Space Program

NASA's countdown clocks are ticking once again for what will be the next-to-last space shuttle launch, now set for Monday, and the six-man crew is ready to go.

Amateur astronomer and photographer Nick Risinger quit his day job as a Seattle marketing director last year, so he could lug six synchronized cameras around the world taking thousands of pictures that would capture an image of the entire night sky.

“Space junk” and debris in Earth orbit is a big and growing danger to space vehicles, satellites and even the International Space Station.  That's why NASA scientists are looking at a new option for reducing the dangers of orbiting clutter.

In an effort to promote Texas as a launch pad for space tourism, the Texas legislature has passed a bill that limits the liability commercial providers would face if space tourists are hurt or killed on a trip into space from Texas.

Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has flown from Houston to Cape Canaveral to watch tomorrow' s final launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour, which will carry her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, into space for the last time.

When people in Texas expressed dismay and anger when they learned that a retired space shuttle would be going to New York, and not to Houston, one of New York's Senators said something many Texans found downright insulting.

More than a dozen Texans in Congress are angry and threatening legislative action to block NASA's planned transfer of a space shuttle orbiter from the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Virginia to a  museum in New York City.

NASA is honoring Dr. Christopher Columbus Kraft, Jr., the first space mission flight director, by naming the Houston Mission Control Center in his honor for his service to the nation and its space programs.