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<p>The 25th mission in the Space Shuttle program, flown by the Challenger, ended tragically with the loss of its seven crew members and destruction of the vehicle when it exploded shortly after launch.</p> <p>Back row from left to right: Ellison Onizuka, mission specialist; Christa McAuliffe, payload specialist; Gregory Jarvis, payload specialist; and Judith Resnik, mission specialist.</p>

This week marks the thirty-eighth anniversary of the launch pad fire of Apollo 1, which took the lives of Astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee. In a grim irony, this same week also marks the nineteenth anniversary of the Challenger disaster, as well as the second anniversary of the loss of the space shuttle Columbia. Though memorials are certainly in order, a closer examination of the nature and cause of each catastrophe reveals much about the nation throughout the past four decades. Particularly in the wake of the Columbia tragedy and its ensuing investigations, disturbing trends in NASA...

The longest serving astronaut in history made his retirement plans official today. John W. Young, who has spent 42 years at NASA, plans to leave the space agency on Dec. 31. Young, who commanded the first shuttle mission and flew twice to the moon, was the first human to fly in space six times and the only astronaut to pilot four different spacecraft. He flew in the Gemini, Apollo and space shuttle programs. "John's tenacity and dedication are matched only by his humility," said NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe. "He's never sought fame and often goes out of his way to...

Nasa to resume shuttle missions By Daniel LakBy Daniel Lak BBC correspondent in Miami The US space agency (Nasa) says the first space shuttle mission since the Columbia disaster of 2003 is to be launched next May or early June. All shuttle missions had been suspended pending investigation of the accident, in which seven astronauts died. Improvements have also been made to the orbiter and its fuel tank system. Plans to resume the launches in March were put back after hurricanes hit east Florida, where the Kennedy Space Center is located, in July and August. The Nasa official in charge...

NASA Leaders Weigh Impact of Hurricanes on Return to Flight Plans NASA is working to determine how four hurricanes that affected several centers this year will impact efforts to return the Space Shuttle to flight. The agency has been working toward a launch-planning window that opens in March 2005. Top officials in NASA's human space flight program met today. They determined the March-April window is no longer achievable. The Space Flight Leadership Council met in an executive session at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston. The council directed the Space Shuttle Program to assess how it would meet Return to...

The foam that struck the space shuttle Columbia soon after liftoff -- resulting in the deaths of seven astronauts -- was defective, the result of applying insulation to the shuttle's external fuel tank, NASA said on Friday. The official investigation into the accident, conducted by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, left the matter open, since none of the foam or the fuel tank could be recovered for study. A suitcase-sized chunk of foam from an area of the tank known as the left bipod, one of three areas where struts secure the orbiter to the fuel tank during liftoff, broke...

Discovery edges closer to flight By Irene Mona Klotz at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida Discovery is being prepared for a 2005 launch Nearly 18 months after Columbia's shocking demise, sistership Discovery is in the home stretch of a massive overhaul to once again return the shuttle fleet to flight. Overseen by an ambitious and soft-spoken 34-year-old woman, shuttle Discovery stands still inside a massive hangar, encased by work platforms like the queen bee in a hive. Technicians and engineers, huddled in groups of three or four, crawl over and inside the ship, attaching panels, monitoring test equipment, consulting work...

WASHINGTON, July 13 - An expert panel from the National Academy of Sciences said Tuesday that the Hubble Space Telescope was too valuable to be allowed to die in orbit and that NASA should commit itself to a servicing mission to extend its life, perhaps with astronauts in a space shuttle. "NASA should take no actions that would preclude a space shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope," the panel said in a letter to Sean O'Keefe, head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The committee of outside experts urged the space agency to commit itself to replacing...

Lola Tipton of Lancaster remembers meeting a very handsome Ronald Reagan in 1937, a man who introduced himself as "Dutch." GOP politico Frank Visco, an invited guest at Reagan's White House, is mourning the man he calls "a father figure." And Jeremy Giampietro, a 24-year-old Highland High School graduate, will help carry his casket at today's burial in Simi Valley. Antelope Valley residents are dwelling on memories this week of Ronald Wilson Reagan, especially those who met the 40th president on one of his several trips to the Valley. Reagan visited the Valley in the 1960s, for a tour of...

WASHINGTON - If the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall is aviation's Mecca, the pilgrimage now has a second site. The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, named for its primary backer, opened adjacent to Dulles International Airport in December, providing a cavernous showcase for the Smithsonian's larger aircraft and space vehicles, as well as many others that couldn't find room in the traditional space. Unlike the Mall site with its sleek, boxy exterior, the new center across the river in nearby Virginia invokes the aviation history inside with its massive hangars and control tower observation deck. Whereas the...

NASAWatch Editor's note: "CNN Headline news is flashing several pictures of NASA Deputy Administrator Fred Gregory standing on the tarmac receiving the bodies of the Columbia crew at Dover Air Force Base in February 2003 and claiming that the photos are of caskets containing war dead arriving home from Iraq in 2004."

MARINA DEL REY, Calif., Feb. 20 — A dark unseen energy is steadily pushing the universe apart, just as Einstein predicted, suggesting the universe may have a more peaceful end than recent theories envision, according to striking new measurements of distant exploding stars by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. The energy, whose source remains unknown, was named the cosmological constant by Einstein. In a prediction in 1917 that he later called "my greatest blunder," Einstein posited a kind of antigravity force that was pushing galaxies apart with a strength that did not change over billions of years of cosmic history....

<p>NASA's top spaceflight official, Bill Readdy (search), said Friday that through extensive testing, the agency has learned that air liquefied by the super-cold fuel in the tank almost certainly seeped into a crack or void in the foam, or collected around bolts and nuts beneath the foam. The trapped air expanded as the shuttle rose, and blew off a chunk of foam the size of a suitcase.</p>

WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 — NASA pushed back the time for resuming shuttle flights to next spring because more time was needed to prepare a potential rescue shuttle and to resolve persistent technical problems, like preventing the fuel tank from shedding foam insulation, agency officials said Friday. William Readdy, NASA's associate administrator for space flight, said engineers had only recently pinpointed why foam fell from the tank of the shuttle Columbia at its launching last year, leading to the shuttle's disintegration upon re-entry on Feb. 1, 2003. The shuttle fleet has been grounded since the accident. Engineers also discovered a new...

<p>CAPE CANAVERAL -- NASA's shuttle, or some variation of its components, could play a role in President Bush's plan to send astronauts back to the moon.</p> <p>The president this month directed NASA to retire the three remaining shuttles by 2010 and begin flying the replacement Crew Exploration Vehicle by 2014.</p>

Columbia's Final Minutes The second-by-second account of the shuttle's last minutes By Michael Cabbage and William Harwood January 27, 2004 EDITOR'S NOTE: From "Comm Check ... The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia," by Michael Cabbage and William Harwood, which is being published Tuesday by Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster. Cabbage is the space editor of the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel; Harwood is a veteran space reporter for CBS News. Printed by permission. "The most complicated machine ever built got knocked out of the sky by a pound and a half of foam. I don't know how any of...

Lajes Field's capabilities to save a downed space shuttle crew will be put to the test during a daylong exercise here Jan. 30. The exercise involves American and Portuguese forces and a Defense Department agency for space flight. The combined event joins 65th Air Base Wing and Portuguese Air Base 4 emergency forces at this base in the mid-Atlantic Ocean. Joint fire, medical, search and rescue, as well as other forces here will take part testing a wealth of capabilities, according to Portuguese air force Maj. Albano Coutinho, chief of the air operations center here. The DoD Manned Spaceflight Support...

Details Emerge for Bush Administration's Moon, Mars and Beyond Plan By Leonard David,Senior Space Writer posted: 12:20 pm ET, 09 January 2004 PASADENA, Calif. -- Details of U.S. President George W. Bush’s plan are emerging to reshape NASA and enable the agency to set its sights beyond low Earth orbit. In next week’s edition of the respected trade publication, Aviation Week and Space Technology, the White House is calling for "sweeping changes" at NASA. An early piece of the space agenda is to scrap the space shuttle – moving toward use of a new modular space vehicle for a...

Oct. 15, 2003 Torah scroll dedication held in memory of Ilan Ramon By JPOST.COM STAFF Israel's first astronaut Ilan Ramon Photo: AP A Torah Scroll dedication ceremony took place in Yad Vashem Wednesday in honor Israel's first astronaut, Colonel Ilan Ramon. The Torah scroll will be kept in Yad Vashem. The Torah scroll was presented to Ramon's widow Rona by a New York donor, and will be carried by IDF soldiers and officers visiting concentration camps in Poland under the auspices of the annual "Witnesses in Uniform" program, the IDF Spokesperson reported. Astronauts Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael Anderson, Kalpana...

WASHINGTON - A simple foam paint brush that costs only pennies at hardware stores could be an essential tool in returning the space shuttle to orbit, NASA (news - web sites)'s administrator said Wednesday. Space agency engineers found that the brush may be just what astronauts need to spread a patching compound on a space shuttle's damaged heat shield while the craft is in orbit. "This thing turns out to be one of the most valuable tools we could have invented," said Sean O'Keefe, head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. "We're going to buy it at Wal-Mart. We're...