Discovery Team Prepares for Launch... And a Barrage of Craigslist Ads

NASA says that Discovery is good to go, despite some last minute glitches, like the cover of one of the shuttle's windows falling off and damaging several exterior tiles (doh!). Every minute of the next 13 days has been preprogrammed for the space shuttle astronauts, beginning with 5 am (eastern time) wake-up calls and ending with a review of the day's highlights at 9 pm. But will they be able to surf the web from space? If so, they could surf for apartments and even dates on craigslist while they're in orbit. Early this year on February 28, Jim Buckmaster, CEO of craigslist, placed the winning bid of $1225 on eBay for the first private communication transmission into deep space. For the last few months, craigslist posters have had the option of including their ads in the one-time transmission into space for the Discovery shuttle astronauts or anyone else to receive. As of July 12, according to the craigslist website, "All systems are currently 'go' for the transmission of 2,049,215 ads designated for deep space by craigslist users" to be beamed by the Deep Space Communications Network.