The National Aeronautics and Space Administration today released its popular NASA app for a new platform, the fourth-generation Apple TV. This version joins the app’s other versions available for iOS in iPhone and iPad versions. The NASA app has been downloaded more than 17 million times across all platforms.
“The NASA app has been a fantastic way for the public to experience the excitement of space exploration from their mobile devices,” said David Weaver, NASA associate administrator for Communications, in a statement. “Now, users with the latest Apple TV can explore and enjoy our remarkable images, videos, mission information, NASA Television and more on the big screen with the whole family.”
The NASA app for Apple TV offers several features for users:
• Watch live streaming NASA TV, and get a real-time view of the Earth from the International Space Station
• View more than 15,000 images individually or as a continuous slideshow
• Play on demand NASA videos
• Find the next opportunity to view the International Space Station and other NASA satellites pass overhead, based on your location.
• Display 2-D and 3-D satellite tracking maps
• Discover the latest NASA mission information
• Listen to Third Rock internet streaming radio
• View the Earth as Art image gallery
The NASA app is available for free in the App Store on Apple TV.
For more information about the NASA app, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/nasaapp
MacDailyNews Take: That NASA, always launching something.
Now, as we wrote back in February:
A U.S. President with true leadership abilities would immediately boost NASA’s budget ten-fold (at the very least) and patiently explain to the naysayers why it is important to push the envelope and that NASA’s budget, even with a ten-fold increase, is barely a drop in the ocean.
There hasn’t been a U.S. President with a vision of the future beyond his own term(s) and the
nu… guts to stand by his beliefs in the face of PITA whiners who want every single last cent to blow on wasteful, redundant boondoggles (which somehow magically materialize into waterfront homes for lobbyists) since… we can’t remember when.Imagine a Steve Jobs as U.S. President 30, 40 years ago. People would be living on the moon and Mars today with outposts on Europa.
It’s been
43 years, 1 month, and 28 days43 years, 6 months, 10 days since man last set foot on the moon. Every person on earth should be profoundly embarrassed by that fact.• The United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward, and so will space. — President John F. Kennedy
• There are so many benefits to be derived from space exploration and exploitation; why not take what seems to me the only chance of escaping what is otherwise the sure destruction of all that humanity has struggled to achieve for 50,000 years? — Isaac Asimov
• Earth is too small a basket for mankind to keep all its eggs in. — Robert A. Heinlein
• It’s too bad, but the way American people are, now that they have all this capability, instead of taking advantage of it, they’ll probably just piss it all away. — President Lyndon B. Johnson, overheard during a visit to the Apollo 7 crew in training, 1968.
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Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
We make tools for these kinds of people.
While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
SEE ALSO:
NASA goes social to take its case directly to the people – February 10, 2016
How NASA landed a Mac on Mars using MacBook Pros – August 14, 2012
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity essentially has same brain as Apple’s Bondi Blue iMac G3 – August 6, 2012
NASA control room packed with Apple Macs during Mars Curiosity rover landing – August 6, 2012
Nasa has always been a disaster on the rocket front. Pity they never listened to their own Robert Goddard, credited with launching the first liquid-fueler rocket: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._Goddard. Without the Russians, nobody else would have been in space since the demise of the worlds most dangerous flying machine – the Space Shuttle on July 21, 2011.
Our chap, Tim Peake, arrived home recently in a Russian capsule, mounted atop a Russian rocket, another salute to the greatest rocket designer, Sergei Pavlovich Korolyov: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Korolev, the worlds greatest rocket designer. The Soyuz, was designed in the early 1960’s, by S. P. as the Chief Designer was known, and was the capsule that Tim left and returned to the planet on. He was known only as S.P. or the Chief Designer, to protect his name in case of possible American attempts on his life and also reflecting his value to space exploration. S.P. knew of his adversary in the U.S.A., one Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun, a Major in the S.S. creator of the formidable V2 rocket, famous only for managing to kill more people (mostly Jews) building them than were killed by being hit by them. Ignoring his stained past, America let him plan and execute (something he was experienced in) the trip to the moon. According to a NASA source, he is, “without doubt, the greatest rocket scientist in history”, as well as the “Father of Rocket Science”. Greatest killer using rockets, maybe… If there is a greater deity, it placed a curse on American rocketry for decades, rightfully so, considering the circumstances.
For Tim’s trip, the capsule was mounted on a largely unchanged R7 rocket, also designed by S. P. Launched from Baikonor, the first operational space centre in the world.
The very same R7 rocket that launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, on the 4th October 1957 and Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, the first man in space, on the 12 April 1961!
Today, the Atlas and most other American rockets use the Russian designed (a long time ago, needless to say) RD-180 rocket engine, a shrunken version of the RD-170 – the most powerful rocket engine in the world.
Sergei Pavlovich Korolyov, sadly died, mostly of injuries sustained earlier in Stalin’s gulag, on 14th January 1966. The only way to space for the last five years has been via the 60 year old combination of Soyuz and R7. NASA? Start making some more teflon frying pans.
It says a lot about progress, doesn’t it?
Like MDN, I used to wish that NASA would be granted a huge budget so that they could drive progress in space again. But the world has changed and trust in the government’s ability to manage large programs has withered as we see ineffective DoD programs with massive cost overruns as budgets are handed out for political reasons as opposed to getting the program done as efficiently as possible.
Government programs are not the answer. Instead, we are turning the corner with the likes of SpaceX, Blue Origin, Orbital Sciences and even Virgin Galactic. These companies and others like them will drive our expansion into the solar system.
It’s not going to be tourism so much that drives us into space but the prospect of mining the moon and the asteroids for precious metals. Billions, even trillions, are there to be had for the companies that dare to invest in reliable rocketry, long distance propulsion systems, advanced robotics, and sustainable habitats for human workers in deep space.
Dumb laying the ground work (infrastructure) isn’t profitable by itself, railways, bridges, dams, internet, highways, schools, Airports are not profitable from a business standpoint, but without them, you have the horn of Africa. Laying the ground work for space is not profitable and never will be, that is the function of civilizations (government).
The projects you cite were funded by governments. If space transport is privately funded and the key technologies are held by same companies, it is they who become the gatekeepers, not governments. In space you’ll have to pay to play.
Companies (private) will not pay up front for anything long term and unprofitable, Government (I.E..the TAXPAYER will). No infrastructure in history is private, human life, blood, sweat, and tears payed for it (ie..TAXPAYER).
I missed that you also cited railroads, which were privately funded. Do you recall America’s gilded age and the robber barons railroad tycoons? They were the gatekeepers. I rest my case.
Huh? The so called robber barons were paid by the government with land along the route funded by the TAXPAYER at the time, the robber baron the didn’t built the railways to the west for free…..The Taxpayer (government) payed for it.
I looked it up. You are correct. The railroads were funded by government bonds. Nevertheless, the builders became super rich.
Couldn’t agree more. Look at the F35 – an absolute disaster. It won’t even be able to fire it’s guns for another three years, a really handy feature for a fighter. See: Pentagon: F-35 won’t have a chance in real combat