To supplement Patrick's 12/30/05 Ambassador News - What NASA accomplished this year.

From a NASA 12/22/2005 press release at: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005/dec/HQ_05449_year_in_review.html

1) Space Shuttle Returned to Flight http://www.nasa.gov/returntoflight/main/index.html 2) Announced plans for the "Next Generation" spacecraft http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/exploration/main/index.html 3) Deep Impact craft encountered Comet Temple P1 http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/deepimpact/main/index.html 4) Mars Rovers Kept Roving for another year past their design life. http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/mer_main.html 5) The ISS marked its 5th anniversary in Orbit http://www.nasa.gov/returntoflight/main/index.html 6) Cassini/Huygens arrived at Saturn and began investigations. http://www.nasa.gov/cassini 7) The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was launched. Arrives at Mars on 3/10/06. http://www.nasa.gov/mro 8) Voyager 1 entered the heliosheath at 8.7 B miles from Earth http://www.nasa.gov/voyager 9) Hubble Space Telescope discovery three new moons of Pluto. http://www.nasa.gov/hubble 10) The Spitzer Space Telescope detect the first direct light from an extrasolar planet http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/newworlds/spitzer-032205.html 11) The Swift Space Telescope, in conjunction with ground telescopes, determined the original of gamma ray bursts http://www.nasa.gov/swift Other items of note (not in the press release): Technology benefits continue to accrue - http://exploration.nasa.gov/documents/Benefits1.pdf NASA Spins-Offs 2004 edition http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/103475main_spinoff_04.pdf (10 megabytes) NASA's 2005 budget: $16.043 billion. Counter-views by critics: Burt Rutan Chides NASA for Dullness, Says Space Should be Fun http://www.space.com/adastra/050519_nss_rutan.html Rutan - The Wired Interview http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/rutan.html?tw=wn_tophead_8 Thanks to NASA for another year of enlivening space images and exploration. It's one of those things that makes life worth living. - Peace Canopus56 __________________________________ Yahoo! for Good - Make a difference this year. http://brand.yahoo.com/cybergivingweek2005/