One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: My Illogical, Unscientific, Selfish, Petty, And Rapidly Growing Distaste For NASA
(CNN) A NASA mission launches this month to explore the zone between Earth's atmosphere and the lowest reaches of space, where key communications satellites orbit amid bright bands of color known as airglow.
For years, scientists have been able to study Earth's upper atmosphere in detail, using ground-based observations as well as low-Earth-orbit missions. But they were missing the bigger picture.
The GOLD mission, situated in geostationary orbit over the Western Hemisphere, will take a global scan of the ionosphere and upper atmosphere every half-hour, allowing scientists to get a complete look at the temperature and weather of that region, which they've never had before. This continued observation has the capability to last for years.
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Oh my god NASA fuck, this is so fucking boring. I thought we agreed that it was time to get back to space? This doesn’t count. This is pathetic. We’ve already been to the moon, bro, so that's the minimum distance you have to travel now.
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I get why this is important, but this is like what you send your B-Team to do. This is to keep the desk jockeys busy while you send your best guys out to conquer Venus, blow up what used to be Pluto, or whatever. It’s always one step forward, two steps back with these guys. Does this even count as space? I don’t think so! God damnit. is it too much to ask for one cool mission? This is like when you beg your parents for years, and years, and years, and finally you come home and there’s a fucking hamster in your room and they expect you to be happy. Well I don’t want a hamster, NASA. I want a fucking dog. I want you to go to space, and I want you to do space things. Just give us this.
