The Canadian Space Agency is sponsoring a Share My Space program in which Canadians can send photos and videos to CSA astronaut Bob Thirsk aboard the International Space Station.

As he becomes a resident of the Space Station, Bob will be counting on you to keep him in touch with his beautiful home Country – Canada! Using your cameras, cell phones, webcams, and creativity, we invite you to introduce Bob to your favourite hang-out, drop a line, or have all your friends wish him luck on video. There are countless ways to show support for Bob throughout this mission! Think of all the magnificent vistas Canada has to offer that you could share with someone who lives in a remote and confined environment.

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In this video, Tim Pickens of Orion Propulsion discusses his company’s work on Bigelow Aerospace’s Sundancer space station.

SpaceX is planning to launch its Falcon 1 rocket with a Malaysian satellite aboard on Tuesday from the Marshall Islands.

The Space Frontier Foundation will be running its NewSpace Silent Auction & Raffle during its NewSpace 2009 Conference at NASA Ames next week. The Gold items are available through a silent auction while the Blue items will be raffled off.

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NASA canceled the space shuttle Endeavour on Sunday due to lightning storms near the launch site. The agency will try again on Monday to launch the 7-member crew to the International Space Station.

Near-lightspeed nano spacecraft might be close: Researchers creating the tiny engines that could drive mini-starships
MSNBC

The solution to interstellar space exploration may lie in the use of micro or nano-sized spacecraft that can be accelerated to incredible speeds. Protons in a particle accelerator can reach near-lightspeed because they are so small and light. Similarly, very small unmanned space probes could be light enough to reach the speeds necessary for interstellar space exploration.

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 Mike Griffin

The Huntsville Times has a long profile of former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin, who accepted a $300,000/year teaching/rainmaker position at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

“The need for the (current space study commission headed by Norman Augustine) is motivated solely by the public controversy over whether NASA got it right, if you will, in the architectural choices being made following the (explosion of the shuttle Columbia in 2003),” he said.

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A BBC report on how Britain slipped from the leading edge of space exploration.

Travel to space in ISRO suits that cost crores of rupees
Express Buzz

That white, cocoon-like suit worn by Neil Armstrong as he bobbed up and down on the moon decades ago could prove one of the stiffest challenges for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) as it prepares for the human space flight mission.
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NASA PRESS KIT

On behalf of SpaceX of Hawthorne, Calif., NASA’s Commercial Crew and Cargo Program Office (C3PO) is sponsoring the investigation of “DragonEye,” a pulsed laser navigation sensor that SpaceX’s Dragon vehicle would use to approach the International Space Station. The test is to gain confidence and experience with how the DragonEye sensor performs before the system is used on the vehicle’s third
demonstration which includes rendezvous with the station.

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OFFICIAL SHOW DESCRIPTION

From executive producers James Parriott and Michael Edelstein comes “Defying Gravity,” a sexy, provocative space thriller set in the very near future against the background of our solar system, in which eight astronauts from five countries (four women and four men) undertake a mysterious six-year international space mission covering eight billion miles.

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NASA Administrator nominee Charles Bolden says that America’s youth has lost its enthusiasm for space exploration.