Soosed News Patrol

Have you heard about the new drama in space? You know, the space shuttle has a problem with its thermal blanket/pod/tiles/thing/fin? Is the news that boring that you would read about this?

Well, fear no more space people, you are going to fix the ticket to your survival with a sewing kit. Oh yes.

"Atlantis astronauts may use a sewing kit normally reserved for spacesuits to repair a peeled-back thermal blanket near the spacecraft's tail"

How exciting.

This isn't anywhere near as boring as I was predicting.
I mean, installing solar panels is one thing, but repairing a heat blanket that may or may not have any relevant impact on the shuttle is just totally excillerating.

I guess we can only dream for a day when the space shuttle is taking pictures of small aliens and then they attack the Russians and Johnny Deppe is there and he says something funny about life. Then there is an explosion and, uh, Will Smith does something comical. I can't wait.

NASA is saying it's 80% that the Atlantis shuttle will launch on time tomorrow. That means we have an 80% chance of being completely uninterested in whatever happens tomorrow.

What exciting mission is the shuttle going to embark on?

"The crew's 11-day mission to the ISS includes three spacewalks to deliver and install the new Starboard 3/Starboard 4 (S3/S4) truss segment and deploy its wing-like solar arrays."

Dramatic.

In the event the shuttle doesn't launch, I have compiled a list of similarly entertaining things to do:

• Sitting upright
• Talking to paintings
• Making sure the thread count on your bedsheets is 100% accurate
• Passing in to a coma
• Watching reruns of "Daily Planet"

Pictured above is what I'll be doing during the launch tomorrow. I have a bit more muscle but you get the idea.

In more incredibly uninteresting NASA news, some guy got a cut in his glove. Stop the presses:

"NASA is incorporating changes to its spacewalk procedures after a small cut to the glove of an astronaut was discovered after an International Space Station (ISS) assembly mission last December."

These incredibly drastic changes include such amazing new steps such as:

NASA is "going to start asking the spacewalkers to do regular visual checks of their gloves and look for holes"

High tech!

"NASA has also passed along information pertaining to the accident to the Russian Space Agency, whose cosmonauts are scheduled to perform a spacewalk next week."

US to Russia! US to Russia! Check your spacesuits for holes before going on a spacewalk!

I don't think i'll get over how awesomely cool space is! They have such great new technology, such as really super-tough materials that they make space-suits out of:

"It's a real strong material," Dean told SPACE.com. "You probably couldn't cut through it with most scissors."

That's reassuring.

Isn't space material supposed to be hardcore?

Good press: "A force-5 hurricane couldn't damage this suit"

Bad press: "Don't go near any kitchen drawers in this suit".

How many times can NASA discover the same thing? Apparently, a whole bunch.

So guess what? There is/was/could be/should be/might be/has/will be water on Mars!

Times Online is reporting that one of the mars rovers has found evidence of water:

"Analysis of a patch of soil that was churned up by the stuck wheel on the the Spirit rover has revealed it is composed of about 90 per cent pure silica — a mineral that would have required the presence of water to form."

AWESOME.

But wait, what's this from May 10th:

"NASA's Spirit rover has found evidence of past volcanic activity on the Martian Plateau known as 'Home Plate', which astronomers say, supports earlier findings indicating presence of water either at or beneath the planet's surface at some point of time."

WICKED.

Oh no, look, it's from May 2nd:

"Evidence from orbiting probes and US rovers says that millions of years ago Mars was covered with water -- and there could be substantial quantities of the stuff lurking as ice, just beneath the surface."

And that's just from the last three weeks.

It seems NASA really is the sleep-inducing boredom machine that we already knew it was. They truly, officially suck until they discover something other than water/ice/old rivers/lakes/oceans.

Space.com is reporting that NASA is finally, FINALLY, holding its moon dirt digging contest:

"The contest, NASA's 2007 Regolith Excavation Challenge, will pit the autonomous robots against one another to determine which can move the most mock lunar dirt - or regolith - in 30 minutes at the Santa Maria Fairpark in Santa Maria, California."

They have a word for lunar dirt? Now that is news!

Seriously, NASA, shape up. Launch some things into space already. This is why your funding keeps getting cut.

Buncha' Nerds.

Researchers at NASA have found out something about the weather, The Independant is reporting.

Wait... NASA? Shouldn't they be shooting something into space or showing us pictures of planets? To make mattters more depressing:

A study released by Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies at Columbia University finds that by 2080 average summer high temperatures in parts of the east will be about 10F higher than now, pushing them from the low to mid-80s to the low to mid-90s.

Institute of Space Studies! This is unacceptable. Orbit something already!

Also, it's going to get hot soon.