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This Week @ NASA
Launch Announcer: "4-3-2-1-0 and liftoff for the final launch of
Endeavour, expanding our knowledge, expanding our lives in space."
Space shuttle Endeavour lifted off Monday from the Kennedy Space
Center for the International Space Station and STS-134. Commander
Mark Kelly and his five crewmates began their mission with a
picture-perfect launch at 8:56 a.m. Eastern. The crew of Kelly,
pilot Greg Johnson, and mission specialists Mike Fincke,
Drew Feustel, Greg Chamitoff and European Space Agency astronaut
Roberto Vittori are scheduled to spend 16 days in space, bringing
with them a payload that includes the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer,
a particle physics detector designed to search for various types
of unusual cosmic matter. STS-134 is the next- to-last mission for
the Space Shuttle program and the final flight of shuttle Endeavour.
NASA's Dawn spacecraft captured its image of Vesta,
the giant asteroid it'll start orbiting in July almost 200 million
miles from Earth. Taken at about three-quarters of a million
miles from Vesta, the image provides never-seen-before details
of the asteroid's surface.Mike Kelley: "Asteroids are fragments
of rock that date back to the origin of the solar system due
to mutual collisions in the asteroid belt. Some of these asteroids
get disturbed into orbits that cross the path of the earth and
get swept up as meteorites. And there's always a danger, of
course, that a large fragment may impact the earth. So, it's
in our best interest to understand what asteroids are made of
and how they get into these earth crossing orbits. The DAWN mission
will help us understand the formation and evolution of asteroids."Vesta
is 330 miles in diameter and the second most massive object in
the asteroid belt. Its gravity is expected to capture Dawn in
orbit on July 16, where it will remain and collect data for one
year. After another long journey, the spacecraft will arrive
in 2015 at its second destination, Ceres, an even more massive
body in the asteroid belt. Launch Announcer: "4 -3 -2-1 Main
engine start and liftoff of the Delta 2 rocket with DAWN.Launched
in September 2007, the Dawn spacecraft will journey a total of
3 billion miles to complete its odyssey to and around the two
asteroids.Several craft in NASA'S fleet of Earth Observing
Satellites have captured these images of severe flooding along
the Mississippi River Basin. So far, nearly 3 million acres in
Arkansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi, have been affected by severe
springtime rains. The Mississippi River Basin is third largest
in the world, and managing floods in this area has been a challenge
for more than a century. Satellite images like these help scientists
and engineers monitor and evaluate critical and dynamic conditions
about weather and other phenomena like wetlands preservation,
thermal pollution, and coral reef degradation.(applause) Members
of the STS-133 crew, Commander Steven Lindsey, Pilot Eric Boe
and Mission Specialists Al Drew, Steve Bowen, Mike Barratt and
Nicole Stott showed a music video highlighting their 13-day mission
to the International Space Station, then took questions from
an eager NASA Headquarters audience. Steve Lindsey: Your
challenge, this morning, will be to ask us a question that we
haven't heard before."Audience Question: "Have you ever had
that moment when you're about to liftoff and you feel like you
don't want go anymore, like you want to get off." (laughter)STS-133
delivered to the ISS the Permanent Multipurpose Module, the fourth
Express Logistics Carrier, and Robonaut 2, the first human-like
robot in space. STS-133 was the 39th and final mission for space
shuttle Discovery.Once again, NASA has been recognized for
several of the world's best Internet sites by winning two Webby
Awards. NASA.gov received its third consecutive People's Voice
Award for best government Website, and NASA's Global Climate
Change site, last year's People's Voice Award winner for science,
captured this year's Judges' Award for best science site. Created
in 1996, the Webby Award honors excellence in online technology
and creativity.While NASA has had a Web presence since the early
90's, a popular redesign in 2003 has since brought nasa.gov more
than 1.5 billion site visits. Its customer-satisfaction ratings
are among the highest in government, comparable to those of popular
commercial sites. Introductory Announcement: "Ladies and
gentlemen, I am proud to present to you the United States Astronaut
Hall of Fame class of 2011, Karol "Bo" Bobko and Susan Helms."
(applause)"One of the space shuttle program's earliest commanders,
Karol "Bo" Bobko, and the first woman to live on the International
Space Station, Susan Helms, were inducted into the U.S. Astronaut
Hall of Fame in a ceremony at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor
Complex in Florida.Bobko flew as the pilot on STS-6, the first
flight of space shuttle Challenger, in April 1983. Two years
later, he commanded Discovery on STS-51D and landed the shuttle
safely despite a blown main gear tire. Six months later, Bobko
commanded Atlantis on its maiden flight, STS-51J. Bob Bobko:
"Many of the people in this audience helped me along the way.
Your help and encouragement has been instrumental in my standing
here today to receive the honor of being inducted into the Astronaut
Hall of Fame." Helms, an Air Force veteran like Bobko, flew
five times on the shuttle beginning with STS-54 in January 1993.
Her spaceflight career included flights on Endeavour, Discovery,
Columbia, Atlantis and the International Space Station. She spent
more than 5,000 hours in space, with 163 days of that on the
station.Susan Helms: "Thanks very much to the Committee and
the Foundation for honoring me. It truly is a humbling moment
for me and, in the bottom of my heart, nothing will surely be
able to be said that tells you how much this means. Thank you!"
(applause) Bobko and Helms join a group of space heroes that
includes the legends of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, along with
the astronauts who flew the space shuttle on some of its most
noted missions.Busloads of middle and high-school students learned
about NASA careers while visiting Kings Dominion, one of the
mid-Atlantic's premier amusement parks. Through games, Q & A
sessions with Langley Research Center staff, exhibits, and other
activities, Career Day attendees learned what it's like to live
and work in space and how studying science, technology, engineering
and math can help make that happen.Nat: "So if you didn't have
a grip on this. If it was tethered to your kit and you let go...
A hair-raising ride on the "Intimidator 305," a roller coaster
tribute to the late NASACAR driver Dale Earnhardt, helped students
learn about Earth's gravity. Its 305-foot initial lift, 80-degree
plunge, and 90 mph speed taught riders what it felt like to "pull
4 Gs," or four times the gravitational force at our planet's
surface.And that's This Week @NASA.For more on these and other
stories, log onto: www.nasa.gov.