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A radiation-resistant version of NRAM carbon-nanotube-based memory, developed jointly by Lockheed Martin and Nantero, was tested on a recent Space Shuttle mission. The NRAM was incorporated by NASA into special autonomous testing configurations installed into a carrier at the aft end of the payload bay. It was launched into space as part of STS-125, the May 2009 mission of the Space Shuttle Atlantis that successfully serviced the Hubble Space Telescope. The project was managed by Dan Powell, Chief Nanotechnologist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC).

President Dmitry Medvedev says Russia will prioritize the development of nuclear energy, especially the use of nuclear technology in spacecraft. Medvedev made the announcement Thursday during his annual address to the Federal Assembly. This was not the first time that Russia has suggested the development of nuclear-powered spacecraft. Anatoly Perminov, the head of Federal Space Agency Roscosmos, said last month that the agency has planned to develop spacecraft with a megawatt-class nuclear power set.

Dark energy isn't good for life in the universe. This mysterious substance, which cosmologists believe makes up around 70 percent of the universe, may eventually pull apart galaxies, then stars and planets, and finally atoms and molecules, in what some call the Big Rip. It’s ironic, then, that the search for dark energy might help in the search for life in the universe. That's because planet hunting through a technique called microlensing requires a similar sort of instrument as a dark energy mission.

Want to make a planet that can sustain carbon-based life? Don’t park it in orbit around a sunlike star. “For the long term, the sun may not be the best star,” says Edward Guinan of Villanova University in Pennsylvania, coauthor of a paper reporting a new model about the suitability of planets for life. Smaller, cooler stars called orange dwarf stars might be the most hospitable, he says.

WASHINGTON — America's once clear dominance in space is eroding as other nations, including China, Iran and North Korea, step up their activities, a panel of experts told the House subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics Thursday. "Others are catching up fast," said Marty Hauser, vice president for Washington operations at the Space Foundation, an advocacy organization headquarters in Colorado Springs. "Of particular note over the past decade is the emergence of China's human spaceflight capabilities."

LIBERIA, Costa Rica — Franklin Chang Diaz has great aspirations for his rocket: a mail-carrier for outer space, a garbage truck for orbital debris and, the ultimate goal, a shuttle to Mars. The Costa Rica-born physicist speaks nonchalantly about the day humankind will have moved entirely to outer space, while our precious Earth becomes “a protected park.” “Our great grandchildren will always be able to come back [to Earth] from wherever they happen to live and see where their ancestors and culture came from,” said the former NASA astronaut who is now president and CEO of the Ad Astra Rocket...

New Scientist magazine is generally regarded by the secular community as one of the top-ranked science magazines in the world. However, a published opinion by a regular columnist demonstrated how “unscientific” and anti-God some of their articles have become—something we have documented before (see Refutation of New Scientist’s Evolution: 24 myths and misconceptions). Amanda Gefter wrote an article discussing multiverse theory, or the idea that our universe may be only one of many that currently exist. Such speculations attempt to explain away the appearance of design in the universe, because of, as we shall see, the spiritual implications. In an...

A new image of the bulge at the center of a distant spiral galaxy, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, is giving astronomers insight into how these galactic paunches form. The image of NGC 4710 is part of a survey that astronomers have conducted to learn more about the formation of bulges, which are a substantial component of most spiral galaxies. When targeting spiral galaxy bulges, astronomers often seek edge-on galaxies, as their bulges are more easily distinguishable from the disc. The detailed edge-on view of NGC 4710, taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys, shows the galaxy's bulge in...

- Names Ares "Invention of the Year" Based on Launch of Dummy Vehicle Citing Time magazine's selection of NASA's proposed Ares rockets "The Best Invention of the Year" based on a single purported "test flight" of the vehicle on October 28th, the Space Frontier Foundation congratulated NASA on its propaganda triumph. The Foundation pointed out that the rocket launched by NASA was not an Ares 1 at all, but a dummy vehicle cobbled together from pieces of other space systems, an elaborate mock-up shaped and painted to look like the actual vehicle, which isn't even scheduled to fly for another...

A new aviation business park and long, isolated runways in eastern North Carolina could be keys to attracting commercial space-travel companies here, according to experts who attended a forum Thursday at Elizabeth City State University. Leaders in the industry spoke during the daylong NewSpace Commerce Forum, including Jeff Greason, CEO of XCor Aerospace in California; Robert Richards, CEO of Odyssey Moon Lt d.; and Jeff Krukin, a consultant in the field who helped organize the forum.

Given the discovery of water on the Moon , suddenly the economics of lunar travel have changed dramatically for the better. The existence of water makes human operations on the moon far more feasible in the near future given that local water can now be used to produce oxygen, drinking water, and rocket fuel.

The latest object to shoot high-def video from the edge of space is…an arm chair. To promote its REGZA SV LCD TVs (LED backlight, local dimming), Toshiba trekked into the Black Rock Desert with a helium balloon. Watch the result: Click here to go to page with video. This is the first part of the ad. The second half for their Satellite T Series ULV laptops will come out next year. [Toshiba UK via Engadget] Facts about the shoot: • The shots were taken at a staggering 98,268 feet above the earth using Toshiba's own cameras • To reach the...

Now that human-induced climate change is on us, all our ideas and behaviors have to be re-examined, including our daily habits, our infrastructure and our economic system. This is such a huge project that it will become the major part of our efforts as a global civilization for the next century at least. So what about space, which used to be the very emblem of our future? What is it we think we’re doing up there? And does it still make sense in the age of climate crisis?

TIRUPATI: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman K. Radhakrishnan has said exploration of Mars will take a tangible shape by 2030. He called it the “next logical frontier in space” after Chandrayaan-II, which will be put in place by 2013 with robots and rovers to study the surface of the moon. Speaking after receiving the prestigious ‘Dr. Y. Nayudamma Memorial Gold Medal’ at the second Andhra Pradesh Science Congress, jointly conducted by the Andhra Pradesh Akademi of Sciences and Sri Venkateswara University here on Saturday, Dr. Radhakrishnan spoke of ISRO’s latest initiative on interplanetary exploration and the study on ensuring...

NASA, at age 50, is having a midlife crisis. What should it do after it retires the shuttle? Can it, should it, recreate the glories of its youth? Or should it mature into a wise enabler of technological and institutional leadership? The 2003 Space Shuttle disaster, underfunding of President George W. Bush’s call to go to the “Moon, Mars and Beyond” and the advent of a new presidential administration have caused NASA to re-evaluate its mission at a truly fundamental level. The President’s Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee, led by retired Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine, was...

NASA claims definitive detection of Moon water in the Solar System's 'attic'.On the way to a wet landing.N. GRUMMAN, W. FURLONG/NASA The debate is finally over. Lunar scientists have detected water for certain near the north pole of the Moon, after the impact of a NASA projectile kicked up water vapour along with a plume of dust. But it's not just about the water, say the scientists, who found hints in the plume of other, more exotic molecules, ranging from organic hydrocarbons to mercury. Increasingly, the scientists are viewing the polar craters as the 'attics' of the Solar System, repositories...

LOS ANGELES – For NASA's stuck Mars rover, the Spirit may be willing, but the wheels could prove too weak. The space agency on Thursday outlined a rescue plan to try to free the rover Spirit, which has been bogged in a sand trap on the red planet for half a year. The risky operation is expected to last several months. "If it cannot make the great escape from this sand trap, it's likely that this lonely spot straddling the edge of this crater might be where Spirit ends its adventures on Mars," said Doug McCuistion, who heads the Mars...

Dear NASA, I love you, but come on... Monkey radiation tests? What is this? The 50s? Are you going to resuscitate J. Edgar Hoover next? Didn't you guys see Matthew Broderick and Helen Hunt saving the monkeys in Project X? That's what NASA is planing to do: Use squirrel monkeys to test the possible effect of radiation in humans for long-term space missions. This is the first time the agency is going to test with monkeys since the days of the Mercury Project.

Evolutionary philosophy is a bottom-up storytelling project: particles, planets, people. Naturalists (those who say nature is all there is) believe they can invent explanations that are free of miracles, but in practice, miracles pop up everywhere in their stories. This was satirized by Sidney Harris years ago in a cartoon that showed a grad student filling a blackboard with equations. His adviser called attention to one step that needed some elaboration: It said, "Then a miracle happens." Examples of miracles in evolutionary philosophy include the sudden appearance of the universe without cause or explanation, the origin of life, the origin...

"There could be as much ice on the moon as in all of Lake Erie," When NASA's Lunar Crater Observing and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission crashed into Cabeus Crater on the moon's south pole, October 9th, the team did find water in the form of, "Ice as we know it," according to multiple sources within the agency. "It will change the way we think about the moon. It is something we want to share with the world."

A group of engineers working on a novel manufacturing technique at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., have come up with a new twist on the popular old saying about dreaming and doing: "If you can slice it, we can build it." That's because layers mean everything to the environmentally-friendly construction process called Electron Beam Freeform Fabrication, or EBF3, and its operation sounds like something straight out of science fiction. "You start with a drawing of the part you want to build, you push a button, and out comes the part," said Karen Taminger, the technology lead for the...

Carrying the most powerful telescopic camera ever flown to another planet, the satellite was launched in August 2005. Older observer satellites flown on previous missions to space were able to identify space objects no smaller than a London bus. But the state-of-the-art camera on-board Orbiter can spot something the size of a dinner table

IF LIFE is to be found beyond our home planet, then our closest encounters with it may come in the dark abyss of some extraterrestrial sea. For Earth is certainly not the only ocean-girdled world in our solar system. As many as five moons of Jupiter and Saturn are now thought to hide seas beneath their icy crusts.

Masten Space Systems, fresh from a million-dollar win in the NASA-sponsored Lunar Lander X-Prize Challenge, hopes to use its vertical-takeoff-and-landing rocket technology to launch a commercial enterprise by the middle of next year. Dave Masten, founder and CEO of the five-year-old Mojave, Calif., company, said Nov. 6 the company will use the $1.15 million it won by taking first place in the Level 2 lander competition and second place in Level 1 to upgrade its Xoie (pronounced "Zoey") vehicle for higher and faster flight (Aerospace DAILY, Nov. 4).

NASA and Spaceward Foundation Award Prize Money for Successful Wireless Power Demonstration WASHINGTON -- NASA has awarded $900,000 in prize money to a Seattle company that successfully demonstrated new wireless energy beaming technology which could one day be used to help power a "space elevator." LaserMotive of Seattle was awarded the money after its performance in the Power Beaming Challenge competition, which was a demonstration of wireless power transmission that enabled a robotic device to climb a vertical cable. The competition was held Nov. 4-6 at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif. The Spaceward Foundation of Mountain View,...

On the last week of October much of the space industry focused its attention on Cape Canaveral and the launch of NASA’s Ares 1-X, a suborbital prototype of the Ares 1 rocket planned by the space agency to launch the Orion crew capsule later next decade. That attention was understandable given the state of the program’s development and its uncertain political future: a lot was riding on that two-minute launch.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) hopes next year to begin full-scale development of its three-stage Advanced Solid Rocket (ASR), with a first launch to follow in 2012 or 2013. To be built by IHI Aerospace, the ASR is Japan's proposed future launcher for medium scientific payloads. JAXA also is studying a further development that would cut costs partly by using a fuel that could be melted and formed into a solid engine at less than the boiling temperature of water. That follow-on rocket could be available for commercial use, according to ASR project leader Yasuhiro Morita.

NASA has blended three views of our home galaxy's turbulent core to produce a picture filled with scientifically significant snap, crackle and pop. And the deeper you go into the image, the more you learn. The composite picture of the Milky Way's center draws upon near-infrared data from the Hubble Space Telescope (shown in yellow), infrared readings from the Spitzer Space Telescope (shown in rich red) and the X-ray vision of the Chandra X-ray Observatory (shown in shades of blue

A young star observed by the Spitzer Space Telescope appears to be home to a wild – and young – planetary system that shares some of the frenetic dynamics thought to have shaped the early years of our own solar system. The Spitzer observations suggest young planets circling the star are disturbing smaller comet-like bodies, causing them to collide and kick up a huge halo of dust.

The quest to fly the first solar sail spacecraft is back on, with scientists once again hoping they can harness the energy of light to power a ship through space despite earlier failures. The Planetary Society recently announced plans to build a solar sail craft by the end of 2010, thanks to a $1 million anonymous donation made to the Pasadena, Calif.-based organization to reignite the project. "This was an enabling donation, there's no doubt," said Bruce Betts, Planetary Society director of projects. "We've been continuing to think and do studies, but we didn't have the funding in place to...

MOSCOW (AFP) – A Soyuz rocket carrying a new Russian-made module for the International Space Station blasted off on Tuesday from the Baikonur space base in Kazakhstan, television pictures showed. The Poisk (Search) module, also known as the Mini-Research Module 2, will provide additional facilities for scientific experiments aboard the orbiting space station, Russia's space agency said in a statement.

About a year from now, if all goes well, a box about the size of a loaf of bread will pop out of a rocket some 500 miles above the Earth. There in the vacuum it will unfurl four triangular sails as shiny as moonlight and only barely more substantial. Then it will slowly rise on a sunbeam and move across the stars. ... In principle, a solar sail can do anything a regular sail can do, like tacking.

As a child, I marveled at America's first flea-hops into space. I was 10 when Alan Shepard orbited the Earth in 1961, and I had just graduated high school when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in the summer of 1969. I grew up juggling those technological triumphs with political assassinations, watching the first “reality television” through a black-and-white porthole in our living room. President Kennedy pushed us into space before his rendezvous with Lee Harvey Oswald in '63, and both Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King died in the spring of '68, when the moon loomed largest in our...

Several high-priority and high-priced satellites crucial to U.S. national security are slated to launch over the next 15 to 18 months, according to Bruce Carlson, director of the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). During a keynote address here at the Strategic Space Symposium, Carlson did not provide details of the upcoming missions. Most of the NRO’s satellite programs are classified. Carlson noted the launches to make the point that the NRO continues to perform its mission despite having had its struggles in recent years. But Carlson also said the NRO has suffered a steep decline in its research and development...

Scene 1: The White House Rose Garden. The President of the United States is standing before a crowd of amateur astronomers, students and teachers, with his science adviser by his side. In front of him: a telescope. The president bends down and presses his eye to the eyepiece. Flashbulbs pop. Scene 2: Kennedy Space Center. The Ares 1-X rocket sits on the launch pad, ready for its first test flight. More than 300-feet tall but fewer than 20 feet in diameter, it looks as precarious as a flying chopstick, but tomorrow's astronauts might ride a rocket like this one to...

The Obama adminstration must react responsibly to China’s declaration that military operations in space are inevitable, a top China expert says. “How will the US react to Chinese diplomatic efforts in light of the PLA’s blunt statements on space warfare? This is something the Obama administration has to take into account,” said Dean Cheng, China specialist at Washington’s Heritage Foundation. “Are we going to see outrage, any meaningful reactions to the Chinese statements or again that it was someone speaking out of school and we just aren’t sure.” Cheng was referring to what appears to mark a major shift...

Why Evolutionary-Based Science Is A Menace To Scientific Research, Discovery, and Progress Evolutionary-based research always begins with the inaccurate and unscientific presupposition that the Theory of Evolution, i.e. the Big Bang, the spontaneous generation of life, and common descent, is true. Due to this systemic problem, scientific discovery and progress is severely hampered, not to mention the hundreds of millions of research dollars that are squandered every year. In a time in which almost ANY alternative thought is given a platform, the evolution industry is silencing dissenting scientific evidence, even when it’s from fellow evolutionists! See the growing list of...

A California-based team of engineers has snagged a $1 million NASA prize by winning a pitched competition to fly homemade rockets on mock moon landing missions. Masten Space Systems of Mojave, Calif., successfully flew its rocket Xoie (pronounced Zoey) twice within a set time limit to qualify for the top Level 2 prize in the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge, a NASA-sponsored contest to build mock lunar landers.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military needs to deepen dialogue with China to better understand the intent of its space programs, a U.S. general said on Tuesday, after a Chinese commander announced plans to develop offensive military capabilities in space. General Kevin Chilton, head of the Pentagon's Strategic Command which coordinates U.S. military operations in space, said China-watchers had been "absolutely amazed" by the country's advances in its space programs over the past decade.

PANNITHITTU, India -- In this seaside village, the children of farmers and fishermen aspire to become something that their impoverished parents never thought possible: astronauts.

Nov. 3, 2009 -- Aluminum and water is usually a boring combination, but light a mixture of nanoaluminum and ice and the results are explosive. Scientists from Purdue University have created a new, environmentally friendly solid rocket fuel that recently sent a rocket screaming 1300 feet into the air using seven inches of nanoaluminum and ice. The new fuel could power missions to the moon or Mars while dramatically reducing the amount of on-board fuel.

Space explorers have yet to get their hands on the replicator of "Star Trek" to create anything they might require. But NASA has developed a technology that could enable lunar colonists to carry out on-site manufacturing on the moon, or allow future astronauts to create critical spare parts during the long trip to Mars.

Virgin Galactic's proposed LauncherOne rocket may orbit a new mini satellite designed specifically for the launch vehicle to increase the payload's useful mass for power, propulsion or instruments. In conventional rockets adaptors integrate a spacecraft with the launcher but that means useful payload mass is reduced. A decision about a LauncherOne specific satellite could come following internal studies or Virgin Galactic's expected mid-2010 request for industry proposals.

Just days after $1.65 million was won in a NASA-backed rocket contest, it looks as if big money will be awarded in the $2 million Power Beaming Challenge as well. Like the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge, the Power Beaming Challenge is part of NASA's Centennial Challenges, a program aimed at encouraging new technologies that could be adopted by the space agency for future exploration. This particular competition could eventually lay the groundwork for future space elevators - but power-beaming technology is likely to be put to work even if those space elevators are never built.

Peter Diamandis, CEO of the X Prize Foundation, wants to use our competitive instincts to make the world a better place. After handing out $10 million to the first private team to achieve suborbital space flight, he's extended his X-prize concept into earthly realms such as automotive engineering, genomics and health care. And while he still sends billionaires to the International Space Station as managing director of the firm Space Adventures, he's lately teamed up with futurist Ray Kurzweil to create the Singularity University, where young entrepreneurs are trained to think about global issues. Ivan Semeniuk spoke with Diamandis about...

The Obama adminstration must react responsibly to China’s declaration that military operations in space are inevitable, a top China expert says. “How will the US react to Chinese diplomatic efforts in light of the PLA’s blunt statements on space warfare? This is something the Obama administration has to take into account,” said Dean Cheng, China specialist at Washington’s Heritage Foundation. “Are we going to see outrage, any meaningful reactions to the Chinese statements or again that it was someone speaking out of school and we just aren’t sure.”

When scientists search the heavens for habitable worlds beyond Earth, they don't necessarily know what to look for. A new study has found that the most probable place to find intelligent life in the galaxy is around stars with roughly the mass of the sun, and surface temperatures between 5,300 and 6,000 Kelvin (9,100 and 10,300 degrees Fahrenheit) - in fact, stars very similar to our own sun.

Pull me up, Scotty. At least one team has qualified for part of a $2 million prize up for grabs in this year's Space Elevator Games, a NASA-sponsored contest to build machines that can climb a cable in the sky – precursors for a futuristic transit system to space. On Wednesday, an entry by the Washington state-based team LaserMotive climbed a 3,000-foot (900-meter) tether suspended by a helicopter at a speed of about 8 mph (13 kph). The feat was the best performance yet of a miniature space elevator prototype, though still a long shot away from what would be...

NASA's Constellation Program has recommended dropping a planned follow-on to last week's successful Ares I-X flight-test because it doesn't have the funding necessary to get an upper stage engine ready in time. Instead, the Ares I-X engineering team will study the costs and benefits of going ahead with a 2012 launch previously dubbed "Ares I-X prime" that would flight-test a full five-segment Ares I solid-fuel first stage and the Orion crew exploration vehicle launch abort system at high altitude, according to Constellation Program Manager Jeff Hanley. Hanley said on Nov. 3 he has recommended to NASA headquarters that the Ares...

The U.S. military said on Tuesday it is now tracking 800 maneuverable satellites on a daily basis for possible collisions and expects to add 500 more non-maneuvering satellites by year's end. The U.S. Air Force began upgrading its ability to predict possible collisions in space after a dead Russian military communications satellite and a commercial U.S. satellite owned by Iridium collided on Feb. 10. General Kevin Chilton, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, called the collision the "seminal event" in the satellite industry during the past year and said it destroyed any sense that space was so vast that collisions were...