XKCD Ouch

There were two reasons for the moon landing hoax - first was to get people used to the idea that humans could travel in space so it wouldn't be as big a shock when the truth was revealed, and second, to provide a cover story for all of the lunar materials that were brought back by NASA using the UFO technology that they captured from Nazi Germany.

Ask me about crop circles.
 
The absolute funniest thing about conspiracy theories is that those who trumpet them the loudest trumpet in equal measures the fact the the government can't do anything right (like keep giant conspiracies secret).
 
The absolute funniest thing about conspiracy theories is that those who trumpet them the loudest trumpet in equal measures the fact the the government can't do anything right (like keep giant conspiracies secret).
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :yikes:
 
The absolute funniest thing about conspiracy theories is that those who trumpet them the loudest trumpet in equal measures the fact the the government can't do anything right (like keep giant conspiracies secret).

Must be a conspiracy.
 
What about crop circles?
We know that they are hoaxes - right? But why would someone do that?

Remember the big deal about the "War of the Worlds" broadcast in 1938? That was the government (who was aware that the Nazi's were working on UFO technology) testing the public reaction to contact with space aliens.

Once the government realized how the public would panic - and once they made contact with space aliens (using the captured Nazi technology) they had people make the crop circles to help adapt the public to the concept of contact with aliens.

So, the fact that the crop circles were fake is just more proof that NASA does indeed possess UFO technology and space aliens do exist.
 
We know that they are hoaxes - right? But why would someone do that?

Remember the big deal about the "War of the Worlds" broadcast in 1938? That was the government (who was aware that the Nazi's were working on UFO technology) testing the public reaction to contact with space aliens.

Once the government realized how the public would panic - and once they made contact with space aliens (using the captured Nazi technology) they had people make the crop circles to help adapt the public to the concept of contact with aliens.

So, the fact that the crop circles were fake is just more proof that NASA does indeed possess UFO technology and space aliens do exist.
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
 
Ouch.

I'd have thought NASA had some nice accomplishments outside manned spaceflight (Voyager, Mars rovers, Hubble/Spitzer/Chandra/Compton, etc.).

But, ouch.

Did you read the mouseover (text that pops up when you hover over the cartoon)?
 
The absolute funniest thing about conspiracy theories is that those who trumpet them the loudest trumpet in equal measures the fact the the government can't do anything right (like keep giant conspiracies secret).
That's just what they WANT you to think. The conspiracy theorists are PAID to be wacked-out nutjobs to discredit the stories, it's all part of the disinformation campaign.

Try to keep up.

:rolleyes2: :D
 
If you cheer when Burt Rutan calls NASA "Nay-Say", this one's for you:
http://www.xkcd.com/1074/
Pretty lame attack on NASA, if you ask me. Not that they are above criticism, far from it. But while the Apollo program might have been the greatest, in terms of sheer pizazz, their other stuff has been pretty great, too, for the most part. For example, there are two man-made objects about to become the first such things to effectively leave our star system. They were launched about 40 years ago, and are still operational, sending data home and responding to commands. NASA deserves to be proud of that, even if the sort-of-silly golden phonograph discs aboard never fall into alien hands and are deciphered (that stuff was more a "why not?" thing than a primary purpose of these spacecraft).
Then you have all the other successful unmanned missions, including close looks at every planet in the system, as well as asteroids and comets. They've made successful landings and excursions on Mars, and a successful landing on Titan (no mean feat, that!).
And of course there's Hubble ( a "successful failure"), and all the other earth-orbiting machines used for looking at deep space or the earth itself. And the Orbiters, which made much of that possible, and provided answers about long-term manned space missions. Yeah, two of them were lost, but that's still not shabby for about 200 missions. Retiring them was not some sort of NSA failure, if you ask me... I think of it the other way: it's astounding that they were operational for so long, and that they proved so useful!
Overall, their track record is amazing, in terms of ambition and success rate. The Russians have done some things better; the private sector may very well exceed NASA someday in some areas, but in only about 60 years, NASA has done a lot of great things, despite being a government agency.
 
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Did you read the mouseover (text that pops up when you hover over the cartoon)?
Now I did.

Should have earlier.

But I still say "ouch."

Rottydaddy, unfortunately, I don't see much success for the shuttle program. It failed almost all of its goals. It was supposed to be cheap, reliable, and routine. It was none of those.

But NASA is a lot more than just manned spaceflight, and all that other stuff is very compelling.

FWIW, there has never been any Pluto flyby, but IAU doesn't consider that a planet anymore anyway. But NASA has had multiple "visits," including from us. Unfortunately, all from Earth or Earth orbit. Ours was from the middle of the equatorial Pacific. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/SOFIA/11-21.html
 
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Did you read the mouseover (text that pops up when you hover over the cartoon)?

"Ok, so Spirit and Opportunity are pretty awesome. And Kepler. And New Horizons, Cassini, Curiosity, TiME, and Project M. But c'mon, if the Earth were a basketball, in 40 years no human's been more than half an inch from the surface."

--Carlos V.
 
Rottydaddy, unfortunately, I don't see much success for the shuttle program. It failed almost all of its goals. It was supposed to be cheap, reliable, and routine. It was none of those.
That was all just a line of BS NASA fed Congress to get the funding. WIN!! :wink2: :D

I will agree that it was not the best possible system for the job(s). I think the Russians were smart to stick with a much more simple, robust system (Buran notwithstanding). Soyuz has changed very little since it was first put into use; even with disposable components it must be cheaper. It also makes more sense to keep insertion and return from orbit separate from orbiting habitats, and even keep cargo and crew separate when lifting to/returning from orbit. NASA has always been keen on "reinventing the wheel"... the classic example is the development of the zero-gee ballpoint pen. Pretty cool, but the Russians never stopped using pencils, and they are perfectly happy with that.
I can't point only to NASA, though, as the source of my disappointment that there still no permanent bases on the Moon or Mars, or even manned flights beyond the Moon. Every spacefaring nation shares that blame. I still remember the exciting air of possibility surrounding the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in '75... there's been a good amount of cooperation between the two governments' space agencies since then, but as a kid at the time I thought for sure it would usher in a boost in manned spaceflight on a par with Apollo. And the political implications were huge... imagine if even half of the money and effort that went into the Cold War arms race went into joint US/Soviet space programs? Who knows what might have been accomplished!? But it didn't really gain momentum; too bad.
It's not all gloom and doom, though- the USSR is history and the Russians are working with us on LEO missions, the ISS is hanging in there, more and more governments are getting involved, and the private sector is showing some serious potential.
 
FWIW, there has never been any Pluto flyby, but IAU doesn't consider that a planet anymore anyway. But NASA has had multiple "visits," including from us. Unfortunately, all from Earth or Earth orbit. Ours was from the middle of the equatorial Pacific. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/SOFIA/11-21.html
Unless something has happened to it that I haven't heard about, New Horizons is on its way and set to perform a flyby sometime in 2015. Should be interesting... and hopefully yet another success to add to NASA's list of achievements.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html
 
"Ok, so Spirit and Opportunity are pretty awesome. And Kepler. And New Horizons, Cassini, Curiosity, TiME, and Project M. But c'mon, if the Earth were a basketball, in 40 years no human's been more than half an inch from the surface."

--Carlos V.
Awww. The link doesn't even work anymore. Not for me anyway.
 
http://www.xkcd.org

It's cynical, satirical humor for nerds.
Yes I know, I was able to bring it up earlier. Now though, the comic doesn't display at all, just a page full of links, most of which either do nothing or expand to show other links that do nothing.

Hmm, maybe it's just a temporary glitch. I tried to type in the http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/moon_landing.png URL and got

Service Temporarily Unavailable

The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.
VoxCAST Server at imgs.xkcd.com Port 80
 
That was all just a line of BS NASA fed Congress to get the funding. WIN!! :wink2: :D
No, it was clearly more than that. One of the major causes of the Challenger accident was excessive pushing to get the schedule more frequent. At the time, NASA was trying to get monthly launches, with further increases in frequency planned.
Soyuz has changed very little since it was first put into use; even with disposable components it must be cheaper.
Cost is not driven significantly by reusability. The main effect of such is to lower capability -- the shuttle orbiter had to haul wings to orbit, that were useless until reentry. This is weight that could have been used for other things.

Most of the cost goes to processes and man-rated safety constraints. For instance, all nav computers are built at least twice over, in case one glitches (otherwise, it would be fatal). The Russians don't do this at the same level, and as a result, the Soyuz safety record is not good. I suspect Burt Rutan doesn't either (but he's been lucky enough not to kill anyone in flight yet), as that's the obvious place to cut costs, by a lot.
NASA has always been keen on "reinventing the wheel"... the classic example is the development of the zero-gee ballpoint pen. Pretty cool, but the Russians never stopped using pencils, and they are perfectly happy with that.
You don't really believe that, do you? It was a JOKE. Astronauts routinely use pencils, and always have.
 
NASA has always been keen on "reinventing the wheel"... the classic example is the development of the zero-gee ballpoint pen. Pretty cool, but the Russians never stopped using pencils, and they are perfectly happy with that.

Contrary to the chain mail story about pens and pencils.

The zero G pen was developed by a private company at their own cost - not by NASA for millions.

Pencils break and leave bits of conductive graphite floating around in a spacecraft full of electrical stuff. Not a good thing.

The Russians bought (and used) pens from the same company as NASA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen
 
... NASA has always been keen on "reinventing the wheel"... the classic example is the development of the zero-gee ballpoint pen. Pretty cool, but the Russians never stopped using pencils, and they are perfectly happy with that.

Nope. Urban legend. A couple of points:

1. Pencils aren't allowed in Terrestrial clean rooms, why would NASA permit them in spacecraft?

2. Pencils contain graphite and wood...the wood is flammable, and the graphite is conductive. Both can be liberated during normal use of a pencil, and especially when the pencil must be sharpened.

3. Spacecraft cabins don't have gravity. Convection doesn't work, so most electronic equipment is cooled by fans. Fans which would suck in that conductive graphite.

4. That graphite and the wood shavings are also going to get in the Astronauts' eyes. Never "comes down," remember?

5. NASA bought its first 1,000 "Space Pens" for $3,000. Not *each*...TOTAL! Expensive for a ballpoint in the '60s, true, but not an utter gouge. The developer, Dr. Fisher, saw the problem and developed the pen on his own. Mind you, NASA's endorsement did pretty good for the Earth-bound sales....

6. The Soviets developed their own version of the "Space Pen," and have used it ever since.

Ron Wanttaja
 
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