The United Nations Will Launch Its First Space Mission In 2021 (vice.com) 58
The United Nations will send its first ever mission to space in 2021. It said it intends to send Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser spacecraft into a two-week, low-Earth orbit flight in 2021. Sierra Nevada had signed the UN as a partner in June. Motherboard adds:As detailed for a small crowd at the International Astronautical Congress yesterday, the goal of the 2021 UN mission is to make space accessible to developing member states that lack the resources to develop a standalone, national space program. "One of UNOOSA's core responsibilities is to promote cooperation and the peaceful uses of outer space, but our work is about more than that," said Simonetta Di Pippo, the director of UNOOSA. "We have the vision of bringing the benefits of space to humankind, and that means helping developing countries access space technologies and their benefits."
U.N. Spacy! (Score:1)
What year did Macross and Robotech start up in?
Call it the United Federation of Planets (Score:5, Funny)
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Been their, done that:
http://www.unaa.org.au/learn/about-the-un/history-of-the-un/ [unaa.org.au]
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All I could think of was Macross/Robotech (Score:2)
U.N. Spacy SDF 0.1
Sierra Nevada (Score:3)
Good to know that brewery has diversified into space craft.
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Now this, (Score:2)
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NOW is the time to start planning for how to deal with the protomolecule.
I sometimes wonder if The Expanse series will end with a Terminator-style time travel conclusion where they end up going back in time to vaporize the protomolecule on whatever moon or asteroid it was found on before it can be discovered and set loose.
LEO in 2021 (Score:2)
Trumpillary 2016! (Score:5, Informative)
Much healthier to be delusional at this point.
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This election has everyone nervous.
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This election has everyone nervous.
And willing to leave the planet.
Just a small correction (Score:3, Insightful)
"Sierra Nevada Corporation Will Launch Its First Space Mission In 2021. UN Will Bicker About it and Do Nothing."
FTFY
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"Sierra Nevada Corporation Will Launch Its First Space Mission In 2021. UN Will Bicker About it and Do Nothing."
FTFY
I dunno. I envision a balsa wood glider flown in a Peruvian Target parking lot sometime around 2027. A large crowd of UN 'officials' will witness it and call it a success. It will only cost about 2 trillion $US.
bringing the benefits of space to humankind (Score:1)
Yes, often while walking in a t-shirt breathing air, I wish for the benefit of a hard vacuum, direct solar radiation, and bone demineralisation. For all mankind.
What is it with these empty slogans and meaningless hype about "space benefits" with you geeks? Is it a religion?
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What does this mission-creep cost? (Score:1)
Trying to imagine people behind setting up the UN in the 1940-ies dreaming about the organization sending up space ships some day... Failing...
Whatever this undertaking costs, President Trump is likely to cut UN funding by exactly that amount. And he'll be right.
Is this for real? (Score:4, Insightful)
UN has its own space program?
*mind blown*
Whatever problem NASA has with bureaucracy and money-wasting, compared to the UN they are like Henry Ford and Jeff Bezos combined.
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UN has its own space program?
*mind blown*
Whatever problem NASA has with bureaucracy and money-wasting, compared to the UN they are like Henry Ford and Jeff Bezos combined.
Yeah better to let the US run things than to actually let other people in the world have a say in anything.
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If that "say" consists of "you pay for my vanity project", people should let them have that say, then laugh at them. A lot.
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Whatever problem NASA has with bureaucracy and money-wasting, compared to the UN they are like Henry Ford and Jeff Bezos combined.
Yeah better to let the US run things than to actually let other people in the world have a say in anything.
So the people of the world have spoken, and they want bureaucracy and money-wasting? Interesting.
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Given that the US pays more money to the UN than 185 other countries combined, I say "Screw the UN and give the money to NASA or private space companies."
Giving the bulk of the money to the UN for this and letting the rest of the world have an equal say is like hosting a kegger and letting the people who didn't buy the keg decide how much beer everyone gets and what kind of music can be played. Oh, and they would also get to decide who does and doesn't get laid that night.
synergy (Score:1)
In other space news, Elon Musk has announced that SpaceX will partner with Samsung to make its Mars spacecraft.
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Spiffy (Score:2)
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Who will pay for it? (Score:2)
From TFA: "The total cost of the Dream Chaser mission has yet to be determined and will depend on the nature of the payloads being sent to orbit. UNOOSA is hoping that companies, organizations and established spacefaring nation states will be interested in helping sponsor the cost of deploying these payloads."
Awesome. So we will be paying for the UN and 3rd world countries to have a space program. Never mind that our own space program is underfunded and that our debt continues to climb. Sure, let's go p
It must be painted bright sky blue (Score:2)
It's the UN law!
Textbook mission creep (Score:2)
Re: Textbook mission creep (Score:1)
UNESCO was formed in 1946, to coordinate, among other things, scientfic research. They also have agencies for weather, aviation, and telecommunications.
If you don't know how space programs are involved with this sort of thing, please call Neil Patrick Harris and ask him for help. You need it. Or call Doctor Sheldon Cooper. Or Ensign Wesley Crusher.
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