Free Republic

Explanation: Lighting the night last Tuesday, February's Full Moon is sometimes called the Snow Moon. But the Moon was not quite full in this mosaicked skyscape recorded on February 2 south of Budapest, Hungary, and there was no snow either. Still, thin clouds of ice crystals hung in the cold, wintry sky creating this gorgeous lunar halo. Refraction of moonlight by the six-sided crystals produce the slightly colored halo with its characteristic radius of 22 degrees. Just below the Moon is bright star Aldebaran. Also well within the halo at the right is the Pleiades star cluster. At the lower...

As a former NASA executive, I am saddened by the media response to Newt Gingrich's proposal that we return to the moon. The mockery and ridicule does America a great disservice. Space exploration and development is an important national issue. It's not only possible and necessary to safeguard our future—it can be a lot cheaper than anybody dreams.

Explanation: Our Moon's appearance changes nightly. This time-lapse sequence shows what our Moon looks like during a lunation, a complete lunar cycle. As the Moon orbits the Earth, the half illuminated by the Sun first becomes increasingly visible, then decreasingly visible. The Moon always keeps the same face toward the Earth. The Moon's apparent size changes slightly, though, and a slight wobble called a libration is discernible as it progresses along its elliptical orbit. During the cycle, sunlight reflects from the Moon at different angles, and so illuminates different features differently. A full lunation takes about 29.5 days, just under...

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon called upon Israelis to be happy about the Islamist rebellion tearing through the Middle East. Speaking at the Herzliya Conference Thursday, Ban said: "The storms of the Arab Spring are indeed sweeping the region. Change keeps coming, with blinding and often bewildering speed. Some in Israel and elsewhere view these events with concern. One year later, they say that the Arab Spring has failed; that these dramatic transformations have moved the Middle East backward, not forward. "Others fear new governments will emerge that are unfriendly to Israel. Understandably, they point to the conflict in...

  Newt, Mitt, and Ron Speak Out on a Moon Base David C. Stolinsky Jan. 30, 2012 Newt Gingrich states that if he is elected, he will establish a permanent moon colony by 2020 and admit it as an American state.− News item Mitt Romney states that if a corporate executive proposed spending billions on a moon base in this economy, Romney would fire him.− News item Ron Paul states that the only people he would consider sending to the moon are politicians. − News item Gingrich, impulsive as usual, imagines a moon colony and wants to establish one...

While Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has been mocked repeatedly by his chief rival, Mitt Romney, there is a compelling series of arguments to be made for returning to the moon, this time in the form of a permanent Lunar colony. Indeed, the Lunar colony idea had been articulated by President George W. Bush in 2004 and was based on solid research developed by many serious thinkers in the space community. It had also been ratified by 2 different congresses, in 2005 and 2008. In fact, the first lunar colony was planned in the mid-1960s, called ALSS (Apollo Logistics Support...

.....While Gingrich is floating space-travel plans at a staggering rate -- even for a candidate who's been teased for his frequently "grandiose" proposals -- Romney is proudly tamping down the dream. After ridiculing Gingrich on Thursday for pushing expensive and allegedly outlandish proposals, the former Massachusetts governor on Friday suggested Gingrich was pandering. And, Romney conceded, he does not really have a space plan. Not yet, anyway. Rather, Romney committed to carefully creating one once he's president. "In the politics of the past, to get your vote on the Space Coast, I'd come here and promise hundreds of billions of...

COMMENTARY | During the Republican presidential debate in Jacksonville, Fla., Thursday night, the subject of Newt Gingrich's moon colony idea came up. During the exchange, Mitt Romney especially revealed a smallness of vision and an ignorance of the issue. [snip]If Romney wants to know why Gingrich is so focused on the moon, he could go no further than to read Paul Spudis' The Case for Renewed Human Exploration of the Moon" in which the rationale for returning to the moon, not only for science, but also as a prelude to the exploration of the Solar System is examined. Spudis also...

Newt Gingrich’s moon base idea takes center stage at the GOP debate in Florida If aliens were watching from outer space, even they might have been shocked by the amount of time devoted to space travel in Thursday’s presidential debate. Newt Gingrich excited Florida’s struggling space coast this week when he pledged to industry executives that he would colonize the moon by the end of his second presidential term. The big promise drew flak from his GOP rivals, and a question at the debate from a Twitter user who wanted to know how the former speaker planned to pay for...

Explanation: A Full Moon rising can be a dramatic celestial sight, and Full Moons can have many names. Captured on January 8 from Ötersund, Sweden, this evocative moonrise portrait might make you feel the cold of winter in the north. If you can also imagine wolves howling in the distance then you probably understand why Native Americans would have called it the Wolf Moon, their traditional name for the first Full Moon in January. The photographer reports that no wolves were heard though, as he watched this beautiful Full Moon rise in fading light over the eastern horizon, echoing the...

Explanation: Where's the full Moon? Somewhere in this image, the Earth's Moon is hiding. The entire Moon is visible, in its completely full phase, in plain sight. Even the photographer's keen eye couldn't find it even though he knew exactly where to look -- only the long exposure of his camera picked it up -- barely. Although by now you might be congratulating yourself on finding it, why was it so difficult to see? For one reason, this photograph was taken during the total lunar eclipse last month, when the Earth's shadow made the Moon much dimmer than a normal...

China has declared its intention to land an astronaut on the moon, in the first official confirmation of its aim to go where Americans last set foot nearly 40 years ago. While Chinese scientists have previously discussed the possibility of a manned lunar mission, a government white paper published on Thursday is the first public government document to enshrine it as a policy goal. China will “conduct studies on the preliminary plan for a human lunar landing”, the white paper said. Although manned moon mission is still some time off – Chinese experts say after 2020 – the statement highlights...

PASADENA — Two JPL-managed spacecraft designed to study the gravitational fluctuations of the moon and provide insight into the evolution of our space neighbor were hurtling closer to the moon today, and were expected to settle into orbit for the new year. The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory spacecraft were launched Sept. 10 from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The first craft, GRAIL-A was scheduled to begin orbiting the moon at 1:21 p.m. Saturday, while its twin, GRAIL-B, was expected to reach orbit at 2:05 p.m. Sunday. "Our team may not get to partake in a traditional New Year's celebration, but...

Back in 2006, the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona noticed that a mysterious body had begun orbiting the Earth. This object had a spectrum that was remarkably similar to the titanium white paint used on Saturn V rocket stages and, indeed, a number of rocket stages are known to orbit the Sun close to Earth. But this was not an object of ours. Instead, 2006 RH120, as it became known, turned out to be a tiny asteroid just a few metres across--a natural satellite like the Moon. It was captured by Earth's gravity in September 2006 and orbited us...

OKLAHOMA CITY – If there was an interesting distinction between Republican presidential front-runners Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney during last night’s Full Moon Debate in Iowa, on the day of a red, lunar eclipse, no less, is their interest, or lack thereof, in space travel and the opportunities that await humanity – out there. For all of his faults – and there are plenty – Gingrich’s interest in “a permanent colony on the Moon,” that would lead to the mining of “precious minerals” is an interesting one. The former House Speaker has also suggested that “a mirror system in space...

Explanation: Tomorrow, December 10, the Full Moon will slide through planet Earth's shadow in a total lunar eclipse. The entire eclipse sequence, including 51 minutes of totality, will be visible from Asia and Australia, but moonwatchers in Europe and Africa will miss out on the beginning partial phases because for them, the eclipse will start before moonrise. In central and western North America the earlier phases of the eclipse will be in progress as the Moon sets. In fact, while those in the east will miss out, North Americans far enough west could see a scene very much like this...

Astronauts may have had the 'right stuff' to go to the moon, but when it comes to keeping track of what they brought back, NASA seems to have misplaced some of that stuff. In a report issued by the agency's Inspector General on Thursday, NASA concedes that more than 500 pieces of moon rocks, meteorites, comet chunks and other space material were stolen or have been missing since 1970. That includes 218 moon samples that were stolen and later returned and about two dozen moon rocks and chunks of lunar soil that were reported lost last year. NASA, which has...

Explanation: This colorful topographical map of the Moon is centered on the lunar farside, the side not seen from planet Earth. That view is available to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter though, as the spacecraft's wide angle camera images almost the entire lunar surface every month. Stereo overlap of the imaging has allowed the computation of topographical maps with coverage between 80 degrees north and south latitude. The results have about a 300 meter resolution on the lunar surface and 10 to 20 meter elevation accuracy. Data closer to the north and south poles is filled in using the orbiter's laser...

Get Ready! Listen up – Because your space playbook is about to really change. There’s a new gunslinger in Dodge and he’s huge. He’s hungry. He’s very wealthy. He’s ambitious, (like we used to be). And he is not American. He has already started to play the Game and we are unaware. We don’t even know what the Game is. What is the Game? The Game is what I call "Solar System Monopoly". This will characterize the 21st and 22nd centuries and beyond. "The Hell you say." Yes, I say -- and if we ignore this it shall be at...

The caller told police that he had seen a UFO with "big bright lights" hovering in his back garden. Taking the call seriously the female operator can be heard logging the bizarre information before asking if the UFO was making any "engine noise". The caller replied that it was not, telling her: "I thought it was an aeroplane at first and then its just hovering with all these lights on." After being told local authorities would investigate his claims, the caller hung up, only to ring back minutes later to confess that he had made an embarrassing mistake. When asked...

Astrobotic Technology's Red Rover, a lunar exploration vehicle that the company claims will be able to scout and drill for precious resources at the moon's poles. Moon, we just can’t quit you. NASA has shifted its goals from returning to the moon to visiting an asteroid or even Mars, but not everyone has given up on going back. The space agency's attention deficit has sparked a race among private companies eager to return to Earth's satellite.Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/10/27/race-to-mine-moon-heats-up/#ixzz1c2sHUuBP

Word has leaked out that in its new budget, the Obama administration intends to terminate NASA’s planetary exploration program. The Mars Science Lab Curiosity, being readied on the pad, will be launched, as will the nearly completed small MAVEN orbiter scheduled for 2013, but that will be it. No further missions to anywhere are planned. After 2013, America’s amazing career of planetary exploration, which ran from the Mariner probes in the 1960s through the great Pioneer, Viking, Voyager, Pathfinder, MarsGlobalSurveyor, MarsOdyssey, Spirit, Opportunity, MarsReconnaissanceOrbiter, Galileo and Cassini missions, will simply end. Furthermore, the plan from the Office of Management and...

The moon is made of far more valuable stuff than green cheese. And one man wants to capitalize on that fact. NASA, which ended America's space shuttle program in June, says it wants to privatize spaceflight. Naveen Jain, co-founder and chairman of Moon Express, Inc., wants to go a step further: He wants to privatize the moon itself. Jain's company plans to piggyback on private shuttle flights, using them to carry his lunar landers and mining platforms to the moon. "People ask, why do we want to go back to the moon? Isn't it just barren soil?" Jain told FoxNews.com....

A new map of the moon has uncovered a trove of areas rich in titanium, which could one day be mined. Lava flows that turned into rocks on the moon are enriched with titanium in concentrations far higher than what is found on Earth. The precious material could be used to construct equipment for lunar and other spacecraft.< Detailed maps from a robotic NASA science satellite circling the moon show deposits as rich as about 18 percent, planetary geologist Jeffrey Gillis-Davis, with the University of Hawaii, told Discovery News. “Up to 3 percent is considered high on Earth,” he said....

Apollo Image Atlas AS15-P-9625 Image Collection: Panoramic Mission: 15 Magazine: P Revolution: 38 Latitude / Longitude: 19° S / 117.5° E Lens Focal Length: 24 inch Camera Look: Forward Camera Altitude: 117 km Sun Elevation: 27° Stereo Pair: AS15-P-9630 Film Type: 3414 Film Width: 5 inch Image Width: 45.24 inch Image Height: 4.5 inch Film Color: black & white Index Map: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/mapcatalog/apolloindex/apollo15/as15indexmap01/ Feature(s): DELPORTE, SOUTHWEST OF IZSAK, NORTH OF

A new map of the Moon has revealed an abundance of titanium ore that is up to 10 times richer than on Earth, a finding that could one day lead to a lunar mining colony, astronomers said on Friday. The discovery was made thanks to a camera aboard the US Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which swept the surface of the Moon, scrutinising it in seven different light wavelengths. > "Lunar titanium is mostly found in the mineral ilmenite, a compound containing iron, titanium and oxygen," they said. "Future miners living and working on the Moon could break down ilmenite to liberate...

An Apollo 17 moon rock missing for 30 years and believed to be worth up to $10 million has turned up in files belonging to Bill Clinton. The valuable rock was one of 50 presented to each state after the 1972 space mission. NASA has found that since the rocks have been distributed, a very low percentage - which are encased in acrylic and mounted on a plaque along with the intended recipient’s flag - can actually be located. The rock, believed to have a black market value of up to $10 million, had been missing since at least 1980...

A team of astronomers are planning an epic quest to track down the 42-year-old lunar module that's adrift in the solar system. It's not often I read about a new project that leaves me undecided whether it's totally crazy or a stroke of genius. I was recently sent a press release of such a project and, having read it over a few times, I think I'm leaning toward the latter. The idea is the brain child of British amateur astronomer Nick Howes who not only has a passion for hunting for asteroids, but also for the Space Race -- in...

Explanation: A Full Moon rising can be a dramatic celestial sight, and Full Moons can have many names. For example, Monday's Full Moon was the one nearest this year's autumnal equinox for the northern hemisphere, traditionally called the Harvest Moon. According to lore the name is a fitting one because farmers could work late into the night at the end of the growing season harvesting crops by moonlight. This serene telephoto image captures this September's harvest moonrise from Turin, Italy. In silhouette against an orange lunar disk is Turin's hilltop Basilica of Superga.

  No More Space Missions? David C. Stolinsky Sept. 12, 2011 The Earth is just too small and fragile a basket for the human race to keep all its eggs in. − Robert A. Heinlein We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.− Oscar Wilde In 1961 President Kennedy set a goal of sending a man to the moon before the end of the decade, and returning him safely to earth. He explained that we chose to do this not because it would be easy, but because it would be hard. At...

Explanation: This dramatic time-lapse photo traces a 20 minute long, late evening rollback of the lighted Mobile Service Tower at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 17. Twin spacecraft are snug inside the 13 story tall Delta 2 rocket poised for launch. The duo will journey to the Moon on NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory mission, GRAIL, using precision formation flying to map the Moon's gravity field. The scene was captured prior to the first launch attempt, canceled due to upper level winds, on September 8. Further launch opportunities for GRAIL begin this morning, September 10. The GRAIL...

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured the sharpest images ever taken from space of the Apollo 12, 14 and 17 landing sites. Images show the twists and turns of the paths made when the astronauts explored the lunar surface. This interactive shows two LRO images of the Apollo 17 landing site. Click and drag on the white slider bar to wipe from one to the other. The left image was released today; the right image is a zoom-in on an LRO image released in 2009. LRO was moved into a lower orbit to capture the new image. The images do...

Y2K has three characters 911 has three characters Elenin has six characters which is twice 3 three, threes is 9 Elenin has a l and a 1 in it, 9/l1 and that spells M-O-O-N Coincidence?

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a spectacle that might have beguiled poets, lovers and songwriters if only they had been around to see it, Earth once had two moons, astronomers now think. But the smaller one smashed into the other in what is being called the "big splat." The result: Our planet was left with a single bulked-up and ever-so-slightly lopsided moon.

NASA scientists believe they may have found the final resting place of a 1960s space probe which took "the picture of the [last] century" before crashlanding on the far side of the Moon. A snapshot from the past... (click to enlarge) The information comes in new imagery from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), sent up to circle the Moon under the Bush administration's plan for a manned return to our satellite body as a precursor to Mars missions. The LRO was intended to map the lunar surface in unprecedented detail, perhaps discovering useful ice deposits or crater-rim landing sites where...

On July 9th, 2011 this object was spotted either landing on or colliding into the moon. Give the video a moment, the video quality is quite good. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo2oJgQJuboThen, on July 25, 2011 we get the "Volcano found on the Moon’s farside" news story ... http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/25/volcano-found-on-the-moons-farside/Interestingly, in the first video, the craft or meteor creates a huge plume when it lands/collides, then we get the meteor story. Whatever was tracking over the surface of the moon was clearly visible in the first film. We report, you decide.

Posted on July 25, 2011 by News Staff Non-mare silicic volcanism on the lunar farside at Compton–Belkovich Bradley L. Jolliff,Sandra A. Wiseman,Samuel J. Lawrence,Thanh N. Tran,Mark S. Robinson,Hiroyuki Sato,B. Ray Hawke,Frank Scholten,Jürgen Oberst,Harald Hiesinger, Carolyn H. van der Bogert,Benjamin T. Greenhagen,Timothy D. Glotch& David A. Paige Nature Geoscience (2011) doi:10.1038/ngeo1212 Abstract Non-basaltic volcanism is rare on the Moon. The best known examples occur on the lunar nearside in the compositionally evolved Procellarum KREEP terrane. However, there is an isolated thorium-rich area—the Compton–Belkovich thorium anomaly—on the lunar farside for which the origin is enigmatic.

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered a fourth moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto. The tiny, new satellite – temporarily designated P4 -- popped up in a Hubble survey searching for rings around the dwarf planet. The new moon is the smallest discovered around Pluto. It has an estimated diameter of 8 to 21 miles (13 to 34 km). By comparison, Charon, Pluto's largest moon, is 648 miles (1,043 km) across, and the other moons, Nix and Hydra, are in the range of 20 to 70 miles in diameter (32 to 113 km). "I find it remarkable...

In this episode of the Conscience of Kansas radio program I talk about the verdict in the Casey Anthony trial and well as a discussion of race in the 2012 presidential election. I talk about what has happened to the U.S. flags that were placed on the moon. Also we have a discussion on new abortion law changes in the state of Kansas and the fate of a killer bear at Yellowstone National Park

Explanation: Brilliant Venus and a thin crescent Moon stood together above the eastern horizon just before sunrise on June 30. The lovely celestial pairing is captured in this colorful twilight skyview overlooking a reservoir near Izmir, Turkey. For some, the close conjunction could be viewed as a daylight occultation. While Venus is nearing the end of its latest performance as planet Earth's morning star, the old lunar cresent, about 24 hours from its New Moon phase, was also bidding farewell for now to the dawn. In fact, for the next two nights a young Moon can be spotted just after...

In a letter dated August 9, 1971, Caltech Professor of Geology and Geophysics Dr. Gerald Wasserburg wrote to NASA administrator Robert R. Gilruth extending his congratulations for “one of the most brilliant missions in space science ever flown”. He was referring to the Apollo 15 mission, which began 40 years ago this month. The flight of Apollo 15 marked the true beginning of lunar exploration from a scientific viewpoint. Lunar science was the primary focus of this mission, whereas engineering and geopolitical considerations had dominated the preceding lunar landings. Apollo 15 would make use of uprated equipment to enhance the...

Samples of icy spray shooting from Saturn's moon Enceladus collected during Cassini spacecraft flybys show the strongest evidence yet for the existence of a large-scale, subterranean saltwater ocean, says a new international study led by the University of Heidelberg and involving the University of Colorado Boulder. The new discovery was made during the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, a collaboration of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. Launched in 1997, the mission spacecraft arrived at the Saturn system in 2004 and has been touring the giant ringed planet and its vast moon system ever since. The plumes...

SYDNEY (AP) — Asian and African night owls were treated to a lunar eclipse, and ash in the atmosphere from a Chilean volcano turned it blood red for some viewers. The Sydney Observatory said the eclipse was to begin at 3:25 a.m. Thursday (1:25 p.m. EDT, 5:25 p.m. GMT Wednesday) and last until after 5 a.m. Scientists said the specific phenomenon happening Thursday — known as a "deep lunar eclipse" — often exudes a coppery color. But the intensity of the color depends on the amount of ash and dust in the atmosphere. Luckily for moon-gazers, there was plenty of...

Firefighters from five different agencies were called to the scene of a grass fire on Johnson Space Center property Wednesday afternoon. The fire started around 2:30 p.m. in a field behind Building 14. That’s near the main entrance and Rocket Park, along Saturn Blvd. (snip) A NASA spokesperson said the fire was sparked while engineers were testing new spacecraft technology called the Morpheus lander. The Morpheus is the first new lunar lander made by NASA in 40 years and can fly up to a mile upward and horizontally in the air. (snip) Wednesday’s fire, however, got out of hand and...

BOSTON—The number of Earth-like extrasolar planets suitable for harboring advanced life could be 10 times higher than has been assumed until now, according to a new modeling study. The finding contradicts the prevailing notion that a terrestrial planet needs a large moon to stabilize the orientation of its axis and, hence, its climate. In 1993, French mathematicians Jacques Laskar and Philippe Robutel showed that Earth’s large moon has a stabilizing effect on our planet’s climate. Without the moon, gravitational perturbations from other planets, notably nearby Venus and massive Jupiter, would greatly disturb Earth’s axial tilt, with vast consequences for the...

California woman trying to hawk moon rock for $1.7M to undercover NASA agent detained in stingBy Robert Jablon, The Associated Press | The Canadian Press 1 hour 3 minutes ago LOS ANGELES, Calif. - She promised the moon, for a sky-high price. He wasn't buying. A woman who tried to sell what she said was a rare piece of moon rock for $1.7 million was detained when her would-be buyer turned out to be an undercover NASA agent, officials said Friday. The grey rocks, which are considered national treasures and are illegal to sell, were given to each U.S. state...

The great Moon Hoax of 1835 April 4, 2011 By Nancy Atkinson, Universe Today "Say the words “Moon Hoax” these days, and everyone thinks you are talking about the people who don’t believe the Apollo astronauts ever went to the Moon. But back in 1835 there was the original Moon hoax that thousands of people fell for, despite the tall tale being complete fiction. A series of articles were published in the New York Sun newspaper reporting incredible new astronomical observations of the Moon supposedly made by astronomer Sir John Herschel during an observing run at the Cape of Good...

EXCLUSIVE: United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who has recently issued dire warnings that the organization must rein in its ballooning expenditures, increased the size of his own Secretariat by 38 percent, nearly twice the growth rate of the rest of the U.N. system worldwide during the same one-year period, according to confidential figures obtained by Fox News. Moreover, those hiring figures do not yet factor in another major boost in U.N. Secretariat spending that has taken place over the past two years.

Parthenon MoonExplanation: Did you see the Full Moon last night? Near the horizon, the lunar orb may have seemed to loom large, swollen in appearance by the famous Moon illusion. But the Full Moon really was a large Full Moon last night, reaching its exact full phase within an hour of lunar perigee, the point in the Moon's elliptical orbit closest to planet Earth. A similar near perigee Full Moon last occured on December 12, 2008. The difference in the Moon's apparent size as it moves from perigee to apogee, its farthest point from Earth, is about 14 percent. Of...

The moon rises over east London March 19, 2011. Saturday will see the rise of a full moon called a "Super Moon" when it arrives at its closest point to the Earth in 2011, a distance of 221,565 miles or 356,575 kilometers away. REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett