Watch NASA’s last space shuttle launch live here [video]

Music

MySpace and Jimmy Kimmel partner up to stream live concerts

After its relaunch, rebrand, and overall self-reinvention, MySpace has announced what is presumably the first of many licensing deals that will see the site offering exclusive content currently unavailable elsewhere on the Internet. Well, not entirely... you might be able to find some of those content on television. Confused? Don't be; this is just MySpace's new deal with Jimmy Kimmel Live, of all places.
The ABC late night series, which moved into the 11:35 p.m. slot last summer to take on the late night heavyweights like CBS' Late Night with David Letterman and NBC's Tonight Show with Jay Leno, has announced a one-year deal with the reborn social portal. The agreement will allow MySpace to stream live performances of bands from the show, including tracks that won't appear on the live show broadcast.
In many ways, this partnership is a formalization of what JKL's rivals have been doing for years. Both Late Night and Tonight have offered online video of their musical acts for some time, with Late Night having run its own summer concert series - Live on Letterman - for some time.
The JKL performances streamed will be from artists taking part in the show's new summer concert series. These bands and solo musicians will perform extended outdoor sets that can last up to five or six songs, most of which are never seen by anyone beyond those actually present at the concerts themselves. Starting tonight, that will change with the webcast of Australian band Empire of the Sun's performance. The duo are expected to perform music from their new Ice on The Dune album - which will be available for streaming from a special Jimmy Kimmel Live-branded landing page on the site.All performances offered as part of the deal will be archived for later viewing, in addition to being livestreamed.
According to Scott Igoe, the music producer and booker for Jimmy Kimmel Live, the partnership between his show and MySpace is one that will benefit both parties. Not only will the newly-relaunched site gain press and, presumably, traffic from JKL viewers from the deal but, Igoe said, "with the newly launched Myspace as a collaborative partner, we’re looking forward to broadening the scope of what we can offer to an even broader audience." Or at least as broad as whatever currently makes up the MySpace user base.
Talking about the deal, MySpace Global Marketing VP Christian Parkes described the ABC late night show as "the go-to destination for the best music on late night," and pointed out that "Jimmy Kimmel Live has a great track record of recognizing new and emerging talent," something that the new MySpace is also angling to do for the Internet.

Web

NASA invites your questions for its first ever live Google+ Hangout with space station astronauts

nasa iss hangout international space station

You’d think astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) would be too busy staring slack-jawed at the stunning view of Earth to engage in a Google + Hangout with us mere mortals back on terra firma, but it’s going to happen.
NASA has announced that between 11am and noon ET on February 22, it’ll be launching its first ever live Google+ Hangout with the folks aboard the ISS.
“This event will connect NASA’s social media followers with astronauts....living and working aboard the laboratory orbiting 240 miles above Earth,” NASA said on its website on Thursday.
If you have a question you’d like to put to the astronauts on the ISS, you’ll need to submit it on video before February 12. NASA will select the best ones for the Hangout.
But take note – NASA said “unique and original questions” have more chance of being chosen, so forget “What did you have for breakfast?” and think more along the lines of “How would you react if a spandex-clad alien with the face of a youthful-looking Donald Trump knocked on the window and asked for directions to Andromeda?” On seconds thoughts, that probably wouldn’t make the cut either.
Video questions should be less than 30 seconds long and uploaded to YouTube with the tag #askAstro.
“Also use #askAstro to ask real-time questions on Google+, YouTube or Twitter during the event,” NASA said on its site. “On the morning of the event, NASA will open a thread on its Facebook page where questions may be posted.”
The Hangout, which will feature ISS astronauts Kevin Ford, Tom Marshburn and Chris Hadfield, can be watched live on NASA’s Google+ page or on the NASA Television YouTube channel.
While anyone can go online to watch NASA’s upcoming Hangout, there’s been no word yet on who’ll fill the 10 face-to-face slots open to participants.
And if you haven’t already done so, take a moment to sign up to NASA’s Spot the Station service, which notifies you when the ISS is passing overhead – that way you can pop your head out of the window and give the astronauts a friendly wave while you’re watching them during the Hangout.

Web

Weather delays likely for last-ever space shuttle launch

After 30 years of sending man into the vast unknown, NASA's space shuttle program is scheduled to come to an end tomorrow, at 11:26am EST. But it may get to live a bit longer, if Mother Nature has anything to say about it. The forecast for Cape Canaveral, Florida, where the last-ever shuttle launch will take place, calls for thunderstorms, which would require the NASA team to push back the launch.
Despite the 70 percent chance of stormy weather, a NASA senior manager tells the Associate Press that they will still push for an on-time liftoff of space shuttle Atlantis, the 135th flight of the program. NASA has until Sunday, July 10, to send Atlantis into space before the mission would be forced to stand down due to an Air Force rocket launch scheduled for next week.
Atlantis' 12-day mission includes the delivery of 9,500 pounds of cargo to the International Space Station, which will be used to keep the lab running after the shuttle crew retires.
"All of these supplies are going to be the lifeline to help us extend the period of time we can go on orbit before our commercial providers start flying regularly to ISS. That's critical to us, to give them the time they need to make sure their vehicles are ready to go fly, finish their development and get their test fights behind them and then start servicing ISS," space station manager Michael Sufffredini of the Johnson Space Center in Houston tells CNet. "From our perspective, although it doesn't look very sexy, it's one of the most important fights that we've ever had come to ISS."
Brevard County officials expect at least 750,000 people to pack into Cape Canaveral and the surrounding area to watch the historic launch. The crowd reportedly includes many former astronauts, including Robert Crippen, who flew Columbia, which made the first-ever space shuttle mission in 1981.
The end of the space shuttle program isn't only bad news for science enthusiasts. The entire Cape Canaveral area is expected to experience economic hardships due to the NASA cutbacks. When Atlantis returns, an additional 2,000 Kennedy Space Center employees will lose their jobs, bringing the total number of layoffs to nearly 10,000.
All is not lost, however, as the end of the space shuttle program is intended to make room for a new mission to explore deep space. NASA has a wingless spacecraft, dubbed the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, already in development. That next-generation spaceship is intended to take astronauts to an asteroid by 2025.
[Image via NASA.gov]

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