WTF? ITE?: NASA satellite
Posted by drocolate on February 25th, 2009
A $273 million NASA satellite crashed minutes after launch on Tuesday. The satellite, called the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO), was launched early Tuesday morning from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California (yet another strike against Cali). It was launched using a Taurus XL rocket, which to me, a non-rocket scientist, sounds really powerful and awesome. All was going well until the satellite and the rocket failed to disconnect. This made the entire rig too heavy to continue going upward and about three minutes after takeoff the entire thing fell back to Earth where it went splash in the ocean right outside Antarctica.
This satellite was being sent into space to collect global measurements of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere in an effort to gather more information on the greenhouse effect. Now, unfortunately, the satellite is simply contributing to the greenhouse effect by rotting in the ocean like any other piece of common trash. I imagine it probably smashed five or six cute little penguins on its way down as well. Just for added irony.
This project was in development for eight years and cost $273 million to complete. I guess they needed $274 million to get that mid-air rocket disconnect right. Damn budget cuts.
Actually, to hell with budget cuts. If there is $273 million in NASA’s budget for this thing then where is my awesome futuristic moon base? Why has no one been to Mars? Why are astronauts still simulating zero-G in a shoddy cargo plane? No anti-gravity simulator? Oh, and why isn’t THIS being worked on more?
Come on NASA. You guys are botching this. Instead of all that cool stuff I’m sure NASA will just pick up their clipboards and get down to the business of making a new greenhouse effect satellite. For another $273 million. WTF??? ITE???
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Tags: california, NASA, WTF? ITE?
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