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Monday, October 3, 2005 NASA Propulsion Strategy Reaches Back While Looking Ahead By Brian Berger Space News Staff Writer The initial propulsion work in support of NASA's bid to return to the Moon and go on to Mars will focus primarily on adapting space shuttle systems and developing methane-fueled engines, a technology with which the United States has little experience. The space shuttle main engine and solid rocket boosters are the basis for two new launchers NASA intends to develop, one for lofting an astronaut-carrying capsule known as the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), and a heavy lifter for Moon-bound cargo...

Sands dunes on Mars imaged by MGS (Nasa) Sands dunes: Another part of the water story on Mars Scientists have found evidence that large amounts of water-ice hide within massive sand dunes on Mars. One of the dunes, which spans 6.5km and rises 475m above the Martian surface, may be the single largest sand dune in the entire Solar System. The icy dunes could be a valuable resource for any future manned missions to the planet, said Dr Mary Bourke. The researcher presented her results to a science conference in Dublin. "If you're looking for a source of water...

LOS ANGELES - From a lofty perch atop a Martian hill, NASA's Spirit rover has been soaking in a commanding view of a vast horizon since completing a difficult climb to the summit late last month. On Thursday, scientists released the first full-color panoramic picture of the landscape taken by the rover from its lookout point, showing the rover's tracks in the dust, flat plains of the surrounding Gusev Crater region, rugged terrain dubbed "the geologic promised land" by one scientist, distant plateaus on the crater rim and more hills. The solar-powered Spirit's yearlong ascent to the peak of Husband...

Posted By: Rob_Booth | Write the Editors | Permalink.. In today's Chronicle, Gebe Martinez mentions Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee's participation in the Democrats' objection to certifying the presidential election results. "The Senate voted 74-1 to uphold the election results, with Boxer casting the lone dissenting vote. The House voted 267-31. Jackson Lee and Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Dallas were the only two Texas Democrats to support the election challenge." He didn't mention this gem of a quote from Rep. Jackson Lee during the proceedings: "I came here as a slave, and I deserve to vote." For someone old enough...

I once thought that worrying about what we should broadcast to extraterrestrials made as much sense as fretting over the small talk I’d venture with King Carl XVI Gustaf if I won the Nobel Prize. I reckoned there was no need to dwell on the problem, as it was both hypothetical and irrelevant.

BOISE - UFOs are showing a keen interest in our nuclear weapons facilities, says investigator Robert Hastings, who has spent countless hours analyzing documents dealing with UFO sightings at nuclear missile launch sites and research labs in the United States over the past several decades. "You have reference to these objects hovering, racing away at blinding speed," he told Idaho 2 News. "There is no evidence we have an aircraft that can do that or anyone else on earth." Hastings, who has devoted countless hours researching UFOs and the U.S. government's reaction to them, was in Boise for a lecture...

GLYNDON, Md. -- The mystery may be over as one of the creatures roaming through central Maryland was finally captured on Saturday. According to the veterinarians at Falls Road Animal Hospital, the animal was a male red fox. However, Dr. Michael Herko -- a vet at the animal hospital -- and the man who caught the fox say it is not the mysterious creature videotaped in July, but a relative. Jay Wroe set a trap in his back yard after videotaping an animal that was roaming around. It was an animal he could not immediately identify. The humane trap paid...

It may be a work of art. It may have some more useful purpose. Or maybe it's some combination of the two. But Dwayne Romine would like to know for sure. He and his 12-year-old son, Greg, were looking for deer tracks on some family property near Indianola recently when the older Romine spotted something a little unusual in the ground. "I said 'look at that, a piece of rusted metal'," he recalled. "Greg said, 'Naw, that's just an old tree branch,' but I said 'No it's not.' "Sure enough, when we pulled it up, it was metal." That alone...

Today, Monday, 10-18-04, 2:21 EDT, I'm checking the latest political news and when I stop on MSNBC, I see Kerry in Florida and he has a decidedly greenish cast to his hair, his suit, so much so that I wonder if my color adjustment on my television has mis-cued (sorry, about the non-pun) -- and I switch to CNN, which is running the exact same scene of a green-hued Kerry among his devotees, on the campaign stump. All the other newscasts, including our local stations, showed the same brilliant green hue, from top to bottom. Green hair, green tie, green...

NASA Will Risk Sending One Rover Into Deep Martian Crater The Associated Press June 4, 2004 PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - NASA's Mars rover Opportunity will be sent into a big crater that could offer clues to the planet's history of water, despite the risk that the craft may not be able to get out, the space agency said Friday. The potential scientific value of exploring Endurance Crater outweighs the risk that the six-wheeled rover may not be able to drive back up its inner slope, mission officials said. The decision was made after extensive study of the impact crater as...

Opportunity Rover Fails to Dent Martian Rock; Scientists to Run Tests Mar 7, 2004 By Gillian Flaccus/ Associated Press Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) - Scientists planned to run tests on the rover Opportunity after it failed to grind a hole in Martian rock on Sunday, NASA officials said. The rover tried, unsuccessfully, to use one of its many tools to grind away at an outcropping dubbed "Flat Rock," NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement on its Web site. Scientists hope to learn more about the rock's chemical composition from scrapings off of its exterior. Tests on the rover...

On Tuesday, NASA administrators said scientists have concluded the part of Mars being explored by the rover Opportunity was soaking wet in the past. Evidence that Opportunity found in a rock outcropping led scientists to the conclusion, NASA officials said. Christensen and a team of ASU researchers designed and built thermal emission spectrometers that are on two craft orbiting Mars and on the rovers. The spectrometers identify minerals by examining the light spectrum they emit and comparing that with the spectrum emitted by known minerals. Last spring, Christensen said that spectrometer readings from an orbiter indicated the presence of the...

PASADENA, Calif. - The Opportunity rover turned its panoramic gaze on the horizon and captured a dusty blue sunset at the end of its 20th day on Mars. The six-wheeled robot snapped photographs not for the sake of beauty, but because scientists want to learn about the properties of dust in the atmosphere. "It's pretty cool," pancam lead scientist Jim Bell said Thursday at NASA (news - web sites)'s Jet Propulsion Library as he showed a movie made from images recorded about three minutes apart. A bluish tint and rapid dimming of the sun at the horizon were caused by...

Spirit has 'brief outing' on Martian surface January 15 2004 at 12:39PM By Reuters By Steve Gorman Pasadena - Nasa scientists sent the robotic rover Spirit out for its first spin on Martian soil on Thursday, commanding the six-wheeled vehicle to roll off its landing platform 12 days after it arrived on the Red Planet. Radio signals instructing Spirit to make its initial excursion were beamed to Mars at 8.30am and confirmation that the rover had ventured onto the planet's surface came with a return transmission about an hour and 40 minutes afterward. Moments later, mission controllers received the first...

Nasa's Martian rover nearly ready to roll By Roger Highfield, Science Editor (Filed: 13/01/2004) Nasa scientists are readying the Spirit rover to roll down a ramp on to Gusev Crater after a delay in its mission to find evidence of water on Mars. Engineers scrapped plans for a forward roll off after they were unable to retract partially-deployed airbags that could have snagged on Spirit's solar panels. They will now turn the rover 120 degrees atop the lander, a process that will take two Martian days. Mission control in Pasadena, California, delayed the rover's departure by one day, until Thursday...

<p>The surface of Mars is scoured by dust storms of biblical immensity -- dust storms that could make life rough, even risky, for the first astronauts who visit the fourth planet from the sun.</p> <p>Now that President Bush wants to send Americans to Mars, NASA planners are likely to launch careful studies of the potential hazards of the Red Planet.</p>

Rover Ready to Roll Onto Martian Surface By ANDREW BRIDGES, AP Science Writer PASADENA, Calif. - NASA 's Spirit rover has fully unfolded itself and stretched up to its full 4-foot, 11-inch height, making it ready to drive off the lander that delivered it to Mars, the space agency said. The rover could reach the martian surface as early as Wednesday morning. "It now stands at full height and all six wheels are in their final position," mission manager Jennifer Trosper said during a news conference at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Saturday. The unfolding was one of the most...

The first ever picture of the Earth taken from the Red Planet has been obtained by the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft. This is our world as the Martians would see it. Earth and its Moon as seen from the Red Planet Distant Earth is blue and beautiful against the deep darkness of space. The Moon is close by. It is another reminder of our smallness against the vastness of the cosmos. A mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam, as Carl Sagan once put it. It is not the first time that the Earth-Moon system has been photographed from...

Astronomy Picture of the DayDiscover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 March 29 The Shadow of Phobos Credit: Malin Space Science Systems, MGS, JPL, NASA Explanation: Hurtling through space above the Red Planet, potato-shaped Phobos completes an orbit of Mars in less than eight hours. In fact, since its orbital period is shorter than the planet's rotation period, Mars-based observers see Phobos rise in the west and set in the east - traveling from horizon to horizon in about...