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President Obama plans to bring his family to the launch of the space shuttle Endeavour on April 29 to see Rep. Gabrielle Giffords's husband lead six astronauts into space. Giffords wrote on Twitter: "We are very happy that Pres. Obama is coming to Mark's launch! This historic mission will be Endeavour's final flight." The Orlando Sentinel reports that Obama decided to attend for a few reasons, one of which was that he was going to be in the state already to speak at Miami Dade College's

When President Obama speaks, don't interrupt. That's what the president told a Texas reporter after a brief but contentious interview in which he was challenged about his unpopularity in the state. "Let me finish my answers next time we do an interview, all right?" he told WFAA News 8 reporter Brad Watson. During the interview, one of four that Obama held with Texas media in the White House on Monday, the president argued that even though the Lone Star state was historically Republican, his election meant that the politics there was changing. "We lost by a few percentage points in...

The battle over those retired space shuttle orbiters is getting nasty. And personal. That's good news for the news business. The most recent combatants are New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, a liberal Democrat who is considered one of the leading "camera hogs" on Capitol Hil", and Texas Rep. Ted Poe, a conservative Republican who spent more time at the House microphone than any other lawmaker in 2010. This latest tiff started when Schumer had a one-word response to Texans (and their allies) who are pushing legislation to overturn NASA director Charles Bolden's decision to award New York City (and not...

Congressman Ted Poe is demanding answers from NASA. The Texas Republican says he was shocked to hear that Houston was denied one of the four retired space shuttles. On Tuesday, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced Atlantis will go to Florida, Endeavour will be sent to California and Discovery was awarded to the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Washington Dulles International Airport. The prototype orbiter Enterprise, which was used for testing but never flew in space, will be sent to the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City. "NASA made a mistake," Poe said during a Sunday...

NASA: Instead of awarding our retired space fleet to museums, we should be awarding contracts to go to Mars and beyond. Once we triumphed over the vacuum of space. Now we face a vacuum of leadership. A nation whose world leadership was unquestioned once held its breath as an American spacecraft placed American astronauts on the surface of the moon. It was a triumph of exceptionalism that was officially laid to rest this week as a nation held its breath to see which museums our space shuttle fleet would be awarded to. In these difficult economic times and with a...

NASA administrator Charles Bolden announced today the four museums -- the Smithsonian Institution (Discovery), the California Science Center (Endeavour), Kennedy Space Center (Atlantis) and the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum (Enterprise) -- that will receive space shuttles for public display after the fleet retires this summer. As expected Houston, the home of human spaceflight, was snubbed. It's a shame. Houston's campaign, Bring the Shuttle Home, probably deserves some blame for being late to the game in terms of politicking for an orbiter. But I'm not sure any campaign could have saved Houston. The politics of this decision were pretty...

The one. The only. The last

Skywatcher Rob Bullen of Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England caught this snapshot of shuttle Discovery as it approached the International Space Staiton on Feb. 26, 2011. Discovery was flying its final mission, STS-133.

Well this is final live thread of the Space Shuttle Discovery. I'm going to miss seeing those birds..

Space shuttle Discovery docked with the International Space Station for the final time at 2:14 p.m. EST Saturday, where it will make a last delivery to the orbiting space lab -- before parking ultimately at a museum. The two spacecraft were flying about 220 miles above western Australia at the time they docked for the 11-day mission to deliver supplies, spare parts, an extra storage module and a humanoid robot assistant to the International Space Station. Two spacewalks are also planned during the shuttle's week-long stay at the orbiting lab. The shuttle and station crews will open hatches and hold...

follow the shuttle as it disappears into the outer atmosphere. This can create some truly stunning footage, especially as the rockets fire and the initial launch happens. On Thursday Discovery got its last ascent into space, but this time instead of just seeing it from the ground, one lucky passenger flight also saw it from the air. The flight was from Orlando, Florida, and it happened to be passing by the Kennedy Space Center just as the launch happened. We’re also lucky that one of the passengers had the sense to pull his camera out and start recording. The footage...

NASA Managers: It's a "Go" for LaunchAt today's pre-launch news conference NASA's mission management team have given their unanimous approval for space shuttle Discovery's launch tomorrow at 4:50 p.m. EST. "Everything is on track and going beautifully with the countdown," said Mike Moses, mission management team chair. "We're really looking forward to a very action-packed, successful mission and everything is on track." Mike Leinbach, shuttle launch director, agreed that everything is going extremely well with the launch countdown. He also acknowledged the processing teams who worked on Discovery, its flight systems and ground elements. "As we're powering up (the systems)...

Record crowds by the thousands are expected to turn out Thursday (Feb. 24) to watch NASA's space shuttle Discovery soar to space for the last time. Luckily, a shuttle launch is such a bright spectacle that anyone on Florida's Space Coast can get a decent view. The shuttle is poised to blast off on Feb. 24 at 4:50 p.m. EST (2150 GMT) to make one last delivery trip to the International Space Station.

Private industry could be prepared to go where NASA fears to tread and develop a spaceplane to replace the space shuttle and ferry crews to and from the International Space Station. But if industry succeeds, it will be thanks to decades of work by the space agency on lifting-body reentry vehicles. While its plans for replacing the shuttle are in flux, NASA has a small program underway intended to stimulate private-sector efforts to develop commercial human spaceflight services. While most of those involved are pursuing Apollo-style capsules similar to NASA’s Orion crew vehicle, one is designing a spaceplane. The Dream...

NASA's space shuttle orbiters may not be destined for a museum in five months, after all. Agency officials are conducting a "what-if budget exercise" that could keep the orbiters potentially flight-worthy for several more years, NASA says. The option may offer a tantalizing alternative to the space shuttle workforce, who now must find new jobs before mid-year. Currently, NASA plans to retire all three orbiters - including Discovery after a scheduled flight in February, Endeavour after a planned trip in April and finally Atlantis after it returns from a scheduled launch in June. Meanwhile, NASA has asked the space industry...

February 1, 2003 - Explosion of the Space Shuttle Columbia. As memorable as the 9/11 tragedy, so was the explosion and destruction of the Space Shuttle Columbia over Louisiana, February 1st, 2003. History has given special notice to Space Shuttle Challenger's destruction 25 years ago, but why hasn't the disintegration of Columbia been as noteworthy? Maybe, it has something to do with Political Correctness and the EPA, proving again how our daily lives are excessively affected by by Political Correctness and the EPA. We have seen the deadly effects of the enviromentally obsessed: The banning of DDT which has promoted...

On the morning the Challenger space shuttle made its final flight, Mark Letalien was sitting in his high school theatre surrounded by wildly cheering students as the spacecraft carrying their teacher, Christa McAuliffe, tore through the Florida sky. But 73 seconds into the historic mission, the raucous celebration at Concord High School in Concord, New Hampshire, was shattered by a teacher's yell to be quiet.

With the space shuttle program shutting down this year, NASA on Jan. 24 issued official notification that Kennedy Space Center (KSC) launch pads, payload processing facilities, runways and other amenities will be available for use by commercial companies and non-federal entities. In its Notice of Availability and Request for Information, NASA identified four types of facilities it expects to make available upon completion of the shuttle program: space vehicle processing and launch, off-line processing, payload processing and miscellaneous. Listed in the announcement are Launch Complexes 39A and 39B, the Vehicle Assembly Building, Launch Control Center, Orbiter Processing Facilities, Shuttle Landing...

The shocking gundown of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has left NASA reeling: Her astronaut husband was due to rocket away in just three months as perhaps the last space shuttle commander, and her brother-in-law is currently on the International Space Station. Shuttle commander Mark Kelly rushed to his wife's hospital bedside Saturday as his identical twin brother, Scott, did his best to keep updated on the Arizona shooting through Mission Control, the Internet and the lone phone aboard the space station. (snip)

Five minute time lapse of STS 131, from hangar to launch. Pretty cool! Direct Link