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U.S. Shoots for the Moon, This Time to Stay

Tony Oravet — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:45:30 +0000

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter or LRO (top) and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite or LCROSS (lower) are scheduled to be launched together aboard an Atlas 5 rocket on a mission to the moon. BRUCE WEAVER / AFP / Getty

Say this for the U.S. space program: we may have spent the last 40 years mostly ignoring the moon, but when we go back, we go back with a bang. Later today — if weather conditions and hardware permit — NASA will launch its much-anticipated and deeply imaginative Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), the first American spacecraft of any kind to make a lunar trip since 1999. Not only will LRO help us study the moon in greater detail than ever before, it should also give us our first look at the six Apollo landing sites since we abandoned the historic campgrounds two generations ago.

Read the entire article, U.S. Shoots for the Moon, This Time to Stay, over at Time.com

STS-125 Space Shuttle Atlantis Launch: May 11th, 2009

Tony Oravet — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:52:11 +0000

We had the opportunity to view the Space Shuttle Atlantis launch from 11.9 miles away at Space View Park in Titusville, FL. See below for our video and below that for a wide angle video from a guy who sat beside us. You will want to fast forward to around 4:25 seconds into the video for the launch. In the minutes before the launch, we were making sure we had all of the angles covered for the launch.

We waited about 8 hours in 95 degree weather for this 45 sec view….so worth it!

Wide Angle From a Guy Sitting Beside Us

STS-125 Hubble Release

What an incredible video from inside the Space Shuttle Atlantis during the Hubble Release.

STS-125

Tony Oravet — Mon, 11 May 2009 13:00:07 +0000

During the fifth and final space shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, Atlantis’ seven astronauts will repair and improve the orbiting observatory’s capabilities.

STS-125 is set to lift off from Launch Pad 39A today at 2:01 EDT weather permitting. We intend on being there to watch this launch and will have pictures and maybe some video to post when we get back. In the meantime, enjoy this great video from a previous launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis.

When We Left Earth

Tony Oravet — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:49:20 +0000

We love space exploration, space flight, and anything and everything else about space. So, when Landon Howell posted a blurb about the new TV series that NASA and the Discovery Channel have put together called, “When We Left Earth”, we had to go check it out. You can catch the series on the Discovery Channel on SUNDAYS @ 9pm E/P BEGINNING JUNE 8! Of course, since we have just found out about it, there are other ways to see the past episodes such as buying them on DVD at the Discovery Channel Store or by watching some of the video clips from the series here.

Thanks to Landon Howell for pointing this out!