You are browsing the archive for NASA.
4 July 2008
Happy 4th!
A little patriotism from Phoenix: And, from the edge of human exploration: It’s the USA’s spirit of exploration and innovation that has gotten us to these distant places, and let’s keep that spirit alive in the years to come!
19 June 2008
House authorizes NASA funding increase over proposed budget
A quick NASA budget update: the House has approved a bill that authorizes a NASA budget of $20.2 billion for the next fiscal year, which is a significant increase over the White House’s proposed budget of $17.8 billion. The bill is likely to make it through the Senate intact as well. An important note: an authorization bill is not the same as actually giving out money. The bill “authorizes” a …
25 May 2008
Phoenix Lands on Mars Today!
I would be a very Bad Martian if I did not mention that the Phoenix lander is arriving at Mars today! In a few hours! I will be hosting a public event at Cornell tonight where we will be watching coverage on NASA TV and an interview with Steve Squyres on CNN. I’m not involved in the Phoenix mission, but it’s pretty exciting nonetheless. Remember, we as humans have only …
16 May 2008
Space exists in your toothpaste.
One of our Nine Good Reasons for Space Exploration that we posted about last month was new technology – NASA programs are constantly pushing technology to its limits, and producing amazing new products in the process! In the post, we linked to a classic list of these so-called “spinoffs”, but NASA has recently put together a slick new way to learn about them. I’m talking about NASA @ Home and …
1 May 2008
NASA Video Game?
Apparently NASA is looking to reach out to the video game generation by developing it’s own Massively Multiplayer Online game (MMO). I think this a fantastic idea – if it’s done well. I’ve played many a video game in my day and I can vouch for their educational potential. I learned loads about ancient and medieval history from the Age of Empires games, and Warcraft and Starcraft taught me more …
16 April 2008
Nine Good Reasons for Space Exploration
Advocates of space exploration often get asked the question: “Why should we spend money on NASA where there are so many problems here on Earth?” Universe Today has been compiling a list of responses to this question by space-bloggers from across the web. Check it out, there are some great answers. In response to Universe Today’s call for answers, we decided to compile a list of our top reasons that …
9 April 2008
Mars Matters!
The Planetary Society recently submitted an invited statement to the House Science and Technology Committee on the NASA 2009 Budget Request. The statement makes some excellent points about the problems with the budget request, specifically regarding the descoping of “The Vision” (now a dirty word at NASA HQ) and the concurrent decrease in Mars funding. I recommend reading the whole thing, but here is my favorite bit specifically about Mars: …
27 March 2008
Spirit's science at Home Plate: SAFE!
With the MER budget scare having blown over, now is a perfect time to reflect on the science at Home Plate – and beyond – that Spirit has yet in store. Rather than vent frustrations about the near-disaster of a 40% funding slash, I’d rather be reminded that we’re lucky – astoundingly lucky – to be operating spacecraft on the surface of another planet. And for Spirit, I think the …
26 March 2008
Why does it cost so much?
We got a question today that I thought I should answer here on the blog so that others who are wondering the same thing can have an answer. The question was: Since the rover is already on Mars and it’s solar powered why does it cost $4 million a year to operate? I’m not doubting it does I just don’t know how projects like this work. Is most of it …
25 March 2008
Rescinded
I don’t have time to write a long post, but I thought I should share the latest about the rover cuts. The NASA administrator Mike Griffin has stated unequivocally that shutting down a rover is not an option. The letter directing the budget cuts to MER and Odyssey has been rescinded, and we are essentially pretending that the last week didn’t happen. There’s still a budget problem with MSL, and …
