Jim Lovell was the greatest of Americans

 

 

This is a fabulous tribute to the man who kept his head while all others were losing theirs. 

Apollo 13 moon mission leader James Lovell dies at 97

... One of NASA’s most traveled astronauts in the agency’s first decade, Lovell flew four times — Gemini 7, Gemini 12, Apollo 8 and Apollo 13 — with the two Apollo flights riveting the folks back on Earth.

In 1968, the Apollo 8 crew of Lovell, Frank Borman and William Anders was the first to leave Earth’s orbit and the first to fly to and circle the moon. They could not land, but they put the U.S. ahead of the Soviets in the space race. Letter writers told the crew that their stunning pale blue dot photo of Earth from the moon, a world first, and the crew’s Christmas Eve reading from Genesis saved America from a tumultuous 1968.

But the big rescue mission was still to come. That was during the harrowing Apollo 13 flight in April 1970. Lovell was supposed to be the fifth man to walk on the moon. But Apollo 13′s service module, carrying Lovell and two others, experienced a sudden oxygen tank explosion on its way to the moon. The astronauts barely survived, spending four cold and clammy days in the cramped lunar module as a lifeboat. ...

“I think in the history of space flight, I would say that Jim was one of the pillars of the early space flight program,” Gene Kranz, NASA’s legendary flight director, once said. ...

The Apollo 13 crew of Lovell, Haise and Swigert was on the way to the moon in April 1970, when an oxygen tank from the spaceship exploded 200,000 miles from Earth.

That, Lovell recalled, was “the most frightening moment in this whole thing.” Then oxygen began escaping and “we didn’t have solutions to get home.”

“We knew we were in deep, deep trouble,” he told NASA’s historian.

Four-fifths of the way to the moon, NASA scrapped the mission. Suddenly, their only goal was to survive. ...

Buzz Aldrin turned 95 in January

July 20, 1969 was also a Sunday. The live broadcast of the one giant leap for mankind was at 9:56pm Central Time.

 

Trump's NASA budget cuts threaten Congressionally-mandated identification of city-killing near-earth-objects

 

... Astronomers have found roughly 95 per cent of the near-Earth objects larger than 1km, and none of them poses any threat to Earth. We know much less about the smaller ones. An asteroid as slender as 50m across can wreck a city. Of the nearly quarter of a million that are around that size in Earth’s neighbourhood, 93 per cent remain undiscovered. ...

In July 1994, fragments of a comet called Shoemaker-Levy 9 smashed into Jupiter, and Nasa, for the first time ever, caught the spectacle on video. Later that summer, Congress tasked Nasa with mapping all near-Earth objects larger than 1km, sobered by the sight of the comet’s cataclysmic Earth-sized impacts. The brief was then expanded to include 90 per cent of all objects 140m or larger — a task that is still less than halfway complete. ...

In 2028, Nasa plans to launch an infrared asteroid-detecting telescope called NEO Surveyor. The following year, which the UN has designated “International Year of Asteroid Awareness and Planetary Defence”, an asteroid called Apophis [~375m] will pass within 32,000km of Earth, closer than some satellites. A Nasa spacecraft is on its way to study Apophis in detail. ...

More. 

Welcome to the 55th anniversary of Peak America

 

 

long term return from stocks peaked in 1969, 36 years after 1933 (always buy low)

Missing us by 180k miles yesterday, asteroid 2024 MK was only discovered on June 16 and was one of the 60% larger than 140 meters still unknown

 

Gee that's . . . not a happy thought.

The asteroid, named 2024 MK, is estimated to measure about 480 feet (146 meters) across, which is greater than the height of a 40-story building or the Great Pyramid of Giza.

More. 

A sucker that size could destroy London, England:

"If [an asteroid as big as Dimorphos] were to fall on the city of London, windows would break over the whole south east of England and the damage in [the Greater London] area would be very extreme," Collins said. "There would be no survivors in the center of London because of the impact itself and also because of the severity of the air blast." ...

While asteroids of this size crossing the path of our planet are rare, astronomers estimate that 60% of near Earth asteroids larger than 140 meters are still unknown. 

NASA said it came in at 152.4 meters.

European Space Agency said it came as close as 180k miles.

Talk about giving two weeks notice.

Dwight David Eisenhower: Peak America on this day in 1944, and Peak $SPX Return in 1969 when he died

 America also landed on the moon in 1969.

Thankfully NASA determines an object which weighed 1.6 pounds and smashed through a Florida man's roof wasn't the bag lost by two female astronauts last November

Nope, it was a 5,800 pound pallet heaved over the side of the ISS in March 2021.

Go big or go broke I always say.

NASA confirms space junk that hit Florida home came from space station

Astronauts accidentally drop tool bag during ISS spacewalk

Object from the sky crashes through Naples family’s ceiling and floor

 

“It was a tremendous sound. It almost hit my son. He was two rooms over and heard it all,” said Alejandro Otero.

 

Female astronauts lose another bag in orbit

 

NASA Psyche Mission headed to iron and nickel-rich asteroid possibly worth quadrillions

 The current value of ~208,874 tonnes of all the gold ever mined is only $14.47 trillion, so the discovery and mining of huge new supplies of precious metals could cause a deflationary depression . . . some day.

Launch date is October, arriving in 2029. 

Stories here and here.

Meanwhile we can exchange worthless pieces of paper for all kinds of stuff made in China.

Seems fair. 

Even calling NASA's helicopter on Mars a helicopter is a gross exaggeration: It's a frickin' drone and doesn't even have room for Buzz Lightyear

Dimensions: Fuselage (body): 5.4 in × 7.7 in × 6.4 in

Someone should tell NASA Mars helicopter team that a Wright Brothers moment requires a HUMAN piloting a PLANE

NASA scores Wright Brothers moment with first helicopter flight on Mars :

"The twin-rotor whirligig's debut on the Red Planet marked a 21st-century Wright Brothers moment for NASA . . .. NASA engineers affixed a tiny swath of wing fabric from the original Wright flyer under Ingenuity's solar panel before sending it on its way to Mars."

Nothing captures the ridiculous character of the present exaggerated age better than this celebration over a 3-meter helicopter flight on Mars

 

                                                                                                         Dare Mighty Things!

The failed NASA mission nobody talks about

Suddenly it's "Hillary in Space" weekend on Twitter for some reason

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Wypipo wrote the code to go to the moon in 1969

Everything human beings touch turns into a shit-hole, including near-earth orbit

Space debris from India’s anti-satellite missile test a threat to ISS, NASA says :

But speaking on Monday, Bridenstine said NASA had identified 400 pieces of orbital debris from the test, with at least 24 of them — each one larger than 10 cm — having gone above the apogee of the ISS, something he described as “a terrible, terrible thing” and which put the safety of the ISS at risk. However, he confirmed that because the test was carried out low enough in Earth orbit, the fragments — and therefore the risk — would dissipate over time. The space agency is currently tracking 23,000 pieces of orbital debris, each one 10 cm or larger. Scientists, meanwhile, have been working on a number of different projects aimed at getting rid of the debris.

 

Dan Henninger: The Democrats summon Hurricane Christine

Here:

Surely someone pointed out that based on what was disclosed, this accusation could not be substantiated. To which the Democrats responded: So what? Its political value is that it cannot be disproved. They saw that six weeks before a crucial midterm election, the unresolvable case of Christine Blasey Ford would sit like a stalled hurricane over the entire Republican Party, drowning its candidates in a force they could not stop. ... Republicans in the Senate shouldn’t allow it, and voters in November should not affirm it.

NASA temperature data tampering puts Amundsen's Northwest Passage in the tenth coldest year on record

Story here.

Thirty years ago today

'It appears that there are enormous differences of opinion as to the probability of a failure with loss of vehicle and of human life. The estimates range from roughly 1 in 100 to 1 in 100,000. The higher figures come from the working engineers, and the very low figures from management. What are the causes and consequences of this lack of agreement? Since 1 part in 100,000 would imply that one could put a Shuttle up each day for 300 years expecting to lose only one, we could properly ask "What is the cause of management's fantastic faith in the machinery? .. It would appear that, for whatever purpose, be it for internal or external consumption, the management of NASA exaggerates the reliability of its product, to the point of fantasy.'

-- Richard Feynman

Leftist UK Guardian means to slam USA as fading empire in headline, backtracks in actual article to slam empire of NASA

Well, what would you expect from a has-been empire which still isn't over its eclipse by the USA? They should have figured out how to keep us while they still could, but their hubris got in the way. Terribly sorry, old boy.

Here:

The Empire, of course, is Nasa, a once noble but now creaky agency that has devolved from moonshots to renting rides from the Russians, all in the span of Buzz Aldren’s adulthood.
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Hey commies! Learn how to capitalize. It's called NASA. And what exactly is notable in the history of British spaceflight, anyway?

Hm. Is there something called British spaceflight?