NASA celebrates its 50th Aniversary

For the benefit of all—NASA motto

In honor of NASA’s 50th anniversary, I wanted to post some awesome pictures of our Planet Earth as seen through the perspective of our astronauts and give you a summary history of this worthwhile program. I must confess that since I was a little girl I was fascinated by space and wanted to explore it as an astronaut. I seriously thought for a while that I would train to be one. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be, except in my imagination and in my writing (see my upcoming book, Splintered Universe, which features a whole universe of space travel and adventure).
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, pronounced /ˈnæsə/) is an agency of the United States government, responsible for the nation's public space program. NASA was established on July 29, 1958, by the National Aeronautics and Space Act.
In addition to the space program, NASA also conducts long-term civilian and military aerospace research.

The Phoenix Landing & The Martian Chronicles

They came because they were afraid or unafraid, happy or unhappy. There was a reason for each man. They were coming to find something or get something, or to dig up something or bury something. They were coming with small dreams or big dreams or none at all—Ray Bradbury (The Martian Chronicles)

When I was but a sprite, and before I became an avid reader of books (I preferred comic books), I read Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles. It changed me, what I thought of books and what I felt about the power of stories. It made me cry. And perhaps that was when I decided to become a writer. I wanted to move people as Bradbury had moved me.

The Martian Chronicles isn’t really about Mars (though I’ve chosen to give it my Friday Feature placement as homage to the recent Phoenix landing on the red planet). True to Bradbury’s master metaphoric story-telling, the Martian Chronicles is about humanity.

Phoenix Landing on Mars

"It is good to renew one’s wonder, said the philosopher. "Space travel has again made children of us all."—Ray Bradbury (from The Martian Chronicles)

“The Phoenix spacecraft successfully landed in the north arctic plains of Mars today,” Carolyn Porco, Cassini Imaging Team Leader, announced to my friend Danny Bloom. “This is the first landing in 32 years -- since the Viking spacecraft made landfall on Mars in 1976 -- that we have soft-landed a craft on Mars using retrorockets.”

NASA Launches Atlantis—Friday Feature

“Space, the final frontier…To boldly go where no man has gone before…”—Captain Kirk, Star Trek

Yesterday, the space shuttle Atlantis and its crew of seven astronauts launched “on spectacular plumes of gold-tipped smoke … carrying Europe’s primary contribution to the International Space Station – the Columbus science laboratory” according to NASA. “The lab is filled with racks for experiments and research equipment and has fixtures on its exterior to also host research exposed to the vacuum of space,” continues NASA. “It represents the latest international addition to a facility already made of structures from the United States, Russia and Canada."