The little space shuttle that couldn't

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Written by: Cole Peterson on August 8, 2011.

Costly manned space program ends with return of Atlantis

On July 21st, the space shuttle Atlantis touched down at NASAs Kennedy Space Center, signaling the end of the shuttle program and, for a time, Americas adventures in manned space flight.

The event garnered a great deal of media attention as articles and interviews called up great feelings of nostalgia, sadness and disappointment over the fact that NASA and the Bush administration had brought an end to our glorious era in space and shattered all those dreams that had been born from the moon landing so long ago.

The loss of the shuttle program is not, however, something to be mourned. Rather, it should be celebrated as something long overdue that desperately needed to be done.

The space shuttle should have easily been recognizable as a flop within the first decade of its inception. It was painfully expensive, costing an average of $450 million to launch rather than the predicted $55 million. It was inefficient, averaging five launches a year, rather than a predicted 65. Finally, it was incredibly unsafe.

Press releases from NASA indicated the risk of catastrophe was one in 100,000, but some engineers put the number closer to one in a hundred and, for earlier models, a terrifying one in nine. Its a wonder that the history of the space program is not littered with more Challenger- and Columbia-level tragedies.

On top of being a fiscal and safety nightmare, the shuttle program also failed to do much in expanding our presence in space. It was capable of ferrying goods to and from the space station and it provided a platform for certain experiments, but none of that is terribly exciting, revolutionary or even something only the shuttle was capable of.

We havent even bothered to return to the moon or explore much farther than the immediate area outside our atmosphere except with robots. Robots and probes have been far more useful in expanding our knowledge of our solar system, and even a tiny sliver of the galaxy beyond. Weve put a robot on Mars and Japan landed one on the side of a moving asteroid.

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The little space shuttle that couldn't

NASA Targeting Earth Observing Satellites and ISS Sensors to Aid Missing Malaysian Airline Search

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Sensors aboard NASAs Terra satellite are aiding the search for vanished flight MH 370. Credit: NASA

NASA has actively joined the hunt for the missing Malaysian Airline flight MH-370 that mysteriously disappeared without a trace more than two weeks ago on March 8, 2014.

Sensors aboard at least two of NASAs unmanned Earth orbiting global observation satellites as well as others flying on the manned International Space Station (ISS) are looking for signs of the jetliner that could aid the investigators from a multitude of nations and provide some small measure of comfort to the grieving families and loved ones of the passengers aboard.

Obviously NASA isnt a lead agency in this effort. But were trying to support the search, if possible, Allard Beutel, NASA Headquarters, Office of Communications director, told Universe Today this evening.

NASAs airplane search assistance comes in two forms; mining existing space satellite observing data and retargeting space based assets for new data gathering since the incident.

The Malaysian Airline Boeing 777-2H6ER jetliner went missing on March 8 while cruising en route from Kuala Lampur, Malaysia to Beijing, China. See cockpit photo below.

Accurate facts on why MH-370 vanished with 239 passengers aboard have sadly been few and far between.

Chinese satellite image of possible debris of MH 370. Credit: China/SASTIND

Last week, the search area shifted to a wide swath in the southern Indian Ocean when potential aircraft debris was spotted in a new series of separate satellite images from Australia and China government officials.

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NASA Targeting Earth Observing Satellites and ISS Sensors to Aid Missing Malaysian Airline Search

Let's discount the notion David Ortiz took less money for 'peace of mind'

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By Eric Wilbur, Boston.com Columnist

Hometown discount?

Is that what were calling $16 million these days?

David Ortizs annual soap opera revolving around his contract finally was resolved for 2014, as the Red Sox tacked another year onto the designated hitters deal that will pay him $16 million in 2015, and comes with a pair of club vesting options for 16 and 17, perhaps with the intent that the team wouldnt have to deal with this nonsense for at least a couple more years.

Ortiz could have insisted on the $20 million annual compensation he felt he warranted, the Globes Nick Cafardo wrote, but instead settled again for a hometown discount for the peace of mind that hes where he wants to be for the remainder of his career.

Thats some peace of mind.

While Miguel Cabrera (due to make $22 million in 2014) was the only offensive member of the $20 million club to surpass Ortiz in production last season (.309, 30 home runs, 103 RBI, .959 OPS), at 38 hell be the highest paid DH in Major League Baseball this season, only a half-million more than the final year of Adam Dunns deal with the Chicago White Sox. And hes now one of only three designated hitters on the books for next season. The Royals Billy Butler, who will make $8 million this season, has a $12.5 million team option for 2015. Adam Lind has a $7.5 million team option in Toronto, and the Indians Carlos Santana will make around $6 million.

Butler will be 29 in 2015, Lind 31, and Santana 29. Ortiz will be 39.

You want any of those names as the centerpiece of the Red Sox lineup over the incumbent DH? Probably just as much as youd prefer Dunn and his .219 batting average representing your biggest threat.

Nobody is arguing that a productive Ortiz isnt a boon for the Red Sox. But can we please not purport the ridiculous notion that Ortiz took a hometown discount"?

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Let's discount the notion David Ortiz took less money for 'peace of mind'

Officials: 'Red creek' in Floyd County no cause for alarm

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FLOYD COUNTY, Ky. (WKYT) - Several people were left scratching their heads Saturday afternoon, after a creek ran red outside McDowell in Floyd County.

Officials with the Kentucky Department for Environmental Protection say the McCoy Elkhorn Coal Corporation reported the incident around 2:30 Saturday afternoon.

They say vandals tampered with a plastic container, spilling about 10 gallons of potassium permanganate.

"This material is used for water treatment, and basically when it impacts water it does change the water color, and that's what people were seeing today," said Robert Francis, manager of the Environmental Response Branch of the Kentucky Department for Environmental Protection.

Officials took samples to find out if concentrations of the material exceeded authorized limits.

They say the spill is no cause for alarm, and should not impact drinking water quality.

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Officials: 'Red creek' in Floyd County no cause for alarm

NASA wants to lasso an asteroid, but which one?

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NASA scientists have identified a dozen or so space rocks for its asteroid-retrieval mission, which it hopes to accomplish by 2025.

NASA is making progress on one of the most challenging parts of its ambitious asteroid-retrieval mission finding a suitable space rock to shrink-wrap in space.

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Scientists have identified a dozen or so promising targets for NASA'sasteroid-capture mission, which seeks to drag a small rock or a piece of a larger one into a stable orbit around the moon, where it would be visited by astronauts by 2025.

"For either concept that's being looked at right now either the capture of a small asteroid less than 10 meters in size, or going after a boulder, large boulder, on a larger asteroid we have a list of about six or so candidates each," Lindley Johnson, program executive for NASA's Near-Earth Object (NEO) Observations Program, told reporters Friday (March 21). [NASA's Asteroid-Capture Mission in Pictures]

"We continue to look for additional candidates," Johnson said, adding that NEO program scientists "will continue to do that over the next two to three years, until the time comes to actually determine which will be the best object for the mission."

The NEO program's primary purpose is identifying and tracking potentially dangerousasteroids. But good capture candidates are a subset of this larger group, Johnson said, so assessment of their suitability for the redirect mission doesn't take NEO scientists too far afield.

The asteroid-redirect mission would use a robotic probe to move the targeted space rock into Earth-moon space. The asteroid would then be visited, perhaps multiple times, by astronauts using NASA's Orion capsule and Space Launch System rocket, which are slated to fly crews together for the first time in 2021.

NASA wants the first manned visit to the retrieved asteroid to come around 2025, which would mesh well with an exploration timeline laid out by the White House. In 2010, President Barack Obama directed NASA to get astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025, then on to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s.

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NASA wants to lasso an asteroid, but which one?