Virgin's Richard Branson and friends board their new plane, "My Other Ride's a Spaceship" for a trip to their partner Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites, and the beginnings of a new era in space, starting with launch vehicle White Knight.

"I'm old enough to have seen the moon landing ... I've wanted to go into space when I saw the moon landing ... I've never had that opportunity ... and ... it will be one of the most exciting things I've done in my life." --Richard Branson

Filed under: space, scaled composites, virgin, richard branson, and burt rutan

Here is a grouping of amazingly dramatic images of our planet, space and the world around us.

Filed under: space, land, and images

Creators of satellites sure are bad at taking out the trash. Or maybe there is just noplace for it to go, for there are no incinerators in space. At least not near enough to us to do the job.

These pictures show space junk, broken satellites, results of explosions, gloves accidentally left out there, and so on.

It's starting to become a problem; the space shuttle has lost windows because of it and the international space station has had to maneuver to avoid it.

Filed under: space and space junk

Anyone wonder how the space shuttle is prepared for launch?

This fascinating sequence of pictures tells us how.

(Via Instapundit).

Filed under: space shuttle, launch, and vehicle assembly building