International Space Station

Did you miss Thursday night's flyover by the International Space Station ? Not to worry. There will be an almost identical pass over Central Maryland this evening. The ISS will appear like a bright, moving star, climbing from the southwest horizon at 8:27 p.m. EDT. Watch as it passes about midway between Venus, low in the west, and reddish Mars high in the southwestern sky. By 8:30 it will be high in the northwest, flying off toward the northeast and disappearing there at 8:33 p.m.

Fifty years ago this past Monday, man took his first steps into space. The long sought after dream of becoming a space faring people was coming true. That first person was a Russian. Like the jolt the United States received when the Soviets first launched Sputnik four years earlier, this sent shockwaves through our technical and political circles. We were committed to regain our technical, and thereby political, leadership. The whole nation was involved, devoting our treasure, time, expertise and, in some cases, even lives to regain that leadership by "landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth."

S pace cadets! If skies clear up, we'll have a great opportunity tonight to watch the International Space Station as it sweeps up the East Coast from Georgia to Nova Scotia. The ISS will be reflecting lots of sunlight as it rises above the southwestern horizon at 6:53 p.m. Look for a very bright, starlike object as it climbs toward the zenith (straight up), passing about 220 miles over Baltimore at 6:56 p.m. From there, it will glide off toward the northeast at 17,500 mph, disappearing at 6:58 p.m. > Read Frank Roylance's blog on MarylandWeather.