Nasa

These will start with some random ramblings, various thought bubbles floating in my inner thought space, so there may not be the consistency of a more well thought out post. First topic of discussion - Nasa.

Nasa is a U.S. space origination founded in 1958 in a response to the launch of the Soviet Sputnik into orbit. It has been a military organization from the start. It initially recruited talent from the U.S. airforce. It took over Jet Propulsion Laboratories. It gathers talent from various places, often consulting with local professors or local companies. Increasingly, perhaps due to budget constraints, it has been using getting help from various universities. See http://www.msss.com/(private company in San Diego) and http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/ (European space station), http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix/images.php university of Arizona(phoenix probe), california institute of technology(jet propulsion laboratory), university of Houston(various consulting from professors), and http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu (high resolution pics on the mars reconnaissance orbiter). Recently Lockheed won a contract to build a new spaceship for Nasa. Obama is also trying to merge Nasa into the Dept of Defense.

China, Europe, Japan, and Russia have all recently admitted to various space dreams - visit moon and mars - and to an extent have already begun to fulfill such dreams. Nasa has recently sent up a kinetic energy missile(Centaur rocket) to crash into the moon's south pole on October 8, 2009, supposedly as an effort to detect water on the moon in preparation for a moon base, except they have already found water in pebbles returned from the Apollo missions. So I am a bit baffled at what their purpose is.

Officially Nasa is very antagonistic to the idea of life being elsewhere in the universe. They say they are trying to discover signs of life, at least microscopic ones, but supposedly they haven't found anything and maybe there is some truth in that. Various maybes have presented themselves. You have the face on mars, pyramid on mars, a geodesic dome in a crater on Mars, some strange tree-like things and some strange black spots. They have also found signs of recent flowing rivers, like in the past few years and methane source. Some astronauts(mostly the old ones I think) have stated that noticed sentient type ufo/alien phenomena, but really who knows.

To bring a whole long post to a rather conclusive point, I am disappointed in Nasa. So many decades and not a single microbe has been discovered. Either they have found something and they have lied or they haven't found something and are just plain incompetent. However since many who work at Nasa are rather intelligent, I just wonder what is really going on. To turn the coin around, if there really is sentient type life in our galaxy besides us, why haven't they contacted us? It is possible they have and we have just shot at them. In that case I would suggest a large radio signal or perhaps a large light source. Someone would pick that up. Increasingly regular people just think Nasa is a waste and the money they spend could be better spent on more immediate goals. One might site all the technology that has come about as a result of Nasa, but simply put that technology could have come about without the billions spent on rockets, spaceships and probes.

But seriously though, you have Russia, the US, China, Japan, and Europe each with interests in the moon and Mars. I wonder if they know something I don't. A lot of our recent space program activity is in reponse to other countries. Some of the reasons are military based, but I doubt all are. Oh, and some substances can only be created in outer space(low gravity/microgravity- see http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/home96/jul96/lowgrav.html for instance). Perhaps a new industry will be created in the future for substances created in microgravity.