With the sun setting on the NASA’s shuttle program things were looking grim. We had no vehicles to put people or payloads into space, especially to support the International Space Station. It looked like we’d be paying other countries hundreds of millions of dollars for us to be able to piggy back on their flights.

The one underdog in the story was private industry. There’s been a race to see if it could be done. Yesterday, SpaceX nailed it everyway possible with the successful launch of their Falcon9 rocket.

Sitting on top of the rocket is the Dragon module. It can carry seven people, pure payloads, or a mix thereof. It’s compatible with the ISS, so we can continue to deliver personnel and supplies.

SpaceX’s success means so much more than just their engineering proven to be right – it means the U.S. is back in the space game in a major way and private industry has a new frontier to build and explore. It also means NASA is free to focus on other things, freeing up budgets for other missions. Good news all around!

25 years of orbital goodness. Atlantis saw its final launch yesterday, May 14, at 2:20pm EST.

However, I heartily suggest downloading the HD version found here. It’s way more awe-inspiring.

Good luck, crew of STS132.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory is live and the first images are back. Built to observe our sun in a number of ways, the images and videos that are coming back are beyond words. Head on over to NASA’s site to see more pictures and videos of that awesome star that powers our planet.

"A full-disk multiwavelength extreme ultraviolet image of the sun taken by SDO on March 30, 2010. False colors trace different gas temperatures. Reds are relatively cool (about 60,000 Kelvin, or 107,540 F); blues and greens are hotter (greater than 1 million Kelvin, or 1,799,540 F). Credit: NASA"

The Spitzer telescope nabbed this awesome shot. It’s a beauty. It’s also something you’ve seen all winter long – just without all the extra bits.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

If you look you should find the familiar three stars that make up Orion’s belt. For the full write up head on over to the Bad Astronomer’s blog. I just sit and stare at that image thinking how awesome would the night sky look if we could naturally see into the infra-red. Rather than just a black mass with many pin points of light, it’d be myriad swirls of color.

Also, visible to most of the East coast was an early morning shuttle launch!  Shuttle mission 131 took off with more science labs and bits for the international space station. It was the shuttle Discovery, the oldest one in service, and the last to be retired when the final shuttle mission takes place this September.

Image courtesy of NASA

Shot from the STEREO spacecraft (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) that’s been doing some great science with the Sun.

Read the good write up over at the Bad Astronomer’s page.

Image courtesy of NASA

I didn’t know there were this many cameras on the shuttle, boosters, and tank. There’s enough angles to make the Bang Bros. look like high school sexting noobs.

This clip is pure gratuitous rocket ignition, blast off, and eventual orbit in detail unlike I’ve ever seen before. It rocks!

On Dec. 14, 2009, NASA put WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) into orbit. It spent a month flexing its muscles and calibrating its camera.

Behold the results. Jaw dropping. Inspiring. This is the stuff of dreams.

This is a nebula, basically a star nursery - you know that big shiny thing at the center of our solar system. Photo courtesy of NASA

The Andromeda galaxy. One of our closest neighbors. Photo courtesy of NASA

And to think one day, we might make it there. Maybe…

Not beer, but definitely signs of water have been found on Saturn’s moon. And it’s liquid which means (like it says in the article) the ingredients for life as we know it seem to be present.

We have the Cassini probe to thank for this awesome news as it has been journeying around Saturn doing awesome science and taking amazing pictures of the massive ringed planet and its moons.

If everything pans out who knows what amazing life and monstrous leviathans could lurk below Enceldaus’ icy surface.

I say it’s time for a Viking boat shaped rover to be launched to that moon’s surface for further exploration!

Thanks to @bengoldacre for bringing this one to my attention.

Well, if you consider after 4:00am night… Regardless, it’s the last night launch for the Space Shuttle program, ever. I bet it was beautiful sight first hand. We won’t ever see its like again.

When Endeavor punches through the clouds in the video, it almost looks other-wordly.

Good luck spacemen.