Word: spaces
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Kohler: When I grew up as a little kid, the space program was in full force. I sat in front of a black and white television and watched Neil Armstrong take those first steps on the moon. As a kid I wanted to be an astronaut. I made my mom buy me Tang and TV dinners. I even dressed up my G.I. Joe figure in aluminum foil 'cause it looked like a space suit. That's part of why I think I'm a diver. You are, in a way, going into inner space. You're standing on the deck...
...that reason, the Manned Spacecraft Center - better known to the public as Mission Control and now formally renamed the Johnson Space Center - was built in Houston. The port city quickly became a space city, bringing in lots of people, jobs and notoriety. Ultimately, Houstonians would live to see the name of their town become the first word in two of the most evocative quotes of the space age: "Houston, Tranquillity Base here, the Eagle has landed," and "Houston, we've had a problem...
...their assignments. JPL handles most of the unmanned missions. Ames takes on what JPL can't, and often competitively bids against its downcoast colleagues. Huntsville focuses on rockets and propulsion systems. Canaveral still launches and Houston still takes over the moment the engine bells clear the tower. The Goddard Space Flight Center in Beltsville, Md., studies space science, investigating the chemistry and physics of the Earth, the solar system and the universe, most notably with the aid of the Hubble Space Telescope...
...last few years, NASA had seemed safe from significant budget cuts, as the agency is preparing to mothball its space shuttles and embark on a new program to put astronauts back on the moon and later Mars. But with the markets melting down and a new administration headed to Washington in January, nothing is certain. The cosmos was here long before us and will be here long after us. Whether we continue to explore it in the brief flash of time our species has is a choice we have yet to make...
...Click here for the 50 highs and lows of space flight...