Please take a few moments to look at this Discover Magazine presentation about the ex-planet Pluto. It is very well done and not at all geeky.

Did you know that there are a lot of “planets” and Pluto-like objects out there at the edge of our solar system?

Orlando Sentinel

A NASA astronaut is being held without bail after police say she attacked her rival for another astronaut’s attention at Orlando International Airport Monday.

Lisa Marie Nowak drove more than 12 hours from Texas to meet the 1 a.m. flight of a younger woman who had also been seeing the astronaut Nowak pined for, according to Orlando police.

Nowak — who was a mission specialist on a Discovery launch last summer — was wearing a trench coat and wig and had a knife, BB pistol, and latex gloves in her car, reports show. They also found diapers, which Nowak said she used so she wouldn’t have to stop on the 1,000-mile drive. Reports show that after U.S. Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman’s flight arrived, Nowak followed her to the airport’s Blue Lot for long-term parking, tried to get into Shipman’s car and then doused her with pepper spray.

Nowak, 43, is charged with attempted kidnapping, battery, attempted vehicle burglary with battery and destruction of evidence. Police considered her such a danger that they requested she be held without bail in the Orange County Jail, reports show.

A married mother of three, Nowak told police that she was “involved in a relationship with,” Bill Oefelein, another NASA astronaut, which she categorized as “more than a working relationship but less than a romantic relationship,” according to the charging affidavit.

Oefelein, who piloted the most recent shuttle Discovery flight in December, could not be reached Monday night at home in Houston.

She found out Oefelein was involved with Shipman and planned a trip to Orlando to talk to Shipman about their relationships with Oefelein, reports show. She also told police the BB gun “was going to be used to entice Ms. Shipman to talk with her.”

Shipman, an engineer assigned to the 45th Launch Support Squadron at Patrick Air Force base near the Kennedy Space Center, told police she was flying home from Houston. She could not be reached for comment Monday night at her home near Port Canaveral.

What did George Bush know and when did he know it?

What efforts are bing made on behalf of the many refugees from Pluto created by this decision?

Shouldn’t NASA be disbanded? After all, they’ve operated for decades telling us that Pluto was a planet. NASA lied! Pluto died!

Those of us who supported Titan for planethood are shocked! Shocked, I tell you! Just goes to show that a bought and paid for astronomer doesn’t stay that way.

You Earthlings haven’t heard the end of this!

CNN

After a tumultuous week of clashing over the essence of the cosmos, the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930. The new definition of what is — and isn’t — a planet fills a centuries-old black hole for scientists who have labored since Copernicus without one.

You realize, of course, that this means WAR!

NASA

There’s a new crater on the Moon. It’s about 14 meters wide, 3 meters deep and precisely one month, eleven days old.

NASA astronomers watched it form: “On May 2, 2006, a meteoroid hit the Moon’s Sea of Clouds (Mare Nubium) with 17 billion joules of kinetic energy—that’s about the same as 4 tons of TNT,” says Bill Cooke, the head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office in Huntsville, AL. “The impact created a bright fireball which we video-recorded using a 10-inch telescope.”

Lunar impacts have been seen before–”stuff hits the Moon all the time,” notes Cooke–but this is the best-ever recording of an explosion in progress:

Go and watch.

When you look at the major Star Fleet characters in all the Star Trek shows and movies, most are American if they are not alien. I realize not all, but most. Star Fleet is located in San Francisco. An American, Zefram Cochran, invented our warp drive. And Kirk’s sexual harrassment of Yeoman Rand was pure American. Although, she did wear the boots… perhaps it was the other way in private… “Jim, have you been a naughty, naughty boy?”

Back on topic. My God! Baseball is played by aliens, America’s sport! How cool is that?

Back on topic. The pause that has been our space program for two decades must end. A lunar base and a landing on Mars should be our prority. Let privitization take over the Space Station. The stars are out there, just out of reach for now. It’s time to end the purposeless existance that is NASA. We MUST LOOK OUTWARD NOW.

This is the defining moment for our space program. After the moon landings, we rested on our laurels. Challenger seems to have embeded even deeper into NASA a bureaucratic desire to avoid risks, blame, and action. Our space program must have a reason to exist, and it should be the ever outward march of humanity.

Because, if it’s not us, it WILL be the Chinese. They think in terms of decades and centuries, and so should we. Let’s meet the Vulcans of our reality out there, on our terms and in our space.

Somewhere along the line, NASA lost the dream. You know the one. Boldly going where no man had gone before.

Nit picking by small minds. Government bureaucrats with no imagination. Something killed the dream.

In less than a hundred years, the Vulcans come. That’s the Star Trek mythos, and, you know what, why not?

Space flight is a risky business. That shouldn’t stop us. We need to differentiate between calculated risks and stupid risks. It’s the stupid risks that are biting us in the ass, over and over. We’ll find that stupidity was the cause of the Columbia accident. America should be angry about that. But we shouldn’t turn away from space because of idiots.

The shuttle should stop at the Space Station on every trip. It would allow for external inspection of the shuttle. It would familiarize more space crew with docking procedures at the Space Station. It would allow more supplies and equipment to go to the Space Station. And, it gives the guys on the station visitors, which I’m certain they would welcome.

Amish Tech Support blogs about the word “shuttle” and I agree with him. Let’s use the damn things for what they were meant for, and do the science at the Space Station. Mars awaits, and we’re not going to get there using a thirty year old taxi.

Let’s also find a new technology to replace the tiles. This is a really old idea, takes loads and loads of time on the ground, and we can’t fix them in space at all. Despite the upgrades, primarily to computers, the shuttle fleet is twenty to thirty year old technology. Time for new ideas, and the quickest fix is the tile concept.

Then, let’s get the big corporations involved. Cut rate pricing for trips to the Space Station. Housing and assistance with research. Government gets to share any work, not keep, not hide, but share. There’s a ton of research that could be being done up there, but we have to break up the little “Shuttle club” that has formed. Let’s cycle folks through there a little bit faster, with a little bit more support. Don’t blame the Russians here. There have been holdups on their end but it’s NASA that’s restricting access to the Station. You shouldn’t have to train for three years to go to the Space Station for a month’s worth of research.

The stars are there for us to reach. Once we get out there, the only limits are the ones we set. Barring a run-in with the Borg or its equivalent, the Final Frontier is ours to take. So let’s shake the dust off NASA, clear out the cobwebs and deadwood, and start reaching for the stars.

Sixteen minutes from home. And, now, called to a different home. A Valhalla where they fly free, forever.Space is the Final Frontier, and these were our best, sent out towards the stars. They knew the danger and the risk. And went anyway. Generations unborn will owe these heros much. The dreams that we see in Star Trek begin here and now, and these men and women were and are the dream builders. In that distant day when we are a star-faring people, the people who crewed Columbia and Challenger and Apollo will be the reason why.We must not turn our back on space. This must be a reason to go forward, to achieve more. Their sacrifices must not feed our fears but our determination. The stars still beckon to us, shining perhaps just a little brighter tonight through our tears.

Check news for futher info.It appears the space shuttle Columbia may have broken up on reentry this morning over Texas. News video on Fox News shows multiple contrails. Contact with presumed debris should be avoided as they may be heavily contaminated.