https://padlet.com/290052/49n43ingn9op Senior genius hour, I'm doing my genius hour on NASA as well as SpaceX and how it relates to government. en-us 2018-02-05 22:05:10 UTC 2025-10-28 07:24:22 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet-uploads.storage.googleapis.com/252397942/a6546c84bf60a3719627df6c53b76e9f/1_hour_computer_repair.png 290052 https://padlet.com/290052/49n43ingn9op/wish/229344539 INTRODUCTION: I am doing my genius hour on NASA and what it does within the government as well as discussing if our space flight should be government controlled or left to the private industries like Space X. going into this project I am hoping to learn about how NASA relates to our government and what exactly they do. I don't know too much about NASA besides that they launch rockets into space.
    I used the official NASA website written by Brain Dunbar, for my first source, I went here because it tells about the mission objective and what exactly they do. The page started off talking about what is next for NASA and then talks about where they want to go and what they want to do once they get there. They go deeply into detail throughout the page about the projects that they have coming up including a paragraph about some new airplanes they want to test out in the near future. It also said some things they have learned from keeping people in the international space station for over a year at a time. 
     From reading this article I learned a couple if things; I didn't know that they also worked on earth to make airplanes and that they also try and obtain information and knowledge to make our life on earth better. To put that into similar terms, I didn't know that they work on technologies and sciences on earth as well as off earth. While finding my way to that website I also got a lot of mixed feedback on how the government works with NASA, from what I have learned wrong or not is that it seems that NASA is independent in itself but the government holds most stocks therefore it has a large amount of control over it.
     Now that I have been given an introduction to NASA and what it is that they are doing next time I would like to delve deeper into how the government has control over NASA and it operations, even how it is regulated compared to companies like SpaceX]]> 2018-02-07 21:36:14 UTC https://padlet.com/290052/49n43ingn9op/wish/229344539 290052 https://padlet.com/290052/49n43ingn9op/wish/236682013 This week I read an article that was called, Could Elon Musk's Spacex Take over NASA written by an employee at Formaspace. This article talks about how Spacex works and how they have become so successful. They then go on to explain how Spacex actually works with NASA and they support each others ventures. Before reading this article I read up on how NASA is directly connected with the government, they are part of the executive branch and are a independent agency. Basically they are regulated by the government. However independent agencies are in place to  "address concerns that go beyond the scope of ordinary legislation"
so says the usa.gov site. In my article and based off the information that I gathered from other sources I think it is possible for Spacex to replace NASA but it probably wouldn't happen. Elon Musk's true goal is to get humans to and colonize other planets such as mars. However Spacex is doing a lot of work for NASA and other companies to pull revenue to the company so that they can afford to go to mars and start populating it. 
  I learned a lot during this week of genius hour like what independent agencies are, it is something that really confused me in the beginning but now makes much more sense. Eventually I learned a lot more about Spacex as well, they are very smart company and they are really doing the impossible. I however don't think that Spacex would end up replacing NASA due to their goals being different than to that of NASA and the government. Next week I want to compare the progress over time that NASA has made against Spacex and if it is at all possible that having government control over space travel is a bad thing or even a road block for further explorations.]]> 2018-02-28 21:17:12 UTC https://padlet.com/290052/49n43ingn9op/wish/236682013 290052 https://padlet.com/290052/49n43ingn9op/wish/237508446 https://www.nasa.gov/content/nasa-history-overview (print week 3)
http://www.spacex.com/missions (Print week 3)
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2015/03/16/nasa_and_congress_we_must_get_politics_out_of_nasa.html (week 3 resource
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1803/01/sn.01.html( print week4 resource) ]]> 2018-03-02 17:21:12 UTC https://padlet.com/290052/49n43ingn9op/wish/237508446 290052 https://padlet.com/290052/49n43ingn9op/wish/241072622 SpaceX has been working hard at furthering space travel and they really have done a lot in the amount of time that they have been around. But how has their speed compared to NASA, is it really that much better than NASA or does it just seem like that because of how they choose to present their actions? 
       I started off by just looking at what I already know, SpaceX has made recent technological feats that NASA would have never taken the leap to do like the returning rockets. SpaceX is also gaining a lot of money from other outside sources to fund the projects which gives them an overall advantage compared to NASA. Then I did some research referring to the amount of launches that NASA and SpaceX has. Looking at the two together. SpaceX has 55 launches in 16 years which is around 3.4 launches a year and NASA has 166 launches in 68 years which is 2.4 launches a year. It may be a small difference but if SpaceX continued at this rate or increases their speed they will surpass NASA in no time at all. With all of the publicity, cheap rockets, and plans Musk has it is most likely that the launch speeds will increase. 
      In the article I read called, Politics Is Poisoning NASA's Ability to Do What It Needs to Do, by Phil Plait is about how politics and the NASA budget is affecting how well they can do their job, it talks a lot about how Ted Cruz doesn't believe in global warming and how that is current NASA's mission and he can make it difficult to do their job. NASA in the year of 2018 budget is only set at 19 billion dollars. It seems like a lot for us but imagine if you had to build a rocket and launch it. It is still enough for a few launches but SpaceX is going to spend as much as they can and keeps spending as they are making money off of some of their flights by putting things into space for people. Overall I think that the government setting less than 1% of the national budget for NASA is hurting them majorly and SpaceX does not have to worry about anything like that. In conclusion Governmental control is very bad for space travel, it restricts the amount of launches and research done. 
       This time I learned how much budget is really spent on NASA and how much launches have slowed down for NASA. Next time I would like to explore what is next for the two and how they plan to work together and if they have had any thoughts about the so called space war that is going on.
 ]]> 2018-03-12 18:58:50 UTC https://padlet.com/290052/49n43ingn9op/wish/241072622 290052 https://padlet.com/290052/49n43ingn9op/wish/242917414 2018-03-16 16:48:42 UTC https://padlet.com/290052/49n43ingn9op/wish/242917414