Times may be painful at NASA as employees watch thousands of their contractor co-workers lose their jobs and the space-shuttle era come to an end, but a NASA news release boasts the space agency is rated as the fifth-based place to work in the federal government.

A Clear Lake City resident who used to be a NASA contractor has pleaded guilty to stealing one of Sally Ride's flight suits.

Sally Ride was the first American woman in space. NASA photo

As two astronauts in space prepared to make a spacewalk to repair the International Space Station's cooling system, two on the ground in Clear Lake were doing their own "walk."

President Obama's proposed shift to commercial spacecraft companies poses long-term challenges for the Johnson Space Center, which has been mission control for every American manned mission since the early days of exploration.