This news is a big damn deal to die hard fans of Firefly and Serenity (we call 'em 'Browncoats'). Apparently there are some Browncoats at NASA and they have managed to get DVDs of Joss Whedon's television show and movie up to the International Space Station. Astronaut Steven R. Swanson is the fan who just returned from the ISS after delivering the DVDs (oh yeah, and other important astronaut/survival supplies).

There's a fan page that blogs about it called Breaking Atmo. The most recent posts has all sorts of photos of Firefly and Serenity DVDs floating in space. One of the blog posts says that "Swanny" got the other astronauts addicted to Firefly while they were all in quarantine for five hours before the shuttle Atlantis launched earlier this month.

I've also heard that there are a number of astronauts at NASA who are addicted to Battlestar Galactica. Can you blame them?!?

[Via Pop Candy]

If you had asked me what professions Dallas star Victoria Principal would do besides acting, I probably would have said model or talk show host or restaurant owner, or maybe even cosmetics queen, which she actually is. But "astronaut" would have been way down on the list, right after lion tamer and NFL quarterback.

But into space is where Principal is going. She's going to be one of the first civilian astronauts on Virgin Galactic, which will launch in 2008. Now, I'm sure she's not going to be docking with the International Space Station. The space plane will probably go just into space enough to call it a trip into space. But I'm not knocking that at all, that's legit, and I'd love to put a little Star Trek into my life, if I had a gazillion dollars.

And then I'd wake up and go into the shower and realize it was all a dream.

Because watching a story on the news just isn't enough for us anymore, there will be a made-for-television movie about Lisa Nowak, the astronaut who cracked last week and made for plenty of late night television jokes. Granada America, a leading European television production and distribution company. According to the company's website, Granada makes about a dozen television movies in the United States each year and it also produces reality shows such as Celebrity Fit Club and Nanny 911. Granada has optioned a New York Times article from which to base its story. The article's author, John Schwartz, has agreed to do research for the television script. Apparently Nowak doesn't have a choice in the matter.

I don't know about you guys, but I have never been interested in a made-for-television movie based on current events. They are fictionalized renditions of what could have happened. What is there to learn from these things? Yes, the news story was entertaining but I really don't think it was entertaining enough to warrant its own production.

[Via TV Tattle]

"The Wrong Stuff", "Space Oddity", "Astronut", "Lust in Space", "Very Accomplished Woman in Tragic Local Story": All you need to know about the crazy astronaut lady's story? Diapers!

Senior Space Correspondent Rob Riggle talked about how the astronaut's driving was really a NASA mission. Senior Continental Revenge Trek Analyst Samantha Bee then stopped by to share her expertise on continental revenge treks. "It's drive across the country in a diaper time!... Or as I call it, 'Tuesday'".

We all know the famous words astronaut Neil Armstrong uttered when he first set foot on the surface of the moon: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." That quote has been burned into our collective conscience for years, but if you think about it, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Armstrong has always insisted that he said, "That's one small step for A man, one giant leap for mankind," and a recent analysis of the audio by an Australian computer programmer may have finally validated Armstrong's claim. Peter Shann Ford studied a graphical representation of the quote, and found evidence that the elusive "A" was transmitted to NASA. Hell, even without the "A" that's still a damn good quote from the first person to ever step onto the surface of the moon. I'm sure if it were me it would just be a lot of screaming and crying.

CBS has assembled quite the rag-tag group of reality television junkies to participate in the twelfth installation of Survivor. This time around, it's in Panama. Last fall's competition was so darn boring that the producers really spiced things up this time around. First of all, the cast of characters is pretty interesting. Castaways include a former astronaut, a karate expert, a female lumberjack, an attorney who calls himself "a modern day caveman", and a woman who wants people to think of her as the "hot nurse". The producers are mixing up the rules, too. Instead of two tribes, there will be four, and they'll be divided by age and gender. Think: old men vs. old women vs. young men vs. young women. That gives them old fogies a fightin' chance! Plus, a lot more castaways will be sent to solitary confinement on their very own island. Survivor: Panama--Exile Island premieres on February 2.