RECKLESS DISREGARD

IS NASA REALLY COMMITTED TO SCIENCE?? From day one, a big part of NASAs schtick has been their role as a
Selfless Benefactor to all Mankind. We should see NASA not as a mover and shaker in the Space Industry, but as an Exalted Learned Elder, a Teacher to the World. A pretty big patch of the internet is taken up with reports of NASAs good works in the Pure Science field. History will one day write about how HUGE NASAs footprint was back here in these early days of Human Space Flight. I doubt that anyone actually knows how many NASA people or how many NASA departments or sub-compartments are involved in pure Science-- or just how many such projects might be operational on any given day. As outsiders, all we can hope for is to glimpse a few indicators of the real scope. For instance: NASA does have a unit called their Science Mission Directorate.

And, in general, they seem to be the lead-dogs in the world-wide quest for answers to the BIG QUESTIONS

So it bothers ME (a lot) to see stuff like this (still) splattered all over NASAs internet presence, for all the world to see:

Mary give me strength! Joseph give me courage! Would SOMEBODY please find a grownup at NASA and call this to their attention??

Surely to god there are actual THINKERS somewhere in the NASA intellectual stable! There must be! Surely the linear velocity of the launch pads at KSC and Vandenburg have NEVER actually been factored into either the launch or landing ballistics of actual space missions. Surely these blurbs about using that linear velocity as a launch boost represent a superstitious gaffe which the grownups were aware the un-schooled lower minions were fond of recitingbut for some reason have chosen to ignore. But whatever that reason may have been, the time has come to turn on the lights, command some order in the room and get that venerated old launch boost myth out of the Science books once and for all. The grownups at NASA have long known that the linear velocity of Earths eastward rotation is a non-factor in ballistics within Earths Gravitational Field. Surely, the grownups at NASA have always known that every particle within Earths Gravitational Field naturally rotates in perfect synch with Earths gravitational center, so that any and all surface-re-positioning of particles (including flights of Piper Cubs, ICBMs and Shuttle Mission launches and landings) takes place in a spherical frame of reference that steadily rotates eastward @ 360 per day. Only flight at or above orbit velocity alters this relationship. SURELY--not one grownup at NASA has ever been confused by that old launch boost folk tale. Just Why they havent spoken up before nowyoull just have to ask them. (To me, that couldnt have been a rational choiceand I feel that trying to rationally speculate about irrational thought-processes is ill-advised.) I dont know how hard itll be for you to find one of NASAs grownups. They probably dont wear special ID tags or uniquely-colored plastic hard hats. But theyre around. Otherwise every shuttle mission would have been a disaster. Keep looking, and youll find one. Then confiscate his / her cell-phone, duct tape her / him to a chair and take whatever measures may be necessary to force him /her to focus in and give you some straight answers. She / he will eventually confirm that the Pre- and Post-Orbit legs of every Space Mission abide strictly by the laws of ballistics within Gravitational Fields. And that a launch boost from Earths rotation has always been a myth.

He / she will confirm that Launch, Ascent, Entry & Landing work like this:

A suggestion, if youll permit me: If you cant find any grownups to confirm this simple lesson, then Congress should Fire Everybody. 2011 by C N Gifford, The Final Authority on Foucaults Pendulum