Happy New Year!

The old give way to the young. New thoughts sprout from fertile ground.

While the New Year beckons us with many promises, don't forget to give the old year its due.

Learn from past mistakes and carry the lessons of time with you.

This year resolve to laugh more, love more, forgive more, friend more and learn more.

May 2011 be your best year yet!

Clear Lake condos destroyed by fire

EL LAGO, Texas—A two-alarm fire destroyed part of a Clear Lake-area condominium complex just hours before the owners were scheduled to appear in court Monday, according to investigators.

The fire broke out at The Landing condominiums, located on NASA Parkway at Kirby Blvd, around 12:15 a.m.

The Seabrook Fire Department arrived to find parts of the property fully engulfed in flames. They pulled a second alarm and immediately went on the defensive.
Nine departments battled the blaze, with firefighters even using water boats. Firefighters initially had water issues and had to string a long stretch of hose to get to the fire.

Three out of six buildings caught fire. One was completely destroyed and the other two sustained major damage.
Investigators said there are suspicious circumstances surrounding the fire.

Read the full story at KHOU

Discovery now postponed until February

NASA managers have targeted space shuttle Discovery's launch for no earlier than Feb. 3 at 1:34 a.m. EST. Shuttle managers determined more tests and analysis are needed before proceeding with the launch of the STS-133 mission to the International Space Station.

The Program Requirements Control Board met Dec. 2 and reviewed engineering evaluations associated with cracks on two 21-foot-long, U-shaped aluminum brackets, called stringers, on the shuttle's external tank. NASA repaired the cracks and reapplied foam to the exterior of the stringers. Managers decided the analysis and tests required to launch Discovery safely are not complete. They are planning to conduct an instrumented test on the external fuel tank and structural evaluations on stringer test articles to determine whether the analysis is correct. Details and timelines for the tanking test are in work, but plans call for temperature and strain gauge measurements in the intertank region near the top of the tank during the test.

NASA will review and analyze the data from the tests before setting a launch date. Because of Discovery's delayed launch, the earliest opportunity for the liftoff of the final scheduled shuttle mission, STS-134 on Endeavour, is April 1.

Today at NASA's Johnson Space Center, the STS-133 crew is conducting an integrated entry simulation today in the motion base simulator and will review spacewalking procedures.