Friday fun: 1958 Newsreel: Army's Explorer satellite is launched

Today (Sept. 9) is my 53rd birthday and being a space geek I know that NASA also turns 53 later this year so I thought it would be neat to post the newsreel below that features the launch of the Explorer 1 satellite:



According to this Wikipedia article NASA officially became operational on October 1 of 1958, so I guess we have a few more weeks to prepare for the party. Any thoughts on how to celebrate NASA's 53rd?

By the way, thanks to HistoryReDefined for posting this video on Youtube!

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

STS-135: The Mission

Instead of the usual Friday Fun video I thought I would post a video of today's launch of the Shuttle Atlantis. Unfortunately embedding is not enabled on the official NASAtelevision video of the launch, so I decided to post this mission overview instead. Below the video is more information about the STS 135 mission:



Source - NASAtelevision on Jun 27, 2011

"STS-135, the final mission of the Space Shuttle Program, is detailed in this overview of Atlantis' flight to the International Space Station targeted to launch on July 8. Commander Chris Ferguson; Pilot Doug Hurley; and mission specialists Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim Engineers want to understand why the pump failed and improve designs for future spacecraft.

This is the final flight for shuttle Atlantis and the Space Shuttle Program. NASA's workhorses for the past 30 years have completed their mission to build and supply the orbiting outpost, and the agency is now looking to destinations beyond low-Earth orbit."

While I am sad to see the Space Shuttle program end I am hopeful that NASA will continue with manned missions to explore space. If you have an interest in space exploration and astronomy then feel free to check out my Cloudymidnights, and Astrolinks blogs.

Have a great weekend ~ Jim:

Friday fun: H.A.L.E. - High Altitude LEGO Extravaganza

Earlier this week I came across the site for the High Altitude LEGO Extravaganza or H.A.L.E., and was just blown away as to how these people took their LEGO NXTs to new heights:



For more information check out the H.A.L.E. site at: http://www.unr.edu/nevadasat/hale/

Have a great & safe weekend ~ Jim