Star City, and help wanted at NASA

There's a nice article about the Russian space launch site (it's apparently physically located in Kazakstan and is "rented" by Russia).

On a completely different note, NASA has opened the application period for a new class of astronauts. There's an official job listing and NASA has an explanatory page. Interestingly, this job listing has visit requirements, but they allow for "correctable to" and allow for laser eye surgery. Given the very strict vision requirements for air force pilots, this is very cool.

a long, leisurely drive

I picked up the paperback Roving Mars last weekend, and I ended up reading it in less than 24 hours. The book talks about the current two-rover exploration mission to Mars that was launched in the summer of 2003 and reached Mars in early 2004. The mission was conservatively specced for 90 days, but the twin rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, are still going three years later. It's written by Stephen Squyres, the PI for the science part of the mission, who is an astronomy professor at Cornell.

If you're interested in space exploration at all, run, don't walk, and pick up this book. But don't start reading it until you have several hours to dedicate to it. The only drawback of the book is that it was written in late 2005, so the book only covers the first 1/2 of the missions so far. I hope that sometime this year he writes another one with more updates.

There is, apparently, an IMAX film about the rovers that was circulating at the time the book was released. I can't seem to find any reference to it currently, though.