Brewster Khale over at Internet Archive just announced they are working with NASA to make available the most comprehensive compilation ever of NASA's vast collection of photographs, historic film and video at nasaimages.org. It combines for the first time 21 major NASA imagery collections into a single, searchable online resource.
posted on Jul 24, 2008 - View this thread

NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft has photographed Earth from 31 million miles away. NASA has woven the images together, creating a video of Earth as the moon orbits around it. Videos: 1 | 2 [.mov].
posted on Jul 18, 2008 - View this thread

30 Incredible Abstract Satellite Images of Earth "From 400 miles away, the earth transforms into abstract art. The global landscape is impressionist, cubist and pointillist." Nice NASA images from 2000, downloadable as wallpaper.
posted on Jul 9, 2008 - View this thread

NASA Phoenix probe finds evidence of frozen water on Mars
posted on Jun 19, 2008 - View this thread

How space toilets work. They've come a long way. They sure don't look like the one in my house. What happens when they break? NPR explains the logistics of the repair process. Oh thank heavens, it's working again.
posted on Jun 14, 2008 - View this thread

Assemble a rocket from main engine to payload fairing. Rocket Science 101 shows the basic parts of the launch vehicle, how they are configured, and how they work together to launch a NASA spacecraft. More Friday Flash Fun.
posted on May 30, 2008 - View this thread

Before developing exotic space propulsion systems like the ion engines on deep space probes, he developed guidance systems for Nazi Germany's ballistic missile, the V2. As Dr. Werner von Braun's Chief Scientist, he was one of the brilliant minds that founded the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama and sent astronauts to the moon atop MSFC's Saturn V rocket. Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger, one of the last surviving rocket scientists extracted from Nazi Germany in Operation Paperclip, died today at 94.
posted on May 27, 2008 - View this thread

Phoenix is set to land on Mars at 2353 UTC. Video coverage: NASA | CNN
posted on May 25, 2008 - View this thread

Seven minutes of terror. A short video on describing how the Phoenix probe will land at the North Pole of Mars on May 25th. Follow updates to the mission via Twitter and the blog. Previously
posted on May 14, 2008 - View this thread

NASA invites you to join this autumn's lunar exploration with the opportunity to send your name to the moon. Your name will be included in a database contained on a microchip and placed aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft. Submit your name here.
posted on May 9, 2008 - View this thread

Ever wondered what life is like on the International Space Station? Wonder no more.
posted on Apr 25, 2008 - View this thread

Enough bad news, enough gloom and doom. You remember that Asteroid 99942 Apophis that we were afraid might hit Earth in 2029? Ain't gonna happen. But it will get close enough for Earth's gravity to alter its orbit and there's a chance it could hit the next time around in 2036. But only a tiny chance: "less than 1 in 45,000 using standard dynamical models". according to NASA. Oh wait... NASA just got skooled by a 13-year-old German Astronomy Geek who says the chances are more like 1 in 450. Still a tiny chance, and the official numbers were only off by a factor of 100. Oh yeah, we're doomed.
posted on Apr 16, 2008 - View this thread

New maps show US fossil fuel emissions aren't where we thought they were. The Vulcan Project collects more accurate data at a higher resolution than previous studies. Explanatory video. via
posted on Apr 7, 2008 - View this thread

Remember Tang? The news from England is that the 2006 terrorists were going to use it to create an in-flight bomb.
posted on Apr 4, 2008 - View this thread

The Assembly of Space Shuttle Discovery
posted on Apr 3, 2008 - View this thread

NASA is baffled by unexplained discrepancies in the velocities of some of its spacecraft. Dubbed the Pioneer Effect, it has been observed before but has now been discovered in more probes. Many theories have been put forward, many disproved, and some are wondering if our understanding of gravity is correct.
posted on Mar 22, 2008 - View this thread

A handful of pretty great spacewalk pix from last summer's Endeavour mission.
posted on Mar 19, 2008 - View this thread

The evolution of Mars imaging from orbit: Mariner 4 (1964), Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 (both 1969), Mariner 9 (1971) (all NASA), Mars 5 (1973) (USSR), Viking 1 (1975), Viking 2 (1976), Mars Global Surveyor (1996), Mars Odyssey (2001) (NASA), Mars Express (2003) (ESA), up to this spy-quality shot of an active avalanche taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (2005).
posted on Mar 5, 2008 - View this thread

Light Reflection: a brilliant fan of cryogenics venting from a relief valve on STS-122 Atlantis' ET (external tank) post-separation. Also see this handheld video of the ET, with money shots at 2:15 and 3:55.
posted on Feb 21, 2008 - View this thread

The most widely-distributed photograph in history may be The Blue Marble, a shot taken in 1972 by an unknown crewmember on Apollo 17. In 2002, NASA released a new Blue Marble photograph, familiar to desktops everywhere, using a composite of many photographs. In 2005, Blue Marble: The Next Generation offered even better views and some spectacular animations of the seasons from space. In the same spirit, the Discovery Channel just launched Earth Live, which lets you see the dynamics of weather and climate through a well done interface.
posted on Feb 11, 2008 - View this thread

The space shuttle does a back flip while the earth races by underneath.
posted on Feb 10, 2008 - View this thread

Fears that malevolent aliens will tune into this week's broadcast of The Beatles' song "Across the Universe" have been voiced by scientists.
posted on Feb 7, 2008 - View this thread

Climatologists at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies have found that 2007 tied with 1998 for Earth's second warmest year in a century (2005 being the hottest). More here. of course, others disagree.
posted on Jan 17, 2008 - View this thread

Astronaut Candidate Program. "The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announces the opportunity to apply for the position of Astronaut Candidate to support the International Space Station (ISS) Program."
posted on Dec 17, 2007 - View this thread

Real robot drama is happening on Mars today. Spirit, racing for her life to find shelter before winter, injured and underpowered after four years of hard labor, may have made her most significant find yet. The broken foot she's dragged behind her for the past two years unexpectedly uncovered evidence of a once-wet Mars with conditions theoretically hospitable for primitive life.
posted on Dec 12, 2007 - View this thread

Astronauts in Space, the music video.
posted on Nov 14, 2007 - View this thread

NASA proposes using a Stirling cooler (essentially a Stirling engine in reverse) to keep a probe cool on the surface of Venus, which has had a tendency to melt or smash previous probes. The cooler would maintain a 25cm sphere within the probe at 200°C -- 100°C above the boiling point of water but sufficiently cool for a high-temperature microcontroller to operate. The waste heat radiators on the exterior of the sphere would reach the temperature of 500°C, 40°C above the the normal Venusian surface temperature.
posted on Nov 12, 2007 - View this thread

A tour around Discovery STS-120 and the International Space Station with Paolo Nespoli and Dr. Scott Parazynski. Tomorrow, Parazynski will be perched at the end of a robot arm and sensor boom assembly, stitching up a damaged solar array in what might be one of the riskiest EVAs since Skylab 2.
posted on Nov 2, 2007 - View this thread

Check out NASA's "CALLBACK" publication online. Drawing from the "Aviation Safety Reporting System", a way for pilots to voluntarily report aviation safety incidents while providing some protection from the FAA, CALLBACK recounts some of the most common, and some of the most esoteric, incidents that pilots run in to. It's geared more toward pilots, but others may find it interesting (or terrifying) to read about what can go wrong.
posted on Nov 2, 2007 - View this thread

A Beginner's Guide to Aeronautics, a web-based textbook brought to you by the folks at NASA.
posted on Oct 21, 2007 - View this thread

Shedding a little light on the subject The HiRise camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter provides a less mysterious look at pretty spooky place on the surface of Mars. Previously discussed in a May 25 post.
posted on Sep 28, 2007 - View this thread

NASA Astronomers Find Bizarre Planet-Mass Object Orbiting Neutron Star [via]
posted on Sep 13, 2007 - View this thread

"Somewhere on the planet are ten-year-olds who, someday, will be the first people to set foot on Mars" 300 scientists and space-experts contributed to what's billed as "a realistic vision of the first Human Mission to Mars" -- Race to Mars. Discovery Channel Canada used Hollywood special effects, but for added realism rather than ray-guns and aliens. On the website, you can argue about whether they got it right. www.racetomars.ca
posted on Sep 7, 2007 - View this thread

The Golden Record: Hear what the aliens will hear.
30 years ago today, a collection of images and sound recordings engraved on a record was launched toward the stars. The playlist covers an amazing collection of music, and has been called the Mix Tape of the Gods.
posted on Sep 5, 2007 - View this thread

In honor of this morning's impressive lunar eclipse, another moon-photo post: For decades you had to be a scholar or specialist to get access to the original Apollo flight films, most of which have been stored in freezers at Houston's Johnson Space Center. Now Arizona State University and NASA are scanning the negatives with high-resolution equipment and creating an online digital archive of downloadable images for the general public. Here are the first few, from Apollo 15. (Similar topics previously: 1, 2, 3, 4.)
posted on Aug 28, 2007 - View this thread

While enjoying today's International Space Station construction mission, don't forget America's first outpost in space, Skylab. Launched in 1972, the experimental station, cobbled together from Apollo hardware, was abandoned two years later and plunged to Earth in 1979. Today, you can pitch in to save the rotting hulk of the Skylab trainer.
posted on Aug 13, 2007 - View this thread

Space World is a joint project between NASA, Microsoft Live Labs and MSNBC.com. It uses Microsoft Live Labs Photosynth to create 3D tours of the space shuttle Endeavour and NASA's Kennedy Space Center facilities.

(Tech preview, Windows XP SP2 and Vista RC 1, IE 6&7, Firefox 1.5 and 2 only, gotta install Photosynth plugin). Others can see a movie demo.
posted on Aug 6, 2007 - View this thread

NASA's Phoenix probe launched Saturday from Cape Canaveral, destination Mars. Its mission is to investigate polar ice. This probe is unique for a couple of reasons: first, it will face a traditional parachute-and-retro-rockets landing, unlike previous endeavors. Second, it will be landing far north of any previous mission. Previous Mars missions have had mixed success, with only about half successfully making it to their destination. It is scheduled to land in May, 2008.
posted on Aug 5, 2007 - View this thread

Bringing sexy back...to NASA? Sci-fi fans have witnessed many imaginings of the space suit. The skintight BioSuit is based on the concept of providing a "second skin" to astronauts.
posted on Jul 30, 2007 - View this thread

NASA has a rule requiring that astronauts go at least 12 hours between "bottle and throttle." Reports say not everyone followed it, and they went up anyway.
posted on Jul 26, 2007 - View this thread

The IDIOM Media Watch on Climate Change aggregates web content from 150 sources, accessible in the form of semantic maps, on which the topology of the Earth is redrawn as mountains and valleys according to the density of available information, or a three-dimensional 'knowledge planet' viewable in NASA World Wind. [Via Information Aesthetics.]
posted on Jul 7, 2007 - View this thread

The Soviet Union’s answer to Saturn V, the massive, complex, and top-secret N1 rocket, failed win the moon race after four disastrous launch explosions between 1969 and 1972. In 2004, Polecat Aerospace had much better luck launching their 1/16 N1 scale model.
posted on Jun 13, 2007 - View this thread

Black hole mystery on Mars If a future earth ever needs a place to send convicts, the high-resolution camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter may have found it a few nights back. (via crikey.com.au)
posted on May 24, 2007 - View this thread

Black hole mystery on Mars If a future earth ever needs a place to send convicts, the high-resolution camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter may have found it a few nights back. (via crikey.com.au)
posted on May 24, 2007 - View this thread

Tvashtar in Motion. Awesome five-frame GIF of fountaining sulfuric lava on Io courtesy New Horizons as it swung by Jupiter earlier this year. Found via Planetary Society Blog (Thank you, Emily). More on Tvashtar.
posted on May 15, 2007 - View this thread

The Illustrated Guide to GOP Scandals
posted on May 14, 2007 - View this thread

"Clearly we need a much bigger telescope to go back much further in time to see the very birth of the Universe." The venerable Hubble space telescope is going to be replaced by what looks like a honeycomb on a box of chocolates. Of course, if it takes more pictures like this (XL), nobody is going to complain about its looks.
posted on May 11, 2007 - View this thread

RIP Wally Schirra, 1923-2007. One of the original Mercury Seven "Right Stuff" astronauts (just two left now), Schirra flew on Sigma 7, Gemini 7, and Apollo 7. From there on, it's stationkeeping.
posted on May 3, 2007 - View this thread

I hope STS-117 isn't delayed by this train wreck like it was from that hailstorm last March.
posted on May 3, 2007 - View this thread

Just days after the Virgina Tech massacre and subsequent discussions on the pros and cons of gun control, a NASA contract engineer shot his coworker today on charges that his performance review was bad. A woman was held hostage by being tied to a chair during this episode. He brought the gun to work after printing out his performance review. NASA intends to increase security even as increased campus security is being discussed. How do we prevent more such shootings, asks the president.
posted on Apr 21, 2007 - View this thread