Welcome Home Peggy!

From Florida Today here:
ISS Commander Peggy Winston is home from 377 days in space and has set the record for most days in Space for an American. The Russian's record was set by Sergei Krikalev for a total of 803 days.

Planet of the Apes (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1968)

Rest in Peace
Mr. Charlton Heston you will be missed!

7 minutes of Terror!

Daisy, Daisy, HAL style

Argos Buoy's record no "Global Warming"

from IBD Editorials here:

The new buoys, known as Argos, drift along the oceans at a depth of about 6,000 feet constantly monitoring the temperature, salinity and speed of ocean currents. Every 10 days or so a bladder inflates, bringing to the surface readings taken at various depths. Once on the surface, they transmit their readings to satellites that retransmit them to land-based computers. The Argos buoys have disappointed the global warm-mongers in that they have failed to detect any signs of imminent climate change. As Dr. Josh Willis, who works for NASA in its Jet Propulsion Laboratory, noted in an interview with National Public Radio, “there has been a very slight cooling” over the buoys’ five years of observation, but that drop was “not anything really significant.” Certainly not enough to shut down the Gulf Stream.

Climate-change promoters also are perplexed by the observations of NASA’s eight weather satellites. In contrast to some 7,000 land-based stations, they take more than 300,000 temperature readings daily over the surface of the Earth. In 30 years of operation, the satellites have recorded a warming trend of just 0.14C - well within the range of normal variations. If the Argos buoys and satellites had confirmed the greenie computer models and Gore hype instead of natural temperature variations, it would have been big news. The silence speaks volumes.

The Earth is Flat!

"You're talking about Dick Cheney. I think that those people are in such a tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view, they’re almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat,” says Gore. "That demeans them a little bit, but it's not that far off," he tells Stahl.

From Leslie Stahl's interview of ALGORE on 60 Minutes.

STS 123 Lands

STS-123 pictures

Endeveavor leaves ISS heading for home

I've been busy lately, but STS-123 has these accomplishments: (From Flame Trench)

++Most spacewalks -- five -- during a station assembly mission.

The Endeavour astronauts tied a record jointly held by astronauts on four Hubble Space Telescope servicing missions.

++Longest shuttle stay at the station: 11 days, 20 hours and 36 minutes.

The astronauts delivered the first segment of the Japanese Kibo science research facility, and they assembled a two-armed Canadian robot poised to do maintenance work outside the station.

They knocked off other seemingly mundane-yet-critical construction chores during a mission that raised the bar for future assembly crews.

Said senior NASA manager LeRoy Cain: "It's just been remarkable."

Endeavour and its crew are scheduled to land 33 minutes before sunset Wednesday: 7:04 p.m. EDT.

On the west coast the landing will be at 4:04 PM Wednesday afternoon. Perfect for the kids to watch after school!

Polar bear Climate model

"A climate model is not a crystal ball," he says. "It's impossible to make a perfect representation of climate. There are choices you make in model development that lead to a range of model behaviors. Often it is not possible to say that one [model] is better than another."

From Environmental Protection here.

RIP Arthur C. Clarke

I am sad to see him gone. He is one of the last of the Golden Age. I read lots and lots of Clarke during my teen years. My favorite movie was 2001: Space Odyssey and favorite book was Rendezvous with Rama.
HT to LGF here.

Happy Saint Patty's

NASA: STS-123 Backflip

Black flip Endeavour

STS-123 Space Shuttle Launch

Endeavour's Night launch

View from VAB

STS 123 Night Launch

The Jules Verne

A European space freighter as big as a double-decker bus is set to blast off from a South American spaceport Saturday night, heading toward a docking test with the International Space Station.

Weighing 20 tons, the unmanned spacecraft is almost four stories tall and is equipped with an automated docking system never tested in orbit.

Independent investigators raised concerns last year about trying to dock it at the station without a test flight to a target spacecraft first.

Two orbital dress rehearsals are planned before it attempts to dock at the station, and project officials insist the hookup can be performed without endangering the $100 billion outpost or its crew.

"We're absolutely confident with the safety aspects of this spacecraft," NASA station program manager Mike Suffredini said.

The Automated Transfer Vehicle, or ATV, is a key component of the European Space Agency's $7.4 billion contribution to the station project.

Launch of the first ATV, which is named after pioneering 19th-century science fiction writer Jules Verne, is the culmination of a $1.9 billion project that dates back to 1995.

HT Florida Today

Launch tonight is targeted for 11:03 p.m. EST, and we will have live coverage of the countdown. We will have live video of the launch, via NASA TV, and a second feed from the European Space Agency. Our coverage will pick up with fueling, around 7 p.m. EST. The live video webcast begins just after 10 p.m.

HT Flame Trench here.

NASA: Space Age 50th Anniversary

I was born in the space age (1958)

NASA/JPL: Voyager at 30

It was a first and all other probes follow it.

STS-122 Space Shuttle Landing

STS-122 Landing at KSC