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They say no one remembers No. 2, but the second manned lunar landing was memorable for a number of reasons. First, almost anyone familiar with the Apollo program remembers the launch. Apollo 12 was successfully launched in a rainstorm from Kennedy Space Center on Nov. 14th, 1969. As the Saturn V lifted from the launch pad, the familiar voice of Mission Commander Pete Conrad was heard on the air-to-ground loop playfully exclaiming, “That’s a LOVELY liftoff, that’s not bad at all!”, and indeed for a time it wasn’t. While normal at first, all hell broke loose about 30 seconds into...

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Once we’ve demonstrated a 200-kilowatt prototype engine operating at full power on the ground, the next step is testing an identical version in space. We’re already testing the prototype unit in our vacuum chamber here in Houston, and we’re designing the actual flight engine, which is called the VF-200. We signed an agreement with NASA last December to actually mount the VF-200 on the International Space Station in 2012 or 2013. > We would hope that, if not the US, maybe the Europeans, the Chinese, the Russians, or somebody else will develop a nuclear-electric power capability that we can marry...

LONDON (AP) -- BP PLC said Wednesday that it had made a "giant" oil discovery in the Gulf of Mexico but had not yet determined the size and commercial potential of the find. The well, in Keathley Canyon block 102 about 250 miles (400 kms) southeast of Houston, is in 4,132 feet (1,259 meters) of water, the company said.

Intelligent life surely exists on some of the planets beyond our solar system. But we’ve scarcely begun to look for it. With NASA dithering and corporate titans more interested in space tourism, a serious exploration of the stars is limited more by a lack of vision than of technology. But a few scientists think they can use the sun’s light to cheaply propel an unmanned craft deep into the interstellar ether. Their vision may be quixotic, and their first attempt failed. But what will it mean for our solipsistic species if they succeed next time?

NEWTON, Iowa – Marking Earth Day with a pitch for his energy plan, President Barack Obama on Wednesday called for a "new era of energy exploration in America" and argued that his proposal would help the economy and the environment at once. ... But Obama's promise of preserving natural resources and jump-starting the economy ran smack into the reality of this economically struggling town about 30 miles east of Des Moines. The wind energy plant where he spoke, and received a tour beforehand, is a shadow of what it replaced — a Maytag Corp. appliances plant that built washers, dryers...

IT’S a birthright proffered by science and prophesied by “Star Trek,” “Battlestar Galactica” and a thousand other space operas: We’re destined to go to the stars. Our descendants will spread beyond this nondescript solar system and seek adventure and bumpy-headed pals in the stellar realms. Well, cool your warp jets, Mr. Scott, because we’re not about to breach the final frontier. Piling into a starship and barreling into deep space may long remain —like perfect children or effort-free bathroom cleaners —a pipe dream. . . . [A] trip to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star beyond the Sun and 100 million...

Noble Energy Inc., the U.S. oil company that operates Israel’s first offshore natural-gas platform, announced its second discovery in the undersea Levantine basin. A well drilled to a depth of 12,000 feet at the Dalit prospect encountered more than 110 feet of net pay, Houston-based Noble said today in a statement. The announcement follows Tamar, another Levantine basin gas find this year, which Noble called its biggest discovery on record. “With the successes at Tamar and Dalit, we have potentially opened up a substantial new resource basin, where we have an interest in about 3 million gross acres,” Chief Executive...

Steve Fossett's unfinished legacy: Deepest ocean exploration And were it not for what seems certain to be his untimely and tragic death in a small airplane crash high in the Sierra Nevada mountains, Fossett was poised to set a new record, one that could have far surpassed his many others in scope and shock value. The record? To become the first human being to dive solo to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, 36,000 feet below the ocean surface near Guam.

Summary: The debate over energy and environmental policy has taken a surprising turn. With gasoline hovering around $4 a gallon, environmental groups are on the defensive. Americans want lower gas prices but environmentalists want to use high fuel prices to force dramatic changes on society. Many greens continue to oppose all new energy production, but the major environmental groups have a new strategy. They think their allies in Congress can convince the public that more oil won’t lower gas prices. ... Today’s green activists take their cues from professional pessimists like Paul Ehrlich. He’s the Stanford University professor who famously...

Two Israeli energy companies are convinced the best chance for finding oil in Israel lies at a site in the Judean Desert nature reserve and have stirred up a storm of controversy with their persistent requests to drill an exploratory hole. The companies, Ginko Oil Exploration and Delek Energy System, want to drill in an empty corner of the desert. However, the Nature and Parks Authority Science Committee and the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) contend that even exploratory drilling will destroy the fragile ecosystems in the reserve. The two sides will go head to head...

Most Americans agree that the price of oil has skyrocketed! It is at a point where the average citizen has no choice but to incur the rise in price in their pocketbook, because for most of us our car is essential to our livelihood and heating in the wintertime is a must! I have no doubt that great minds will find viable, alternative sources of energy in the future, and concede it is well worth the effort. We should reject, however, the idea that gas and oil is our enemy, and exploit the oil off and on American shores as...

If a product is in short supply and if you really wanted more to be produced quickly, would you want companies to think that they could earn a lot of money making it? You would think that the answer is pretty obvious: No profits, no oil. To encourage more production, companies need to think that there are more profits to be made. With all the anger over high oil prices, more production to lower prices would seem to be a high priority. But outside of most congressional Republicans, particularly those in the Senate who successfully filibustered a new wind-fall profits...

If Republicans had any brains, they would make domestic oil exploration the number one issue in this election year. Surely the voters would have little sympathy for a party that wants to keep trillions of barrels worth of oil resources in the ground while they pay through the nose at the pump. But it’s hard to say you’ll solve a problem when you’ve already had a chance and failed – and this is the Republicans’ never-ending quandary in the aftermath of their pathetic stewardship of Congress. My colleague Herman Cain this week did the mainstream media’s job for it and...

Afghanistan Heroes Offer to Colonize Moon, Mars and Beyond By Anthony Duignan-Cabrera A recent survey in the news showed that the war in Iraq had dropped to number 3 on a list of issues currently obsessing potential voters in the ongoing presidential campaign season. -snip- The problem is, NASA is going about it all the wrong way. Here is an idea: Send battle-hardened, strong-minded soldiers and marines on the long trips into space. We are conditioned to live with the bare minimal (of) life’s necessities and are trained to be prepared for … the worst conditions that any environment could...

A long-awaited federal report on oil that could be recovered in parts of North Dakota, Montana and two Canadian provinces is to be released this week. The Bakken shale formation encompasses some 25,000 square miles in North Dakota, Montana, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. About two-thirds of the acreage is in western North Dakota, where the oil is trapped in a thin layer of dense rock nearly two miles beneath the surface. Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, said the number of wells in the Bakken increased from about 300 in 2006 to 457 at the end of last...

As reported to IADC by Baker Hughes Rotary Rigs Actually Making Hole For the week ending 20 March 2008 Country This Week Last Week Last Month Last Year United States 1784 1792 1771 1745 Canada 328 510 647 246 The complete North American Rig Count is available at the Baker Hughes web site. International Rotary Rigs Running Monthly Average for February 2008 Region Current Month Change From Previous Month Europe 81 -12 Middle East 272 -3 Africa 58 -10 Latin America 373 8 Asia Pacific 248 -4 The complete International Rig Count is available at the Baker Hughes web site....

Nobel-winning boffin slams ISS, manned spaceflight 'Infantile fixation on putting people into space' By Lewis Page, The Register, Wednesday 19th September 2007 A Nobel laureate physicist has poured scorn on human space exploration, saying "the whole manned spaceflight programme, which is so enormously expensive, has produced nothing of scientific value". Professor Steven Weinberg of the University of Texas at Austin, co-recipient of the 1979 Nobel Prize for Physics, was speaking at a workshop in Baltimore. His remarks were reported by Space.com. Weinberg had especially harsh words for the International Space Station (ISS), saying that it was "an orbital turkey... No...

WASHINGTON - A US space probe embarked on Saturday on a 10 month journey to Mars, where it will dig through Martian soil in a search for signs of life in a frigid region of the Red Planet. The Phoenix Mars Lander separated from a Delta II rocket after blasting off into the dark sky at 5:36 am (0936 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Powered by solar panels, Phoenix, whose launch was delayed by one day following bad weather, is scheduled to land on Mars on May 25, 2008, after travelling 680 million kilometers (422...

NASA and 13 space agencies from around the world are releasing the latest product of their Global Exploration Strategy discussions. The document, "The Global Exploration Strategy: The Framework for Coordination," reflects a shared vision of space exploration focused on solar system destinations where humans may someday live and work. The framework document allows for the establishment of a voluntary, non-binding mechanism by which space agencies can exchange information on their respective space exploration plans. This coordination mechanism will play a key role in helping to identify gaps, overlaps and synergies in the space exploration plans of participating agencies. The framework...

The head of Russia's space agency Sunday said the US has rebuffed an offer from Moscow to jointly explore the moon, while announcing a separate contract with NASA for nearly one billion dollars for the International Space Station. Roskosmos chief Anatoly Perminov was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency that Russia had proposed pooling resources to explore the moon. "We were ready to cooperate but for unknown reasons, the United States have said they will undertake this programme themselves," he said. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in December said it envisaged setting up a manned base,...

...................................(snip) Fly Me to the Moon What if the US undertook a massive public effort on the scale of the Apollo Project that put a man on the moon and brought him safely home? What if we had a president far-sighted enough to make the development of alternative energy sources and population control our generation’s glorious challenge, as space flight was for President John F. Kennedy’s: “I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project...

...The parliamentary group views the growing space budgets of the United States, China, India and Russia in particular as confirmation that space remains a realm of strategic competition with multiple military and commercial applications. Europe, they say, is losing ground to these nations and is at risk of becoming a space also-ran if it does not redouble its financial effort and end duplication among individual European nations. The report says Europe’s NATO members should set a goal of making their existing military satellite telecommunications systems interoperable within two years. Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain operate independent systems and sometimes...

...In this new century, those who effectively utilize space will enjoy added prosperity and security and will hold a substantial advantage over those who do not." (U.S. National Space Policy) .. Why should we care about missiles threatening low Earth orbit? When the Chinese get on with reabsorbing Taiwan - the most likely trigger for a U.S.-China confrontation - U.S. drivers may find that the navigation systems in their SUVs (not to mention their ambulances) aren't working. Low-flying U.S. military spy satellites are the first target of the new weapon, but the slightly higher GPS (global positioning system) satellites that...

MOSCOW — Russia could fall further behind the United States and other nations in space research if it fails to quickly build a replacement to its Soviet-designed spacecraft, the head of the nation's top rocket builder said Thursday. Nikolai Sevastyanov, the head of state-controlled RKK Energiya, said it was continuing design work on a new reusable spacecraft called the Clipper, which he said would cost an estimated $1.5 billion to develop, and build a fleet of five such ships. ''If we don't conduct the Clipper program, we may fall behind irreparably in five years or so,'' Sevastyanov said at a...

WASHINGTON -- With Democrats controlling Congress, the oil industry is in for a rough ride. So is the agency that collects royalties for oil and gas drilling on federal lands. Democrats and some Republicans have complained for months that the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service -- whose motto is "securing ocean energy and economic value for America" -- has mishandled the royalty program. The issue will hit the spotlight Jan. 18, when the House takes up energy legislation targeting oil-industry subsidies. One goal: untangling a legal mess that could allow companies to escape paying at least $10 billion in future...

BEIJING -- China's private entrepreneurs are joining big companies in searching abroad for oil to satisfy their nation's thirst, in the latest sign of how the world's fastest-growing major economy is roiling energy markets. Perhaps the most successful of this new breed of wealthy Chinese wildcatter is Ni Zhaoxing, a 50-year-old businessman who has spent the last year prospecting for oil in western Canada after amassing a fortune in China's real-estate market. Mr. Ni's ZhongRong Group has struck oil in its Saskatchewan field, a find that eventually could bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue a year. China...

NASA is on a flight path to replant astronauts on the Moon, looking to sustain a human presence on that cratered, airless orb on a “go-as-the nation-can-afford-to-pay” basis. That approach is seen as letting people step back onto the lunar surface no later than 2020. Space engineers have honed in on one possible site for a lunar outpost: the Moon’s south pole. It’s a tactical setting on the rim of Shackleton Crater, a feature some 12 miles (19 kilometers) in diameter. There’s real estate here that basks in near-perpetual sunlight. Also, it’s a region that is a doorway into the...

The holidays are the perfect time to Vad, for obvious reasons. Everyone is somewhere else, people are relaxed, and concentrating upon their family and friends, few people tend to be out in any area you might have an interest in vadding, patrols are light, everything and most everyplace is left abandoned. Which makes the job of infiltrating extremely easy compared to infiltrating efforts one might make at most any other time. So while my family, wife, and kids relaxed and digested their food or went out to the movies or watched TV I loaded some equipment, including one of my...

US plans for Moon base US space agency Nasa says it is planning to start work on a base on the Moon after astronauts begin flying back there in 2020. The maps and graphics below show how and where man could live on the Moon. Nasa scientists say the best approach is to develop a solar-powered moon base and to locate it near one of the poles of the moon - such as the Shackleton Crater near the South Pole. The poles offer moderate temperatures, high percentage of sunlight which means greater potential for solar power and more opportunities...

That is what the New York Times’ editors did in their editorial this morning. They led off Roller Coaster at the Pump with: It seems a little too convenient. As the stretch run to the midterm Congressional election approaches, gasoline prices fall precipitously. The sudden shifts in prices seem to come out of the blue. And unlike copper or pork bellies, oil is a commodity always charged with political significance. And added weight to their insinuation in the next paragraph: It only sets the bloggers typing faster and the pundits chattering louder when a key player in the price swing...

Next time you stop at the pump and pay through-the-stratosphere prices to fill your car's tank, just ponder this: We are not — repeat, we are not running out of oil. There is no good reason you should be paying through the nose. There are only bad reasons for it. If you are also angry about illegal aliens pouring over the border, you should know that illegal immigration is the price we are paying to keep to keep gas prices from going even higher, maybe two or three times higher.

WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and other senators yesterday announced an agreement on legislation to open more federal waters to oil and natural-gas exploration. With lawmakers under pressure to help ease fuel prices, the agreement was presented as a breakthrough on stalled energy legislation. It would allow drilling in an area of the eastern Gulf of Mexico that is rich in natural gas, and open the way for coastal states to share in royalty revenue that otherwise would go to the federal government. Addressing Florida lawmakers' concerns, the agreement includes a ban on energy development within 125 miles...

Local companies say they're using their record gains to invest in exploration that will help them provide us with cheaper gas. Oklahoma's largest energy companies last week reported record, multimillion-dollar, first-quarter profits, following the trend seen throughout the industry for much of the past two years. Despite the record gains, however, the local companies say they are part of the solution to soaring energy prices, not the problem. Higher prices have allowed them to invest more in community efforts, but mostly they are reinvesting two to three times their profits on exploitation -- drilling in proven areas -- and on...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – NASA lacks the money to support vigorous science research while building the international space station and returning astronauts to the moon, according to a report released Thursday by the National Research Council. The end result, the scientists warned, will be further erosion of the nation's leadership in scientific research.“NASA is being asked to accomplish too much with too little,'' said the document, prepared by a panel of scientists at the request of Congress. The proposed 2007 budget for the space agency could weaken programs for space and earth science, jeopardize national research goals and stunt...

At the south pole of the moon, a row of peaks juts from the gently sloping rim of Shackleton Crater, named for the early 20th-century Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton. The 15-mile-wide crater and its rugged surroundings, including a vast depression created by the impact of an ancient asteroid or comet, starkly show the drama that marked the early history of Earth's companion. Overlooked as a half-dozen Apollo expeditions landed on the moon two generations ago, the lunar south pole could figure prominently in NASA's plans to return to the moon with explorers. Satellite photos reveal that parts of...

In the "space race" of the early 1960s, when reporters asked U.S. rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun what he expected to find on the moon, he jokingly replied: "Russians." Nowadays, his answer might be: "Indians, Chinese, Japanese and Europeans." India, China, Japan and Europe are busy launching, or planning to launch, robotic spaceships to the moon and points beyond.

Last Monday was D-Day—or, perhaps more accurately, B-Day—for NASA: the day the administration released its proposed fiscal year 2007 (FY07) budget for the space agency. As is always the case, the budget had its share of winners of losers. While NASA overall got a 3.2% increase to $16.8 billion (closer to 1% when supplemental funds for hurricane relief are included), that increase was not spread evenly over the agency’s programs. While Exploration Systems got an increase of nearly 30%, science programs got an increase of only about 1%, while aeronautics research was cut by over 20%. Those changes, administration and...

Did you ever want to participate in a International Space Station mission? Starting Friday, February 3rd, you may get your chance. An old, used Russian spacesuit has been transformed into a most unusual earth orbit satellite. Just add one Kenwood TH-K2AT handi-talkie transceiver, a battery pack, a sensor for temperature readings, a compact voice synthesizer and telemetry device and a small helmet-mounted antenna and you are good to go. The modified spacesuit will be thrust out of the space station into orbit and will begin broadcasting voice messages and slow scan television on 145.990 MHz FM in the two-meter amateur...

Probably the most remarkable success in America’s space program (outside of being able to put humans on the Moon in 1969 after just eight years), has to be the story of two robotic rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, trucking around on Mars for more than two years. No one appears more surprised at their longevity than the teams of scientists and engineers who built and still operate these remarkable machines, except possibly the film crew that set out to chronicle their adventures for Walt Disney and IMAX. "Roving Mars" takes us all on an unforgettable journey to the Red Planet, piggybacking...

he next few years will be make-or-break for NASA’s Vision for Space Exploration (VSE), Howard McCurdy, professor of public affairs at the American University in Washington DC, believes. An expert on the agency, McCurdy says advocates of VSE “have only a few years to establish this programme before it becomes vulnerable to death by transition”. McCurdy is under no illusions as to how long NASA has to prove that President George Bush’s vision of returning the USA to the Moon is not a step too far. The Space Shuttle programme, costing $5 billion a year, will end in 2010, to...

Aviation Week & Space Technology Griffin Tells Astronomers To Lower Expectations By Frank Morring, Jr. 01/14/2006 LOOKING TO THE STARS Astronomers in the U.S. can still look forward to a human servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope next year, and perhaps to big observatories on the far side of the Moon some day. But for the most part, the funding outlook at NASA for space science is tight as the agency shifts its focus to sending humans back to the Moon, meaning near-term priorities like searching for Earth-like planets around other stars will slip, and it will take longer...

The rest of the risk picture So let’s assume that the issues of orbital assembly and launch delays are manageable. (If you’re uncomfortable with these assumptions, don’t worry: you’ll find a great deal of literature that disagrees too.) We still have to address the issue of multiple launches, frequently touted by detractors as one of the biggest concerns in mission designs based on smaller launch vehicles. Every additional required launch, it is argued, is another launch that could potentially fail, so wouldn’t the entire mission be better off if it could all be launched in one shot?

Internal Memos from NASA Administrator Michael Griffin regarding the NRC report "Review of NASA Plans for the International Space Station" Editor's note: The email exchanges below occurred between Mike Griffin and his senior staff between 22/23 November 2005 in reaction to the release of the NRC Report: Review of NASA Plans for the International Space Station. "From: "Griffin, Michael D. (HQ-AA000)" Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 13:43:50 -0500 To: "Pengra, Trish (HQ-FB000)" Cc: "Horowitz, Scott J. (HQ-BA000)", "Cooke, Douglas (HQ-BA000)", "Dale, Shana (HQ-AA000)", "Geveden, Rex (HQ-AA000)", "Morrell, Paul (HQ-AA000)", "Shank, Christopher M. (HQ-AA000)", "Pace, Scott (HQ-FA000)", "Gerstenmaier, William H. (HQ-CA000)",...

NASA and the Business of Space STATUS REPORT Date Released: Friday, November 18, 2005 Source: NASA HQ American Astronautical Society 52nd Annual Conference Michael D. Griffin NASA Administrator 15 November 2005 When President Bush announced the Vision for Space Exploration in January 2004, he made many specific points, including one which has been little noted, but which we here all believe; that the pursuit of the Vision will enhance America's economic, scientific and security interests. He also made it clear that the first step in the plan was to use the Space Shuttle to complete the assembly of the International...

DEAR SENATOR/REPRESENTATIVE X; IT IS INCREASINGLY DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND WHY SO MANY IN CONGRESS ARE OPPOSED TO MOST ALTERNATIVE DOMESTIC OIL SUPPLIES, EVEN AFTER KNOWING THAT THE U.S. IS AT THE MERCY OF FOREIGN OIL PRODUCERS. ALASKA REFUGE OIL HAS A MICROSCOPIC FOOTPRINT, YET IS NOW OPPOSED BY EVEN REPUBLICANS. DO ENVIROMENTALISTS HAVE THAT MUCH LOBBY POWER THAT THEY CAN TAKE OVER THE SOULS OF OTHERWISE SENSIBLE OFFICIALS, CONVINCING THEM THAT WE, OIL STARVED AMERICANS, SHOULD REPEL ALL CONSIDERATION TO EXPLORE MORE DOMESTIC WAYS OF OBTAINING HEATING OIL, ETC.? A NORMAL CITIZEN WOULD THINK THERE MIGHT BE SOME SORT OF...

Scientists are over the moon at the W.M. Keck Observatory and the California Institute of Technology over a new discovery of a satellite orbiting the Solar System's 10th planet (2003 UB313). The newly discovered moon orbits the farthest object ever seen in the Solar System. The existence of the moon will help astronomers resolve the question of whether 2003 UB313, temporarily nicknamed "Xena," is more massive than Pluto and hence the 10th planet. A paper describing the discovery was submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters on October 3, 2005. "We were surprised because this is a completely different type of...

China's achievement in sending taikonauts Cols. Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng into orbit on the manned Shenzhou-6 space craft for a four or five day mission is the second step in a long campaign of amazing vision mapped out by the genius founder of its space program half a century ago. Within the next 10 to 15 years, China is determined to become the dominant space power and build first its own massive, permanent, orbiting space station as a stepping stone into the Solar System and then even build and man a long-term base on the Moon. Can they do...

Three Chilean soldiers whose snow vehicle fell into a deep crevasse in the Antarctic on Wednesday have been found dead, officials say. They had been on patrol near a Chilean base, when their Snowcat vehicle fell into the 40m (130ft) hole that had been covered by a coating of snow. Rescuers had to prise open the roof of the Snowcat to recover the bodies of the three men trapped inside. Four others had managed to climb out of the vehicle and were pulled to safety. The Chilean rescue operation was carried out with the assistance of the Argentine army, which...

Plans by the United States to return to manned space exploration, with the moon as the first step in 2018, reflect a desire to maintain U.S. leadership in the scientific world as much as it does to set foot on other planets in the solar system. The U.S. space agency recently unveiled a $104 billion project to send astronauts to the moon by 2018 with a design inspired by the Apollo program of the 1960s, which put the first men on the lunar surface. The administrator of NASA, Michael Griffin, recently set out the philosophical and political motivation for renewed...