Today NASA launched the space rover Curiosity on the Atlas 5 rocket heading to a mission on Mars. The rover is expected to reach the red planet in eight months, and its mission is to study the surface of the planet to determine if it is capable of sustaining life. According to msnbc.com, the Mars Science Laboratory project has been planned by NASA since 2003, and it was initially expected to launch two years ago but because it was not ready for liftoff the mission had to be delayed.

There’s really nothing funnier than a news anchor clearly not caring about the story he’s being asked to report. Recent examples have starred the likes of Bob Beckel and Don Lemon, and now we can add to that list one Shepard Smith.

Apparently some in the media are trying to turn the re-entry of a dead NASA satellite (the size of a bus) into Skylab 2.0. However, Smith could only get a few sentences into his report on the (infinitesimally small) chances of getting hit by pieces of the falling craft before stopping and declaring the story “the stupidest thing we’ve ever done!

Unfortunately, the folks at NASA have a lot of time on their hands now that America has officially looked up at the glorious final frontier, shrugged their shoulders, and said “Meh.” So, they’ve been using some of their time to consult on movies. However, as the Los Angeles Times discovered, they chose not to participate in Apollo 18, a new movie that attempts to persuade audiences that a) NASA launched a secret mission in the middle of the Cold War, b) no one noticed, c) moon aliens attacked it, and d) this was all taped and those tapes have now been turned into a movie. In fact, NASA liaison Bert Ulrich helpfully takes time in the interview to explain that, no, none of that happened. Thank God! I was really worried about that one.

CNN’s John Zarrella admits it was a deeply emotional experience to watch shuttle Atlantis thunder from the launch pad in Florida this morning, making history as the last ever flight for the shuttle program that Zarrella’s been covering for decades. “Every time before this, I’ve always known that there would be another one. This one lifts off, and it just sunk in as I was watching it clear the tower. That’s it.” Zarrella spoke to Mediaite from the Kennedy Space Center, where he’s witnessed at least 75 shuttle launches, including the horrific day when Challenger exploded in the sky. “Challenger is so etched in my memory,” he told us, revealing the experience left him, for a time after the accident, with nightmares. “Never got that out of my head.”

Today, the space shuttle Atlantis launched into space for the last time, preparing to deliver additional supplies to the International Space Station. It’s 33rd– and final — liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center has brought mixed emotions from many.

To date, the shuttle has orbited the Earth over 4,600 times and has clocked in more than 120 million miles in space.

Today is the last space shuttle in the history of the American space program. Watch Atlantis take off via UStream feed below: Free Ustream Facebook app

This isn’t the sort of news one sees very often. Nasa has recently confirmed that “space junk” is threatening the International Space Station that may lead the three astronauts on board to take shelter in the capsule. Nasa claims that the dangerous item is but a six-inch part of a Chinese satellite that had been intentionally destroyed but is currently traveling at the speed of five miles per second. Woof.

Fox News gets plenty of flak for its political coverage from detractors, but today it’s the network’s science coverage that has come under fire. An article on the network’s science page boasts a shocking “exclusive“: a scientist has found life on other planets! Fascinating, except Gawker’s Adrian Chen did some research on the scientist behind the discovery, and it appears that the finding is not quite new and about as “exclusive” as a Charlie Sheen interview.

Just a few days after NASA announced the revolutionary discovery of an arsenic-based lifeform, many Americans are still responding with a “Cool, but can I have laser gun fights with it?” Well, get ready for another chance to be horribly disappointed at information about honest to goodness aliens! In an interview answering reader submitted questions with The Guardian, Julian Assange promises that the rest of the classified cables that he hasn’t released yet contain “references to UFOs!” Clearly we’ll all be flying around on speeder bikes by the end of the year.

Thursday night’s Countdown presents a near-existential dilemma for conservatives, many of whom have a Comic Book Guy-esque devotion to all things Star Trek. Host and liberal bogeyman Keith Olbermann not only displayed an impressive grasp of the Trek canon, he did so at the expense of a NASA scientist, a feat which surely must transcend ideological rancor.

NASA news conferences–unlike, say, Angelina Jolie press availabilities–don’t ordinarily cause a clamor among reporters. Okay, sure, among some reporters, like space nerd Miles O’Brien, any new comet or solar flare’s going be a big deal.

But this? NASA’s got a news conference planned for Thursday–and it’s on the verge of going mainstream, baby! Why? Oh, perhaps it’s that memo line on the subject matter: NASA nerds intend to “discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.”

NASA Chief Administrator Charles Bolden got a lot of attention last week, when he revealed during an interview with Al Jazeera that President Obama had “asked him to reach out to the Muslim world” (while setting other goals.) Right of center media outlets cried foul which lead Jon Stewart to defend as as part of “innocuous and bland of broad PR goals.” But it turns out that, according to Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, its a all a big misunderstanding! Bolden ‘misspoke’ about the Muslim outreach goal.

Charles Bolden made some news recently when, during an interview with Al Jazeera, he claimed that President Obama “asked him to reach out to the Muslim world” (while setting other goals.) Daily Show host Jon Stewart saw this as part of “innocuous and bland of broad PR goals,” but then showed how another news outlet could present the same comment in a completely different light. What follows are a series of unintentionally hilarious clips from Fox News commentators expressing concern over Nasa, Muslims, and the building of Mosques across the country.

Falcon 9 is a brand new commercial rocket ship built by private company Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX.) It was initially slated to blast off at 1:30 p.m. EDT but had experienced a mission abort at literally the very last second. Just over one hour later the launch was successful – video of the launch is below.

For a brief moment last night, Bill Maher was a tea partier. Armed with a creatively-designed “teabagger hat” and a powerful desire to cut spending, Maher agreed with the economically conservative group that the current national debt is unsustainable. He just wants to reduce it by cutting down “our empire.”

President Barack Obama‘s NASA speech yesterday and new policy has seen its fair share of opinions from those in and around the program.

But one stood out – NBC’s 77-year-old space correspondent Jay Barbree, who very rarely goes political but certainly did yesterday.

There’s a case to be made for Barack Obama being America’s most divisive president: he has managed to pit legendary astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin against each other. Needless to say the media had a field day with this “NASA Family Feud.”

I guess this is what happens when you come of age in the post-space travel era: going to the moon is just not that exciting! Here is part of President Obama’s speech today at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida announcing his new space exploration plan.

CNN is not about opinions, they’re about news. So listen, NASA, there’s this movie out about the world coming to an end in 2012, and we know you’ve been out trying to debunk this possibility.

But we need facts, and T.J. Holmes guest anchoring American Morning is going to be our fact-finding vessel.

If you haven’t been watching the news recently, you might not know that tomorrow morning we’re going to bomb the Moon. That’s right, the United States is going to unleash some space bombs at 7:30amET – hopefully the Moon people don’t get angry and return fire!

The descriptions of this event is almost as exciting as the event itself.

Twelve years ago today, the New York Times asked whether an upstart new technology called “DVD” could possibly succeed. Disney wasn’t planning on using it anytime soon! Some of the Times’ predictions and insights have not aged particularly well:

The 40th anniversary of the moon landing yesterday saw slews of retrospective coverage. But in an effort to “spice things up,” a good number of these stories introduced drama and conflict in the form of moon landing conspiracy theorists, or “truthers,” who believe the whole thing was faked. Let’s take a look.