Friday, May 22, 2009

STS-125 Hubble Release

Amazing inside look at the crew and deploying the Hubble Space Telescope. Great job crew sts-125! Hubble will be a working telescope for years to come!

Friday, May 15, 2009

Bolden will be new NASA chief? Monday we'll know.

Former astronaut Charlie Bolden will meet with President Barack Obama on Monday to discuss the NASA administrator job, the White House confirmed today.

"I think you know that the president...wants to meet with somebody about filling the important role of NASA administrator," Robert Gibbs, White House press secretary, said at a briefing.

Asked if that person was Bolden, Gibbs responded: "He will meet with him Monday and we'll see how that goes."


From Flame Trench here.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Story Musgrave and Ist Hubble mission STS-61




From NASA bio here:
STS-61 was the first Hubble Space Telescope (HST) servicing and repair mission. Following a night launch from Kennedy Space Center on December 2, 1993, the Endeavour rendezvoused with and captured the HST. During this 11-day flight, the HST was restored to its full capabilities through the work of two pairs of astronauts during a record 5 spacewalks. Dr. Musgrave performed 3 of these spacewalks. After having travelled 4,433,772 miles in 163 orbits of the Earth, Endeavour returned to a night landing in Florida on December 13, 1993. Mission duration was 10 days, 19 hours, 59 minutes.

Story said it took 22 turns to get the bay doors open on the Hubble. The STS-125 team picked his brain before the mission to get information on the first servicing mission.

Hubble is Grappled!

TOS and New Trek crew

Engineering was a Budwiser Beer factory!


I got to laugh about that one! JJ was pretty sneaky on his film locations. When I saw how the Enterprise engineering looked like I had the feeling I was in a factory. This bud's for you Capt. Kirk! LOL!

Shuttle Atlantis will grab Hubble today

The Shuttle Atlantis will grab the space telescope Hubble today at about 11:53 AM EST.
Commander Scott Altman and his co-pilot fired the engines Wednesday morning and steered Atlantis up into Hubble's orbit. Early in the afternoon, robot arm operator Megan McArthur will use the 50-foot boom to grab the school bus-sized observatory and anchor it in Atlantis' payload bay.

The capture is expected to occur over the Indian Ocean, just northeast of Madagascar.

Hubble scientists and managers warn that Hubble may look a little ragged; it hasn't had a tuneup for seven years.

Can't wait to see the old Bird. Good Luck Atlantis in capturing Hubble.