Boeing to Build Spacecraft at Shuttle Hangar

Associated Press
http://www.foxnews.com/

• Boeing
  Helping pave the road for the future of commercial spaceflight, Boeing is hard at work on the research and development of a new space capsule aimed at flying people to the International Space Station.

ORLANDO, Fla. –  Boeing is taking over one of NASA's old space shuttle hangars to build a new capsule that the company hopes will lift astronauts to orbit in four or five years.

More than 100 Boeing, NASA and state and federal officials gathered in the massive empty hangar -- Orbiting Processing Facility No. 3 -- for the announcement of the first-of-its-kind agreement allowing a private company to take over the government property.

The aerospace company expects to create 550 high-tech jobs at Kennedy Space Center over the next four years, 140 of them by the end of next year. That's less than 10 percent of the approximately 6,000 shuttle jobs lost in Florida over the past several years, but Gov. Rick Scott and other lawmakers at the ceremony said they expect additional hirings by the commercial space industry.

NASA is counting on companies like Boeing, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and others to ferry cargo and astronauts to and from the International Space Station in three to five years. Until then, the space agency will continue to shell out tens of millions of dollars per seat on Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

The Soyuz is the only way to get astronauts to and from the space station, ever since Atlantis returned from the final shuttle flight in July. A Soyuz rocket failure in August highlighted the risk of relying on just one type of craft.

During Monday's hourlong ceremony, lawmakers said the commercial industry is America's last hope, anytime soon, for U.S. astronauts to fly on U.S. spaceships from U.S. soil.

The Obama Administration requested $850 million in NASA's 2012 budget for the commercial space effort. The House slashed that to $312 million, but the Senate got it to $500 million, a reasonable figure given the nation's current economic situation, said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., a one-time space shuttle flier.

Boeing expects to start removing shuttle platforms and modifying the hangar to suit its own purposes in the next few months.

John Mulholland, vice president and program manager of commercial programs for Boeing, said it will be sad to see all the shuttle equipment go.

"The shuttle's such an iconic vehicle. These marvelous buildings have a lot of memory," said Mulholland, a former shuttle manager. "But you've always got to be looking forward. So while the shuttle is remarkable, we're looking forward to the next phase of space exploration."

Boeing wants to ferry astronauts not only to the International Space Station, but to a commercial scientific outpost planned for orbit by Bigelow Aerospace. Each capsule will hold seven people. A test flight is planned by 2015.

The agreement calls for Boeing to use the hangar for 15 years, with an option to renew for another five. Then it will be up to Boeing to demolish the building, on NASA's get-rid-of list. Boeing is not paying NASA any rent, officials stressed, but rather will cover all operation costs and utilities.

The hangar is 197 feet long, 1,650 feet wide and 95 feet high. It was last used to ready the shuttle Discovery for its final launch earlier this year.

NASA wants to turn the space center -- long a government-only local -- into a multi-user spaceport. Other buildings are also up for grabs. Space Florida, a state agency, is working on more deals.

Tourists, meanwhile, are about to gain entree into areas that were once strictly off limits.

On Tuesday, the Vehicle Assembly Building -- where fuel tanks and booster rockets were attached to space shuttles -- will open its doors to public bus tours for the first time since 1978.

Throughout the ceremony, NASA officials and others stressed that Kennedy Space Center is not going out of business.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the dream is alive," Nelson told the crowd.

NASA relinquished its shuttle fleet to concentrate on new rockets and spacecraft that will be able to carry astronauts beyond low Earth orbit. An asteroid is the first stop. Mars is the prize.

The stellar images of Atlantis racing past the sun taken by an amateur photographer in his back garden

• French photographer Thierry Legault had only 0.9 seconds to get his shot
• He managed to image the spacecraft four times as it travelled at 7.8km per second across the front of the sun

By Daily Mail Reporter
From: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
 
Just 20 minutes before re-entering Earth's atmosphere, these amazing images show the Atlantis space shuttle as it hurtles across the face of the sun.

But they weren't taken by Nasa, nor by a professional astronomer using multi-million pound equipment.

Instead, the photos, clearly showing the tiny silhouetted outline of the shuttle in front of the sun, were captured by an amateur photographer standing in his back garden.

Even more incredibly, French photographer Thierry Legault had only 0.9 seconds to get his shot - but still managed to capture the spacecraft four times as it travelled at 7.8km per second.

Quick draw: The four photos that make up this composite image of Atlantis hurtling across the face of the sun were taken in less than 0.9 seconds

He attached a camera to a telescope trained on the sun - with a solar filter to help prevent its powerful rays destroying the equipment.

Mr Legault sat patiently waiting for over an hour, readying himself to capture the image in the Emden area of Germany on July 21.

The 49-year-old engineer said: 'What you see in the photos is the Atlantis space ship passing in front of the sun, therefore you see just a silhouette.


'Good transits last less than one second, and the best ones maybe less than half a second.


'It is a kind of game or challenge and the pleasure and the adrenalin remain the same each time.'

French photographer Thierry Legault managed to capture the spacecraft four times as it travelled at 7.8km per second

This composite image was taken on July 15 and shows Atlantis docked at the International Space Station as it passes in front of the sun

Enthusiast Thierry Legault point his camera to the skies

The amateur astronomer - originally from Paris - began taking solar transit pictures in 2006, and has gone on to capture over a dozen since.


He followed Atlantis' mission closely, also snapping pictures of it as it docked at the International Space Station on July 15 - and then again as it departed on July 19.


Mr Legault added: 'The main difficulty is finding a good location to photograph the transit. You need a quiet, accessible place in the countryside, without trees, big roads and private properties.

'But the most difficult part is the weather. In western Europe, especially northern countries, it changes often and is not reliable, even in summer.


'Without a clear day you cannot that you get the picture.'

The Frenchman uses a radio-synchronised watch to make sure he knows exactly what time - down to the second - the shuttle will pass across the sun.


But despite his precision planning, he admitted he never knows if he has captured it until afterwards.


He said: 'I never know in real time if the shooting has been successful, because during shooting I look at my watch, not through the camera.


'So it is only when I browse the images on the camera screen that I can relax knowing I have captured it.'

Touch down: Atlantis lands at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, bringing Nasa's 30-year shuttle programme to an end

From: http://www.space.com/

The space shuttles Endeavour and Discovery cross paths as they roll to new facilities at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Aug. 11, 2011. CREDIT: NASA KSC View full size image

Two NASA space shuttles, each on the road to retirement, posed nose-to-nose Thursday (Aug. 11) while switching places at the space agency's Florida spaceport.

To stage the maneuver, NASA rolled Discovery out of the giant Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and moved it to a hangar-like building called the Orbiter Processing Facility-1, or OPF-1. Meanwhile, the shuttle Endeavour (which was already inside the hangar) was moved out and over to the massive VAB.

"Endeavour and Discovery switched locations — a shuttle shuffle," Kennedy Space Center spokesman Allard Beutel told SPACE.com. "It's just a storage thing, is what it comes down to — we have three shuttles and two locations." [Images: Two Shuttles Meet Nose to Nose]

When the two spacecraft passed one another on the same road, space shuttle shutterbugs went wild. The result: Never-before-seen photos of two-thirds of NASA's shuttle fleet in the same place at the same time.

"We've never had two shuttles pass each other to go to two separate locations," Beutel said. "This was the first time we've ever done this."

The two space shuttles, along with their sibling Atlantis, are being readied for retired life at museums now that NASA has finished flying the orbiters.

At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, space shuttles Discovery and Endeavour part company outside Orbiter Processing Facility-3 (OPF-3) where they paused for a unique "nose-to-nose" photo opportunity.
CREDIT: NASA/Frankie Martin

View full size image

Thursday's double-shuttle move will allow technicians to work on Discovery inside the OPF-1 in preparation for shipping it to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center outside Washington, D.C., around April 2012.

Work is also ongoing inside the nearby Orbiter Processing Facility-2, where Atlantis is being prepped for its retirement home at the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Center, down the road.

Atlantis was the last shuttle to fly; it landed July 21, finishing the 135th and final mission of the 30-year space shuttle program. Atlantis is due to travel almost seven miles to the Visitors Center in early 2013.

For the time being, Endeavour will rest dormant inside the VAB, which was where NASA stacked orbiters with their external tanks and solid rocket boosters in preparation for launch. Sometime next summer Endeavour will travel across the country atop a special Boeing 747 jet to the California Science Center in Los Angeles, where it will live out its days.

NASA named the three recipients of the flown shuttles earlier this year, crushing the hopes of about 20 other museums that had lobbied to host an orbiter. New York's Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum will also get a shuttle, the test vehicle Enterprise (currently housed at the Smithsonian), which never made it to space.

Before Discovery, Endeavour and Atlantis can be put on display, they must be processed to remove all hazardous parts and materials, especially any residual rocket fuel lingering in the Forward Reaction Control System and the Orbital Maneuvering Systems Engines.

Those systems have been removed and sent to the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico for intensive cleaning. Once they are safe, they'll be shipped back and reinstalled on the orbiters before they are sent to museums.

"The entire system is completely cleaned out so there's not even a modicum of toxic chemicals left, so 20 years from now, someone standing under a shuttle doesn't get dripped on," Beutel said.

Atlantis lands to end space shuttle era

Click here for full gallery: http://news.yahoo.com/photos/end-of-an-era-1311204679-slideshow/  

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Atlantis and four astronauts returned from the International Space Station in triumph Thursday, bringing an end to NASA's 30-year shuttle journey with one last, rousing touchdown that drew cheers and tears.

A record crowd of 2,000 gathered near the landing strip, thousands more packed Kennedy Space Center and countless others watched from afar as NASA's longest-running spaceflight program came to a close.

"After serving the world for over 30 years, the space shuttle's earned its place in history. And it's come to a final stop," commander Christopher Ferguson radioed after Atlantis glided through the ghostly twilight and landed on the runway.

"Job well done, America," replied Mission Control.

With the shuttle's end, it will be another three to five years at best before Americans are launched again from U.S. soil, with private companies gearing up to seize the Earth-to-orbit-and-back baton from NASA.

The long-term future for American space exploration is just as hazy, a huge concern for many at NASA and all those losing their jobs because of the shuttle's end. Asteroids and Mars are the destinations of choice, yet NASA has yet to settle on a rocket design to get astronauts there.

Thursday, though, belonged to Atlantis and its crew: Ferguson, co-pilot Douglas Hurley, Rex Walheim and Sandra Magnus, who completed a successful space station resupply mission.

Atlantis' main landing gears touched down at 5:57 a.m. sharp, with "wheels stop" less than a minute later.

"The space shuttle has changed the way we view the world and it's changed the way we view our universe," Ferguson radioed from Atlantis. "There's a lot of emotion today, but one thing's indisputable. America's not going to stop exploring.

"Thank you Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Endeavour and our ship Atlantis. Thank you for protecting us and bringing this program to such a fitting end."

The astronauts' families and friends, as well as shuttle managers and NASA brass, were near the runway to welcome Atlantis home. Difficult to see in the darkness, Atlantis was greeted with cheers, whistles and shouts. Soon, the sun was up and provided, finally, a splendid view. Within an hour, Ferguson and his crew were out on the runway and swarmed by well-wishers.

"The things that we've done have set us up for exploration of the future," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden Jr., a former shuttle commander. "But I don't want to talk about that right now. I just want to salute this crew, welcome them home."

Nine-hundred miles away, flight director Tony Ceccacci, who presided over Atlantis' safe return, choked up while signing off from shuttle Mission Control in Houston.

"The work done in this room, in this building, will never again be duplicated," he told his team of flight controllers.

At those words, dozens of past and present flight controllers quickly streamed into the room, embracing one another, wiping their eyes and snapping pictures.

NASA's five space shuttles launched, saved and revitalized the Hubble Space Telescope; built the space station, the world's largest orbiting structure; and opened the final frontier to women, minorities, schoolteachers, even a prince. The first American to orbit the Earth, John Glenn, became the oldest person ever in space, thanks to the shuttle. He was 77 at the time; he turned 90 this week.

Born with Columbia in 1981, it was NASA's longest-running space exploration program.

"I haven't cried yet, but it is extremely emotional," said Karl Ronstrom, a photographer who helps with an astronaut scholarship fund. He witnessed the first shuttle launch as a teenager and watched the last shuttle landing as a middle-aged man.

It was truly a homecoming for Atlantis, which first soared in 1985. The next-to-youngest in NASA's fleet will remain at Kennedy Space Center as a museum display.

This grand finale came 50 years to the day that Gus Grissom became the second American in space, just a half-year ahead of Glenn.

Atlantis — the last of NASA's three surviving shuttles to retire — performed as admirably during descent as it did throughout the 13-day flight. A full year's worth of food and other supplies were dropped off at the space station, just in case the upcoming commercial deliveries get delayed. The international partners — Russia, Europe, Japan — will carry the load in the meantime.

It was the 135th mission for the space shuttle fleet, which altogether flew 542 million miles and circled Earth more than 21,150 times over the past three decades. The five shuttles carried 355 people from 16 countries and, altogether, spent 1,333 days in space — almost four years.

Two of the shuttles — Challenger and Columbia — were destroyed, one at launch, the other during the ride home. Fourteen lives were lost. Yet each time, the shuttle program persevered and came back to fly again.

The decision to cease shuttle flight was made seven years ago, barely a year after the Columbia tragedy. President Barack Obama nixed President George W. Bush's lunar goals, however, opting instead for astronaut expeditions to an asteroid and Mars.

Last-ditch appeals to keep shuttles flying by such NASA legends as Apollo 11's Neil Armstrong and Mission Control founder Christopher Kraft landed flat.

It comes down to money.

NASA is sacrificing the shuttles, according to the program manager, so it can get out of low-Earth orbit and get to points beyond. The first stop under Obama's plan is an asteroid by 2025; next comes Mars in the mid-2030s.

Private companies have been tapped to take over cargo hauls and astronaut rides to the space station, which is expected to carry on for at least another decade. The first commercial supply run is expected late this year, with Space Exploration Technologies Corp. launching its own rocket and spacecraft from Cape Canaveral.

None of these private spacecraft, however, will have the hauling capability of NASA's shuttles; their payload bays stretch 60 feet long and 15 feet across, and hoisted megaton observatories like Hubble. Much of the nearly 1 million pounds of space station was carried to orbit by space shuttles.

Astronaut trips by the commercial competitors will take years to achieve.

SpaceX maintains it can get people to the space station within three years of getting the all-clear from NASA. Station managers expect it to be more like five years. Some skeptics say it could be 10 years before Americans are launched again from U.S. soil.

An American flag that flew on the first shuttle flight and returned to orbit aboard Atlantis on July 8, is now at the space station. The first company to get astronauts there will claim the flag as a prize.

Until then, NASA astronauts will continue to hitch rides to the space station on Russian Soyuz spacecraft — for tens of millions of dollars per seat.

After months of decommissioning, Atlantis will be placed on public display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex. Discovery, the first to retire in March, will head to a Smithsonian hangar in Virginia. Endeavour, which returned from the space station on June 1, will go to the California Science Center in Los Angeles.

Ferguson said the space shuttles will long continue to inspire.

"I want that picture of a young 6-year-old boy looking up at a space shuttle in a museum and saying, 'Daddy, I want to do something like that when I grow up.' "

Video link: http://news.yahoo.com/video/skyworldnews-14898227/shuttle-heading-home-for-the-last-time-25999590.html

___

AP writers Mike Schneider at Cape Canaveral and Seth Borenstein in Houston contributed to this report.

___

Online:

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle

7 Awesome Images That Will Make You Mourn The Space Shuttle

From:  http://www.cracked.com/

Last week marked the final official mission of the Space Shuttle. It's over: No more manned space missions on the agenda. As of now, America is pursuing a "flexible path" space-flight program, which essentially means we have nothing. They'll say the program died because of funding cuts and age, but that's not the whole story. Astronauts and the Space Shuttle used to reign as the unquestionable rulers of badass, but then somewhere along the line, cultural opinion shifted, and somehow wrapping a man in a giant metal bullet and firing him into the face of the void became thought of as stuffy and boring. The space program didn't die because of budgetary concerns; it died because we forgot how goddamn awesome it was. And that's something we had no excuse for doing, as these images will prove:

#7. Burn Down the Sky

This is the Saturn V rocket, carrying the Apollo 11 moon mission:

This is the Discovery launch:

This is the Athena II:

These images bring up an important question: At what point did we forget that the Space Shuttle was, essentially, a program that strapped human beings to an explosion and tried to stab through the sky with fire and math? How jaded do we have to be to lose collective interest in that? We celebrate the 4th of July every year, all across the nation. If explosions are that important to us, why don't we just channel a third of our yearly fireworks budget into one big bastard of a shot -- one mad, screaming, man-made asteroid hurled right back up into the face of nature, just to prove to the bitch that she doesn't have a lock on that kind of thing?

The Endeavour, mankind's polite rebuttal to the meteor strike.

#6. What Void?

With most photographs being taken in the contextless void, it's easy to forget that astronauts are just human beings wrapped up in fancy clothes, floating miles up in the air, surrounded on all sides by a lethal nothing. And then you see an image like this:

An image that really drives home the fact that these are people -- tiny, fragile beings that die if they swallow a pretzel wrong or slip in the shower -- and they're existing so far removed from the planet they could be saying, "Oh excuse me, New Zealand, I didn't see you there."
Space is a vast and frightening thing; it is an extreme and murderous absence; it's the closest physical metaphor for the disturbing unknowns that follow death; space is a villain from a children's book -- it's the Nothing from The NeverEnding Story. And now, here's Bruce McCandless, an astronaut on the Challenger, taking the first untethered spacewalk.

He had no ties to any earthly bond whatsoever, he was hundreds of miles beyond the point where the sky gives up, and he said, "No, thank you," to a lifeline, then went for a bit of a constitutional ... into the abyss.

#5. Battle Tanks are GO!

Remember those famous pictures of the Mars rovers, where they looked like tiny, plastic, chintzy little toys?

Well, this is what the new model, Curiosity, looks like:

It looks like something that should be laying siege to G.I. Joe Headquarters. It looks like it's about to call Optimus Prime a pussy and then kill John Connor for good this time.
The NASA PR campaigns showed us the rover looking tiny, flat, kind of bland, and nobody cared. No matter how crazy awesome it was that we were playing RC cars on Mars, the public didn't have a catchy visual, so everybody wrote it off as more dry science stuff. But look at that thing again: Every kid in the world needs a toy version of that, and they need it right now, because that's how kids need everything. Release a scaled down RC car of Curiosity, call it something like "CrushStomper," slap a couple of ads up on episodes of Bakugan, and there you go: You've got NASA funded for the next 10 years.

#4. He's Got the Whole World ... in His Face.

Odds are you're at work right now, reading this instead of collating or conglomerating or whatever adults with real jobs are supposed to do. Also, odds are your cell phone has a camera in it. So let's perform a quick social experiment: Fire it up, and take a self-portrait of you just doing your job, right now.
How'd that picture turn out?
Does that gripping image of you making crude pixel-tits in Excel fill onlookers with awe and wonder? Does that photograph of you quietly mourning the death of the last Red Bull capture the insanity, beauty and existential terror of mankind's progress?
No?
Funny, because when Clay Anderson, flight engineer for Expedition 15 tried this same experiment at his job ...

... it totally did all of those things like a motherfucker.

 

 

#3. Thrust Diamonds

That's the engine of an SR-71 Blackbird being tested, but you can be forgiven if you panicked just now and slapped at the button that calls James Bond into your office. (Also, hey, thanks for reading, Q! Big fan.) The shapes in that Death Ray up there aren't tricks of the camera, either -- they're called Thrust Diamonds, and to NASA, that shit ain't even a thing.

Brother can't take a dump up in NASA without firing off some Thrust Diamonds.

#2. The Crawler-Transporters

If you're the kind of person that skips right to the moneyshot when watching porn, you've probably only seen the actual take-off portion of a shuttle launch. And hey, if a missile being fired into the throat of the unknown armed with a warhead of "dudes who just don't give a fuck" doesn't impress you, surely nothing else about the launch process will.
How about the world's largest tank?

The machine that brings the shuttle to the launchpad is called a crawler-transporter, and it's the largest self-powered land vehicle in the world. They're twin mobile platforms weighing 3,000-tons a piece, 131-feet-long by 114-feet-wide, driven by a crew of 30, and powered by four 1,400 (not a typo) horsepower engines, one on each corner. That big, fuck-all structure holding the shuttle up there? Here it is cruising down the highway.

For scale, here it is next to a human being:

It's like taking an oil rig out for a spin.
It costs the USA $1 billion more than NASA's entire budget to provide air conditioning for the Armed Forces in the Middle East. Clearly, our national priorities are skewed towards conflict. That's kind of messed up, but OK, fine: Objectively, we know the crawler-transporter isn't armed or armored, but next time we start a war, let's do it by driving Hans and Franz up there (their actual names, by the way) right into the other guys' capital. I promise you, that war would be won in an afternoon.
I mean, would you shoot at it?

#1. The Space Shuttle is Metal as F*ck

Here's the Space Shuttle doing its best impression of a Dio album cover.

Large version.
This isn't some lucky fluke shot, either. Lightning loves itself some Shuttle. Here's another:

Large version.
Jesus Christ. That's clearly the tower of some evil techno-wizard.

Holy shit. That's the picture you'd see on the real estate brochure for God's house. Here's another angle:

Large version.
Somewhere, there's a big-haired anime character with a disproportionately large sword who's trying to shut down the shield reactors so he can get in there.
***
All I've really done here is (hopefully) prove that the Space Shuttle was badass, but I'm an adult now, and I understand that we can't keep funding something just because it's bitchin'. That's not how budgets work; there's no spreadsheet column for "badical." We didn't fund these programs to start with because they were cool; it was because we had to get to space before the Russians, and because we had to establish a sense of national identity in a conflicted period in our nation's history. In a nutshell, we went into space because nothing brings people together like shoving something in somebody else's face.
So in the interest of that: I heard Europe talking the other day, America, and I mean -- I don't want to start anything here, so you didn't hear it from me -- but they were saying you don't go into space anymore because you're scared. Then they said that Italy was a much bigger landwang than Florida, and Africa made some crack about how the Gulf of Mexico must be cold this time of the year, and then all the other continents laughed.
Are you really gonna take that?

Space Shuttle Discovery - 360VR Images

http://360vr.com/2011/06/22-discovery-flight-deck-opf_6236/index.html
Space Shuttle Discovery's flight deck during decommissioning in the Orbiter Processing Facility
Try to find launch button

Father and Son: Pictured at the launch of both STS-1 and STS-135

From: http://www.flickr.com/

Father and Son: STS-1 and STS-135

The picture we waited 30 years to complete. (hi reddit!)

Two iPhones to fly on last space shuttle mission

From: http://www.electronista.com/

First iPhone in space will test guidance software

The final shuttle mission will be a first for the iPhone. When Atlantis flies to the International Space Station this summer it will carry two iPhones to test an app, SpaceLab for iOS from Odyssey Space Research. The Houston company makes spacecraft guidance software. When the iPhone 4 came out, the company's programmers realized it could be used for a space-based experiment to test a vehicle's positioning and orientation with the smartphone's new internal gyroscope, camera, and other sensors.

Odyssey CEO Brian Rishikof is fairly certain that these will be the first iPhones in space.

Astronauts will use the two iPhones in four experiments. The "limb tracker" makes an altitude estimate using a picture of the curved edge of the Earth. A sensor calibration test uses the iPhone's camera and other sensors to adjust the gyroscope and accelerometers. A spatial recognition test will attempt to match pictures of the earth with a database of wireframe images of national borders. Finally, the iPhone will be used to test for the effects of radiation on computers by checking for changes to single bits in the phones' memory.

The company emphasized that all of their experiments were being conducted and paid for as private research. The iPhones will not be used for navigation or any other NASA mission.

The public version of the app sells for $1. Rishikof noted that most iPhone users do not have access to space travel, so some of the features will be simulated.

The phones and the shuttle Atlantis are scheduled for launch on STS-135, tentatively set for July 8. This will be the last flight into space for Atlantis and the last mission for the space shuttle program. [via Venture Beat]

pace Shuttle and Space Station Photographed Together: APOD June 8th 2011

from: http://apod.nasa.gov/

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2011 June 8
Space Shuttle and Space Station Photographed Together
Credit: NASA  Explanation: How was this picture taken? Usually, pictures of the shuttle, taken from space, are snapped from the space station. Commonly, pictures of the space station are snapped from the shuttle. How, then, can there be a picture of both the shuttle and the station together, taken from space? The answer is that during the Space Shuttle Endeavour's last trip to the International Space Station two weeks ago, a supply ship departed the station with astronauts that captured a series of rare views. The supply ship was the Russian Soyuz TMA-20 which landed in Kazakhstan later that day. The above spectacular image well captures the relative sizes of the station and docked shuttle. Far below, clouds of Earth are seen above a blue sea. The next and last launch of a US space shuttle is scheduled for early July.

William Shatner Helps Us Say Goodbye to the Space Shuttle

From: http://furiousfanboys.com/

There are only two Space Shuttle missions left. Endeavor goes up later this month, and Atlantis launches her final mission (and the final Space Shuttle launch ever) on June 28th. As space buffs, it’s pretty sad to be saying goodbye to the shuttle program. But who better to help us say goodbye than Captain Kirk himself? NASA has released a fourteen-minute video narrated by William Shatner that gives a brief history of the shuttle program, and showing what goes into a shuttle launch and it’s described as only Shatner can. Check it out.

NASA employees make a human spaceship in the Kennedy Center parking lot

by NASAKennedy

Employees at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla., took a few moments to assemble for a historic aerial photo Friday outside Kennedy's Vehicle Assembly Building. Thousands of workers stood side-by-side to form an outline of a space shuttle. The event was organized in honor of the Space Shuttle Program's 30-year legacy.



If a recognizable person appears in this video, use for commercial purposes may infringe a right of privacy or publicity. It may not be used to state or imply the endorsement by NASA employees of a commercial product, process or service, or used in any other manner that might mislead. Accordingly, it is requested that if this video is used in advertising and other commercial promotion, layout and copy be submitted to NASA prior to release.

Discovery Leaving Space Station for the Last Time [500pics]

aolnews.com — Discovery's astronauts got a special greeting Monday morning in advance of their departure from the International Space Station. Actor William Shatner, who played Capt. Kirk on the original "Star Trek" TV series, paid tribute to space shuttle Discovery's voyages over the decades. He said the shuttle has boldly gone and done what no spacecraft has done before.
 

Space Shuttle Discovery

Click Above to Launch 500 Pic Gallery

Space shuttle Discovery docks with International Space Station for the last time

By Daily Mail Reporter

From: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

Space shuttle Discovery has docked at the International Space Station on its final visit before becoming a museum.


The shuttle, on its final voyage, will spend a week at the orbiting outpost and has delivered supplies and the first humanoid robot to fly in space.

A spacewalk is currently taking place at the ISS as two of Discovery's visiting crew float outside to move a broken ammonia pump and install an extension cable, among other chores.

Incoming: The shadow covering Discovery, in this image taken by astronaut Paolo Nespoli, was made by the International Space Station as the shuttle prepared to dock yesterday morning

Enlarge  

Last mission: On its final voyage, Discovery will spend a week at the orbiting outpost

Discovery's docking took longer than usual because of a slight misalignment between the shuttle and the station which meant the hatches didn't open

Discovery should have made the flight in November, but was grounded by fuel tank cracks and only took off on Thursday with two seconds to spare after it was held up by computer errors.

Altogether, there are 12 people on board the spacecraft, representing the U.S., Russia and Italy.

Four of the five major partners currently also have vessels docked there, including cargo ships from Japan and Europe.


The docking took longer than usual because of a slight misalignment between the shuttle and the station, which means the hatches did not open.

The station's commander, Scott Kelly, shook hands with shuttle commander Steven Lindsey as they landed.

Astronauts have now installed a platform holding a spare radiator for the station, which was carried aboard the shuttle.

Enlarge  

Making history: Discovery, the oldest of the U.S. shuttles, only took off with two seconds to spare after computer problems

The robot Discovery carried - Robonaut 2 or R2 for short - will remain at the space station, where it is hoped it will eventually serve as an astronaut assistant

Docked: Discovery has delivered supplies and the first humanoid robot to fly in space

Before the landing, Discovery performed a 360 degree back-flip so space station cameras could capture any signs of launch damage.

At least four pieces of debris broke off the fuel tank during lift-off and a strip of insulating foam struck its belly.

Nasa managers do not believe the shuttle was damaged because the foam came off late in the launch.

As a precaution, every shuttle crew since the 2003 Columbia disaster has had to thoroughly check for possible damage to thermal shielding.

Carrying out repairs: Discovery astronaut Steve Bowen, attached to the end of a robotic arm, makes a spacewalk out of the ISS today

Nearly there: Discovery commander Steve Lindsey and pilot Eric Boe on board the shuttle's forward flight deck

Last time: Astronauts Steve Bowen and Nicole Stott on board the shuttle on its final voyage. It will become a museum after returning to Earth

Discovery - the first to perform the manoeuvre in 2005 - is the first in the fleet to be retired this year.

Endeavour and then Atlantis will close out the 30-year shuttle programme later this year.
Discovery is the oldest of the three and the most travelled, with 143million miles logged over 39 flights and 26 years.

The robot it carried - Robonaut 2 or R2 for short - will remain at the space station, where it is hoped it will eventually serve as an astronaut assistant.

A Twitter update from the robot, posted by a human at mission control, said: 'We're here! Home Sweet Home!'

En route: Astronauts inside Discovery control the shuttle's Remote Manipulator System/Orbiter Boom Sensor System. Equipped with special cameras, it inspects the shuttle's thermal tile system

Space Shuttle Discovery's Final Launch

From: http://www.theatlantic.com/

Space Shuttle Discovery is towed from the shuttle landing facility to the orbiter processing facility at Kennedy Space Center on April 20, 2010.

(Matt Stroshane/Getty Images)

At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a space shuttle main engine secured on a Hyster forklift is installed in space shuttle Discovery in Orbiter Processing Facility-3. Three main engines, weighing 7,000 pounds each, will be installed for the STS-133 mission to the International Space Station. Engines are inspected and maintained in the nearby Space Shuttle Main Engine Processing Facility before installation. (NASA/Jack Pfaller) 

At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, space shuttle Discovery begins its nighttime trek, known as "rollout," from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39A. It will take the shuttle, attached to its external fuel tank, twin solid rocket boosters and mobile launcher platform, about six hours to complete the move atop a crawler-transporter. (NASA/Frankie Martin) 

Click here for the Entire Gallery of the FINAL LAUNCH OF THE DISCOVERY SPACE SHUTTLE

Challenger Disaster, 25 Years Later: The Five Most Chilling Moments

NASA

By Richard Connelly

From http://blogs.houstonpress.com/

Today is the 25th anniversary of the Challenger disaster, a news event that remains so vivid -- especially to Houstonians -- that most everyone can remember where they were when they learned of it or when they first saw a replay of that launch, embedded above.

That day and its aftermath triggered a wide range of emotions, from shock to anger to inspiration. There were five moments, though, that were chilling.

5. "Obviously a major malfunction."

For long seconds after the fireball erupted, and cameras simply showed the smoky trails, it was perhaps possible for people who paid no attention to the space program to think they'd seen the kind of booster separation that happens on launches. But stunned spokesman Steve Nesbitt, uttering the obvious because there was little else to say, cut off any such hope.

4. What? Cold Affects an O-Ring?

Richard Feynman was the thinking man's Carl Sagan, someone who could break down scientific concepts into easily digested information. He did it most memorably in the hearings investigating the disaster, when he showed that cold conditions can affect the o-rings that should never, ever be affected in that manner.

After he did, it was hard not to think, "Isn't that something NASA should have considered?"





3. Did they live for long on the way down?

Seeing the explosion (which wasn't technically an explosion, of course) offered only one, extremely slight, positive thought: At least they never knew what hit them.

Wrong, as it turns out. Evidence began to seep out eventually that the crew cabin had been thrown away from the flames, and that some safety procedures had been started. That brought out the ghouls -- a famous hoax transcript was believed to be true by some ("God -- the water! We're dead -- (screams in background)") -- but the actual evidence was just as eerie. Some emergency oxygen kits had been started and used. And safety switches had been toggled even though they had guards that meant a human -- and not the force of the explosion -- had moved them.

Most experts believe the astronauts survived, but almost immediately lost consciousness due to a lack of cabin pressure. A few disagree.

2. The plumes are seen


After the event, investigators studied every inch of video of the takeoff, examining it frame by frame for evidence of what happened. Soon enough they saw something: A plume of flame opening up on the rocket, where no plume should be. Knowing what happened, the plume was like the first sign of impending catastrophe.



1. "Slipped the surly bonds of earth..."

We've never been the biggest fans of speechwriter Peggy Noonan's brand of treacle, but she -- and Ronald Reagan -- shone brilliantly on the day of the disaster. Reagan spoke from the Oval Office, paying tribute and assuring the space program would go on. He tended by memorably summoning up memories of the final few happy moments before the explosion when he quoted aviation poet John Magee:

The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God."