NASA: News About the Space Exploration Agency - Page 58

Oct 24, 2007 12:46 PM CDT

China Launches 1st Lunar Probe

Plans to land astronaut on lunar surface by 2020

(Newser) - China launched its first lunar mission today, beginning its gambit to be the third country to put a man in space. The Chang'e-I probe fired into space unmanned, but the lunar orbiter should earn China’s space program respect—and lucrative contracts, Bloomberg reports. China next plans to land a...

Discovery Blasts Off Safely

Oct 23, 2007 1:51 PM CDT

Discovery Blasts Off Safely

(Newser) - Despite dubious weather, ice buildup, and wing cracks, Discovery successfully launched from Cape Canaveral this morning. The spacecraft carries a crew of seven—including Pamela Melroy, only the second female shuttle commander—to a daunting construction job on the International Space Station, the AP reports. The "to do" list...

NASA Quashes Air-Safety Statistics

Oct 22, 2007 5:22 PM CDT

NASA Quashes Air-Safety Statistics

Feds sit on survey of pilots that reveals danger in the skies

(Newser) - Safety problems and close calls such as near-collisions and bird strikes are much more common on US flights than previously realized, says a NASA survey leaked to the AP by an anonymous tipster. The agency says it is not releasing the results of the comprehensive air safety survey because it...

Launch Tomorrow a Go: NASA

Oct 22, 2007 10:00 AM CDT

Launch Tomorrow a Go: NASA

Safety board concerns are an 'acceptable risk'

(Newser) - With one eye on potentially disastrous weather, NASA is preparing to launch its most ambitious space mission ever tomorrow, reports the Orlando Sentinel. The launch is a go despite an independent safety board's recommendation to delay because of hairline cracks in Discovery's wing panels. NASA says the cracks lie within...

Teams Fail to Build Elevator to Heaven

Oct 22, 2007 5:30 AM CDT

Teams Fail to Build Elevator to Heaven

Contestants still struggling to realize Willy Wonka fantasy

(Newser) - The race was on and the wind was up, which was something of a problem because contestants in the second annual Space Elevator Games in Utah yesterday were vying to send a vehicle 400 feet up a vertical cable attached to a crane. The prize of $500,000 in NASA...

Orbiting Telescope Will Retire

Oct 17, 2007 7:18 PM CDT

Orbiting Telescope Will Retire

(Newser) - An orbiting telescope whose findings were the basis of over 1,200 research papers will be shut down tomorrow, after an unexpectedly productive eight-year run, The Discovery Channel reports. The Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) detected a bubble of gas surrounding the Milky Way, located remains of exploded stars, and...

Scientists Prototype Moon House

Oct 11, 2007 11:43 AM CDT

Scientists Prototype Moon House

Self-sufficient space hab designed for future Moon base

(Newser) - While scientists in the '60s raced to put a man on the moon, modern scientists want to put a dozen there for three years in 90%-95% self-sufficiency. An Australian team is prototyping Luna Gaia, a space habitat that would use biological systems to recycle materials and grow food, although bored...

NASA Probe Gets Lucky with Jupiter Flyby

Oct 9, 2007 10:26 PM CDT

NASA Probe Gets Lucky with Jupiter Flyby

Spacecraft New Horizons sees storms and supervolcanoes

(Newser) - New Horizons, the robotic probe destined to reach Pluto in 2015, took some exciting photos when it flew within 1.4 million miles of Jupiter last February. Data from the fruitful detour for NASA’s fastest spacecraft will be published in Science this month. Highlights include photos of Jupiter’s...

50 Highs and Lows Since Sputnik

Oct 4, 2007 3:08 PM CDT

50 Highs and Lows Since Sputnik

Time counts down the top moments in space exploration

(Newser) - Since Sputnik’s launch, space exploration has gone through some dizzying highs and tragic lows. Time recounts the top moments, replete with triumphs like John Glenn’s first earth orbit, tragic lows like the death of the Apollo 1 crew, and the many missteps in between – like the Soviets...

Astronomers Watch as New Earth-Like Planet Forms

Oct 4, 2007 2:45 PM CDT

Astronomers Watch as New Earth-Like Planet Forms

424 light-years away, materials clump together around young star

(Newser) - A massive belt of dust swirling around a young star 424 light-years away could be evidence of a second Earth in the making, Space.com reports. Astronomers observing the area through a NASA space telescope say many of the conditions for forming an Earth-sized planet are present, including moderate temperatures...

Space Race
Goes Private

Oct 4, 2007 11:33 AM CDT

Space Race Goes Private

Branson, tech peers are 21st century answer to NASA

(Newser) - Today’s wildest-eyed entrepreneurs were kids when Sputnik launched 50 years ago today, and they’re picking up the government’s slack by taking their inspiration spaceward. Men who made millions in technology are privatizing spaceflight, even egging each other on to compete: Google is offering $20 million to the...

Opportunity Knocks on Mars

Sep 28, 2007 10:47 AM CDT

Opportunity Knocks on Mars

NASA's rover explores bedrock that could be ancient Martian surface

(Newser) - NASA’s Martian explorer Opportunity reached its first destination inside the cavernous Victoria Crater yesterday and prepared to get to work drilling into bright rock layers to collect data. The six-wheeled robot last month began the precarious decline into the crater, headed for a shiny piece of bedrock that scientists...

NASA Launches Asteroid Rocket

Sep 27, 2007 10:30 AM CDT

NASA Launches Asteroid Rocket

First 'interplanetary' spaceship to visit two asteroids

(Newser) - This morning NASA launched a spacecraft that's headed to the asteroid belt, where it will get a close-up look at the belt's largest bodies, asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres. It's NASA’s first multi-target mission, and Dawn, which one engineer called “the first real interplanetary spaceship,...

Space Supersizes Salmonella

Sep 25, 2007 9:43 AM CDT

Space Supersizes Salmonella

Baffled scientists point to 'fluid shear'

(Newser) - Salmonella germs that went into space on a 2006 mission returned three times more deadly, reports the AP. Space travel altered 167 genes in the germ, which is the leading cause of food poisoning, and it killed mice at much higher rates than identical samples left on Earth. The Earth-bound...

Mars Rover Steps Into Crater

Sep 13, 2007 6:00 PM CDT

Mars Rover Steps Into Crater

NASA vehicle got second chance, after withstanding a two-month dust storm

(Newser) - The dust has finally settled on Mars, and NASA's Mars rover Opportunity took its first steps Tuesday 13 feet into the half-mile-wide Victoria Crater—and then backed out after slipping beyond acceptable levels. With Opportunity's six wheels perched over the lip of the crater, researchers paused the operation in order...

Russia Shoots For the Moon

Sep 3, 2007 12:10 PM CDT

Russia Shoots For the Moon

Cash-strapped space agency aims to send a man to the moon by 2025

(Newser) - Russia has announced a plan to put a man (or woman) on the moon by 2025, reports ABC. The cash-strapped Russian space agency also plans a permanent moon base and a Mars mission. "The Russians have some big ideas, but their space program is coming up slowly from being...

NASA Blasts Rumors of Drunken Astronauts

Aug 29, 2007 6:20 PM CDT

NASA Blasts Rumors of Drunken Astronauts

US space agency dismisses inebriation allegations as 'urban legends'

(Newser) - NASA said today there is no truth to allegations that several astronauts were drunk as they were blasted into space, the Miami Herald reports. A month after an independent panel reported vague accounts of astronauts drunk on the job, space agency officials said interviews and a review of 20 years'...

The Force Is With the Discovery

Aug 29, 2007 8:56 AM CDT

The Force Is With the Discovery

Lucasfilm loans original light saber to NASA for upcoming flight

(Newser) - Astronauts aboard the space shuttle Discovery will have a bit of extra protection on their next mission: Luke Skywalker's original light saber from 1977's Star Wars. Lucasfilm has loaned the prop—in real life not much more than a slick flashlight—to NASA for the shuttle's launch this October, reports...

Google Takes Map Program
to the Stars

Aug 22, 2007 12:28 PM CDT

Google Takes Map Program to the Stars

Google Sky will boot up computer-chair space exploration

(Newser) - Launching off of the success of Google Earth, Google launched a new program today allowing armchair astronomers to chuck the telescope and gaze at the heavens from their monitors. Google Sky will harness Hubble photos along with a database of information, and feature more than one million stars and 200...

Endeavour Returns Home

Aug 21, 2007 3:11 PM CDT