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 28 of 45
A recent discovery from the Spitzer Space Telescope may yield new insight into the origin of our own Moon. Although this discovery was in the news some time ago, the advent of the Augustine report and the LCROSS mission results have eclipsed it.The Spitzer Telescope found evidence for a planetary ...
December 07, 2009
| By Paul D. Spudis
More than five years ago Burt Rutan made history with SpaceShipOne, the first civilian- built vehicle to reach space. That rocketplane hangs in the Milestones of Flight gallery in the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., alongside Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis, Yeager'...
December 07, 2009
| By Mike Klesius
Back in 2005, the U.S. Congress ordered NASA to survey the skies and locate by 2020 nearly all (90 percent) of potentially Earth-threatening asteroids down to a diameter of 140 meters. Most objects larger than a kilometer have already been tracked. The idea is to extend the search and go after smal...
December 02, 2009
| By Tony Reichhardt
Russian rocket engineers do things a little differently from their American counterparts. They assemble the rocket with the vehicle lying on its side, then hoist it into launch position at the pad (watch a video here).That practice will continue when Soyuz rockets begin launching from the European ...
December 01, 2009
| By Tony Reichhardt
Today's offering is a post-Thanksgiving smorgasbord of stories (okay, I'll stop with the alliteration).
First, a lovely NASA video of an aurora shimmering above Saturn, with commentary by Caltech planetary scientist Andy Ingersoll, who's been exploring the outer solar system since the Pioneer 10 ...
November 30, 2009
| By Tony Reichhardt
NASA is honoring former astronaut Fred Haise on December 2 with their Ambassadors of Exploration Award, given out every few months in recent years to the first generation of explorers who made the moon landings happen.Haise is usually remembered as one of the three astronauts, along with Jim Lovell...
November 25, 2009
| By Mike Klesius
We often hear the Moon described as a lifeless desert, a barren rock in space where nothing can survive. Although the Moon is certainly different from the Earth, it is hardly barren. From the 1970’s through the 1990’s (largely before we knew about the presence of water and other volatiles in the ...
November 22, 2009
| By Paul D. Spudis
We've mentioned cosmonaut Maksim Surayev's blog before, but it really is worth checking out—some of the most entertaining dispatches ever written from orbit.Even his photos have personality, like this one, of his watch floating in front of the space station's window.Here's the link.
November 20, 2009
| By Tony Reichhardt
The launch that saved the world from orbiting laser battle stations.
January 2010
| By Dwayne A. Day and Robert G. Kennedy III
After 2010, the only spaceplane in the U.S. inventory will be the Air Force's mysterious X-37.
January 2010
| By Michael Klesius
Five weeks ago a crater from the LCROSS impact formed on the Moon. The pre-impact build-up had been sensational, but the actual event was largely invisible to observers on Earth. It was a different story on the Moon. The slowly growing impact ejecta curtain threw water ice particles and vapor far...
November 14, 2009
| By Paul D. Spudis
Europe's Rosetta spacecraft took these spectacular views of a crescent Earth last week during its final close fly-by. The first frame starts at a distance of 683,000 miles. The last was taken from 198,000 miles.
November 14, 2009
| By Tony Reichhardt
The history of solar sailing is basically the story of Charlie Brown and the football. It remains a great concept, a technology that could theoretically take us to the stars. But for all their promise, actual solar sail missions tend to end in failure, usually before they even begin, and often thro...
November 13, 2009
| By Tony Reichhardt
Congratulations and apologies are due. The LCROSS team, who endured much grumbling from Internet viewers after last month's crash into the moon failed to produce a big visible plume, is reporting what they say is clear evidence of water in a lunar crater. Not just a thimbleful, either—at least 24 ...
November 13, 2009
| By Tony Reichhardt
You must need patience to work on Europe's Rosetta comet mission. Launched in 2004, the spacecraft won't arrive at its main destination, Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, until 2014. That's longer than New Horizons is taking to get to Pluto. The reason is that it requires a lot of energy to meet up ...
November 12, 2009
| By Tony Reichhardt
NASA's Mars rover prepares to escape the worst trouble of its life.
November 09, 2009
| By Tony Reichhardt
Check out how good the camera technology has gotten for tracking a rocket booster all the way to 150,000 feet and back to the ocean. This high-definition video was taken during NASA's Ares 1-X launch on October 28, 2009, with a gyro-stabilized camera on board a Cessna Skymaster purring along at 12,...
November 10, 2009
| By Mike Klesius
Having settled into a new, lower orbit just 31 miles above the lunar surface, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter recently passed over the Apollo 17 site.We emailed moonwalker Harrison Schmitt, the Apollo 17 lunar module pilot and the only geologist—the only scientist—to have walked on the moon, and a...
November 09, 2009
| By Mike Klesius
What's cool about the universe is that if you stare at nothing long enough, you'll see something big. That's what scientists have done with the Hubble Space Telescope a few times, creating the enchanting Hubble Deep Field images with swarms of galaxies that have opened our eyes to the immensity of ...
October 30, 2009
| By Mike Klesius
Advertisement
Follow Us
 | ||||||
|
|
 |
 |
| ||
Air & Space Videos
|
X-47B Carrier LaunchAn unpiloted combat aircraft takes off from an aircraft carrier for the first time. |
|
SpaceShipTwo Fires UpVirgin Galactic sends its edge-of-space ship past Mach 1. |
|
How to Bag an AsteroidNASA's plan to retrieve an asteroid and bring it (close to) home. |
|
The Mach-2 Bomber That Never WasBritain's TSR-2 bomber makes its first test flight in 1964. |
|
“Earth is Certain to Be Struck”A space station astronaut addresses a U.N. meeting on protecting the planet from rogue rocks. |
View All Videos » |
|
Need to Know
|
Why do NASA launch times depend on lighting conditions?It's all about the solar beta angle. |
Air & Space Interview
|
Bobby BraunNASA's outgoing Chief Technologist talks about what's in the R&D pipeline |
In the Magazine
