Saturday, April 10, 2010

This weekend: Celebrate human spaceflight, then save it

Events on the Space Coast this weekend will celebrate human spaceflight, then try to "save" it.

The fun starts tonight with Yuri's Night on the Space Coast, a celebration of the 49th anniversary of the first human flight into space, a one-orbit journey by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961.

Check out this event flyer and click here for details and ticket information. Doors open at 8 p.m. at the Astronaut Hall of Fame in Titusville.

On Sunday, a "Save Space" community rally will perhaps take on a more political tone, trying to show support for human spaceflight -- and concern about thousands of job losses imminent with the shuttle's retirement -- in advance of President Obama's Thursday visit to Kennedy Space Center for a space conference.

Doors open to the rally at the Cocoa Expo, located on State Road 520 off Interstate 95, at 3 p.m. and the event begins at 4 p.m.

Check out the details here.

Some local events are also commemorating the 40th anniversary of Apollo 13, including at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

What??? No government welfare program comments??? No "the space shuttle was going to end in 2010" comments??? No "Obama never promised to extend the Space program at KSC?" - There must be a Obama speech on MSNBC drawing away the sheep.

J Techwyn said...

Thanks for the article on the rally. THE NELSON-OBAMA PLAN is a new name for the proposed policies to be protested on Sunday. Proposals that rip the rug out from under our clear, established, twice overwhelmingly approved goal of FIRST returning Americans to the Moon and securing a science outpost there, a goal bringing solid invigoration, in the near-term, to our desperately slipping youth & collegiate educational levels and surge engineering & science interest as it did during Apollo, a goal that would also bolster America's world leadership & space preeminence -- with China's rise (AND CHINA'S THREE MAJOR LUNAR MISSIONS THIS DECADE having our youth going through the strange propaganda agency of a repressive totalitarian regime for inspriration) being a crucial issue for America.

Instead, the NELSON-OBAMA "MARS/FLEXIBLE" program equals this: A TEN OR MORE YEAR SHUT DOWN OF ANY AMBITIOUS NASA HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT. Nelson-Obama's "Mars/flexible path" talk equals a mish mash of complexities relegating NASA down to research. The shut down accomplishes giving the spotlight to new commercial space interests which would continue to rise during the Nelson-Obama cancellations, perhaps giving the moon over to ticketed billionaires, and definitely giving the lunar exploration spotlight totally over to China.

Senator Nelson, President Obama, STOP the slaughter of the Moon-by-2020 goal for America. Which, unlike your decoy of flexible path/Mars talk, with 10 or 20 years of research, is a solid, energizing, reachable goal to invigorate education & save America's world leadership. A goal for OUR CHILDREN and not just for our grand (or great-grand) children! We challenge you, Nelson & Obama, to re-summon the bold leadership of Presdent John F. Kennedy who shouted "WE CHOOSE THE MOON!!!!" And we challenge you, SENATOR NELSON, to reassert the strong, solid, doable, near-term goal of returning America to the moon -- instead of this vaporous "flexible/mars" smokescreen to be repeated on Thursday.

Senator Nelson, on Thursday, stop this "Mars/flexible path" scheme that could destroy any ambitious NASA human spaceflight forever.

Anonymous said...

we don't need any socialized government control of space or of our space program when private capitalists can compete to do the job and reduce costs with competition. we can outsource more parts to India and save better jobs for US citizens. Privatization is the only way to create more non socialist jobs.
We should also begin to explore for Oil around the old launch pads at nasa too, so we can create more oi8l jobs and be less dependent on foreign oil

Anonymous said...

Vote Nelson OUT this fall.