There’s husbandry in heaven;
Their candles are all out
Shakespeare,
Macbeth, II, 1
The successful launch and recovery
of a reusable space vehicle by CEO Musk owned Space X, first ever for private
company, complete with a wheel of cheese intact and not molten (a good sign!)
was for me a day I shall cherish, as I lived to see history.
Full press court details in the
article “Space
breakthrough - Houston, the Dragon has landed”, published December 11,
2010, 3:48PM, HOUSTON CHRONICLE as well as
in my blog
article entitled “NASA
and Space X - Little House on the Prairie”. Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon
Capsule are no mere fanciful names for Space X CEO Elon Musk, Venture Capitalist
and owner of PayPal.
They are a signal of the major
shifts taking place in Washington that are leading to the opening up of the
expensive “heavy lifting” involved in the business of space i.e. Satellites,
Cargo and Astronauts as first brought to light in my blog
article entitled “Alternative
Energy and the Ion Drive Engine – Star Trek and Andromeda”.
NASA (National Aeronautical space
Administration) will be left to do its primary function, which is Space
Exploration, with quite a mission schedule set before them, also explained in my blog
article entitled “Alternative
Energy and Daedelus - Avatar and Planet Gliese 581g Next Door ”.
Private Sector involvement in space
is coming of age as the article so rightly chronicles the obvious signs as
stated in the article “Private
Companies taking over orbital space business from NASA”, published Friday
December 24, 2010 10:20 am ET by JEFFREY KLUGER, Yahoo!
News. So why am I getting a sense of the anticlimactic from NASA?
Surely, the doubters have all been proven wrong with the cheese successful
return?
NASA has a full schedule ahead of
them. First ever probe to visit the Sun, appropriately and quaintly named Solar
Probe Plus comes readily to mind as stated in the article “NASA planning mission
to visit the Sun”, published September 2, 2010 4:12 PM PDT by Charles
Cooper, CNET News - Cutting Edge.
This is confirmed in the article “NASA
aims to plunge Car-sized probe into the Sun”, published Thursday September
2, 2010 9:30 pm ET, by SPACE.com, Yahoo! News.
A technical feat of engineering worth about US$180 million, it is an indication
of the scaled down budget that NASA will have to contend.
Yet the necessary science that
justifies NASA’s existence must continue. This however will be mad more
difficult as previous satellites and other non-functional debris have been left
in orbit around the Earth as stated in the article “Space
junk Rivals Weapons as a major Threat”, published Thursday December 23,
2010 3:30 pm ET by SPACE.com, Yahoo! News.
It is not only a threat to Earth’s
inhabitants if pieces survive re-entry but also places future missions into
space in jeopardy. Already the ISS (international Space Station) has been put
in harms way, barely missing a flying piece of space junk as stated in the
article “Space
station dodges piece of old NASA satellite’, published Tuesday October 26,
2010 12:11 pm ET By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer, Yahoo! News.
Thus the obvious is clear. The US
Government needs to put out a bid to one of the “space cowboys” jockeying for a
piece of the lucrative space action to basically come up with a feasible way of
removing the garbage now floating in orbit. Effectively a Dumpa Truck as per the
song by Vybz Kartel, needs to be designed by theirs contractor chosen via a US
Government tender process to clean up and possibly bring back down some of the
junk.
This is because firing missiles
only makes the problems worse, turning floating debris into millions of pieces
of high speed projectiles that can destroy other satellites and space vehicles.
Short and sweet, folks, short and sweet. Just remember Jamaica for a possible space
station as per my
blog article entitled “Alternative
Energy ands Virgin Intergalactic - District 9”.
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