Space Programs
NASA, Soviet and Russian space programs and the International Space Station
No Stimulus Plan for Astronauts
For NASA's flying corps, it looks like 1975 all over again.
February 05, 2010 |
By Matthew Hersch
The Price of Human Spaceflight
So NASA’s Constellation program is dead. No more Ares rockets, no government-funded Orion capsule.With all due respect to the engineers who worked on the program, we’re better off without it.After six years and $9 billion spent, Constellation only managed a single suborbital test launch—of mostly m...
February 04, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Vision Impaired
The release of the new proposed budget for NASA has unleashed a blizzard of news articles and commentary. The administration proposes to terminate Constellation, the agency effort to design and build a new space transportation system to carry people to low Earth orbit and beyond. In its place, th...
February 03, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Live from the Space Station
As reality TV, let's just say it lacks drama. So far I haven't seen a single shouting match. But beginning today, you can watch live as NASA astronauts go about their daily business inside the International Space Station.The "Live From the ISS" link on NASA's space station web page shows you the vi...
February 01, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
No More A-Roving
NASA’s Spirit rover goes into survival mode on Mars.
January 28, 2010 |
By Michael Klesius
Sound Barrier Buster
On August 16, 1960, U.S. Air Force Captain Joe Kittinger stepped out of the gondola of a balloon at 102,800 feet above New Mexico wearing a pressure suit. In the thin air, he accelerated to 614 miles an hour in free fall before denser atmosphere slowed his plunge to a speed that allowed him to open...
January 26, 2010 |
By Mike Klesius
Have We Forgotten What Exploration Means?
Yet again, the U.S. space program is in the slough of despond, whereby previous assumptions are questioned, the current path is discarded, the program is re-directed, and luminous enthusiasm heralds the new direction…And then it all tapers off to nothing.As long as we are navel-gazing during this p...
January 25, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Beyond LEO - Flexible Path Revisited
In an interesting post at Vision Restoration, “Ray” tackles the desultory Flexible Path (FP) architecture of the Augustine committee, which calls for human missions to low gravity destinations and delays missions to the lunar and martian surface. The problems he finds with FP are similar to points...
January 23, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Space Scientists in Training
Planetary scientist Dan Durda was the co-leader of a two-day training course held this week at the National AeroSpace Training and Research (NASTAR) Center for scientists who want to learn the ropes of suborbital spaceflight.Durda sent back these dispatches from the NASTAR center in Pennsylvania.
D...
January 13, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Soviet Star Wars
The launch that saved the world from orbiting laser battle stations.
January 2010 |
By Dwayne A. Day and Robert G. Kennedy III
2009: A Space Oddity
The other day we posted some of Arthur C. Clarke's philosophical words on the fate of human evolution, with the caveat that his predictions were still far into the future.But here's a neat video of astronaut Timothy Kopra on the International Space Station on August 15, 2009, conducting an experime...
December 31, 2009 |
By Mike Klesius
The Search for a Real "Pandora"
In the three years since film director James Cameron wrote the script for his new blockbuster Avatar, a lot has changed in the field of exoplanet research (the study of planets around other stars). Nobody knows this better than one of its leading practitioners, Lisa Kaltenegger of the Harvard-Smith...
December 30, 2009 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Arguing about Human Space Exploration
Hot rumor has it that, like Christmas, the Obama Administration’s response to the Augustine Committee Report, Seeking a Human Space Program Worthy of a Great Nation, is imminent. Much excitement is discernible in the space blogosphere that a major change is at hand.The Augustine Committee report c...
December 16, 2009 |
By Paul D. Spudis
NASA's Bolden on International Cooperation
NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden’s talk at a Women in Aerospace luncheon in Washington D.C. this week is worth watching. Four months into his tenure, Bolden seems as committed as ever to using NASA—and his own example—to push education and diversity.He also had interesting things to say about inte...
December 11, 2009 |
By Tony Reichhardt
A WISE Way to Find Killer Asteroids
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
One For the Fred Heads
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
Thanksgiving on the Moon: A Lunar Feast
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
Time Flies
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
A Rainbow on the Moon
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
