SEAL Cmdr. Chris Cassidy was one of the first Americans on the ground in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He led boarding teams in the Persian Gulf. And now, he’s in the former Soviet Union. But that’s just the beginning of his next mission — one that makes trips across the globe seem like a walk to the corner store. Cassidy will serve as a flight engineer for a three-man crew aboard a Soyuz spacecraft set to launch March 29 from Kazakhstan to the International Space Station, where the crew will stay until mid-September. It’ll be the second…
Browsing: NASA
The biggest attraction at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space symposium Tuesday was not on the day’s agenda. Just before 10 a.m., the crowd at the convention center south of Washington began to thin out. People headed outside and looked toward the Potomac River. Soon enough, the space shuttle Discovery flew by, piggy-backing on a modified Boeing 747. The shuttle was traveling from Kennedy Space Center in Florida to a Smithsonian-owned hangar just outside the city. It actually made two passes.
Hangar One, built in 1933 at Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif., is currently in a state of undress. That’s because the corrugated siding covering the massive hangar, deemed toxic to the environment, is being replaced. Just to note, it’s a Navy hangar, but NASA is footing the bill to take care of it. This project has been ongoing since May, but news broke on Friday that Google is offering to pay 100 percent of the costs, that’s $33 million, associated with renovating Hangar One. So what’s the catch? Google would like to use two-thirds of the hangar’s space to…