Space & Astronomy

SPACE.com - WASHINGTON - Mike Griffin gave his last speech as NASA administrator to his staff before departing Washington on a ski vacation on Jan. 16, leaving Associate Administrator Chris Scolese to run the agency until U.S. President Barack Obama settles on a successor.

AP - Russia won't be sending tourists to the international space station after this year because of plans to double the station's crew from three to six people, the head of Russia's space agency said in an interview published Wednesday.

AFP - The exiled chief of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, said on Wednesday the time has come to lift a ban on contacts with his Palestinian Islamist movement, in a speech aired on Arab satellite televisions.

Reuters - Seven astronauts due to blast off next month to work on the International Space Station climbed inside their spaceship on Wednesday for a dress rehearsal for launch.

AP - Russia's military said Wednesday that an old Soviet-built nuclear-powered satellite has spewed fragments in orbit, but insisted they do not threaten the international space station or people on Earth.
SPACE.com - Two astronauts joined the millions of Americans who watched now-President Barack Obama's inauguration Tuesday, even though they were flying high above Earth aboard the International Space Station.

AP - Cubans expressed hope Tuesday that Barack Obama's inauguration could bring monumental changes to their island, even if bans on satellite television kept most from witnessing the moment.

SPACE.com - Since their discovery 40 years ago, pulsars ­— the rapidly spinning, highly magnetized crushed cores of exploded stars — have largely been detected via the pulsing radio signals emitted by their lighthouse beam-like jets. But astronomers have suspected that these pulses give only the slightest hint of the true power of these cosmic dynamos.

AFP - A Brit accused of hacking into the computer systems of the US military and NASA would be at risk of psychosis or suicide if made to face trial in the United States, a London court heard Tuesday.

SPACE.com - On Jan. 20, 1969, NASA rolled out one of its recent space-flown astronaut crews and an example of the spacecraft developed for its future moon missions for the new President of the United States, who was sworn into office that morning.