The NASA Swift satellite is out there searching for distant cosmic explosions.   Swift  has also taken the highest resolution ultraviolet portrait of the Andromeda Galaxy a neighboring spiral galaxy of ours.  The galaxywhich is known as M31 in the constellation Andromeda, is the largest and closest spiral galaxy.

Unable to find a break in the weather at Kennedy Space Center, NASA managers on Thursday scrubbed its plans to land the space shuttle Discovery in Florida and gave the astronauts a bonus day in orbit.

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The first day of the month starts off with a beautiful planet pairing in the eastern sky. Early in the morning, the two brightest planets, Venus and Jupiter, rise together before the sun with a small waning crescent moon in attendance.

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Space travel isn’t something that is only limited to government agencies.  A new space race has gotten underway, and it is being led by some of the wealthiest entrepreneurs in the world.  Instead of relying on capital companies, like Arthur Trueger’s BerkeleyVC, these entrepreneurs are fronting the money from their own (very deep) pockets.

People like Richard Branson (Founder of Virgin), Paul Allen (co-founder of Microsoft), Jeff Bezos (founder of Amazon), and Elon Musk (founder of PayPal) are leading a new revolution in space exploration.

In a previous post i mentioned that the Lunar Registry is offering plots of land up in one acre increments.  Once my excitement that i may be able to live on the moon someday subsided, i felt a little uneasy thinking about the negative aspects of what the privatization of space would bring.  Billion-dollar corporations have already shown that they will exploit anyone and everything just to increase profit by a tenth of a percentage point; just imagine the recklessness with which they will treat space.

My fear is that in the not-so-distant future people will be buying and selling plots of moon land or spaces in space like they are trading stocks in the market or online services.  For terrestrial stocks, that’s fine, but i would hate to see space become one huge advertisement like most of the Earth has.

Lawmakers want to make sure NASA’s next big mission to the moon doesn’t send too many workers to the unemployment line.

A four-year gap between the last scheduled shuttle launch and the first launch of Orion set for the year 2014 could leave thousands of NASA employees out of work, WESH 2 News reported.  Read more

The spacecraft that NASA hopes will return humans to the moon is scheduled to begin flight testing in fall 2008. The Orion spacecraft’s first duty will be to replace NASA’s aged space shuttle fleet with missions in Earth’s orbit, including visits to the International Space Station. They are scheduled to begin in 2015.   The spacecraft that NASA hopes will return humans to the moon is scheduled to begin flight testing in fall 2008. The Orion spacecraft’s first duty will be to replace NASA’s aged space shuttle fleet with missions in Earth’s orbit, including visits to the International Space Station. They are scheduled to begin in 2015.  View

NASA has authorized a contract with a maximum value of $16.7 million with Alcoa North American Rolled Products of Bettendorf, Iowa, to supply aluminum lithium plates and metal ingots for early development of the Ares I crew launch vehicles upper stage. The firm fixed-price contract has a period of performance through Aug. 5, 2008.

Ares I is an in-line, two-stage rocket that will transport to low Earth orbit the Orion crew exploration vehicle containing up to six astronauts. The first stage will consist of a single reusable solid rocket booster similar to those used on the space shuttle, with an additional fifth segment. The second, or upper, stage will consist of a J-2X main engine fueled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants.

Pictures of Plum Brook Testing Center where NASA will test Orion.  View pictures

Check out some images of Orion and Ares hardware here