Sir Richard Branson unveiled the design for Virgin Galactic’s Spaceliners, the near-future of space tourism.
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2003 UB 313 received the name “Eris” today. The classical goddess of discord, “Eris” suits this orbital object, which forced the debate over what constitutes a planet.

The new ships will replace the shuttle and return astronauts to the moon. Lockheed won the contract yesterday.

We have a ruling.

The Bureau’s earlier reference to this story appears here.

Anyone wanna make small talk on the matter?

….but we should have better views of the moon landing.

The International Astronomical Union intends to finally settle the status of Pluto. Long an oddball in the planetary family, the discovery of 2003 UB312– “Xena“– forced the issue of whether to increase the official number of planets in the solar system, or demote Pluto to mere “Kuiper Belt Object” status. Further information may be found here.

In other local news, NASA searches for images of the moon landing that are much clearer than those broadcast at the time.

Dr. James A. Van Allen, U.S. space pioneer died Wednesday morning, Aug. 9, of heart failure at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. He was 91.

Van Allen’s most widely known contribution was the 1958 discovery of radiation belts, now called Van Allen belts, encircling the Earth. He also is credited with discovery of a new moon of Saturn in 1979, as well as radiation belts around that planet.

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Proving to be the most expensive fireworks show ever, NASA finally returned the Shuttle fleet to active duty, putting Discovery into orbit yesterday. By all accounts, the new foam worked as planned.

Launch scrubbed Saturday and Sunday due to weather. Tomorrow’s launch is iffy after a crack was found in the foam insulation of the main tank.

Despite two high-level dissentions at NASA, Discovery will attempt to return to space and resupply the ISS next month. More info from Space.com.

We missed the ship on this one but, earlier this month, NASA released some great images (including movies) of Titan, moon of Saturn and popular setting of old school SF novels.