• Different angle on the space station

    NASA

    The International Space Station looms above Earth during the unorthodox Atlantis fly-around on July 19. The moon can be seen above and to the right of the station.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

    It's been standard procedure for the space shuttle to make a fly-around and take pictures of the International Space Station just as it's pulling away for the homeward journey. But the procedure was changed for this month's very last visit by the space shuttle Atlantis. After the shuttle backed 600 feet away, pilot Doug Hurley held it in position while the space station rotated 90 degrees to the right. Then Hurley made a half-loop around the station, to give Atlantis' crew members an opportunity to snap pictures of the station from angles never before photographed during a fly-around.

    Here are some of the high-resolution pictures. Scores of additional images focus in on details that NASA engineers wanted to check. "The images will be evaluated by experts on the ground to get additional information on the condition of the station's exterior," NASA said.

    NASA

    The International Space Station's solar panels are nearly edge-on in this view. Two Russian Soyuz lifeboats and two Progress cargo ships are docked on the left side.

    NASA

    Earth spreads out nearly 250 miles (400 kilometers) below in the background of this unusual view of the International Space Station.

    NASA

    The sun shines brightly on the International Space Station in this parting shot, captured by Atlantis' crew.

    More views from the last shuttle mission:

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  • NASA's past and future ... in 3-D!

    Nathanial Burton-Bradford / NASA

    Nathanial Burton-Bradford put together this 3-D view of the shuttle Atlantis' launch on July 8. Use red-blue glasses to see the stereo effect.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

    NASA's last space shuttle mission and its next Mars mission both look twice as awesome in stereo — and you can look forward to more 3-D goodness to come.

    The picture of Atlantis' launch on July 8 comes courtesy of Nathanial Burton-Bradford, a British aficionado of anaglyph imagery. Burton-Bradford's Flickr page offers views of the launch as well as a panorama of the shuttle docked to the International Space Station, plus a space station view of Atlantis' descent last week.

    Even though Atlantis' 13-day mission and the 30-year space shuttle program have ended, there are lots of 3-D views yet to come. Several professional stereo camera rigs were set up at the launch site, and Panasonic provided 3-D camcorders for Atlantis' crew to use during their training and spaceflight. The 3-D cameras are to be used aboard the space station going forward.

    Vertical Ascent Productions captured the launch as well as the landing in 3-D, for use in a 45-minute special due to air on Aug. 5 as part of inDemand's "In Deep" series. The show was commissioned by Comcast, and other inDemand affiliates will have access to the special as well, Multichannel News reported.

    3-D on Mars
    If film director James Cameron had his way, we'd be looking forward to even more exotic 3-D video next year. At one time, the man behind "Avatar," "Titanic" and other Hollywood blockbusters was working with NASA to put a high-resolution 3-D zoom camera aboard the car-sized Curiosity rover.

    Alas, it was not to be: Mission planners determined that the camera couldn't be ready in time for the probe's scheduled launch on Nov. 25. NASA had to go with the fixed focal-length system that was originally planned for the rover.

    NASA / JPL-Caltech

    This stereo image of NASA's Curiosity rover was taken on May 26 at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, about a month before the car-sized rover — also known as the Mars Science Laboratory — was shipped to Kennedy Space Center in preparation for its November launch to the Red Planet.

    Even that dual-camera Mastcam system has stereo capability, so we'll still be seeing stereo views. In fact, both cameras are capable of taking high-resolution video at a rate of about 10 frames per second. But because the cameras have different focal lengths, 3-D imagery will not be "a major emphasis of the investigation," according to the camera's manufacturer, Malin Space Science Systems.

    You don't have to wait until the Curiosity rover's landing next May to enjoy 3-D views from the Red Planet. Spirit and Opportunity, the twin rovers that landed on Mars in 2004, have sent back loads of stereo images — and the vistas are likely to get even more dramatic once Opportunity reaches the 14-mile-wide Endeavour Crater.

    NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is also taking stereo pictures of Mars, from high above. You can click through more than 2,000 3-D images from the orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE.

    As you graze through the nearly 19,000 pictures in HiRISE's catalog, you'll occasionally come across image pages that offer "anaglyph" versions of the scene — and that's a tip-off that 3-D goodness is available. 

    This picture of the central mound at Gale Crater, the top target for Curiosity's $2.5 billion mission, is a good example:   

    NASA / JPL-Caltech / Univ. of Ariz.

    This stereo image shows the northeast section of the central mound within Gale Crater on Mars, which appears to include layers of sulfate minerals. Gale Crater's mound rises 3 miles (5 kilometers) above the floor of the crater and has been selected as the target for NASA's $2.5 billion Curiosity rover mission.

    How to see in 3-D
    By now you're probably wondering where to get the red-blue glasses you need to see the 3-D effect. Inexpensive cardboard spectacles are generally inserted in 3-D books or DVD packages — but for the pictures that you see on this page and on most other websites, you'll want to make sure you have the red-blue (or red-cyan) filters rather than amber-blue or green-magenta filters.

    The red-blue glasses may be available at novelty shops, and you can also order them online. Here's a list of vendors from NASA. In addition to the outlets on NASA's list, there's Amazon.com and 3DGlasses.net. NASA even provides instructions for making your own 3-D glasses.

    I've been known to give away 3-D glasses that are provided courtesy of Microsoft Research, which includes 3-D imagery in its WorldWide Telescope astronomy software. (Microsoft and NBC Universal are partners in the msnbc.com joint venture.) This week, I'm sending out more than 20 free sets of cardboard glasses to readers who asked for them on the Cosmic Log Facebook page. The giveaway glasses are already spoken for, so please click on the "like" button to become part of Cosmic Log's Facebook community and be ready for the next giveaway.

    Once you have your glasses, click through these links to sample more 3-D goodies from outer space:

    And while you're at it, check out the 2-D images in the latest installment of our "Month in Space Pictures" slideshow. Many of the pictures this month are from Atlantis' mission, but there are lots of other gems to enjoy. Click on these links for larger versions of the images, suitable for printing or turning into wallpaper for your display devices:

    Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds. 

  • Last looks at the shuttle in orbit

    Thierry Legault / Astrophoto.fr

    A three-image composite tracks the International Space Station and the shuttle Atlantis as they move across the sun's disk on July 15.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

    They look like alien bugs hopping across the sun, but these specks may represent the very last pictures of a space shuttle in orbit as seen from Earth.

    French astrophotographer Thierry Legault, an expert in the technique of tracking spacecraft silhouettes, captured these views of the International Space Station and the shuttle Atlantis during their final rendezvous. Atlantis landed today, bringing the 30-year space shuttle program to an end.

    The picture above is a composite, showing three views of the station-shuttle complex as it passed over the sun's disk on July 15. Legault had to travel to just the right location to get the shot. This one was taken from Caen in France. The entire transit took just seven-tenths of a second. Legault has labeled the shuttle and elements of the space station in this higher-resolution view:

    Thierry Legault / Astrophoto.fr

    The labels on this image point out the position of Atlantis and components of the International Space Station during a July 15 transit.

    In an email, Legault told me that he traveled through the Czech Republic, Germany and the Netherlands to capture the silhouettes. One picture, snapped north of Prague and posted to Legault's website, shows the space station and the shuttle side by side, 50 minutes after Atlantis' undocking earlier this week.

    Legault produced the piece de resistance today during a stopover near Emden, in northern Germany. It may not look quite as impressive as the others, but it could well be more historic. Legault wrote that the picture was taken "just 21 minutes before the deorbit burn, therefore there are chances that it is the very last image of a space shuttle in orbit."

    Here's a composite of four images, taken during the 0.9-second-long transit. The silhouettes of Atlantis are highlighted within white circles:

    Thierry Legault / Astrophoto.fr

    A four-image composite tracks Atlantis' transit across the sun's disk, just 21 minutes before today's deorbit burn. The white circles highlight Atlantis.

    For the telescope and camera buffs out there, Legault says the images were produced using a Takahashi TOA-150 6-inch apochromatic refractor (focal length 3600mm) on an EM-400 mount, with a Baader Herschel wedge. The camera is a Canon 5D Mark II, set for an exposure of 1/8000s, 100 ISO, working in continuous shooting at four frames per second. Transit forecasts were calculated by www.calsky.com.

    Merci beaucoup to Thierry for sharing his pictures with us through the years.

    More great views of Atlantis:

    Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," Alan's book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

  • Southern lights are sweeter in space

    NASA

    The greenish glow of an auroral display sweeps around Earth's south polar region in this photo, captured from a vantage point on the International Space Station. The shuttle Atlantis and its robotic arm, as well as one of the station's solar arrays, loom up in the foreground.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

    The pilot for NASA's last space shuttle flight, Doug Hurley, says one of the highlights of Atlantis' trip to the International Space Station was seeing an "incredible" display of southern lights — and after seeing these pictures, I'd have to agree with him.

    This photo from the space station shows the greenish auroral glow sweeping around the south pole, following the edge of the atmosphere. Atlantis is in the foreground with its robotic arm extended into the center of the frame, and one of the station's gold-colored solar arrays juts in the right edge. You can even see the stars hanging in the night sky.

     Another picture provides a more detailed view of the shimmering lights, with Atlantis' inspection boom poking through the frame.

    NASA

    Thursday night's southern lights shimmer in a picture taken from the International Space Station, with Atlantis' inspection boom angling through the picture.

    The southern lights, like the northern lights, are sparked when electrically charged particles from the sun interact with Earth's magnetic field. For more amazing views of Atlantis' auroras, check out NASA's photo gallery for the shuttle mission, as well as Space.com's report about the pictures.

    More marvelous views from Atlantis' mission:

    Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also add me to your Google+ circle, and check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds. 

  • Courtesy of Chris Bray

    At left, 13-year-old Chris Bray scans the crowd witnessing the first space shuttle launch on April 12, 1981, while his 39-year-old father, Kenneth, looks through binoculars. At right, Chris and Kenneth strike a similar pose at the last shuttle launch on July 8, 2011.

    Father and son at shuttle's start and end

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

    They’re just a father and his son, out taking pictures at a shuttle launch. But these pictures reflect 30 years of history. On the left, Chris Bray and his father, Kenneth, stand out in the crowd that gathered to watch the first space shuttle lift off on April 12, 1981. Thirty years later, Chris and Kenneth commemorated the last shuttle launch by striking the same pose. The then-and-now photos have become an Internet sensation.

    As of today, the pictures have been viewed almost 700,000 times on Chris Bray's Flickr photo gallery — and that doesn't count the additional traffic to Yahoo and The Washington Post (or, ahem, to this posting).

    The Brays went to Kennedy Space Center in 1981 because Kenneth, then a 39-year-old jewelry designer, was commissioned to create a series of pins for the first shuttle mission. He brought 13-year-old Chris along to share the experience. Chris' mother, Ginny, took the father-and-son picture.

    When the Brays heard about the final shuttle launch, they saw it as a golden opportunity to mark 30 years for the NASA space program as well as their own lives. Chris is now 43, and works for an interactive marketing agency in New York. Kenneth, 69, is still working as well. They put their names in for a lottery to purchase tickets to view the July 8 launch from the Astronaut Hall of Fame's grounds near the space center. The Brays won a place at the party, and despite flight delays and a rental-car snafu, they made it to the spot in plenty of time to re-create the 1981 pose. This time the photographer was Chris' girlfriend, Chelsea.

    Chris calls it "the picture we waited 30 years to complete."

    I asked Chris a couple of questions about then and now via email:

    Q: It sounds as if you have shared space experiences. Any other special memories? How many launches have you seen?

    A: These were the only two launches we attended. Other "space memories" involve building model rockets together, and astronomy ... watching solar eclipses with a pinhole box, getting up at 2 a.m. to go look at Saturn and Jupiter. Those types of things.

    Q: Can you cast your mind back to what you were thinking when the 1981 picture was taken, and what you were thinking last week?

    A: I remember being excited and anxious at the first launch. I had never seen an actual launch, and I had some memories of watching the later Apollo flights on TV, so this was a thrill. The most vivid memory of the first launch was the sound. Last week, I remember turning to my girlfriend and saying, "I feel like I'm 13 again."

    If you're 40-something or older, these pictures are likely to spark reflections about how times have changed over the past three decades, for the space program, for society and for your own lives. Please feel free to share your reflections — even if you weren't around when the first shuttle flew.

    Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also add me to your Google+ circle, and check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

    Update: Watch the Bray's interview with Ann Curry on TODAY, July 21, 2011.

  • Space station takes center stage

    NASA file

    A fish-eye view of the International Space Station, captured by NASA spacewalker Ron Garan, features the recently delivered Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer in the foreground. A Russian Progress cargo ship and a Soyuz crew capsule are docked on the left end of the station. The structure to the left of the AMS is a radiator. One of the station's gold-colored solar arrays is visible in the background. And off to the right, the shuttle Atlantis is docked to the station's Harmony node.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

    After the space shuttle Atlantis lands, the focus of the U.S. space program shifts to the International Space Station — so it’s fitting that NASA spacewalker Ron Garan took a moment to capture this eye-filling wide-angle view of the station at the end of this week’s final outing of the space shuttle era.

    This wasn't the last spacewalk by any means. The 500-ton space station is as big as a football field and as roomy as a five-bedroom house, and it's going to need plenty of exterior upkeep over the next decade of operation. But it was the last opportunity for astronauts to take pictures of a space shuttle in outer space ... from outer space.

    "Only one problem with this image — the tendency to make you stop whatever you're doing, stare at it, lose your concentration and drool uncontrollably," NBC News space analyst Jim Oberg says in an email. "At least that's how it affects me."

    'Big deal' for space station science
    It's also fitting that NASA has finally revealed how scientific experiments will be managed aboard the space station in the years ahead. Today the space agency announced it has selected a Florida-based nonprofit group known as the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, or CASIS, to take charge of research operations that use the U.S. portion of the space station as a national laboratory. The center will be located at the Space Life Sciences Laboratory, near NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

    The U.S. segment of the space station was given national-lab status in 2005, and over the past few months, NASA has been evaluating potential partners for managing the lab operations. CASIS will be in charge of maximizing the station's research return for non-NASA applications — based on scientific peer review, analyses of the economic and technological value of potential projects, and the availability of funding. NASA said CASIS will also raise the station's profile as an educational platform.

    The cooperative agreement initially will have a value of up to $15 million per year, NASA said in its news release.

    "The space station is the centerpiece of NASA's human spaceflight activities, and it is truly an national asset," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden was quoted as saying. "This agreement helps us ensure the station will be available for broad, meaningful and sustained use."

    CASIS is a consortium of organizations spearheaded by Space Florida. "CASIS is a perfect fit with the state's strategy to support the space, science and technology industries through strategic collaboration and partnerships," Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, the chair of Space Florida's board of directors, said in a statement. "By making the space environment more widely accessible to industrial and academic research, the ISS National Lab will help strengthen and diversify the U.S. economy and inspire the next generation."

    U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat who flew on the shuttle Columbia in 1986, said today's announcement was "a big deal."

    "It's going to bring money, jobs and industry to diversify an area hard-hit by retirement of the shuttle program," Nelson said in a news release.

    Breakthrough or multibillion-dollar bust?
    The space station has long been criticized for providing less research value than scientists had hoped. We'll have to see if that criticism fades now that the station is out of its construction phase.

    During a briefing conducted before Atlantis' launch, Mike Suffredini, NASA's space station program manager, said the initial goal was to devote 35 hours of the astronauts' time to research on a weekly basis, plus whatever they wanted to do during their off time. "We find that crews give quite a bit of their weekends to research," he said.

    One of the space station's marquee science projects is a long-running investigation of how microgravity affects the virulence of pathogens such as the microbes that cause salmonella poisoning or MRSA. Scientists involved in the project, which could result in new vaccines, have an experiment aboard Atlantis for the last shuttle mission.

    "We're close to some groundbreaking news here, so this could be a good one," Joe Delai, payload manager for Atlantis' STS-135 mission, told journalists.

    It'd be nice if the post-shuttle era came to be remembered as a golden age for space station science — but what do you think? Is the station suited for science, or will it turn out to be a shiny $100 billion white elephant? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below. And while you're contemplating your comments, feast your eyes on these additional images from Tuesday's spacewalk:

    NASA via Reuters

    Spacewalker Ron Garan rides on the International Space Station's robotic arm as he transfers a failed pump module to the cargo bay of space shuttle Atlantis.

    NASA via Getty Images

    NASA spacewalker Mike Fossum takes a picture while attached to the International Space Station's robotic arm on Tuesday. California's Central Valley can be seen far below as a green swath running from left to right, with Mono Lake shining like a tiny blue jewel.

    Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," Alan's book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

  • Shuttle Atlantis' last trek to liftoff

    Scott Andrews / for msnbc.com

    In one of 120,000 images shot during the time-lapse, NASA's space shuttle Atlantis is hoisted before being mounted with "the stack" before rollout at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

    By Jonathan Woods, msnbc.com

    As the sun sets on NASA's spaceflight program, three talented people set out to document the preparations for shuttle Atlantis' final launch.

    Armed with 15 cameras, Scott Andrews, his son Philip Andrews and Stan Jirman teamed up to shoot and seamlessly combine a whopping 120,000 still images. The finished product is condensed into a 3-minute time-lapse video that makes the four-day process of preparing the shuttle for its trek to the launch pad look like a cakewalk.

    NBC News' Jay Barbree narrates a rare time-lapse video of the shuttle Atlantis being prepared for its final mission.

    The time-lapse is the culmination of 40 years of collaboration. Photographer Scott Andrews, a technical consultant for Canon, has been photographing launches and landings professionally since Apollo 15 in July 1971.

    Scott Andrews / for msnbc.com

    The morning after rollout, NASA's space shuttle Atlantis rests on the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

    Throughout the years he has helped hundreds of photographers from around the world and worked closely with the NASA spaceflight program. Scott said his main mission in creating the time-lapse is to pay tribute to all of the shuttle workers.

    Referring to the origins of the time-lapse video, Scott said "Anybody could have done this time lapse — but nobody did."

    So Scott sat down and drafted a 47-page proposal and made six trips to the Kennedy Space Center to finally get the "yes" he needed. This all hinged on the trust he had built during his tenure, split between Kennedy and Johnson space centers.

    In the end, they produced a tribute to not only the shuttle workers, but also NASA and the spaceflight program as a whole.

    Veteran NBC space correspondent Jay Barbree summed it up best: "When historians look back, they will write that the shuttle was a reusable ship that carried astronauts into orbit.  It was an essential brick on the road to distant places beyond our planet."

    Related content:

  • NASA's last shuttle seen from space

    DigitalGlobe

    The space shuttle Atlantis is visible near the center of this DigitalGlobe satellite image, focusing on the heart of NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The large structure toward the left is the 52-story-tall Vehicle Assembly Building, where the shuttle was being taken in preparation for flight. The building just to the left of the VAB is the Launch Control Center. The buildings at top center are orbiter processing facilities, the "garages" where the space shuttles are kept.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

    This picture turns the tables on the space shuttle Atlantis: Usually, the orbiter gets great views of Earth from space. Here, a satellite in space gets a great view of the orbiter on Earth. It's even more amazing when you realize that DigitalGlobe's satellte happened to be passing over Kennedy Space Center at midday on Tuesday, at just the time when NASA was moving Atlantis over from its orbiter processing facility to the 52-story-tall Vehicle Assembly Building.

    Atlantis is now being mated with its external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters inside the VAB, in preparation for NASA's final space shuttle mission. Right now the launch is scheduled to take place in mid-July. Check out this preview story to learn more about Atlantis' "rollover" and the STS-135 mission ahead. And for a ground-level view of the rollover, check out this picture and the others available from Kennedy Space Center's media archive:

    NASA

    The shuttle Atlantis is parked in front of the Vehicle Assembly Building on Tuesday before being moved inside.

     

    More about the shuttle fleet's last days:

    Tip o' the Log to Ian O'Neill at Discovery News.

    Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," Alan's book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.