Future flights of China’s Shenzhou spaceship will include spacewalks – a prelude to rendezvous and docking in Earth orbit. This artist’s conception provides a cutaway view of the spacecraft’s modules, showing how the trio of Chinese astronauts would be positioned.
“The high cost of space transportation has been the biggest obstacle to the exploration of space [...]
Now that the sun is not constantly above the horizon at our landing site we are generating less power every sol,” said Phoenix project manager Barry Goldstein of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “When we landed in late May, and through much of our mission, we generated about 3,500 watt-hours every sol [or [...]
NASA WATCH
Mike Griffin’s Leaked Email: Is He Falling On His Sword?
Editor’s note: Some of you may recall my posting on 11 March 2005 that Mike Griffin was going to be the next Administrator of NASA. In that posting I recalled an action taken by Griffin during the Space Station Freedom redesign activity [...]
With the change in launching date of NASA’s Hubble Repair Mission and as time approaches, the media is filling the airwaves with questions and concerns on NASA Television. Questions like “are MMODs a major concern” and “why choose a crew member of four instead of two” are approached by the NASA panel regarding the upcoming [...]
At this present time, our government has been completely unable to move on a legislative that would allow NASA to purchase seats for their astronauts on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft past the year 2011. Why, I do not know unless it is because our presence on the International Space Station is not of importance to [...]
Born on September 5, 1908, soon to be one-hundred years ago, one of the fathers of Italian physics and a pioneer in nuclear research, Professor Edoardo Amaldi, died on December 6, 1989 at the age of 81 years of age. Studying under Enrico Fermi, recipient of the Nobel Prize in 1938 for his research on [...]
Alan Stern, project leader for NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto, says the project will not recognize the new IAU definition. “We will continue to refer to Pluto as the ninth planet,” he says on the mission’s website. “I think most of you will agree with that decision and cheer us on.” (following the decision [...]
IAU President Ron Ekers explains the rationale behind a planet definition: “Modern science provides much more knowledge than the simple fact that objects orbiting the Sun appear to move with respect to the background of fixed stars. For example, recent new discoveries have been made of objects in the outer regions of our Solar System [...]
Professor Nalin Chandra Wickramasinghe is considered the world’s leading authority on the “theory of Panspermia” and also known for his contributions toward the “theory of cosmic dust”– stating that life on earth originated in the deepest part of space while traveling on comets and their dust to arrive within our solar system–an individual who was [...]
Albert Einstein once made a statment which said, “The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.” I wonder if he was referring to the fact that a total eclipse is actually seen by such a few people on Earth, mainly because the shadow of the eclipse covers such a tiny bit [...]
