Cosmos Mariner

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• Commented on NASA's New Strategy: Close Its Reference Libraries

  Rocket Ranger, the way it will work when we no longer have access to the library book stacks is that you will find on-line exactly what you were looking for and no more. You will not find what you were...

• Commented on NASA's New Strategy: Close Its Reference Libraries

  Marc, the Goddard library is not used only for "historical" research. It is constantly used by scientists, engineers, and technologists for active research. Although we scientists, for example, do rely much these days on electronic journals, we also rely on...

• Commented on Photos: Enterprise Then and Now

  This is indeed a wonderful picture. How young Nimroy looks. Too bad we couldn't waited some more years until USS Enterprise CVAN-65 was decommissioned and the two Enterprises could have been united in a museum somewhere. I spent many happy...

• Commented on Red Begonias, Blue Skies, and 9-11

  As a scientist from NASA Goddard I had been the month before on a long trip with my family to southeast Asia in India, Thailand, Vietnam (IAGA conference in Hanoi), and finally an idyllic week on the island of Bali....

• Commented on Today's Tabloid News: Royal Party Boy Wants to Be a NASA Astronaut

  Indeed so, fare forward brave Harry! More on quotes from Henry V: "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers . . ." (Act IV, Scene III) All who have trod or would wish to trod the high untresspassed...

• Commented on Is the Sun's Cycle set to help Space Exploration?

  Not quite such a doom scenario during the magnetic dipole flip. We would still be under atmospheric shielding, the equivalent of ten meters of water, so we never get anywhere close to the radiation levels in deep space. Ground level...

• Commented on Is the Sun's Cycle set to help Space Exploration?

  Good that we could get less ultraviolet irradiation from fewer solar active regions, fewer power outtages and losses of communications satellites, but bad that anyone going beyond low orbit to the Moon, asteroids, and Mars would get more radiation from...

• Commented on Going Suborbital at NASTAR

  Keith, advice I heard from an earlier NASTAR vet of the centrifuge is not to turn your head from looking straight ahead, otherwise you will regret it. Looking forward to hearing all about it, including how much it costs, and...

• Commented on Human Space Flight: Where Do We Go From Here?

  Paul is right that the most basic justification for human exploration is survival of humanity. There are huge numbers of NEOs and more distant icy rocks out there and one of them could have our name on it. Devastating impacts...

• Commented on 2013 Decadal Survey Released

  I like your interim business approach. I can never understand, not being an expert on such things, why the big NASA missions cost so much, now Jupiter Europa Orbiter at almost $6B, twice the original estimate. I suppose it because...

• Commented on 2013 Decadal Survey Released

  Yes, indeed, where is Howard Roark when we need him? There are vast resources throughout the solar system that could be harvested in an investment-oriented human space program. Better that trillions of dollars and Euros go to that than down...

• Commented on 2013 Decadal Survey Released

  With age apparently comes wisdom. Yes, it would be a great idea to establish wide consensus with decadal surveys for human space flight. The Augustine Commission was a step in the right direction but did not have broad enough representation...

• Commented on HD Video From The Edge of Space

  In memory of the Challenger astronauts: High Flight Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred...

• Commented on NASA New Vision Statement - Not so Popular

  So much better said in far fewer words, "The truth is out there."...

• Commented on NASA's New Mantra is Too Long to Post on Twitter

  Have we fallen so far from the tree that "for all mankind" in these historic words, signed even by Richard Nixon, now offend? HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH FIRST SET FOOT UPON THE MOON JULY 1969, A.D. WE CAME...

• Commented on Once Again, NASA Seeks Animal Irradiation Proposals

  Steve, Yes indeed, the only reliable tests would be exposure and intensive radiation environment modeling in space, and this really should be done for humans. The time is past when the public would accept doing this with monkeys. NASA does...

• Commented on Once Again, NASA Seeks Animal Irradiation Proposals

  The radiation in space of greatest concern for long term risk of cancer is from heavily ionizing heavy ions in the galactic cosmic rays but otherwise the 120 rem total cumulative dose that astronauts would get on trips to Mars...

• Commented on White House Was Against Bolden's China Trip Before They Were For It

  Hurrah for General Bolden, as always the Marines lead the way when no else can. If we could engage on space for mutual safety and benefit of our human and robotic programs with the former Soviet Union, it would seem...

• Commented on Space Exploration: 10% of the 21st Century Has Been Used Up

  I prefer to say that we have used up only one percent of the 3rd millennium AD, and what remains in the other ninety-nine percent is the work of many generations forward from us. The great robotic missions such as...

• Commented on Learning From The Past

  There are other twists to this fascinating historical connection. E.g., the Union Pacific east and west lines finally connected at Promontory, Utah in 1869, one hundred years before the first human moon landing. Railroads came into development in the twenty...

• Commented on Rep. Pete Olson Needs A New News Watcher

  NASA international agreements on cooperation in space generally do not involve transfer of U.S. funds to the partner countries, who are responsible for funding their own contributions. So NASA funds mainly go to jobs for Americans. Major exception is payment...

• Commented on PETAnauts Are Persistent

  I suggest the deeper problem highlighted by this controversy is the apparent lack of science input to the decision making process on management of the human space program. Doing whatever it takes to get humans to Mars from the engineering...

• Commented on Moon Water Update

  Leaving space politics aside, I would suggest the truly interesting science aspect of this discovery is the possibility that there could be residual reservoirs of water within the Moon and even relatively close to the surface. If so, small to...

• Commented on Oil Trumps Space (Update)

  Also the home of the La Perla italian restaurant and a condo building. So there's good food and 2 br/2ba apartments for under a million. Sounds like great safe-house spot for quiet productive meetings to sort out the future of...

• Commented on PETAnauts Are Persistent

  June: Radiation therapy for cancer treatment is done with gamma rays, electrons, and protons. Although I have not seen the monkey experiment proposal details, I expect they plan to irradiate the monkeys with beams of heavy nuclei at Brookhaven National...

• Commented on Shields Up: PETAnauts Head for KSC

  David44149 and others: yes some of us non-PETA commenters are very aware of the procedures and proposed justifications for these experiments. The main science argument against is that animal models are unlikely to be as valuable as records from the...

• Commented on Shields Up: PETAnauts Head for KSC

  And dog is god spelled backwards. I look into her loving eyes every day and she says spare the monkies, volunteer yourself, and I have and will. Veganism is healthy but not for everyone, respect for animals and life in...

• Commented on Failing Queen Visit 101

  brobof:: Actually the breach of protocol was that you don't get into the Queen's face when she talks to regular folks in the crowd, especially if you are their big boss. Looks like the video was taken by an individual...

• Commented on Failing Queen Visit 101

  Aside from any small embarrassment to Mike Griffin, perhaps the real lesson of the video is the Queen's recognition of Goddard by her visit as a NASA center of excellence in earth and space science, particularly in remote sensing from...

• Commented on Did NSS Try To Stiffle PeTA - or is PeTA Making Things Up?

  Ian, I'm with you on this one, the main issue is substance, not style or hurt feelings or lawsuits. The original decision on the research project was likely made at a lower level in the NASA organization. But such decisions...