NASA happens to be one of those agencies President Trump used as a bargaining chip in his goal to pull a $5 billion wall out of Congress. NASA workers aren’t on the government’s payroll because of the shutdown, but the agency is still doing amazing things. The Democrats say Mr. Trump’s mind plays that song from the movie “Rocky” as he knockouts part of his government. But the Democrats and everyone else except the Trumpians say NASA deserves a big fist bump for the Mars Insight Lander mission, and the New Horizons spacecraft that flew by Pluto in 2015, and still keeps acting like an Energizer Bunny on steroids.
The New Horizons spacecraft is certainly Captain Kirk special as it makes it final approach to the Kuiper Belt. If the Kuiper Belt sounds like one of those space facts you forgot before your left science class, you’re not alone. The New Horizons watch team plans to visit the Ultima Thule in the Kuiper Belt January 1st. Ultima Thule is a billion miles away from Pluto. New Horizons did the first flyby study of Pluto in 2015.
The New Horizons spacecraft left Earth in 2006, and members of the New Horizons team feel like they experienced every mission obstacle and conquest in a crow nest kind of way. Doing a flyby a billion miles past Pluto on New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day will go down in history as the farthest planetary flyby ever. Alan Stern, the Principal Investigator for New Horizons is the man who pushed toward to send the spacecraft toward the Kuiper Belt. Stern said the New Horizons spacecraft will flyby Ultima Thule three times closer than the Pluto flyby.
According to SETI researcher Mark Showalter, the spacecraft is on a close trajectory and mission leaders are following Showalter’s recommendations. New Horizons has the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager better known in the space world as LORRI the telescope camera on board. So the ground crew is able to search for sketchy objects in its path even though the ground crew isn’t getting paid.
But the New Horizons ground crew knows what they do goes beyond money and political battles. The 12-member crew are a billion plus miles away and loving every minute of it.
Dil Bole Oberoi
