Gigantic Asteroid Hurtling Towards Earth? UPDATED! CNN anchor beats Al Gore to the punch, blames you know what

But do not worry about that. The scientific community says it is much ado about nothing, Stacy McCain, however…………

They’re scientists, after all, which means they’re never wrong, so ignorant laymen like us should have complete confidence in their judgment: 

Anyone happening to glance towards the heavens in a week’s time and glimpses a 50-metre-long lump of rock hurtling ominously through the skies need not panic.
Although it will pass closer to us than any asteroid has for the past 15 years — closer even than the TV satellites that girdle the planet — Nasa insists that 2012 DA14 will miss Earth by a good 17,100 miles (27,520km).
“No Earth impact is possible,” said Donald Yeomans, an astronomer with the US space agency.

In other words: PANIC! It’s going to destroy us all! 

The good news is this. If it does hit us, we will not be around to listen to Al Gore blame asteroids on climate change. Also, it will be the end of reality shows.

UPDATE! The obligatory “Did Global Warming Cause the Asteroid Card” has already been played!

CNN anchor Deb Feyerick asked Saturday afternoon if an approaching asteroid, which will pass by Earth on February 15, “is an example of, perhaps, global warming?”

UGH! Is there any absurdity the Left will not stoop to?

NASA Crashes Two Probes Into A Mountain On The Moon

NASA Crashes Two Probes Into A Mountain On The Moon – Reuters

A pair of NASA moon-mapping probes smashed themselves into a lunar mountain on Monday, ending a year-long mission that is shedding light on how the solar system formed.

The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory, or GRAIL, spacecraft had been flying around the moon, enabling scientists to make detailed gravity maps. The probes sped up slightly as they encountered stronger gravity from denser regions and slowed down as they flew over less-dense areas.

By precisely measuring the distance between the two probes, scientists discovered that the moon’s crust is thinner than expected and that the impacts that battered its surface did even more damage underground.

Out of fuel and edging closer to the lunar surface, the probes were commanded to smash themselves into a mountain near the moon’s north pole, avoiding a chance encounter with any Apollo or other relics left on the surface during previous expeditions.

“We do feel the angst about the end of the mission,” said Charles Elachi, director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, which oversaw the mission. “On the other hand, it is a celebration because this mission has accomplished tremendous science.”

The U.S. space agency lost radio communications with the first spacecraft at 5:28 p.m. EST (2228 GMT) and the second about 20 seconds later, a NASA mission commentator said.

The probes’ final resting place was named after the first U.S. woman in space, Sally Ride, who orchestrated GRAIL’s educational outreach program before her death in July. The spacecraft included cameras that were operated by students.

After completing their primary mission in May, the GRAIL twins, each about the size of a small washing machine, moved closer to the lunar surface, dropping their orbits from about 34 miles to less than half that altitude to increase their sensitivity.

On December 6, the probes, nicknamed Ebb and Flow, flew down to about 7 miles to make one last detailed map of the moon’s youngest crater.

“Ebb and Flow have removed a veil from the moon,” said lead researcher Maria Zuber, with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The discoveries not only will help scientists better understand how the moon formed and evolved, but what happened to Earth and the other inner planets which were similarly showered with comets and asteroids early in their history.

Several follow-up studies are planned, including coordinating the moon’s new gravity maps with the locations where Apollo soil and rock samples were collected, Zuber said.

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Home At Last: Atlantis Makes Historic Final Landing As Nasa’s 30-Year Shuttle Program Comes To An End

Home At Last: Atlantis Makes Historic Final Landing As Nasa’s 30-Year Shuttle Program Comes To An End – Daily Mail

It’s the end of an era. After three decades of space travel, Nasa’s shuttle program came to a close this morning when Atlantis landed back on Earth.

The space shuttle and its four-member crew touched down as dawn broke at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, one minute behind schedule at 5.57am local time (10.57am BST).

Hundreds of spectators gathered near the runway to welcome Atlantis home – and to bid Nasa’s 30-year space shuttle program goodbye.

Touchdown: Atlantis lands at Kennedy Space Center one minute behind schedule at 5.57am (10.57am BST) this morning, bringing an end to Nasa’s 30-year space shuttle program

Incoming: Atlantis Commander Chris Ferguson gently steered the 100-ton spaceship high overhead, then nose-dived toward the swamp-surrounded landing strip at the Kennedy Space Center

Final farewell: Hundreds of spectators gathered near the runway to welcome Atlantis home – and to bid Nasa’s space shuttle program goodbye

Atlantis glided home through a clear moonlit sky to complete a 13-day cargo run to the International Space Station.

Commander Chris Ferguson gently steered the 100-ton spaceship high overhead, then nose-dived toward the swamp-surrounded landing strip at the Kennedy Space Center, a few miles from where Atlantis will go on display as a museum piece.

Double sonic booms shattered the predawn silence around the space center, the last time residents will hear the sound of a shuttle coming home.

When Commander Ferguson eased Atlantis onto the runway, he was ending a 5.2million-mile journey and closing a key chapter in human space flight history.

‘Mission complete, Houston,’ he radioed to Mission Control.

Astronaut Barry Wilmore from Mission Control answered back, ‘We’ll take this opportunity to congratulate you Atlantis, as well as the thousands of passionate individuals across this great space-faring nation who truly empowered this incredible spacecraft, which for three decades has inspired millions around the globe.’

Atlantis’ return from the 135th shuttle mission capped a 30-year program that made spaceflight appear routine, despite two fatal accidents that killed 14 astronauts and destroyed two of Nasa’s five spaceships.

Atlantis’ mission was to resupply the International Space Station, ending a 12-year program to build and service the orbital research outpost

Atlantis is the next-to-youngest shuttle. In retirement, it will remain at Kennedy Space Center and be put on display

Back for good: Atlantis glided home through a clear moonlit sky to complete a 13-day cargo run to the International Space Station

Atlantis comes to a standstill on the runway: Private companies will now take over trips to the International Space Station. Nasa’s next stop with astronauts will be an asteroid, then Mars

The last accident investigation board recommended the shuttles be retired after construction was finished on the space station, a $100billion project of 16 nations. That milestone was reached this year.

Details of a follow-on program are still pending, but the overall objective is to build new spaceships that can travel beyond the station’s 250mile orbit and send astronauts to the moon, asteroids and other destinations in deep space.

But with its Constellation program canceled by President Barack Obama due to exorbitant costs, Nasa will for the time-being rely on Russian Soyuz vehicles to launch missions to space.

Once at the forefront of orbiter technology, Nasa is increasing looking to private industry to engineer the next generation of spacecraft that will ferry crew and cargo to the International Space Station and beyond.

Among many tributes this week, on Wednesday evening, the Empire State Building in New York lit up in red, white and blue in honor of the space shuttle program.

On the last full day of this last mission, Commander Ferguson told the controllers: ‘I’d love to have each and every one of you to stand up and take a bow, a round of applause.

‘Then there would be no one to applaud and there would be nobody to watching the vehicle… but believe me, our hearts go out to you.’

Homeward bound: An image of the International Space Station that was taken by an Atlantis crew member shortly after the shuttle departed the station on Tuesday

In orbit: Atlantis sits docked with the ISS in this photo taken by astronaut Mike Fossum aboard the space station

Ferguson and his three crewmates then checked their critical flight systems for Thursday’s planned landing in Florida.

Everything worked perfectly. Excellent weather winded up the 135th flight of the space shuttle program.

The astronauts and the flight controllers who will guide them home said Wednesday they were starting to feel a rush of emotions.

‘It’s going to be tough,’ Mr Ferguson said in a series of TV interviews.

‘It’s going to be an emotional moment for a lot of people who have dedicated their lives to the shuttle program for 30 years. But we’re going to try to keep it upbeat.’

Flight director Tony Ceccacci, who was slated to preside over Atlantis’ return to Earth, refrained from publicly sharing his sentiments – until Wednesday.

‘You guys must know that we do have a motto in the Mission Control Center that flight controllers don’t cry, Ceccacci told reporters. ‘So we’re going to make sure we keep that.’

Snap happy: Members of the media set up remote cameras at the north end of the Kennedy Space Center runway in preparation for the return of Atlantis

See you soon: The Atlantis crew wave farewell at the end of the last crew news conference from aboard the shuttle on Wednesday

Atlantis departed the International Space Station on Tuesday, after restocking it with a year’s worth of supplies. Among the shuttle highlights noted Wednesday was the construction of the station, a nearly one million-pound science outpost that took 12.5 years and 37 shuttle flights to build.

Space station astronaut Michael Fossum posted on Twitter a photo of the shuttle docked to the station 250 miles above the blue planet, which he snapped during last week’s spacewalk. He noted in the tweet: “When will such beautiful ship dock again to ISS?”

Nasa already is shifting gears.

It’s working with private companies eager to take over cargo runs and astronaut flights to the space station. The first supply trip is expected to take place by the end of this year. Astronaut trips will take more time to put together, at least three to five years.

The long-term destination is true outer space: sending astronauts to an asteroid by 2025 and to Mars the following decade. That’s the plan put forth by President Obama. His predecessor wanted the moon as the prize.

Atlantis departs the ISS on Monday – a space station solar panel can be seen in the foreground

Last lift-off: Hundred of thousands of spectators at Cape Canaveral and tens of millions of TV viewers around the world watched Atlantis blast-off earlier this month

Throughout their 13-day mission and again Wednesday, the Atlantis astronauts stressed the need for a decades-long space exploration plan that does not change with each incoming president.

Ceccacci, whose Mission Control experience dates back to the first shuttle flight in 1981, said it’s ‘tough’ to think about all the experience that will be walking out the door following this mission.

Thousands of lay-offs are looming at the various Nasa centers; about 2,000 shuttle workers at Kennedy alone will get pink slips starting Friday. That’s on top of massive cutbacks already made.

‘We know there’s going to be a rough spot for a while,’ Ceccacci said. ‘But we hope that when we do get a good plan, a good direction, a good mission, that we can come back in here and do what we’ve been doing for the past 30 years for the shuttle and the years before that with Mercury, Gemini and Apollo.’

Atlantis is the last of the shuttles to be retired. It will remain at Kennedy Space Center, eventually going on public display at the visitor complex. Discovery is bound for the Smithsonian Institution in suburban Washington, and Endeavor for the California Science Center in Los Angeles.

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Your Marxist Moron of the Day is……….

Brought to us via William Teach, who discovers a real  devotee of climate change “science”

Imagine my surprise, and delight, to find a post at Think Progress that combines globull warming insanity and Palin Derangement Syndrome, all written by a bat guano crazy progressive (h/t to Tom Nelson, who pulled out the relevant quotes) In Her Own Words: My Imaginary Interview with Sarah Palin

Our guest blogger is long-time commenter Richard Brenne. He teaches a NASA-sponsored on-line Global Climate Change class and serves on the American Meteorological Society’s Committee to Improve Climate Change Communication.

Brenne:…Is there anything you do that doesn’t involve making sure peak oil and climate change cripple civilization and kill billions in all future generations?

Palin: No! I love that smell of the emissions!

Brenne: Does ingesting all those emissions give you any digestive tract issues?

Palin: I think my problem is that I do have the fire in my belly.

Brenne: I can tell. (Cough. Cough.) Could we open a window?

Palin: Oh it would be a blast if they were all this loud and if they smelled this good!

So, Palin wants to cripple civilization? And kill billions? Hmmm, why would a true worshipper at the Cult of Gore mind those things? After all is not a significant portion of the climate change crowd convinced that there are too many people on the planet? And crippling civilization? What does Mr Brenne think will happen if the draconian demands of the Cult of Climate Change are fully met?

In Carols Closet today: Sarcasm!

Ah, I love sarcasm, and so does Carolyn Tackett! And doesn’t Team Obama just invite sarcastic remarks and smart-assed comments?

Obama’s latest WTF??? moment!

 

Even I had to ask WTF??? did I just say?

It seems that this administration gives us a brand new WTF??? moment each and every day doesn’t it? The latest is this from the head of NASA!

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a recent interview that his “foremost” mission as the head of America’s space exploration agency is to improve relations with the Muslim world. 

Though international diplomacy would seem well outside NASA’s orbit, Bolden said in an interview with Al Jazeera that strengthening those ties was among the top tasks President Obama assigned him. He said better interaction with the Muslim world would ultimately advance space travel.

Ok, say it with me kids….WTF????? Aleister has video of Charles Krauthammer saying WTF??? albeit in a much more dignified manner.