Subject: NASA

• “Creating Space City, USA”

  “Houston…the Eagle has landed.”

  February 19, 2009

• Soccer in Space

  December 7, 2006

• Soccer in Space

  December 7, 2006

• Space Case

  June 8, 2007

• Rocket Scientists Can't Spell

  July 13, 2007

• Wonder If Texas Monthly Will Run a "Drunk Astronaut" Cover

  July 26, 2007

• Someone Cut the Wires on Our Space Equipment? Time to Head to the Bar. Unless, of Course, You Were Wanting to Have Sex...

  July 27, 2007

• Mint Condition

  August 1, 2007

• Pee For Me, Please

  July 16, 2008

• Semi-Respected Apollo Astronaut Claims Space-Alien Cover-Up

  July 24, 2008

• NASA's New Moon Rocket Questioned Again

  August 13, 2008

• Other Ways NASA Could Have Fixed Their New Moon Rocket

  August 21, 2008

• NASA At 50: Five Bad Astronaut Movies

  October 2, 2008

• Science Friction

  Architect Constance Adams designed an inflatable house that could take American astronauts to Mars. NASA wants to build it, but Congress keeps bursting the bubble.

  August 10, 2000

• Woman Puts Bag Down For One Second, Loses It (In Space)

  Has anyone seen my bag? It was here a minute ago. I swear to Christ, I put it down for one second, turned around and the next thing you know...it's drifting aimlessly into the great void of space. Its circuit's dead. There's something wrong. Can you hear me, Little Bag? Can you hear me, Little Bag? Can you heeeeaaaaarrrrrrr.......... Astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, who has already pissed off reporters all over the world by having a name they have to cut-and-paste each goddamn time

  November 20, 2008

• Highest-Ranking NASA Woman Ever Prepares For Re-Entry To Private Life

  Shana Dale, the highest-ranking woman in NASA history, is leaving the agency after three years as second-in-command.NASA's press release on the subject said she announced the decision today, but readers of her blog were tipped off about it last week. (Clearly, we were not readers of her blog.)Dale says she's leaving so the new administration can put their own person in."It has been an honor for me to work with those who support America's space program," Dale said in the official announcement. "I

  December 4, 2008

• Trouble Brewing Between NASA And Obama

  All is not smooth in the relationship between NASA an incoming president Barack Obama.Not smooth at all, unless you count red-faced screaming fits by the head of NASA, his demands to speak directly to Obama, and his telling the person handing NASA for the president-elect's transition team she is not qualified.Other than that, pretty smooth, we hope.The Orlando Sentinel's space blog reports today  that NASA administrator Mike Griffin had "a heated 40-minute conversation last week with Lori G

  December 11, 2008

• There's Some Dispute On The NASA-Obama Dispute

  Yesterday we noted that the Orlando Sentinel was reporting that relations between the Obama transition team and NASA were little better than Madonna and Guy Ritchie.Today, however, everybody is insisting everything's beautiful, nothin' to see her, folks, move along. Sort of.Leading the "everything's terrific" campaign is the Houston Chronicle, which goes to great lengths today to quote everybody possible who's willing to debunk the report, although noting that there is some "natural tension."The

  December 12, 2008

• NASA's Ongoing Pee-Drinking Problem

  Once again, we learn via the Houston Chronicle, NASA is having trouble getting its astronauts to drink piss.It's apparently not because they think the idea is disgusting; it's because they can't get their pee-cleansing machine to work.The Urine Processor Assembly has been balky ever since it was installed last year on the space station.The machine is supposed to take urine and sweat from the astronauts and, through some mysterious alchemy, make it all yummy and tasty.Of course, some people just

  January 6, 2009

• The Cloud Over Lightning Strike

  October 27, 1994

• Tell NASA Where You Want Hubble to Point

  Hot on the heels of a new report from the Baker Institute suggesting NASA concentrate on improving conditions here on Earth and postpone all this "outer space" foolishness, NASA has come up with yet another neat little thing to help reignite enthusiasm for what it does. We say "yet another" in reference to photographer David Bergman's use of Mars Rover technology to take a truly breathtaking panoramic picture (nicknamed the "Gigapan") of President Obama's inauguration. The photo encompasses an

  February 3, 2009

• NASA Killed A Cancer Cure, Suit Alleges

  The world may have known a cure to cancer ... if only that darn Columbia space shuttle didn't disintegrate over Texas six years ago and if only NASA had been a little more careful taking care of the cargo and debris that landed back on earth.At least that's what a Pennsylvania company is arguing.According to a lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania federal court against the United States of America, a company called Instrumentation Technology Associates, Inc. claims that its experiments involving protein

  February 12, 2009

• Space Odyssey

  August 13, 1998

• See Yourself On TV From Space!

  Photo courtesy NASAHere's something neat from NASA that will let you while away your cubicle hours waiting for the corporate ax to fall: live shots of Earth from the space station.The International Space Station will be streaming live video from external cameras seven days a week at this website. The video will be shown mostly when the astronauts are asleep, from 1 pm to 1 am central time (WE PAY THEM TO SLEEP TWELVE HOURS A DAY??!!! Or maybe they sleep in shifts.)When it's not streaming video,

  March 10, 2009

• The Distillery: N.A.S.A.'s The Spirit of Apollo

  Truth be told, we envy N.A.S.A.'s bumptuous production acumen almost as much as we envy principal astronauts Squeak E. Clean and DJ Zegon the depths of their Rolodexes - even if, somehow, they couldn't rope Lil Wayne into their genre-mashup free-for-all. Seriously - as you'll see below - N.A.S.A.'s debut, The Spirit of Apollo, is on some profoundly next-level Judgment Night-soundtrack shit. It's not all amazing, of course, which is why it's the subject of Rocks Off's inaugural "The Distille

  March 16, 2009

• Further Breakdown Of The Chron Cuts

  Photo by Lori GreigIt might seem like we're harping on the recent round of layoffs at the Houston Chronicle just because we're journalists too ("Hey, how come you don't do ten posts about the layoffs at Schlumberger!!"), but -- as we've said before -- we perhaps naively hold to the thought that there's a special connection between a daily paper and its city. But even if there wasn't that cosmic connection, the names and bylines of people are public enough that they are the equal of player

  March 26, 2009

• Colbert Finally Goes On The Offensive Against NASA

  The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30cSpace Module: Colbert - Democracy in Orbitcomedycentral.comColbert Report Full EpisodesPolitical HumorNASA Name Contest It took a while, but Stephen Colbert has finally gone on the offensive over NASA's hesitation to name its new space node for him even though his supporters won the contest to pick the name.He's outraged NASA may go with the second choice. "Serenity? That's not a space station, that's an adult diaper," Colbert says.He also notes th

  March 31, 2009

• Tonight: Will NASA Discover A Sense Of Humor?

  Photo courtesy The Colbert ReportTonight's the night!On tonight's Colbert Report, the nation will learn whether NASA has a sense of humor or not.They famously had a contest to name the new node on the space station; they didn't take any of our suggestions. But Colbert's fans put him over the top through write-in votes, and the space agency will declare tonight just what the name will be.Of course, some are outraged. There was this painfully earnest op-ed in the Chron.But NASA has not always been

  April 14, 2009

• Axman at the Houston Chronicle and Bank-Robbing Cops

  Highlights from the Blog at HOUSTONPRESS.COM

  April 2, 2009

• Best New Downtown Bar

  Grasshopper/Red Lights

  September 20, 2001

• Frenchie's Italian Restaurant

  December 20, 2007

• Ballunar Liftoff Festival

  NASA hosts 100-plus hot air balloons

  November 1, 2007

• In the Shadow of the Moon

  Reliving the glory of America's giant leap for mankind

  September 20, 2007

• tempOdyssey

  Temporary Insanity

  August 16, 2007

• Totally Spaced

  See red skies at night in Roving Mars

  February 2, 2006

• This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

  August 18, 2005

• Birthday Surprise

  Preservationists get help in the oddest way

  July 21, 2005

• Off the Beaten Path

  Get a taste of the old Kemah's salty flavor at these classic eateries

  May 26, 2005

• Not Rocket Science

  NASA can get political -- for Tom DeLay

  September 2, 2004

• Space Center & Me

  Or, how I learned to stop caring and accept the dumb

  October 10, 2002

• Best Sporting Goods Store

  Sun & Ski Sports

  September 26, 2002

• Moon Shots

  At the MFA, lunar imagery blurs the line between science and art

  January 26, 1995

• Slainte -- Let The Pee-Drinking Begin!

  Photo by bobbymondToday NASA made history again, breaking down barriers: For the first time (that we know of), astronauts drank their own urine in space.The piss was said to be "purified" and "recycled" and all that, but the bottom line is the bottom line: They might as well sign up for this website. (Note: About as not, not, NOT Safe For Work as humanly possible. Unless you work at NASA.)NASA gave the International Space Station astronauts the go today to drink water from the finally fixed "Wat

  May 20, 2009

• Five Best Apollo 11 Myths

  Photo courtesy NASAA salute to Mr. JablonskiHey, guess what!! Monday brings the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing!!Oh, you heard? Well, get ready to hear more -- this weekend and Monday will no doubt be a "One small step for man" marathon.Which is fine -- the moon mission was a crazy, awe-inspiring thing that could have gone wrong a million ways but didn't. Even though the Apollo program cost about a trillion dollars in today's money, it did give us Tang.And it also gave us our five

  July 15, 2009

• The Moon Landing, In Sharp Newly Restored Video

  Photo courtesy NASAScore one for the British press.We mentioned a while back that a London paper was reporting that NASA had discovered and restored tapes of the moon landing that had been missing for 40 years.The timing seemed highly coincidental, but it's true. And NASA just now has released the restored video.You can check it here, where they show side-by-side comparisons of the vintage footage we all know and the new, restored video.It's not IMAX-like, but the "new" video is notably sharper,

  July 16, 2009

• The Five Worst Movies Being Shown On The International Space Station

  ​Maybe this has come out before -- the list seems to be a year old -- but we noticed today a story in the British paper The Guardian about the list of DVDs NASA has provided to the International Space Station.The actual list is here, released under the Freedom of Information Act. Movies are apparently selected by the crews, so they reveal the taste of NASA nerds.There's the usual space stuff on there, but the list also includes some head-scratchers. For instance, there's Harold & Kumar, sa

  August 19, 2009

• Houston 101: Neighborhood Of Astronauts

  ​Nowadays, being an astronaut just doesn't have the cachet it once did. But back in the 1960s, astronauts were celebrities, and an obscure neighborhood near Clear Lake was their Beverly Hills.Timber Cove was a development of what today would be considered smallish homes -- no McMansions here -- on small cul-de-sacs and streets, surrounded by water and trees. Astronauts flocked there.Anyone who's watched Apollo 13 remembers Kathleen Quinlan as Marilyn Lovell, telling a NASA flack that reporters

  August 25, 2009

• NASA's Biggest Job On This Shuttle Flight: Milking Publicity

  ​The latest space shuttle mission opens up a new, bold era in NASA history -- the desperate attempt to remain hip and relevant and therefore worthy of federal budget dollars.Commentators have pointed out how the agency seems to be embracing pop culture, but it seems to be getting to the point where it's less like NASA and more like NASCAR -- but instead of cars festooned with sponsor decals, we've got space stations packed with publicity-generating machines.Let's take a look at what this l

  August 26, 2009

• Shoot the Moon: A Playlist for Today's Lunar Bombing

  In case you were asleep this morning when it happened, we bombed the moon. Twice!​Our unprovoked attack upon our unsuspecting orbital neighbor was ostensibly for purposes of locating water particles in the dust cloud kicked up by the impact, but really, we're pretty sure it's the end result of some kind of "What's the most awesome thing we can get the taxpayers to pay for?" brainstorming session. Unfortunately, the bombing was a bit of a letdown, with the impact not even visible on the zoomed

  October 9, 2009

• Newest Report Not Great News For NASA; Time To Think "Outside The Box," As They Probably Still Say There

  ​The long-awaited report on NASA's future has come out and, as expected, it's bad news for anyone hoping for a return to the moon."Panel Says NASA Should Skip Moon, Fly Elsewhere" is the headline on AP's report:Norman Augustine, chairman of the White House-appointed panel reviewing the agency's spaceflight plans, said it makes more sense to land on a nearby asteroid or one of the moons of Mars. He said that could be done sooner than returning to the moon in 15 years as NASA has outlined. "La

  October 22, 2009