MESSENGER survives Venus

A quickie: the MESSENGER spacecraft is on its way to Mercury, and to get there it has to do a series of complicated maneuvers, including flying past Venus. The first of those maneuvers has just been completed, and Emily from the Planetary Society blog reports that all is well. That's great news! Of course, there are four more such maneuvers to do, and 5 frakking years to wait before it gets to Mercury, but hey, like the man said to Ellie Arroway, "small steps". Oh-- I just got a call, and it looks like I'll be on Coast to Coast AM tonight around 10:00 Pacific time to talk about NASA and Hubble. I'll blog about that a bit later when I have time.