May 14th, 2015
Author: 
The big space question of today: Can future generations ever be as excited about space as past generations? To look for the answer, take in this episode of “Engineering Live” offered by Electronic Component News (ECN). The premise of this video is that the 1960s were arguably the most fascinating time in the world of […]
Posted in 
NASA’s veteran Mars rover – Opportunity – is taking in a perplexing geological feature on the Red Planet. An elongated, shallow crater dubbed “Spirit of St. Louis” has a rock “spire” within the crater. The rocky feature toward the far end of the crater is about 7 to 10 feet (2 to 3 meters) […]
What’s the future of NASA and the global space community? What direction in space will the U.S. military take in the coming years? These and many other issues were discussed for nearly one-and-a-half hours on May 11, thanks to presentations at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. On stage: Sean […]
Workers are readying the Air Force X-37B space plane for its May 20 liftoff. Known as the Air Force’s AFSPC-5 payload, the winged craft has been encapsulated inside a 5-meter diameter payload fairing. It was then mated to an Atlas V booster inside the Vertical Integration Facility at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has wheeled around troublesome ripples of Martian sand…putting itself into position to view the terrain ahead. “Unfortunately, the images taken from the new location show more sandy ripples between the rover and the sharp transition between bright and dark rocks that we would like to examine close up,” explains Ken Herkenhoff […]
Here’s a personal story about space activism, a memoir by Michael Mackowski. His recollections as a member of local chapters of the L5 Society and the National Space Institute — later to merge into the National Space Society — offer a grassroots look at early citizen space support. The book closes with some reflections on […]
Here’s an enlightening view that the democratization of space will pose new challenges for policymakers, given that for the most part the existing legal framework has effectively applied to only a handful of space players. A myriad of advancements — in computing, manufacturing, and launching — have made space more accessible than ever before, […]
Caught on Earth, talking about Mars! Explore Mars, Inc. held its 2015 Humans to Mars Summit on May 5-7, 2015 at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The summit brought together leading experts to discuss major technical, scientific, policy and educational challenges of getting humans to Mars. While much of the discussion […]
In an annual report to Congress, the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense has issued: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2015. “China possesses the most rapidly maturing space program in the world and is using its on-orbit and ground-based assets to support its national civil, economic, political, and military […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has recorded a sequence of views of the Sun setting at Gale Crater.Using its Mast Camera (Mastcam), the robot recorded the sunset during an evening of skywatching on April 15, 2015 – at the close of the mission’s 956th Martian day, or sol. They were transmitted back to Earth last week […]
