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Space Shuttle / Space Travel / NASA / Landmarks / → All Tags

Even the Space Shuttle Gets Delayed When Trying to Land at JFK

The Space Shuttle is on the move during its retirement, and most recently one of the shuttles hitched a ride atop a modified Boeing 747 to be delivered to Washington, DC. Before its delivery, the piggybacked plane with the shuttle on top did some fancy flying around the nation’s capital, with dips and dives through the city and near some pretty famous monuments. Well now it’s New York’s turn to get its very own shuttle, but unfortunately even NASA and the Space Shuttle aren't immune to weather and airport delays in New York.

Today was supposed to be the day for Enterprise, but it looks like today’s rainy and windy weather will postpone things. We’ve been there before, so we feel for the pilots and crew transporting the shuttle from Washington, DC up to the Big Apple. At least they won’t be stuck at the airport watching the satellite weather feed with spotty WiFi and limited seating.

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Space Travel / NASA / Political Travel / Science Travel / Airplanes / Airplane News / → All Tags

A Rocket-Airplane Will Fly Mach 20 Today, But Won't Be Taking Passengers

The space race is way over, and sadly so is the entire NASA Space Shuttle program as well. But just because we aren't shipping astronauts up into orbit anymore doesn't mean the US isn't playing around still in outer space. Today actually marks the second test launch of a strange form of airplane-slash-rocket: the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (FTVH2). Capable of cruising at over 13,000mph (that's Mach 20 or 20x the speed of sound), the unmanned FTVH2 isn't a new travel or research toy, but a military one.

Around 7am PDT, an 8-story Minotaur IV rocket will shoot into the skies from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Inside of it waits the Falcon, until, as International Business Times reports:

The rocket will puncture the atmosphere and releases FTVH2. Then the super-fast weapon will glide over the Pacific Ocean at nearly 20 times the speed of sound. The test flight will last 30 minutes before the FHTV2 hit the water and sink near the Kwajalein Atoll, about 4,100 miles from the Vandenberg Air Force Base. If the aircraft can complete its 30 minute flight, the project will continue otherwise the project will be shelved indefinitely.

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Space Travel / NASA / Space Shuttle / Endeavor / Twitter / Delta / → All Tags

Space Shuttle 'Endeavor' Launch Captured in Photos and Video from a Delta Flight

NASA may have hosted a massive tweet-up at Kennedy Space Center today for the final launch of the Endeavor Space Shuttle, but, as we've seen before, the real magic is in the skies as passengers onboard nearby aircraft snap photos of the launch and share them almost immediately on Twitter.

User Stefanie Gordon (@stefmara) admitted to having the perfect flight earlier today, going from New York-LaGuardia to Palm Beach onboard Delta with a row of seats to herself and this awesome view out the window. With her iPhone, she captured these two photos, plus a video you can watch here.

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Space Travel / Tourist Traps / Florida Travel / NASA / Space Shuttles / Washington DC Travel / Los Angeles Travel / New York City / Tourism / Museum Travel / Science Travel / → All Tags

Mapping the Future Homes of the Four NASA Space Shuttles

Houston is so pissed right now. Why? Because they were passed over in NASA's decision on where to retire the four remaining space shuttles. Instead, four other US cities will welcome different crafts for permanent exhibits, reaping in the tourist dollars that follow anything space travel-related. Let's see who got what, shall we?

· Cape Canaveral, FL: The original home of the shuttles is Kennedy Space Center, so of course they get to keep one. The Space Shuttle Atlantis, which originally launched in 1985 and completed 35 flights, will settle in for posterity at the Visitor Center. Atlantis will fly again before powering down, with a final launch scheduled for June 28.

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Space Travel / Videos / NASA / Awesome Stuff / Space Shuttle / → All Tags

There Are Only Two More Chances to Watch the Space Shuttle Launch, Ever

Sometimes, thinking about the vastness of outer space and Earth's attempts to explore the most infinitesimal pinch of it via assorted space programs leaves our mind reeling and frankly, we get a little freaked out at the vast unknown surround us. We've pretty much accepted that man won't be walking on Mars in our lifetime, or maybe even on the moon again, but at least there's the rare chance that we could at least witness a Space Shuttle launch from the skies.

This is exactly the awesome chance a recent passenger had, while on a flight to Orlando. Eye-to-eye with the Space Shuttle Discovery for a moment at 30,000, as the shuttle blasted off for its final mission to the International Space Station, he captured the moment on camera, slapped it on YouTube and it's become an instant classic. You can watch it above, but we highly recommend clicking the link and viewing it larger for full, awe-inspiring effect.

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Foursquare Goes Where No Man Has Gone Before With An Extraterrestrial Check In

We’re pretty sure this is the coolest Foursquare badge and check in that you can get – on Friday, NASA astronaut Douglas H Wheelock used it to check in to space. Who knew cellphones worked up there?

He checked in at the International Space Station and, according to Foursquare, became the first human to “use a location-based service from space.” Now there’s something to tell the grandkids.

While he was up there, he also unlocked the new NASA Explorer badge, which will surely become the ultimate Foursquare badge to get. And the good news is that you don’t have to be up in the air to get it – soon, you’ll be able to unlock it when you check in at NASA properties on terra firma. Awesome! That's $200,000 saved right there.

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Airplane News / Airplanes / NASA / Boeing / → All Tags

NASA and Boeing Team Up to Figure Out the Future of Flight

It’s no secret that we’ve been closely following the progress of Boeing’s latest airplane, but even if the 787 is more fuel efficient than the competition it hardly will become an in-flight Prius. That’s why Boeing has been teaming up with NASA to figure out how airplanes can be more efficient, and they recently tested out one of their latest flying machines.

The test plane is part of the X-48B program, and this really fancy remote control airplane uses a blended wing design to increase fuel efficiency. The current test plane is kind of small—it’s only an 8.5 percent model with about a 20-foot wingspan—so we’ve still got years and years before we’re complaining about the lack of in-flight WiFi on a plane like this.

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Space Tourism / Virgin Galactic / NASA / → All Tags

Will NASA's Loss Be Space Tourism's Gain?

As part of the President's pivot to fiscal responsibility, the White House unveiled a new budget last week that scraps NASA's moon program and shifts $6 billion into promoting private space flight. Instead of using NASA's space shuttles to move our astronauts back and forth, the government would contract private firms to do the flying. The goal is to kill two birds with one budgetary allocation: the US would get to maintain its presence in space even while it injected badly-needed funds into the country's growing space tourism industry.

If the plan works out, the space industry in 2020 will look a lot like the airline industry a hundred years earlier. Until the 1920's, American planes were operated by the newly minted US Air Force. Then a bunch of small regional airlines began to develop, relying in no small part on guaranteed government air mail funding. In 1930 they merged into the corporation that became American Airlines, and the basis for modern civilian aviation was born.

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Twitter / Moon Landing / Apollo 11 / NASA / Virgin Galactic / → All Tags

NASA Celebrates Moon Landing, Twitter Followers and a Repaired Space Toilet

While Prez Obama was honoring the Apollo 11 crew in DC this morning on the 40th anniversary of the spaceship's lunar landing, the name Apollo 11 was rapidly becoming a Trending Topic on Twitter. We're sad to say that's not really a good thing as spammers have recently begun including Trending Topics and hashtags on their spam tweets so that they show up in Twitter searches. Oh the ups and downs of Twitter. Btw, have you heard of the hotel who took out a billboard ad to advertise their Twitter feed? Yeah. That's how insane Twitter is now.

Still, we looked to the all-knowing NASA Twitter page to see what they were tweeting about on one of their high holy days. And it turned out, today was a big day for NASA. Along with the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, NASA notched their 100,000th Twitter follower and they successfully completed a spacewalk to repair a toilet at the US Destiny Lab Space Station. Hurrah!

Meanwhile, hopeful space travel traveler, Virgin Galactic, is collecting songs for a playlist that will be played for passengers in space. Something tells us aspiring astronaut Lance Bass will want to be on both the Virgin Galactic launch and the playlist. VG: you can do better.

Join the travel twitter conversation, follow us here.

Related Stories:
· Guinness Giving Away a 2012 Space Trip on Virgin Galactic [Jaunted]

Moon Landing Anniversary / Apollo 11 / Space Travel / Space Tourism / NASA / → All Tags

Follow Along With Apollo 11's Lunar Landing, 40 Years Ago Today

Forty years ago today, you could look up into the night sky at the moon and know that way up there, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were hopping around and generally making history as the first men to walk on the moon. Now that it's been four decades since that seminal moment of "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" and no one has walked on the moon since 1972, it's about time we look back and reflect on the physical and technological feats that were accomplished to bring this about.

Sure, there are tons of events this week in celebration, and Louis Vuitton threw an astronaut party last week, but the real action is at home on your computer. It's called "We Choose The Moon," and it's a flash website that effectively re-broadcasts the transmissions between Houston Command and Apollo 11 throughout their mission. Along with browsing historical photographs, the site allows you to follow along with a livestream, three Twitter accounts (@AP11_CapCom, @AP11_Spacecraft, and @AP11_Eagle), and a route map that progresses in real time with the mission as it was fourty years ago.

There's a lot of technical phrases, but also quips from the astronauts about dealing with lack of gravity and passing time in outer space, and the best part is that they're the actual transmissions! Since today is the day for the lunar landing and moonwalk, tune in or install the desktop widget to experience history all over again—we recommend forwarding it to your parents and grandparents who watched the original event on TV in 1969.

Related Stories:
· We Choose The Moon [Official Site]
· Apollo 40 Years, Event Schedule [NASA]
· Where to Celebrate The 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing [Jaunted]

[Photo: National Air and Space Museum]

Religious Travel / Art / NASA / Outer Space / → All Tags

Jesuits' Cosmos: Austrian Artists Install Massive NASA Mural in Vienna Church

Outer space is the perfect metaphor for God and the mysteries of life. It's infinitely vast, it's mysteriously unknowable, and it elicits wonder and contemplation in all who behold it. This might be why Austrian artists Christoph Steinbrener and Rainer Dempf installed a massive NASA photograph of an astronaut floating in space on the ceiling of the historic Jesuit Church in Vienna in an exhibit entitled The Jesuits' Cosmos. The photo, which will be on display through May 25, 2009, is printed on a huge section of semi-transparent net fabric. Employing a change in lighting, the curators can switch the focus between the astronaut and the curvature of the blue planet to a "reverted view" of the Andrea Pozzo ceiling frescoes above them. Either way, the viewer is awed with a sense of spatial illusion. I like this trend of installing thought-provoking pieces of modern art in houses of worship. It's a pleasant reminder that we're all on the same planet, just trying to get along and figure a few things out.

[Photo: Steinbrener-Dempf]

Related Stories:
· Jesuits' Cosmos [Steinbrener-Dempf]
· Vienna Jesuit Church [Official Site]
· Religious Travel Coverage [Jaunted]