Tagged: NASA

Thanks to the popularity of the Mars rover, Curiosity, NASA is back in the public eye for something other than budget cuts or program terminations. The excitement and pride felt by many Americans over the rover’s successful landing, has NASA exploring ways to capitalize and build on this wave of public interest. Susan Waldman, a Washington Post business columnist, and co-founder of ZilYen, branding and marketing communication, gives her thoughts on NASA’s branding strategies.

On Tuesday morning, space shuttle Discovery will become the first of NASA's three shuttles — plus a shuttle prototype — to travel to its new retirement home.

NASA flew its last shuttle flight in July. Since then, it's been prepping the spaceships to become museum displays. And even though the shuttles are headed to places like Los Angeles and New York rather than the space station, figuring out how to get them there has still been a major undertaking.

Roger Boisjoly was a booster rocket engineer at NASA contractor Morton Thiokol in Utah in January, 1986, when he and four colleagues became embroiled in the fatal decision to launch the Space Shuttle Challenger.

Boisjoly was also one of two confidential sources quoted by NPR three weeks later in the first detailed report about the Challenger launch decision, and the stiff resistance by Boisjoly and other Thiokol engineers.

Part 1: "Ready for Liftoff: 3...2...None?"

The latest twist in the Obama administration’s so-called Asian pivot. The president’s chief science advisor, John Holdren, has said the US would benefit from cooperating with China on future space missions. But federal legislation now prohibits NASA from pursuing such efforts with a little known clause that’s popped up in two pieces of legislation within the past year.