NASA tells employees and their familes to prepare. . .

[Moose-Knuckle]

Things that make you go, hmmm?

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/hq/emerg...ess/index.html

On one hand it's a breath of fresh air to hear of anyone involved with .gov to encourage Americans to prepare and not lable them as right wing nut jobs but on the other hand when a space agency is involved with DHS/FEMA drills. . .it creates more questions than answers.

[The Cat]

Wow - you're right on both counts!

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

If you actually did everything DHS says you should do to prepare, most people would label you a nut.

[kartoffel]

Well, a rather large NASA facility in my neck of the woods just recently narrowly avoided getting hit in the big tornado outbreak, and had no electricity for over a week.

I may have associations with said agency, but I'm also just a regular guy. If it freaks you out that NASA wants their people to be prepared, how do you think your neighbors would react if they knew about your bugout bags and trauma kits and all that gear?

After dealing with Katrina and the tornados, I'm going to be prepared whether Gen Bolden recommends it or not. It's just common sense.

[NWPilgrim]

The NASA director, Charles Bolden, sounds like he has a pretty good background: US Marine, Vietnam combat aviator, test pilot, NASA astronaut 14 yrs, Marine air wing commander, major general. Hopefully just a director concerned for his subordinates and their families like a base commander would be.

[kartoffel]

Since it appears to be in the clear, I'll provide some links to publicly available docs on Eagle Horizon 2011, which I found via googling:

http://www.shtfplan.com/images/artic...11overview.pdf

http://www.ntc.blm.gov/krc/uploads/4...0overview.pptx

I would speculate that NASA's participating this year because of the tornado and power outage at MSFC. Eagle Horizon is a continuity of government devolution exercise, and NASA could use (IMHO) some practice in devolution exercises. The tornados didn't damage any infrastructure, thankfully, but there was a lot of confusion over who was reporting to whom, and via what channels while the center was shut down. (Again just my humble opinion)

[Irish]

They are also predicting a solar maximum or massive coronal mass ejection for 2012. If you've never read up on the CME incident that occured in September of 1859 it's quite interesting to see what effects the sun can have on our planet.

Also, in March 1989 a large storm knocked out Hydro-Quebec (Canadian power grid) for 9 hours as another example of what could possible happen with a large CME.

Always be prepared.

[kartoffel]

They are also predicting a solar maximum or massive coronal mass ejection for 2012. If you've never read up on the CME incident that occured in September of 1859 it's quite interesting to see what effects the sun can have on our planet.

Also, in March 1989 a large storm knocked out Hydro-Quebec (Canadian power grid) for 9 hours as another example of what could possible happen with a large CME.

Always be prepared.

Yep. "Solar maximum" is just the high point of the sun's regular 12-year sunspot cycle, though. It's merely the time when solar flares and CMEs are most likely. Not any kind of 2012 doomsday thing.

The thing is, large CMEs have occurred in recent history. If we got one today the same size as the solar storm that happened in the mid 1800's, it would knock out a lot more than the 1989 storm.

We were lucky during the tornado outbreak that you could hop in a car, drive an hour (dealing with no gas stations and dead traffic lights) and arrive back in civilization. If the whole grid goes down nationwide, there will be no other place to bug out to if you want a hot shower, cheeseburger and a tank of gas.

During the tornados, the cell networks were down and a lot of "non essential" personnel had no contingency plan in place. The only people who had any idea what to do were the approx 10% "essential" workers... and they basically winged it by driving to work and meeting face-to-face to figure out WTF needed to get done.

So, no, I do not believe NASA is in cahoots with the Bilderbergs or trying to round everyone up in to FEMA camps. They're just reacting to lessons learned by participating in a government training event that takes place every year.

[Moose-Knuckle]

Kartoffel, thanks for your contribution to this thread. You obviously have some firsthand knowledge of NASA dealings that I can only assume an employee or a relative of an employee might have knowledge of. Not trying to out you on a public forum. I did not realize that any NASA installation suffered damage from the recent storms that hit our nation. This would make a ton of common sense for the director to address his suburbanites in such an aftermath.

Still you must put yourself in the average person’s shoes that do not have such firsthand knowledge of the agencies comings and goings. The intent of this thread was not to go off on some conspiracy theory involving NASA but rather to bring attention to the fact that a government agency that is not normally associated with the continuity of government was suggesting to its staff and their families to prepare for unforeseen events to include natural disasters and or terrorists attacks.

CME’s have been mentioned in two different threads here in this particular sub-forum recently. So I won’t go much into that here. If need be someone can start a CME specific thread as not to derail this one. Here is one tid bit from NASA on solar activity. You can ask three different “experts” and you would get three different answers. Some who interpret the data say that are due for a CME and the last time the Earth was hit civilization wasn’t run on an archaic power grid.


http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/...rmwarning.html

[kartoffel]

Thanks, Moose-Knuckle. I'm not worried about being "outed" per se. Just a regular guy who happens to like AR's and is associated with you-know-where. Of course, I'm also just some random nut on the internet, so don't take anything I post as official gospel

While I was kind of surprised to find out NASA's participating in Eagle Horizon 2011, it does make sense. Heck, last year the Bureau of Land Management was in the exercise. My local center has several thousand federal employees plus probably double that number of private contractors from several dozen different companies. When the lights go out and the cell network goes down, it's tricky for everyone to keep in touch. Marshal Spaceflight Center (MSFC) is unique and lucky in a way that they're surrounded on all sides by the US Army's Redstone Arsenal. To get to MSFC you have to pass through the Army's perimeter. This is good for security, obviously, but it also means that NASA and the Army have to coordinate their threat postures. I don't know how all of this relates to Eagle Horizon 2011, though. From that Power Point that Google turned up, it sounds more like an elaborate phone tree

As for conspiracy theories, I'm glad that M4Carbine is level-headed, intelligent place.