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20 July 2009
Carnival of Space #112: Apollo's 40th Anniversary!
Today is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing! I will have more to say about this later, but for now, let me direct you to this week’s Carnival of Space over at ‘Out of the Cradle’. There are also some great sites celebrating this anniversary, including: NASA (duh), “We Choose the Moon“, a very cool site that shows the events of the mission and lots of other …
17 July 2009
LRO Images of Apollo Landing Sites!
Just in time for the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) team have released images of the Apollo landing sites. These pictures show the lower half of the Lunar Module (LM), the scientific instruments left on the surface, and even the tracks where the astronauts walked! Awesome. Of course, the moon hoax believers will not be convinced by this photographic evidence that humans have walked …
6 July 2009
Student Questions about Mars Exploration
A few months ago, a class of 6th graders at JFK Middle School in Hudson, MA contacted the astronomy department at Cornell. They were doing an egg-drop project, modeled after the Mars rovers, and their teacher had them each write questions to Steve Squyres about the rover mission. Steve was out of town (and is always extremely busy), but he suggested that many of the questions could be answered by …
4 July 2009
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter: at the Moon and Returning Data!
I was completely delinquent about reporting this due to the craziness that was my June, but the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter launched on June 18 and has arrived at the moon and is already returning data. As a Mars scientist that is amazing to me. If it were a Mars probe, there would be ~7 months between launch and orbital insertion, but with the moon, it only takes a few days. …
28 June 2009
Buzz Says: Aim for Mars
Buzz Aldrin, of walking-on-the-freakin’-moon fame recently wrote an editorial for CNN about the future of NASA. I’ll let you follow this link to the full article, but here are a couple of excerpts: More than just exploring a hostile new world, Apollo 11 was about bold vision and great risk, about the obstacles a great nation could overcome with dedication, courage and teamwork. It was about choosing a goal that …
1 June 2009
How to get Mars funding
On a related note, my fellowship, which involves vaporizing rocks with a high-powered laser, was renewed last month. (Click for the full comic)
27 May 2009
MSL is a Curiosity
Well, it looks like the next-generation rover that will be launching to Mars in 2011 (and happens to be the focal point of my PhD thesis) just got a name! Before today it was referred to as the Mars Science Laboratory or ‘MSL‘. But now it will go by the name Curiosity! The name comes from a short essay written by 12-year-old Clara Ma: Curiosity is an everlasting flame that …
21 May 2009
Hubble Servicing Mission Pictures
Last weekend, NASA astronauts rendezvoused with the Hubble space telescope and repaired and upgraded the observatory in a series of five extremely challenging spacewalks. Their mission is now accomplished, Hubble has been set free to continue orbiting and doing cutting edge science, and the shuttle will be landing tomorrow morning. On Monday, the Big Picture had an awesome series of photos of the launch and the mission. And if that’s …
18 May 2009
Weird Rover Prototypes
Last week when the news about Spirit being stuck in the sand came out, my friend Lisa Grossman, a science writing intern at Wired, contacted me to see if I had any ideas for a fresh angle on the story rather than just repeating the press release. I suggested that she check out some of the awesome rover prototypes that JPL is working on and find out how future rovers …
14 May 2009
The Problem with NASA TV
I have a problem with NASA TV: it’s boring! This has been a pet-peeve of mine for quite a while, but with all of the excitement about the current Hubble repair mission, I have been reminded just how bad NASA TV is. Think about it. Right now, as I write this, the astronauts are suiting up and preparing for a spacewalk to begin repairing the Hubble space telescope. They are …
