Wednesday - December 15, 2010

Up, up, and away!

While the utterly disgusting, 2000 page, rape of the American-people, 20,000+ earmark filled pile of waste wends it’s way through the legislature, weighed down with nearly HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS in pork spending ($300 billion as of last night, $417 billion as of this afternoon, by tomorrow, who knows?), a boring, dull, and completely unspectacular Soyuz rocket launch has just taken place at the Baikonor Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft blasted off on its latest mission, to deliver Russia, European, American and Japanese astronauts to the International Space Station.

The launch, which took place at 2:09 pm EST from the Baikonur cosmodrome on the steppes of Kazakhstan, came despite worries about the re-entry module of the Soyuz craft, which was hastily replaced earlier this month after it was damaged during unloading at the remote Russian launch site.

Russia’s Dmitry Kondratyev, NASA astronaut Catherine Coleman and the European Space Agency’s Paolo Nespoli of Italy will spend five months at the space station, which has a full schedule for 2011, with the arrival of several cargo craft delivered by the U.S., Russian, European and Japanese space agencies.

To this 60’s child of the Cold War and the Space Race, the whole event was both chilling and boring. The Reds wheeled out their gigantic rocket, broke it while setting it up (typical), so they rooted around their closet and got out another one. They have whole piles of these things just sitting around? Yikes. So they truck one out yesterday, and this afternoon they light it off. And it works just fine.

Am I the only one who finds this a bit disquieting? Seems to me that NASA always built theirs right on site, and then spent a couple days moving the thing, standing up on it’s launchpad, the mile or two to the ignition spot. Readying the massive rocket for flight then took several more days. Not the Russkis. Hell no. They just drive one in on a truck, tip it up, gas it and go. That fast. Glad it’s only people that they’re putting up. This time.

During their long-duration mission, Coleman, Kondratyev and Nespoli will participate in a range of scientific research and experiments, including fluid physics, radiation, biology, technology demonstrations and education outreach. Cosmonauts Kondratyev and Skripochka are also scheduled to perform at least one spacewalk to perform maintenance activities on the station’s exterior.

The whole liftoff scene was a let down too. Olga from Tractor Factory #4 was the voice of Mission Control. No countdown. No multiple camera angles. No interview with officials inside the Command Center with all those guys smoking in front of their computer monitors. No big orbital map with that sinusoidal launch path done up in little lights. This was a night launch, in Kazakhstan, so I’d expect either total darkness, one bare ass light bulb on a wire, or bank after bank of stadium lights. Nope. One rack, 20 bulbs. No “[beep] We have ignition. [beep]”. Nyet. The engines fired up, and 3 seconds later the gantries jumped away and the beast took flight. From the one fixed camera we had about 6 seconds of launching rocket footage, then nothing but a big white flair of rocket exhaust. Up, up, up ... and gone. And that was that. No 2nd stage ignition camera either. And Olga didn’t even ask “What about moose and squirrel?”! Sigh.

Our own TV people didn’t provide any color either. Not that they were there. No one was actually there. Probably forbidden, even if anyone could actually find Kazakhstan and figure out how to get there. But they could have mentioned at least that some school kids who had won some contest were on hand to watch, or that Italian astronaut Paolo Napoli was a bit upset that the Russians overcooked his pre-flight fettuccine until it was like chewing gum.

“The problem is that, as Italians, we have a very strict way of eating, and that breakfast broke every single rule that we have,” Mr Nespoli said at the Baikonur launch site in Kazakhstan.

Maybe he should have asked for turnips and potatoes.

And how is Obama’s decision to save money by turning NASA into a zero gravity muslim outreach community center working? Um, it’s doubled the costs, so far!

Russia profited handsomely from that monopolist position when it signed contracts for carrying NASA astronauts to the space station up to the end of 2014. A round-trip ticket to the space station in 2011 and 2012 will cost NASA as much as $51 million, up from the current $26 million. The price will jump to $56 million in 2013 and 2014.

And the budget bill? It’s just gross. It looks like the powers that be in DC think they can ignore the message the Tea Party sent them in November. Bloat, fat, graft, and nonsense. Oh, we’ll keep the evil Bush Tax Cuts For The Rich, but with a few caveats, like a 35% Inheritance Tax. And they’re keeping that idiotic corn liquor Ethanol subsidy, that costs you 45¢ a gallon at the pump. You know, the farm subsidy program that was at the very top of the list of Things To Cut? Yup, it’s still there. Plus, now we learn that the Feds are trying to steal a whole bunch of land as part of the deal too. Does that look like “message received” to you?

Tea Party: our work is just beginning.

Posted by Drew458     on 12/15/2010 at 02:25 PM   
Filed Under: • Economics • Government • Space •  
• Comments (4) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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