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"Moonrush" author Dennis Wingo joins us from a converted McDonalds where he is converting old Lunar Orbiter imagery to digital files for our latest live show. If you think that description sounds impressive, just wait until you see this show! Dennis has very compelling arguments for us to not only go back to the moon but how we can colonize and monetize as well. We even cover how we can use the ISS as a building station to get to GEO to push to the moon to use as a launch pad for Mars. How's THAT for awesome? This is a show you simply don't want to miss! Want an awesome tour of McMoons where you can see the 2" AMPEX tape machine Dennis is working on, or the reels he has, or a huge chunk of meteorite? No problem! The conversation continues in post show which is available to Spacevidcast epic subscribers. Head on over to http://www.spacevidcast.com/epic for more information.

If you’ve ever seen an older Apollo landing or even the movie Apollo 13 you may remember a point when the spacecraft was re-entering the atmosphere, mission control would lose communication. This was because the radio signals could not penetrate the massive plasma and ionization blast occurring under the vehicle. This blackout phenomenon happened until 1988 when the first part of the TDRS or Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System came online. Since then the re-entry signals have been sent back up to space, away from the plasma and ionization layer to the TDRS satellites and from there relayed back down to Earth. This satellite network serves many other uses as well, and is a key element in constant and flawless communications for human space flight. Part of the TDRS legacy has retired. TDRS-1 which was the first of these space to ground communications satellites in the network has been removed from service as of late last month. Living well past its expected 7 year lifespan, this little 27 year old bird was instrumental in many key communication milestones. This was one of the satellites that helped send the first tweet from space as well as the first globally broadcast event at the South Pole for new years eve at the turn of the Millennium. Ahhh TDRS-1, how we’ll miss you. Changing gears slightly, did you have a chance to see the total solar eclipse that happened on July 11th? Yeah, me neither. Problem was that this eclipse was a narrow column that was visible from the South Pacific Ocean. Here’s a map that shows the path of totality. That’s a whole lot of water on that map. Should have booked a eclipse cruise! That would have been awesome! If you missed this one, fret not you’ll have another chance to view a total solar eclipse on November 13th. 2012. Lets close out this SpacePod with a little geekery. Well, more geekery than normal at least. Lego has released their Shuttle Adventure pack. For $100.00 you get this set of Awesome. The external tank and solid rocket boosters all separate and the landing gear works. It is the awesome! Oh, speaking of Legos, we have an SDO Lego kit too! I’ve been trying to find a place to buy this online but as of yet have been unsucessful. I really only bring this up because I wanted to use the line “SDO is LeGO”. Make sure to tweet that to NASA_SDO so they know you watch the show. Well, I can’t end the Pod on a bad pun, so here’s a shot from the REAL SDO. This is our own sun as shown in extreme ultraviolet light from the Solar Dynamics Observatory. Enjoy!

CAPE CANAVERAL – You can go to Johnson Space Center, Marshall Space Flight Center and NASA Headquarters and unless it is a special event you won’t meet any astronauts on your trip. Not so when you visit the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Everyday the center has an astronaut live for guests to meet, get photos with and at the end of the day even get an autograph. It is one of the many things that the Visitor Complex does that sets it apart from other centers around the nation. Held in a nice, air conditioned (trust me that is very important) auditorium, guests get to hear the astronaut tell them about his or her experiences. Then a question and answer session, followed by pictures with the guests. This last part always impresses me as the astronaut and the assistant that helps during the show really have to hustle to make sure everyone that wants a picture can get one. After the 4 p.m. EDT presentation the astronaut heads over to the space shop to sit down and sign autographs for a half hour. This allows guests to acquire a memorable keepsake from their visit. So where other centers are almost museum-like in quality, the Kennedy Space Center is far more interactive in design. Many of its attractions are crafted to provide guests with a tactile reminder of their stay. It is made this way to create an indelible, memorable impression. Former NASA astronaut Jon McBride feels that there is a reason as to why the KSCVC is the only Visitor Complex that has a daily astronaut show and why it is important that it continues. “I think the reason that this is the only (NASA) center to have a daily astronaut encounter is because of the volume of guests we see annually,” McBride said referring to the 1.5 million guests that the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex hosts every year. “I also think it is a very important aspect of what we do. You never know if you’ll spark the imagination of one of the kids in the audience – who might just become the first person to walk on Mars.”

We sure do like pretty pictures here at Spacevidcast. The latest stunning imagery comes from our friends over at ESA. The Rosetta spacecraft flew only 3,162 kilometers or just under 2,000 miles from the Lutetia asteroid on July 10th, 2010. This asteroid is about 130 kilometers in diameter and is the largest asteroid ever visited by a spacecraft. Check out a few of the images that Rosetta took. Notice the heavily cratered surface much like our moon. That would come from billions of years of impacts with other objects. To put the size of this asteroid in to perspective, it is about 1/13th the size of our own moon at 130 kilometers as opposed to 1,737 kilometers for good ol’ Luna. Lutetia is not the final destination for Rosetta, just a little stop along the way. In 2014 the spacecraft should rendezvous with 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko where it will not only orbit the comet, but also place a lander on its surface! Like many spacecraft these days, the Rosetta craft has not been without its issues, and the mission isn’t even done yet! Originally the craft was to be launched in January 2003 with a rendezvous target of 46P/Wirtanen in 2011. However this plan had to be abandoned after an Ariane 5 rocket failed to launch on time. A new plan was formed to launch in February 2004 with the new target of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. After 2 more launch scrubs, which we all know and love, the Rosetta spacecraft finally took flight on March 2nd, 2004. However, this late launch date was not without consequence. On February 25, 2007 the spacecraft had to perform a low-altitude bypass of Mars to correct trajectory due to the later launch date. How low? About 250 kilometers or 155 miles! During this time the solar panels could not be used as they would be in the shadow of Mars for 15 minutes, which forced engineers to put the craft in to standby mode and hope the batteries would last. Of course the batteries were not designed for this and it would cause a very dangerous shortage of power. This created the nickname “The billion dollar gamble” for this particular maneuver. Of course Rocket scientists really know how to gamble and the flyby was a smashing success! Here’s hoping Rosetta has a continued safe journey and we get even more stunning imagery and science from the craft for years to come! Space geeks, our show doesn’t end here! Remember to subscribe to us in iTunes and help make Spacevidcast the #1 space related podcast in the iTunes Podcast directory! Leave your comments and let us know what you think. And don’t forget to check out our Live show this Friday at 0200 hours coordinated universal time where we’ll have guest Dennis Wingo the author of “Moonrush” joining us. We’ll be talking about the moon and how it can be utilized to better life here on Earth. Ever have a friend ask why we should go back to the Moon and on to Mars? Dennis has the answers! For those in the US that would be Thursday night at 7:00pm pacific daylight time, 8:00pm mountain daylight time, 9:00pm central daylight time or 10:00pm eastern daylight time. You can watch on your computer, iPhone, iPad or Roku box live, and we’ll see you there!

Robonaut: to the ISS in 2010 and to the moon in 1000 days! Hayabusa may have brought back some asteroid, just, well, not a lot of it. Hubble has caught the birth of a new baby star. Awww, how cute. And some cool physics posters that you'll only be able to find in UK classrooms on our weekly live show for July 9th, 2010

While the Space Shuttle Program may be winding down, the Russian Soyuz program is in high demand. This is your SpacePod for July 7th, 2010. With the Space Shuttle Program winding down the Russian Soyuz rocket is about to be in high demand. Not only has the United States purchased tickets aboard the Russian built capsule to help ferry astronauts to the International Space Station after Shuttle retires, but now Canadian and European officials are looking to purchase dedicated Soyuz capsules for their own astronauts. This is really great news. Now that shuttle is retiring, there is a need to fill that gap with human rated rockets and spaceships. The doors of opportunity will be opening up for companies such as SpaceX and Orbital to come in and provide not just cargo services but crew as well. Sure, it does kinda suck that we're losing the Space Shuttle Program, but in its place we're forming a space industry. Just imagine what this whole new industry will look like 5 to 10 years from now. Very exciting stuff. And speaking of the Soyuz rockets, Arianespace is working on finishing up their all new launch pad designed specifically for the Russian designed Soyuz craft. This new launch complex is being built in the Guiana Space Center which is a French run spaceport located in Kourou, French Guiana. This has been the launch site of over 200 Arianespace rockets since 1979 and soon it will be the launch site of Soyuz rockets as well. This is the first time a Soyuz rocket will launch from outside of Russia or the Baikonur Cosmodrome, ever. There's a lot of really interesting and cool stuff happening over at Arianespace. For starters, the Ariane 5 launch coverage itself is some of the best in the world. They really do know how to put on a great show. Now they will be adding Soyuz rockets to their lineup. Then in early 2011 Arianespace will be adding the all new Vega launcher to their bag of tricks. Vega is designed to be a small launcher for satellites. This means that in early 2011, Arianespace will have a full lineup of rockets able to launch just about any payload you have at affordable prices. Vega for the smaller satellites, Ariane 5 for the medium lift needs and Soyuz for your heavy lift needs. Now throw in a little competiton from companies like SpaceX, BlueOrigin and Orbital. Well, you have the beginning of a space industry, not just a space program.

Progress 38 docking issues and far, far away flags on your SpacePod for July 6th, 2010 On July 2nd, 2010 an automated docking of the Progress 38 resupply vehicle to the International Space Station failed. The Progress vehicle launched aboard a Soyuz rocket at the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Wednesday, June 30th, 2010. About 25 minutes prior to docking problems cropped up. An interference issue between the automated KURS system and the manual TORU system seems to have caused the abort. About an hour after the problems started, Russian managers told the crew to stand down for the day. At this point International News teams started having a field day with this. Good thing you guys fired your science reporters. Wouldn't want you to sound dumb or spread mis-information. Huh. Well, that's just wrong. While Progress vehicles have had docking issues with the ISS before, heck even as recent as May of this year, generally they simply switch to the TORU manual docking mechanism and all is fine. But even outside of that, the Progress vehicle has had a serious problem docking before, just not with the ISS. On June 25th, 1997 while running a TURS system test a Progress vehicle came in too fast and slammed in to the MIR space station. Not only did this vehicle not dock but it damaged the space station causing emergency decompression and throwing MIR in to an uncontrolled spin. So yeah, they have had issues docking the Progress vehicle before. Of course in this case, there was no collision and everyone was safe the entire time. The Progress vehicle noted the issue and went in to safe mode flying past the ISS at a very safe distance of 3 kilometers or about 1.8 miles. On Saturday some course correction changes were uploaded to the progress vehicle. Then on Sunday, July 4th at 16:17 UTC the Progress vehicle safely docked with the International Space Station. Progress 38 is carrying 2.6 tonnes of fuel, food, water and supplies for the six Expedition 24 crew members aboard Station. A few minutes of scary followed by engineering pulling out the awesome to get the craft docked safely with ISS. That's how space goes! Before we go, it is kinda cool to think that this last 4th of July, the American flag furthest from its home country of the US wasn't on foreign soil, it wasn't on the ISS and it wasn't even on the Moon! The furthest American flag out there is about 17 Billion Kilometers or about 10.5 billion miles traveling aboard the Voyager 1 spacecraft! The next furthest flag out there is aboard Voyager 2 which is just under 14 billion kilometers or 8.5 billion miles. How far away is that? Well, so far that each craft is leaving our home solar system. How's that for awesome?

In the news: the final Space Shuttle mission has been pushed back to 2011, NASA is releasing a new game that looks pretty awesome and a Google Lunar X PRIZE team update. Joining us live in studio is MoonBot challenger Team Tater Tot. We talk about what the MoonBots challenge is, how they got involved and where they want to the the future of space flight to go.

Beautiful images, beautiful launches and awesome new features on your SpacePod for June 30th, 2010 Lets take a look at some stunning images, shall we? We start or journey with an amazing picture taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter or LRO. With the Wide Angle Camera pointed at Earth, the LRO team took this awesome view of our home planet. The top right of the picture at around 2:00 is the North Pole. You can also see Japan and Australia from here. I think I see a desktop wallpaper being generated out of this. Oh wait, we already did that. Head over to the Wallpapers, Ringtones and Downloads section of Spacevidcast to grab that one. Here is an amazing shot of an F-15 in the sky. What makes this space related? If you look at the bottom of the picture you can make out both Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Launch Pads, 39A and B. These images were taken by John Peltier and look just... WAIT... IS THAT A SHUTTLE LAUNCHING? Yes, if I'm not mistaken that's Space Shuttle Atlantis on STS-132. If you look veeeery closely you can see the Spacevidcast media tent. OK, maybe not. These photos are just too good for desktop wallpapers, these are for framing. And if you want to get your own print copy you can do that at the URL on your screen. Prices start at around $8.00 US and I think this would make a great addition to your space gallery. We've all seen the Falcon 9 launch video before, but most sites, including our own only had low quality SD from the launch itself that buffered and buffered and buffered. Fortunately SpaceX has released this epic video in HD of the launch itself. Speaking of SpaceX, Falcon 9 flight 2 is coming along nicely. On June 27th, 2010 in McGregor Texas SpaceX performed a 40 second static firing test of the next 9 Merlin engines to be used on the first stage of Falcon 9 Flight 2. Say that three times fast! I don't know about you, but I was just waiting for the entire structure to just rip from the ground and launch to space. Falcon 9 Flight 2 is currently scheduled to lift of in the future... some time. Maybe Quarter 3 of this year? And finally, some awesome news for you Roku owners out there. Spacevidcast now has our own channel! Thanks in no small part, and by no small part I mean entirely to Todd the Moon... er... Pete Riesett. Now if you want to watch Spacevidcast on your HDTV at home, you can with ease. Just pick up this $99 box and hook it up to your broadband Internet connection and HDTV. Install the FREE Spacevidcast channel and you can watch our live channel, NASA TV live, our all new live feed from the International Space Station, Space Pods and Archived live shows right from the comfort of your living room. This thing is beyond awesome. Nearly 3,500 space tweeps have already installed the Spacevidcast channel in the first week! If you don't already have a Roku box, go pick one up using the link on the screen. Not only can you get your Spacevidcast fix, but you can also get Netflix streaming, Amazon On-Demand and a slew of other awesome channels. Please don't forget to rate our channel while you're at it. We're currently only accepting a 5 star rating though :) Oh, for you Roku standard definition owners, fret not we're working on a way for you to get our channel too. Right now we're HD only. More Spacevidcast upgrades are on the way soon. Subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to know, or better yet, grab a copy of Spacevidcast epic to get all the juicy behind the scenes type stuff!

CAPE CANAVERAL – When vacationers visiting the Central Florida area search out fun, interactive shows to take the kids to the first locations to come to mind are probably Disney World or Universal Studios.  Now there is a third option – Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex (KSCVC).  The roving KSC reporter had scheduled a visit to KSCVC to film a segment on the Astronaut Encounter and Shuttle Launch Experience attractions (stay tuned for those segments) – when it was decided to include a third, awesome segment regarding one of the complex’s newest editions – Star Trek Live. Tied heavily into the recent Star Trek film by Paramount Pictures the Star Trek Live interactive show allows audience members to interact with the characters that are part of the program.  Everyone in the audience is a “cadet” during Starfleet Academy’s first year.  A day that should begin with classes in quantum mechanics and particle physics quickly spirals out of control as a renegade time-traveling Romulan threatens one of mankind’s greatest accomplishments with annihilation. However the cadets will not have to face this threat alone.  A single temporal agent has been sent back in time to save us.  In so doing, along with the cadet’s commander’s help, he educates guests into very important parts of current space exploration technology and how they relate to the tech of the Star Trek universe. More importantly the show is simply fun.  The personalities tap into key archetypes within the Star Trek mythos – with their own personal, hilarious spin.  The best way to see what I am talking about – is to schedule a trip for yourself.  If the cryptic comments aren’t enough to tempt you into stopping by, then stay tuned for upcoming segments about the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.  Until then?  Live long – and prosper.

Last week JAXA had a huge success in safely landing its Hayabusa craft in Australia. But before we go in to that, lets back up and talk a bit about what Hayabusa is and how we got to this point. On May 9th, 2003 at 4:23 UTC the Japanese solid fueled rocket M-5 launched from the Uchinoura Space Center. Aboard was a little spacecraft designed to do something no other vehicle had done before. It would approach an asteroid, hover, take a sample and return the sample safely to Earth. Hayabusa would not land but rather touch the surface with its sample capturing device and then move away, so we're not to call it a lander. Four ion engines kept the petal to the metal for 2 years straight and in 2005 the craft rendezvoused with the asteroid Itokawa. That asteriod was actually not its initial target. Originally Hayabusa was supposed to land on the asteroid 4660 Nereus, but a faulty M-5 rocket forced a delay which pushed the asteroid out of our reach. But that's not where the trouble started or ended. Even prior to the launch there were some problems. The non-lander was to deploy a small rover designed by NASA and developed by JPL on to the surface of the asteroid, but was cancelled due to budget reasons. Minus 2 points US. Then in 2002 JAXA needed to re-check the O-rings of their rocket as it was found to be made of a different material than was specified, and thus the launch was pushed the launch back to 2003. Finally after it did take off the Hayabusa spacecraft got slammed with a large solar flare which in turn damaged the solar cells and greatly reduced their efficiency. This impacted the ion engines performance and delayed the arrival of the craft from June to September of 2005. Finally Hayabusa makes it to the asteroid and begins it scientific work. The first thing our little spacecraft does is survey the asteroid from a distance of about 20 kilometers. Once it was satisfied with its sample site it would move closer and finally swoop in for a series of soft landings and a collection of samples. Originally there were to be two sample sites, but when the second site was found to be too rocky, it was reduced to one. There was also supposed to be the release of a MINERVA miniprobe to take pictures of the surface and beam them back to the spacecraft. While the probe was released, it was done too high and the gravity of the asteroid was not enough to pull it is. The miniprobe is now forever lost in space. And to sum up some more issues, a loss of signal and some confusion in the control room led to the non-lander turning in to a full fledged lander when Hayabusa actually touched down and stayed on the surface of the asteroid for 30 minutes. Then there was an issue with the reaction control system then a problem with controlling the Z-axis of the vehicle. Follow that up with a sudden altitude change and a loss of signal from the spacecraft followed by... well... a lot of silence. Finally communication was restored and it was time for Hayabusa to come come. At this point was have a fairly crippled vehicle. Only 2 of the 4 ion engines are running, power is damaged, we have issues with communication and control. Nevertheless on Jun 13th, 2010 at 13:51 UTC the Hayabusa spacecraft re-entered the Earth's atmosphere and NASA captured these stunning images. The recoverable part of the craft is actually the bright white light in the lower right, not the part that is breaking apart as the vehicle slammed in to our atmosphere at 25 g and withstood heat about 30 times that of the re-entering Apollo spacecraft. Now that Hayabusa is back with is, it has been recovered but not yet opened. Samples of the ground next to the landing site have been taken for analysis to ensure that the contents of the craft have not been contaminated. It will be several weeks before the sample canisters are opened and checked for contamination as they go through X-Ray and testing. Until then we saved what I think is the coolest video for last.

There are a few launches that we have not yet covered from this last week... So lets take a look. First up we have the Chinese Shijian 12 research satellite that was launched aboard a Long March 2d. There is not a whole log of footage from this launch, but here's what we could find. Not a lot is known about the Shijian or "Practice" 12 satellite other than it is a research bird. The launch took place at 1:31 UTC from the ;Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on June 14th, 2010. Next up we have Prisma and Picard launched aboard a Dnepr, which is a decommissioned ICBM. The Primsa demonstration mission is a Swedish payload that will test new inexpensive technologies for rendezvous in space. The Picard payload is a French satellite that will be studying the Sun. THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS! See what I did there? Little Star Trek reference? Nevermind. This launch took place on June 15th at 14:42 UTC from Russia. Who could forget the Human Space Flight that also happend on June 15th at 21:35 UTC with Expedition 24/25 aboard a Soyuz Rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome? And why is it that Russia can have a camera INSIDE of the spacecraft but NASA can't? The crew has already docked with the ISS and for those who like to know about the firsts, this will be the first time Station has seen two women on a long duration mission, although not the first time two women on station.