REST IN PEACE, Walter Cronkite (1916-2009). He passed away at the age of 92 today. Cronkite, "the most trusted man in America," reported on some of the most momentous events in the 20th century...including the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr...as well as the Apollo lunar landings.



I obviously don't want a repeat of events like the JFK and MLK tragedies, but who will we turn to next for a spirited commentary when a future generation of astronauts travel to the Moon? Whenever that will be? That question will remain unanswered for a while...

40 YEARS AGO TODAY, a Saturn V rocket carrying NASA's Apollo 11 spacecraft and its 3 astronauts launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a 3-day voyage to the Moon. When we send humans back to Earth's closest neighbor is anyone's guess...


NASA

SIXTH TIME'S THE CHARM... Endeavour will reach the International Space Station this Friday.


NASA / Sandra Joseph & Kevin O'Connell

FYI, these two awesome pieces of artwork have also been sitting on my Desktop for the past 4 months. To view more kick-ass illustrations like these, go to Mark Waki's website. Later.





Both illustrations courtesy of Mark Waki

THIS IMAGE has been taking up space on my Desktop screen for the past, oh, 4 months or so, so I thought I'd just post this here in honor of the launch of space shuttle Endeavour on STS-127. Whenever the heck that will be... (There's a 60% chance of bad weather scrubbing today's liftoff.)

UPDATE (3:45 PM): Make that a 100% chance of bad weather scrubbing today's liftoff. Florida in the summertime... Speaking of which, next month marks a year since I went on that cruise to the Bahamas.

NASA / Thierry Legault

FOUR 'WALKS DOWN, ONE MORE TO GO... And by 'walk, I mean extravehicular activity. Nothing nerdy like the term 'spacewalk' or something...

Whatever, I'm justing coming up with an excuse to post these photos.









All Hubble images courtesy of NASA

HUBBLE-Bound... At 11:01 AM, Pacific Time today, space shuttle Atlantis launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to start an 11-day mission (STS-125) to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope. Godspeed Atlantis... Here’s hoping this voyage goes completely well...and that space shuttle Endeavour will find herself re-located to Launch Pad 39A a few weeks from now (for STS-127), instead of having to launch from Pad 39B on a rescue flight if the worse, God forbid, happens to Atlantis. And obviously, I’m looking forward to seeing some kick-ass imagery by Hubble once it becomes better than ever following the end of Atlantis' mission. That is all.


Canon / Scott Andrews

THREE AWESOME VIEWS...for one last time. That's assuming, of course, there isn't another piece of equipment failure onboard the Hubble Space Telescope before Atlantis launches for the orbiting observatory on May 12. Click here to see images from last year's twin shuttle-viewing opportunity.






Photos courtesy of NASA / Dimitri Gerondidakis & Kim Shiflett

NASA / Kim Shiflett

BACK ON EARTH... I was gonna post a lengthy entry about how the International Space Station (ISS) now resembles artists’ renderings of the outpost when it was first conceived in 1984 (as Space Station Freedom), but I don’t wanna. Instead, here’s a pic of Discovery touching down at Kennedy Space Center in Florida today...and another of the ISS in all its (81% completed) glory...


NASA

UPDATE (March 29): This photo is now my desktop wallpaper...


NASA

THANKS to a last-second heads-up by one of my friends yesterday, I was able to spot the International Space Station (ISS) and space shuttle Discovery as they passed over Southern California at different times last night. The ISS appeared first...passing around 225 miles (in a southwest-to-east direction) above SoCal between 7:18 and 7:21 PM, and Discovery orbiting around 150 miles overhead (in a southwest-to-northeast direction) between 7:37 and 7:41 PM (all times Pacific). Discovery is set to dock with the ISS today at 2:13 PM, PDT.

In my enthusiasm, I decided to post two pics I took of the ISS...despite the fact these will probably be the crappiest space-related images you'll ever see. I used a 7.3 megapixel digital camera, without a telescope to attach it to, if you must know.


(The sky was already too dark for me to get a shot of Discovery once it flew overhead.)



If you want to know when the ISS and shuttle will pass over your area, click here to look up the next sighting opportunity.