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Barack Obama was eight years old when Neil Armstrong made his “one small step for Man” on the face of the Moon, and now as President, Obama has told NASA: “been there, done that.” Instead of aiming toward creation of a base on the Moon, as envisioned by his predecessor, President Obama wants to target deep space. “We’ve set a goal to let’s ultimately get to Mars. A good pit stop is an asteroid,” the President explained at a townhall meeting this week. “Let’s start stretching the boundaries

Should the space shuttle program be continued? Yes No Unsure

When the NASA space shuttle Atlantis lifts off, either today or on the make-up day of July 16, 2011, it will mark the END of an era in space flight. For 30 years, the NASA space shuttle program blazed a path for increased scientific interest in out space. Even with the tragic endings to both the Challenger and Columbia space shuttles, it did not discourage interest of space related exploration. Where should NASA go from here? NASA should look at with interest in working with private space-related development companies and also branch out into other science tech areas. Work also...

My little boy wants to be an astronaut. Or a beekeeper. He wants to go to space, but he likes honey, so, in the summer between kindergarten and the first-grade, he’s facing a dilemma. Realistically, of course, he will never be an astronaut. He wasn’t born in Russia or China. And for the foreseeable future, that’s where all the spacefarers will come from. As of today, America is out of the space business. We don’t make the Right Stuff anymore. I was born in 1959, and America landed on the moon for my 10th birthday. For all of my life,...

A high school buddy of mine is in town for a while and we're headed for the cape to watch tomrrow's launch, or get rained on! I've never watched a launch when I had a good camera, maybe I'll get lucky.If we get rained out I want to try for some shots in the wildlife refuge.

Well here it is- the LAST mission of the Space Transportation System, known as the Space Shuttle. This thread is dedicated to all the crews, the maintenance workers of NASA and the United Space Alliance, and the millions of fans of space exploration around the world. Launch is scheduled for 11:26 am EDT. At this point, there is a 30% chance of favorable weather for launch....but you never know.

2000x1330 pixels, 3000x1996 pixels. Via photo 22 at http://ChamorroBible.org/gpw/gpw-20051129.htm

Deorbit burn scheduled for 1:29am (weather permitting). Landing at Kennedy Space Center scheduled for 2:35am.

In 2007, a little known creature called a tardigrade became the first animal to survive exposure to space. It prevailed over sub-zero temperatures, unrelenting solar winds and an oxygen-deprived space vacuum. On Monday, this microscopic cosmonaut has once again hitched a ride into space on the Nasa shuttle Endeavour. Its mission: to help scientists understand more about how this so-called "hardiest animal on Earth" can survive for short periods off it. Tardigrades join other microscopic organisms selected to be part of a project into extreme survival. Shuttle Endeavour Endeavour climbs into the sky on Monday Project Biokis is sponsored by...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Representative Gabrielle Giffords arrived in Florida for the this morning’s planned launch of the space shuttle Endeavour that will be commanded by her husband, Mark Kelly. A posting on the congresswoman’s Facebook page said she flew in on a NASA jet yesterday afternoon and got a quick fly-by of Endeavour at the pad. The Democrat from Arizona arrived with the family of Endeavour pilot Gregory Johnson. The shuttle was being fueled last night, and the weather looks good for Endeavour’s 8:56 a.m. launch. An April launch try was delayed because of electrical problems. Giffords suffered a...

NASA abruptly called off space shuttle Endeavour's final launch Friday because of a puzzling heater failure in a critical power unit, disappointing huge crowds converging on the area for the afternoon liftoff. President Barack Obama and his family were planning to watch Endeavour blast off. It would have been the first time in NASA history that a sitting president and his family witnessed a launch. Already at Cape Canaveral for the liftoff was wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, wife of the shuttle's commander.

President Obama plans to bring his family to the launch of the space shuttle Endeavour on April 29 to see Rep. Gabrielle Giffords's husband lead six astronauts into space. Giffords wrote on Twitter: "We are very happy that Pres. Obama is coming to Mark's launch! This historic mission will be Endeavour's final flight." The Orlando Sentinel reports that Obama decided to attend for a few reasons, one of which was that he was going to be in the state already to speak at Miami Dade College's

The battle over those retired space shuttle orbiters is getting nasty. And personal. That's good news for the news business. The most recent combatants are New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, a liberal Democrat who is considered one of the leading "camera hogs" on Capitol Hil", and Texas Rep. Ted Poe, a conservative Republican who spent more time at the House microphone than any other lawmaker in 2010. This latest tiff started when Schumer had a one-word response to Texans (and their allies) who are pushing legislation to overturn NASA director Charles Bolden's decision to award New York City (and not...

Those words were not good news for those who worked at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. They may have been spoken in other space flights, but, the dilemma of Apollo 13 comes to mind as the most urgent. Once NASA launches a maned space flight from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, everything thereafter is controlled by “Houston”. Good news, America’s good news, bad news, Houston’s problem. We now have only two shuttle flights left in America’s space program. The shuttle Endeavor is scheduled to launch on April 29, and the shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to launch later this...

HOUSTON — A senator from New York said Texas should not mess with New York's shuttle. Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer said Friday that New York, not Houston, deserved a space shuttle. A Republican representative from Utah, Jason Chaffetz, is pushing a bill that would take the shuttle away from New York's Intrepid Museum and ship a shuttle to Houston. The representative called it common sense. Schumer said New York is a natural choice because that's where more people would see the shuttle. "I say to the people in Houston: When people all around the world - in London and Tokyo...

Congressman Ted Poe is demanding answers from NASA. The Texas Republican says he was shocked to hear that Houston was denied one of the four retired space shuttles. On Tuesday, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced Atlantis will go to Florida, Endeavour will be sent to California and Discovery was awarded to the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Washington Dulles International Airport. The prototype orbiter Enterprise, which was used for testing but never flew in space, will be sent to the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City. "NASA made a mistake," Poe said during a Sunday...

NASA: Instead of awarding our retired space fleet to museums, we should be awarding contracts to go to Mars and beyond. Once we triumphed over the vacuum of space. Now we face a vacuum of leadership. A nation whose world leadership was unquestioned once held its breath as an American spacecraft placed American astronauts on the surface of the moon. It was a triumph of exceptionalism that was officially laid to rest this week as a nation held its breath to see which museums our space shuttle fleet would be awarded to. In these difficult economic times and with a...

Disappointed Texans in Congress are threatening legislative action to block NASA's planned transfer of a retired shuttle orbiter from Florida's Kennedy Space Center to a riverside museum in New York City. The 16 lawmakers, led by Reps. Ted Poe, R-Humble, and Pete Olson, R-Sugar Land, want NASA to award a retired shuttle to Houston's Johnson Space Center. The lawmakers — 15 Republicans joined by Houston Democrat Gene Green — issued their threat in a letter to NASA administrator Charles Bolden. The Texas Republicans acted in the wake of Bolden's decision on Tuesday to allocate four retired shuttle orbiters for public...