No Wonder We Have No Space Program

The United States Space Program sucks. We were the first nation to put a man on the moon - 41 years ago. But the last 30 years we have had a hard time getting out of low earth orbit. Now after just two more space shuttle launches we won't even have a way to get up into low earth orbit.

Now I know why. NASA - the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. You know them, the guys in charge of our space program. In a recent interview NASA Administrator Charles Bolden explained why our space program is in the shambles it is in.

"When I became the NASA administrator -- or before I became the NASA administrator -- he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering,"

So it is the foremost mission of the NASA administrator to make the Muslim world feel good about themselves?

Someone please explain to me what making the muslin world feel good about themselves has to do with Aeronautics and Space?

If you have an answer besides NOTHING I would really like to hear it.

If not, then why are we spending over 18 billion dollars a year pretending to have a space program?

Satellite Fall Down - Go Boom

A satellite that was supposed to measure green house gases in order to help governments continue to use scare tactics to further repress their citizens develop global climate change policies crashed after take off in California today. A payload fairing that covers the top half of the satellite during launch failed to seperate so the launch was unable to reach a sustainable orbit. The satellite crashed into the ocean near Antartica.

Alan O’Neill, a science director of the Centre for Earth Observation in Reading, U.K. said:

“It’s disappointing because it was giving us novel information to help us move our understanding forward on global warming,”

Wow, that is impressive. The satellite didn't even manage to achieve orbit before it crashed yet it was already giving them "novel information". Any bets on what kind of novel that satellite was reading? Fantasy? Sci-Fi? Horror?

According to NASA's Mission Website :

Of all the carbon emitted by human activities between 1751 and 2003, only about 40 percent has remained in the atmosphere. The remaining 60 percent has been apparently absorbed (at least temporarily) by the ocean and continents. Recent inventories of the ocean can account for about half of this missing carbon. The remainder must have been absorbed somewhere on land, but scientists don't know where most of the land sinks are located or what controls their efficiency over time.

I have a couple questions: We can inventory the entire freaking oceans? All 60% of the earths surface, but we need a satellite to find what on the land is stealing all our CO2?

Secondly, the ocean is only absorbing about half of the CO2, and is only doing so temporarily? OMG what are we all going to do when suddenly the ocean lets loose with one huge burp and spits out 30% of all the carbon emitted by humans since 1751? Damned! Will there be an "excuse me" big enough to handle that magnitude of burp?

An improved understanding of carbon sinks is essential to predicting future carbon dioxide increases and making accurate predictions of carbon dioxide's impact on Earth's climate. If these natural carbon dioxide sinks become less efficient as the climate changes, the rate of buildup of carbon dioxide would increase-in fact, today's carbon dioxide levels would be about 100 parts per million higher were it not for them.

Notice the completely blind faith that the CO2 is impacting Earth's Climate?

Also the assumption that these sinks will become "less efficient" as the climate changes. We can't even find the damned things but we know they are going to be less efficient if we don't hurry up and ban light bulbs and cow farts.

And - we can't find the sinks, we only know that about half of the CO2 is being absorbed by the ocean and about half by the sinks (that we can't find), but we know that there would be 100 parts per million more carbon without them? Please?????

I have long been a proponent of a space program and I wish to God that we had one! So, far be it from me to cheer on the loss of any legitamate space vehicle. But this sounds more like a junk science vehicle than a space vehicle so I'm not too sorry its gone.