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Singer/songwriter Norah Jones sang 'America the Beautiful' at today's Congressional Gold Medal ceremony for astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and John Glenn.

China has declared its intention to land an astronaut on the moon, in the first official confirmation of its aim to go where Americans last set foot nearly 40 years ago. While Chinese scientists have previously discussed the possibility of a manned lunar mission, a government white paper published on Thursday is the first public government document to enshrine it as a policy goal. China will “conduct studies on the preliminary plan for a human lunar landing”, the white paper said. Although manned moon mission is still some time off – Chinese experts say after 2020 – the statement highlights...

Space Toilet Gives Astronauts Smelly Time in OrbitThe downside to zero gravity: a lot of maintenance for waste disposal By Denise Chow and SPACE.com | July 14, 2011 HOUSTON — Even soaring high above Earth on a high-tech space station doesn't excuse astronauts from the most mundane household chores … especially when you're dealing with a smelly space toilet. The 10 astronauts on the International Space Station today (July 13) tackled the daunting chore of unpacking tons of supplies delivered by NASA's shuttle Atlantis this week. But one station crewmember, NASA astronaut Ron Garan, had a more pressing duty: fixing...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The six space station astronauts took shelter in lifeboats Tuesday when a piece of orbiting junk came dangerously close. The unidentified object came within 1,100 feet of the space station — closer than any piece of space junk ever, said NASA's space operations chief, Bill Gerstenmaier. Mission Control ordered the astronauts into the two Russian Soyuz capsules parked at the space station Tuesday morning. NASA got just 14 hours' notice of the close approach, not nearly enough time to move the space station out of harm's way. The call to seek shelter came around 7:30 a.m....

These stunning images capture the final stage of the construction of the International Space Station. But as they marked the beginning of a new era in space exploration, the spacewalk undertaken by Gregory Chamitoff and Mike Fincke also represented an end - of Nasa's 30-year shuttle programme. All future spacewalks - including one during the final shuttle voyage this summer - will be performed by full-time space station residents.

The White House has called for a 10-month study of the appropriate 'role and size' of the 64-member astronaut corps after the final shuttle mission next year. Reporting from Washington — With NASA's budget under pressure and the space shuttle program set to retire, even the agency's most sacred cow — the 64-member astronaut corps — isn't safe from the possibility of cuts. At the behest of the White House, the nation's top science advisors this month began a 10-month study of the appropriate "role and size" of the astronaut corps after the final shuttle mission next year. The study,...

With the final crews in training for NASA’s last three space shuttle missions, the number of astronauts in the corps is down to 65 – a 25% drop since last year. NASA plans to keep its roster of astronauts at 65 to support spaces station operations and other programs, including the development of the agency’s Orion deep space capsule and planned commercial crew vehicles, said Jerry Ross, a seven-time shuttle veteran who heads the agency’s Vehicle Integration Test Office, an engineering support team for the Astronaut Office. The 65-member corps does not include nine astronaut-candidates selected last year who are...

NASA is pushing ahead with work on its new Orion space capsule and Ares rockets despite their ambiguous status as lawmakers discuss the agency's 2011 budget request.  Orion and Ares are part of Constellation, a NASA program designed to take astronauts back to the moon. Under his 2011 budget proposal, President Barack Obama called for canceling Constellation and urged NASA to work toward sending humans to an asteroid and then on to Mars. The outlook for Constellation's fledgling rocket and capsule spacecraft is not clear. Obama did recommend continuing development of Orion -- but only as an escape ship that...

Competitiveness: The president spent Tax Day reassuring Florida voters that money will keep flowing to NASA. But in space as well as on Earth, we'll be an unexceptional nation. In space, no one can hear you scheme. President Obama's speech at the Kennedy Space Center will never be confused with President Kennedy's clarion call in 1961 to send an American to the moon within a decade. Rather it was an admission that we will now boldly go where no one wants to go.

Space is about to have a female population explosion, with four women set to be in orbit at the same time. This week NASA will attempt to launch three women to the International Space Station, where they will join another female who is already circling earth in a Russian capsule. It will be the most women in space at the one time.

Two United States astronauts have criticised president Barack Obama's shelving of American lunar missions. Speaking in London, the Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell described the move as potentially catastrophic. The last man on the moon, Eugene Cernan, said it was "disappointing". "I'm quite disappointed that I'm still the last man on the moon," he said. "I thought we'd have gone back long before now. But I am absolutely committed to the fact that we will go back sometime, hopefully sooner than later." Mr Cernan, who made his final lunar landing mission in 1972, says the US has a responsibility to...

Achievement: The nation that put the first man on the moon may have put its last as budget cuts slash NASA's plans to return. Men will return to the moon, but they will likely speak Chinese. On May 25, 1961, President Kennedy announced in front of a joint session of Congress the dramatic and ambitious goal of sending an American to the moon by the end of that decade. It was a clarion call to the American spirit and technology to rise up and prove that America's best days were still ahead. Forty-one years after Neil Armstrong set foot on...

On July 20, 1969, Buzz Aldrin became the second man to set foot on the Moon, following mission commander Neil Armstrong. That historic moment was over 40 years ago. Today, Aldrin is celebrating another milestone, his 80th birthday. Although the famous Apollo 11 mission was over four decades ago when NASA was in its infancy, Buzz continues to be very vocal in matters of human spaceflight. He is an outspoken critic of spaceflight policy and an expert in communicating all things space to the public.

Astronauts experience weightlessness, and most of them also lose weight in space. Why? Because they are often nauseous, always busy, and the food on board their capsules, shuttles and space stations doesn't look, smell or taste like it does on Earth.

<p>COCOA BEACH, Fla. — Legendary space industry engineer Thomas J. O'Malley, 94, died Friday evening, shortly after a phone call from Mercury astronaut and former U.S. Sen. John Glenn, whom O'Malley launched into space in 1962 by pushing a button.</p>

... The most challenging impediment to human travel to Mars does not seem to involve the complicated launching, propulsion, guidance or landing technologies but something far more mundane: the radiation emanating from the Sun’s cosmic rays. The shielding necessary to ensure the astronauts do not get a lethal dose of solar radiation on a round trip to Mars may very well make the spacecraft so heavy that the amount of fuel needed becomes prohibitive. There is, however, a way to surmount this problem while reducing the cost and technical requirements, but it demands that we ask this vexing question: Why...

Note: The following text is a quote: THE BRIEFING ROOM THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary ___________________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release August 7, 2009 STATEMENT BY THE PRESS SECRETARY On Friday, August 7, 2009, the President signed into law: H.R. 2245, the New Frontier Congressional Gold Medal Act, to award gold medals on behalf of the United States Congress to Neil A. Armstrong, the first human to walk on the moon; Edwin E. `Buzz' Aldrin, Jr., the pilot of the lunar module and second person to walk on the moon; Michael Collins, the pilot of their Apollo 11 mission's...

CROWDED on to the International Space Station (ISS) with as many as 12 colleagues, Koichi Wakata's laundry habits might not ordinarily have gone down well with his fellow astronauts. But thanks to the wonders of science, the Japanese spaceman's revelation that he had been wearing the same pair of underpants for the past month did not cause too much of a stink. After landing back at Florida's Kennedy Space Centre yesterday on board the shuttle Endeavour following 138 days in orbit, Mr Wakata told how an experiment designed to test the prototype pants held up well during the final stages...

On Sunday July 20, 1969 the first people landed on the moon. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were in the lunar lander which touched down at 3:17 Eastern Standard Time. Buzz Aldrin had with him the Reserved Sacrament. He radioed: “Houston, this is Eagle. This is the LM pilot speaking. I would like to request a few moments of silence. I would like to invite each person listening in, whoever or wherever he may be, to contemplate for a moment the events of the last few hours, and to give thanks in his own individual way.”

In this time of VERY JUSTIFIABLE pride in Apollo 11, can we also spare a few moments to remember our Apollo Martyrs of Apollo 1. On January 27, 1969, in a test of the new Apollo Capsule, Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee died in a horrible fire. In the next year the Apollo Capsule was so redesigned and reworked that it can hardly be called the same machine.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – The bathroom lines just got a lot longer at the linked space shuttle and space station. One of the two toilets on the international space station malfunctioned Sunday morning. The pump separator apparently flooded. Mission Control advised the astronauts to hang an "out of service" sign on the toilet, until it can be fixed. In the meantime, the six space station residents will have to get in line to use their one good toilet. And Endeavour's seven astronauts will be restricted to the shuttle bathroom. There have never been so many people — 13 — together...

Canadian astronauts celebrate milestone Published Saturday July 18th, 2009 The Canadian Press LONGUEUIL, Que. - A bear hug in space between two Canadian astronauts marked a history-making moment as Julie Payette floated into the International Space Station and was greeted by fellow Canadian Bob Thirsk. It marked the first time two Canadian astronauts were in space together at the same time. Payette was a member of the seven-member crew of the space shuttle Endeavour who arrived at the space station Friday afternoon after five technical and weather-related delays. Thirsk was so excited about the Canadian rendezvous that he snapped pictures...

The second man to step foot on the moon, Buzz Aldrin, took some time away from celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11's mission to explain his ambitions for space exploration on "Washington Unplugged."

Astronauts Launch New Pro-Life TV Commercial After CNN, NBC Reject Ads Washington, DC -- A pro-life group whose first two television commercials were rejected by NBC and CNN has unveiled a new ads that promote the potential of human life. The ads feature clips of astronaut Neil Armstrong and they have the support of top astronauts Dr. Joseph Kerwin and Gene Krantz. Full story and video of new pro-life ad at: http://www.LifeNews.com/nat5229.html

The NASA astronaut Buzz Adrin has called for the world to press on with establishing a human settlement on Mars to offer the younger generation much-needed objectives. The second person to walk on the moon said that setting up habitation on the surface of the red planet was a "wonderful objective" for humanity. Buzz Aldrin on the moon, 1969 Given the backdrop of the ailing world economy, space exploration could offer younger generations much-needed goals, the 79-year-old said. "I think we need to look quite a way down into the future to inspire our young people with that greatness. "America...

President Obama's selection Saturday of former astronaut Charles F. Bolden Jr. to head NASA gives a boost to the agency's manned space program and its stated goal of returning humans to the moon by 2020. During the presidential campaign, Obama had seemed lukewarm toward NASA and its hugely expensive human spaceflight program. Space enthusiasts were particularly worried after Obama staffers floated the idea of taking money from the agency to fund domestic programs.

John Grunsfeld and Andrew Feustel had trouble removing the old camera from the telescope because a bolt was stuck. They fetched extra tools, but none seemed to work. Finally, Mission Control urged the astronauts to use as much force as possible, even though there was a risk the bolt might break. If that had happened, the old camera would be stuck inside, leaving no room for its souped-up replacement. "OK, here we go," Feustel said. "I think I've got it. It turned. It definitely turned." And then: "Woo-hoo, it's moving out!"

The spacewalk to start repairing the Hubble began about 8:00 CT this morning. They will be outside about 55 minutes. They are currently 23 minutes into the spacewalk.

Science Museum to feature Astronaut Scott Carpenter.

Cheyenne, Dakota and Tahoe One of the top-rated Search and Rescue (SAR) dogs is Dakota, an American Pit Bull Terrier. Dakota is owned by Kris Crawford, who has 2 other pit bulls that are also certified SAR dogs! Dakota is so good at what she does, NASA handpicked Kris and Dakota to assist in the recovery of the Astronauts after the tragic 2003 shuttle disaster. Kris and Dakota were also involved in the Laci Peterson investigation. Kris and her team have been involved in many cases and have made national news on several occasions. Cheyenne, Dakota and Tahoe are also...

US Apache Helicopter crews were on a training mission with foreign pilots on the morning of February 1, 2003. Gun-camera footage picks up the shuttle as it enters the atmosphere over Central Texas...

Astronauts returning to the moon could be threatened by cosmic rays as a result of the sun becoming less active, scientists have said. The sun's ability to shield the solar system from harmful radiation could falter in the early 2020s, research from the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology claimed.At about the same time, the American space agency Nasa plans to send astronauts back to the moon.

As the presidential race enters its final week and the candidates step up their efforts to woo the space vote, both sides are trotting out the biggest space guns they can find: Apollo astronauts. Over the weekend, Apollo 7 astronaut Walt Cunningham toured cities around Florida to help promote Republican hopeful Sen. John McCain’s campaign by backing the candidate and his space platform. Cunningham said he had never campaigned for a candidate before but said that unlike Democratic contender Sen. Barack Obama, McCain had a track record supporting NASA and was more reliable on the issue. Obama, he said, was...

Are these pilots, or just spam in a can? On Sept 25th 2008, China launched a Shenzhou VII spacecraft starting their third manned space mission. The three man crew of "taikonauts" (that's Chinaspeak for astronauts) includes mission Commander Zhai Zhigang, Liu Boming and Jing Haipeng. All three men are 42 years old and all are pilots from the People's Liberation Army Air Force. Commander Zhigang will perform an EVA during the mission, becoming the first Chinese taikonaut to do a spacewalk. It's too bad they don't have Laika the Russian space dog with them. If they did, they could take...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The crews of the space shuttle and station said a teary farewell, then sealed the hatches between them Sunday after more than a week of working tirelessly together to build a bigger and better scientific outpost in orbit. Atlantis was scheduled to undock early Monday, its load considerably lighter than when it arrived Feb. 9 with Europe's premiere space laboratory, Columbus. Astronaut Daniel Tani was especially emotional as he left the international space station, his home for the past four months. Before floating into Atlantis for his long-overdue ride home, Tani paid tribute to his mother,...

Uncrewed Orion could find astronauts lost in space 17:26 19 December 2007 NewScientist.com news service David Shiga NASA wants its Orion spacecraft, seen here in an artist's conception, to be able to fly itself to the rescue of astronauts stranded in lunar orbit in a Moon lander vehicle (Illustration: NASA) NASA's Orion spacecraft could fly unpiloted to rescue astronauts stuck in orbit around the Moon, using sensors and smart navigation software the space agency is currently developing. The agency plans to carry astronauts to the Moon from 2020 aboard the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), also dubbed Orion. Once in lunar...

MOSCOW - Just a month after the Soviet Union stunned the world by putting the first artificial satellite into orbit, it boasted a new victory — a much bigger satellite carrying a mongrel dog called Laika. The mission, 50 years ago Saturday, ended sadly for Laika but helped pave the way for human flight. As with other episodes of the Soviet space program, Laika's mission was hidden under a veil of secrecy, and only after the collapse of the Soviet Union could the participants tell the real story behind it. The satellite that carried Laika into orbit was built in...

HOUSTON - Spacewalking astronauts bolted a solar power tower to the international space station on Tuesday, completing an ambitious three-day moving process that ended with elation when the beam's giant solar panels began to unfurl. Their joy turned to concern, however, when a rip was spotted in the second solar panel. NASA needs to get the tower up and running to prevent malfunctioning station equipment from delaying the addition of a much-anticipated European research lab. A massive rotary joint is supposed to make sure the solar panel wings on the right side of the space station are facing the sun....

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Astronauts added a new room to the international space station on Friday in the way of Harmony. That's the name of the school bus-size compartment that was attached by a team of spacewalkers working outside and robot arm operators working inside. "I don't know that anybody's ever told our crew that we bring harmony with us, but we sure bring fun," Discovery's commander, Pamela Melroy, said as the spacewalk ended and the congratulations began. The Italian-built Harmony — 24 feet long and 31,000 pounds — was unloaded from the shuttle's payload bay and hoisted into place...

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan - A crew that includes Malaysia's first astronaut and an American who will become the first woman to command the international space station prepared Monday for blastoff later this week. The Soyuz-FG rocket is scheduled to blast off from the Central Asian steppe on Wednesday night to take Malaysia's Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, Peggy Whitson of Beaconsfield, Iowa, and Russian Yuri Malenchenko into orbit. During his 12-day space trip, Shukor is to study of the effects of microgravity and space radiation on cells and microbes, as well as experiments with proteins for a potential HIV vaccine. The rocket —...

09/06/2007 By MARCIA DUNN / Associated Press An Air Force doctor who headed a controversial astronaut health study told Congress on Thursday that NASA is discouraging open communications by rebutting reports of drunken astronauts on launch day and deriding the claims as urban legends. The bigger issue, more than drinking, is NASA's apparent disregard of mental health and behavior issues among its astronauts, and the demoralizing reluctance among flight surgeons and astronauts to report improper conduct, said Col. Richard Bachmann Jr. Last week, NASA released the results of its own internal investigation, saying it had found no evidence or even...

The lack of privacy on launch day makes it nearly impossible to hide alcohol use or alcohol-induced impairment. Could a crewmember drink to the point of inebriation in his/her room the night before launch? Certainly, but, from the time the crew wakes on launch morning until they lift off, they are surrounded by other astronauts, managers, support crew, television (TV) cameramen, still photographers, crew quarters staff and others. Breakfast, the first scheduled event, usually starts 30 minutes after wakeup and is held in the same dining room shared by support crew and operational managers." "The result of my tours and...

Ex-astronaut Wants Ankle Bracelet Off By TRAVIS REED, Associated Press Writer ORLANDO, Fla. - Interviewing former astronaut Lisa Nowak was "like a chess game," a detective testified Friday as Nowak's attorney urged a judge to throw out evidence and a police interview in which she talked about the alleged attack on a romantic rival. Nowak also took the stand and asked the court to let her remove her electronic monitoring bracelet, complaining that it cuts her ankle and gets in the way of her military boot lace. As Nowak testified, the rival she was accused of pepper spraying in an...

listen to the question and answer session between the astronauts and students........ Link is on the right side... http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html "Morgan, Crewmates Talk With Students STS-118 astronauts take questions from students in Boise, Idaho." One of the students asks... "can you see global warming from space?" Second to answer was Clay Anderson.... "I don't know, necessarily, if I agree with that whole concept". His Bio... http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/anderson-c.html

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - A close-up laser inspection by Endeavour's astronauts Sunday revealed that a 3 1/2-inch-long gouge penetrates all the way through the thermal shielding on the shuttle's belly, and had NASA urgently calculating whether risky spacewalk repairs are needed. A chunk of insulating foam smacked the shuttle at liftoff last week in an unbelievably unlucky ricochet off the fuel tank and carved out the gouge. The unevenly shaped gouge — which straddles two side-by-side thermal tiles and the corner of a third — is 3 1/2 inches long and just over 2 inches wide. Sunday's inspection showed that...

In light of the bad news that NASA has been enduring over the past couple of weeks, I think that one man and one man alone can save the program. The man whose support for the space program garnered him an honorary place amongst the astronauts of the Mercury program: Jose Jimenez! We've heard that NASA allowed some astronauts to fly while intoxicated. What the media forgets is that, as Jose pointed out so many years ago, the blast-off is the most important thing in space travel! The astronauts always take a blast before they take off! Otherwise they wouldn't...

MOSCOW. July 28 (Interfax-AVN) - Russia's Federal Space Agency dismissed the possibility that any drunk or hungover American astronauts flew into orbit from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan. "This is completely out of the question. Practically two weeks before a flight from Baikonur, cosmonauts and astronauts are put under continual medical surveillance," Roscosmos spokesman Igor Panarin said. During the last 48 hours before the flight, "they are isolated from all external contacts," he said.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=EuGpfT308zY I think NASA is becoming less relevant with every year anyway.

Report: Drunk astronauts were allowed to fly BY MARTIN MERZER NASA allowed at least two astronauts to fly into space even though they were so drunk that flight surgeons considered them a safety risk, according to a report published Thursday by Aviation Week and Space Technology.In a brief account reported on the publication's website, the trade journal said an independent health panel commissioned by NASA also found a pattern of ''heavy use of alcohol'' by astronauts before launch.The report did not include any details about which astronauts or space programs were involved or how recently the problems might have...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - An independent health panel studying NASA astronauts found "heavy use of alcohol" before launch, according to a published report Thursday. Aviation Week & Space Technology, a weekly trade journal, reported the finding from the panel on its Web site. The weekly said that the committee found that on at least two occasions, astronauts were allowed to fly after flight surgeons and other astronauts warned they were so intoxicated that they posed a flight-safety risk. The alcohol use by astronauts was within the standard 12-hour "bottle-to-throttle" rule applied to NASA flight crew members, Aviation Week reported. The...