“SpaceX will soon attempt to launch a craft into orbit and dock it with the International Space Station, a first for a private company. Success could alter how the U.S. runs missions.”
- post submitted by Ariel Waldman
Dark alien planet discovered by NASA
Scientists are unsure why the planet is blacker than coal, but believe it could be a chemical they ‘haven’t even thought of yet.’
Don’t Get Neil deGrasse Tyson Started About the Un-Science-y Politicians Who Are Killing America’s Dreams
As we’ve learned time and time again, when you need to hear someone kvetch hard about the state of science in this country, point your radio telescopes at Hayden Planetarium head Neil deGrasse. In the midst of the debt debacle, he responds to Bill Maher’s question about Washington’s possible assassination of the James Webb Space Telescope with a ranty explanation of how Congress is mortgaging the futuristic dreams Americans used to have. He ends with a good question: How far can science go in Washington when so few Congressmen are scientists?
See the full discussion here, and calm your Tyson-ish nerves with this relaxing Carl Sagan video.
Source: motherboard.tv
NASA is awarding $100,000 one-year grants to 30 teams for out-of-this-world ideas ranging from new kinds of spacesuits to quantum communication and space solar power.
The awards were announced today under the auspices of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program, or NIAC. The space agency said the concepts were chosen on the basis of their potential for enhancing future space missions.
“Cuts to NASA’s astrophysics division would see it fall from being the highest-funded science division (2008) to one of the least funded in the agency (2012).”
(via Alasdair Allan via NASA Astrophysics: It Really Is This Bad | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine)
Source: blogs.discovermagazine.com
“Fact is, with the competition of the Shuttle out of the way, NewSpace, as the burgeoning commercial space flight industry is sometimes known, is number one on the runway, and there’s no good reason to assume that it will fail. SpaceX became the first private company to launch and then recover a spacecraft from orbit last year, and is on track to begin cargo deliveries to the International Space Station this year. Certainly it’s not fair to say that America has no plan in space. In fact it’s completely inaccurate.”
Effort to begin planning around building a lunar settlement.
“The International Lunar Research Park Exploratory Workshop was held Tuesday 5 April 2011 at the NASA Ames Conference Center. The purpose of the workshop was to gather experts and pioneering thinkers from across the United States to explore innovative opportunities to enhance multinational collaboration in the exploration and development of space.”
As the group says, “this is not about the Moon, this is about the Future”
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