Lowest bid, and slimeballs

NASA..they have accomplished so much, and so little. Their first decade went gangbusters, but by now, private companies are leaving them behind.

Still remember some of the lines about ’em from the 60s.

Dick Gregory “People ask me why none of the original group of astronauts was black. Well, you’re wrong – there’s 6 white astronauts and one brother- he’s just looked like that since they told him what he volunteered for.”

Johnny Carson: “Here you are, floating around in space, millions of miles from the nearest help – in the lowest bid.”

Nowadays, though, the astronauts have something legit to complain about: their space suits are shot.

In June, NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson was alarmed to discover water squirting from her spacesuit and covering her visor with ice, forcing the agency to call off the planned spacewalk. In the same month, NASA called off yet another spacewalk due to a “spacesuit discomfort” issue plaguing NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick.

The space agency’s extravehicular mobility unit (EMU), essentially a self-sufficient spacecraft in the shape of a bulky spacesuit, dates back to the early 1980s and hasn’t seen any major updates since the late 1990s. The latest design, which was first flown in 1998, was meant to last 15 years, meaning that the suits currently being used are far beyond their intended shelf life.

Nine years late, NASA thought maybe getting new suits would be a good thing:

The space agency chose two private space companies to develop new spacesuits in 2022, which would not only allow astronauts to perform spacewalks outside of the ISS but also walk on the Moon.

One of those companies, Collins Aerospace, backed out of the deal this past summer. But the other one, Axiom Space, appears to be making steady progress. Last month, the firm showed off a suit designed to protect astronauts during NASA’s Artemis 3 mission, the first planned lunar landing since Apollo 17 in 1972, which is tentatively scheduled for 2026.

But even Axiom Space is facing some serious financial trouble. As Forbes reported in September, the startup has been struggling to pay the bills and laid off at least a hundred employees.  Futurism

There are at least two basic needs you have to meet: you have to get your people INTO space, and you have to protect them while they are there. Letting that second one go, almost twice the projected lifetime of their suits, just makes no sense. Can’t make the astronauts feel terribly secure, either.

Negligence is one thing. Now we get to just plain ugliness. Let’s go to Columbus, Ohio.

The governor of Ohio and city officials in Columbus are speaking out after a group of masked individuals marched through the streets of the Ohio capital city Saturday dressed in black and holding flags with swastikas on them.

The unidentified people were spotted around 1 p.m. walking through the Short North neighborhood, according to Columbus ABC affiliate WSYX. Images and videos of the marchers went viral on social media sites.  ABC News

This follows another Nazi group protesting outside an “Anne Frank” production in Michigan last week. Seems like these (always masked) folks are spreading. To paraphrase many folks far brighter than I, while I can’t advocate violence against these clowns, I look forward with great anticipation to seeing the news of it. Come to think of it, I would love to see this new administration treat Nazis and Antifa sorts the same – stomp ’em into the ground like tent pegs.

Category: NASA, Protests/Rallies