Merry Sciencemas

From TPM:

No, this image is not one of the Mayan apocalypse. NASA has a tradition of releasing spectacular Hubble images in time for the winter holidays, such as a 2011 photo of a space “snow angel,” and 2012 was no different.

This year, NASA published a breathtaking photo of a planetary nebula called NGC-5189, located some 3,000 light years away in the constellation Musca (the fly).

Nebulas like the one shown here are formed by dying stars — ones like our own Sun except that have run out of fuel and are ejecting their outer layers, which become superheated by the remaining stellar material and billow outward as clouds of gas, turning into beautiful patterns and shapes. The nebula pictured, NGC-5189, is said to resemble a “glass-blown ornament,” according to NASA, hence it being featured as this year’s holiday favorite.

Because I am an Old and to support the Post Office, I send out actual holiday cards on paper, with stamps and everything.  NASA needs to start a line of holiday cards with Hubble photos on them, and the explanation of the image on the inside.  All of us who remember the Apollo missions would snatch them up.

We're on MARS, You Guys!

Slideshow from TPM:

I just cannot be more sophisticated about it than that. I was 10 when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon and nothing that cool has happened since. Anywhere. Barack Obama's election comes close.

 

 

Look at this picture. That guy with the long gray hair in the front is crying, y'all. I have no idea who he is, but I'm sure of this much:

 

- He saw Neil Armstrong walk on the moon and decided right then and there to be a part of the space program. If not as an astronaut, then as one of the guys (and back then they were all guys) who sent them into space and brought them home safely.

 

- He's watched the space program fade from a man walking on the fucking moon to the end of the tragic and pathetic shuttle program, and has worked his ass off every day to return NASA to its Apollo glory days.

 

- Now he can die happy.

 

In case you didn't notice, those are public employees who put an Earth object on MARS. Government workers. Paid with tax dollars. You know, worthless parasites.

 

David Atkins at Hullabaloo:

The "Curiosity" rover/lab landed on Mars (Sunday) night, pulling off a nerve wracking and difficult landing stunt. It was a project over a decade in the making that will yield invaluable scientific insights.

These are the amazing men and women that a Macau casino magnate will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to say are greedy parasites mooching off "producers" like the vulture capitalist wannabe President. How small and pathetic.

Two hundred years from now, the world will not care that men like Sheldon Adelson, Mitt Romney and George Will walked this earth. If they are remembered at all, it will be with only mildest sneer of contempt.

But the fine souls who made this technologically marvelous contribution to the welfare of all mankind possible will be revered and remembered for their contributions to humanity as long as records and historians exist to tell the tale. And even after their individual names are lost to history, their fledgling accomplishments will live on as the building blocks of future generations of human endeavor. That advancement can take many forms, from science and medicine to academics to social justice. But helping along that advancement is the true purpose of our being alive.

Read the whole beautiful thing.

But the government never created a single job. CNN:

As the new rover that just landed on Mars looks for signs of life there, the NASA program that runs it is supporting life here on Earth -- with jobs.

NASA spokesman Guy Webster said the rover, named Curiosity, is currently supporting about 700 people, but has supported 7,000 jobs at various times over the last eight years. The Curiosity project and its $2.5 billion budget has generated jobs not just at NASA but at companies ranging from Lockheed Martin to a bicycle manufacturer in Chattanooga, Tenn.
"People wonder about throwing money at Mars, [but] no money was spent on Mars," said Webster. "There are no ATMs up there. All the money was spent here on Earth."

He said there are currently up to 400 NASA employees working on the project, in addition to 300 scientists outsourced by the government agency.

 Ray Bradbury may have turned into a reichwing nut in his old age, but I'm sorry he didn't live to see this.