The Space Shuttle Atlantis, STS-135, is scheduled to lift off this morning from Kennedy Space Center. The time was originally scheduled for 11:26 AM EDT, but that has been
pushed back, despite
"no technical concerns and... weather is a 'go'." Astronauts aboard are Commander
Chris Ferguson, Pilot
Doug Hurley, and Mission Specialists
Sandy Magnus and
Rex Walheim.
Watch live coverage, with some archival footage,
on NASA's Ustream or
on NASA.gov. NASA has provided
countdown highlights of the day to get you up to speed.
Read NASA's feed on Twitter. At the time of this post's writing, the countdown clock is on a scheduled hold with 9 minutes to go.
Previously,
STS-134, on the Blue.
posted by knile
on Jul 8, 2011 -
200 comments
As the shuttle program winds down, astrophotographers like Thierry Legault are taking advantage of these last opportunities to capture absolutely incredible shots like
this one, showing Atlantis' transit in front of the sun as it performs its inspection backflip before docking with the ISS. His other photography includes
this magnificent series of the launch of
STS-125.
[more inside]
posted by disillusioned
on May 19, 2010 -
16 comments
In
Tennyson´s epic poem
Idylls of the King, Lyonesse is the place where the final, epoch-shattering battle between
Mordred and
King Arthur takes place. In the older
Arthurian romances, Lyonesse is the
birthplace of Sir Tristan, and it is supposed to have bordered
Cornwall in the southwest of England. No historical evidence of Lyonnesse has been found, and the academic consensus seems to be that the
French author of the Prose
Tristan got his British geography catastrophically wrong, and that he really meant
Lothian in Scotland.
There
are,
however,
those who
believe that Lyonesse was a real realm which once reached from the
Scilly Islands to
Land´s End. The people of
Penzance and southwestern Cornwall certainly seem fond of stories about
sunken lands,
church bells in the deep, and
drowned forests. According to
family legend, the ancestor of the local
Trevelyan family was a sole survivor who rode across the causeway to Cornwall as Lyonesse crumbled into the sea behind him.
posted by the_unutterable
on Sep 27, 2008 -
14 comments
Did UFO's originate in Ancient India? According to Indian legend, the kingdom of Rama existed at the same time as the lost kingdom of
Atlantis. Both kingdoms developed airships that could fly not only between countries, but also into outerspace. The Indian ships, called
Vimanas, are described in many ancient manuscripts, and perhaps most spectacularly in the
Mahabarata, in which some believe there is a description of an
ancient nuclear war. Is it possible that such technology could have been
lost in antiquity, or kept in the posession of some "secret society"? Fascinating stuff...
posted by greengrl
on Jul 3, 2003 -
28 comments
It's the plot, stupid.
USA Today runs their usual insightful commentary about the upcoming release of Lilo and Stitch. It obsesses over the absence of CGI graphics pointing to
Atlantis as evidence for the failure of traditional animation to draw box office. Funny me, I thought that
Atlantis bombed because of a plot better left in 50s serial format, a cast of sterotypes rather than characters, and no sense of humor beyind dirty French jokes repeated over and over again. And is huge success of
Pixar due to their pioneering animation, or their brilliant comic talent?
What causes FX myopia anyway? Granted I can understand why fanboys obsess over the wrong things in a movie. Do the studios set it up by trying to hype each new summer release as the next big technical development (while the artistic development gets trumped by
Waking Life and
Insomnia?)
posted by KirkJobSluder
on Jun 18, 2002 -
7 comments
Disney's Atlantis ripped from the anime movie Nadia. Talk about role reversal (you see, a lot of anime creators style comes from trying to emulate Disney style in the early days of the genre) this site presents some interesting evidence that Disney's summer blockbuster is a complete copy of an earlier film released in 1990 in Japan.
posted by Brilliantcrank
on Jun 23, 2001 -
9 comments
It's raining cats and dogs this summer! GEEZ!
Pearl Harbor,
Shrek, and
The Mummy Returns are already in the theaters. This weekend we get
Swordfish,
Evolution, and even
Atlantis: The Lost Empire in limited release. What's next? Oh nuthin. Just stuff
Angelina Jolie's been kicking around,
Eddie Murphy's little pet project, something
Jay & Silent Bob tossed off in the shower,
Stephen Spielberg's thoughtful adult film coupled with his
token bloodfest for the kiddies...
Final Fantasy,
Planet of the Apes,
Kiss of the Dragon, a painfully predictable looking sequel to
American Pie, a predictable but funny-lookin' sequel to
Rush Hour, and a predictable sequel to
Scary Movie,
and the ever present
SO MUCH MORE! I skipped half the movies coming out but those are the highlights. Is this gonna be the best summer blockbuster festival ever thrust upon the world's populous, or are we true fans of cinema about to once again take it up the ass? Whatcha think?
posted by ZachsMind
on Jun 6, 2001 -
102 comments
Space U-Haul Atlantis on its way. Atlantis is climbing orbit to reach Alpha carrying with it the Destiny module for Space Station Freedom. The module only has 2 inches of clearance from the shuttle itself and will take one hell of a can opener to get it out.
posted by Brilliantcrank
on Feb 8, 2001 -
9 comments
