Government Shutdown

So the Federal government is in shutdown mode after Congress fails to pass a budget to keep the government working.  What does this mean for NASA's Mission Control for the ISS?

Lots of empty parking spots at Johnson Space Center.  Of the 18,100+ civil servants who work for NASA only 600 are still on the job (This is across all the space centers from Washington DC to Houston to Huntsville to Ames to JPL).  The other 17,500 are furloughed.  That is 96.685% or roughly 97% of NASA civil servants that are not working.  This is not counting the many contractors who contracts are in flux.

Some contractors like the one I work for have funding for a few more weeks, many do not.  Outside of the people staffing MCC and some critical operations people like the folks trying to figure out if its still safe to do an EVA in an EMU (See the earlier post about drowning in space), there is no one here but the security guards and the folks who maintain the buildings (through most of the buildings have their A/C turned off, water turned off, and lights turned off).

Here is still what is going on:

• The International Space Station Mission Control Center will still be continued to be manned to support the 2 Americans, 3 Russians, and 1 Italian in space
• Robotic missions that are already in operation such as the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn or the Mars rovers.  But this is to gather data only, no analysis of the data will be performed
• NASA's satellites will still function but their data analysis will be put on hold

One of the biggest threats of the shutdown is the postponement of NASA's MAVEN mission to Mars by 26 months because of orbital alignment between Earth and Mars.  The spacecraft is scheduled to launch on November 18th and a lot of launch prep needs to happen.

Some good news for MAVEN is that on Oct. 3rd, the MAVEN team got the GO to keep working through the shutdown to make its launch window because it has been deemed essential to ensuring future communication with current NASA robots on Mars, such as the Curiosity rover.  See story HERE.  Not to mention that we (US Citizens tax payers) only paid $650 million dollars to build the spacecraft, we might as well launch it so it can do its job.

So the ISS MCC at JSC is where most of those 600 civil servants are located, and its a ghost town here.

Also if you were wondering all of NASA's media has gone dark, no Twitter, no Facebook, no NASAtv, no NASA website.

This all happened on NASA's 55th anniversary.  Kind of sad, right?

I did my best to leave all my political feelings out of this but do not be surprised if a rant ends up on here at some point.

Earth Resources - 2

Yesterday I had a chance to see to see NASA's Earth Resources -2 (ER-2). The ER-2 is a single-engine, high altitude reconnaissance aircraft built by Lockheed-Martin.   It is based out of NASA's Dryden Aircraft Operation Facility in Palmdale, CA.  It is a part of the flying laboratories in the Airborne Science Program under the agency's Science Mission Directorate.

Earth Resources -2 (ER-2) Photo by NASA

For all of you aircraft buffs out there you maybe saying to yourself that looks a lot like a U-2, the American spy plane that was shot down over the Soviet Union during the Cold War during the May 1960 U-2 Incident. 


Well it is, NASA has two of them, re-named as ER-2. One of the ER-2s was at NASA's Johnson Space Center getting out fitted for a upcoming mission.


This is what NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center has to say about the ER-2:
"The single-seat aircraft routinely operate at up to 70,000 feet altitude and acquire data above 95 percent of the Earth's atmosphere. The ER-2s participate in studies of the Earth, celestial observations, atmospheric chemistry and dynamics, and oceanic processes. The aircraft are also used for electronic sensor research and development, satellite calibration, and satellite data validation. The aircraft fly missions of up to 10 hours and carry maximum payloads of 2,600 pounds distributed in the equipment bay behind the cockpit, the nose area and wing-mounted pods."

Photo By NASA

A second pilot has to help the aircraft land in a chase car going up to 120 mph.  More information about the U-2 can be found at Lockheed U-2.

Its interesting what NASA finding out what else NASA has in its hangers.  Keep your eyes open I might get around to writing about the Martin B-57 Canberra or the astronaut supersonic trainer the T-38.