Friday Question - Is There Life on Other Planets?
Is life unique to Earth? Could life have developed anywhere else in the universe? We're not asking about UFOs. Do you believe that it's possible that life exists on another planet?
Students Make the Ultimate Long Distance Call to the Space Station
The two locations will be part of a 20 minute in-flight education downlink, allowing students from across the country to share in this unique collaborative experience. During the event, students and educators will interact with Expedition 17 astronaut Garrett Reisman. Both locations used NASA education resources to enhance their existing curriculum and worked together to develop a comprehensive education plan to compliment the downlink. Students designed mission patches, learned about space station science experiments, made models of the space station, and explored the NASA Web site for student research and activities.
NASA's education downlinks support the agency's efforts to encourage students to study and possibly pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). These events, facilitated by NASA's Teaching From Space Office, use the unique experience of human space flight to promote and enhance STEM education.
The downlink will air live on NASA Television and be streamed on the NASA Web site.
Wordless Wednesday - Alan Shepard - 1st American in Space
The Origin of the Solar System
Over the centuries, many theories for the origin of our solar system have been suggested, then discounted. Even today there is no satisfactory model that both completely explains all the facts and is consistent with the known laws of physics.
Image at right: Ghost Nebula - Our Solar System may have formed from a similar nebula.Beginning with a "Solar Nebula," the process took millions of years to end up with the planets we know today. The sun still contains most of the material of the original solar nebula. Its internal nuclear reactions have modified the material at the sun’s core. However, the surface layers, which have not mixed with the core in its present state, have quite accurately preserved the original nebular composition.
Image Credit: George Herbig and Theodore Simon
Read more about The Origin of the Solar System.
Send Your Name to the Moon Aboard LRO!
NASA invites people of all ages to join the lunar exploration journey with an opportunity to send their names to the moon aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, spacecraft.
Image at right: Artist's concept of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.The Send Your Name to the Moon Web site enables everyone to participate in the lunar adventure and place their names in orbit around the moon for years to come. Participants can submit their information online, print a certificate and have their name entered into a database. The database will be placed on a microchip that will be integrated onto the spacecraft. The deadline for submitting names is June 27, 2008.
Image Credit: NASA
"Everyone who sends their name to the moon, like I'm doing, becomes part of the next wave of lunar explorers," said Cathy Peddie, deputy project manager for LRO at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "The LRO mission is the first step in NASA's plans to return humans to the moon by 2020, and your name can reach there first. How cool is that?"
The orbiter, comprised of six instruments and one technology demonstration, will provide the most comprehensive data set ever returned from the moon. The mission will focus on the selection of safe landing sites and identification of lunar resources. It also will study how the lunar radiation environment could affect humans.
LRO will also create a comprehensive atlas of the moon's features and resources that will be needed as NASA designs and builds a planned lunar outpost. The mission will support future human exploration while providing a foundation for upcoming science missions. LRO is scheduled for launch in late 2008.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is being built at Goddard. The mission also will be managed at the center for NASA's Explorations Systems Mission Directorate in Washington.
Send Your Name to the Moon is a collaborative effort among NASA, the Planetary Society in Pasadena, Calif., and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.
Astronauts Inducted into Hall of Fame
Astronauts Robert D. Cabana and Bryan D. O'Connor along with former astronauts John E. Blaha and Loren J. Shriver will be added to an elite list of Astronaut Hall of Fame members that includes Neil Armstrong, John Glenn, Alan Shepard, Jim Lovell, Sally Ride and John Young.
Image at right: Robert Cabana, John C. Stennis Space Center Director.A public ceremony to commemorate the veteran astronauts will be held on May 3 at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida and will be broadcast live on NASA TV at 3 p.m. EDT.
Image Credit: NASA/SSC
The 2008 inductees were selected by a committee of former NASA officials and flight controllers, journalists, historians and Hall of Fame astronauts.
Image at right: Bryan O'Connor is NASA's Chief of Safety and Mission Assurance.With four space shuttle missions to his credit, Cabana was the commander of the first International Space Station assembly mission. Currently, he is the director of NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.
Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
O'Connor was shuttle pilot on mission STS-61B and commander of STS-40, the first shuttle mission dedicated to life science studies. He now serves NASA as the Chief, Safety and Mission Assurance with responsibility for the safety, reliability, maintainability and quality assurance of all NASA programs.
Over the span of 17 years, Blaha flew on five space shuttle missions and set the American men's space record for time in space during his four months on orbit. Blaha retired from NASA in 1997 and is active in private industry.
Image at right: John E. Blaha, NASA astronaut, veteran of space shuttle missions STS-29, STS-33, STS-43 and STS-58. In 1996, he flew aboard STS-79 to the Mir Space Station where he served as a Board Engineer 2 for 4 months before returning to earth aboard STS-81.Shriver, a veteran of three shuttle flights, commanded the STS-31 mission to deploy the Hubble Space Telescope and served at NASA's Kennedy Space Center as the Launch and Payload Processing deputy director from 1997 to 2000.
Image Credit: NASA
This esteemed assembly is the seventh group of space shuttle astronauts named to the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame and brings the total number of inductees to 70.
Image at right: Loren J. Shriver, NASA astronaut who flew on STS-51C in 1985, STS-31 in 1990, and STS-46 in 1992, and has logged over 386 hours in space. In October 1992, he was assigned as Deputy Chief of the Astronaut Office.
Image Credit: NASA
Wordless Wednesday - Discovery Ready for Final Assembly and Checkout
Discovery Ready for Final Assembly and Checkout
The fully assembled space shuttle will remain in the Vehicle Assembly Building for a week, undergoing final checkouts before rolling out to Launch Pad 39A on May 3.
STS-124 is the second of three flights to deliver the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kibo laboratory to the International Space Station. Primary payloads are the tour-bus-sized Japanese Experiment Module-Pressurized Module and the lab's robotic arm system.
Mark Kelly will command the seven-member crew, which includes Pilot Ken Ham, Mission Specialists Karen Nyberg, Ron Garan, Mike Fossum, Greg Chamitoff and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Akihiko Hoshide. Chamitoff will replace Expedition 16/17 Flight Engineer Garrett Reisman and remain aboard the station as a member of the Expedition 17 crew.
The crew will visit Kennedy for the three-day Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test, which culminates in a countdown dress rehearsal May 9. Launch is targeted for May 31.
Astronauts to Make Virtual Connection With Students
Through NASA's Digital Learning Network (DLN), students at five middle schools and an invited student audience at Goddard will talk to the shuttle crew. Topics of discussion will include details about the upcoming STS-125 mission to service Hubble. Astronauts also will discuss career diversity among the crew. Each has a doctorate degree in a science, technology, engineering and mathematics discipline.
The goal of the DLN is to enhance NASA's capability to deliver unique content by linking students and educators with NASA experts. The DLN offers videoconferencing or Webcasting at no charge, providing interactive educational experiences to students and teachers from kindergarten to college across the country and around the world.
Schools selected to participate are Junior High School 145 Arturo Toscanini, Bronx, New York; Brenham Junior High School, Brenham, Texas; and South Puget Intertribal Planning Agency, Shelton, Washington. Two NASA Explorer Schools, Greencastle-Antrim Middle School, Greencastle, Pennsylvania, and Middle School at Parkside, Jackson, Michigan, also will participate.
Anyone can view the 45-minute event live online.
Expedition 16 Crew Lands in Kazakhstan
Commander Peggy Whitson and cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko of the 16th International Space Station crew landed on the steppes of Kazakhstan around 4:30 a.m. EDT Saturday after 192 days in space.
All three people aboard the Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft were reported to be in good condition after their re-entry and landing.
The landing was approximately 295 miles from the expected landing site, delaying the recovery forces’ arrival to the spacecraft by approximately 45 minutes.
With Whitson and Malenchenko was spaceflight participant So-yeon Yi. She launched to the station April 8 with the Expedition 17 crew, Commander Sergei Volkov and Flight Engineer Oleg Kononenko, under contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency.
Astronaut Garrett Reisman came to the station aboard Endeavour on its STS-123 mission, launched March 11. He served for the last few weeks as a member of Expedition 16. He remains aboard as a member of the Expedition 17 crew.
Expedition 16 crew members undocked their Soyuz spacecraft from the station at 1: 06 a.m. Saturday. The deorbit burn to slow the Soyuz and begin its descent toward the Earth took place at 3:40 a.m.
When they landed, Whitson and Malenchenko had spent 192 days in space on their Expedition 16 flight, 190 of them on the station.
Whitson, 48, returned from her second mission to the station. She served as a flight engineer on the Expedition 5 crew, launching June 5, 2002, and returning to Earth Dec. 7 after almost 185 days in space.
She landed Saturday with a total of 377 days in space, more than any other U.S. spacefarer. On April 16 she broke the previous mark of 374 days set by Mike Foale on his six flights.
She holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Rice University in Houston. She began working for NASA as a research biochemist in 1989 and was selected as an astronaut in 1996.
Malenchenko, 46, a Russian Air Force colonel, is making his third long-duration spaceflight. He spent 126 days aboard the Russian space station Mir beginning July 1, 1994, and commanded Expedition 7, spending 185 days in space beginning April 26, 2006. He also was a member of the STS-106 crew of Atlantis on an almost-12-day mission to the station beginning Sept. 8, 2000.
He landed Saturday with a total of 515 days in space on his four flights. He has the ninth highest total of cumulative time in space of all humans.
Image Credit: NASA TV