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Discovery at launchpad 39A. Source: NASA

Two million parts – all of them form the low bidder – as Wally Schirra  once famously quipped – if you put those parts together just right – you’ve got yourself a space shuttle – the problem is – just about every single one of them has to be working perfectly before a shuttle ever clears the tower.  But exceptions can be made….and that is what the shuttle launch team is doing for this next launch. With Discovery sitting on the launch pad for its penultimate flight – a helium valve  failed. The helium is used to make sure there is pressure in the fuel lines that feed the Orbital Maneuvering System engines – which handle the big course changes in orbit. Fixing the valve means a roll back to the the hangar – and a big delay. So the shuttle team will try to verify that some regulators downstream of the valve are working just fine. If so, it means they will have confidence they have only lost one layer of redundancy – and thus give Discovery its launching papers.

NASA’s Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer – or WISE has captured an image – Charles Foster Kane would have liked to see – rosebud….
this one is no sled though – it is a cosmic blossom in a cluster of stars in the Berkeley 59 – which sounds a little like a group of sixties anti war radicals…anyway…the blue dots are the stars…and they are formed by the orange dust cloud in the middle – and the green – those are polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons – of course…you can find those on earth in barbecue pits…for some reason I am hungry…WISE is also hunting for asteroids – and it has found more than a dozen that are near to earth – and we didn’t even know we were there. You’d be WISE to listen to this story – Chicken Littles.

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The latest edition of “This Week in Space” is now available.  Check us out!

Hello and welcome – President Obama will finally say something about his plan for NASA – but there are still mixed messages coming out of the space agency – as the space shuttle program winds down – and new commercial players try to spin up. And while SpaceX tried to figure out why a launch pad test ended before it really got started – We are told by the man in charge of the shuttle program that the fleet doesn’t have to stop flying after 4 more flights – it is just a matter of money…more on all of this in a bit – but first I have to tell you about tje Warner Brothers “IMAX: Hubble 3D” movie that captures some of the space shuttle’s greatest moments – and gives those of us who have never been to space – an idea of what it is really like to be there. I am talking about the IMAX Hubble 3-D movie – which premiered this week at the Air and Space Museum in Washington…The movie focuses on the last Hubble repair mission in May. NASA  bolted a 3-D IMAX camera into the payload bay of Atlantis – it captured the astronauts at work in a vivid big screen – in your face – kinda way.

Leonardo DiCaprio narrates the film. Hubble 3D also includes scenes from the first Hubble repair mission – and the deployment of the telescope as well. But this time there is something different – IMAX took some of the most iconic images captured by Hubble – to the National Center for Super Computing Applications at the University of Illinois Ubrana-Champaign – there the filmmakers and the computer whizzes made those images 3-D – so in this movie not only do you feel as if you are flying on board the shuttle – you also are treated to an amazing 3-D odyssey through distant galaxies and nebulas. It’s an amazing ride…

They rolled out the red carpet at the Air and Space museum for the premiere – the space glitterati – such as it is – was there in large numbers – to see the Hubble 3-D. Now Leonardo sent his regrets from a movie set in Japan – and the real star of the show – Hubble was unable to be there was well – so that meant the big stars of the evening were the crew members of STS-125 – decked out in their blue flight suits – ready for their closeups. The crew of course felt a ton of pressure to fix and improve Hubble for the last time – so you would think shooting the movie would be no problem at all. But get this – they only had 8 minutes worth of film in that 3-D camera in the payload bay. And the camera only shoots 30 seconds at a time. So they had to be extremely careful about when to say “action” – but they had trained for it long and hard – and it all paid off. I spoke to these John Glenn Steven Spielberg hybrids as they walked down the carpet.

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The latest edition of “This Week In Space” – hosted by Yours Truly, is out!  Watch here!

Map of the North Pole of the Moon. Source: NASA

I gotta admit,  I am getting a little tired of launching the program with the latest skirmish in the war over the Obama NASA space budget – it’s not that I don’t care – but frankly I am more interested in learning something new about the Cosmos – not Congress. How about you? So this week, I am starting in the orbit of the moon – where a high tech divining rod built by the U.S. – hitching a ride on an Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 – has found there is a whole lot of water ice down there. And here is the proof…NASA’s Mini-SAR radar is the instrument – and it found the ice in more than 40 small craters where the sun don’t shine. So how much ice is there? 1.3 trillion pounds (600 million metric tons).  Another reason to visit the moon – it will be easy to keep the beer cold.

Buzz Aldrin

Tempting as a toga party in 1/6th gravity might be – we are not heading back to the moon anytime soon – and the second man to leave footprints up there is just fine with that. Buzz Aldrin is pushing a plan called the Unified Space Vision – which earmarks money to build a heavy lift booster – and a craft that would only operate in space called the Exploration Module – or XM (he’s Sirius about XM).  The XM’s would be built from parts left over from space station construction – carried to orbit by shuttles – oh yeah – he wants to fly several more shuttle missions. I Skyped Buzz to hear more.   A lot of others are looking to get more funding for NASA – Kay Bailey Hutchison – the Senator from Shuttleland has ginned up a bill that would add 1.3 billion dollars more to the Obama NASA budget.  The money would be used to fly the shuttle fleet indefinitely.  All of this is grist for the so called “Plan B” team that is working on a compromise plan inside NASA that might bridge the gap between the White House and the Hill. Enough said – stay tuned.

Discovery at pad 39A. Source: NASA

Meanwhile the serious business of launching a shuttle safely moves on in earnest – and in slow motion at the Cape.  TWIS Correspondent David Waters was there the other day as Discovery and her entourage – made her way to the pad – like a herd of turtles.

Liftoff is currently targeted for April 5.  Please join David, me, and astronaut Leroy Chiao at Spaceflight Now for comprehensive coverage of the launch.

International Space Station. Source: NASA

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Jets on Enceladus. Source: Cassini

Saturn’s moon Enceladus is spewing out some impressive geysers of water ice.  The NASA/ESA Italian space agency team that flies the Cassini spacecraft just released this composite image captured in November showing about 30 of the jets near the south pole of that moon. The big question for those who are interested in life beyond our planet – could their be liquid water reservoirs beneath the surface?  As you know – wherever water is found in liquid form on this planet – you will find living things.  So…Let me be the first to tell any prospective Enceladians – we come in peace.

SMOS Image. Source: ESA

Another ESA satellite is focused on water as well – just a little closer to home…These are the first calibration images from the the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity – or (SMOS) mission.  – Launched in November this satellite is designed to help scientists better understand the water cycle on earth – and that will help them improve weather and climate models.

Jurassic Space. Source: Hubble Space Telescope

Kids love space and dinosaurs – so I have always believed if we could just put a dinosaur into space – we would have a nation of space loving high achievers in math and science…well voila…astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have found some galaxies that are tantamount to seeing a dinosaur wander into your backyard. It’s a group of small galaxies that are still in the early stages of formation – but they are much closer to us – only 166 million light years – and thus much younger than galaxies at a similar stage that scientists have seen before. For some reason these small galaxies waited 10 billion years to get together.  Now that’s a long courtship…see this story in video form here.

Watch Enceladus and SMOS stories on “This Week in Space” version 8 here:

Endeavour lands at the Kennedy Space Center. Source: NASA

The Space Shuttle Endeavour was fresh off its night time landing at the Kennedy Space Center. The 6 person crew – led by Marine Colonel George Zamka – the guy they call Zambo – logged a successful mission to the Space Station – installing the Tranquility Node – with its stunning Cupola. Matter of fact station keeper Soichi Noguchi watched Endeavour streak through re-entry  “He tweeted that “The view was definitely out-of-the-world.”

Not a haiku – no

But he uses left side brain

I cut him some slack

I’m a poet – bet ya didn’t know it…

Discovery in the Vehicle Assembly Building. Source: NASA

From Haikus to minuets – TWIS is taking you upscale this week – with the precisely choreographed moved from horizontal to vertical – no I am not talking about getting out of bed with a hangover -

I am speaking of Discovery’s move from the orbital processing facility – or hangar – to the vertical assembly building for mating. Don’t worry teachers – shuttle mating is G rated. It’s all about connecting the orbiter to its big burnt orange external fuel tank – which has the solid rocket boosters attached to it. The finished product – the space shuttle stack – is slated to begin its slow roll to the launch pad on March 2nd. Launch to the space station is set for April 5th. Don’t forget the best place to watch the launch is on Spaceflight Now.

When the shuttle stops flying – the US government will no longer be in the business of building spacecraft for its astronauts to fly into space. We can only hope this is a temporary suspension in membership of a very elite club. Still the Obama space budget says the National Research Council will take a hard look at role and size of the astronaut corps. No Bucks – no need for Buck Rogers. But in India – they are ready to invest some rupees on future Ramu Ramjets. The nation’s space agency says it is ready to join the club -  they are vowing to send a pair of astronauts into space in the next six or seven years…not wise to curry…

And from our very busy “last-ever ” desk – an item this week from Big Love Country – northern Utah…Rocket builder ATK staged its last test firing of a shuttle solid rocket motor. Since 1988, ATK has conducted 34 ground tests during to verify performance and safety margins – and test new materials. ATK says it will march ahead with a static test of an Ares 1 style booster – even though that program is a goner – NASA has already paid for it – and the show will go on.

Watch these stories from “This Week in Space” Version 8 below: