There’s something really spectacular about a Shuttle launch at the best of times. A night launch, however, is particularly good to look at.

The last launch to the International Space Station, STS-130, lifted off last week. It featured the Space Shuttle Endeavour taking Node 3 (“Tranquility”) to the ISS, along with a cupola window for the astronauts to get some spectacular views of Earth (as well as making missions with the Canadarm 2 considerably easier).

This mission has also featured a first, where Twitter users were able to send questions to the astronauts which they then answered in a video conversation with Mission Control. Twitter is now truly out of this world!

Earlier on this month, the Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off on STS-129, a mission to the International Space Station.

Its main goals were to provide numerous spare parts to the station; with the Shuttle fleet retiring in 2010, the ISS needs to be stocked up on replacement parts that are too large for other currently-available launch vehicles to carry.

Earlier this morning, I discovered a video on Vimeo compiled by the Space Shuttle Systems Engineering and Integration team. It features highlights of the launch of Atlantis, with video and photos taken from the ground, the Shuttle’s fixed cameras, and cameras mounted on the Solid Rocket Booster (SRB, the long white engines that are jettisoned during launch) and the external fuel tank (large orange construction that is ejected later and burns up in the atmosphere).

I have embedded the video below, along with some extra photos and the HD launch video broadcast live on NASA TV.

I’ve got some new business cards on the way, and this time I went a bit different to my last approach.

My previous cards were the regular size with a “Chris” design on the front and my contacts on the back.

This time I’ve stuck with the usual details on the back (with an extra little logo, but you’ll have to wait to get a card before you find out what that is…) but added some photos to the front.

Of the 100 cards I’ve ordered, there are 25 photos so each one is limited at only 4 cards each – and who’s saying if I’ll ever use these designs again?!

The photos all come from my collection I have built up over the years, and were all ones that I took myself.

Here are some low-resolution previews. If you would like to use them in your own cards, it is required that you get in touch and make sure that this is ok before you do – as I say this is all my own work, and I’d rather see it done properly, so I’ll probably send you the standard Moocard resolution ones if you ask nicely enough!

So earlier this week you may have seen my tweets or on the news about NASA’s launch of the Ares I-X test vehicle. I thought it would be great to have a look at the event now some of the telemetry is being processed.

An artist's concept of the future Ares I launch pad

I was hoping that NASA would come up with an HD video of the launch, but it seems we’ll have to wait a few more days for those. In the mean time, the Boston Globe has done one of its “Big Picture” features on the launch. The features are always excellent and this one is particularly good.

NASA recently announced that it has made available a free iPhone application for users to download. Not one to pass up on the latest hot app or on the latest space information, I had to give it a go.