Human mission to Mars is no longer just a sci-fi dream. The new momentum, some space experts say, comes from the successful landing of the large rover Curiosity in a Martian crater last year, the growing eagerness of space entrepreneurs to mount and fund missions to Mars and encouraging new data about the radiation risks of such an expedition.
NASA says it hopes to land astronauts on the planet within the next two decades, and the agency is developing a heavy-lift rocket and a new space capsule to achieve this goal. Hubble telescope takes stunning new nebula photo for 23rd birthday. This new Hubble image, captured and released to celebrate the telescopeâ ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI),NASA NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has snapped a spectacular new image of an iconic nebula to celebrate its 23 years of peering deep into the heavens.
The Hubble observatory, which launched on April 24, 1990, captured the Horsehead Nebula in infrared light, peering through obscuring veils of dust to reveal the object's hidden features. Hawking: Humans Will Not Survive Another 1,000 Years ‘Without Escaping’ Earth. Get Breaking News First Receive News, Politics, and Entertainment Headlines Each Morning.
Sign Up. Earthlights2_dmsp_big.jpg (2400×1200) Global Maps. US won’t be returning to moon, NASA chief says. America won't be repeating that historic one small step anytime soon -- not according to NASA chief Charlie Bolden, anyway.
Senator: NASA to lasso asteroid, bring it closer. WASHINGTON (AP) — NASA is planning for a robotic spaceship to lasso a small asteroid and park it near the moon for astronauts to explore, a top senator said Friday.
The ship would capture the 500-ton, 25-foot asteroid in 2019. Then using an Orion space capsule, a crew of about four astronauts would nuzzle up next to the rock in 2021 for spacewalking exploration, according to a government document obtained by The Associated Press. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said the plan would speed up by four years the existing mission to land astronauts on an asteroid by bringing the space rock closer to Earth. Nelson, who is chairman of the Senate science and space subcommittee, said Friday that President Barack Obama is putting $100 million in planning money for the accelerated asteroid mission in the 2014 budget that comes out next week.
Apollo F-1 engines recovered from the bottom of the Atlantic by Bezos Expeditions. Bezos is certain it's from Apollo 11, but I haven't heard of a confirmation yet.
Everything has a serial number though, so once they find a readable one should be able to verify Yeah, he looked at the trajectory of Apollo 11 off the launch pad (as compared to all of the other Saturn V launches) and was able to get a rough idea of where those particular engines would have fallen in the ocean. I've heard that they have not identified any serial number anywhere yet, but NASA still has the records in its archives (or those of the contractors) so once the Bezos team finds a number they can check it out. Space.com had a article on this a few months ago and NASA actually has a map showing where each Saturn V first stage came down in the ocean. Want to join the 62-mile-high club? Not so quick, sex in outer space could be bad for your health, say scientists - Science - News.
But according to new research, getting down while we're way up high could theoretically cause health problems for spacefaring lovers.
James Bond may have given it a go in Moonraker, but experiments on mating plants by scientists at Montreal University show that weightlessness affects the way cells are transported inside living things, causing 'traffic jams' on the vital highways that connect different processes. Although researcher Anja Geitmann said they could not draw any specific conclusions on the implications for animal - and human - sex in space, she added that intercellular transport is important in a variety of human cells. Sounds of a Sphere - The Perry Project. Wolf says NASA prompted hiring of person linked to Chinese espionage; may be dozens more in agency.
Officials at NASA's Langley Research Center permitted a contractor to hire a Chinese national affiliated with an organization designated by U.S. national security agencies as an "entity of concern," and then allowed the individual access to classified information, according to Rep.
Frank Wolf. Moon mining race under way. Inside the SpaceX Dragon capsule (panorama) Get a feel for what it's like inside the Dragon capsule by panning around the panorama image below.
SpaceX CRS-2, loaded with more than 1,200 pounds of supplies, including science equipment and spare parts en route to the International Space Station, lifted off this morning aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 40 in Florida. Just after the carrier rocket delivered the Dragon capsule into its target orbit, however, a problem arose. As the Solar Array was set to be deployed, which is necessary to provide enough energy to reach the ISS, a problem was noted as Dragon prepared to begin a carefully choreographed series of Draco thruster firings that it uses to reach the space station.
At 7:30 am PT, SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer Elon Musk posted this message on Twitter: Humanoid robot pictured on International Space Station. But the C3PO lookalike, the first humanoid robot in space, has spent almost two years orbiting the Earth while learning to perform tasks which are more suited to machines than human crew members. Robonaut 2 – nicknamed R2 in a nod to the Star Wars trilogy – was launched in February 2011 on the last flight of NASA’s Discovery space shuttle. It began work last March, practicing some of the duller or more dangerous jobs which astronauts hope it will carry out on their behalf, and was pictured on Wednesday during another round of testing. An Earth-based team of programmers remotely controlled the robot as it operated valves on a task board in the space station’s Destiny laboratory.
Android Phones Will Power NASA's New Fleet of Mini-Satellites. While most of the recent media attention on NASA has understandably focused on the Curiosity rover on Mars, that’s not the only experiment that the space and aeronautics research agency has in the works.
A team at NASA’s Ames Research center in Moffett Field, California, is working on the future launch of miniature satellites constructed with Android-powered Nexus One smartphones at the helm. Dubbed “PhoneSat,” this project is part of a larger experiment called the Small Spacecraft Technology Program that incorporates small consumer electronics into working nanosatellites. The PhoneSat launch has no firm date, but three PhoneSat units will be rocket-bound sometime in late 2012. (Hopefully, we’ll start seeing Tweets from PhoneSat’s currently quiet Twitter account.)
Turning Blue: Friday’s Full Moon a ‘Blue Moon’ This Friday, Aug. 31, might not be all that much fun for you, especially if you’re someone who vows to only do obligatory tasks once in a blue moon. Immersive Video Player 2011. Deep-Space Menu: Shrimp Paella and More. "Gastronauts" at a Cornell workshop aim to create deep-space delicacies. Photo courtesy Cornell University.
For the lucky few who get to travel to space, the food isn’t exactly, well, out of this world. Most space cuisine consists of a limited selection of pre-packaged food prepared by adding water—possibly leading to “menu fatigue” that could compromise the crew’s health. This is especially a concern as space agencies such as NASA prepare to send astronauts on two-to-three year missions to Mars.
Want to Live on Mars? Here's Your Chance. Just as NASA’s latest rover prepares to land on the surface of Mars, one Dutch company is looking to up the ante, with plans to send humans to the distant red planet. Sally Ride's Biography. H.E.S.S. II Telescope Starts Operation and Detects its Very First Images. New gamma-eye for the H.E.S.S family: The telescope has a antenna with a diameter of 28 meters and weighs over 6000 tons.
H.E.S.S. Collaboration, Clementina Medina/Irfu-CEA With a 28-meter mirror and a mass of almost 600 tons, the H.E.S.S. II telescope is up and running, detecting its very first images of atmospheric particle cascades generated by cosmic gamma rays and by cosmic rays. Space cadets: Obama, Perot to mine asteroids? Text smaller Text bigger. Lake detected near equator of Saturn's massive moon Titan. Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Will NASA's huge new rover contaminate Mars? Artist’s concept depicts the NASA Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover, a nuclear-powered mobile robot for investigating the Red Planet’s past or present ability to sustain microbial life.NASA/JPL-Caltech This image shows changes in the target landing area for Curiosity.
Virgin Galactic. Booking. Deep Field Survey. The Hubble Space Telescope spent 10 days in December 1995 observing a single tiny patch of sky near the Big Dipper. Jsc2012e052676. NASA Venus Transit Observing Challenge. Facebook. Soyuz Undocking/Landing Timeline. (90) Third Rock Radio. Facebook. Next week's solar transit of Venus the last until 2117. Space shuttle Discovery buzzes D.C. on final flight.