STS-131 Space Shuttle Discovery lit up the dawn sky this morning as she broke free from gravity’s grip to reach low Earth orbit on her way to the International Space Station. Lift off! STS-131 Space Shuttle Discovery. Photo: NASA TV Onboard Discovery, three female astronauts: NASA’s Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger and Stephanie Wilson andNaoko Yamazaki of JapanRead… Read more »
I’m SO excited to share details about NASA’s newest, coolest, never-been-done-before sustainability initiative, LAUNCH:Water. Accelerating Innovation for a Sustainable Future. We’ve been working on this project for some time — an innovative collaborative process to “launch” ideas, or disruptive green technologies, that address some of this planet’s growing pains. All props to NASA’s Robbie Schingler,Read… Read more »
Are you someone who knows exactly what it takes to make NASA the best agency possible? Do you doodle ideas on cocktail napkins and mail them to a NASA Center? Do you wake up early in the morning to watch Space Shuttle launches (like this morning’s 4:14 a.m. EST STS-130 launch) or stay up allRead… Read more »
This weekend, I participated in the Science Online 2010 conference at the Research Triangle in North Carolina, at the request of Karen James of the HMS Beagle Project. We connected on Twitter. She works in the UK. I work in DC. We met for the first time in North Carolina. Pretty cool, huh! Our panelRead… Read more »
True Confession: Yes, I’m bureaucrat. I prefer the term, civil servant — though that implies work is civil, doesn’t it? Au contraire. If I could give you one visual image to describe my experience in the government, it would be this one of Catherine Zeta-Jones from the 1999 movie “Entrapment”: No. I don’t look atRead… Read more »
As we face the end of our Space Shuttle program (only five more flights remaining), I’m struck by the “Go-No Go” mentality of NASA’s can-do Mission Control teams at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Think about it. “Go-No Go” translates into, “We’re going forward until we tell you to stop.” Success-oriented thinking. A “Go-NoRead… Read more »
I’m reposting this story in honor of World AIDs Day today. Growing up as a kid in Texas, I remember trick-or-treating for UNICEF, an organization that helps at -risk children in developing countries. We collected donations instead of candy. All that seems so long ago. UNICEF never went away. At-risk children never went away. PerhapsRead… Read more »
Vote for Twitternaut @Astro_Mike Massimino’s first tweet from space for “Tweet of the Year” in Mashable’s Open Web Awards Social Media Edition. You can vote once a day through December 13th. Find out more about NASA’s first Massimillionaire. Let your vote send this message: When we tweet from space, everyone listens.
NASA hosted our first tweet-up at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, corresponding with the STS-129 Space Shuttle launch. Tweeters from around the world attended — from as far away as the UK, Morocco, and New Zealand. We exposed them to speakers who shared their experiences on what it takes to launch a Shuttle toRead… Read more »
Non-twit-oholics always ask me, “What’s the point? Why Twitter?” I’m sorry. That’s like asking me, “Why chocolate?” My answer, “Take the first bite, then we’ll talk.” But, some still need convincing. I mean really. You know those types. The ones who look at the chocolate cheesecake with swirls of whipped cream…and walk away. Yeah, thoseRead… Read more »