NASA It has become very obvious NASA has changed some of its policies, as far as partnering up with India and deciding to use commercial companies to take some of the load off its rocket launches. The commercial launches are more than that however. NASA has found they can do the same things for less money. The cost for using a company like SpaceX is just so much less than using one of the Legacy company’s rockets built for NASA with all the cost overruns, delays and incredible launch costs. Using a private company like SpaceX is like getting some launches for free since they are so much cheaper. This means more projects can be accomplished by NASA. As far as partnering with India, it is as much a political move as much as anything else. It makes me wonder about something and that something is the progress India seems to be making in the field of rocketry. What I am wondering about is if they getting a technology boost from us? Are we sort of helping them get ahead under the table? If not, they are doing some incredible work and advancing in technology at a surprising rate. When they beat out Russia with their moon lander it was a shock to some. I mean, after all, Russia was the first to launch a satellite and also had sent moon landers to the moon years before and to see the last one crash was unexpected. Does this indicate they are not the space power they once were? NASA knows how important the moon is. It is lucky for us some of the other players like Iran and North Korea don’t possess the technology to send people there. It has often been said the moon would make a perfect military base. I wondered about that because a weapon launched from there would take days to reach an earthly target with today’s technology. As weapons get faster the danger would increase, that is for sure. But there could be other things which are being kept from us that make the moon even more important and that is the remains of a superior technology. Some believe that is what might be on the moon and the superpowers know it and want to get their hands on it. There is an asteroid which has been given an ominous name which is the God of Chaos which is said to have a good chance of reaching earth orbit in 2029. NASA has launched the Osiris-Apex spacecraft to study this asteroid. It is said it will not collide with the earth, but will come so close it might be visible to the naked eye. It is being called a once in 7500-year event. The exact date for this event has been calculated to be April 13, 2029. Guess what, that is Friday the 13th. I am not saying we should attach any importance to this, I just thought it was an interesting fact. The asteroid is 367 yards in diameter. To me, one of the most amazing things NASA has launched is the Parker Solar Probe. It is orbiting the sun and comes so close that it would melt if it were not flying so fast. It is just an amazing feat which so far seems to be unequaled. There was an idea a few people had that life might even be able to be found on a star. I can’t see it being true, but so many crazy things have been found out about space lately, I won’t eliminate anything I have heard about. Some scientists are calling the probe and its travels around the sun an incredible achievement and equal to the first moon landing. Actually, the launch, placement and unfurling of the James Webb telescope is said to be more incredible than the moon landing since it was so complex. It looks like NASA is going to rely more on robots in the future. Not to be outdone, Elon Musk was in a video walking with a robot which had a human shape. The famous NASA robot is Valkyrie and has appeared in a few different forms. The idea is Valkyrie will be able to operate in areas where it is too dangerous for humans to go. It is even being said it could be used in natural disasters and eventually in space. I suspect while human shaped robots are now all the rage, working robots will have different shapes depending on what they are designed to do. Human shaped robots will probably start to look more like humans in the future, especially those which are made to assist humans at home. We all know nothing lasts forever, and the International Space Station is no exception. Remember it is not the first space station and all the other American and Russian space stations are just memories. The problem is when the time comes how will this monstrosity be taken down without hitting an earthly target? It is the biggest space station so far. NASA has been carefully planning on how it will do this. There are 5 nations which cooperate on running the ISS, they are NASA, the European Space Agency, Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency and Roscosmos, the Russian Agency. It is beginning to look like 2030 might be its last year. NASA is going to design a special craft for deorbiting the ISS. The new vehicle will be called the USDV which stands for U.S. Deorbit Vehicle. When the time comes the vehicle will slowly lower the altitude of the ISS. The ISS will be guided through the atmosphere to a place called Point Nemo which has no population. It is located in the South Pacific Ocean between New Zealand the southern most part of South America. Russia is saying things about leaving the ISS early and has produced a model of a new space station of its own. There are those who think Russia might cooperate with China and Iran, but who knows? The president of the Russian space agency had said Russia will quit the ISS after 2024. Russia is an old hand at building space stations. Their most famous was the Mir. It lasted for about 10 years. NASA said it will use commercial labs in space to replace the ISS and this way it will only have to pay for the services it uses and not for running the entire station. I guess we will have to wait and see if this really saves them money. So far, they don’t have a good track record for saving money.
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