Here’s some Friday Fun for space geeks like myself. NASA astronauts earlier this week installed the Tranquility node, featuring a domed window giving astronauts a panoramic view of Earth, on the International Space Station. This picture, the first taken through Tranquility’s 6.5 foot by 5 foot cupola window 250 miles above the Earth’s surface, is of the Sahara Desert. The window wouldn’t look out of place in the cockpits of Star Wars spaceships like the Millennium Falcon or TIE Fighter. Its intended purpose, NASA said, is to give astronauts a good, direct view of robots operating on the station’s exterior without having to rely…
Browsing: NASA
NASA’s having a garage sale, and everything must go! Seriously, everything. The three-decade-old space shuttle program is winding down later this year, and NASA has decided to sell the three remaining shuttles to museums. The only problem is they’re not getting much interest. So last Friday, NASA did what any motivated seller would: Slash the price. NASA is now selling shuttles Atlantis and Endeavour for $28.8 million — nearly a third less than their original price tag of $42 million. (Shuttle Discovery has been promised to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy center in Northern Virginia, which currently houses the…
What may be the most expensive consolation prize in NASA history will soon be aboard the International Space Station. A $5 million treadmill named for political satirist and faux TV pundit Stephen Colbert will be one of the first items unloaded this afternoon from a cargo container docked at the station, according to the Associated Press. The Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill, now as elevated as its namesake’s ego, will soon be used by astronauts to stay healthy and strengthen their muscles in the zero-G environment. Earlier this year, NASA started an online poll allowing Web site visitors…
During a week when much of the Senate ground to a halt for the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings, the Senate cleared two nominees Wednesday to lead NASA. Marine Corps Major Gen. Charles Bolden is now NASA’s administrator, with Laurie Garver as deputy administrator. The nominations were approved by voice vote. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., managed Bolden’s nomination on the floor. Nelson, a former astronaut, flew with Bolden on a 1986 space shuttle mission.