Happy birthday NASA, shut it down

TODAY is NASA'S 55th anniversary and to celebrate the US government has shut it down, leaving countless satellites, rovers and astronauts in peril.

All non essential NASA staff have been sent home during the government shut down. But what about the six astronauts living on the ISS? Do they get a day off too? Picture: IMAX

TODAY is NASA's 55th birthday. And to celebrate, the US government is shutting it down.

Temporarily, at least.

There are two astronauts living on the International Space Station performing routine maintenance on the ISS and the Hubble telescope and 16 satellites are observing the US and seven spacecrafts are orbiting the sun.

And that's just the beginning.

But as of yesterday all of most of those services are in shut down.

Happy birthday indeed.

Only 549 of NASA's 18, 250 employees will be required to work while the government is in shut down. The rest will have to sit at home and hope nothing goes wrong up there while they're being sat down.

The Curiosity Rover on Mars will also be powered down and put into "protective mode" during which time it will not be able to collect any new data.

And that's just the projects that have already launched.

The shutdown will put a stall on any projects or technologies NASA is still developing.

Thankfully NASA won't leave its astronauts stranded in space.

NASA'S Chief Financial Officer Elizabeth Robinson wrote a memo outlining that "To protect the life of the crew as well as the assets themselves, we would continue to support planned operations of the iSS during any funding hiatus".

"Moreover, NASA will be closely monitoring the impact of an extended shutdown to determine if crew transportation or cargo resupply services are required to mitigate imminent threats to life and property on the ISS or other areas," she wrote.

Any satellite missions in operations phase will retain their operations managers to ensure the safety of that satellite and the data received from it.

However any future satellite launches have been put on hold until President Barack Obama can come to an agreement with Tea Party Congressmen on his health care bill.