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NASA's inspector general, under fire from senators, watchdog agencies, calls it quits
Posted by n2doc on Sat Apr-04-09 09:09 PM
SETH BORENSTEIN
AP News
Apr 03, 2009 03:31 EST
Two weeks after three senators called for his ouster, the beleaguered NASA inspector general who came under fire from two watchdog agencies gave notice.
Robert "Moose" Cobb resigned Thursday, effective April 11, but did not say why.
Two Democrats and a Republican had urged President Barack Obama to oust Cobb, saying the inspector general "has been repeatedly accused of stifling investigations, retaliating against whistleblowers and prioritizing social relationships with top NASA officials over proper federal oversight."
In February, House Science Committee Chairman Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., urged Obama to get rid of Cobb as the watchdog over the $17 billion in NASA spending, saying: "NASA cannot afford another four years with an ineffective inspector general."
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elpuma » Mon Feb 16, 2009 1:07 pm wrote:The Dark Side of the Moon: 40 years after moon landing the doubts persist
That summer of 1969, Moscow was only a month from launching its own manned Moon shot.
Washington, burdened with the Vietnam war and civil unrest, benefited from a popular distraction to take attention away from its problems.
And then, the practicalities.
China Wants to Be the First Country to Land on the Far Side of the Moon
On Sunday night the China National Space Administration launched a communications satellite on a Long March rocket on a 280,000 mile journey to orbit the moon. The lunar orbiter is the initial step in realizing China’s ambition to be the first country to place a lander on the far side of the moon.
As the first communications relay satellite in orbit around the moon, the orbiter’s name, Queqiao, is fitting. It translates to Magpie Bridge, a reference to the birds in a Chinese folk tale who form a bridge once per year to unite two separated lovers. Like the magpies in the story, the Queqiao orbiter will act as a link between the Chang’e-4 lunar lander planned to launch to the far side of the moon later this year and communications stations on Earth.
Even though the moon does rotate, the same side always faces the Earth because the amount of time it takes for the moon to rotate on its axis is the same amount of time it takes to make a full orbit around the Earth, as seen on the left below:
This phenomenon, known as tidal locking, means that the Chang’e-4 lander on the far side of the moon will never be able to make direct radio contact with Earth. Instead, the lander must rely on the Queqiao communications relay satellite in orbit around the moon to pass on its messages.
The Queqiao orbiter is also carrying an antenna jointly developed with the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy that will be deployed in orbit nearly 40,000 miles behind the moon. The antenna will be used to study star formation shortly after the Big Bang by looking at low frequency signals that are hard to detect from Earth due to interference from the atmosphere.
When the Chang’e-4 lander launches to the lunar surface later this year, it will carry silkworms and potato seeds, as well as an array of scientific instruments. It is part of a wider exploratory effort by the Chinese Space Agency, which hopes to establish a lunar “palace” on the south pole of the moon in the 2030s.
The launch of Queqiao caps off a big few months for the Chinese space exploration as the nation vies to become the “space flight superpower” envisioned by its president Xi Jinping. Last year, the China National Space Administration used its quantum satellite to send the first entangled photons from space to Earth. Earlier this month, the first rocket designed by a private Chinese company was launched in an effort to claim a chunk of the orbital delivery market currently dominated by US companies like SpaceX.
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