Video of the separation of the secondary boosters of the shuttle FROM the booster, including the entire fall to earth. The action starts at 1:30, when they separate. I want to go into space so badly it hurts.

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Happy Lunar Landing Day!

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The first nest of endangered Kemp's ridley turtle eggs rescued from Florida and Alabama Gulf Coast beaches threatened by the BP oil spill makes its way to the Kennedy Space Center. After incubation is complete, 22 baby turtles are released into the Atlantic Ocean off Kennedy. Among This Week's other stories: the last external tank built for the ( Read more... )

How long could a spaceship accelerate at 1g before it hits light speed?  I know it's a common theme in fictional spaceships, to create artificial gravity, and was wondering how far you could get before you hit light speed.

Let's ignore the phenomenal amount of fuel it would require, etc.  I know there's a thousand little details that would affect ( Read more... )

I was looking through a 1971 middle school math book recently, and found this - a blast from the past!


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As many of you here know, Japanese spacecraft HAYABUSA is returning to earth tonight on June 13 after seven years of unmanned operation in space, making loads of Japanese tweeps frenzied-- while JAXA tweeted just today that, the final figure of HAYABUSA before the reentry can be observed in Maldives!(and presumably only in Maldives, because ( Read more... )

The problem-plagued Hayabusa probe is finally supposed to land in Australia on Sunday.  It landed on the asteroid Itokawa in 2005, but had a lot of glitches.  It's hard jogging my memory over the past five years, but as I recall it's later than they planned originally, they have no idea if the sample return canister actually managed to get a sample ( Read more... )

This is a six-minute "walk" across the ISS. I cannot believe how much space they have up there! (pardon the expression, them being in "space" and all :D )

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40 years ago today, the crew of Apollo 13 were safely returned to Earth after 4 days in a crippled spacecraft. I would like to commemorate the determination, resourcefulness and ingenuity of the three astronauts and all those who worked to bring them home.


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Crossposted to darksumomo


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