Just when you think NASA is finally getting back up on its feet again… Sheesh. Then some Klugscheißer (smart alec) 13-year-old German schoolboy comes along and double-checks their math (always a good idea, I think) and finds out that the Apophis asteroid does not in fact have a 1 in 45,000 chance of whacking our […]

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Attention Conspiracy theorists.
They caught two of the ships that caused part of that Middle East Cable outage, and it turns out it was not done by the CIA, or Mossad, or Iran, or Alqaeda.
Just some careless sailors.
There were four cable cuts at the time; this story refers to the FLAG cable between Oman and the […]

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On April 12, 1961, one of mankind’s greatest achievements occurred.
Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to travel into space, carried there on a Vostok rocket.
In those days, it was an embarrassment for the United states, and led to Kennedy’s aim for the US to be first on the moon. The ultimate result of […]

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Arthur C. Clarke, grandmaster of science fiction and a pioneering innovator in the field of space engineering, has died. Clarke was 90 years old, and died in his adopted home of Sri Lanka. His most popular works were science fiction pieces such as the novel “2001: A Space Odyssey”, but his total works numbered […]

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Unconfirmed reports are coming in that a group of mad and moderately drunken German scientists working at a place called the Innovationszentrum Wiesenbusch Gladbeck have not only succeeded in developing a refrigerator which has harnessed the sun’s energy to cool the little beer they seem to have left, the ammoniac-water absorption process they devised also suddenly […]

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1. Neil Armstrong takes “one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind” on the moon, in 1969 when Michelle Obama was 5 years old. 
2. That same year, Shirley Chisholm (D-NY) becomes the first black woman elected to Congress. 
3. Mark Spitz wins seven gold medals at the 1972 Summer Olympics Games in Munich, […]

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Almost seven years to the day Russian space station Mir was de-orbited and fell to Earth over the South Pacific Ocean in March 2001, the U.S. Navy will fire a missile at a failing spy satellite in an attempt to break it apart while it is still high above the atmosphere.
 
Known as USA 193, the […]

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Becoming the only astronaut ever in the 27 years of space shuttle history to be given a second chance to go on a spacewalk after being replaced for his first, now-veteran German spacewalker Hans Schlegel proudly confirms that “It’s great to be part of an international team.”

He and fellow spacewalker American Rex J. Walheim successfully […]

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I once worked in Winslow Arizona, where the main tourist attraction is a nearby meteor crater that they tout as the “best preserved meteor crater in the world”.
the photo is from their website, and if you ever get out there, consider a trip to the site.
It’s not as much fun as the Roswell museum, […]

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Like the Starship Enterprise in Star Trek, the Cassini is on a mission to map and explore space.  It’s sending back pictures–and now audio–of Saturn.
Wired has a good story on the Cassini mission, which is flying around Saturn–that’s the planet, not the car–and gathering data for NASA.
Moogs in outer space! Well, almost. NASA recently published […]

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Well now is your big chance. NASA announced today that it is pulling the financing from Rocketplane Kistler of Oklahoma City who were designing a new low orbit transport system, the technical jargon was the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services Project, or  COTS.
Apparently Rocketplane Kistler has repeatedly missed milestones in their design project and of the […]

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The image at the right is one of the notes Buzz Aldrin made for a broadcast from the moon during Apollo 11. The image and the text are found at Heritage Auction Galleries, Ha.com (link below.)
Apollo 11 crewman Buzz Aldrin copied a Bible verse and intended to read it during a planned broadcast from the […]

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Sounds like a hit song:
There’s a hole in the center of the universe
A hole in the center of the universe
A hole in the center of the universe,
And it chills the microwaves
But the news today is that scientists at the University of Minnesota discovered a huge area in the center of the universe that is…empty […]

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In the near future, the world’s elite will be taking their vacations in space. The first hotel in space is set to open in 2012, and reservations will be taken as early as next year. The hotel, named “Galactic Suite,” will come with a price tag that only about 40,000 people on earth can afford […]

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This week, a 55-year-old teacher will embark on a mission to the international space station on the shuttle Endeavour in an attempt to successfully send the first teacher into space. Barbara Morgan has been waiting for Tuesday’s mission her entire life. Back in 1985, she was chosen to be the back-up to teacher-in-space Christa McAuliffe […]

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News Item:
NASA to probe alchohol use
There is a policy within the Space Agency that prohibits drinking alchohol within a 12 hour time frame before a flight.  Officials are now investigating reports that on a couple of occassions some astronauts may have bent that rule by bending their elbows a bit more than they should have.
The […]

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NASA has been studying the presence of a unique type of cloud called “night shining” or “noctilucent” clouds. Since their discovery 120 years ago, these formations have been moving toward the equator from the polar regions for some unknown reason. Researchers believe they are a result of global warming.
NASA’s “Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere” […]

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NASA has announced that the launching of the Dawn spacecraft, which is preparing to explore two of the solar system’s largest asteroids, has been postponed again until September. The mission had first been delayed until July 15 because of the August launches of the space shuttle Endeavour and the Phoenix Mars lander. The launch was […]

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Apparently encouraged by the German high court’s decision to reject an opposition party’s call to stop Germany’s deployment of Tornado spy aircraft in Afghanistan (other countries use these aircraft as fighters), the Berlin government has hurried to launch its second SAR-Lupe spy satellite on a Russian rocket from a Russian launch site located somewhere on […]

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At roughly 9:50 PM eastern time, the Earth’s moon will rise low on the horizon, making it appear larger and closer than usual. Of course the moon in no larger, but according to Space.com senior science writer, Robert Roy Britt the eye is fooled because of the moon’s proximity to the horizon.
Britt’s report also includes […]

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Stargazers across the globe caught glimpses of the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle Atlantis racing through the sky early this week.
Atlantis (Mission STS-117) undocked from the ISS on Tuesday evening, and still remains close to the station. Space agencies reported that viewers should be able to see the two spacecraft traveling through the […]

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For years a certain loveable radio talk show host (whose talent is on loan from God) has said that it’s arrogant and presumptuous to think humanity has had any impact on the Earth’s temperature. It looks like he was right.
The argument that proponents of the man-based global warming theories present is so seductively simple that […]

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Well I am sure that some folks at NASA were beginning to think so yesterday,  when the main navigation computer system aboard the ISS crashed! Apparently it did the NASA version of a Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD).
So concerned were NASA about the situation they actually shut down some non essential equipment and put the […]

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2007 is the 200th Anniversary year of the discovery of the asteroid Vesta.
During the last couple of days of May and early in June, Vesta will “shine” at 5.4 magnitude in the night sky and will be visible to the human eye, using only binoculars. Its surface material is very bright and highly reflective (of the sun’s […]

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Dang. I may live to see commercial space flight after all.
An article by Spencer Reiss at Wired bangs the drum for the commercial space flight efforts of Burt Rutan and Richard Branson.
The major roadblock isn’t engineering — Rutan and his engineering company, Scaled Composites, are proven innovators. I would bet my youngest child that SpaceShipTwo […]

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The Galileo project, Europe’s five billion dollar satellite navigation system which isn’t quite working just yet but we’re almost there so halt die Klappe (shut up) and be patient already, finds itself “on a dead-end street,” says German Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee. Speaking on behalf of the EU, he also sees little hope left that […]

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Reports are coming in that today in the NASA Johnson Space Center (where Houston Mission Control is located), in Nassau Bay, Texas a gunman fatally shot a hostage and then shot himself in the head at approximately 5:00 p.m. today (April 20) more than three hours after barricading himself on the second floor of Building […]

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News Item:
Ballot initiative for private rocket complex passes
A little over a week ago, we made mention here of all the privateers looking toward outer space, in One Step Closer to Star Wars [linked below].  New Mexico voters are taking this space thing very seriously, having just approved a new tax to raise funds for a […]

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It’s 28° out there.Three days ago, we were running around up here in shorts and tank tops. Today (Wednesday, that is), it was snowing. Snowing. In fact, I just looked outside and it’s snowing as I type this. Lightly, probably won’t accumulate, but still.
When’s the “heating up” part of this global […]

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“While Friday’s vote was specific to the application for a .XXX domain name space, the Board Members’ vote signals their position as to whether they are comfortable with ICANN expanding its mission to become a regulator of online human behavior. By voting to turn down the .XXX application for public policy reasons, the Board indicated it will go beyond its technical mission of DNS coordination and seek to decide what ideas are allowed to be given a voice in the new domain name space. Unfortunately, it looks like it will be impossible for any idea that is politically or culturally controversial to be permitted a new domain name space by ICANN. ICANN is setting itself up as …”

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