Virginia’s Wallops Island to Launch Spacecraft To Moon On Sept 6

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Martin Weil, at The Washington Post writes:

The mission will not land on the moon, but it is intended to go into orbit around it. The robotic mission is to collect detailed information about the moon’s thin atmosphere. Sometimes thought to be nonexistent, the lunar atmosphere has been described as extremely tenuous and fragile, but present. According to the space agency, the launch will record many firsts. One will be the first launch beyond Earth orbit from the Virginia facility. Cool.

What The Space Shuttle Booster Saw

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Video from cameras attached to the booster rockets of the Space Shuttle with this minor exception: it is high definition and the audio has been remastered by Skywalker Sound. Watch it all the way to the end with your headphones on - the audio is great. Also, at the end, you can see the other booster splashing down in the ocean nearby.

via Jason Kottke. ∗

Time Lapse View from Space, ISS Fly Over

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By Michael König:

Time lapse sequences of photographs taken by the crew of expeditions 28 & 29 onboard the International Space Station from August to October, 2011, who to my knowledge shot these pictures at an altitude of around 350 km. All credit goes to them. I intend to upload a FullHD-version presently. HD, refurbished, smoothed, retimed, de-noised, de-flickered, cut, etc. All in all I tried to keep the looks of the material as original as possible, avoided adjusting the colors and the like, since in my opinion the original footage itself already has an almost surreal and aesthetically visual nature. Visit the video's Vimeo page for a music, image, and location colophon.