space shuttle set to land at 3:49pm

[ryan2772]

watch it live:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html

click "watch nasa tv now"

[Guest lulamishka]

I'm glad they made a safe landing.

[Bling]

God's Speed ;D

glad it went well esp after the crap that fell off

[Guest endymion]

I was having lunch this afternoon at a restaurant overlooking the Indian River Lagoon and it was looking pretty obvious all day today that conditions weren't going to be good for a landing here. I flipped open my laptop as soon as I got home to Miami just now to see what happened.

In Miami, the newspaper is all news about Cubans and Haitians and public corruption. In Melbourne the newspaper is mostly stories about NASA and tech. I'm in withdrawal already.

[Guest pod]

They gotta get the ISS finished quick and retire the Shuttle fleet. What sucks is we're going "back" to BDBs since we couldn't get the spaceplane concept to work in a cheap fashion.

The whole plan was to have fleets of spaceplanes by now. The Shuttle would have been long-retired, and we'd have true SSTO (Single Stage to Orbit) planes roaring off from KSC and major airports regularly.

I think the next great leap forward in spacefaring tech will come from the labs of Scaled Composites and financed by Richard Branson.

[Guest slamminshaun]

In Miami, the newspaper is all news about Cubans and Haitians and public corruption. In Melbourne the newspaper is mostly stories about NASA and tech. I'm in withdrawal already.

LOL, the main headlines in my paper today were "Beer, burger on soccer team for first 50 at Lawnwood doubleheader Saturday" and "PSL launches e-newsletter today".

Tech, is this your paper? I'm a subscriber for business reasons.

[Guest endymion]

Tech' date=' is this your paper? I'm a subscriber for business reasons.

Yep, that's the one! Just down the street from my house. I hated that newspaper when I was growing up in Melbourne because it's such a dinky little small-town rag. I read the Orlando Sentinel because they actually had news.

They ran an article on Thursday about one of the programs at the incubator where I spent the last two weeks doing R&D:

Program boosts businesses

NASA funds engineering, technical help

BY SCOTT BLAKE

FLORIDA TODAY

Toby McCormick has sold plenty of his nose filters from his store on Merritt Island, while George Woodruff is developing more robotic lifts for the United States military from his shop in Titusville.

The two entrepreneurs are among the many small businesses in Brevard County, Florida and around the nation that have developed with help from the Space Alliance Technology Outreach Program, also known as SATOP.

The NASA-funded program that started in Brevard County about 12 years ago -- and has since expanded to other states -- provides technical and engineering assistance to businesspeople in need of some expertise to advance their business plans.

SATOP, a program originated by the Titusville-based Technological Research and Development Authority, calls upon professionals at NASA, its contractors, and affiliated colleges and universities to volunteer their time.

The program, which provides up to 40 hours of technical assistance at no charge, is funded with $3 million a year from NASA, and one of its goals is to transfer aerospace technology to private industry.

"We've had an impact on a lot of companies," said Chris Gilfriche, SATOP's director in Florida, with offices in Titusville and Melbourne. "It's nice to see them be successful." more...

(Check out the photo of the Laser Lure to the right of the article, it was the photo that ran over the article in the newspaper. Cool project.)