Editors' Picks
What the astronauts really said
Apollo "onboard voice" recordings captured the moon astronauts' conversations -- cussing and all -- when no one else was listening.
Drones for Hire
The newest eyes in the sky are drawing the attention of power companies, conservation groups, and the ACLU.
Five Reasons to Like NASA’s Asteroid Retrieval Mission
So it's not the Moon or Mars. Get over it.
The Invention of Flight
Inventors, dreamers, daredevils, charlatans: Aviation's early years had them all.
Disaster at Xichang
An eyewitness speaks publicly for the first time about history’s worst launch accident.
Page 29 of 51
The Once and Future Moon Blog
Can NASA Get Its Groove Back?
Remember when space exploration was “groovy” and excitement about seeing humans explore the Solar System within our lifetimes was palpable? What happened to NASA and America’s dream to boldly go? The pathway that assured us that space exploration is cool, amazing and pushes excellence has disap...
November 06, 2010
| By Paul D. Spudis
The Once and Future Moon Blog
Permafrost, Snow Cones and Fairy Castles
Although the discovery of ice on the Moon comes from a wide variety of different measurements, they are all “remote sensing.” We have not yet landed near these deposits and examined them up close. Thus, we do not know the physical nature of lunar polar ice. Having spent the last couple of weeks ...
November 06, 2010
| By Paul D. Spudis
The Daily Planet Blog
Air Force Drones Cut to Wide Angle
U.S. Air Force drones that serve as the aerial eyes of American combat troops in Afghanistan are about to widen their view.A multi-camera system called "Gorgon Stare" (named for the Medusa's deadly gaze, which turns onlookers to stone) will be installed on unmanned Reaper aircraft and deployed t...
November 05, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Daily Planet Blog
Close-Ups of Hartley 2
The first close-up photos of Comet Hartley 2 came in this morning from NASA's Epoxi spacecraft. Dramatic!
November 04, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Daily Planet Blog
A Piece of Lafayette Escadrille History
On November 15, 2010, Bonhams & Butterfields in San Francisco will auction this dark grey-green canvas fuselage insignia panel from a Spad VII flown by the Lafayette Escadrille, featuring the familiar Indian-head insignia. The panel, says the company's press release, was collected by Sergeant E...
November 03, 2010
| By Rebecca Maksel
The Daily Planet Blog
Too Many Astronauts?
As the space shuttle program winds down, an obvious question faces NASA: How many astronauts will it need in an era of drastically reduced flights? Only three Americans live on the space station at any one time, typically, and those slots come open just twice a year. As for a moon base or Mars miss...
November 01, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Daily Planet Blog
Data Clippers
Now this is a charming idea, and maybe a handy one too – fleets of solar sails delivering pictures of distant worlds back to the home planet.Data is a valuable commodity in the Information Age, just as spices and silk were in centuries past. So Joel Poncy and his team at Thales Alenia Space have im...
October 28, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Daily Planet Blog
Aboriginal Astronomers Saw Stellar Blowup in 1843
The idea that ancient cultures were keen observers of the night sky is neither surprising nor new: think of the Druids, the Mayans, and the Babylonians. But most examples from the annals of archaeoastronomy seem to come from the northern hemisphere.Now a team of researchers from Macquarie Universit...
October 26, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Daily Planet Blog
The Autobots Are Coming!
The defense research agency DARPA recently selected six companies to participate in a year-long program to transform a Humvee-like vehicle into an aircraft. Lockheed Martin and AAI Corporation are asked to supply something that can “avoid traditional and asymmetrical threats while avoiding road ...
October 25, 2010
| By Rebecca Maksel
The Once and Future Moon Blog
Strange Lunar Brew
A year ago, the LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite) mission team announced the detection of water in the impact plume produced after the Centaur separated from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and crashed into the Moon. We now have more detailed information on the water a...
October 22, 2010
| By Paul D. Spudis
The Daily Planet Blog
The Nedelin Disaster
There's some justice in the fact that the worst rocket accident in history, which happened 50 years ago today, is remembered by the name of the man who caused it.Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin was an ambitious military leader who rose to command the Soviet Union's Strategic Missile Forces during the Cold...
October 22, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Daily Planet Blog
Magellans of the Air
On September 28, 1924, crowds cheered and sirens shrieked as the Army Service pilots known as "the Magellans of the Air" landed at Sand Point Field in Seattle, Washington, after completing the first round-the-world flight.They had set off on April 6, some six months earlier, determined to circumnav...
October 21, 2010
| By Rebecca Maksel
The Daily Planet Blog
For Sale: Potential Speed
Project 100 Communications is selling the car that Steve Fossett had hoped would set a land speed record. "Over $4 million is invested in this project," says the sales brochure, which translates: No aluminum wheel kickers.The vehicle is based on racing legend Craig Breedlove's late 1990s Spirit of ...
October 20, 2010
| By Pat Trenner
The Daily Planet Blog
Alberto's Big Race
As prizes go, this was a big one. In 1901, French oil tycoon and aviation patron Henry Deutsch de la Meurthe put up 100,000 francs (equivalent to more than $500,000 today) for the first airman who could fly a 7-mile circuit starting from a park in Paris, rounding the Eiffel Tower, then returning to...
October 19, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Daily Planet Blog
A Graphic Reminder of Cost
Two years ago, we ran a web article about a small band of software developers, model rocket builders, and anonymous NASA space shuttle engineers who were pitting a pair of alternative launch vehicle ideas against NASA's Ares rockets developed for the now-canceled Constellation program. These altern...
October 18, 2010
| By Mike Klesius
The Daily Planet Blog
Top Gun 2.0?
The Hollywood grapevine and other gossip networks are all atwitter over the news that Paramount Pictures is reportedly in talks with producer Jerry "Blow It Up" Bruckheimer and director Tony Scott about a sequel to their 1986 movie, "Top Gun," which made a megastar of the Grumman F-14 (and some o...
October 15, 2010
| By Pat Trenner
The Daily Planet Blog
Red Bull Jump Takes Giant Step Backward
On Tuesday, the energy drink giant Red Bull said it was postponing its Stratos effort, in which Felix Baumgartener will try to break Joe Kittinger's 1960 free-fall record, until a lawsuit is settled. Courthouse News Service reported in April that Daniel Hogan was suing Red Bull for stealing his Spa...
October 14, 2010
| By Pat Trenner
The Daily Planet Blog
You've Got (Balloon) Mail
In September 1870, not long after the start of the Franco-Prussian War, the city of Paris was under siege by Prussian soldiers. By the 19th, the German army had blocked all communication into or out of the city. There was nothing worse, wrote French journalist Francisque Sarcey, than to "live cut o...
October 13, 2010
| By Rebecca Maksel
The Daily Planet Blog
First Flight for VSS Enterprise
Virgin Galactic's suborbital spaceship, the VSS Enterprise, made its first piloted free flight and landing yesterday in Mojave, California. Pete Siebold was at the controls.
October 11, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Daily Planet Blog
Cornucopia of Data
With the chill of fall in the air it's that time of year when we're reminded of turning leaves, football, and the fact that the known universe looks like a Thanksgiving cornucopia.Cosmologists have come up with this graphic to convey how the universe formed, expanded, cooled, and, more recently (on...
October 08, 2010
| By Mike Klesius
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Air & Space Videos
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X-47B Carrier LaunchAn unpiloted combat aircraft takes off from an aircraft carrier for the first time. |
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SpaceShipTwo Fires UpVirgin Galactic sends its edge-of-space ship past Mach 1. |
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How to Bag an AsteroidNASA's plan to retrieve an asteroid and bring it (close to) home. |
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The Mach-2 Bomber That Never WasBritain's TSR-2 bomber makes its first test flight in 1964. |
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Need to Know
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Why do NASA launch times depend on lighting conditions?It's all about the solar beta angle. |
Air & Space Interview
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Bobby BraunNASA's outgoing Chief Technologist talks about what's in the R&D pipeline |
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