This truly amazing video was captured by the cameras mounted on the sides of the Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) as they’re blown clear of the space shuttle Atlantis during the launch of STS-115.

What I find to be really facinating is the fact that these boosters fall back to earth and splash down in only about 4 minutes. I can’t get to the grocery store in 4 minutes, but these things glide down from space. Man, we’ve got a thin atmosphere…
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Space.com recently reported on a plan by NASA to impact the moon in an area believed to have a potential store of surface ice.

The impact will create a huge cloud of material that can be remotely analyzed for water content. This data will enable planners to work through the complexities of building a permanent human settlement on the moon.
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Although China will be hosting the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee meeting in April, that didn’t keep them from making the colossal mistake on January 11, 2007 of firing an anti-satellite rocket at an old piece of space junk, shattering it into at least 1,000 new pieces of debris now in orbit around the planet.

Space was already so cluttered that scientists live in fear of a chain reaction which will make launching vehicles nearly impossible. They claim that there is already so much floating around that it’s a matter of when, not if, pieces will begin colliding – creating more pieces – and eventually forming an impenetrable belt around the planet.
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