These next two weeks are the last two weeks NASA will operate a space shuttle program. Right now Atlantis is docked with the ISS traveling around 17,227 mph over the surface of the earth. I just want to mention this as a reminder that we need to focus on bigger things then ourselves. Our dreams seem to be suppressed by a massive consumer state of mind that makes people spend more on their pets than the entire United States spends on scientific endevers in a year (see here and here):
Just incase you did not click on those links the American pet industry last year made 48.35 billion USD; the budget allotted to NASA (who also has to split it with Science and Exploration) is 11.85 billion USD... Riddle me that...
This saddens me, the clip below is of the shuttle doing a back flip while orbiting the planet over NZ and the Pacific Ocean. It is doing this so that an external HD camera on the space station can take pictures of the heat shields and pass the information along to engineers in Houston. It's quite elegant, and yet it will never happen again... Too expensive they say... Bull shit I say.
Also just so you can try to grasp this concept: Atlantis is 176,413 pounds on its own, 122.17 feet in length, 56.58 feet tall, with a 78.06 foot wingspan; traveling at 17,227 miles an hour at between 173 and 286 miles in the sky.
PS. It's doing a back flip...