ThisMyShiznat

To me, there may not be anything more American than an outright vulgar display of power.  In this video clip obtained through foxnews.com, NASA does a test firing of the Ares booster rocket that will be used to send astronauts into space, and eventually back to the moon.

NASA is developing new booster rockets, and new space capsules that are planned to replace the current space shuttle design that we have all seen for many years now.  I don’t know what the new capsule will look like, or whether it will be reminiscent of the airplane style shuttle with the big red hydrogen tank and two booster rockets.

In the video below, NASA does a test firing in Promontory, Utah.  The booster spits massive amounts of raw thrust for roughly 2 minutes.  You can see dirt and dust being picked up from the thrust, even a few hundred feet in front of the rocket.  I can’t even imagine how they mounted this rocket to the earth so it wouldn’t move.  They must have a reinforced concrete slab that goes a mile down.

I hope they didn’t effect the rotation of the earth with this thing.  I really don’t want to have to adjust daylight savings time again.  Or then, maybe twice a year we should fire 20 of these bad boys all at once, adjusting the rotation of the earth by exactly one hour at 2:00am.  It does make sense.  There are about 750 billion clocks that need to be adjusted, but only 1 earth to readjust.  I’ll let NASA do the math.

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When you see this video, you might ask yourself,  “How much did this outright vulgar display of power cost?” and you would be asking a good question.  Good questions deserve answers.  Some answers are probably classified.  Either way, I don’t have that number for you.  If you really care, go ahead and look it up and let me know, but I bet it’s a large number.  Another good question is “Who paid for it?”.  That one probably isn’t ‘top secret’ but I don’t have an answer for that either.  Looking at my federal budget article I don’t see anything about 3.6 million foot pounds of thrust.

Some people are definitely asking the question lately, “With our current economy, should we really be spending money on this?”.  The answer is yes.  yes were should.  As for space exploration, Rick Moranis put it best in the 1987 movie SpaceBalls when he said “We can’t stop.  We’ve got to slow down first”.  And he is right.  We cant stop, but slowing down might not be a bad idea.  Maybe they even have slowed down.  Thats one of the things about “Top Secret”.  It’s classified.

Do not attempt to adjust your monitor. The video is actually posted in fast forward. I appreciated it that way because I already know the movie.  I’ve probably seen it a gazillion times. Watching the whole scene in just over a minute works for me.  I know whats going to happen already and I still want to watch it again.  It saves me time.  Technology has actually increased the value of that particular movie.