July 29th, 2015
Author: 
Robotic operations on the Moon are being investigated by university researchers – opening the door to laying out a radio telescope array on the lunar far side. The rover would be commanded by astronauts in NASA’s Orion spacecraft, which would be hovering in a halo point near the lunar far side called Earth-moon Lagrange […]
Posted in 
The question of whether life has ever existed on Mars has been at the center of a 50-year robotic exploration campaign that has seen an increasingly sophisticated armada of flyby missions, orbiters, landers and rovers dispatched to the red planet. Christopher McKay, one of NASA’s most recognizable names in the field of astrobiology, argues that […]
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is releasing today the findings of its 9-month investigation into the crash of the SpaceShipTwo late last year. According to the NTSB, the probable cause for the mishap is as follows: “The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was Scaled Composites’ failure to […]
UPDATED: Board Meeting: Commercial Space Launch Accident – SpaceShipTwo July 28, 2015 9:30 a.m. ET Webcast, go to: http://ntsb.capitolconnection.org/ Board members of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will meet Tuesday, July 28, to determine the probable cause of the October 31, 2014 in-flight breakup of SpaceShipTwo that occurred over the […]
The NASA Curiosity Mars rover is being nudged to a target called “Buckskin”, which is in the area where scientists have discovered rocks high in silica and hydrogen. In other duties, rover planners scheduled ChemCam and Mastcam observations of targets “Marent”, “Pilcher”, and “Twinkle” – all of which may also have high silica, reports USGS […]
A new study had outlined how best to cut the cost of human space exploration by a factor of 10. The report’s top line finding is that, enabled by public-private partnerships, NASA’s current human spaceflight budget is sufficient to return humans to the surface of the Moon and develop a permanent lunar base. Furthermore, […]
There are two new and invaluable books on Mars, both of them ideal for those ready to settle down on the Red Planet: — How We’ll Live on Mars by Stephen Petranek — The International Mars Research Station – An exciting new plan to create a permanent human presence on Mars authored by Shaun Mark […]
This just issued space careers book shows how to find an out-of-this-world job. “Space Careers” (International Space Business Council, 2015), by Leonard David and Scott Sacknoff, contains detailed information about the many career paths in the space industry — far beyond “astronaut.” The book is aimed at high school, college and graduate students, or people […]
It is being billed as “the most powerful, comprehensive, and intensive scientific search ever” to look for signs of intelligent life in the Universe. The international endeavor is known as the Breakthrough Listen, and effort to scan the nearest million stars in our own Galaxy and stars in 100 other galaxies for the telltale radio […]
Before the James Webb Space Telescope flies, enterprising astronomers are already proposing a High-Def spotter scope – a “super Hubble.” The High-Definition Space Telescope (HDST) would view the universe with five times greater sharpness than Hubble can achieve, and as much as 100 times more sensitivity than Hubble to extraordinarily faint starlight. Given those super-power […]
