Space Shuttle Atlantis Move Scheduled, Public Invited

by Chris Owen on

Space Shuttle Atlantis will make one more trip in November. No engines will fire. No astronauts will be on board. No visit to the International Space Station will be made. Still, the last voyage of Atlantis will a memorable one and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex (KSC) is inviting us along for the ride.

A series of events, open to the public, are centered around the 10 miles rolling trip from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to the Visitor Complex atop the Orbiter Transporter System (OTS). It all begins on Friday, November 2, 2012, with “Atlantis – Celebrate the Journey” events that will mark Atlantis’ last voyage.

A variety of packages include admission to KSC (a $50 value) and round-trip transportation to Exploration Park. There, visitors will enjoy astronaut appearances, interactive exhibits, displays of spaceflight hardware from past, current and future programs. Exhibitors scheduled to attend include Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corporation, SpaceX and XCOR Aerospace.

Atlantis Adventure Package: features the opportunity to view and photograph Atlantis in 360 degrees from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., an opportunity to see Atlantis travel along the roadway and enter the orbiter home from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. and a KSC Up-Close: Launch Pad tour, which takes visitors a quarter-mile within the perimeter security fence of Launch Pad 39-A to enjoy close-up views of the 350-foot-high launch pad.
Cost: $115 adult/$105 child (ages 3-11) plus tax.

Explorer Package: features the opportunity to view and photograph Atlantis in 360 degrees from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., and an opportunity to see Atlantis travel along the roadway and enter the orbiter home from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Cost: $90 adult/$80 child (ages 3-11) plus tax.

Lift-off Package: features an opportunity to see Atlantis travel along the roadway and enter the orbiter home from 5 to 6 p.m. along with the KSC Up-Close: Launch Pad tour
Cost: $75 adult/$59 child (ages 3-11) plus tax.

Rollover Package: features special exhibits as well as the Kennedy Space Center Tour, Shuttle Launch Experience, 3D IMAX® space films, Astronaut Encounter, Exploration Space: Explorers Wanted, U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame® and all exhibits during the day. Later, visitors get the opportunity to see Atlantis travel along the roadway and enter the orbiter home from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Cost: $50 adult/$40 child (ages 3-11) plus tax.

At the end of the day, Atlantis will arrive at her new $100 million permanent home, set to open in summer 2013. For more information, call 877-313-2610 or KennedySpaceCenter.com.



NASA photo

Space Attractions Down To Earth In California

by Chris Owen on


Space Shuttle Endeavor arrives at the California Science Center soon and space exploration is on the minds of local and visiting space travel fans. Visitors to Los Angeles can see a variety of historical and futuristic space exhibitions and attractions within driving distance from LAX. California residents and visitors alike are rediscovering the state’s rich space-oriented past along with current places of interest that are helping charge the U.S. space program of tomorrow.

Let’s take a look at what California has to offer travelers interested in space-themed points of interest:

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) (Pasadena) has played a major role in U.S. space exploration achievements and offers free two-hour tours of its Pasadena facility. Right now, NASA’s Mars Curiosity team is performing robotic arm tests in preparation for the rover to touch and examine its first Martian rock.

Griffith Observatory (Los Angeles) reopened in 2007 after a four-year, $93 million renovation. The 9,000-pound Zeiss Telescope can accommodate as many as 600 viewings per night, giving visitors an unmatched view of the moon and stars on a clear Los Angeles night.

Columbia Memorial Space Center (Downey) is the national memorial for the Space Shuttle Columbia’s seven crew members, lost in 2003 but also a hands-on learning center, dedicated to bringing the wonder and excitement of space science to children of all ages.

Discovery Museum Science & Space Center (Sacramento) is home to the Challenger Learning Center and houses an animal discovery room, nature trails, wildlife pond and Sacramento’s only public planetarium. Weekend activities include animal presentations for all ages, make and take crafts, and planetarium shows.Kidspace Children’s Museum (Pasadena) has more than two-dozen interactive exhibits designed for children from ages 1 to 10. At the Museum’s Gavin Physics Forest, kids can learn first hand about what it takes to get an object into space by creating mini-bottle rockets and study gravitational acceleration with the Ball Bounce exhibit.

Space Mountain– No list of California space attractions would be complete without Disneyland’s Space Mountain, the high-speed thrill ride that has hurtled visitors into the final fun frontier since 1977.


Flickr photo by Lance Cheung

Space Travel To Include Interstellar Trips In 100 Years

by Chris Owen on

The idea of space travel has its fans. But other than NASA astronauts or those wiling to pay a hefty fee to Richard Branson for a sub-orbital flight, few of us will actually see space, the final frontier. Interstellar flight, human travel beyond our solar system, seems even more elusive. The 100-year Starship Initiative, aims to change all that and even has the backing of one former U.S president.

“This important effort helps advance the knowledge and technologies required to explore space, all while generating the necessary tools that enhance our quality of life on Earth,” said former U.S. president Bill Clinton in a statement featured in an MSNBC article.

President Clinton was talking about the 100 Year Starship initiative and its 2012 Public Symposium that kicks off this week. The Starship organization is charged with pursuing initiatives, galvanizing leadership and support, to assure that human travel beyond our solar system can be a reality within the next century.The Starship Organization was started by the U.S. Defense Departments Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), established in 1958 to maintain the technological superiority of the U.S. military. DARPA is all in on this project too, issuing a challenge to create a non-governmental organization for persistent, long-term, private-sector investment into the many disciplines needed to make long-distance space travel possible.

At this week’s symposium, scientific and cultural leaders will explore the technologies, science, social structures and strategies needed to make capabilities for human travel to another star system a reality within the next century. Along the way, it is hoped that new technologies developed to enable interstellar flight will have land-based applications as well.

Still sound a bit far-fetched? The idea of traveling to the moon might have started with H. G. Wells’ futuristic “The First Men in the Moon” published in 1901, 69 years before it happened.

Yes, the roster of guests at the 2012 Public Symposium will include some StarTrek alums but also feature some of today’s top names in research, design and academics. The four-day Symposium and Expo is being held September 13-16, 2012 in Houston, Texas. Visit Space.com this week for complete coverage of the 100YSS Public Symposium.




Flickr photo by garysan97

Space Program Spinoff: New York To Tokyo In 90 minutes By 2030

by Chris Owen on

Throughout the years, space program spinoffs have served us well. Everyday products include freeze-dried food, firefighting equipment, emergency “space blankets,” Dustbusters and more. First they were proven in space, then adapted to fulfill earthly needs. Today, forward-thinking scientists are talking about adapting technology not even in practice yet to address current real-life desires.

XCOR Aerospace is a California corporation formed by people who realized the only way for them to get to space is to make it affordable for private citizens. Their current focus is set on developing the Lynx commercial reusable launch vehicle (RLV). Lynx will take humans and payloads on a half-hour suborbital flight then return safely to the takeoff runway. But looking beyond what has not even been done yet, XCOR could have the ticket to a flight from New York to Tokyo in 90 minutes by 2030.

Airlines have all but given up on supersonic flight, burned by the two unsolved problems of the Concorde that retired in 2003: the high cost of fuel and the noisy sonic boom created by the aircraft. Those two factors, respectively, led to an inability to make Concorde’s operation profitable and limited its market as nations (including the United States) prohibited landing. Still, the idea of flying from New York to Tokyo in under three hours still has its charm and XCOR might have a way to make it happen.

Flying what is called point to point space travel, the Lynx will take off and land like a conventional plane, going from point A to point B, but cruise at Mach 3.5 (2,688 mph).”Rockets are the way to go,” said XCOR COO Andrew Nelson in an interesting Business Insider article about how the return of supersonic flight will revolutionize travel. Initially it will be “much more like a fighter pilot experience” than business class, says Nelson, but New York to Tokyo in 90 minutes? How great would that be?

Sound familiar?

In 2008 Gadling reported, “It should be two years before the Lynx is off the ground, and Xcor has still to find a commercial partner to market and operate the flights,” in “The Commercial Space Race Heats Up.” But that was for a joy ride in suborbital space for millionaires launching and landing in the same place.

Point to point space travel is an entirely different animal, as we see in this video:




[Flickr photo by Midland Intl. Airport]

Windowless Hybrid Wing Plane Successfully Tested By NASA And Boeing

by Jessica Festa on




Passengers may need to wave goodbye to window seats on the planes of the future. However, although your view may not be as nice, there will be many other perks. NASA and Boeing have teamed up and created a hybrid wing plane. A scale model of the X-48C plane prototype was successfully tested in California.

According to news.com.au, the windowless plane has been designed to be more fuel-efficient, seat more passengers and potentially bring down the cost of flights. Moreover, with only two engines and nose-shielding vertical fins, the aircraft is said to provide a quieter trip for fliers.

NASA’s goal is for the design to be universally adopted by the military and potentially consumer flights within the next two decades.