NASA is checking for any damage to space shuttle Atlantis or the launch pad after a lightning strike.
Thunderstorms threatened to delay NASA's last space shuttle launch set for Friday, as emotions swelled and astronauts descended on Cape Canaveral by the dozens on the eve of the historic flight.
When Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated in flames and smoke on the morning of Jan. 28, 1986, panic rippled through the photo department at Newsweek. As space shuttle launches had become somewhat routine, the magazine hadn't bothered to send a photographer to document Challenger's latest mission.
The end of the space shuttle program is hitting its Florida launch home in the pocketbook with some areas practically becoming economic ghost towns. But Houston, home of Mission Control, is getting hit somewhere else: in the ego.
NASA has scheduled the final launch of the space shuttle Atlantis for Friday. This 12-day mission to the International Space Station not only will be the final space-shuttle flight, but, without a serious course correction, augurs the end of America's pre-eminence in space altogether.
NASA is deciding between two places on Mars to send its next rover.
It was an awkward moment, to say the least. Testifying before a House Appropriations subcommittee, President Obama's science adviser, John P. Holdren, was describing the Obama administration's ongoing discussions with China to develop joint space projects.
The weather isn't cutting NASA any breaks, not even for the last space shuttle launch set for Friday.
It began as a bright white dot in Saturn's northern hemisphere. Within days, the dot grew larger and stormier.
