De Grasse on telescope

PZ Myers linked this today, it is so true.

The telescope is so important but for largely for reasons people don't realise. This scares me, science won't get the funding for the projects like the LHC or Hubble in the future unless the public understands, even if vague and unfounded, what questions these things answer and why.

It would be great if there were scientists and engineers in the American Congress, instead of just lawyers and businessmen...

Beautiful picture

Brian Cox tweeted this, taken by the docked Atlantis crew. I thought it was just beautiful, and wanted to share it.

You can see the green sheen of cosmic rays on the atmosphere, in the far distance the stars just make out the vague image of a galactic spiral arm and it's all framed by the International Space Station, scientific advancement through international cooperation. Just beautiful.

Atlantis ends final mission

Whenever I was little I was obsessed with outer space. I used to go to the library and take all the books on space I could find. It was a Sagan-esque fascination, awed by the sheer scale of the universe and the science explaining it.

Which is why it makes me sad that NASA has ended its 30 year space shuttle program. Today, for the last time, shuttle Atlantis touched down at the Kennedy Space Centre after delivering a replacement waste removal system and vital supplies to the ISS.

The project put the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit and allowed construction of the ISS to be possible. I was at the Kennedy Space Centre last year and saw this shuttle, so for me it feels like an end of an era I've always been so enarmoured with. Especially since Congress is planning to cancel the James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble's successor.

But that's not to say the future of human space flight is in jeopardy! Obama has outlined America's plans for the future, handing pioneering space exploration to private companies. They want private craft to dock at the ISS and as an incentive the last Atlantis crew left the first flight's flag on board to be taken back by the first to get there.

It's kind of like capture the flag. In the mean time, NASA astronauts will have to rely on their Russian partners to get into orbit and back.

So yeah, no more NASA shuttles for a while and Mars is even longer off. But, commercial interest might just speed up the process and now, through science, international relations can only improve. Overall I think I'm ok with this.