NASA’s Star Wars Stunt, IGN“In honor of the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, NASA will launch Luke Skywalker’s original Jedi lightsaber into space along with the crew of the space shuttle Discovery. The launch is slated for October.”

Space program lunacy, opinion, LA Times“… Indeed, one of the most popular complaints about space exploration is that it wastes billions of dollars that could be better spent on problems here. With global warming an increasing threat, NASA has a chance to prove what it has long asserted – that a space program provides practical benefits to Earth-bound humanoids.”Let’s mine the blamed thing, opinion, Homer Hickam, LA Times“So here we […]

Google Hires Former NASA Astronaut, Wired“Ed Lu, who flew on two Shuttle flights and spent 6 months on the International Space Station after the Columbia disaster, will be moving to balmy California to start his next mission at Google.”

NASA at 50: Looking for That Second Wind, SpaceRef“Everyday life” is more than just what “spin offs” may (or may not) have had an origin somewhere, decades ago, in some research NASA did for another reason. “Everyday life” has to do with what you think about in the shower, on the way to work, and when you put your kids to bed.What am I getting at? At the heart of […]

Jerry Hammack helped designed vehicles for space program, Obiturary, Houston Chronicle“Jerome “Jerry” Hammack, an aeronautical engineer and member of the team that founded what is now the Johnson Space Center, died Monday of cancer. He was 85. Hammack also was associated with the design of the space capsule used in Project Mercury, NASA’s first manned space program. He later had similar duties in the Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and shuttle projects.”

NASA GSFC Solicitation: Night Sky Network Outreach Toolkit“NASA/GSFC intends to purchase the services from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, under the authority of FAR 13.106-1(b)(1) for the acquisition of supplies or services reasonably available from one source. This vendor is the only organization that creates outreach kits for amateur astronomy clubs located across the country.”Night Sky Network, Astronomical Society of the Pacific“Amateur astronomy clubs dedicated to sharing astronomy with […]

NASA GSFC Solicitation: Military and Aerospace FPGA Applications Conference Editor’s note: I just love these “extra consideration Items” – especially: “Government rate for hotel rooms for 2 nights prior to the conference and 2 nights later at a reduced room block level” …. “yogurt during the continental breakfast”. I can understand the extra night aspect – this way dozens of NASA civil servants and other attendees can show up early […]

Editor’s note:In order to display their Saturn V, the folks U.S. Space & Rocket Center (USSRC) in Huntsville are going to remove the star grain “mass dummy” located inside the Apollo Launch Escape System (LES) and discard it. According to a local source “The thing is so similar to the actual fuel, it shows up the same on a mass spectrometer.” These photos (below) show the motor (full of star […]

Magnetic gravity trick grows perfect crystals, NewScientist.com“One of the few scientific success stories of the International Space Station has been its use to grow large, pure crystals in microgravity (see Space station unlocks new world of crystals). Now scientists from the Netherlands and Japan have shown that a strong magnetic field can mimic the effects of microgravity when growing protein crystals. The new Earth-bound technique could provide a cheaper and […]

Ordinary Guys Send Picture-Taking Balloon 22.27 Miles High, Gizmodo“Behold the view from 117,597 feet, taken on August 11, 2007 by a camera hanging from a helium balloon launched by a group of guys in Alberta, Canada. Called the SABLE-3 (Southern Alberta Balloon Launch Experiment #3), it was packed with a Byonics MicroTrak 300 APRS tracking device, a Nikon Coolpix P2 digital camera set to snap one picture per minute, and […]