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More than 30 Baltimore-area teachers spent part of their 2009 summer at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Al., participating in the Honeywell Educators @ Space Academy program. They went through astronaut-style training and other activities designed to give them special math and science lessons they can share with their students.

Space shuttle Discovery’s seven astronauts flew to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for final prelaunch preparations Wednesday evening.

In the crew quarters of Kennedy's Operations and Checkout Building they will review flight data and check out their launch-and-entry suits today.

A tweet from @Nasa today reported "The STS-128 crew is aboard Discovery this morning for a practice launch. They'll do everything as if it were a real launch - except launch."

A ticking clock might set up the next decade for NASA, said Norman Augustine, head of a White House panel given three months to make recommendations to President Barack Obama for the future of space travel.

Wired Magazine's GeekDad writer, Doug Cornelius, listed the U.S. Space & Rocket Center as one of the top 100 Geeky Places to Take Your Kids This Summer.

Mission Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin, and Dr. Christopher Kraft lecture on the 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11 from the July 19th, 2009 John Glenn Lecture Series.

Dr. George Muller and Dr. Owen Garriott announced the WINNING name Friday night at the Reunion – it is Space Exploration Celebration!

We look forward to seeing everyone back again next year!

U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala.

During June, 283 teachers from across the United States and the world will be attending the SPACE ACADEMY for Educators Program at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. Since 2004, over 900 teachers have participated in this professional development program sponsored by Honeywell Hometown Solutions.

The Washington Post recently published an article about reporter Tom Kavanagh's adventures at Aviation Challenge.

The Telegraph is reporting about an incredible encounter with a meteorite ...

Gerrit Blank, 14, was on his way to school when he saw "ball of light" heading straight towards him from the sky.

Army Community Services (ACS) has been sending students to camp at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center for 25 years. Evelyn Fox, wife of MG Eugene Fox (USA Ret), initiated the program when the couple lived in Huntsville in the early 1980s. Mrs.

Huntsville was identified as the top City to Work in by Kiplinger's.

This northern Alabama city represents critical mass for the nation's missile-defense and aerospace industries. The medical and life-sciences industries are thriving, too. Thousands of new jobs are pouring into town. With a few exceptions, business in Huntsville is so healthy that Mayor Tommy Battle has a pleasant problem: "We have more jobs than we can fill."

The Kiplinger organization has led the way in personal finance and business forecasting for eight decades.

Chattanooga Parent magazine listed Huntsville, AL as one of their suggested fun, affordable weekend escapes in a recent publication.

Here's what they had to say:

We covered Huntsville as a day-trip two years ago. But having paid a recent visit to the city, we’re here to tell you that, amazing as the Space Center is, there is so much more to do that Huntsville deserves a weekend visit.

A mysterious flying object over Arizona didn't say unidentified for long- NASA officials say it was just a giant research balloon.

Learn more at azcentral.com

The moon has only been accessible for decades, rather than hundreds of years. However, in the short time available to humanity it is estimated that we have left over one hundred and seventy thousand kilos of debris on the surface of our once pristine satellite.

Click here to learn about some of the more notable pieces of trash on the moon.

(from Science Ray)

In zero gravity, astronauts crave earthly comforts. That’s why they strap their heads to foam “pillows” at night. Alas, liquids pool or slosh and must be ingested from a pouch via straw. “You feel like an insect sucking juices out of another insect,” says astronaut Don Pettit. So, on a mission last November, he made a cup from a plastic sheet sealed with tape.

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(From National Geographic; Photo: Donald R. Pettit)

Proving that you don't need Google's billions or the BBC weather centre's resources, the four Spanish students managed to send a camera-operated weather balloon into the stratosphere.

Taking atmospheric readings and photographs 20 miles above the ground, the Meteotek team of IES La Bisbal school in Catalonia completed their incredible experiment at the end of February this year.

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MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow feted Laika, a plain stray dog which became famous half a century ago as the first living creature from Earth to fly into space.

Russia's official RTR channel showed venerable grey-haired academics laying flowers at a monument near the city's Military Medicine Institute, depicting the agile, good-natured dog strapped into a dissected Vostok rocket.

The monument was unveiled on the eve of Cosmonauts' Day, marking Soviet pilot Yuri Gagarin's April 12, 1961 space flight.

Mae Jemison is an astronaut, a doctor, an art collector, a dancer. Telling stories from her own education and from her time in space, she calls on educators to teach both the arts and sciences, both intuition and logic, as one -- to create bold thinkers

This TED talk is from February 2002.

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