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Evidence Found of Life on Mars... in Eqypt?
 Researchers at Oregon State University have found possible evidence of life on Mars in a meteorite discovered in Egypt 95 years ago.They have found a series of microscopic tunnels within the meteorite which closely resemble the tracks left in Earth rocks by hungry bacteria. The tunnels appear to have been formed approximately 600 million years ago, the same time when the rock was exposed to water.Read the complete story at Space.com.Labels: space
Progress?
 | | 36 years before Apollo 11 |
Wow. 36 years since Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the Moon. It got me think about the pace of human technological progress, and I decided to do a little research.36 years before Apollo, humans were already flying, but they had a long way to go in just 36 short years to be standing on the Moon.So what about 36 years later? In 1969, most people assumed that by the turn of the millenium, humans would be permanently working and  | | 36 years after Apollo 11 |
living in space-- both in orbit and on the Moon. Instead, our only space-going vehicle has been grounded for over two years, and until today, our only spacecraft in the U.S. cleared to fly was a sub-orbital craft built by an entrepreneur in Mojave, California.Progress, indeed.Labels: space
Google Maps on the Moon
 Yep, today is the 36th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's famous first step on the Moon. I can't believe that almost 40 years later, the U.S. has no functioning craft to even get us into Low Earth Orbit... oh well.It's a cool day to commemorate, and Google has gone a step further than their usual special logo: They've created a special version of Google Maps for the Moon! It shows you the landing sites for the Apollo missions, and a special surprise if you zoom in all the way.Enjoy.
moon.google.com
p.s. Google Moon is part of the Google Copernicus Project. These guys are forward-thinking!
Labels: space, take a look, webapps
Einstein Right Again!
NASA's Gravity Probe B spacecraft in orbit around Earth has allowed astronomers to confirm a prediction made by Einstein's theory of General Relativity. They were able to directly measure an effect known as "frame-dragging."
According to Einstein's calculations, when a large, massive body such as the Earth rotates, it tends to pull the surrounding space around with it slightly, just as sticking a spoon in a jar of honey and twisting it will tend to drag around some of the honey. The effect is extremely small -- amounting to about 6 feet (1.9 meters) in the distance that satellites, moving at about 18,000 miles per hour, cover in their orbits in a year -- but it is within the ability of NASA's tracking instruments to detect. Read more at TechNewsWorld about the Einstein Gravity Effect Demonstrated by NASA.
Labels: physics, space
A big week for Spaceflight
As if Scaled Composite's first official X-Prize flight to space weren't enough (the launch is scheduled for this Wednesday morning at 6:00am PDT), Burt Rutan and Virgin Group announced this morning that they will be building a spacecraft derived from SpaceShipOne to use for commercial space flight.
Under the name Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson is planning to fly paying passengers to the edge of space for around $208.000 each, starting in 2007.
If that's a little pricey for you, perhaps you could just pretend you're going to space on a flight with Zero-G. For $3,000, they'll take you on their modified Boeing 727 and put the plane through several parabolic arcs, creating 25 seconds of weightlessness each time.
Labels: space
George passed on to me a link to an article at Universe Today about a new collaborative effort between SpaceDev (the company who built SpaceShipOne's rocket engine) and NASA to build a low-cost, sub-orbital, re-useable, single-stage spacecraft.
Naturally, someone couldn't resist spouting off about it being "one small step...". Geez!
Anyway, this spaceship meets all the specs for the X-Prize, but with a launch date sometime in 2008, they're over three years too late. The article noted that subsequent designs would be capable of reaching orbit, and would be used to ferry people and supplies to the International Spacestation.
Labels: space
SPACE.COM is reporting that scientists are optimistic about recovering useful data from the Genesis spacecraft, even though it smashed into the desert after its parachute failed to open.
For more info, see NASA's Genesis home page.
Labels: space
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Copyright © 2008, Paul Wren. Some rights reserved.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
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