Buzz Aldrin

Watch his facial expressions as he listens to that joke of a president

from:http://rochdaleherald.co.uk/2017/07/03/buzz-aldrin-says-not-punching-trump-greatest-achievement/amp/

Buzz Aldrin says not punching Trump is his greatest achievement

Buzz Aldrin has suprised many today by saying that his greatest achievement is not punching Donald Trump. Mr Aldrin attended an event where the President gave a rambling word salad of a speech.

Mr Aldrin looked visibly pained as he explained to the Herald, “At first I thought it was a joke or alzheimers awareness thing. As he went on I realised it wasn’t Alec Baldwin but the actual President. How is that possible? I’ve met Nixon, Johnson and Obama and never experienced anything like that. Hell, even Bush used to be able to get words into the right order.”

Aldrin, who famously punched a moon landing conspiracy theorist went on to say, “How the hell do you inspire kids with that? Who can honestly say being President is something to aspire to?

I mean this is the country that produced Murray Gell Mann, Richard Feynman, Douglas Hofstadter and Ernest Lawrence. Yet our President talks like that. I should have punched him.”

Aldrin finished by saying, “Carl Sagan said that humans are the mechanism by which the universe comprehends it’s own existence. It must be wailing in despair right now.

After he’d finished he asked me what it was like meeting Stanley Kubrick. I half expected him to start on the Van Allen belt but it turns out he thinks they’re something his daughter sells on her fashion label. Should have punched him when I had the chance.”

To the suprise of the Herald Mr Trump responded to the comments. In a statement he said, “Eons from now, we storytellers will believe like never before as we are aligned by the cosmos.

Reality has always been buzzing with travellers whose auras are opened by space. Throughout history, humans have been interacting with the cosmos via molecular structures. We are in the midst of a non-local flowering of faith that will give us access to the multiverse itself.”

Mesmerizing

People who know less always ask why we're spending "so much money" in Space exploration.

Let the money go to homeless, etc.

While I agree in spending more money in domestic issues, I think the system has to change wherein the money GOES to the less fortunate instead of "administrative costs".

But I digress.

Check out this video presented my my ex-employer, NASA (actually, I worked for a NASA subcontractor).

From Youtube user MadHatter: We've all seen images of extreme weather from space. But none of those could prepare us for this video just released by NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio. Using real data, this simulation's volume-rendered clouds depict seven days in 2005 when a category-4 typhoon developed off the coast of China.

Enjoy:

A New Era

Orion launch - December 5, 2014. A 'new era of American Space Exploration'. Good to see.

Farewell, Space Shuttle

After 30 years the Space Shuttle Program has ended. I have been lucky enough to be part of this program since 1982, working at the Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) in New Orleans East. The huge External Fuel Tank (ET) was manufactured here. The ET was the only component of the Shuttle Transportation System that was not reusable.

Last July the employees at Michoud attended the rollout of the last Tank. This is the same tank that was used for the final Shuttle Launch on July 8, 2011. (It is a strange coincedence that the rollout ceremony was July 8, 2010.) In true New Orleans fashion, a second line was held to escort the Tank onto the barge that would transport it to KSC (Kennedy Space Center). Here's a video of the event.



As I write this and watch the video I feel a lump in my throat. The experience of working at Michoud has been very, very special. I don't know about other companies, but working at MAF we employees feel like family. I've known some people for the "almost 30 years" I've worked there. We have grown old together, celebrated each others life milestones: marriage, children, divorce, death, grandchildren, retirement, Katrina (more than 50% of the MAF workforce lost everything from the storm),the Saints as Superbowl Champs and the BP Oilspill (the blowout preventer is still at MAF, under investigation). The number of employees at MAF has decreased to a few hundred from an all time high of about 2,500 in the heyday of the Shuttle Program. Several employees have set up webpages with archived photos of our work and play while at MAF. There is a facebook page for former employees to keep in touch. The end of the Shuttle program means so much more than jobs lost.

At MAF we employees would gather around the closed circuit televisions across the facility and watch each launch that took place during work hours. We knew each milestone in the ascent, marvelling every time the capcom would report on the speed of the bird. We knew that our Tank must work flawlessly for eight minutes before it was jettisoned off the orbiter. And the Tank worked every time! Each employee, no matter what their job was, took pride in our work.

We felt much pain in the losses of Challenger and Columbia. I still cannot look at photographs or videos of those two events. Our technical and production crews worked around the clock after those incidents to make things right. And they did. Space exploration has never been and will never be a flawless endeavour. It is an inherently dangerous science.

We will not cry because it is over, we will rejoice because it happened and we had a part in it!

A Good Space Shuttle blog

If you’re a space shuttle fan, I suggest you check out Wayne Hale’s blog at the link below: 

http://waynehale.wordpress.com/

Previously a flight director and space shuttle program manager, Hale served as NASA's Deputy Associate Administrator for Strategic Partnerships prior to his retirement on July 31, 2010.

His blog is full of stories about his time as a flight director and gives some interesting insight in to the inside operations of the Space Transportation System.