If you’re interested in starting your own private space program, talking with NASA about their liquidation sale might be a good start, but of course, you’ll have to have a lot of money in order to get it off the ground (pun intended). Currently, entrepreneur Elon Musk is doing just that with his SpaceX program.

Apparently NASA is wanting to sell their things off quickly before any of the structures fall into a state of disrepair — ideally they want everything sold by the end of 2013, with offers expected to roll in about six months from now. So, if you’re serious about your new space venture, you might be able to snag a bargain or two with some strategic offers.

The process is mostly secret, though, because NASA has agreed to let bidders declare their proposals proprietary and keep them out of the view of competitors and the general public, similar to how a silent auction works, so be prepared to come with your best offers in hand, or else Musk might beat you to the punch.

[via Orlando Sentinel]

Image via Flickr

Sadly, the inside of the space shuttle isn’t open for exploration. However, the California Science Center does have a virtual display that lets you check out what the inside of the space shuttle looks like. The space shuttle galley and the space toilet were both removed and are being displayed separately.

I wonder how exactly they cleaned that space toilet before putting it on display. Many an astronaut rear end has occupied the throne over the years. The exhibit does place the shuttle far enough off the ground that visitors can walk underneath to see the tiles, including some that were damaged during the shuttle’s final 25th mission.

When the official exhibit is completed in approximately five years, the space shuttle will be displayed in a vertical position as if it’s ready to launch. It will also be displayed with its external tank and twin solid rocket boosters. I like the idea of the space shuttle in a horizontal position making it easy for visitors to check out.

[via LA Times]

It’s worth noting that time is one hour later than NASA originally planned. The flyover time was shifted by an hour to allow more time for fog over the San Francisco area to dissipate before the flyover. Obviously, if the fog is still heavy, space shuttle fans on the ground will have a hard time seeing the historic last flight of Endeavour.

The shuttle and its 747 will be in the air in the California area for 4 1/2 hours. NASA is encouraging people who see the shuttle to share their sightings and photos using the hash tags #spottedtheshuttle and #OV105. OV105 is Endeavour’s official vehicle designation. NASA also has a flickr group where it is encouraging people to share their images.

The shuttle will fly over NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center and the Edwards Air Force Base area after takeoff with a low flyby northbound to Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area. Anytime after 9:30 AM PDT the space shuttle should be able to be spotted at locations such as the Bay Area Discovery Museum, Chabot Space and Science Center, the California State Capital, Exploratorium, Lawrence Hall of Science, and Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Starting at 11:30 AM the shuttle will be flying over regional landmarks, including The California Science Center, Columbia Memorial Space Center in Downey, Disneyland, The Getty Center, Griffith Observatory Los Angele City Hall, the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific Malibu Beach, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, the Queen Mary, Universal Studios an Venice Beach. The shuttle is scheduled to land at about 12:45 PM at the Los Angeles International Airport.

Endeavour flew as low as 1,500 feet – with the full permission of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), naturally – over crowds of well-wishers, including the home of retired astronaut Mark Kelly. The Tucson, Arizona, fly-by was a special request by Kelly, ABC News reports, who was the last person to command a mission aboard the shuttle.

Although Endeavour’s final resting place was a hotly contested matter, California does have some history with the shuttle. It was built in Downey by Rockwell International, Space reports, a company later absorbed into Boeing, and manufactured to replace Challenger after the 1986 accident.

During its operation service with NASA, Endeavour flew 25 missions and a total of 123m space miles. It is expected to complete its sightseeing tour and land at the Dryden Flight Research Center at approximately noon PDT today.

Toyota says that the Tundra will tow the space shuttle the last quarter-mile to its final destination. This is a significant load for the Tundra to pull. Toyota uses some creative math and rounds the load the Tundra will drag down the road to 300,000 pounds. The precise weight of the load is actually about 7500 pounds less than that at 292,500 pounds.

The space shuttle weighs 150,000 pounds; the overland transporter weighs 27,500 pounds; beams weigh 44,500 pounds, bolster beams add another 13,500 pounds, and the dollies weigh 52,000 pounds. There’s an additional 5000 pounds of miscellaneous hardware. The Toyota vehicle that will pull the load is a 2012 Tundra CrewMax 1/2-ton truck with no modifications made to increase towing capacity or power output.

The vehicle has a 5.7 L V-8 engine and is rated for a maximum towing capacity of 10,000 pounds. That means the truck will be towing roughly 282,000 pounds over its maximum rated capacity. At least, it only has to go a quarter-mile towing the load. I wonder if the footage of the truck towing the space shuttle will end up in a Toyota commercial.

I think most people have probably never seen a space shuttle up close and personal. They are gigantic and need a huge amount of clearance to make it down a city street. The final 12 miles of Endeavour’s journey will be made through the streets of South Los Angeles. The journey will include a two-day parade, an overnight stay in Inglewood, and undoubtedly some massive traffic jams.

Recently some people in South LA aren’t so excited about the space shuttle making its trip to its final resting place through their neighborhoods. The residents of South LA recently learned that 400 trees would need to be chop down so the space shuttle can make its way down the street. I didn’t even know there were 400 trees in South LA.

City work crews have been out in the neighborhoods chopping down trees to clear the final hurdles to Endeavour’s new home. However, it’s worth noting that the trees chopped down to clear the space shuttle will be replaced. The California Science Center has agreed to replant twice as many trees along the route as it cuts down. Some residents don’t think that’s good enough. Apparently, some of the trees that will be cut down are old and it can take literally a lifetime for the new trees to grow as large.

[via LA Times]

The special space shuttle superalloy helps the turbocharger Ford uses survive at the upper limit of temperature extremes that a commercial turbocharger is subjected to. Superchargers using the special alloy will be used on the Fusion and Focus ST EcoBoost turbos. Ford’s 2.0-liter turbocharged engine uses this special alloy for the turbine wheel inside the turbocharger.

The metal provides an upper temperature limit of 1050°C for the special-use turbochargers compared to the standard turbocharger upper temperature limit on 2.0-liter EcoBoost engine versions used in the Edge and Explorer of 970°C. The extra temperature range makes for a more durable turbocharger allowing drivers to enjoy the vehicles for years to come without worrying performance will degrade.

The turbochargers Ford uses are BorgWarner K03 units that use water and oil cooling. The turbos are primarily oil cooled, but the water cooling system creates a thermal water siphon to continue to cool the turbo once the engine is shut off. Ford says that the turbo is designed to run safely at speeds of up to 190,000 RPMs.

This mission marks more than just a landmark in the history of China, it brings about the next generation for humanity as well. Not only has China moved a bit forward with their acceptance of females as viable members of our society, they’re making what appears to be a rather large leap this week towards creating another sustainable, independently maintained space station in orbit around our Earth.

Currently the USA has a space station that’s out there accepting shipments from the group SpaceX, and Russia has a space station that’s been runny relatively smoothly up there for some time as well.

China’s mission here will have two crew members aboard the module for several days monitoring the life support systems while the third crew member stays aboard the capsule to keep an eye on it. After 10 days, all three astronauts will head back to Earth where China notes they will land on Chinese grasslands with parachutes.

Have a great mission, China, and good luck to you, Liu Yang!

[via AP]

SpaceX has a full schedule ahead with NASA contracts that will see the company deploying 55 launches over the next five years. It will get paid $133 million per each mission, which will mainly be for commercial satellites, netting the company over $4 billion in revenue. On a side note, SpaceX is owned by Elon Musk, who co-founded PayPal and Tesla Motors.

The last mission blasted off using SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets, delivering its Dragon capsule to the ISS and back. The Dragon capsule can be equipped for cargo or for a crew, the latter of which is the company’s next target. SpaceX is hoping to transport astronauts to and from space by 2015.

The shuttle had been set to take its journey up to the city that never sleeps on Monday. Now, according to a NASA spokesperson, the plan is to aim for Tuesday. In addition to the agency wanting the weather to be perfect to avoid any complications with the transport of the vessel, it also wants the actual process of the delivery to be a spectacle for the public to enjoy, something that would not have been possible in bad weather conditions.

Enterprise will make its way to NYC via a very specially equipped 747 airplane. The decision to park it at the Intrepid museum in Manhattan was made last year. Some called it a bad decision because New York has no solid connection to the space agency or the astronauts that piloted the craft, but the amount of visitors it will attract was more than enough for it to become the winning destination. It marks the first time that a retired space shuttle will call New York City its new home.

[via NY Times]

Apparently, that isn’t the case. The battle scars that cover the exterior of the Discovery will be with the shuttle for the remainder of its days. We can see from the close-up images taken at the official welcome home event for the Discovery; the space shuttle is far from shiny and clean. Honestly, it’s fitting that this workhorse spacecraft that made such significant contributions to science and space be retired in its current and used condition.

The brown marks and discolored heat resistant tiles on the belly of the spacecraft are the result of incredible temperatures that the space shuttle was subject to on reentry to the Earth’s atmosphere. During reentry, the exterior of the ship could reach as high as 1650°C. It was damage to those black heat resistant tiles that is believed to have led to the sad death of the astronauts aboard the Columbia in 2003. In one of the photos, the Discovery is practically touching nose to nose with a test shuttle Enterprise that never went into space.

[via BBC]

Astronauts such as former Senator John Glenn will assist in ushering the shuttle in to its new resting spot, as the full ceremony for this shuttle will take place soon with visitors from around the world coming to see it in its new home. The shuttle will be displayed as it appears in photos now, as if it’s just landed – payload doors closed. Smithsonian curator Valerie Neal spoke on why the shuttle wasn’t going to be a hands-on sort of exhibit:

“We don’t permit that here because we treat all of the aircraft and spacecraft as artifacts, not as exhibit props. To make the shuttle accessible to the public, we would have to damage it, and we just do not want to do that.” – Neal

One of Discovery’s last flights via SpaceVidCast

Instead, this display will have 360 degree interactive computer-screen interfaces that people can look at and touch, and there will be a companion exhibit with a replica of the interior of the ship that people can enter as well. The whole story of the shuttle is what the Smithsonian aims to present here. This shuttle has been to space and back nearly 40 times in its fabulous career, the look of the ship certainly reflecting that. The image you see above shows the shuttle after it landed in Virginia aboard its host plane, photographed by Bill Ingalls.

“We wanted it to look like it had been to space and back 39 times, and it does. … It is really the story of the whole 30-year space shuttle program. [This] shuttle made it possible to diversify the astronaut corps.” – Neal

Discovery being transported over Cap Canaveral via Herrea

Will you be visiting this or one of the other retired NASA shuttles in the near future? You’ve also got the choice of the space shuttle Atlantis which will be at the Kennedy Space Center visitors complex soon (for a limited time) and the space shuttle Endeavour which will be shown somewhere in Los Angeles – we’ll know soon!

[via Washington Post]

On Sunday NASA placed Discovery on top of that 747 for its flight from Florida to Virginia this Tuesday. That flight hinges on weather conditions. Apparently, winds at Kennedy Space Center had Discovery swinging back and forth in the sling used to hoist it on the back of the jumbo jet. The high winds led to fears that the space shuttle could hit the platform used to the hoist it into the air for loading aboard the jet, so the mating was postponed from Saturday to Sunday.

The hoist system is called the Mate-Demate Device, and once Discovery reaches its final home a similar device will be used to remove it from the back of the 747. Discovery is headed to the Smithsonian where it will be on display for the remainder of its days. This has to be a bittersweet event for fans of manned spaceflight and America’s space shuttle program.

[via MSNBC]

Apparently, mission control would route the flight crew to some not so frequently used buttons by naming the panel and location inside the ship. Another thing that jumps out looking at the photos of the Endeavor flight deck is just how cramped the living conditions where. As many as seven astronauts would spend more than two weeks inside the cramped confines of the shuttle. In the photos of the flight deck, the two rearmost seats are actually removed.

Endeavor was stripped of its kitchen, zero gravity toilet, storage lockers, and other equipment to be placed on display. Apparently, there are over 1000 toggles to control various systems on the shuttle. The space shuttle Endeavor flew the final mission for the shuttle fleet in June of 2011 with 25 missions flown. It is the newest in the shuttle fleet and will end up on display at the California Science Center after making its last ever flight aboard NASA’s shuttle ferry 747 jumbo jet.

[via SpaceFlightNow]

NASA had two of the specially modified 747s in its fleet, and one of the jets is called NASA 911. NASA 911 took its final voyage this week on a short flight from NASA’s Dryden flight research Center to Dryden’s Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, California. The final flight lasted only 20 minutes. With the space shuttle retired and the program over, NASA only needs one of the special Boeing aircraft used to transport the space shuttle fleet.

The original shuttle carrying aircraft dubbed NASA 905 will continue to serve for short while longer because it will be used to fly the retired space shuttles to the museums where they will spend the remainder of their days. NASA 911 is going to be used as a source of spare parts to keep another Boeing 747 the space agency uses in operation. That aircraft is the NASA Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, which is an aerial platform for a 100-inch reflecting telescope.

[via MSNBC]

For those of you interested in how intense this ballista would be able to be here on Earth, first note that they’re firing the harpoons downward in their tests, but if they fired it upwards, it’d skewer more than its fair share of low-flying birds, up to a mile straight up. This bow has an electric winch that pulls its bow string back with a force of up to 1,000 pounds, able to fire projectiles to velocities up to 100 feet per second. Have a peek at the demonstration and explanation video courtesy of NASA below, and mind the 3D:

Studying samples of comets will allow us to discover information about the origins of our solar system. Donald Wegel of NASA Goddard, lead engineer on the project at hand, notes the following about the testing process:

“We had to bolt it to the floor, because the recoil made the whole testbed jump after every shot. We’re not sure what we’ll encounter on the comet – the surface could be soft and fluffy, mostly made up of dust, or it could be ice mixed with pebbles, or even solid rock. Most likely, there will be areas with different compositions, so we need to design a harpoon that’s capable of penetrating a reasonable range of materials. The immediate goal though, is to correlate how much energy is required to penetrate different depths in different materials. What harpoon tip geometries penetrate specific materials best? How does the harpoon mass and cross section affect penetration? The ballista allows us to safely collect this data and use it to size the cannon that will be used on the actual mission.” – Wegel

Isn’t it all just so very exciting? Next we’ll be launching probes into the Ultimate Evil just like they do on The Fifth Element, finding out that all of our readings are way off, and that we need to collect the five elements to stop the end of Humanity! Or we’ll just find out some awesome information about rocks – either way, we win!

Credit: NASA/Rob Andreoli for the ballista testbed photo and the photo of the prototype harpoon tip and collection chamber.

[via NASA]

Each of the figures are milled from aluminum and will be traveling with the Atlas V rocket through 2016 where the figs will be having quite the view of our galaxy’s largest planet Jupiter. It was NASA who approached Lego for this installation, and the folks at Lego, being the adventurous types they are, decided the idea of sending some of their most fantastically simple friends along for the ride would be an awesome idea. Both groups have stated that they’re seeing the project as a way to promote STEM programs and children’s education.

The cost of creating these one of a kind figures was $5,000 PER figure, each of them underwrote by Lego of course and thus far only made for the project itself. The manufacturing of each of these figures was a deliberate process ensuring no part of the project would be any bit of interference for NASA’s sensitive measurements for the mission. Each minifig attached to the space probe is essentially the same size as the average minifig you’ve got sitting on your desk at home.

Once the mission arrives in July of 2016, the space probe Juno will collect information on the planet Jupiter itself, its moons, and its atmosphere. Once the probe has orbited the planet for one year, that being right around 33 orbits, NASA will purposefully de-orbit the probe and crash it into the planet’s surface. Those who wish to follow the Lego mission can do so at LEGOspace.com, and be sure to let us know if they’ve gone to Pluto instead!

Just so you know, the launch of JUNO, aka the Lego mission, is 11:40 A.M. EDT on the 5th of August – that’s only two days from now!

[via Wired]

The drought in this area and the very high temperatures have made most of the lakes in the area shrivel to a fraction of their previous size. This isn’t a good thing for the area, but the drought has helped in one aspect. A new piece of the Space Shuttle Columbia has been found in one of the lakes that have shriveled due to lack of rain and high temperatures.

The piece is described as a four-foot diameter tank that provided power and water for shuttle missions. NASA has confirmed that the part indeed belonged to the Columbia. The shuttle part was found in a lake in the city of Nacogdoches. NASA has not yet determined if it will send people to recovered the part or allow local authorities to do it. Columbia exploded entering the atmosphere after its mission in 2003.

[via CNN]

That journey began back on July 8 2011 as Atlantis made its way to the International Space Station ISS), where it delivered supplies, equipment and other components. There’s a NASA gallery of images showing the final encounter of the shuttle and the ISS here.

“The space shuttle changed the way we view the world, the way we view the universe. America’s not going to stop exploring. Thanks for protecting us and brining this program to a fitting end.” Atlantis Commander Chris Ferguson

Atlantis had a 26 year career, during which it travelled a huge 33,125,935,769 miles. It spent a total of 307 days in orbit, and circumnavigated the globe 4,848 times. NASA is now exploring the possibility of using modified Atlas V rockets to send astronauts to the ISS.

The fault that caused GPC number 4 to fail is currently unknown, and one of the Atlantis’ crews’ tasks today will be to troubleshoot the issue. GPC 2 replaced the faulty unit as the systems computer. The GPCs are in fact IBM AP-101 avionics computers, five of which are onboard the shuttle: four operate in sync, providing redundancy, while a fifth acts as an independent backup. Although now several decades old, the complexity in certifying newer, replacement hardware has meant the AP-101 has remained in service with NASA.

As for McCartney’s alarm call later on, the ex-Beatles member sand “Good Day Sunshine” (you can hear it in the video below) and gave the astronauts the message “Good morning guys. Wake up! And good luck on this, your last mission. Well done.” NASA had granted the crew an extra 30 minutes lie-in after the GPC issues overnight.

Progress on the Atlantis ST-135 mission proceeds well, with roughly 70-percent of the equipment and supplies the shuttle brought up to the International Space Station transferred. Later this day, the combined crews will talk to US President Obama.

[via Space]

Communications and power are all that is needed for these mini satellites, as no propulsion is necessary. Mason Peck, who led the project to build the satellites at Cornell University, said that these are prototypes, and would remain in space for a few years before being brought back to earth. The idea is to eventually launch them in swarms, so that they can travel with the solar winds without any need for propulsion or fuel. “Their small size allows them to travel like space dust,” Peck said in a statement. “Blown by solar winds, they can ‘sail’ to distant locations without fuel.”

It costs millions now to build, maintain and launch a satellite, and these would obviously be much cheaper. Peck and his team have big plans for these in the future. “We’re actually trying to create a new capability and build it from the ground up,” Peck said. “We want to learn what’s the bare minimum we can design for communication from space.”

We hope that with space communication systems getting smaller, we will see less junk cluttering up Earth’s orbit. But with swarms of tiny satellites being launched, the opposite might be true.

Here is the video of the Endeavour’s launch from this morning, in case you missed it:

[via LA Times]

It’s possible to track the shuttle’s progress using Google Earth. NASA is making not only the craft’s location but various milestones along the way public into the free 3D app, including the points where the solid rocket boosters separate, where the external tank separates, and various speed, altitude and landing events.

This is the final flight Endeavour will be used for, and will see the crew perform a total of four spacewalks, including one which will see the shuttle’s orbiter boom sensor system transplanted onto the ISS. There’s more information on that and other projects here [pdf].

Update: Andrew Lim threw together a photo-log of the takeoff from NASA’s livestream, which you can see in the gallery below.

According to NASA Spaceflight, the APU issue is only the latest in a number of issues to plague the shuttle on this, its final flight. Issues observed during fuel tank filing and problems with the fuel cells were observed, together with pressure issues in the right tank.

NASA had been working on interconnecting the crossfeed lines between the two tanks, so as to try to equalize the pressure, when the APU problem was caught and the launch cancelled. NASA intends to hold a press conference later today to further detail the scrapped flight.

Well, perhaps not quite packed full: in actual fact there will be thirteen LEGO sets, on their way to the International Space Station. There, astronauts will build models and, from September, use video links with classrooms back on Earth to help kids explore science in an arguably more attention-grabbing way.

It’s all the work of LEGO Education, the company’s arm devoted to integrating LEGO’s various ranges into the classroom. There’s a list of the different projects the astronauts will be tackling here.

[via Wired]

The Discovery is still in top shape and its retirement is due to the closing down of NASA’s shuttle program in order to financially support new programs to send astronauts beyond Earth’s orbit. NASA is under presidential direction to make this decision and to shut down the shuttle program by this summer.

The Endeavor and Atlantis space shuttles will be completing their voyages within the coming months. However, over the 30 year program, Discovery still holds the record with 39 missions, 148 million miles, 5,830 orbits of Earth and 365 days spent in space. It will take several months of work to dismantle engine parts and drain fuel before the Discovery will be ready for its final resting place at the Smithsonian Institution.

“To the ship that has led the way time and time again, we say, ‘Farewell Discovery,’” radioed the Mission Control commentator.

[via USA Today]

Boiling water could potentially be used on the ISS and other spacecraft for power generation and other applications. The problem is that it is difficult to design hardware for water boiling that will not overheat and have other issues according to the researchers.

The experiment will be conducted on the ISS and will use two arrays of platinum micro heaters that are bonded to a quartz plate. One array is 7mm across and the other is 2.7mm across. The heaters warm when electricity is applied and the space between the heater lines allow the boiling process to happen. The experiment will boil a refrigerant-like fluid called FC-72 and filmed at high speed with data shot back to Earth for analysis.

NASA has announced that PS3 owners can hit PlayStation Home and go over to the Sunset Yacht to watch the liftoff along with other users in a social viewing setting with other PlayStation home users. The launch will begin at 4:50 p.m. EST if all goes well.

Users with Bluetooth headsets will be able to watch the launch and talk together as well. The viewing is courtesy of the Sunset Yacht NASA TV channel and if your cable or satellite network has NASA TV, you can view there as well.

NASA is working on a fix for the fuel tanks and investigating what caused the cracks. The shuttle fleet is set to retire permanently in 2011 and the Discovery is set for launch on February 3 at this point, though NASA is considering whether the launch needs to be delayed to wait for repairs.

After the Discovery launches there will be two or three more missions and then the US will catch a ride aboard Russian spacecraft for trips to the ISS moving forwards. NASA is also looking to the private sector for cheap ways to get to the ISS.