So here are a collection of links to NASA resources, which can also be found on the main website NASA.gov.

Information on NASA programs is available at the NASA Public Affairs Home Page

NASA TV information has schedules and links to streaming video.

NASA Television Schedule features key mission events and media briefings during the mission.

Status reports and timely updates on launch countdown, mission progress, and landing operations will be posted at: nasa.gov/shuttle

Information on the International Space Station is available at: nasa.gov/station

The NASA Human Space Flight Web contains an up-to-date archive of mission imagery, video and audio.

Information on safety enhancements for the 2005 Return to Flight effort.

Resources for Educators

Discovery’s final spaceflight is scheduled to last 11 days, which includes two scheduled spacewalks. It’s the 39th flight for the space shuttle, which has flown more times than any other orbiter in NASA’s shuttle fleet.

This last mission is known as STS-133; it’s crew members will carry several important components to the International Space Station, such as the Italian-built Permanent Multipurpose Module (PMM,) and the Express Logistics Carrier 4 (ELC4,) that will provide spare parts and storage capacity to the ISS.

Discovery also will deliver Robonaut 2, which will become the first humanoid robot in space. For now, the primary job for R2 is teaching engineers how dexterous robots behave in space.

Robonaut 2 will be installed in the U.S. Destiny laboratory, providing scientists and engineers on the ground and crews on the station an opportunity to test how humans and human-like robots can work shoulder-to shoulder in microgravity.

Through upgrades and advancements, R2 could one day venture outside the space station to help spacewalkers make repairs or additions to the station or perform scientific work. This will help NASA understand robotic capabilities for future deep space missions.

Nearly 150 experiments are continuing aboard the space station as the transition from assembly work to expanded research on the international laboratory progresses. They span the basic categories of biological and biotechnology, human research, physical and materials sciences, technology development, Earth and space science and educational activities.

More info at nasa.gov/

They’ve retrieved a science experiment on the Japanese Kibo Laboratory, replaced a rate gyro assembly on the center segment of the station’s truss, and removed an ammonia tank used to help cool the station.

The accuracy and co-ordination between the astronauts while working in space is amazing. Imagine floating weightless in space for six-and-a-half-hours, while orbiting the earth at 17,000 miles an hour. Often they have to use the grappling robotic arm from the shuttle’s payload bay to latch onto a moving target. It’s a real tribute to the teamwork between the flight and ground crews.

Mission STS-131 continues with the transfer of science lab racks inside the space station.

Source: NASA TV on YouTube

Follow NASA’s Launch Blog beginning at 1:15 AM.

Commander Alan Poindexter, Pilot Jim Dutton, Mission Specialists Rick Mastracchio, Clay Anderson, Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, Stephanie Wilson and Naoko Yamazaki will execute the 33rd shuttle mission to the International Space Station.

Discovery will carry a multi-purpose logistics module filled with science racks for the laboratories aboard the ISS. The mission has three planned spacewalks, with work to include replacing an ammonia tank assembly, retrieving a Japanese experiment from the station’s exterior, and switching out a rate gyro assembly on the S0 segment of the station’s truss structure.

NASA Television Schedule & Video: nasa.gov/ntv

Official Press Kit for Mission STS-131

The International Space Station is 98 percent complete, following NASA’s last big construction project, known as the Tranquility connecting node and cupola. The project added a new room and observation deck to the space station, giving the ISS crew a 360 degree view of earth through it’s seven windows.

Astronauts Bob Behnken and Nicholas Patrick conducted three spacewalks for a total of eighteen hours working outside the space station to install the Tranquility node. There’s only four more shuttle missions, including space shuttle Discovery, scheduled to liftoff in April.

NASA Shuttle Mission Pages

Now seven years later, NASA’s Space Shuttle program is almost over. There’s only five more shuttle flights planned before the space shuttle fleet is retired from service. U.S. astronauts will then have to hitch a ride with the Russian Space Agency, whose Soyuz and Progress spacecraft have been participating in the International Space Station program for years.

President Barack Obama is calling for drastic changes in the U.S. space program, taking the $100 billion NASA planned on using to return astronauts to the moon, and redirecting the money into new rocket technologies.

A logical approach especially since the administration has also extended the life of the space station program. In the face of shrinking budgets, it makes sense to redirect our limited funds into earth orbit technology and the space station, giving the U.S. a space platform to work and launch from. The moon will just have to wait a little longer.

Space shuttle Endeavour is getting ready for takeoff on it’s STS-130 mission to the ISS, with launch countdown beginning February 4th.

NASA 2009 Year in Review

October 2009: water discovered on the moon by the LCROSS mission.

July 2009: 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing

May 2009: Hubble Space Telescope upgraded and repaired. Space walking astronauts from the Atlantis space shuttle gave the aging space telescope several new updated systems. Two new instruments, the Wide Field Camera 3 and Cosmic Origins Spectrograph were installed, while repairs were made to the Advanced Camera for Surveys and Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph systems. Stunning new images start streaming in.

2008: NASA marks 50th Anniversary.
International Space Station (ISS) celebrates 10th year in space.
Phoenix Lander arrives on Mars.

January 2004: Mars Rover mission lands with planetary rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Initially the rovers mission was three months, but both robotic explorers surprised the scientific community by lasting six Earth years on the Martian surface.

February 1, 2003: In memory of the crew of Space Shuttle Columbia, which disintegrated over Texas during re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. All seven crew members aboard STS-107 were lost.
Commander: Rick D. Husband, U.S. Air Force colonel and mechanical engineer
Pilot: William C. McCool, U.S. Navy commander
Payload Commander: Michael P. Anderson, U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel and physicist
Payload Specialist: Ilan Ramon, colonel in the Israeli Air Force and the first Israeli astronaut
Mission Specialist: Kalpana Chawla, aerospace engineer from India on her second space mission
Mission Specialist: David M. Brown, U.S. Navy captain and flight surgeon
Mission Specialist: Laurel Clark, U.S. Navy captain and flight surgeon

October 2000: The first crew, Expedition One inhabits the International Space Station for 136 days.

www.nasa.gov

NASA celebrated the tenth year in operation of the International Space Station (ISS), and also celebrated their fifty years of operation as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.  The Apollo lunar program also hit the forty year mark, so this was quite a year for NASA and space exploration.

NASA’s 50th Anniversary site has animation, video and audio clips of historic moments from the past fifty years of space exploration.

Explore their amazing timeline at www.nasa.gov/50th

www.nasa.gov/history

www.nasa.gov

Official First Day of Summer ~ June 21, 2007:
blogs.earthsky.org
Earth & Sky

Shuttle Viewing Times:
NASA HumanSpaceFlight
NASA SkyWatch
Shuttle Landing

screenshot from http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/cities/

Spinal Tap Summer Solstice Jam @ Stonehenge, England: www.abcnews.go.com