NASA says photos taken by Curiosity provide ample evidence of an “ancient streambed on Mars, similar to some on Earth.” 

Super legit photography of the Enterprise Shuttle on its New York City fly-by earlier this morning. We spotted Eric Hwang (go visit his website!) on the 9th floor of IAC with a killer camera snapping away, so naturally asked if we could run some of his photos on the tumblr. Thanks Eric! These are great!!

The Enterprise Shuttle, Instagrammed, naturally, as it flies by New York City on the way to its forever home at the Intrepid.

nwkarchivist:

On This Date 45 Years Ago:

‘FIRE IN THE SPACECRAFT!’

Relaxing supine in contour couches in a newly minted spacecraft, the three astronauts seemed safe as men watching television in a living room.  Then at 6:31 p.m. EST it happened.  “Fire in the spacecraft!” an astronaut shouted over the communications hookup. On the TV monitor, the men in the blockhouse simultaneously saw the capsule obscured in a flash of fire and smoke.  It was over in an instant.  The atmosphere in the cabin was pure, 100 per cent oxygen.  With a great whoosh, like the sound of an oven being lit, the pure 02 in the cabin made every combustible item in the ship burn with super intensity.  Death for all three astronauts was instantaneous- either by incineration or asphyxiation.

Newsweek February 6, 1967

This happened on January 27th, 1967—45 years ago today. The dead: Astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. May they rest in space.

Newsweek & The Daily Beast staffers (and editor) gather in the newsroom to watch Atlantis’ final flight as NASA closes its doors on the historic space shuttle program.

In April 1981 Newsweek published a cover story on the Space Shuttle program, then just getting underway with the launch of Columbia that week from Kennedy Space Center. In it, the editors call the program “the most spectacular sales promotion in history,” predicting that the future in space lies in fact with private industry—a belief mirrored by the Obama administration nearly three decades later:

Once investment in space loses its element of risk, predicts NASA’s Bekey, “industry will jump in.” If so, Columbia’s historic voyage may turn out to be not only a splendid technical and scientific achievement, but also perhaps the most spectacular sales promotion in history. Even as mankind’s great adventure in space is getting under way, it is also, in a sense, ending. Impelled by the dual human imperatives to explore—and to see if some money can be made at it—we have begun to probe the very fringes of a great uncharted sea; already, we want to know where the best fishing is.

Newsweek, 4/27/1981

sarah-ball:

JFK debriefed at NASA’s KSC, Sept. 11, 1962. Love the the oh-so-’60s saturated teal of that coffee pot—this almost looks like a paint-by-numbers.

(From cache of vintage NASA photos, new from the agency on Flickr. h/t @pourmecoffee)

Today in things we like: vintage NASA photos, and, of course, vintage kitchenware.