The Constellation program is a 5-year-old effort to replace the... Space News http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2413589/posts#comment Wed, 23 Dec 2009 07:50:59 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2410788/posts A photo from Cassini shows sunlight reflecting from a giant lake of methane on the northern half of Saturn's moon Titan. (CNN) -- NASA scientists revealed Friday a first-of-its-kind image from space showing reflecting sunlight from a lake on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. It's the first visual "smoking gun" evidence of liquid on the northern hemisphere of the moon, scientists said, and the first-ever photo from another world showing a "specular reflection" -- which is reflection from a liquid surface. Jaumann said he was surprised when he first saw the photos transmitting from Cassini, orbiting Saturn about a billion... Cnn.copm http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2410788/posts#comment Fri, 18 Dec 2009 23:11:00 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2410196/posts FYI, The NASA press release below refers to 'holiday' or 'seasons' greetings six times. No mention of Christmas, of course. [comment deleted]! In a bizarre historical turnabout, religious activity on the space station has now become almost entirely dominated by the Russians. They fly icons blessed by priests (http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=6673) Photos: http://hochu.vkosmos.ru/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/ikona.jpeg and http://www.svet-valaama.ru/photoalbom/2006_05_icon_from_space/2006_05_icon_from_space_01.jpg Also http://www.interfax-religion.ru/img/2308.jpg I haven't seen anything remotely similar from the American side. What have I missed? For the next manned launch this Sunday, also expect Russian Orthodox priests from the newly-built church in Baykonur (news story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10729300) to bless the rocket and the crew. File photo: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Mp59h1-TVgE/SsKiot99hvI/AAAAAAAAAnA/1QV6t9vIfrs/s400/Best+Soyuz+Bless.jpg... e-mail http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2410196/posts#comment Fri, 18 Dec 2009 06:32:29 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2410003/posts PARIS — European Space Agency (ESA) governments on Dec. 17 gave final approval to a two-part Mars exploration program to be conducted with NASA, confirming their commitment to spend 850 million euros ($1.23 billion) on missions in 2016 and 2018, ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain said. Space News http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2410003/posts#comment Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:44:08 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2409200/posts WASHINGTON — NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will meet with U.S. President Barack Obama Dec. 16 to discuss options for the future of manned spaceflight activities and investments, according to the president’s daily schedule released by the White House. The meeting is slated to occur at 3:05 p.m. today in the Oval Office. Bolden and senior administration officials have spent the past several months mulling the findings of a blue-ribbon panel that found the agency’s Constellation program, a five-year-old effort to replace the space shuttle with rockets and spacecraft optimized for the Moon, is incompatible with NASA’s budget. The panel, lead... Space News http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2409200/posts#comment Thu, 17 Dec 2009 01:11:45 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2406541/posts Crescent Neptune and Triton Credit: Voyager 2, NASA Explanation: Gliding silently through the outer Solar System, the Voyager 2 spacecraft camera captured Neptune and Triton together in crescent phase in 1989. The above picture of the gas giant planet and its cloudy moon was taken from behind just after closest approach. It could not have been taken from Earth because Neptune never shows a crescent phase to sunward Earth. The unusual vantage point also robs Neptune of its familiar blue hue, as sunlight seen from here is scattered forward, and so is reddened like the setting Sun. Neptune is... NASA http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2406541/posts#comment Sun, 13 Dec 2009 13:42:15 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2406490/posts The giant gold and silver satellite glittered against the black sky as space shuttle Atlantis closed in on it from below. Commander Hoot Gibson and pilot Guy Gardner flew the approach, while mission specialist Mike Mullane, at the other end of the flight deck, readied the shuttle’s robot arm for a capture. Downstairs in the airlock, mission specialists Jerry Ross and Bill Shepherd waited in their spacesuits for Gibson’s order to go outside and attempt a rescue. The mission of STS-27 had been to deploy the first in a series of new spy satellites that used radar to observe ground... Air & Space Magazine http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2406490/posts#comment Sun, 13 Dec 2009 07:28:58 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2406214/posts Dec. 11, 2009: There's a storm brewing -- a storm of information, that is, in climate and environmental research. People are wading through the turbulence, trying to make sense of it all. At the eye of the storm is a unique new web site called Climate One-Stop (http://climateonestop.net). "It's a 'calm spot' where scientists, decision-makers, nonprofit workers, and officials can find all the latest research," says Dan Irwin of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. "We unveiled the site at this week's United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen." SCIENCE@NASA http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2406214/posts#comment Sat, 12 Dec 2009 19:33:40 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2406003/posts WASHINGTON — Congress and the White House have signaled that they envision sharply different futures for NASA and its manned space mission. At an aerospace luncheon, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden said President Barack Obama wants the agency to embrace “more international cooperation” after the space-shuttle era ends in 2010 and hinted that its Constellation moon-rocket program could see major changes. But hours earlier, congressional appropriators reached a different conclusion, approving legislative language declaring that any change to Constellation, which aims to return astronauts to the moon by 2020 but is running well behind schedule, must first get the approval of... The Orlando Sentinel http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2406003/posts#comment Sat, 12 Dec 2009 09:26:02 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2405987/posts Russia has reneged on an agreement to deliver a total of 10 kilograms of plutonium-238 to the United States in 2010 and 2011 and is insisting on a new deal for the costly material vital to NASA’s deep space exploration plans. The move follows the U.S. Congress’ denial of President Barack Obama’s request for $30 million in 2010 to permit the Department of Energy to begin the painstaking process of restarting domestic production of plutonium-238. Bringing U.S. nuclear laboratories back on line to produce the isotope is expected to cost at least $150 million and take six years to seven... Space News http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2405987/posts#comment Sat, 12 Dec 2009 07:50:12 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2405506/posts Climategate may be just the tip of the global-warming iceberg according to the Washington, D.C.-based Competitive Enterprise Institute, which says the next weather-science scandal may erupt right here in the United States. For nearly three years CEI, a free-market, public-interest organization, has pursued a series of Freedom of Information Act Requests intended to force NASA's climate-science division to hand over e-mails it says could reflect the same sort of pro-warming bias seen in the recent e-mails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of East Anglia University. One reason NASA's unresponsiveness is drawing attention: For years, the CRU stonewalled a request... newsmax http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2405506/posts#comment Fri, 11 Dec 2009 17:19:26 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/2404749/posts The first thing one must understand about the global warming agenda is that it has nothing to do with saving the earth from destruction and although there is validity in the science of climate change for the study of cyclical patterns in weather and temperature, the theory that the earth is being destroyed by man made greenhouse gases is pure nonsense. The recent "Climategate" scandal in the global warming community has shown that. They have been manipulating data for years in order to advance their theory and ignoring any science that says different. What they have been very successful in... The Edisto Joe Outlook http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/2404749/posts#comment Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:44:22 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2402007/posts What's become known as "Climategate" may be about to explode on this side of the pond as well. Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, has threatened a lawsuit against NASA if by year-end the agency doesn't honor his Freedom of Information (FOI) requests for information on how and why its climate numbers have been consistently adjusted for errors. "I assume that what is there is highly damaging," says Horner, who suspects, based on the public record, the same type of data fudging, manipulation and suppression that has occurred at Britain's East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU).... National Center For Policy Analysis http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2402007/posts#comment Mon, 7 Dec 2009 14:55:13 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2401898/posts After 30 days of data reduction, Ares I-X engineers continue to find fairly close correlation between their computer models and the flight performance of the test vehicle, which was the tallest rocket ever launched. Flight-control algorithms developed for the operational vehicle "worked extremely well," said NASA's Marshall Smith, systems engineering and integration (SE&I) manager for Ares I-X, and the flight data in general validated the computer models being used to design Ares I. "I, personally, from SE&I, am very, very pleased with the performance of our (guidance, navigation and control) system; the algorithms that we're testing for Ares I worked... Aviation Week and Space Technology http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2401898/posts#comment Mon, 7 Dec 2009 08:47:09 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2401833/posts In an apparent set back for secret official efforts to announce the existence of extraterrestrial life, the British Ministry of Defence (MOD) has just closed its UFO desk. After 50 years of having an official reporting mechanism in place for public sightings of UFOs, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defence stated that the funds could be better used for the Afghanistan war. What is the impact of the British MOD decision to close its UFO desk? Why was such an announcement made now given that only a trivial amount of public funds (44,000 pounds/US$73,000 a year) will be saved... The Honolulu Examiner http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2401833/posts#comment Mon, 7 Dec 2009 04:19:01 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2401743/posts It's been a long wait—in some ways, more than 50 years—but in April 2010, the U.S. Air Force is scheduled to launch an Atlas V booster from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying the newest U.S. spacecraft, the unmanned X-37, to orbit. The X-37 embodies the Air Force's desire for an operational spaceplane, a wish that dates to the 1950s, the era of the rocket-powered X-15 and X-20. In other ways, though, the X-37 will be picking up where another U.S. spaceplane, NASA's space shuttle, leaves off. Kompas.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2401743/posts#comment Mon, 7 Dec 2009 00:42:05 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2401321/posts The fight over global warming science is about to cross the Atlantic with a U.S. researcher poised to sue NASA, demanding release of the same kind of climate data that has landed a leading British center in hot water over charges it skewed its data. Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said NASA has refused for two years to provide information under the Freedom of Information Act that would show how the agency has shaped its climate data and would explain why the agency has repeatedly had to correct its data going as far back as... Washinton Times http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2401321/posts#comment Sun, 6 Dec 2009 03:14:03 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2400667/posts Science: For two years, our space agency has refused Freedom of Information requests on why it has repeatedly corrected its climate figures. A leading researcher threatens to sue to find more inconvenient truths. What's become known as "Climate-Gate" may be about to explode on this side of the pond as well. Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, has threatened a lawsuit against NASA if by year-end the agency doesn't honor his FOI requests for information on how and why its climate numbers have been consistently adjusted for errors. "I assume that what is there is highly... Investors.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2400667/posts#comment Sat, 5 Dec 2009 01:28:26 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2399513/posts The fight over global warming science is about to cross the Atlantic with a U.S. researcher poised to sue NASA, demanding release of the same kind of climate data that has landed a leading British center in hot water over charges it skewed its data. Chris Horner... said NASA has refused for two years to provide information under the Freedom of Information Act that would show how the agency has shaped its climate data and would explain why the agency has repeatedly had to correct its data going as far back as the 1930s. "I assume that what is there... The Washington Times http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2399513/posts#comment Thu, 3 Dec 2009 18:43:23 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2399469/posts Not all of the climate change Hoaxers are members of the CSU in England, the other major "research arm" of the Church of Global Warming is the United States own Space agency, NASA. The man behind NASA's climate change efforts is James Hansen, who runs the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. He is also Al Gore's personal climate change guru. Hansen lives by one strong rule. "If God deals you bad numbers--fudge them." Remember when NASA announced October 2008 was the warmest in history and then, "OOPS NEVER MIND" someone figured out a mistake was made? It was James... washingon times/the lid http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2399469/posts#comment Thu, 3 Dec 2009 17:47:02 GMT