nasa.gov offline and unavailable?

[mikedt]

I sometimes like to look at NASA's website, at http://www.nasa.gov, but it seems to be unavailable at the moment, and has been like this for last couple of days. And the NASA app on my phone isn't connecting and showing anything either. Don't think it's anything to do with Chinese censoring, because I'm using a VPN and can get Facebook and other sites OK.

 

[Revenant Ghost]

It looks like NASA is a victim of the US government shutdown as well.

EDIT: To a certain extent.

 

[MoodyBlues]

I get an immediate redirect to notice.usa.gov which shows this message:

Due to the lapse in federal government funding, this website is not available.
We sincerely regret this inconvenience.

For information about available government services, visit USA.gov.

 

[Revenant Ghost]

:ditto:

 

[mikedt]

I get an immediate redirect to notice.usa.gov which shows this message:

OK so it's US govt shut-down of non-essential services.

BTW I didn't actually read about that until this morning, was busy in Beijing for a few days and travelling so didn't actually get around to looking at news.

 

[SiempreTuna]

The only bits of NASA that are unaffected are the astronauts in the space station and their ground-based support staff - y'all know who to blame

 

[Joelgp83]

Don't forget the rovers. Or are they salaried too?

 

[nickdalzell]

What about the RIAA and NSA? We can dream, right?

 

[gtbarry]

The real question is: why didn't NASA opt for the annual hosting plan?

They would have saved $2-3 a month and not have to worry about monthly billing.

If anyone knows anyone at NASA tell them to ping me. I have unlimited bandwidth and can host as many domains as I want with my plan. I'd only charge them a moon rock or two for a year's worth of hosting.

 

[bjacks12]

So I'm guessing the astronauts on the ISS are considered essential right? They're probably wondering why nobody is answering their calls.

 

[nickdalzell]

i'm still trying to figure out how they are supposed to get back to Earth without a shuttle program

 

[bjacks12]

It's okay, we just put billions of dollars of valuable and strategic space equipment in the hands of the Russians. What could possibly go wrong.

 

[redpill2016]

They probably aren't saving any money by having it inactive, but they want to make the impacts of the shutdown as sharply felt as possible. It's an old trick that started in the Nixon admin.

 

[rabidhunter]

The census website is also off. I use the census website for looking up what county a city is in for work. Also comes in handy for NAICS code information when needed. Oh well, for everything else, there's Google.

 

[MoodyBlues]

I also found that the NASA TV station is off the air--it shows a much longer message than the web site, but its point is the same.

 

[mikedt]

i'm still trying to figure out how they are supposed to get back to Earth without a shuttle program

It's ok....they can catch a ride in a Russian or Chinese spacecraft.

 

[nickdalzell]

"What could possibly go wrong, comrade?"

--MiR builder.

 

[mikedt]

Don't forget the rovers. Or are they salaried too?

"Hundreds of thousands of additional federal workers will be immediately and indefinitely furloughed without pay."
Government Shutdown | USA.gov

 

[mikedt]

"What could possibly go wrong, comrade?"

--MiR builder.

Your astronauts might be landing in Inner Mongolia, China then. Not too far from where I live.

 

[out of ideas]

The real question is: why didn't NASA opt for the annual hosting plan?

They would have saved $2-3 a month and not have to worry about monthly billing.

If anyone knows anyone at NASA tell them to ping me. I have unlimited bandwidth and can host as many domains as I want with my plan. I'd only charge them a moon rock or two for a year's worth of hosting.

Yeah im finding it super hard to believe that all government websites run on monthly billing plans.

Then again, they are fantastic at wasting money...

 

[mikedt]

Yeah im finding it super hard to believe that all government websites run on monthly billing plans.

Then again, they are fantastic at wasting money...

Like in LA schools...
http://androidforums.com/lounge/775809-kids-hack-school-issued-ipads.html

 

[out of ideas]

Like in LA schools...
http://androidforums.com/lounge/775809-kids-hack-school-issued-ipads.html

lol yup.

but we are waaaay better at it than that.

Scrapping equipment key to Afghan drawdown - The Washington Post

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — Facing a tight withdrawal deadline and tough terrain, the U.S. military has destroyed more than 170 million pounds worth of vehicles and other military equipment as it rushes to wind down its role in the Afghanistan war by the end of 2014. The massive disposal effort, which U.S. military officials call unprecedented, has unfolded largely out of sight amid an ongoing debate inside the Pentagon about what to do with the heaps of equipment that won’t be returning home. Military planners have determined that they will not ship back more than $7 billion worth of equipment — about 20 percent of what the U.S. military has in Afghanistan — because it is no longer needed or would be too costly to ship back home.

Costly Obama family trip to Africa under fire amid sequester cuts | Fox News

President Obama’s trip this month to Africa, with the first family tagging along, is projected to cost taxpayers as much as $100 million, sparking criticism as the federal government scrimps along during sequester-related budget cuts.

$509K Federal Safe-Sex Study Will Text 'Gay-Lingo' to Meth Addicts | CNS News

A $509,840 grant by the National Institutes of Health will pay for a study that will send text messages in "gay lingo" to methamphetamine addicts to try to persuade them to use fewer drugs and more condoms. The study began in February.

and my current favorite

Project Summary

Grants - AWARD SUMMARY


YALE UNIVERSITY


Conflict between the sexes over control of fertilization is expected to be widespread among organisms, but its evolutionary consequences are still poorly understood particularly in vertebrate animals. Waterfowl have complex breeding systems that include female partner preferences based on elaborate male plumage and courtship display, and unsolicited reproductive attempts by males other than the female's chosen partner. Female ducks show resistance behaviors and anatomies that have coevolved with male coercion. Ducks are ideally suited to study the evolution of sexual conflict and the evolution of reproductive structures. The project examines how reproductive morphology covaries with season, age, and social environment in a diverse sample of duck species that differ in ecology, territoriality and breeding system. Preliminary results of the project, suggest that male competition plays an important role in the evolution of waterfowl reproductive morphology, that male reproductive morphology is plastic depending on age . . . The complete abstract for this award is available in Research.gov at: nsf.gov - US National Science Foundation (NSF).

which involves

Projects and Jobs Information




Projects and Jobs Information Project Title Sexual Conflict, Social Behavior and the Evolution of Waterfowl Genitalia
Project Status Less Than 50% Completed
Final Project Report Submitted No
Project Activities Description Science & Technology,
General/Other Quarterly Activities/Project Description In the last quarter, we have prepared a manuscript for submission on the results of the first two years of experiments on social phenotypic plasticity in duck penis length in Lesser Scaup and Ruddy Duck. Experiments continued on genital social phenotypic plasticity in Mandarin Duck and Laysan Teal. Analyses of annual cycle of in DHT hormone was performed in Scaup and Ruddys, and a manuscript is being prepared.

yes, we spent $384,000 dollars and created ZERO jobs to measure the size of duck penis.


America, you don't have to be crazy to live here, but it helps.

 

[mikedt]

^^^^^

Why is it things always seem to go tits up for US Presidents in their second term? ...or will I find the answer in Politics & Current Affairs?

 

[MoodyBlues]

Your astronauts might be landing in Inner Mongolia, China then. Not too far from where I live.

If they do, kindly take some photos and share them with us!

I miss the sonic booms we used to hear here in the San Gabriel Valley when shuttles landed at Edwards AFB [instead of Cape Canaveral in Florida].

 

[mikedt]

If they do, kindly take some photos and share them with us!

I miss the sonic booms we used to hear here in the San Gabriel Valley when shuttles landed at Edwards AFB [instead of Cape Canaveral in Florida].

Unfortunately we don't do advanced things like sonic booms. They could be landing in a Shenzhou spacecraft. which is basically a copy of the Russian Soyuz, which is launched by a Long March rocket, which is pretty much a copy of the standard Soviet rocket. The same one that launched Yuri Gagarin into orbit in 1961.

Nothing like tried and trusted technology is there?


BTW when I flew back from Beijing a couple of days ago, it was a Boeing 737-800...Made in USA. :thumbup: