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Workers started assembling twin solid rocket boosters this week to help power Endeavour toward orbit in February on the final scheduled launch of the space shuttle program. A heavy-lifting crane hoisted the aft segment of the shuttle's left solid rocket booster Monday and moved the motor atop a mobile launcher platform. The boosters for Endeavour's STS-134 mission are being stacked inside High Bay 1 of the Kennedy Space Center's cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building. Crews repeated the procedure Tuesday and lifted the right booster's aft segment from the VAB's transfer aisle into High Bay 1. It will take about three weeks...

The Latest up-date in North Korean Ballistic Missile & Space Booster Developments © By Charles P. Vick (All Rights Reserved) Senior Technical Analyst, Globalsecurity.org 09-10-18 / 01-26-2009 Disclaimer The opinions and evaluations stated here in are only the authors and cannot be construed to reflect those of any Government agency, company, institute or association. It is based on public information, circumstantial evidence, informed speculation, declassified U.S. intelligence community documents, official Iranian and North Korean government documents and histories, oral histories, interviews and reverse engineering analysis. As with all data regarding the Iranian and North Korean strategic space and ballistic missile...

Thousands of Washington children will be forced back into car and booster seats next month when a change to state law takes effect. On June 1, children will have to stay in the safety seats until they are at least 8 years old or 4 feet, 9 inches tall. Violators face a $112 ticket. About half of all children between 6 to 8 years old will be affected by the change, according to safety advocates. "It's going to be a big challenge for those kids who have been out of the booster seat to get back," said Shawneri Guzman...

Wernher von Braun in his MSFC office, with models of the rockets he helped develop in the background. (credit: NASA) Remembering Wernher von Braun by Anthony Young Monday, July 10, 2006 June 16th passed with virtually no mention of one of the greatest names in the exploration of space. On that date in 1977, Dr. Wernher von Braun passed away. He was admired and loved by many he worked with during projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, yet vilified by others because of his wartime efforts developing the V-2 for the Third Reich. He profoundly influenced the course of history...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- An Alabama booster convicted of bribing a high school football coach to get a top recruit for the Crimson Tide was found dead Tuesday in his Memphis home, and police were investigating it as a homicide. Logan Young was convicted of bribing a high school coach to get a top recruit for the Tide. (AP) Police hadn't yet confirmed the body was that of Logan Young, but his defense attorney said it was the Alabama booster. "We're treating it as a mystery homicide," Sgt. Vince Higgins said in a telephone interview. He said officials assume the victim...

Columbus- Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith accepted cash from an OSU booster last spring to pay overdue charges for a cellular telephone his mother obtained for former OSU tailback Maurice Clarett. Multiple sources, both at OSU and close to Smith, confirmed that scenario, which led to Smith's suspension from the Alamo Bowl on Dec. 20. Smith declined to comment Monday night, as did his mother, Tracy Smith. Robert Q. Baker, the booster who gave Smith the undetermined amount of cash, did not return a telephone message left at his home in Springfield. OSU Athletic Director Andy Geiger cited federal student...

Boeing's Delta IV Heavy Gets Ready for its Close-Up By Jason BatesSpace News Staff Writer The upcoming demonstration of Boeing’s heavy-lift Delta 4 rocket will feature a booster-separation event soon after liftoff and a long-duration main-engine burn during which the thrust will be throttled up, down and back up again.Those are the major differences between the flight profile of the heavy-lift Delta 4 and the standard variant, said Dan Collins, vice president of Boeing Expendable Launch Systems of Huntington Beach, Calif. The heavy-lift vehicle, with three core stages in a side-by-side configuration, is designed to loft up to 13,000 kilograms...

ASTRONOMY/SPACE ALERT FOR SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA Brian Webb Ventura County, California E-mail: kd6nrp@earthlink.net Web Site: http://home.earthlink.net/~kd6nrp Reaching more than 2,200 e-mail addresses worldwide 2003 August 14 (Thursday) 06:02 PDT ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SATURDAY MISSILE LAUNCH A prototype anti-missile interceptor booster is scheduled for launch this Saturday from Vandenberg AFB. Launch will probably occur at, or shortly, after 11:00 PDT, the start of a 6-hour launch window. This launch was originally scheduled for tomorrow, but it appears to have slipped to Saturday. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The following is a news media advisory from the Missile Defense Agency. It has been reformatted for publication. MISSILE DEFENSE ROCKET...

Here is an editorial I wrote which I hope is of some value as a morale booster. Pass it around as you see fit. ------------------------- Gulf War Two, Week One: A Historical Perspective Imagine the impossible. It is the mid-1930s. France and Britain decide to make an issue of Nazi Germany's ongoing Versailles Treaty and Locarno Pact violations. Despite failing to gain much support from the League of Nations for military action they choose to decapitate Hitler's regime, recognizing the continuing threat it poses. They mass on the German border and interpose themselves between a tyrant and an as-yet ungrateful...

Pyongyang 'tested rocket booster in Jan.' In yet another move that could increase tensions, North Korea is believed to have tested a rocket booster in January at a Taepodong ballistic missile launch site in Musudanri, Hamgyong-bukto province, Japanese and U.S. government sources said Thursday. According to the sources, U.S. spy satellite photos and other intelligence reports indicate that the launch facility is equipped with a fiber-optic network, while areas around the launchpad have been roofed in an apparent attempt to deter surveillance. The sources said the two governments, on special alert following the reactivation of the Yongbong experimental nuclear...

Heavy lifter rocket ready for debut 18:29 27 November 02 NewScientist.com news service The first European rocket capable of lifting 10 tonnes into space will make its inaugural launch from the Kourou space port in French Guiana on Thursday evening. The increased capacity Ariane 5, also known as "Ariane 10 tonnes", will carry a double payload - a television satellite and a telecommunications satellite - when it blasts off. A 43-minute launch window is available from 2221 GMT. Stefan Barensky, editor of Space-launcher.com, says the new lifter will let its operator, Arianespace, launch a broader ranger of satellite pairings....

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 September 16 An Atlas V Rocket Prepares to Launch Credit & Copyright: Ecliptic Enterprises Corporation Explanation: The first launch of an Atlas V rocket occurred last month. The Atlas V, built by Lockheed Martin, is the first rocket in the U. S. Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program. Rockets in this program can carry increasingly heavy payloads by just adding more boosters. In fact, the only US...

Newly Discovered Object Could be a Leftover Apollo Rocket Stage An analysis of the orbital motion of the newly discovered object J002E3 indicates that it could be a leftover Saturn V third stage from one of the Apollo missions, most likely the Apollo 12 mission, launched on November 14, 1969. The new object was discovered on September 3 by Bill Yeung, who noted that it was moving quite rapidly. Initial orbit computations by the Minor Planet Center indicated that the object was only about twice as far away as the Moon, and was actually in orbit about our planet....

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 June 28 Lunar Module at Taurus-Littrow Credit: Daniel D. Durda (SwRI), Space Imagery Center, LPL, Apollo 17 Explanation: Can the Hubble Space Telescope take a picture that shows the Apollo lunar modules on the Moon? With its 2.4 meter diameter mirror, the smallest object that the Hubble can resolve at the Moon's distance of around 400,000 kilometers is about 80 meters across. So, from low Earth orbit...