pirates and space
Two videos and a picture from the week….
And here’s a pretty neat video of the space shuttle’s external fuel tank falling to earth. Unfortunately, jettisoning the tank and allowing it to burn up in re-entry shows off one of the problems with NASA- the tank may not be nearly as valuable or clever as the shuttle, but it’s a pretty substantial piece of construction. Lots of people make noise about how useful the tanks would be in orbit- empty tanks could serve as structural elements for habitats or even (so they say) smaller spacecraft that don’t have to enter the atmosphere. This sounds like a good idea, but I’m not really a rocket scientist. Even if it doesn’t work, however, the mentality of disposable resources should have gone out with the cold war space race.
Oh, another NASA problem is boring announcers.
(by way of NASA Watch)
And finally, this. You should click for the full-sized picture.
