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Nice Comment
NASA: Join Us in Going to the Moon ... and Beyond
Humans are preparing to leave Earth’s orbit for the first time since 1972 — to the moon and eventually to Mars and beyond. That’s the mandate we’ve been given by President Donald Trump and a supportive bipartisan Congress. This is an exciting time to be leading America’s space program.
Today I’m proud to share a bold response to President Trump’s December 2017 call to action, one that will usher in the next chapter of human exploration. We are calling on American companies to help design and develop human lunar landers, reusable systems for astronauts to land on the moon.
As a lifelong NASA supporter, I am thrilled to be talking once again about landing humans on the moon. But to some, saying we’re returning to the moon implies we’ll be doing the same as we did 50 years ago. I want to be clear — that is not our vision. We are going to the moon with innovative new technologies and systems to explore more locations across the surface than we ever thought possible. This time, when we go to the moon, we will stay.
In the half-century since we last set foot on the lunar surface, our country, our agency — including its budget and workforce — and the technology and industrial landscape have all experienced tremendous change.
Indeed, more than two-thirds of Americans today were not even alive to witness the six successful Apollo moon landings, myself included. Extraordinary as they were, for many the lunar expeditions are facts from history books or stories told by older relatives. But unlike Apollo, this time we’re going to the moon to stay, and from there we’ll take the next giant leap in deep space exploration.
In my youth, I aspired to emulate America’s best aviators, astronauts like Alan Sheppard, John Glenn and Neil Armstrong. My aspirations led me to become a pilot in the U.S. Navy. Now, as NASA’s administrator, I have the opportunity to support a new generation of America’s best pilots, operators and space explorers as we venture deeper into the universe than ever before. I am humbled to lead this journey. I’m excited about what it means for our future, and I believe it is essential to the security of our nation.
To do that we need a sustainable, human presence beyond Earth’s orbit. That starts with the Gateway — a lunar orbiting outpost designed to ensure the safe transit of astronauts to the lunar surface and back home again.
The Gateway will be the home base for the first reusable human lunar lander system. It’s a sustainable approach that creates more commercial opportunities, which is necessary for long-term human space exploration. Crews will use our powerful Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft to travel to the Gateway and return safely home.
We want to get started as quickly as possible, so we are inviting private industry and other potential partners to meet with us next week at NASA Headquarters to discuss human lunar landers.
We have already committed to working with nine American companies to send new science instruments and technology demonstrations to the surface on commercial cargo moon deliveries. Following these early
https://www.ozy.com/opinion/nasa-join-us-in-going-to-the-moon-and-b...
Fantastic photo.
Hubble Gets a Celestial Boost
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope doesn’t usually get much assistance from its celestial subjects — but to take this image, the telescope opted for teamwork and made good use of a fascinating cosmic phenomenon known as gravitational lensing.
This effect works when the gravitational influence of a massive object, such as the galaxy cluster in this image, is so colossal that it warps the surrounding space, causing nearby light to travel along distorted paths. The massive object is effectively turned into a giant magnifying glass, bending and amplifying the light traveling from more distant galaxies lying behind it.
In this particular case, astronomers used the foreground galaxy cluster (named SDSS J0915+3826) to study star formation in galaxies lying so far away that their light has taken up to 11.5 billion years to reach Earth. These galaxies formed at a very early stage in the lifetime of the universe, giving astronomers a rare glimpse into the beginning of the cosmos. Despite the distance of these galaxies, the lensing effects of SDSS J0915+3826 allowed astronomers to work out the sizes, luminosities, star formation rates and stellar populations of individual star-forming clumps within these galaxies — quite an achievement!
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
Text credit: European Space Agency (ESA)
Small Satellites yield Big Discoveries
Remember the old adage: Big things come in small packages? NASA has updated it - in the form of CubeSats. Imagine a real, working satellite that’s so small you can hold it in your hands: Just 4 inches (10 cm) across, these cubes can be expanded incrementally depending on their specific mission objectives. The technology packed into these tiny denizens of space is impressive. Originally developed in 1999 by Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Stanford University for educational purposes, NASA has since used them for new science missions and to test new electronics, sensors and software that might be included on larger missions.
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/news-articles/small-satellite...
Astronomers have discovered the Milky Way's disk is warped and twisted, not flat like a pancake. The researchers hypothesize that as the Milky Way’s inner disk of stars rotates, it drags on the outer disk as well, distorting the flat spiral http://ow.ly/YqzJ30nA87o
They'll never stop learning.
Its interesting isn't it that they are still learning things from the Apollo moon rocks 50 years later.
That was on our news too.
NASA Research Could Reshape Understanding of Moon Formation
New NASA research combining experimental studies with analyses of samples collected nearly 50 years ago during Apollo provides compelling evidence that the Moon formed from the same materials as Earth in the aftermath of a giant impact between the young Earth and a Mars-sized impactor.
Read more=. https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-research-could-reshape-unde...
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