Free Republic

"It may sound strange to speak of Revolution, but that is what we need at this time. We need a Revolution; revolutionary thinking, revolutionary action. It is easy to mouth the words "sustainable development", but to make it happen, we have to be prepared to make major changes." Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, United Nations Davos World Economic Forum 2011

Google Lunar X-Prize is an international competition that seeks cheap ways to explore space with robots. Scientists and engineers are asked to build a robot and launch it into space, where it will need to complete a 533 meter stroll on the face of the moon and send high quality video files back to earth. The first group to complete the challenge will get 13M$. Until today, 13 groups signed in, they have until 2015 to complete the task. Three Israelis with various technological backgrounds intend on putting an Israeli flag on the moon with a coke-bottle sized rocket. The...

Rosemary Roosa, the daughter of Stuart Roosa, stand’s beside the moon tree planted at Stennis Space Center. It was 1971. She was 7. And he was Stuart Roosa, the astronaut who would fly the command module and orbit the moon while Alan Shepard and Ed Mitchell spent 33 hours on the surface. Apollo 14 was America’s third trip to put men on the moon. It followed the ill-fated Apollo 13 and recaptured the heart of the nation as Shepard and Mitchell successfully gathered 93 pounds of moon rocks, took a four-hour hike and whacked two golf balls with a...

Irregular sky object seen Saturday night.

Reports of sightings of the image of Mother Mary and infant Jesus on the moon on Thursday and Friday in Mumbai, Goa and Bihar has fuelled fears about an impending apocalypse. While priests asked people not to take the issue seriously, the news set off stories about the end of the world. Many saw the images as a message to prepare for doomsday. Those who saw the image said it was surprisingly clear for a smog-saturated winter evening. Joseph Dias, from Santa Cruz, who saw the image, said, “There was a semblance of a crown on the mother’s head. The...

It's an unlikely marriage between state-of-the-art and 40-year-old technology that has yielded extraordinary results. Signals from seismic sensors left on the lunar surface by Apollo astronauts in 1971 have revealed that the Moon has a liquid core similar to Earth's. Scientists at Nasa applied contemporary seismological techniques to the data being emitted from sensors placed by their colleagues during the U.S. space program's heyday....

French photographer Thierry Legault knew he had .86 seconds to get the shot. He'd flown to the Sultanate of Oman for the perfect vantage point. January 4th that part of the world saw a partial solar eclipse, but Legault, who's a veteran astrophotographer, didn't want just a spectacular shot of the moon crossing in front of the sun. No, he wanted to capture that millisecond moment when the moon and the International Space Station eclipsed the sun at the same time. He explained the logistics of getting the shot to us:

The year 1968 was one of the mst discouraging in modern US history. The Vietnam War dragged on. Despite major civil rights bills, many people feared the country was turning "increasingly seperate and unequal." The nation grieved over the assassinations of Martin Luther King JR. and Robert Kennedy. Riots filled the streets.

A total lunar eclipse on Monday evening coincided with the arrival of the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere for the first time since 1638, casting a shadow on the earth for a full 72 minutes. This picture shows the lunar eclipse above the Teide volcano in the Teide National Park on Tenerife, one of the Spanish Canary Islands.

Shadows have started.... http://www.ustream.tv/channel/observing-the-planets

Here in New York, anyway. Looks like a hazy sky.

Break out the flashlights. When a full lunar eclipse takes place on the shortest day of the year, the planet may just get awfully dark. The upcoming Dec. 21 full moon -- besides distinguishing itself from the others in 2010 by undergoing a total eclipse -- will also take place on the same date as the solstice (the winter solstice if you live north of the equator, and the summer solstice if you live to the south). Winter solstice is the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and marks the official beginning of winter. The sun is...

Skywatchers, grab your blankets. December's night sky spectacular will feature the best meteor shower of 2010 as well as the only total lunar eclipse of the year -- sights that should outshine any New Year's Eve fireworks display in terms of sheer wonder. The massive Geminid meteor shower returns every year, so you'll have more chances if the cold proves too daunting on the night of Dec. 13. But anyone in North America who skips the total lunar eclipse on the night of Dec. 20 will be missing what promises to be the best lunar eclipse show until April...

"I opened the little plastic packages which contained the bread and the wine. I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine slowly curled and gracefully came up the side of the cup. Then I read the Scripture, 'I am the vine, you are the branches. Whosoever abides in me will bring forth much fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing.

Russian scientists are developing automatic sealing systems to protect future manned space stations on the Moon and Mars from debris, Russia's Central Research Institute of Machine Building said. "Protection of spacecraft modules against micrometeorite impact and space debris, based on the use of protective screens, that is passive protection, is at the limit of its technical capability due to weight restrictions," the institute's experts said. "This is why we need to develop new protection based on self-sealing systems capable of independently and quickly restoring the object's air-tightness in case of leaks," they said. Scientists said there are three ways of...

After a year of analysis of its LCROSS lunar-impact probe mission to the moon, NASA has announced the discovery of up to a billion gallons of frozen water – known to many as “ice” – in the floor of a south-pole crater permanently in shadow. They also found silver, carbon monoxide and mercury. The discovery could not have come at a more opportune time for NASA, which in recent years has begun to list as aimlessly as a ship with no sails. With the discovery of lunar water comes an onrush of possibilities; bloggers and journalists the world over are...

I come to defend Elizabeth Moon. Not because she really needs help—the lady is perfectly capable of standing on her own. Not because I’m a fan of hers. I have a couple of her books in the stack, but haven’t had time to read recreationally in years. Not because she’s a fellow vet, though that would be a good enough reason. Not because we agree politically. As I understand, she’s quite liberal, and I’m a militant anarchist. I come to defend her because she’s right. In dumbed-down America, being right is a social crime. Please note that the below blog...

Water on the moon? Scientists used to think it was as dry as, well, lunar dust. But after a year of analysis NASA today announced that its LCROSS lunar-impact probe mission found

Scientists have discovered significant amounts of water on the moon—about twice the quantity seen in the Sahara Desert—a finding that may bolster the case for establishing a manned base on the lunar surface. In an audacious experiment last year, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration slammed a spent-fuel rocket into a lunar crater at 5,600 miles an hour, and then used a pair of orbiting satellites to analyze the debris thrown off by the impact. They discovered that the crater contained water in the form of ice, plus a host of other resources, including hydrogen, ammonia, methane, mercury, sodium and...

If we see a full moon tonight here in the US, will there be a full moon on the other side of the world during their night-time? Do the people on the other side of the earth see the same moon phases we see here at night, when it is night-time over there? TIA.