Armstrong Finds Current U.S. Space Program, “Embarrassing”

Neil ArmstrongLooks like our past heroes of spaceflight find our current space program as embarrassing as we do! We will never attract the Vulcan’s attention this way, guys!

Neil Armstrong: US space program ’embarrassing’ – Aging moonmen denounce NASA, Obama

“The first and last men to walk upon the moon have testified at a Congressional hearing that NASA is a national disgrace.

The US space program is ’embarrassing and unacceptable,’ said Neil Armstrong, who on July 21, 1969 first set foot on the surface of the earthly companion that, in his testimony, he referred to as Luna.

‘Today we are on a path of decay,’ testified fellow ex-astronaut Eugene Cernan, who said goodbye to Luna on December 14, 1972, bringing the curtain down on the US Apollo program.

Being 81 and 77 years old, repectively, and having achieved much in their careers, Armstrong and Cernan have nothing to prove nor favor to curry – and their comments reflected that freedom.

‘Our choices are to lead,’ Armstrong said, ‘to try to keep up, or to get out of the way. A lead, however earnestly and expensively won, once lost, is nearly impossible to regain.’

‘Now is the time to overrule this Administration’s pledge to mediocrity,’ said Cernan.

Armstrong decried NASA’s downward spiral. ‘We will have no American access to, and return from, low Earth orbit and the International Space Station for an unpredictable length of time in the future,’ he said. ‘For a country that has invested so much for so long to achieve a leadership position in space exploration and exploitation, this condition is viewed by many as lamentably embarrassing and unacceptable.'”

I agree guys! It is a crying shame!

CERN Scientists Have a Particle that Travels Faster Than Light!

So, OK, that is supposed to be IMPOSSIBLE!!! But, it seems it isn’t… impossible, that is. So, Warp drives, anyone?!?

Strange Particles May Travel Faster than Light, Breaking Laws of Physics

“Nothing goes faster than the speed of light. At least, we didn’t think so.

New results from the CERN laboratory in Switzerland seem to break this cardinal rule of physics, calling into question one of the most trusted laws discovered by Albert Einstein.

Physicists have found that tiny particles called neutrinos are making a 454-mile (730-kilometer) underground trip faster than they should — more quickly, in fact, than light could do. If the results are confirmed, they could throw much of modern physics into upheaval.

‘The consequences would be absolutely revolutionary and very profound,’ said physicist Robert Plunkett of the Fermilab laboratory in Batavia, Ill., who was not involved in the new study. ‘That’s why such a claim should be treated very carefully and validated as many ways as you can.’

The results come from the OPERA experiment, which sends sprays of neutrinos from CERN in Geneva to the INFN Gran Sasso Laboratory in Italy. Neutrinos don’t interact with normal atoms, so they simply pass through the Earth as if it were a vacuum.

After analyzing the results from 15,000 particles, it seems the neutrinos are crossing the distance at a velocity 20 parts per million faster than the speed of light. By making use of advanced GPS systems and atomic clocks, the researchers were able to determine this speed to an accuracy of less than 10 nanoseconds (.00000001 seconds).

‘According to relativity, it takes an infinite amount of energy to make anything go faster than light,’ Plunkett told LiveScience. ‘If these things are going faster than light, then these rules would have to be rewritten.’

Previous studies have found that certain materials can travel faster than light through a medium. For example, certain particles are able to move more swiftly than light when travelling through water or oil. However, nothing should be able to move faster than light through a vacuum.

‘It’s really thought to be an absolute speed limit,’ said Michael Peskin, a theoretical physicist at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, Calif. ‘Quantum field theory, the mathematical theory on which basically all results in particle physics are based, has the property that signals cannot travel faster than the speed of light through a vacuum. It’s really an absolute prohibition.'”

UPDATE: Oh yeah, by the way, this faster than light particle has time travel implications as well!

‘Faster Than Light’ Particles Make Time Travel Possible, Scientist Says