Here's America not being exceptional again.

[warrior1]

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/12/tech/innovation/voyager-solar-system/index.html

Voyager 1 probe becomes first man-made object to leave solar system

NASA's Voyager 1 probe has become the first man-made object to enter interstellar space, the U.S. space agency announced Thursday.

Scientists report they have strong evidence that the unmanned spacecraft has crossed the magnetic boundary separating the solar system's sun, planets and solar wind from the rest of the galaxy. The announcement comes more than 36 years after the unmanned spacecraft lifted off on a journey that gave humans close-up views of Jupiter and Saturn before heading toward deep space.

"In leaving the heliosphere and setting sail on the cosmic seas between the stars, Voyager has joined other historic journeys of exploration: The first circumnavigation of the Earth, the first steps on the Moon," said Ed Stone, chief scientist on the Voyager mission. "That's the kind of event this is, as we leave behind our solar bubble."

snip

?1376593093

[gopiscrap]

1. imagine that!

[zappaman]

2. America sucks and so does Obama!

This empire is fading...almost gone!
We are living in a dictablanda!
It's a fascist state!
Putin is right!
Russia is awesome!
Obama is a warmonger...he sucks!
Obama avoided war...he sucks!

Great post though.

[Scurrilous]

19. LOL

You touched all the bases on that one.

[Wilms]

3. Well, if we're going to play silly games...

The Soviet space program pioneered many aspects of space exploration:

1957: First intercontinental ballistic missile, the R-7 Semyorka
1957: First satellite, Sputnik 1
1957: First animal in Earth orbit, the dog Laika on Sputnik 2
1959: First rocket ignition in Earth orbit, first man-made object to escape Earth's gravity, Luna 1
1959: First data communications, or telemetry, to and from outer space, Luna 1.
1959: First man-made object to pass near the Moon, first man-made object in Heliocentric orbit, Luna 1
1959: First probe to impact the Moon, Luna 2
1959: First images of the moon's far side, Luna 3
1960: First animals to safely return from Earth orbit, the dogs Belka and Strelka on Sputnik 5.
1961: First probe launched to Venus, Venera 1
1961: First person in space (International definition) and in Earth orbit, Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1, Vostok programme
1961: First person to spend over 24 hours in space Gherman Titov, Vostok 2 (also first person to sleep in space).
1962: First dual manned spaceflight, Vostok 3 and Vostok 4
1962: First probe launched to Mars, Mars 1
1963: First woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, Vostok 6
1964: First multi-person crew (3), Voskhod 1
1965: First extra-vehicular activity (EVA), by Aleksei Leonov, Voskhod 2
1965: First probe to hit another planet of the Solar system (Venus), Venera 3
1966: First probe to make a soft landing on and transmit from the surface of the moon, Luna 9
1966: First probe in lunar orbit, Luna 10
1967: First unmanned rendezvous and docking, Cosmos 186/Cosmos 188.
1968: First living beings to reach the Moon (circumlunar flights) and return unharmed to Earth, Russian tortoises on Zond 5
1969: First docking between two manned craft in Earth orbit and exchange of crews, Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5
1970: First soil samples automatically extracted and returned to Earth from another celestial body, Luna 16
1970: First robotic space rover, Lunokhod 1 on the Moon.
1970: First data received from the surface of another planet of the Solar system (Venus), Venera 7
1971: First space station, Salyut 1
1971: First probe to impact the surface of Mars, Mars 2
1971: First probe to land on the Mars, Mars 3
1975: First probe to orbit Venus, to make soft landing on Venus, first photos from surface of Venus, Venera 9
1980: First Hispanic and Black person in space, Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez on Soyuz 38
1984: First woman to walk in space, Svetlana Savitskaya (Salyut 7 space station)
1986: First crew to visit two separate space stations (Mir and Salyut 7)
1986: First probes to deploy robotic balloons into Venus atmosphere and to return pictures of a comet during close flyby Vega 1, Vega 2
1986: First permanently manned space station, Mir, 1986–2001, with permanent presence on board (1989–1999)
1987: First crew to spend over one year in space, Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov on board of Soyuz TM-4 - Mir

[warrior1]

4. sad

[oldhippie]

15. What is sad?

[leftynyc]

26. I don't mean to speak for the poster

but I think the fact he/she had to go back almost 30 years to make a point is very telling.

[Wilms]

36. LOL!

Care to check the date of the Voyager launches? We'll leave to one side the genesis of their design.

[Art_from_Ark]

38. Maybe what is sad

is that we now have to rely on Russia to take our astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

[freshwest]

40. Ain't sad to me. It's sane. Most space exploration is now in corporate hands anyway. Any nation

can contribute their best ideas, technology and manpower to the effort.

The goal is not affected by what 'team' does it, anymore than any of the other challenges facing the planet are.

It's the goal, stopping wars, preserving civil society, curing diseases, restoring ecological balance, ending hunger and oppression that is the goal, the end game.

Anything holding back humanity from its full potential is not relevant; to me, anyway. Nations don't matter for some things. Just getting it done is what matters.

JMHO... YVMV.

P. S. I have talked to Russians who have been in the military and have trained for the space program. As young people, they see no reason for conflicts.

One asked me during the Bush years, 'Why does the USA fight us? We can do anything if we join forces. We can travel to the stars together!'

They are young people who had lost family members in wars, were still willing to defend their homeland, but wanted so much more to do good things.

Time for change, time for less insanity.

[Art_from_Ark]

41. As someone who grew up during the Great Space Race,

with my memory of the US space program basically starting with America's first walk in space (1965), I find it sad that our manned space program has dwindled to basically nothing. NASA held a certain mystique for kids of my generation, it was certainly an exciting time to be a kid interested in space. I have nothing against cooperating with the Russians in space-- in fact, I was quite excited about the Apollo-Soyuz docking in 1975, because it signified to me that we probably would not end up blowing each other up. However, I would still prefer that NASA still played an active role in transporting astronauts to and from outer space.

[freshwest]

42. Physical restraints on the human body are key here. I don't think it's as much an issue for travel,

as for experiments.

The ISS isn't travel. The Moon landing was negligible in the big picture. Just a sample of things to come.

In my elementary school in the fifties I went to school with the kids whose parents moved to work at NASA. We watched all the rockets that were unmanned go off with many failures on the little B&W in the library. Then our first man went around the Earth. And so on.

I stayed up all night when they made the first orbit around the Moon, as I think many across the nation and globe did. There were those minutes when they were out of contact and our hearts were in our throats, not sure if they'd crashed or whatever.

So many local families worried as their loved ones were away from Earth and there were deaths, even before Challenger. We watched all the capsules landing in the ocean.

It was personal. I saw a shuttle fly over head with no power passing over me so fast it was frightening as it glided to land in CA. So I grew up with this, too, like you.

As the saying goes, a hundred years from now, what will it matter. No one will remember who did what, but the world will be different. The deeds of mankind and how we have changed will be done, or not done.

No worries. See you later.

[Art_from_Ark]

43. I remember that moon orbit as well

There was a live broadcast on Christmas Eve, 1968, from Apollo 8. One of the astronauts began to read from the Book of Genesis. After a year of turmoil, it seemed, for that brief moment, that we as a nation had found some tranquility.

[sharp_stick]

8. But then there was this

[mindwalker_i]

22. Yeah, that was cool

Too bad we don't do stuff like that any more. Apparently it's so much better to just give the money to the rich people. Our schools are running down and being defunded so there won't be a new generation to do cool things.

We might have been exceptional before, but now it's an intentional degradation into retardation.

[freshwest]

23. Fake, fake, all fake! They even made a movie about its faki-ness! For shame!

I can't share this vital truth with people I know that worked at NASA at the time. They were all hypnotized and they might go crazy.

BTW, you also just posted a 'false flag' there!

Sorry, had to use that pun!

Other than that, the Moon landing was my first thought too.

I like the Russians, though...

[sharp_stick]

5. Look Over Here... Shiny

C'mon man you know this is nothing more than a cheap exercise to keep us from looking at the really important things like Benghazi, the IRS and of course Putin the magnificent.

It was planned all the way back in the 70's that one of the Voyager craft would leave the solar system just in time to make cover for a weak President who happens to get lucky every damned time and pull a win from a certain loss... Bastard.

because some tool is going to take this post literally.

[warrior1]

7. made you look

[LittleBlue]

6. Putin's comments have stirred some patriot emotions on DU

How amusing

Some people are in for a very rough time over the next 40 years.

[Hydra]

18. The fact that it hit a nerve is amusing

Maybe it's a good sign though, things penetrating solidified patriotism and all that.

Meanwhile, I'll have some of that too!

[frylock]

34. you know what they say about throwing a rock at a pack of dogs..

the howling has created quite a din.

[Egalitarian Thug]

9. A perfect demonstration of what went wrong. Demanding credit for accomplishments

made decades ago by a completely different nation that used to be us is just so deliciously ironic, it's irresistible.

[Hydra]

12. IKR?

It's like the clock stopped and some people though the world stopped moving.

Also, massive blinders alert!

[leftynyc]

28. Really? A completely different nation?

You mean the wonderful age of Joseph McCarthy? Of those lovely times before the Civil Rights Act? The draft? 58,000 dead Americans in Vietnam? Is that what your emoticon is laughing at?

[Egalitarian Thug]

30. Yes, a completely different nation. I understand your desire to pretend otherwise, but that

doesn't effect reality. Despite the wishes of the comfortable, America was going through large scale changes in nearly every aspect of society in the '60s & '70s.

[leftynyc]

31. Are you a white male?

The times were pretty good for white males. For women and minorities - these times are much, much better.

[Egalitarian Thug]

32. As I said, I completely understand your desire. n/t

[leftynyc]

33. Desire for truth? Always. n/t

[warrior1]

10. I don't know

I think for all America's problems, there isn't a place on earth I would rather live.


We can be better. Voting for the first Africa American president was also pretty exceptional.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

13. Other nations have elected black presidents and women presidents.

One thing about America is that it's exceptionally unexceptional.

[Egalitarian Thug]

20. As long as you limit the comparison to other racist, authoritarian nations, you're right.

If OTOH, you want to draw comparisons with the actually advanced nations of the earth, we are far behind and losing more ground every day.

Oh, and don't even start looking at sexism in the U.S., we're even worse there.

[frylock]

35. no doubt. but that doesn't mean we can't take a step back and acknowledge some colossal fuck ups..

that we've caused.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

11. According to the article ...

It's still up in the air if Voyager 1 has left the solar system and entered interstellar space.

[liberal_at_heart]

14. Umm that launch happened in the '70's. Before Reagan economics took over.

[Wilms]

16. Indeed. And it was accomplished by people unafraid of logic. n/t

[hfojvt]

17. what happens when it comes back?

as V-ger

[OriginalGeek]

21. Well thanks a lot NASA.

That thing is pointed right at us. When the Morglons find it they will have no problem following it right back to us.

We're all Morglon shit in the morning.

[freshwest]

25. Nah, the Men in the Moon have been controlling us for thousands of years.

We're all pawns in their galactic game of tic tac toe. Those are Martians or some other intergalactic group. Or are you talking about these guys?

http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Morglon-Daar

It's the Morlochs you gotta worry about. The baggers are the first ones, suited for hell.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morlock

Gonna eat all of us up for...

Liberty!

Okay, I got nothin'

[OriginalGeek]

29. All I know for sure is

Voyager is just a big ol' sign pointing to Earth that says "EAT AT JOE'S"...



(just in case)
Dear Morglons, Floridians taste like ass. Just so ya know.



Maybe those moon men have a reflecto-beam that can disguise us?

[ocpagu]

24. This is a mess.

American Exceptionalism is a dangerous, irrational, eugenic ideology that should be buried with all the garbage produced by human mind forever. It is centered in the same self-absorbed madness that gave rise to worst monsters who walked on Earth.

Veiled positive references to this made by the president are dangerous. I agree with Putin on that.

The United States have a respected output of positive contributions to the general knowledge and culture. It is the negative output that is questioned and criticized.

[treestar]

27. That's kind of neat

Especially if we can keep in touch with it.

[freshwest]

37. No teabaggers were harmed in the production of this technology. After all, their world is flat.

But my brain hurts a little looking at the graphic of the Lincoln Memorial blocking the real thing.

And the faux statue of Karl Marx looking like a Founding Father?

And all the weirdness that went with Glenn Beck's March on Washington.

[n2doc]

39. Except we can't send anyone back up there without Russia's help

At least, for now.

Pissing games are for frat boys.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

44. "Patriotism is the most foolish of passions and the passion of fools." Schopenhauer