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12 March 2009
House Resolution 67
Recognizing and commending the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and Cornell University for the success of the Mars Exploration… (Introduced in House) HRES 67 IH 111th CONGRESS 1st Session H. RES. 67 Recognizing and commending the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and Cornell University for the success of the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, on the 5th …
8 March 2009
MER Calendar!
Check it out! NASA has just released a new calendar with images from the Rovers. It is a 2009-2010 calendar, and spans one mars year (~2 earth years). It is best printed on 11″x17″ paper.
4 March 2009
Help Name the Space Station
Apparently NASA is looking for a name for the next node of the International Space Station, and they have a website where you can cast your vote! Currently “Serenity” is far ahead of the rest of the options, which, I must say, as a fan of the sci-fi show Firefly, is pretty shiny. Whether you’re a sci-fi fan or not, go check out the site and cast your vote!
2 March 2009
The Reasons Behind the MSL Delay
There are a pair of excellent articles in this week’s Space Review by Adrian Brown, looking at the Technical and Budgetary reasons that the Mars Science Lab launch was delayed until 2011. Go take a look; these two essays do a great job of distilling a lot of the relevant information on the launch delay into one place.
27 February 2009
A Glimpse at NASA's future…
…Or at least at the future budget. The fiscal year 2010 budget summary was released by the White House yesterday, and there was a little bit of info about NASA. First and foremost, NASA is getting some more money! A total of $2.4 billion, counting the stimulus also. That in and of itself is refreshing. But also very interesting is how NASA’s budget is divvied up, and what that means …
22 February 2009
First Look at NASA Video Game
Remember when I posted a while ago about NASA’s plans to develop its own Massively Multiplayer Online video game (MMO)? Well, the first glimpses of the game have been made public, and it sounds promising. Some quotes from the article over at Big Download: the goal is to allow gamers to create their own content, including missions and spacecraft, and then share that with others online. “We have access to …
7 February 2009
OpEd: Beyond the Moon
My adviser and Planetary Society President Jim Bell, and founder of the Space Science and Exploration Consulting Group Doug Stetson have an OpEd in the February 3 issue of Space News discussing the Planetary Society’s Roadmap for Space Exploration. The OpEd is a nice summary, though I encourage you to look at the full Roadmap PDF too.
4 February 2009
NASA on the Pancam Spinoff
[email protected] has a nice article about the Mars rover spinoff technology and the awesome inauguration picture that I wrote about before. Go check it out!
2 February 2009
New Google Mars
Google Earth’s latest edition was just released and guess what? It has a Mars setting! There was a way to overlay Mars data on the Earth globe in previous versions, but now that’s no longer necessary: just click a button and you’re on Mars. You can choose from a variety of global maps including topography, Viking images, Day and nighttime infrared, and visible color. It also has footprints for high …
22 January 2009
Mars Methane: the Paper
After all the to-do about the confirmation of methane on Mars and its possible implications, I decided that I should take a look at the actual Science article and post a distillation of it here. The paper that caused this uproar is called “Strong Release of Methane on Mars in Northern Summer 2003”, by Mumma et al. Before this paper, methane had been detected on Mars, maybe. The evidence was …
