NASA to launch Osiris Rex at 7:05pm EST today.

[edbermac]

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/heres-why-nasa-risking-nearly-152726114.html;_ylt=A0LEV1n75dFXBrIA323BGOd_;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--

An asteroid-sampling NASA spacecraft with a dinosaur-like name is scheduled to launch at 7:05 p.m. EDT on Thursday from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

If all goes according to plan, the 1.7-ton OSIRIS-REx probe — short for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification-Regolith Explorer — will reach a dirty asteroid called Bennu in 2018, scoop up at least 2.1 ounces of grit, then bring the largest-ever deliberately collected sample of an asteroid back to Earth in 2023.

The cost of the feat? Roughly $800 million for the mission (including the spacecraft), plus $183.5 million for the Atlas V rocket launch on Sept. 8, 2016 — a total of nearly $1 billion.

NASA and scientists all over the world believe it's well worth the cost and the wait, since the tiny sample could reveal how our solar system formed and help explain how life began on Earth.

Live:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html#public

[Warren DeMontague]

1. K&R

[nitpicker]

2. Update from BBC

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-37309903