NASA to air astronauts induction ceremony

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., June 1 (UPI) -- NASA TV says it will provide live coverage of the 2010 U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame induction ceremony from the Kennedy Space Center.

The Saturday 2:30 p.m. EDT ceremony will involve the induction of former astronauts Guy Bluford Jr., the first African- American to fly in space; Ken Bowersox, pilot of the first maintenance mission to restore NASA's Hubble Space Telescope; Frank Culbertson Jr., commander of the first space shuttle night landing at Kennedy; and Kathy Thornton, a mission specialist during the first three-person spacewalk flight.

Jon Cryer, Emmy Award winning comedian in the TV series "Two and a Half Men," will host the event.

Biographies of Bluford, Bowersox, Culbertson and Thornton are available at http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/astrobio_former.html.

NASA TV downlink information, schedules and links to streaming video are available at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.