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NASA needs your urine for Orion testing, a stewardess wins a flight to space from KitKat and CATS is gaining traction in our news. Buzz Aldrin is making a buzz about science fiction and our youth.

In this action packed, adventuresode of SpaceVidcast we cover the incredibly dangerous EVA that the Russians just completed. Exploding bolts, knives in space and ripping through thermal foam are just a few things they had to do on this unscheduled EVA. The largest solar panel installation in the US is going in Florida, and guess what space agency will be using it. We have found a star that likes to put out. Finally we chat about you, space and if you would go to space with a 1/70 chance of total crew and vehicle loss.

This morning at 6:05am CDT Benjamin was on KSTP AM-1500’s Willie and Jay show talking about SpaceVidcast.com. We chatted about what SpaceVidcast is, how much it costs and where we go from here.

I’m working on optimizing the workflow needed for the daily shows, and that means that I won’t have a space to shoot them for the next week or so.  For those of you who have seen our basement you know that we have pretty much dedicated the whole thing to the show and it’s a freaking mess down there!  I need to purge, get two sets going (one for the weekly live and one for the daily HD) and go from there.  To do this I need to basically disassemble everything past the live set which means I won’t have any place to put the HD set.

One of the worst things a Podcast can do is to have a break in content.  Hopefully you will all forgive me and the break will be worth the wait.  It won’t look much different in the end, but we’ll be able to crank out a lot more content a lot faster.

The end game is an HD daily show every day, 7 days a week along with a live show also done in HD.  We’re not there yet, but I am working towards it.

Thanks for your patience and understanding as I figure out how to produce this much media, work a full time job and maintain a great marriage.  They all take time, and I want to make sure all of them are a smashing success.

Colten has written a kick butt new Adobe AIR application for SpaceVidcasters! There are a couple of problems with running video and chat in your browser:

• Flash Video will stall your browser after a period of time.  It seems Flash video was not designed to run 24×7x365 client side.  While new versions of Flash promise to fix this, today it is a wee bit annoying.
• The video and chat run in the same memory space as your browser.  If for any reason you have to force-quit either your flash video or a browser window, you lose everything.
• Many SpaceVidcasters want to run their own IRC client and just show the video.  There’s no easy way to do that.
• Many SpaceVidcasters want to run the video and chat window on their desktop as a little widget so they always have access to the live stream and can stay up to date with the happenings of space flight.

The all new SpaceVidcast application will fix all of these problems.  At the bottom of every page on the site you’ll see a new ‘Cool SpaceVidcast Stuff…’ section where you’ll find the new SpaceVidcast app.  Clicking on the install button will get you the Adobe AIR runtime as well as the app itself.

Colten slaved over the app for what seemed like eternity as he perfected everything.  The end result is an exhausted Colten but freaking cool app that can do a lot of things.  If you want to place the application on top of all windows on your desktop, right click in the title bar where is says ‘SpaceVidcast’ and select ‘OnTop’:

Using the same right-click menubar technique you can also select the Chat/Stream option which will pull up a single window with both the video and the chat room inside:

Of course you can chose any combination of these things:  chat on top, chat on bottom, video on top, video on bottom, chat and video on top or chat and video on the bottom.

Since the application uses Adobe AIR it will run on Macintosh and Windows based systems and there is a beta for Linux systems as well.  The application will run in its own memory space so if the Flash video dies you’ll be able to force-quit it without losing any of your browser work.

Colten spent a lot of time working on the app and it shows.  If you see him in the chat room (he also goes by SpaceKickCast as he has also written the default bot we use in the room) make sure to thank him there or right here in the comments for this thread.  I couldn’t be happier with the results and I think this is a fantastic way to get your SpaceVidcast fix 24×7!

We have updated on the STS124 mission including the toilet on the International Space Station. Phoenix may have found ice. SpaceVidcast has added a bunch of cool new features! Is Buzz Lightyear in space???

Show Links:
SpaceVidcast Daily News - http://www.spacevidcast.com/category/daily-update/
Phoenix Lander - http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/air_space/4266966.html
ISS Potty Fixed - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/05/iss_toilet_fixed/
Shop PSBSatellite - http://shop.psbsatellite.com/product.sc?categoryId=1&productId=39
BUZZ Lightyear in space - http://www.universetoday.com/2008/05/29/buzz-lightyear-joins-space-shuttle-crew/

On this episode of SpaceVidcast we talk about a lot of space news!  From contests to win up to $2000 for your space video to winning a seat on Virgin Galactic to fly in to low earth orbit yourself!  Discovery has a new 6 series show on Discovery HD called When We Left the Earth, Extrasolar planets and of course continuing coverage of the Phoenix lander and STS-124 with space shuttle Discovery!

Show Links:
Win $2,000 in the Space Contest - www.spacecontest.org
Win a trip to Low Earth Orbit - https://www.nss.org/cgi-bin/register/tdregister?$Origin=SpaceAmbassadors
When We Left Earth on Discovery - http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/nasa/programs/programs.html
8 Things on Extrasolar Planets - http://tinyurl.com/6kbz2v
Phoenix Lander - http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix/images.php
Satellite pics of Phoenix landing - http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/phoenix/080526mrochute.html
Shuttle Discovery GO for launch - http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts124
STS-124 to fix ISS toilet: crew is relieved - http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/05/29/space.toilet.ap
STS-124 Coverage on SpaceVidcast.com this Saturday

We are joined by Blair Allen of NASA Edge, a monthly-esq videocast with an inside and outside look of all things NASA. How did Blair start at NASA, how was NASA Edge formed, what can we expect in the future and why isn’t NASA Edge distributed in HD are just a few questions we answer.

In news this week we cover the upcoming Phoenix mission to Mars, STS-124 and her payload, Indonesia launches a rocket in to space, fly through a mars valley, sending satellites to the sun and watch the ISS station fly overhead this week.

Like it or not, space and politics go together like peanut better and jelly and that is the main focus for this weeks show.  Which candidates support NASA, which don’t, or do any of them?

In the news we have a earthrise, sunflares, missing supernovas and catholics can now believe in aliens.  All that and more, oh so much more in this 30 minute edition of SpaceVidcast, episode 008.

Show Links:
Sun flares - http://io9.com/389753/the-sun-is-exploding
Send your name to the moon - http://lro.jhuapl.edu/NameToMoon/index.php
HD earthrise from the moon - http://io9.com/389392/kaguya-satellite-shoots-stunning-earthrise-and-earthset-videos
Missing supernovas - http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/may/HQ_08126_Chandra_Supernova.html
Buy some of Mars?  I don’t think so - http://www.marsshop.com
Lunar investment properties?  Can’t fool me! - http://www.lunarinvestmentproperty.com/
SpaceVidcast paper on space and politics - http://www.spacevidcast.com/politics/
Additional info on the candidates - http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/04/24/mccain-obama-and-clinton-on-nasa/
Why is space important? - http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/04/14/what-value-space-exploration/

Our first outdoor edition! We cover space news as well as the future of the SpaceVidcast 24×7x365 video stream.

NASA intern Adam Kimberlin joins us live via Skype to chat about space power and propulsion work that NASA is doing. Can’t do much in space if we can’t power or move the craft!

Hawking calls on NASA to push onward, NASA nanosats, India launches a satellite but we’re not sure if it matters and stop global warming in the news this week. Todays main topic: Politics in space!

We chat with James Smith, the First Chair for the Office of Tomorrows Mars. Think humans won’t travel on Mars in your lifetime? Think again!

In the news: Soyuz TMA-12 Expedition 17 launched and docked with the ISS, Robotic lunar base that can move (um, cool) and we have found a new planet!

Topics of discussion are public or private space travel and how do we get out of our solar system?

In this episode we cover the successful docking of the Jules Verne ATV with the ISS, XCOR trying to make LYNX a reality, the ISS crew swapping out next Thursday, STS-124 mission getting delayed, 8000 Space/NASA employees to lose jobs and the highlight of the show is Virgin Galactic’s Spaceship 2.

This is the first SpaceVidcast.com episode explaining what SpaceVidcast is, what you can expect and why we’re here. Tune in live right here on SpaceVidcast.com Thursday nights to participate, or we will be making a download/iTunes on-demand feed available soon.