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(Phys.org) —The world's first mission to the South Pole of the Moon was announced today by the International Lunar Observatory Association (ILOA) and Moon Express, Inc. The private enterprise mission will be both scientific and commercial, and will deliver the International Lunar Observatory (ILO) to the Moon's South Pole aboard a Moon Express robotic lander, establishing permanent astrophysical observations and lunar commercial communications systems for professional and amateur researchers.
Moon Express will also utilize the mission to explore the Moon's South Pole for mineral resources and water. Lunar probes have provided compelling evidence of mineral and volatile deposits in the Moon's southern polar region where energy and resources may be abundant.
BBC News - Neutrino 'flavour' flip confirmedThese are the ghostly particles that flood the cosmos but which are extremely hard to detect and study.
Experiments have now established that one particular type, known as the muon "flavour", can flip to the electron type during flight.
The observation is noteworthy because it allows for the possibility that neutrinos and their anti-particle versions might behave differently.
If that is the case, it could be an explanation for why there is so much more matter than antimatter in the Universe.
Theorists say the counterparts would have been created in equal amounts at the Big Bang, and should have annihilated each other unless there was some significant element of asymmetry in play.
"The fact that we have matter in the Universe means there have to be laws of physics that aren't in our Standard Model, and neutrinos are one place they might be," Prof Dave Wark, of the UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and Oxford University, told BBC News.
Water on Mars? Ancient Red Planet had humongous ocean, say scientists. (+video) - CSMonitor.comScientists have spotted more evidence that an enormous ocean on Mars covered much of the planet's surface billions of years ago.
The latest clues were found in photos from NASA's powerful
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter circling the planet. The images show what appears to be an ancient river delta, which may have emptied into a vast Martian ocean that inundated up to one-third of the Red Planet long ago, a new study reports.
"Scientists have long hypothesized that the northern lowlands of Mars are a dried-up ocean bottom, but no one yet has found the smoking gun," study co-author Mike Lamb, an assistant professor of geology at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, said in a statement.
Boeing took the curtain off its proposed commercial spacecraft this morning, allowing a limited number of press and media into one of its Houston facilities to crawl around inside a high-fidelity mockup. The spacecraft, designated the CST-100 (for "Crew Space Transportation"), is a large capsule, resembling a scaled-up version of the iconic Apollo command module.
The CST-100 seats up to seven astronauts and will primarily be used to transport people to and from destinations in Low Earth Orbit ("LEO"), such as the International Space Station. CST-100 is designed specifically as a LEO transport, but Low Earth Orbit is only one of a much larger set of potential destinations that Boeing and other commercial space flight companies hope to target, extending all the way out to interplanetary space. According to Boeing Space Exploration Vice President and General Manager John Elbon, each destination has its own set of requirements and challenges. So CST-100 is Boeing's attempt at creating a spacecraft specifically designed to be a LEO workhorse.
The capsule itself sits bedecked with ladders and cameras elevated on a stand in the high bay of Boeing's Houston Product Support center. When the press first approached the spacecraft, astronaut Serena Auñón was still strapped into one of the mockup's two seats, performing an evaluation of how her bright orange ACES flight suit worked with the spacecraft's internal layout. The press quickly mobbed her when she emerged from the craft and stepped down the ladder. When asked, Auñón reported that she was pleased with the cockpit and the work done so far.
CST-100 eschews the space shuttle's tile-based thermal protection system, instead using for its heat shield a phenolic resin-based structure that burns away ("ablates") during re-entry. This approach is also used by the Orion MPCV and avoids the tremendous touch-labor expense that the space shuttle's tiles incurred prior to every launch. The craft is reusable too. After a mission it is designed to be refurbished and refitted and relaunched up to 10 times. This makes it more flexible and cost-efficient than the original capsules of the 1960s, and at the same time it avoids incurring the huge total refit costs that the space shuttle brought with it.
A Long March-4C carrier rocket carring three satellites for scientific experiments blasts off from the launch pad in the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in Taiyuan, capital of north China's Shanxi Province.
China successfully launched three satellites for scientific experiments into space at 7:37 a.m. Saturday, the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center said.
The Chuangxin-3, Shiyan-7 and Shijian-15 satellites were boosted by a Long March-4C carrier rocket, according to the center in north China's Shanxi Province.
Snow On Mars? New Evidence Suggests Ancient PrecipitationResearchers have discovered evidence that suggests the existence of ancient snow and precipitation on Mars. Some Martian valley networks may have been created by runoff from rain or snow.
If you read the endorsements from NASA scientists on Derek Tidman's book, his idea may seem a tad less wacky than at first blush.
He thinks a massive, gyrating coil can speed up objects fast enough to give them escape velocity and send them into orbit.
The book outlined the concept. Now he's trying to build a large prototype launcher with Kickstarter backing. It's called the Slingatron.
From space elevators to mass drivers and floating launchpads, there have been many proposals to launch things into Earth's orbit without chemical rockets.
DE-STAR is designed to vaporize or divert asteroids that threaten Earth. This isn’t science fiction—I build things that have to work in practice. DE-STAR stands for Directed Energy Solar Targeting of Asteroids and exploRation. It looks like an open matchbook with lasers on one flap and a photovoltaic panel for power from sunlight on the other. By synchronizing the laser beams, we can create a phased array, which produces a steerable 70-gigawatt beam. An onboard system receives orders on what to target. Our laser beam would then produce a spot about 100 feet in diameter on an asteroid that’s as far away from the satellite as we are from the sun. The laser would raise an asteroid’s surface temperature to thousands of degrees Celsius—hot enough that all known substances evaporate. In less than an hour, DE-STAR could have completely vaporized the asteroid that broke up over Russia this winter, if we had seen it coming. Plus, as the material evaporates, it creates a thrust in the opposite direction, comparable to the space shuttle’s rocket booster. That means you could divert the asteroid by changing its orbit with a shorter laser blast.
DE-STAR could also power things on Earth or in space. You could send the electrical power it produces—not via laser beam but via microwaves. Or you could use the laser to directly propel spacecraft. But here’s the thing: For full-blown asteroid vaporization, each flap of the matchbook would have to be six miles long. We’ve never built a structure this size in space, but if there were the worldwide will, I could see building this within 30 to 50 years. But since it’s completely modular, we propose starting smaller. We could begin with a version that’s three feet per side right now. With that, you could cook your dinner from 600 miles away.
A complicated, high-altitude test Wednesday demonstrated NASA's new Orion spacecraft could land safely even if one of its parachutes failed.
The replacement will either be the skylon reaction tech or the grasshopper...But these are at least a decade off.
SAN JOSE, Calif. — A NASA call for novel ideas on how to tackle its ambitious mission to capture an asteroid and park it near the moon has paid off in spades, with the agency receiving hundreds of proposals from potential partners.
NASA has received more than 400 proposals from private companies, non-profit groups and international organizations in response to a call for asteroid-retrieval mission suggestions released last month, agency officials announced Friday (July 26). The space agency will review the submissions over the next month and plan to discuss the most promising ideas in a public workshop in September.
Key rocket parts built using 3D-printing technology have passed another round of NASA firing tests, inspiring further confidence among space agency officials in this emerging manufacturing technique.
Two rocket engine injectors made with a 3D printer performed as well as traditionally constructed parts during recent hot-fire tests, which exposed them to temperatures approaching 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit (3,316 degrees Celsius) and extreme pressures, NASA officials announced Wednesday (July 24).
"The additive manufacturing process has the potential to reduce the time and cost associated with making complex parts by an order of magnitude," Singer said.
What kind of space exploration is on the table? The Moon? Where ya gonna go with the rocket booster technology? It takes more than just leaving the earth's gravity to become "exploration". To resort to an old cliche, "we can put a man on the moon but we can't fix Detroit".
What kind of space exploration is on the table? The Moon? Where ya gonna go with the rocket booster technology? It takes more than just leaving the earth's gravity to become "exploration". To resort to an old cliche, "we can put a man on the moon but we can't fix Detroit".
More jobs and more education is how we fix Detroit. Both go together.
I am sorry you're as clueless as a leftist on economics. How does giving millions of high paid jobs to explore our solar system = bad for the economy? I see you people as people that would love to decrease the number of high tech programs within this country.
Get how idiotic this sounds?
So this is how we become a second rate nation. This is what you support.
Why shouldn't we invest in exploration and tech?
I think a worse use of money is to build up a nation like Iraq just to get kicked in the teeth.
