There will be no shortage of news from the vacuum of space tomorrow, and depending on where you live, you may even catch a show.

By far the most visible event will be tomorrow's lunar eclipse, the second such occurrence in less than six months, but the last one for more than two years. The eclipse will last nearly an hour and be visible across most of North America, beginning at 10 p.m. on the East Coast.

Also Wednesday, the space shuttle Atlantis is scheduled for an afternoon landing in Florida, ending a successful 13-day mission. The astronauts delivered a $2 billion laboratory to the International Space Station and swapped out one member of the station's three-person crew.

Why tomorrow afternoon? Probably because NASA would prefer the shuttle be out of orbit when the Navy shoots a missile at the Defense Department's super-secret spy satellite that turned out to be a very toxic lemon. The unprecedented missile launch is scheduled for 10:30 p.m. EST, right in the middle of the eclipse.

The satellite is called USA 193, and that's about all we know about it, other than that its central computer failed shortly after launch last year in what was undoubtedly a multi-billion dollar glitch.

Tonight is probably your last chance to get a look at the defunct satellite, which has been losing altitude and is currently about 160 miles above the earth. If you live in the right place, it is currently visible to the naked eye at night.

The Pentagon has an eight-day window to shoot down the 5,000-pound satellite before it is expected to fall out of orbit and crash to earth. That could have some bad environmental implications, given that there's about 1,000 pounds of unburned hydrazine fuel still on board. The chemical is capable of causing a bunch of nasty health problems, though much depends on the exposure level.

Many experts say DOD is overestimating the dangers posed by the satellite. One scientist says the chance that the satellite's debris would fall in an area with a population density of one or more persons per 1/4 hectare — about the size of the hydrazine contamination zone — to be no more than one-half of one percent.