Great picture of Sun, Atlantis, and ISS

Wow. You gotta have a look at this picture.

Space Ship Two

As someone who's flown on the KC-135 "Weightless Wonder" (aka The Vomet Comet), believe me when I say that zero-g is awesome. If I had a sh*tload of money, I would defintely give this ride some consideration. Of course, as an engineer, I'd probably also let them make a few dry runs before I trusted 'em.

Passengers will have several minutes of weightlessness during the spaceflight, and then have about 40 seconds to return to their seats...

Imogen Heap

Chris says:

...when you have a free moment preferably late at night when all is dark point your browser to Imogen Heap's myspace page and listen to Hide and Seek. play it loud and don't listen to the words just listen. then listen again, and maybe one more time...

Fox News?

John Stewart on Fox News and the use of the question mark, brilliant.

Science and Exploration

NASA Administrator Mike Griffin gave a speech at Goddard Space Flight Center last week. Unfortunately I was too busy to get over and see it. The link above points to the text version of the speech. Mike made some good points about the role of Science at NASA (since W's Vision for Space Exploration was released, there has been significant concern at NASA and in the science community that Exploration initiatives would steal all the funding from Science.)

Anyone interested in space, and whether/why humans should travel beyond low Earth orbit should have a look. Here's an excerpt (via SpaceRef)...

So a key point must be made: Exploration without science is not "tourism". It is far more than that. It is about the expansion of human activity out beyond the Earth. Exactly this point was very recently noted and endorsed by no less than Stephen Hawking, a pure scientist if ever there was one. Hawking joins those, including the Chairman of the NASA Advisory Council, who have long pointed out this basic truth: The history of life on Earth is the history of extinction events, and human expansion into the Solar System is, in the end, fundamentally about the survival of the species. So to me exploration is, in and of itself, equally as noble a human endeavor as is scientific discovery.