space exploration

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NASA Deploys Mars Probe's Robotic Arm

Radio glitch delays plan by 1 day

(Newser) - NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander extended its robotic arm for the first time late last night, the AP reports, a day late because of a temporary radio blackout. The arm, which will unfurl over a 2-day period, will eventually be used to take samples of ice below the surface in...

$4M NASA Cut May Strand Mars Rover

Shrinking budget could also leave 300 jobless

(Newser) - NASA confirmed and denied plans today to scuttle a Mars rover and fire 300 employees, CNN reports. The space agency first announced a $4 million cut to the Mars program's $20 million budget and vowed to unplug one of two rovers roaming the red planet. Then a NASA spokesman told...

Want Oil? Try Saturn's Titan
Want Oil? Try Saturn's Titan

Want Oil? Try Saturn's Titan

Moon has hundreds of times more oil and natural gas than Earth

(Newser) - Titan, one of Saturn's dozens of moons, has supplies of natural gas and liquid hydrocarbons hundreds of times greater than Earth’s oil reserves, Space.com reports. The unmanned Cassini spacecraft has mapped only 20% of Titan’s surface with radar, and has already discovered dozens of bodies of hydrocarbon...

OMG! Bigfoot on Mars! Run!
OMG! Bigfoot on Mars! Run!

OMG! Bigfoot on Mars! Run!

This just might be what jump-starts interest in space exploration again

(Newser) - After nearly four years of important discoveries, it has taken a tiny rock outcropping that looks like Bigfoot to make people passionate about the Mars rovers, the Telegraph reports. Conspiracy theorists are sure a photo snapped in 2004 reveals an alien, or perhaps a creature like Sasquatch. "I couldn’...

Branson Unveils SpaceShipTwo
Branson Unveils SpaceShipTwo

Branson Unveils SpaceShipTwo

Double-hulled plane will carry rocket to high altitude

(Newser) - Richard Branson has unveiled the ship that will carry paying passengers to space. Slightly different from its original prototype, SpaceShipTwo will be carried to high altitude by a double-hulled plane called White Knight, where the rocket will then separate and launch. Branson's Virgin Galactic startup hopes to start test flights...

Evolution Coming to Space Race
Evolution Coming to Space Race

Evolution Coming to Space Race

Engineers apply natural-selection algorithm to flight paths for spacecraft

(Newser) - Engineers have devised a way of coming up with flight paths for space missions by using the laws of natural selection, Space.com reports. An algorithm called "differential evolution" treats different paths as individual organisms, which then "mutate," and the best solutions survive to the next generation....

NASA to Boost Brits to the Moon
NASA to Boost Brits to the Moon

NASA to Boost Brits to the Moon

British moon probe plans to get the agency's backing

(Newser) - NASA is likely to help Britain send a probe to the moon by 2012, reports the BBC. A study found that the British "Moonlite" proposal fit a gap in NASA's plans. The project will fire darts from an unmanned probe into the moon's surface to discover what lies beneath....

Asian Space Race Stirs Friction, Pride

Moon shots spark suspicion about military plans in space

(Newser) - With China, India and Japan all launching civilian moon missions, the Christian Science Monitor examines the  Asian space race, driven by what one expert calls "techno-nationalism."  They "generate pride domestically and they demonstrate prowess internationally," but they're also inflaming security concerns and suspicions, as all...

China Launches 1st Lunar Probe
China Launches 1st Lunar Probe

China Launches 1st Lunar Probe

Plans to land astronaut on lunar surface by 2020

(Newser) - China launched its first lunar mission today, beginning its gambit to be the third country to put a man in space. The Chang'e-I probe fired into space unmanned, but the lunar orbiter should earn China’s space program respect—and lucrative contracts, Bloomberg reports. China next plans to land a...

Japan Sets Its Sights on the Moon
Japan Sets
Its Sights
on the Moon

Japan Sets Its Sights on the Moon

China, India lead race to put unmanned craft on lunar surface

(Newser) - Japan is officially joining the ranks of countries intent on lunar exploration. The country plans to land an unmanned rover on the lunar surface "in the middle of the 2010s," a government official announced today. China and India have already announced plans to place a spacecraft on the...

50 Highs and Lows Since Sputnik
50 Highs and Lows Since Sputnik

50 Highs and Lows Since Sputnik

Time counts down the top moments in space exploration

(Newser) - Since Sputnik’s launch, space exploration has gone through some dizzying highs and tragic lows. Time recounts the top moments, replete with triumphs like John Glenn’s first earth orbit, tragic lows like the death of the Apollo 1 crew, and the many missteps in between – like the Soviets...

Hidden Galaxies Come to Light
Hidden Galaxies Come to Light

Hidden Galaxies Come to Light

Scientists discover star systems obscured by quasars

(Newser) - Astronomers have added 14 “invisible galaxies” to their map of the heavens, thanks to an imaginative breakthrough and a massive telescope. Researchers realized that some galaxies might be hidden by the bright lights of quasars behind them, so they scanned quasar data for “dips” where those lights might...

Mars Rover Steps Into Crater
Mars Rover Steps Into Crater

Mars Rover Steps Into Crater

NASA vehicle got second chance, after withstanding a two-month dust storm

(Newser) - The dust has finally settled on Mars, and NASA's Mars rover Opportunity took its first steps Tuesday 13 feet into the half-mile-wide Victoria Crater—and then backed out after slipping beyond acceptable levels. With Opportunity's six wheels perched over the lip of the crater, researchers paused the operation in order...

Russia Shoots For the Moon
Russia Shoots For the Moon

Russia Shoots For the Moon

Cash-strapped space agency aims to send a man to the moon by 2025

(Newser) - Russia has announced a plan to put a man (or woman) on the moon by 2025, reports ABC. The cash-strapped Russian space agency also plans a permanent moon base and a Mars mission. "The Russians have some big ideas, but their space program is coming up slowly from being...

NASA Eyes Endeavor Damage
NASA Eyes Endeavor Damage

NASA Eyes Endeavor Damage

Engineers say ice chunk hit shuttle's underbelly, could endanger re-entry

(Newser) - Endeavour's astronauts finished their first spacewalk today by installing a 2-ton beam on the back of the international space station, the AP reports. Meanwhile NASA engineers inspected troubling images of a gash in shuttle Endeavour’s heat shield caused, they believe, by an ice chunk that flew off the fuel...

US Teacher Headed for Space
US Teacher Headed
for Space

US Teacher Headed for Space

NASA readies educator 21 years after Challenger disaster

(Newser) - NASA is sending another schoolteacher into space, 21 years after the Challenger disaster killed educator Christa McAuliffe. Barbara Morgan, a former Idaho schoolteacher and now a fully trained astronaut, will spend most of the trip transferring cargo to the International Space Station and about six hours on educational pursuits. When...

Robot Geologist Heads to Mars
Robot Geologist Heads to Mars

Robot Geologist Heads to Mars

NASA launches lander with years-long mission to red planet

(Newser) - An unmanned rocket carrying a robotic excavation machine is on its way to Mars following a successful launch from Cape Canaveral this morning. The AP reports that the Phoenix Mars Lander should arrive on Mars in May, 2008, when it will collect and analyze soil and ice in search of...

Europe Seeks Mars Test Volunteers

Wanted: 12 people to live in a mock-up 'spacecraft' for 500 days

(Newser) - The European Space Agency is recruiting 12 volunteers to spend 17 months living and working in a series of interconnected modules that simulate an inter-planetary mission to Mars. The 'spaceship' is 19,250 cubic feet and is located at the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems in Moscow.

Scientists Find Cold Dwarf Star
Scientists Find Cold Dwarf Star

Scientists Find Cold Dwarf Star

Failed star has temperature a tenth of the sun's

(Newser) - Scientists are over the moon with the discovery of a cold brown dwarf in the Cetus constellation. The star-like body, spotted by a British team using the UKIRT telescope in Hawaii, is the coldest of its kind ever seen, the BBC reports, tipping thermometers at just 800 degrees F, a...

China Helps Nigeria Into Space
China Helps Nigeria Into Space

China Helps Nigeria Into Space

Excluded by US, Beijing builds satellites for developing countries

(Newser) - China is launching its own space program, after years of getting a cold shoulder from NASA. Beijing is developing satellite technology for developing nations—the same nations it's looking to for resources to fuel its runaway economic growth, the New York Times notes. Last week saw the launch of a...

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