The Other World
There’s some stuff happening outside of politics and Da Chipster reminds us.
We have landed on a comet. Earth has just recveived confirmation that we have, in fact, harpooned a comet. The lander needs to harpoon the comet just to hold on because the comet’s escape velocity is 20 inches/second, so one good electronic sneeze and the lander would be 10 football fields away in a blink.
And when I say “we” I mean “Earthlings.” No chanting U-S-A on this one because we cancelled funding on it, and by “we” I mean King George Bush I in his 1992 budget.
Anyhoo, in the immortal words of Vice President Joe Biden, this is a big fing deal.
You can listen to the comet here. (The talking heads finally shuddup and let you listen.)
Science is very cool.
Actually, it looks like Philae’s harpoons never deployed, but it still landed on the comet. Because socialism.
1Thanks for reminding me this is happening. If you want more info check out this website: http://new.livestream.com/esa/cometlanding
2Here’s another link: http://www.popularmechanics.com/how-to/blog/what-you-need-to-know-about-rosettas-mission-to-land-on-a-comet-17416959
Sorry if I’m posting too much info, this stuff just fascinates me.
3I can’t avoid being political, because this little rocky place looks like a viable alternative to Hale-Bopp, and the perfect climate for ardent Tea Partiers to colonize.
4glf, good stuff, please keep the links coming!
5“Attention carbon based life forms…..”
6As someone who works within the Space Exploration community, I can say that I’m very excited and happy that the ESA was able to make a success of this mission, despite all the glitches and setbacks they’ve encountered. While the US space program has had their share of successes (like landing a probe on an asteroid) it’s always good to see the other space programs assisting in the advancement of science and humanity in general.
And if you haven’t see this, you need to:
7http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/Videos/2014/10/Ambition_the_film
“The Song of the Comet” sounds remarkably like the noises my son made when he was about six, and no, he didn’t need a straw in a glass of soda to do it, creative kid that he is.
Damn sorry that the space program was cancelled. That killed many a job in this country as well as blunting the natural yearning for “going where mankind has yet to go.”
8We could save a whole lot of money if we simply re-purposed a tiny bit of our war budget to instead send neocons into space.
9Love it. Watched it this morning.
10Watched it on the ESA live stream this morning–it’s wonderful. Then got all philosophical about it (or maudlin, take your pick) and wrote a LiveJournal post about it. (http://e-moon60.livejournal.com/ if you’re just dying to see it.)
Yeah, I’ve been furious for decades about the whittling away and then canceling of both manned and unmanned scientific space programs–not that I thought the USA should have the only successes, but it was short-sighted, stupid, cost jobs, and wasn’t replaced by any other worthwhile program.
11For the first time I get an idea of why space exploration is a good idea. Thank all of you.
12Best comment I heard today–they put a GoPro on a space rock.
13Hmmm…..$85 BILLION a month over YEARS for Wall Street because they screw up. and just $18 billion a year for NASA???? Think of what NASA could do with just a few days worth of Wall Street bailout money. And they probably wouldn’t be wailing for end of year bonuses.
14One last link if you want to know what happened during landing and it’s current position: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30034060
15Love it! Congrats to all involved. Wish U-S-A were too, but alas, there was Dubya.
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