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NASA dominated space and social media in 2016
"We all have a thirst for wonder," American astronomer Carl Sagan wrote in his sci-fi novel Contact. "It's a deeply human quality." And it's partly thanks to this "thirst" that NASA had the space game on lock this year, even though it doesn't have access to as much money as it used to. The agency stepped into 2016 armed with $19.3 billion in government funding. Yes, that's almost a $1 billion more than what the administration originally asked for, but it's also significantly lower than NASA's budget in previous years, when adjusted for inflation.
Watch Tim Peake become the first Briton to spacewalk
At 12:55pm GMT (7:55am ET, or 4:55am PT) British astronaut Tim Peake will step outside the International Space Station (ISS) for the first time. He'll be accompanied by NASA astronaut Tim Kopra and together they'll perform some crucial repair work. The pair's main task is to replace a broken Sequential Shunt Unit (SSU) which transfers power generated by the Station's solar arrays. As the European Space Agency explains, the job needs to be completed within 30 minutes while the ISS passes through the Earth's shadow, as this mitigates the risk of high-voltage sparks.
