NASA will air a live event beginning at 11:45 a.m. EST the arrive at asteriod Bennu (actually pictured above) of the OSIRIS-REx (That's shorthand for NASA’s Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer), Wow! I wonder who won the prize for thinking up that name?
If anyone of you caught the live Mars landing about a week ago of Insight, I thought it was pretty exciting, and for us oldies it was a little harkening back to the days we used to gather around the TV set to watch all of NASA’s missions to space. The presence of women in prominent roles at the consoles which are still in linked long lines but sleeker and updated (the consoles not the women), was different, but the intensity of getting to watch a roomful of scientists perform in their own Olympic type moment was exciting and moving.
OSIRES-REx was launched in September 2016 and is expected to spend almost a year surveying the asteroid with five scientific instruments to find the perfect location to (get this!) RETURN TO EARTH in September 2023! . Shades of Armageddon! I’m so glad we won’t have to leave Bruce Willis there the next time one’s headed for Earth. Link to NASA’s webpage www.nasa.gov/… And to catch up on all the other things happening at NASA soon is a link to Mark Sumner’s This Week in Space Diary www.dailykos.com/… and just published while I was writing this diary by AKAlib www.dailykos.com/… which includes an update to this launch as well as all the other interesting things NASA has scheduled for us for Christmas, Hanukah, Winter Solstice, and Kwanzaa.
I highly recommend turning in today, you don’t often get to watch a room full of amazing science geeks in their own element. I found it somehow comforting to see a place where science is believed.