To infinity... and beyond!

The End of an Era. A Tribute to the Space Shuttles. One of the finest piece of machinery human being ever made.


Thousands of NASA Kennedy Space Center employees stand side-by-side to form a full-scale outline of a space shuttle orbiter outside the Vehicle Assembly Building on March 18, 2011.

The Space Shuttle orbiter is the orbital spacecraft of the Space Shuttle program operated by NASA, the space agency of the United States. The orbiter is a reusable winged "space-plane", a mixture of rockets, spacecraft, and aircraft.

A total of seven (six Orbiters & one simulator) were ever made - Pathfinder, Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour. Individual Space Shuttle orbiters are named in honor of antique sailing ships of the navies of the world, and they are also numbered using the NASA Orbiter Vehicle Designation system. All were built by the southern California based Rockwell International company.

Pathfinder (honorary Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-098) is a Space Shuttle test simulator made of steel and wood. The simulator was used in activities such as checking roadway clearances, crane capabilities and fits within structures. It was later shipped by barge to the Kennedy Space Center and was used for ground crew testing in the Vehicle Assembly Building, Orbiter Processing Facility, and Shuttle Landing Facility. It is presently on display at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Enterprise (NASA Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-101) was the first Space Shuttle orbiter. It was named after the Starship Enterprise, featured on the television show Star Trek. It was built for NASA as part of the Space Shuttle program to perform test flights in the atmosphere. It was constructed without engines or a functional heat shield, and was therefore not capable of spaceflight.

Columbia (NASA Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-102) was the first spaceworthy Space Shuttle in NASA's orbital fleet. First launched on the STS-1 mission, the first of the Space Shuttle program, it completed 27 missions before being destroyed during re-entry on February 1, 2003 near the end of its 28th, STS-107. All seven crew members were killed.

Challenger (NASA Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-099) was NASA's second Space Shuttle orbiter to be put into service, Columbia having been the first. Its maiden flight was on April 4, 1983, and it completed nine missions before breaking apart 73 seconds after the launch of its tenth mission, STS-51-L on January 28, 1986, resulting in the death of all seven crew members.

Discovery (Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-103) was one of the orbiters of the Space Shuttle program of NASA, the space agency of the United States, and was operational from its maiden flight, STS-41-D on August 30, 1984, until its final landing during STS-133 on March 9, 2011. Prior to its retirement, Discovery was NASA's Orbiter Fleet leader, having flown 39 successful missions during over 27 years of service. In 1984, Discovery became the third operational orbiter following Columbia and Challenger.

Atlantis (Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-104) is the last Space Shuttle orbiters in the Space Shuttle fleet belonging to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the spaceflight and space exploration agency of the United States (the other operational Space Shuttle being Endeavour). The Atlantis was the fourth operational (and the next-to-the-last) Space Shuttle to be constructed by the Rockwell International company in Southern California, and it was delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center in eastern Florida in April 1985.

Endeavour (Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-105) is one of two currently operational orbiters in the Space Shuttle fleet of NASA, the space agency of the United States. (The other is Atlantis.) Endeavour is the fifth and final spaceworthy NASA space shuttle to be built, constructed as a replacement for Challenger. Endeavour first flew in May 1992 on mission STS-49 and was scheduled for decommissioning in 2010. Before its decommissioning, NASA expects to use Endeavour for the STS-134 mission. Its STS-134 mission was originally thought as the final mission of the Space Shuttle program, however, the proposed STS-135 mission was approved, and now Atlantis will be the final Space Shuttle to fly.

What is Socialism?

Our world is going through a rather harsh and disturbing time. Doesn’t matter how well off you are and you think it’s not your headache but the fact is at the end of the day it’s really hard to ignore the things that are happening around you. “Human beings are the finest and highest creation of God, we are the only intelligent life form in this entire cosmos” as said by the follower of God and yet we still struggle to measure up as finest creation. If we are the finest and we are alone why are we killing ourselves? Why can’t we leave in peace and stop fighting over insignificant things? Why can’t we help each other instead of drawing ourselves towards extinction? I believe the unfair concentration of power and wealth among a small segment of society that controls capital and creates an unequal society is the greatest cause of everything. Also religion is an extremely powerful thing and a group of politically cunning theist are using that in their favor to control the rest of the world. I believe the next step of human evolution is to get out of these religious idiocy, racial discrimination and imaginary boundaries. If we can’t do that than maybe our extinction is inevitable.

I was reading about Socialism for the past few days and I was really amazed how much the views I have matches with Socialism. Every time we talk about Socialism or Communism, the first thing that come across our mind are the wars but you have to understand that it’s not the ideology that caused the war, it’s the evil inside us that failed us in the past to carry out the ideology. A huge percentage of the world’s population fails to fulfill their basic necessity every day, they go to sleep at night without food and without shelter. Human civilization is like a huge engine, it won’t function properly until all the parts are working, even the tiniest one. A small percentage of the world’s population holds the fate of the rest of the world. We have to think for those who can’t think for themselves. If we are blessed than why can’t we share our blessings? If we can’t do that than how are we the finest? We have to come out of our imaginary boundaries and unite ourselves in order to end the chaos that we are in. We are not citizens of a country, we are citizens of this world. A world which was never meant to be divided.

I believe this Capitalist Democracy won’t work. We can’t take opinion from those who only think for themselves or those who are not capable and doesn’t know what’s good and what’s bad for them and others. A strong leader have to arise in order to convey the message to the people of this world. A message which clearly states that “We are one race, human and this is our world”.



“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.” – Carl Sagan, The Pale Blue Dot, 1994.

Indian "Chandrayaan 1" orbiting Moon

After an 817 second burn from the engine last Saturday (8th Nov 2008), Chandrayaan 1 spacecraft is captured by the lunar gravity.

Launched on 22nd October 2008, Chandrayaan 1 mission was to capture the polar orbit of the moon and compile a 3D atlas of the lunar surface and map the distribution of elements and minerals.

The Indian spacecraft includes a 30kg MIP (Moon Impact Probe). It will be released from the spacecraft to slam into the lunar surface. On its way down it will record video footage and measure the composition of the Moon's tenuous atmosphere. The probe also carries an Indian flag which will be dropped on to the lunar surface.

More about Chandrayaan 1