NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite or GOES-West satellite spotted smoke over the U.S. Mid-West from dozens of fires raging in Canada’s Northwestern Territories.

Canada’s new and more secure $5 and $10 polymer bank notes were unveiled today at the Bank of Canada’s Ottawa head office, and from aboard the International Space Station. Both of the new notes will begin circulating, at the same time, this November.

Keith’s note: I will be interviewed on CBC Radio this morning to talk about Guy Lalibert’s flight. This is the schedule: 6:00 am EDT Sudbury, 6:20 Quebec City, 6:40 Thunder Bay, 7:00 Winnipeg, 7:10 Corner Brook, 7:30 Yellowknife, 7:50 Victoria, 8:15 Regina, 8:30 Kelowna, 8:40 Vancouver

Flight Engineers Jeffrey Williams and Maxim Suraev of the 21st International Space Station crew launched in their Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 3:14 a.m. EDT Wednesday to begin a six-month stay in space. Less than 10 minutes after launch their spacecraft reached orbit, and its antennas and solar arrays were deployed shortly afterward. With Williams, a retired U.S. Army colonel, …

Charlie Bolden is no stranger to space exploration but he is a newbie in the Administrator’s suite and the strange ecology of Washington, DC interactions that the job entails. His first three days on the job have been abnormal with all the Apollo hoopla swirling through everyone’s heads. Most of the time it is going to be far less glamorous.