As much as I’m still disappointed that our own government doesn’t really seem to have very good plans for space exploration in the future right now, this announcement of the first private spacecraft to visit the ISS next month is still kind of cool…
SpaceX Plans Historic First Flight on May 7
http://news.yahoo.com/spacex-plans-historic-first-flight-may-7-032605200.html
Admittedly I didn’t realize on the first pass that this is a cargo-only mission – no astronauts will be traveling in the Dragon at this point, but the plan is essentially to carry 1,149 pounds of space stuff up to the six astronauts currently in residence at the ISS. The capsule itself has a much different look than we’re used to from the traditional space shuttles, so it’ll be interesting to see what it actually looks like on the inside once it’s actually ready to haul both cargo and crew … maybe more closely resembling sort of a Space Taxi than the shuttle was!
So I guess that would make this version a Space UPS or something??? 
It still seems a little weird to now see private industry taking over what NASA has driven thus far, although the more I read into things apparently private companies have been used to toss satellites into space – both their own and for government agencies that don’t have the means themselves – for a while, so hopefully this will still somehow turn into a step in the right direction and the end result will be more space stuff coupled with the assumptions that private entities should be able to simply do things faster and cheaper than our government has in the past. I’m already finding a lot of really interesting info on SpaceX’s website and they seem pretty enthused about the whole project, so I suppose if this is the future of space flight and at least it means that we’ll still be doing something other than arguing about whether NASA is even a good investment, then I guess I just need to accept the past for what it is and instead learn to embrace the next step into the final frontier. 
Seriously, though – some of this stuff does look pretty freaking sweet. Maybe space tourism actually is closer than we think!
So anyone who follows sciencey news and whatnot was probably already aware that today was the day for the Space Shuttle Discovery to take its commute up to Washington DC to find its new retirement castle at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. Sure, it’s kind of a bittersweet topic, but just for today let’s try to focus on the awesome and keep our fingers crossed that Florida’s Space Coast will still see its share of exploration long after the shuttle program is behind us…
Here’s a cool video of the shuttle and its carrier 747 in its final descent over the National Mall in DC:
Along with a nice, close-up view of the pair still on the ground from yesterday after NASA finalized securing the two for flight:
And finally, this one is thanks to National Geographic – click through the image below to pull up an incredibly detailed panoramic view of the entire orbiter’s cockpit, allowing you to zoom all the way in so that you can even check out the individual dials and buttons across the massive control center! Not sure how close guests will be able to get up to the shuttle once they get it situated at the museum, but I’m kinda guessing probably not this close…
Pretty awesome stuff – happy exploring!
You ever catch yourself taking a step back to just awe in how much information is available at your fingertips these days on pretty much any topic you could possibly imagine???
I just did a quick Google search to find the total # of shuttle missions for my last post, and soon thereafter I found myself wandering into this incredibly detailed Wikipedia entry going over the specifics of the Challenger disaster back in 1986.
A little more random clicking and I was looking at an article describing the heavily modified Boeing 747s that were used to transport the shuttle from its landing strip back to Cape Canaveral after a successful touchdown.
An even more devoted space geek could review the mission itineraries, crew rosters, and other specifics from every single one of those 135 missions by simply drilling down to whichever flight over the shuttle’s 30 year history they were interested in.
That’s tens of thousands of words just surrounding one particular facet of America’s space program, all easily searchable and readily available at the click of a button.
The old, bulky Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedias that took up three shelves in my bedroom probably had a couple of paragraphs on America’s space program, at best.
We live in some very cool times, indeed, my friends! 
This is pretty cool – the Smithsonian just published this awesome, in depth article that talks about the shuttles being decommissioned before going off to their respective museums, the more thorough tests that can now be conducted on them because there are no concerns about them having to go back up into space again, and even some insight as to things that NASA has learned over the years during less intensive reviews from the vehicles’ collective 135 flights! Really interesting read…
I have little doubt that I’m going to be just as horrible at this game as I have been at most of the new Angry Birds levels, but the physics look awesome and I’m sure that Rovio will still get my $2.99 just the same…
Love the NASA promotional tie-in, too!
Remember that link I shared a couple of weeks ago of the simply breathtaking satellite image of Earth by NASA?
Well, they just released a companion image of the opposite side of the planet…
The original this time is a whopping 11,500 x 11,500 pixels, so enjoy that if you’ve got a display that’s about 10-feet tall!
They’ve also got this pretty interesting pictorial of how an image like this is pieced together from all of the data that the satellite captures – for those curious about it from a more technical level, the image is actually a composite of six different passes over this area during an 8-hour period as the satellite orbited the globe. Very cool stuff!
Here I spent my senior year of high school beating on guitars and pretending that I had a chance of becoming a rock star, while these two kids from Toronto spent their weekends trying to figure out how to put a Lego man into space!
Well, 85,000 feet is still a long way…
I don’t care if it’s been done before – this is a really cool science project for a couple of kids to undertake … not only considering the lift and drop physics, but also factoring in weather, protecting their cameras from shock and the elements, foreign politics for realizing that they’d best not launch it when it might land over the US border for fear of getting hassled by the Dept. of Homeland Security! My favorite kind of science was always the hands-on stuff, and this just really appealed to me as something that would’ve been a hell of a lot of fun to brainstorm.
Here’s kind of a fun interview with the two friends about their process and backstory:
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1120808–toronto-teens-send-lego-man-on-a-balloon-odyssey-24-kilometres-high
And they’ve also got some amazing pictures up on Facebook from the balloon itself:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.288451477876098.87467.288247574563155&type=3
For anyone who needs an absolutely beautiful, new wallpaper for their desktop, might I suggest this satellite image taken earlier in the month by NASA using their latest Earth-monitoring satellite, the Suomi NPP research probe…
Resolutions go up to an incredible 8000×8000-pixel image for those of you with extra-large displays, so be sure to click through to NASA’s site for the best possible image! 
And I suppose while we’re on the subject, I also got a real kick out of this interview by BoingBoing with NASA astronaut Rex Walheim. Man, space is awesome, isn’t it?!
This short video of Woody watching Buzz liftoff on the Space Shuttle Discovery was ridiculously adorable!
In continuing the LEGO space discussion from a couple of weeks ago, how insanely cool is it that NASA is sending minifigs to Jupiter to help teach kids about science?!
Full Article Here: http://www.brothers-brick.com/2011/08/03/lego-minifigs-going-to-jupiter-on-nasas-juno-spacecraft-news/
Unfortunately I couldn’t find anything more on the design specifics, but I did think it was kind of interesting that the three figures were custom made out of aluminum for the journey – probably not for weight because I’d think that the metal would actually weigh more than plastic, but more so my guess would be some sort of heat issue, considering that the 1,740 million mile trip to Jupiter over five years would clock the probe’s speed in at just under 40,000 mph!!!
Kind of reminds me of Disney’s coordination with NASA a couple of years ago to send a Buzz Lightyear figurine to the International Space Station, where he conducted a series of “missions” that were available online to teach kids about space. I would’ve been all over this kind of stuff if it was going on when I was a kid, so I’ll be real curious to see what sorts of games and videos LEGO and NASA put together to help promote it.
