Weird Facts That You Didn’t Know About E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, io9 “6) E.T. was Spielberg’s response to the “stalled space program.” That’s what Spielberg said in 1981, adding: “If the government won’t fund the space program, to allow people’s imagination to soar, then all I can do is make movies that bring space down to earth and make it more accessible to the imagination.” Keith’s note: Of course, E.T. was […]

Discovery’s Early February Launch Opportunity Delayed as Work Continues on External Tank “The Space Shuttle Program held its weekly Program Requirements Control Board (PRCB) meeting today to review progress on the continuing engineering investigation, testing and analysis regarding shuttle Discovery’s external fuel tank stringer crack issue. With the work remaining, the potential for additional modifications yet to be defined, and further reviews pending, the decision was made today to allow […]

Video: Ke$ha “We R Who We R” parody – “Astrobiology “Are we alone in the universe? Find out all about the search for extraterrestrial life in this educational parody of Ke$ha’s hit song, “We R Who We R.” Keith’s note: I suppose your reaction to this depends upon your taste in music, your age, etc. That said, I happen to think that this video is clever. It’s also rather contemporary […]

Keith’s 30 Nov note: As has happened before, NASA puts out advance notice of a provocative major discovery, media advisory and speculation goes into overdrive with titles of articles such as “Has NASA found life near Saturn?” based on a single, speculative blogger post. Calm down folks. According to Alexis Madrial, a senior editor at The Atantic (and used to write for Wired) posting on Twitter “I’m sad to quell […]

NASA’s Last Two Space Shuttle External Tanks Are Being Built at Michoud, Ken Kremer “The last two Space Shuttle External Tanks (ET’s) likely to be produced in history are entering their final closeout assembly operations at the NASA-owned Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) in New Orleans as the shuttle program draws ever closer to its looming retirement date, now reset to early 2011. These two final tanks are destined for the […]