While doing a talk on The Solar System at my youngest daughter's school, the teacher asked me for a list of handy space links. So I thought I'd put it on the web for all to use:
A joint US/ESA mission to study Saturn and its moon Titan. Although it won't get there until 2004, there is a lot of information on Saturn and Titan on this visually impressive site:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/
Lots of US-centric space news to be found here, and also handy links to organisations responsible for making space news:
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/
ESA runs a number of projects, and it is refreshing to see an European-centric view of the aerospace industry rather than a primarily American one:
http://sci.esa.int/home/homepage/
Pretty much every decent picture ever obtained through the Hubble Space Telescope is online here:
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/
This page shows you where the international space station is and can be used to find out where it is going to be in the future so you can look out for it as it passes overhead:
http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/temp/StationLoc.html
Updated monthly. Has a roundup of the month's interesting space news in a somewhat cynical tone. Designed for the layman by me:
http://olliver.family.gen.nz/launchpad
Closely allied with The Artemis Project, The Moon Society promotes a return to the moon and has an impressive database on the Earth's moon together with various simulated lunar environments:
Has the main NASA news of the day, and also many links to other useful sites, some of them NASA and some not. Handy for background information on astronomy:
This page has live video feeds from NASA during spacecraft launches and special operations. It also runs some educational material. Video is in RealPlayer format so Linux and Windows PCs can access it. Extensive archives too:
http://www.unitedspacealliance.com/live/NASATV.htm
The Japanese space agency homepage. Japan has its own launch capability and conducts its own research, including some very interesting robotic docking systems and cheap launcher development that takes over from where NASA left the Delta Clipper:
http://www.nasda.go.jp/index_e.html
Carries most, but not all, of the news of major Russian projects. Somewhat more up to date than the MSFC page on JPL's site which still thinks Mir is up there:
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/
An independent space news site covering the latest happenings. Has a subscription system for video and detailed updates, but much is available without it:
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/
Lots of other space website links to explore:
http://www.spacefacts.de/english/links.htm
This site has awesome stills and movies of the sun, our closest star, looking very much like the enormous hydrogen bomb that it is. The images are updated several times a day and the site also tracks solar eclipses:
Back to the Launchpad homepage: http://olliver.family.gen.nz/launchpad