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At the time of this posting, over $1 million of your tax dollars is being spent by NASA to fuel up Space Shuttle Discovery’s launch stack with the cryogenic fuel needed to launch the assembly this evening at 11:59 p.m. EDT. (Let us hope the $1M is money well spent, since it’s not getting us to the Moon or Mars….) After minor fueling delay due to weather, fueling finally got underway during the 2 o’clock hour this afternoon. The forecast for acceptable weather conditions at the time of tonight’s launch attempt is currently at 60%…. Viewing options for tonight: -NASA TV web feed -NASA Channel (if your cable/satellite... read more >>

The 3rd attempt to launch Space Shuttle Discovery, planned for 12:22 a.m. “tonight”, has been scrubbed, to allow NASA engineers time to look at the fuel valve on Discovery. The 2nd launch attempt was scrubbed during the tanking operation when the valve failed to register that it was shut after being sent a test command. This was a violation of launch safety criteria. In the time since then, the valve responded correctly to five commands. Granted the five commands were given to the valve when it was at ambient temperature. The failure it experienced happened while it was immersed in super-cool liquid hydrogen and oxygen. So pretty... read more >>

Tonight’s launch was scrubbed due to a faulty hydrogen valve. There is currently no ETA on when they’re gonna try to launch Discovery until engineers decide how they’re going to fix/replace the value. They have until August 30th to launch it before having to stand down until mid-October. SpaceFlightNow.com has more details.  Read More →

Last night with barely 10 minutes until launch, the folks at NASA scrubbed Discovery’s launch due to inclement weather in the area. The rescheduled launch is 1:10 a.m. EDT Wednesday (“tonight”). There is currently a 70% chance of good weather — which really doesn’t mean much since the forecast was 80% for yesterday’s window. Same viewing options as usual for “tonight”: NASA has a feed on their website if you don’t have NASA TV, and iPhone/iPod_Touch users with the 3.0 software can visit http://iphone.akamai.com on Mobile Safari. By the way, if you are a twittering sort of fellow, you can follow... read more >>

Well, technically early tomorrow morning — the launch is set for 1:36 a.m. Tuesday morning from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Discovery’s launch will be the final night time shuttle launch for the shuttle program. Discovery’s mission, STS-128, is another construction mission to the International Space Station. Discovery is scheduled to spend 13-days in orbit. NASA TV will have a stream available if you cannot watch the NASA Channel on your cable/satellite service. iPhone and iPod Touch users running the 3.0 OS software can also watch a stream of the launch from their devices by pointing Mobile Safari... read more >>

As NASA engineers looked over the Atlantis orbiter, they discovered a nasty problem: an interior window of the shuttle, not designed for replacement, was scratched and dinged by a metal knob that is wedged between the window and the dashboard of the spacecraft. At some point while Atlantis was in space, a metal knob floated between an interior window and a dashboard. When Atlantis returned to earth, the orbiter contracted (by design) to the stress of 1 atmosphere of pressure and the metal knob became wedged tight against the glass, scratching and possibly sundering the structural integrity of the tempered glass. Space shuttle orbiters have three... read more >>

….because Wednesday needed some love this week. (If you don’t know what the ^H stuff in the title means and you consider yourself a techie, kindly hand in your geek card at the door when you leave, please.) Apple’s WWDC Keynote in Brief Apple launched its Worldwide Developers Conference Monday with a two-hour Steve Jobs-less keynote. Hardware Highlights: - Processor/RAM/HDD storage speed bumps for the 15″ & 17″ MacBook Pros and the MacBook Air. - The 13″ unibody MacBook has been sprinkled with fairy dust and is now a 13″ MacBook Pro with specs similar to the 15″... read more >>

Xbox 360 goes “Wii” The biggest news story from E3 yesterday was Microsoft’s unveiling of its “Project Natal” — full-body motion sensing controls for the Xbox 360. Personally, this brings back horrible memories of past attempts at full-body motion controls during the Sega Genesis and Super NES era. Microsoft isn’t stupid though, so I expect this one to be pulled off well. E3 is way too big for me to cover here, so I’m going to point you over to 1up.com for more coverage. iTunes 8.2 is out Love it or hate it, iTunes is an industry leader as both a media player application and an... read more >>

Well fuck, me. There is nothing at all going on in the tech and gaming world this morning except for rumors without much meat. Nintendo’s allegedly going to announce a Wii Fit Plus, which is kind of a no-brainer. And possibly a new Super Mario game. If Wii Fit Plus doesn’t sell Plus adaptors, a new Mario game will. I’ve had a Wii since launch, and these days it just sits unused. Mega Man 9 on the VC was about the last time I fired the thing up. I did play the crap out of Mario Kart Wii and Super Mario Galaxy, so if they do release a new Super Mario game that is at least half as good as Galaxy, I might be... read more >>

This morning at 8:34 a.m. EDT, 220 miles above China, the Russian Soyuz TMA-15 spacecraft with its crew of three cosmonauts onboard docked with the International Space Station, officially increasing the tally of humans onboard the station to its maximum size of six. The crews will officially open up the hatches between the docked craft at 9:45 a.m. EDT and begin to mingle. After years of planning, construction, and testing, the ISS finally has achieved its goal of housing six space explorers on a permanent basis. The last couple of space shuttle flights installed a second toilet, extra sleeping quarters for the additional staff, an extra kitchen,... read more >>

When the STS-125 crew onboard Space Shuttle Atlantis had to stay in orbit a few extra days due to thunderstorms in Florida, they decided to pass the time by watching DVDs on their laptops. Alas, while their laptops contained DVD-ROM drives, none was able to play the DVDs because they lacked the software, and downloading an update from NASA was very impossible when their spacecraft is orbiting the planet at several thousand miles per hour and has a tiny antenna. A couple of factors weigh in here: 1. The laptops were likely Windows-based systems. NASA and ISS astronauts have been using Windows-based laptops for years, usually... read more >>

After two days of waveoffs and a waveoff for a Florida landing this morning, the Space Shuttle Atlantis finally landed safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California at 11:39 a.m. EDT. The weather in Florida was just too dicey to risk a landing there. A few days from now, the Atlantis orbiter will be flown on the back of a 747 to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for proper post-mission processing. Comments? Let us know below or drop me a line.  Read More →

An Extra Day in Space for Atlantis The Space Shuttle Atlantis will spend an extra day in space this week due to unfavorable weather conditions in Florida today. The shuttle was originally slated to land this morning but was called off. The mid-day landing was also called off as developing thunderstorm are in the forecast. The next landing opportunity for Atlantis will be tomorrow morning during the 9 o’clock hour, with landing opportunities in both Florida and Edwards Air Force Base, if needed. Ghostbusters 3 is Closer to Reality Dan Aykroyd has revealed that Ghostbusters 3 might start filming as early as this winter.... read more >>

Microsoft Releases Windows Mobile 6.5 Microsoft’s latest version of its Windows Mobile smartphone OS is now in the hands of manufacturers. The new version of the smartphone OS is claimed to be a “stop gap” release to buy Microsoft more time to complete its next major update, Windows Mobile 7. Still, as a “stop gap”, Windows Mobile 6.5 will bring many iPhone-like features to new Windows Mobile-based smartphones, such as a touch screen controlled interface and a desktop-caliber web browser. Look for Windows Mobile 6.5 to appear on new phones later this summer and fall. Palm Pre Gets a Release Date June 6th is the... read more >>

This afternoon at 3:22pm EDT, the STS-125 crew aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis concluded their fifth and final spacewalk to perform maintenance and upgrades to the Hubble Space Telescope. The STS-125 crew will spend the rest of the day getting the upgraded Hubble online and packing up equipment. Tomorrow, “Flight day 9″ of the mission, the shuttle will lift Hubble into a higher orbit, one that will ensure earth’s gravity will not deorbit the telescope any time before it reaches the end of its operational lifetime, and then release it to its destiny. The crew will spend the rest of that day examining the shuttle’s heat... read more >>

At approximately 1:14pm EDT today the Hubble Space Telescope was successfully “captured” by the robotic arm of Space Shuttle Atlantis at an altitude of 350 statute miles over Australia. The docked spacecraft will spend the next several days connected to allow Atlantis’s STS-125 crew to begin upgrading and repairing the telescope, which hasn’t been visited by a spacecraft since 2002. You can watch the post-docking events on NASA TV either with your local subscription television provider or online. Comments? Let us know below or drop me a line.  Read More →

After yesterday’s marathon inspection, the STS-125 crew has discovered a 21 inch line of chipped damage on the starboard side of the Atlantis orbiter where the wing meets with the fuselage. This damage may have been cause by a debris “event” during launch seen by the camera mounted onboard the external fuel tank. NASA engineers are looking into the nature of the damage and will likely have the shuttle crew perform a more intense inspection of the line of chips to assess their depth and integrity of the heat shield. The BBC has more details on this story. Right now it is too early to know if the line of chips is a serious problem... read more >>

Normally this would be “Tech News Tuesday” but this edition is all about your tax dollars in space. Space Shuttle Atlantis Liftoff Successful Yesterday afternoon, the Space Shuttle Atlantis successfully rocketed into space for its much-hyped repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. Despite a few “minor glitches” that occurred during the launch, NASA said the launch was excellent. The STS-125 astronauts spent the remainder of yesterday inspecting the payload bay and “top” side of the shuttle for any launch-related damage. Today, the crew is performing a marathon 10-hour inspection of the tiles along the... read more >>

Space Shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to launch at 2:01 p.m. EDT on Monday, May 11th. The STS-125 crew’s mission is to fly up to the Hubble Space Telescope and perform several hardware and software upgrades, repairs, and refurbishing, as a final service mission to the aging, but incredibly useful, telescope. The mission comes at a great risk to the astronauts onboard, as the orbit of the Hubble is littered with debris from broken satellites and discarded rocket stages. Some of this debris is mere millimeters in diameter, but traveling fast enough to severely damage a space shuttle if the impact occurs in sensitive regions of the spacecraft. In... read more >>

When Space Shuttle Discovery took off Sunday evening, it lifted off with 8 mammals: 7 astronaut passengers, and a bat stowaway, clinging to the side of the external fuel tank. NASA has posted photos of the bat still clinging to the external fuel tank as the vehicle cleared the tower on its fiery trip to space. Did the bat make it into space? Probably not. If the vibrations didn’t shake it off, the lack of air at the higher altitudes would have made it pass out and let go. NASA says, “the animal likely perished quickly during Discovery’s climb into orbit.”  Read More →