Enterprise's Ferry Flight Postponed

WASHINGTON -- NASA's planned flight to New York City of space shuttle Enterprise atop the 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) has been postponed until further notice due to an unfavorable weather forecast for Monday, April 23. 


To ensure a safe flight for Enterprise and the SCA, NASA managers, in consultation with the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, decided Friday to delay the flight because of inclement weather predicted in both New York and Washington, where the flight will originate. 


Managers will continue to review weather forecasts and announce a new flight date as soon as practical. 


Media will have access to the public areas at Dulles to view the departure of Enterprise. Media sending crews to Dulles should contact the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Office of Public Affairs at 703-417-8370. 


After departing Washington, the SCA and Enterprise will fly over various parts of the New York City metropolitan area before landing and John F. Kennedy International Airport. 


Several weeks following the arrival, Enterprise will be "demated" from the 747 and placed on a barge that will be moved by tugboat up the Hudson River to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in June. The shuttle will be lifted by crane and placed on the flight deck of the Intrepid where it will be on exhibit to the public starting this summer in a temporary climate-controlled pavilion. The Intrepid continues work on a permanent exhibit facility to showcase Enterprise that will enhance the museum's space-related exhibits and education curriculum. 

December 2012: end of the world? - 2012 Explained - Why it shouldn’t be feared

2012 is a business

Before you read this article, here is a video I recently recorded about 2012 and how people build businesses around it to make money. While a lot of people say that you can’t trust NASA or the government because they would certainly hide this 2012 stuff from us, I say there are a lot of people who want to spread this because they make money out of it. So, in the end, who do we trust? Watch it, I think that explains it all, but still, read the article and all the comments for more information.

What is 2012 about?

The year 2012 is referring to the last year of the Long Count Maya calendar. The current Great Cycle, as the Mayas call it, is set to end on the winter solstice of 2012: December 21 2012 and many people believe that on that date, the world will change and never be the same. Some predict terrible events resulting in the destruction of our world and some predict that it won’t necessarily end, but that we will enter a new era and massive changes will occur.

This article will try to answer most questions you may have in a rational way. because there are way too many websites creating some sort of fear propaganda around 2012 and as you will see, you have nothing to be scared of.

There’s too much disinformation going on about this subject and there’s an article you can read that was published around 1990 that reminds me the current situation:

• 1990’s End of World

What will happen on December 21 2012?

Quick answer: Nobody knows, but probably not much.

There have been a lot going on regarding the 2012 prophecy recently, including the movie “I am legend”, but  surprisingly, not much information about what is really supposed to happen on that date is available. This is Probably because nobody knows and also because probably not much will happen. Most information available about 2012 is making reference to mass destruction of the world as we know it, earth’s pole shift/magnetic field reversal, Nostradamus predictions, end of Mayas calendar, etc.

The base of all the predictions is the end of the Maya calendar in 2012, which is supposed to mean the end of the world or a period of radical changes. In fact, the end of the Maya calendar is known as the end of the Great Cycle. People find it easy to believe in that theory because Maya civilization is known for advanced writing, mathematics and astronomy. It can seem like they really know what they’re talking about, but the truth is that the end of the Great Cycle is not the end of the world, it’s in fact a great celebration for the Mayas:

For the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle” says Sandra Noble, executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies in Crystal River, Fla. To render Dec. 21, 2012, as a doomsday or moment of cosmic shifting, she says, is “a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in.”

2012 conspiracy theory

I mentioned in the “What will happen” section that there’s a lack of scientific information coming from well respected sources like NASA. Some people claim there’s a conspiracy theory behind the prophecy to hide it from the public so it doesn’t create mass panic. Now, this does and doesn’t make sense. At first, it sounds like it could be true b ecause I totally agree the government could restrain publications from the NASA as it’s a governmental agency, but I find it weird that this kind of information wouldn’t “leak”.

Do you really think something as big as the end of the world wouldn’t leak from any agency? Keep the NASA apart, do you really think the scientific community would miss something as big as that? When there’s no scientific data about a subject, you really have to doubt.

You’ve probably read a lot of information on websites from people claiming they know more than they should know and that the government is hiding all this information from you. Government is hiding a lot of things from you, more than you probably imagine and they would probably try to hide the end of the world if it was going to happen. But, let’s picture this: The Mayas were there 1000 years before Christ which makes it about 3000 years from now. Do you think someone could hide the end of the world for 3000 years if it was really going to happen and was really that possible and scientific?

Pole shift/reversal, the only 2012 end of the world possibility

The only rational “2012 End of world” possibility is actually pole shifting. A Pole shift is a rare phenomenon and is characterized by the north and the south poles swapping places. Such reversals, recorded in the magnetism of ancient rocks, are unpredictable. They come at irregular intervals averaging about 300,000 years; the last one was 780,000 years ago.

Will I die on December 21 2012?

I can’t tell, the Mayas can’t, Nostradamus can’t and the aliens can’t. On December 21 2012, a comet won’t hit the earth, a pole shift won’t happen instantly and a massive gravity burst won’t happen either. The only thing you can fear is a pole shift and it can take up to 5,000 years to complete…

What if you’re wrong?

In the case that I am wrong, that every scientist on this planet is wrong and that the NASA can’t figure out a simple galactic alignment that would put our world to an end then I guess we are all in the same situation. You, me and everyone will die. Scary isn’t it? Well, no one can tell what will happen tomorrow or in 2012.

Hope you enjoyed

I hope you enjoyed reading on the 2012 end of the world prophecy and that you are looking at it in a completely different way. Post your comments and come back to Daily Common Sense for more scam debunking.

the original legend, the planet comes back every 3700 years ?

Nibiru was invented by a translator with a vivid imagination a few decades ago. Twisting the meaning of old Sumerian texts and certain biblical passages, he created a legend where the inhabitants of Nibiru created us a long time ago to be their slaves and mine gold for them. Every time their planet comes in our area, they would come and collect their gold. In the original legend, the planet comes back every 3700 years (or so) and the next pass was forecast for 2085 or after (not before).

In the 1990s, some hoaxers began to associate Nibiru (already known by us to be fictitious) to a brown dwarf called Nemesis that was thought to be in orbit around the Sun (except the Nemesis theory called for a 26 million year orbit).

The Nemesis theory was set up in 1984 to explain apparent cycles of mass destruction on Earth. Since then, better research has showed us that the cycles were not precise enough to explain any binary companion for our Sun AND infrared telescopes (best to look for brown dwarfs) never found any trace of Nemesis. According to the theory, Nemesis was still on its way out to aphelion and would not return to perihelion for about 15 million years.

The Nemesis theory was thrown in the garbage before the end of the 20th century... where some charlatans picked it up.

In 2003, the charlatans predicted the end-of-the-world. They were selling a book on how to survive the end-of-the-world. Their story is that a planet (called Planet X) was coming around and would be causing storms, earthquakes and pole reversals... sounds familiar?

Shortly after that, astrologists and other "New Wave" types found a link between an old Mayan calendar (a day-count calendar used by ancient astronomers) and the passage of the Winter Solstice position through the thickest part of the Milky Way. So they announced a New Age, where all our problems would be solved and we would live in peace and harmony (the usual astrology stuff).

Lots of people started to make predictions about that date. The charlatans saw an opportunity. They had their book revised, they added all the other junk and loaded up YouTube with videos, pretending that NASA was aware of this.

So now, according to the charlatans, Nibiru and/or Planet X and/or Nemesis will come close to Earth, cause storms, earthquakes and/or pole reversals, and/or hide the Sun, and/or hit us, and/or the inhabitants will take over the world, and/or... and it goes on forever.

Everyone is getting into the act. There are even people who will rent you special bunkers so that you can hide from the Mayan gods, and/or the inhabitants of Nibiru, and/or the asteroids whose orbits will be disrupted by Nemesis (they don't care what your reason is as long as you give them your money).

Worst is that we believe that some of these charlatans are posing as innocent persons, asking questions on Yahoo-answers just to keep the topic alive (they usually include links to their YouTube videos).

So there you have it. The Big 2012 Hoax Off is far from over. It's like a contest to see who will come up with the most outrageous lie about the end-or-the-world.

It would be fun if it were not for the fact that some people actually believe it and get scared.

?? Planet X and Nibiru ??

Planet X and Nibiru, which are separate frauds, do not exist. X was supposed to be here in 2003. It's a bit late. Any other planet like Nibiru that was supposed to be here in 2012 would be visible with binoculars by now. Don't believe cr@p about it only being visible from the southern hemisphere, some of the biggest telescopes in the world are in South Africa, Australia and Chile.

Nibiru was invented by a fraud called Zecharia Sitchin 20 - 30 years ago. He lied about being able to translate Babylonian writing, he lied about some planet with a 3600 year orbit being inhabited by aliens who bred humans from themselves and apes and made them mine gold. The Babylonian "Nibiru" was the planet we now call Jupiter.

The Mayan calendar does not end. They had two calendars and a count of days from a date in their mythical past, about 3114BC. One calendar of 260 days for religious purposes, a second of 365 days for practical purposes and the count of days. Their complex system of counting cannot handle large numbers easily so when the numbers got much above around 1.8 million (by our system) they found it more convenient to start again. Some inscriptions mention later dates, so it looks as if they expected nothing much to happen.

In any case prediction based on this by Mayans or anyone else are superstition. The prediction was invented by typical woo-woos just a few years ago.

Every shred of "evidence" brought forward to support disaster or some significant change in late December 2012 is fraud. There will be no planetary alignments, the Sun, Earth and galactic centre will not align (even if these alignments happened there would be no effect).

Prophecies based on Nostradamus or Revelation have never been fulfilled in the past,. no matter what the lunatic fringe Christians say. The "Bible Codes" predicted nuclear war for 1997 but were shown to be fraud a dozen years ago.

Everything about this is lies, superstition, delusion and practical jokes, mostly for the purpose of selling faked up books, videos and cheap documentaries to the Fox network who will transmit anything so long as it is focus and does not defame anyone who is likely to sue.

Irresponsible money grubbing creeps in suits.

NASA- end of the world in 2012?

Do you really believe that a planet called nibiru is going to hit earth in 2012?

In fact, David Morrison, a senior scientist at NASA, has gone out of his way to deny the existence of Nibiru/Planet X:

http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/ask-an-astr…

Scientists don't expect anything out of the ordinary to happen in the year 2012, or specifically on the date December 21, other than the solstice, which happens every year.

None of the "predicted" happenings for 2012 hold up under close scrutiny. "Planet X" and "Nibiru" simply don't exist. The Mayan calendar ends a cycle, but there were no predictions of the end of the world. The Sun doesn't line up with the galactic centre; it's 6 degrees off. No asteroids or comets are actually predicted to hit Earth.

All of this stuff was put together by crackpots in order to promote their books and TV shows, and shamelessly promoted by the History Channel. Don't take any of it seriously!

What you need to know (NASA comments in quotes) Why 2012?

"The story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth. This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but when nothing happened the doomsday date was moved forward to December 2012. Then these two fables were linked to the end of one of the cycles in the ancient Mayan calendar at the winter solstice in 2012 -- hence the predicted doomsday date of December 21, 2012."

Should we be worried about mysterious planets going rogue?

 

"If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye."

Is what Woody Harrelson (appropriately cast as an apocalypse-predicting radio DJ) says about planetary alignments science or gibberish?

 

"There are no planetary alignments in the next few decades, Earth will not cross the galactic plane in 2012, and even if these alignments were to occur, their effects on the Earth would be negligible."

About this doomsday calendar business ...

"The Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period but then -- just as your calendar begins again on January 1 -- another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar."

 

What about meteors and asteroids?

"... Nothing is predicted to hit in 2012."

The earth's crust won't do a 180-degree rotation around the core in a matter of days if not hours?

"A bait-and-shift to fool people."

So what you're saying is ...

"Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012 ... scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012."

NASA wants you to know that the world won't end in 2012

Apparently, NASA scientists are concerned that people might think that Roland Emmerich's new disaster movie "2012" is a documentary. So they put together a Q&A to reassure the nervous masses.

 

So it's finally arrived. Roland Emmerich's end-of-the-world epic is in cinemas from today and everyone can now see what armageddon will look like from the comfort of a lovely warm cinema. But are we all really going to perish on December 21, 2012? Erm, apparently not.

 

A few days ago, the US space agency NASA stepped forward in a rare campaign to dispel widespread doomsday rumours in an effort to combat the thousands of paranoid emails they've received.

And now, in attempt to bring closure to the whole affair, Discovery.com have done their part in calming down the human race by collecting the 10 most popular doomsday scenarios and then systematically debunking each one with facts... HARD FACTS.

 

if you still have any lingering doubts for the future, we advise you to read them. Here are a couple of examples:

The Earth's magnetic field will reverse.

 

Don't hold you breath. The last field reversal happened nearly 800,000 years ago. Fred Flintstone and our other ancestor cavemen survived. Geological evidence shows that the field has reversed its orientation tens of thousands of times over Earth history. Yet there is no definitive evidence that a magnetic field reversal has ever caused any mass extinction due to increased cosmic ray influx. 

 

A grand alignment of Jupiter and Saturn will gravitationally perturb Earth.

For the past several decades there have been doomsday claims that the combined gravity from grand planetary alignments will cause geologic and meteorological upheavals on Earth.

None are scheduled for 2012.

 

In 1962 an extremely rare grand conjunction of the classical naked-eye planets drove astrologers crazy. The conjunction happened on Feb. 4-5 and was accompanied by a solar eclipse! The most infamous grand conjunction was in 1982 and popularized in a book called "The Jupiter Effect," which predicted earthquakes and massive tides. Life went on as usual both years. The moon has a vastly greater gravitational influence on Earth than Jupiter. It's called location, location, location! At a whopping distance of 400 million miles from Earth, Jupiter's tug is pretty wimpy. 

 

The black hole in the galactic center will affect us.

The Milky Way's black hole has no influence on the galactic disk. The black hole is three million solar masses. The Milky Way is several trillion solar masses when we add the tug of dark matter. Any gravitational influence of the black hole over the galaxy would be like the tail wagging the dog. The Milky Way's collision with the Andromeda galaxy will dump gas into the black hole and it will blaze as a quasar. But that's several billion years away. 

 

An asteroid will smash into Earth.

A threatening near-Earth asteroid that's gotten the most press is the 900-foot wide Apophis. But its chances of collision have been downgraded to 1 in 250,000 at its next close approach in 2029. In theory, an uncharted asteroid or comet could come out of the blue tomorrow. But if we don't know about it today, the Mayans certainly didn't know about it 1,200 years ago. Earth-killer impacts are tens of millions of years apart. So there's no reason to be a doomsday clock-watcher. 

 

The rogue planet Nibiru will swing by Earth.

There isn't such a planet any more than the planet Naboo from the Star Wars trilogy is real. Purported Internet pictures of the interloper are photographic lens flares or hoaxes. Don't believe every dot you see photographed in the sky. 

Discovery's External Fuel Tank Repair Progress

Technicians at NASA Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39A in Florida plan to install new quick disconnect hardware Tuesday morning in the recently-installed ground umbilical carrier plate (GUCP) to fix a hydrogen gas leak that scrubbed space shuttle Discovery’s launch Nov. 5. Technicians installed a new flight seal in the GUCP attached to Discovery’s external fuel tank last Friday night and spent the weekend taking precise measurements of the hardware to ensure all components are properly aligned and prevent another hydrogen leak.

Another team of technicians is working on repairing cracks on the tops of two, 21-foot-long support beams, called stringers, on the exterior of the external tank in an area known as the intertank. The team includes personnel from the external tank manufacturing plant in Louisiana, the Michoud Assembly Facility.

Over the weekend, technicians removed a section of one of the stringers that had two, 9-inch cracks in it. Last Friday, during foam removal and inspection of adjacent stringers to the one with the 9-inch cracks, technicians identified a crack about 3-inches long on the left-hand adjacent stringer. Further foam removal revealed one additional corresponding crack on the same left-hand adjacent stringer. Technicians plan to remove that section of the stringer Monday night. They’ll also install a new section of metal, called a doubler because it’s twice as thick as the original stringer metal, on the stringer that had the 9-inch cracks.

Engineers continue evaluating the intertank for any potential issues, but so far no other cracks have been found beyond the ones on the two previously identified stringers. There are a total of 108 stringers on the intertank.

Senior managers plan to meet on Nov. 22 at NASA’s Johnson Space Center and via video conference for a launch status briefing to assess and review the repair work and launch preparations. Although managers have not set a new target launch date for Discovery’s STS-133 mission to the International Space Station, the repair work and planning still are aimed at supporting an attempt in the upcoming launch window that opens Nov. 30.

OBAMA SIGNS NASA AUTHORIZATION BILL

On Monday signed into law the 2010 NASA Authorization Act, which adds a space shuttle mission and advances development of a heavy-lift rocket and multipurpose crew exploration vehicle.

Congress also extended space station operations by four years to 2020, which made another shuttle flight crucial to transporting key lab elements to the station.

The additional shuttle flight is scheduled for June to deliver and remove equipment at the International Space Station.

Some supplies and equipment won’t fit on the Russian Federal Space Agency’s Soyuz spacecraft, one of the vehicles that will ferry astronauts to the space station before a commercial vehicle is ready by 2014.

Nelson and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, co-authored the bill, which received bipartisan support in the House and Senate.

“From a work force standpoint, the extra flight allows NASA, at several space centers, a smooth transition for shuttle workers to the next program,”

United Space Alliance, the primary space shuttle contractor, laid off 333 Houston area employees Oct. 1, two days after Congress approved the NASA authorization bill. Company officials announced the layoffs in July.

The other remaining shuttle flights are scheduled for Nov. 1 and Feb. 27.

Congress will conduct an appropriations review when a lame duck session resumes in November.

Under this bill, the development of a new heavy-lift rocket would start as early as next year. This is a far cry from the 2015 review date for heavy-lifts that Obama had called for.

This means that the space flight gap that NASA is facing potentially stands to be far less expansive than under the president’s original plans. Nelson stated that he views this and other elements of the bill as ensuring that NASA will have a very bright future.