Following the recent release of Sky in Google Earth, the Mountain View company makes a new move that might support its efforts to conquer the space. Ed Lu, a famous NASA astronaut who spent no less than 6 months in space, will join the Googleplex very soon and, according to Wired, it will work on Google Sky, Google Scholar and Google Books. If you didn't hear about him then you should know that Ed Lu is the first American who visited the space with a Russian spacecraft. Also, he was the one who accepted a mission on the International Space Station after the Columbia tragedy, as the folks from Wired report.

On August 10, 2007, NASA announced that Ed Lu will leave the organization but didn't provide more information about his new destination. Now, it seems like he accepted a mission at Google that might bring us new goodies for Google Earth, the downloadable mapping tool provided by Google.

"He contributed greatly to the construction and operations on the International Space Station, particularly in the very difficult period after the Columbia tragedy. Additionally, his involvement in development of the Crew Exploration Vehicle will help NASA tremendously as we look forward to exploring our solar system. He will be missed by the Astronaut Office and NASA. We wish him the very best in his future endeavors," said Chief of the Astronaut Office Steve Lindsey.

The recently released Sky in Google Earth was released a few days ago before the appointment of the NASA astronaut. But there is still no evidence that Ed Lu didn't help the Mountain View company improve the mapping solution so expect better functions soon.

Just like usual, you can download the latest version of Google Earth (the release which also contains the recently built Sky in Google Earth function) straight from Softpedia.