Buran Buran: when notorious space programs die on planet earth, where do the buildings go? Rio?

Well, “the reflex”-ive answer is “Nowhere, of course!!” But what does happen to space launch facilities once a program goes away? Maybe some people “save a prayer” for them,” but in most of the modern world, facilities tend to be reused. Space launch complex-6 (SLC-6) at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, is a good example […]

Anime, weddings, JAXA, NASA, and weather satellites

I just saw a video (below) on one of my favorite sites, Rocketnews24. The site has a great posting regarding this anime video JAXA (the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency) and NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) apparently put together narrating the launch of one of their weather satellite missions, GPM (Global Precipitation Measurement). Sounds boring, […]

Why space matters: Imaging satellite operations, part 17—The Green Hills of Earth

Green—a word associated with jungles, a description of newbies, in songs sung by muppets about the difficulties of being it, and songs sung by fictional spacefarers about the qualities of their homeworld. Those spacefarers might be fictional, but for certain real space imagery operators, green describes a capability of a satellite payload. Green is one […]

A few more images of Earth for you

I added a few more links to the “Satellite images, imagery operators, and business” column (on the right). For your efforts, though, you also get to click on them here: http://earthgazer.tumblr.com/ : A nice Tumblr image site with random pictures of Earth’s surface from space. http://imagesoftheearth.com/ : Just a website with various images of Earth […]

Almost batting a thousand–the contribution of Kepler (and others)

There have been a few posts on TMSB regarding the Kepler satellite and reaction wheel issues affecting it. But all that planet-hunting, the primary mission of the Kepler team, has paid off in the amount of information learned from their, and other satellites’, endeavors. You’ll learn a thing or two if you take a read […]