The space shuttle may have launched and landed for the final time this past July but despite the uncertainty of what will come next I can’t help but be optimistic about what the future holds for US spaceflight. Honestly, I’m excited and you should be to for the following three reasons.

Exploration

NASA has always been at the forefront of space exploration and with several ambitious future missions planned that shouldn’t change. Whether its exploring Mars, understanding our sun, and even looking down at our own planet NASA has us covered. Curious about what NASA is doing now? View all NASA’s current exploration missions here.

Launched August 5th, 2011, NASA’s Juno mission will be only the second spacecraft to Jupiter after NASA’s Galileo spacecraft.

Manned Spaceflight

The retirement of the space shuttle was the right thing to do, it was indeed an amazing piece of engineering but it never proved to be as practical as it was sold to be and after the completion of the International Space Station there was no reason to keep it flying. Paying the Russians isn’t ideal but at least we have someone to pay this time around. As this is this the first gap we’ve faced, from July 24th, 1975 to April 12th, 1980 we faced a similar gap and by all accounts this one shouldn’t last much longer than that one. Orion, NASA’s next official spacecraft should be operational by 2016 and the manned space taxis hopefully will fly as soonas 2015.

The hope is that rather than one manned spacecraft to loft humans to low earth orbit there will be multiple choices for private citizens and NASA trained astronauts alike. Leading to a more robust and sustainable manned program in the United States. While none of these successors are as complex or will possibly be as beloved as the space shuttle they will hopefully open up low earth orbit to ordinary citizens and leave NASA with the task of exploring beyond the earth.

Image from BBC article The Shuttles Successors.

Private Spaceflight

While still a young industry there is much to be optimistic about, especially with US space transport company Space X blazing the trail. This November they expect to launch their Dragon capsule only for the second time and dock with the International Space Station before returning to earth. An ambitious mission for sure it will give the US back its capability to haul cargo up to the International Space Station and more importantly bring cargo back down.

That’s important because nobody else has that capability for an unmanned cargo spacecraft. Not the Russians, not Japan, and not the European Space Agency. All their unmanned cargo spacecrafts burn up in the atmosphere and being able to bring science results back to earth from the station is important.

It will also if they’re successful hopefully be the beginning of the commercialization of low earth orbit by actual privately owned spacecraft. So best of luck to them, and enjoy the video below which shows a simulation of how it will all work this November. You’re also encouraged to read this excellent article from MSNBC’s Cosmic Log with words from CEO Elon Musk on the future of the company.

Video from Space X.

So as I wait for family to arrive and the day nearly upon us I thought I’d do a Christmas themed post. Luckily I found these awesome space themed Christmas cards from the Soviet era. Which the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos has posted to its Facebook account. Anyway, this is only a small portion of 29 or so total with the fully gallery accessible here. Enjoy, and have a happy and safe holiday season.

Space Shuttle Discovery rolled back 3.4 miles into the Vehicle Assembly Building early this morning after spending three months waiting for its final flight that is now delayed to February of next year. It was several factors, including weather and a GUCP leak that caused the STS-133 mission to miss its initial launch date, but it was ultimately a series of external tank cracks first discovered on November 5th that had NASA decide not to fly this year so that technicians can get a better understanding of what is happening and clear the orbiter for flight.

Update: Just one other thing, as you can see in the video the Kennedy Space Center team obviously has decked out the crawler to celebrate the season. Which reminds me to wish you all a happy and safe holiday season whether you celebrate it or not. – Ben

Video of the Soyuz TMA-20 spacecraft with its three additional crew members of Expedition 26 docking with the International Space Station at 3:11 p.m. EST today. Watch here as Commander Scott Kelly, Aleksandr Kaleri, and Oleg Skripochka welcome Dmitri Kondratyev, Catherine Coleman, and Paolo Nespoli aboard the station for their extended stay.

Moving around the earth’s moon in a polar orbit, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter during a six month period (6 lunar days) derived an illumination map from 1,700 visible images taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera’s (LROC) Wide Angle Camera (WAC). How does it work? The LROC team explains.

Each image was map projected and converted to a binary image (if the ground was illuminated that pixel was set to one, and if shadowed zero) to differentiate between sunlit and shadowed regions. All the binary images were then stacked, and then for each pixel it was determined what percentage of the time during six months that spot was illuminated. Presto – an illumination map!

Pretty awesome, and they’ll continue to make these maps for both poles on a daily (28 earth days) and yearly basis and furthering our understanding of our nearest celestial neighbor in preparation for future robotic or human missions to these regions. Amazing, makes for a good desktop picture too so feel free to embiggen by clicking and set it as so.