FurballsNHairballs<p>I heard an amateur radio station Sunday afternoon...N1KSC for the Kennedy Space Center, and it made me think... Do they even use that facility anymore?The VAB is one massive building, and I did not know there was a UHF repeater on it.I thought they just used Vandenburg out in Cali<br><a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/NASA" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>NASA</span></a><br><a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/spaceprogram" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>spaceprogram</span></a><br><a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/KennedySpaceCenter" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>KennedySpaceCenter</span></a><br><a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/science" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>science</span></a></p>
#spaceprogram
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While the #EU 
has never had a #SpaceCommissioner, there is a need to zone in on a sector that McKinsey estimates will be worth $1.8 trillion 
by 
2035. Kubilius' mission letter does not mention any potential big new #SpaceProgram. While #ESA spends billions on #science and exploration projects, the #EuropeanCommission needs extra cash 
to build out #IRIS https://www.politico.eu/article/andrius-kubilius-defense-space-commissioner-budget-european-space-agency-cooperation
POLITICO · Europe launches its first space commissioner straight into a budget scrap
In 2024, #Colibri, our bi-propellant vertical takeoff, vertical landing (#VTVL) rocket 
, will perform its first flight https://www.gruyerespaceprogram.ch/
www.gruyerespaceprogram.chGruyere Space ProgramGruyère Space Program is a student association developing the first student-built rocket hopper to be flown in 2023!
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#Presidents support #NASA and do what NASA says. We could have orbiters around every planet 
in the #SolarSystem for a fraction 
of the cost of #Artemis. But nobody gave us that option. The cost and time 
spent on #SLS and #Orion have set the #SpaceProgram back 
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/opinion/nasa-moon-artemis.html
The New York Times · Opinion | With Artemis, NASA Returns to the Moon This Week. Why Do We Feel Conflicted?
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#Taiwan’s space agency is working on its own version of ‘#Starlink,’ which will allow the island to remain online even if Taiwan’s #UnderseaCable system is hit during a conflict.
CNN’s #WillRipley sits down with the director of the #TaiwanSpaceAgency in an international exclusive to find out more about the island’s #SpaceProgram.
Taiwan’s internet is vulnerable to #China threats. Its space agency is stepping in [VIDEO]
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/taiwan-s-internet-is-vulnerable-to-china-threats-its-space-agency-is-stepping-in/vi-BB1n71dW
Mars as climate fix?
Simpler to terraform Earth.
We lack will, not tech.
#haiku #senryu #poem #ShortPoem #climate #SpaceProgram #ClimateMitigation #ClimateDenial
I love the space program as much as anyone, but there is not even time left on habitable Earth to think somehow a colonization to Mars would save us.
Terraforming is a VERY difficult, expensive, and risky task, easy to fail at, as writers of hard science fiction like Kim Stanley Robinson have explained in fascinating detail.
If you REALLY want an uninhabitable planet to rehabilitate, take the engines out of existing rockets, put them on cinder blocks, and wait. The wait won't be long. You'll be on one faster, cheaper, and more reliably than if you try to escape the gravity well, and with lots better available resources.
Seems far better to me to just get started now in earnest with the serious task of fixing Earth, in hopes of optimizing out the messy, sad, painful part in the middle where humanity goes extinct due to that messy uninhabitability thing that's rocketing toward us. Fixing things here at home is perhaps not as flashy as planetary colonization, but it's much more relevant and, if we start now, doable. YMMV.
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@senbillnelson 's outsized influence on #NASA over four decades is undisputed, but some of us in the #SpaceCommunity are concerned this may not be a feature 
. Senator #Nelson’s imprint on the #SpaceProgram has led to grand pronouncements based on #unrealistic industry estimates, multibillion-dollar #cost overruns, years of schedule #delays and unmet expectations 
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bill-nelson-isnt-the-best-choice-for-nasa-administrator/
Scientific AmericanNew NASA Administrator Should Reject Its Patriarchal and Parochial PastBill Nelson, Biden’s nominee, exemplifies the agency’s pork-barrel, male-dominated past
#OnThisDay in 1986...
I was at college, walking up the stairs to my dormroom when I heard about it. I spent the rest of the day glued to my little TV in our room.
As I watched the video that was being replayed over and over, one moment struck me: The twin trails of smoke from the booster rockets looked like the wide-spread arms of a giant in the sky.
It was immediately obvious that there would be no survivors. I cried, and prayed that they never had a chance to know what happened, and feeling awful for all the school kids watching the teacher take off, on TVs at schools around the world.
The cause was later determined to be a simple, small, faulty O-ring. It would be months later before any human remains were recovered, found at the bottom of the ocean.
The #SpaceProgram would never be the same again.
#ChallengerDisaster #SpaceShuttle #Space #SpaceShuttleChallenger #ThisDayInHistory #NASA #NASAshuttle #OnThisDay80s #OTD
TIL: #Iran’s #RevolutionaryGuards have their OWN #spaceProgram separate from Iran’s civilian space program.
#IRGC answers only to #Khamenei.
Satellite launch vehicle “shortens the timeline” to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile, #ICBM, which can be used to deliver nuclear weapons.
Iran is now producing close to weapons-grade uranium after collapse of nuclear deal during #Trump "presidency". It has enough enriched uranium for “several” nuclear weapons.