A small world

If you ever wonder how other people live... if they really are so very different from the rest of us, then y0u must watch these stories.


Watch CBS News Videos Online

Water on the Moon

Maybe it is time to buy some real estate on the room. It just could be the best Christmas present.

NASA Launches Pre-emptive Strike on the Moon Men

Here is blogger Patrick Baldwin

Mission Accomplished!

This morning NASA lived out the dream of every kid with a bb gun. They shot the Moon with a missile.

While I, like every geek who debated Wookies over Vulcans, think the idea of a Moon Base is very cool. Remember when NASA used to be the smartest guys on the planet? Now NASA seems like they are just picking up the latest comic book and saying, "this might work."
Seriously, it was just a couple years ago they tried to catch a spacecraft with a giant hook on the end of a helicopter.

The same guys that lost the Mars Observer, and when they tried again they used English Standard measurements instead of the Metric system.

I realize public support for NASA isn't what it used to be, and a $17.6 billion budget doesn't help.
But you have to think, things would be drastically different if they had just patented some of the stuff they invented. If you sleep on a Tempur-pedic beds you can thank space exploration. Same for the rubber molding in almost every athletic shoe, and even the bar code system at your grocery store.

Perhaps, if we ran NASA like a business and not like NPR maybe we'd all be able to get more exciting about shooting missiles at the Moon.

Moon Blast

Is there water on the moon?

Scientists Levitate Mouse

Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA have found a way to levitate small animals using a "superconducting magnet that generates a field powerful enough to levitate the water inside living animals."

Yuanming Liu, one of the researchers, speaking of the mouse they levitated: "It actually kicked around and started to spin, and without friction, it could spin faster and faster, and we think that made it even more disoriented," They decided to mildly sedate the next mouse they levitated.

Colbert Treadmill in Space

Finally, NASA is sending Stephen Colbert's treadmill to space.

Out of this world blunder

Remember the stories your heard about watching the Apollo 11 moon landing

on TV. Well, that footage is now gone, erased. NASA admitted that it erased that footage years ago to reuse the tape.

Hollywood is coming to the rescue. Using some video of the moon landing the agency found around the world, Hollywood is going to remaster the footage so it will look even better than before.

The Shocking Fact Is...

A lightning strike has delayed the space shuttle Endeavor's launch.

But what do you expect? Cape Canaveral is in the part of central Florida called "Lightning Alley." The area recieves more lightning strikes per year than anywhere else in the United States: 12 per square kilometer. Between 2004 and 2007, an average of 7 people died each year from lightning strikes in Florida, and another 35 were injured.

Kinda makes me wonder why they would choose that area from which to launch space missions - which involve very tall objects on the ground that easily attract lightning?

image: http://mcgonnigle.files.wordpress.com/2007/02/lightning.jpg

Update on Colbert and NASA

NASA did not name the module after Stephen Colbert even though he won the online vote. The node will be called Tranquility. NASA broke the news to Colbert on The Colbert Report.

The treadmill on board Tranquility will be named Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill or COLBERT. Colbert will get his own mission patch.

NASA victim of Colbert prank

If you're a fan at all of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," you know Stephen Colbert likes to have things named in his honor. Colbert has had everything from a hockey team's mascot to a bald eagle named for him.

Recently NASA held an online contest to name a new room at the international space station. NASA allowed 'write-ins' which prompted Colbert to mobilize the members of Colbert Nation. Stephen Colbert won the contest by 40,000 votes. NASA still has the right to pick an "appropriate" name and it says it will do so in April.



Either way, congratulations Stephen!

See yourself from space

The International Space Station is now beaming live pictures of earth from space to your computer. The video is from an external camera showing earth. You can see it for 12 hours every day, 7 days a week. NASA says it will also send out talk back between mission control and the astronauts. You can also find out when the International Space Station is going over your city. It's all here. Pretty cool.

*Picture courtesy of NASA