Space Shuttle
gregladen | January 28, 2015Suddenly and for the first time I saw Amanda as a little child wide eyed with both awe and fear, among other children some sitting on the floor, some in chairs, some standing behind desks, eyes trained on a TV monitor and their teacher as the sudden realization dawned on all of them that the Space Shuttle Challenger had been consumed in a fiery, deadly explosion.
The teacher on board seemed to have been incinerated before their very eyes. As the explosion developed, shooting out huge arms of smoke, and the voice-over began to acknowledge that something was wrong, NASA's space program was…
carlyo | April 17, 2013Celebrating another role model in science & engineering achievement! Bonnie Dunbar played a key role in building the Space Shuttle craft and developing its thermal protection system. A veteran of five Space Shuttle flights, she today serves as a role model to thousands in STEM education and careers
To read the full biography of Bonnie Dunbar click here.
esiegel | July 23, 2012"Each generation goes further than the generation preceding it because it stands on the shoulders of that generation. You will have opportunities beyond anything we've ever known." -Ronald Reagan
Earlier today, Sally Ride, the first American woman ever to fly in outer space, passed away at the age of 61 from pancreatic cancer. To many different people, her life, her achievements, and her death means a great diversity of things. To anyone with a love of outer space, human exploration, and achieving your dreams, her story will likely resonate with you, too. I'd like to share with you what are,…
cevans | July 31, 2011In the mid-1970s, the U.S. State Department prohibited the internal use of the term "space colony," due to the global bad reputation of colonialism. Instead, the government opted for "space settlement." Of course, as Stewart Brand pointed out at the time, the last thing you do in space is settle. Quite the opposite! Making the decision to explore space -- and live there -- is just about the most unsettled act a human can commit.
There have always been two camps on this issue. First, the unsettled, like Brand: the science-fiction aficionados, capitalists, rocketry geeks, macrocosmic thinkers,…
kcollins | July 18, 2011+Meet Brian Malow, a science comedian scheduled to perform at the USA Science and Engineering Finale Expo. He will also perform at the Night of Science Comedy before the Expo with two other comedians, Norman Goldblatt and Pete Ludovice.
Based in San Francisco, Brian has performed for NASA, JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), the American Chemical Society, Scholastic Library Publishing, the National Association of Science Writers, the Koshland Museum of the National Academy of Sciences, Apple, Dell, and Microsoft. He has also appeared on…
cevans | June 1, 2010As NASA's Space Shuttle program winds down -- Endeavour's final mission is slated for later this year, then that's it -- let us take a moment and remember the Shuttles. Sure, they had a tendency to explode into balls of fire. Sure, they were expensive, risky, and besieged by problems. But now is not the time for criticism: 25 years of American engineering, 132 missions, and over 20,000 orbits of this planet are nothing to shake a stick at. It is in this spirit of recognition that Universe presents a very subjective chronology of the Shuttle's greatest moments. Onward!
Gene Roddenberry, Star…
grrlscientist | May 23, 2010tags: Shuttle Launch Preparation Choreographed Like Ballet, Space Shuttle, space exploration, space flight, NASA, Scott Andrews, Stan Jirman, Philip Scott Andrews, photography, time-lapse video, streaming video
This video is simply stunning and the photography is masterful. In this video, we are looking at time-lapse photographs by photographers Scott Andrews, Stan Jirman and Philip Scott Andrews, who decided to demonstrate the process of launching a shuttle in a new and innovative way. Using time-lapse photography, they turned the 6 week process of prepping a shuttle into this gorgeous four…
gregladen | November 18, 2009There are not going to be too many more of these:
Space shuttle Atlantis and its six-member crew began an 11-day delivery flight to the International Space Station on Monday with a 2:28 p.m. EST launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The shuttle will transport spare hardware to the outpost and return a station crew member who spent more than two months in space.
Atlantis is carrying about 30,000 pounds of replacement parts for systems that provide power to the station, keep it from overheating, and maintain a proper orientation in space. The large equipment can best be…
esiegel | April 22, 2008As you may have noticed from yesterday's unusual post, today is Earth Day! I thought I'd share with you some of my favorite pictures from space of it, including the famous photograph from Apollo 8 known as Earthrise:
This combination shot made from NASA’s Terra satellite and NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite:
The known satellites at least 0.1 meters in size in orbit around Earth (there are ~11,000 of them as of April 2005, and another 100,000 between 1 cm and 10 cm in size):
Looking at the Earth and the docked Space Shuttle from the International Space Station:
And…