Showing posts with label International Space Station. Show all posts
Showing posts with label International Space Station. Show all posts

Friday, December 16, 2016

What America and the world lost when we lost John Glenn: A genuinely heroic man of unquestioned bravery, character and integrity -who thought his wife was the real hero.

                                 
What America and the world lost when we lost John Glenn: A genuinely heroic man of unquestioned bravery, character and integrity -who thought his wife, Annie, was the real hero.

One of the highlights of my 15 years living and working in the Washington, D.C. area from 1988-2003 were those handful of opportunities, usually outside on Capitol Hill between the Supreme Court and the Senate Office buildings to the north, to speak one-on-one for a few minutes with one of the bravest and most-famous Americans then-alive, Senator John Glenn of Ohio.




“We tend to think of heroes as being those who are well known,” he wrote, “but America is made up of a whole nation of heroes who face problems that are very difficult, and their courage remains largely unsung. Millions of individuals are heroes in their own right.”





But anyone who lives to be 95 years old doesn't do so without some mis-steps along the way, and certainly John Glenn wasn't immune to this fact, since he was not without his ideological blind spots.
As best-selling historian Victor Davis Hanson noted in a 2005 column on the then-current parlor game in Washington and other urban areas of the U.S. among many prominent members of the Democratic Party and its friends in the news media of comparing President George W. Bush to Hitler because of his administration's policy of keeping Guantanamo open  -instead of closing it and moving the prisoners to the U.S., which would have been against the POV of the majority of the American people- Glenn claimed "It's the old Hitler business"

Jewish World Review 
Hitler, Hitler, everywhere 
By Victor Davis Hanson
June 23, 2005

Then again, even at age 89, he still had the power to speak for many Americans upset at a diminished space exploration program when he openly criticized President George W. Bush's policy of ending the U.S. shuttle program, and instead, paying Russia to launch American astronauts to the International Space Station. 
"Operating Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavour until successors are ready might end up being cheaper than buying seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft, the retired senator said. Flying the shuttles beyond their planned retirement may also be the best way to maximize return on taxpayer investment."
This is but the tip of the iceberg in a fact-filled defense of keeping faith with the origins of the U.S. space program.

Statement of Senator John Glenn (ret.) Regarding NASA Manned Space Flight









Saturday, May 11, 2013

Another reminder, courtesy of George Clooney and Sandra Bullock's new film, Gravity, that spacewalking is dangerous; astronauts to repair International Space Station's ammonia leak



warnerbrosuktrailers YouTube Channel video: "Gravity" - (Official Teaser Trailer) starring George Clooney and Sandra Bullock, directed by Alfonso Cuarón. Uploaded May 9, 2013. http://youtu.be/kayC3Ke-yd8 Opens in October.

Another reminder, courtesy of George Clooney and Sandra Bullock's new film, Gravity, that spacewalking is dangerous; astronauts to repair International Space Station's ammonia leak.

Video at
http://landing.newsinc.com/palmbeachpost/video.html?freewheel=90068&sitesection=palmbeachpost_nws_us_sty_ppap&VID=24814284


Article at
Spacewalking repair halts station leak - for now
By Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press

Updated: 5:53 p.m. Saturday, May 11, 2013 
Posted: 5:52 p.m. Saturday, May 11, 2013
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/ap/ap/aerospace/spacewalkers-to-tackle-leak-at-space-station/nXn4H/

Friday, December 30, 2011

"A lonely species in a merciless universe anxiously awaits an answering voice amid utter silence." That would be us. No, not Dolphins fans or Hallandale Beach, but humans. Classic Charles Krauthammer!

"A lonely species in a merciless universe anxiously awaits an answering voice amid utter silence." 
That would be us. 
No, not Dolphins fans or Hallandale Beach, but humans. 
Classic Charles Krauthammer!


The Fermi Paradox and Goldilocks in one column?
Charles Krauthammer zings us out of our post-Christmas/holiday blues -sorta!


But if what Charles Krauthammer says is true about intelligent life in the universe, does this also mean that for many single people who've been looking for a serious long-term relationship, for some of them, despite what they and their friends have convinced them of otherwise, there really is no "special somebody" or future "significant other" out there, just waiting for fate to intervene?


Just an empty universe?
That's too depressing to even think about!  


Which is why they make films like New Year's Eve, to fool us into believing something that, maybe, isn't there.
And why there are TV marathons this time of the year:




The Washington Post
Are we alone in the universe?
By Charles Krauthammer
December 29, 2011
Huge excitement last week. Two Earth-size planets found orbiting a sun-like star less than a thousand light-years away. This comes two weeks after the stunning announcement of another planet orbiting another star at precisely the right distance — within the “habitable zone” that is not too hot and not too cold — to allow for liquid water and therefore possible life.
Unfortunately, the planets of the right size are too close to their sun, and thus too scorching hot, to permit Earth-like life. And the Goldilocks planet in the habitable zone is too large.
Read the rest of the column at: 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/are-we-alone-in-the-universe/2011/12/29/gIQA2wSOPP_story.html





The Wrap

63 TV Marathons for New Year's Eve Weekend (Including Every Episode of 'The Walking Dead') 
By Kimberly Potts
Published: December 30, 2011 @ 2:23 pm 
http://www.thewrap.com/tv/column-post/62-tv-marathons-new-years-eve-weekend-including-every-episode-walking-dead-33967




Charles Krauthammer columns at The Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/charles-krauthammer/2011/02/24/ADJkW7B_page.html


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation