NASA has never had a Space Shuttle

NASA has never had a Space Shuttle in orbit on Dec 31 or Jan 1 because they aren’t sure that the onboard computers can handle the year switch over.

• NASA
• Space Shuttle

Woo, NASA finally decides to fix the

Woo, NASA finally decides to fix the Hubble, repairs that will keep it working until at least 2013. “Scientists expect an upgraded Hubble to continue to make groundbreaking discoveries.”

• astronomy
• Hubble telescope
• NASA
• science
• space

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter recently snapped a picture

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter recently snapped a picture of the Opportunity rover perched on the rim of Victoria Crater. Opportunity drove more than 5 miles from its landing site to get there. High resolution photo here. Here’s where Opportunity is located on Mars.

• Mars
• marsrovers
• NASA
• photography

Space tourist Anousheh Ansari is Flickring photos

Space tourist Anousheh Ansari is Flickring photos from the International Space Station. NASA reportedly spent 250,000 man-hours building a module to upload snapshots from space via the Flickr API.

Update: That NASA man-hours stat is a joke, sorry. NASA is not that absurdly wasteful. I have no idea how she’s getting the photos on Flickr. Do they have web access on the ISS?

Update: Ansari called Larry Page today and reported that there’s no internet access on the ISS. Email is delivered in batches…so she’s either emailing them to Flickr or someone’s uploading them for her. BTW, the first kottke.org reader in space…could you give me a call when you get there? (thx, terrell)

Update: According to Ansari’s blog (from space!), email is sent from the ISS three times per day.

• anoushehansari
• Flickr
• NASA
• photography
• space
• weblogs

Yesterday, almost 30 years after it was launched,

Yesterday, almost 30 years after it was launched, the Voyager spacecraft crossed the 100 AU boundry, meaning it is 100 times farther from the Sun than the Earth is. The article is worth a read. (via sb)

• NASA
• science
• space
• voyager

Stardust Holiday is a blog written by

Stardust Holiday is a blog written by a woman who’s spending three months in bed as part of a NASA study. (via cyn-c)

• NASA
• science
• weblogs

Evidence of liquid water has been found

Evidence of liquid water has been found by Cassini on Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons and “the shiniest object in the solar system”.

• cassini
• NASA
• space

Google and NASA have announced plans to

Google and NASA have announced plans to collaborate on projects like “large-scale data management, massively distributed computing, bio-info-nano convergence, and encouragement of the entrepreneurial space industry”. In 6 months, Yahoo will announce a collaboration with the Russian Space Agency to launch original content into space. Microsoft will announce in a year that they’ve had space travel capabilities built into Office for years now but no one uses it…in two years time, they’ll completely reorg around manned missions to Mars.

• Google
• Microsoft
• NASA
• space
• Yahoo

Is PowerPoint responsible for the woes of

Is PowerPoint responsible for the woes of the Space Shuttle? Well, no, but it’s not helping any. “The deeper problem with the PowerPointing of America — the PowerPointing of the planet, actually — is that the program tends to flatten the most complex, subtle, even beautiful, ideas into tedious, bullet-pointed bureaucratese.”

• business
• Edward Tufte
• infovis
• Microsoft
• NASA
• Powerpoint
• software
• space
• Space Shuttle

Space Shuttle Discovery lands safely, thank goodness.

Space Shuttle Discovery lands safely, thank goodness.

• NASA
• space
• Space Shuttle

Fantastic must-read article slamming NASA with regard

Fantastic must-read article slamming NASA with regard to the Space Shuttle program. I’ve been following Maciej’s del.icio.us links about the Shuttle for weeks now and was wondering if he’d get around to writing it up. Worth the wait.

• exploration
• Maciej Ceglowski
• NASA
• space
• spacehshuttle

Google Moon: explore the Apollo landing sites

Google Moon: explore the Apollo landing sites in the Google Maps interface.

• Apollo
• Google
• Google Maps
• maps
• Moon
• NASA
• space

Space Shuttle launch scrubbed because of faulty fuel sensor

Space Shuttle launch scrubbed because of faulty fuel sensor.

• NASA
• space
• Space Shuttle

The Space Shuttle is set to return to space today

The Space Shuttle is set to return to space today. Looks like you can watch a live video stream of the launch onthe web.

• NASA
• space
• Space Shuttle

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will take the

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will take the first detailed photos of the Apollo landers/rovers/etc on the moon since 1972.

• Apollo
• Moon
• NASA
• photography
• space

Explanation of NASA’s launch countdown

Explanation of NASA’s launch countdown. T-20 minutes doesn’t necessarily mean there’s 20 minutes until launch.

• NASA
• space

NASA Commission says Space Shuttle still not

NASA Commission says Space Shuttle still not safe enough for flight.

• NASA
• space
• Space Shuttle

After being grounded for more than two

After being grounded for more than two years, the Space Shuttle is set to launch next month.

• NASA
• space
• Space Shuttle

Dammit, it looks like the Hubble is

Dammit, it looks like the Hubble is going to die after all.

• astronomy
• Hubble telescope
• NASA
• space

NASA is going to repair the Hubble

NASA is going to repair the Hubble instead of letting it die.

• astronomy
• Hubble telescope
• NASA
• space