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NASA satellite crashes to Earth
The loss of Glory is the second in two years for NASA's troubled Earth-observation programme.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BFAxZflkW0&feature=player_detailpage
"Attention all stations, We have had a contingency on the Glory Mission ..."

Failure to release a protective covering dragged NASA's Glory mission into the Pacific.
In a serious blow to Earth observation and solar science, NASA's Glory mission crashed today shortly after lift-off.

"All indications are that the satellite and rocket are in the southern Pacific Ocean somewhere," said a visibly upset Omar Baez, NASA's launch director for the mission, at a press conference held early this morning at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, where Glory launched shortly after 2 a.m. local time.

The failure is the second major loss for NASA's Earth-observation programme in as many years. In February 2009, NASA lost its Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) — intended to track atmospheric carbon dioxide levels — in a strikingly similar incident.

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110304/full/news.2011.138.html

Onboard were a number of Amateur Radio Satellites which were also lost ....

Confidence blown

Glory was designed to give a global picture of the effects of airborne particles on climate, by collecting data on clouds and on the distribution and chemistry of particulate matter in the atmosphere. Without the mission, scientists will struggle to separate the various effects of dust, sulphates, black carbon and other particulates on climate change.

"A uniform data product is really key to having confidence in your models," says Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who follows rocket launches closely. "This is a real blow."

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110304/full/news.2011.138.html

What really pisses us off about the last 25 years with NASA is that they can not only lose 14 lives, and all these Climate Satellites but they allow themselves to be presented in the media like this ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vw1jaS7KrU

... Problem, Reaction, Yawn ....

TT:

This was going to be a great post, but I'm currently undergoing massive interference, so here's what's left of what was originally a great (and funny!) post:


 btain your weight at different altitudes (i.e., differential gravitational pull at different distances from Earth's center of gravity)?).  IT MAKES MY POOR LITTLE HEAD HURT!!!!  Anyways, it's clear that human activity on Earth has affected the atmosphere on Mars to the point of wrecking that mission.

What I'm really saying is that the very failure of the space missions launched with the intent to prove the effects of man-made global warming (and, no, Alex, it's not anthropogenic global warming, which phrase actually means "global warming which creates man", as opposed to "global warming created by man" (but I"ll let you off the hook for that one as you're a Texas graduate and I'm a Wisconsin graduate, thus clearly creating, on my part, a debt of sympathy as opposed to any right of judgment   :))) completely exonerates the global warming crowd from having to prove their assertions, as their very failure to prove their assertions proves their assertions!

Just as I am prevented from proving that I AM THE GREAT GAHUGA by virtue of certain local anti-megalomania laws.

So there!

TT:

Here's my originally intended post:

Who cares if the satellite went bust rather than up?  After all, it's obvious that toxic carbon dioxide and dihydrogen monoxide are killing all plant life on Earth, so why gather more data?  (Especially since additional data might need a little tweaking to be presentable!)

Besides, this isn't NASA's first satellite FUBAR: I recall a time when a Mars orbiter crashed into the atmosphere because someone confused English and Metric units.  (English units are a pain to work with in physics or engineering, as you have to divide pounds weight by the gravitational constant at Earth's surface 32.2 ft/sec^2 to get your mass in slugs in order to obtain your weight at different altitudes (i.e., differential gravitational pull at different distances from Earth's center of gravity)?).  IT MAKES MY POOR LITTLE HEAD HURT!!!!  Anyways, it's clear that human activity on Earth has affected the atmosphere on Mars to the point of wrecking that mission.

What I'm really saying is that the very failure of the space missions launched with the intent to prove the effects of man-made global warming (and, no, Alex, it's not anthropogenic global warming, which phrase actually means "global warming which creates man", as opposed to "global warming created by man" (but I"ll let you off the hook for that one as you're a Texas graduate and I'm a Wisconsin graduate, thus clearly creating, on my part, a debt of sympathy as opposed to any right of judgment   Smiley)) completely exonerates the global warming crowd from having to prove their assertions, as their very failure to prove their assertions proves their assertions!

Just as I am prevented from proving that I AM THE GREAT GAHUGA by virtue of certain local anti-megalomania laws.

So there!

***

EDIT: (For us nerds only!): The reason you need to determine your vehicle's weight at altitude is that the thrust of your engines, being a force measured in pounds, must be greater than the weight it's projecting at all times during powered flight, therefor, calculating mass in slugs isn't good enough.  If your vehicle is at 100 miles altitude, you must calculate the gravitational constant for that altitude to determine its weight according to the formula mG/d^2, d' (equatorial radius of Earth (so we're launching our rocket from a ship off Equatorial Guinea)) = 3963.14 miles, d'' = 4063.14, ergo G' (gravitational constant at 100 miles altitude above sea level at the equator) = 30.6345 ft/sec^2.  Therefor a satellite that weighs 100 lbs at sea level (m = 3.1056 slugs) weighs 95.14 lbs at 100 miles altitude.  (d stands for distance, not diameter.)