For all twick or tweeters, a photo of Nicole, who also tweets @Astro_Nicole. She will return from ISS on STS129 - (via @Astro_Bones http://twitpic.com/ns1bw )
Observing the shuttle NASA emblem from Earth.
This is an observation of Space Shuttle Discovery at the end of the STS-119mission to the ISS, delivering the last series of big solar panels(S6). The image is taken one day after docking and one day before landing and shows one part of the shuttle lighted by sun.The other side,especially the wing is hidden behind shade.
The visible wing is the side were the NASA emblem is located and this can clearly be seen as the dark detail at the right location! See the comparing image of the shuttle taken from the the ISS at the right.
It was great luck to have this image at all,as the day was very cloudy and it broke just a few minutes before the pass.The shuttle was followed approximately 1 minute later by the ISS and both could be seen still as a wider tandem at onetime,an amaing sight.
STS-128 astronaut Nicole Stott participates in an Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) spacesuit fit check in the Space Station Airlock Test Article (SSATA) in the Crew Systems Laboratory at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Fellow astronaut Jose Hernandez assisted Stott. Stott will join Expedition 20 as a flight engineer after launching to the station with the STS-128 crew. (image & caption via NASA)
NASA'S ART PROGRAM GOING STRONG
Last year, when the Guggenheim mounted its Nam June Paik retrospective, one installation, The Moon Is the Oldest TV, 1976, stood out for being both poetic and technically refined—and appropriately so: It was commissioned by NASA. Surprisingly, this kind of collaboration between the US government’s space agency and a well-known contemporary artist isn’t all that new. For thirty years, NASA has been recruiting the likes of Mike and Doug Starn, William Wegman, Annie Liebovitz, Chakaia Booker, and, if negotiations go as planned, Mariko Mori, to create space-specific art for the NASA Art Program (www.nasa.gov/gallery/arts/index.html), which currently has about 2,000 works in its collection. Yet according to the program’s director, Bert Ulrich, the current honorarium is a mere $2,500, and artists are usually required to pick up the remainder of the production costs beyond the modest sum.
So why are so many artists so interested? “NASA is once again in the public consciousness, mostly on account of the Mars Pathfinder mission and Apollo 13,” says Ulrich, speaking of the mid-1990s film starring Tom Hanks. “A lot of contemporary artists also grew up in the ’60s and ’70s, when space-exploration themes were popular.”
At the moment, NASA requires artists to give one piece to the agency, but they are welcome to sell any additional work. The program doesn’t yet have its own gallery, but Ulrich hopes a more permanent exhibition space will be established if there continues to be a high level of interest. Some of NASA’s collection is on view at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida through 2003; some can also be found on Art Train, a roving art gallery that began touring the US in 2000.
The first NASA Web-art project, to debut in November, is being developed now by Martin Wattenberg, who had a piece in the Whitney’s recent “Data Dynamics” exhibition. “I think artists like the backdoor access to NASA. How else would they be able to chat up astronauts or witness plasma wave experiments so easily?” asks Ulrich. “Plus their work is an important means for the public to understand what our scientists are working on.”
—Reena Jana, via Art Forum
I have a white paper to write for my final paper in Business and Professional Writing. So while researching public opinion of NASA’s space program, I read on Gallup that as of July 2009, 6 in 10 Americans support space exploration. For those of you that would rather watch tv than read the report, you can watch a video explanation here. This is exciting news, but the recent committee hearings leave our future in space to be determined. I am starry-eyed, as always, but I still hold my breath.
Americans remain broadly supportive of space exploration and government funding of it. In fact, Americans are somewhat more likely to believe the benefits of the space program justify its costs at the 40th anniversary of the moon landing than they were at the 10th, 25th, and 30th anniversaries.
Although support for keeping NASA funding at its present level or increasing it is lower now than it has been in the past, the fact that 6 in 10 Americans hold this view in the midst of a recession suggests the public is firmly committed to the space program.
Great news.
Ares I-X in the Vehicle Assembly Building, Kennedy Space Centre (via NASA)
A real rocket for a Moon programme!
Nasa Shuttle Shark - ImageChan for Fuck Yeah Sharks via nickdouglas
Here’s something to cheer up anyone crying over the prospect of never seeing a manned mission to Mars in the first half of this century.
On 20 June 2009 Space Rules is the place to be on tumblr to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing. Follow Space Rules (if you haven’t already) so you don’t miss out.
Suggestions and links are more than welcome. Send them to lyallsf at gmail or use the new SUBMIT form.
I’ll give you credit for your space exploration or moon post just make sure you attribute the source & content creators.
