William Shatner, the actor who played Captain James T. Kirk on the original Star Trek television series, provided a special message to the crew of space shuttle Discovery during the 3:23 a.m. EST wakeup call on Mon., Mar. 7.
As Alexander Courage’s “Star Trek” theme song played underneath, Shatner replaced the original television introduction with, “Space, the final frontier. These have been the voyages of the Space Shuttle Discovery. Her 30 year mission: To seek out new science. To build new outposts. To bring nations together on the final frontier. To boldly go, and do, what no spacecraft has done before.”
The “Theme from Star Trek” received the second most votes in a public contest from a Top 40 list for NASA’s Song Contest. Shatner recorded the custom introduction for Discovery’s final voyage — its 39th flight and 13th to the International Space Station.
Astronauts aboard STS-133 are wrapping up a series of scheduled spacewalks, or extravehicular activities. When astronauts venture outside of their spacecraft, they need spacesuits to protect them from the solar radiation, the cold temperatures of space and fast-moving particles called micrometeoroids.
As the Space Shuttle Program nears retirement, NASA is looking for ways to preserve the program’s history and inspire the next generation of space explorers, scientists and engineers. NASA is offering 7,000 shuttle heat shield tiles to schools and universities that want to share technology and a piece of space history with their students.
During this unique episode of NASA Now, astronaut and veteran spacewalker Mike Foreman describes his experiences from liftoff to living and working in space. 
Discovery will carry a crew of six to and from the space station – Lindsey, Pilot Eric Boe, and Mission Specialists Alvin Drew, Tim Kopra, Michael Barratt and Nicole Stott – as well as what used to be the Leonardo Multipurpose Module on a one-way trip. It’s now called the Permanent Multipurpose Module, and rather than returning, it will stay attached to the station’s Unity node to provide extra storage for the space station. And though the concept of a closet in space may not sound too exciting, it’s becoming more important all the time. 
The last external tank (designated ET-138) scheduled to fly on a shuttle mission was completed on June 25 at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility near New Orleans. ET-138 will travel on a 900-mile sea journey to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it will support shuttle Endeavour’s STS-134 launch.