2009-10-27
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NASA image of the day: Ares I-X at the Launch Pad, before its test launch today, “between 8 a.m. and noon EDT”.
2009-08-29
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A pistol-grip bolt opener, from a New Scientist gallery, Inside an astronaut’s tool bag. Photo by Micahel Soluri.
2009-06-21
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‘You’ll hear arguments about human scale and intuition and so forth,’ I explained, ‘but the older and coarser characters in space will sum it up in two words: fucking NASA. Most of the space settlements were built with ex-NASA stock or to NASA spec way back in the early days, and ever since then it’s been too much trouble to change. We’re locked into it.’
‘Yeah,’ said Andrea. ‘Which is why we are now two point five seven miles from a hundred thousand metric tons of ice. You’ve just got to love the consistency of it all.’
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Mike Gold, of Bigelow Aerospace, quoted in a New Scientist story, NASA attacked for sticking to imperial units. (Edit to correct link, to a much longer version)
It concludes “NASA says that the $370 million cost to convert the Constellation programme to metric is too high.” Have these people not read all the bitchy asides in science fiction novels about how deep-future Man is still cursing feet and inches? Come on, NASA, get a grip.



