Aerospace Science
The study of air and space flight, astronomy and the effect of flight on living organisms
Can we afford to return to the Moon?
We are almost at the end of a year that has seen major changes in our space program. We have in hand a report from a “blue ribbon” Presidential committee that concluded that Project Constellation, the architecture NASA had chosen to implement the Vision for Space Exploration, was not affordable at...
December 21, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
New Light on the Lunar Poles
A new image released this week by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera Team shows the lighting conditions of the south pole of the Moon. This new data supports the conclusions of many previous studies that areas exist on the Moon that are illuminated by the sun for more than one-half the lunar ...
December 17, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Bang Zoom!
Engineers with the Office of Naval Research set a new world record on Friday by firing an electromagnetic railgun "cannon" with an energy of 33 megajoules, or 33 million joules. That would be enough, in an operational system, to shoot a projectile 110 miles from a ship, at speeds up to Mach 5.Here'...
December 13, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
A Founding Father of Lunar Science
I learned that a titan of lunar science passed away last month. Dr. Ralph Belknap Baldwin (1912-2010) was a rare specimen – a gentleman scholar, businessman and pioneering student of the Moon. Beyond the impact of his books and papers, he influenced space history in several profound ways.Baldwin,...
December 04, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Keeping an eye on NASA
Credible rumor has it that NASA has initiated a “lessons learned” postmortem of Project Constellation in order to camouflage their failure to implement the 2004 Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) and to justify their new direction. I had originally intended to expand on the agency’s postmortem pur...
November 21, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Nanosail-D Sets Sail
Update: Successful launch! Follow the mission's progress on Twitter.In this season of solar sailing (Japan's IKAROS is still going strong), another ship is about to leave the harbor.NASA's modest solar sail demonstrator, Nanosail-D, is due to launch tonight on a Minotaur 4 rocket from Alaska. You c...
November 19, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
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
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
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
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
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
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
The Authorized Version
NASA’s new authorization bill (S.3729) was passed by Congress before they cleared out of town and will soon be signed by the President, codifying into law the federal government’s formal abandonment of the Vision for Space Exploration. In its place is a mish-mosh of platitudes, entitlement program...
October 07, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
A Walk Through the Solar System
Scale models of the planets are popping up in cities and parks all over the country.
October 05, 2010 |
By Mark Betancourt
Look Ma! No Glasses!
A geologist uses topographic maps to measure slopes, depths, heights and the general shape of landforms. To aid in reconstructing the depositional and erosional history of a chosen landscape, the geologist needs to study the shape of features in the given area in quantitative detail in order to un...
September 29, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Building bridges
The camera aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft, currently about to begin its second year of mapping the Moon, continues to reveal new and fascinating details of the geology of the Moon. A recent featured image at the LROC web site shows what appears to be a “natural bridge” on th...
September 11, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Duck!
Today, two asteroids pass the Earth at a fairly snug distance. One, 2010 RX30, went by just before 6:00 a.m. EDT about 154,000 miles above the northern Pacific Ocean. That's equivalent to three-fifths the distance to the moon. The other one, 2010 RF12, goes by just after 5:00 p.m. EDT, above Antarc...
September 08, 2010 |
By Mike Klesius
Plymouth Rock: 90 Days in a Minivan
At first I was excited to read press reports of a Lockheed-Martin concept for a bare-bones human asteroid mission, using a pair of Orion capsules yoked together. Finally, a near-term plan! Because the Orion is mostly built, the first "Plymouth Rock" mission could fly as early as 2016, nine years ea...
September 03, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Forbidden Planet
We’ve been to the moon. Mars is easy. But landing on Venus? That’s tough.
September 2010 |
By Sam Kean
The Force Is With Them
What changes the speed of spacecraft flying by Earth?
September 2010 |
By Sam Kean
