Noted astrophysicist Stephen Hawking raised some eyebrows this past weekend when he made some statements about extraterrestrial life that were as unexpected as they were frightening. A scientist mentioned in the same breath as Einstein, Hawking weighed in on the debate over the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) in a program he helped write...
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NASA is a public activity, paid for by Americans. Stealing from NASA is stealing from The People. It’s not a policy choice, it’s a crime. Barack Obama spent Tax Day “reassuring†Florida voters that money will keep flowing to NASA. (article) But instead of pursuing cutting-edge space technology and exploration, there will be a...
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Sadly, few Americans can even name any of the courageous dozen of their countrymen who have walked on another world.
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At 10:30pm on November 23, 2008, near the airport in McGregor, Texas, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) tested their new Falcon 9 rocket at full thrust for nearly 3 minutes (160 seconds). The engineers then shut down two of the nine engines  in order to limit potential damage to the launch pad â€â€Â...
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At 8:34 pm Indian time Friday night (1504 UTC), India became the fourth group to land its flag on the Moon. The unmanned lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-1 ejected its Moon Impact Probe, which hurtled across the surface of the Moon at 1.5 kilometres per second (3000 miles per hour), and successfully crash landed near the...
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India’s first lunar mission, the Chandrayaan-1 (meaning ‘moon craft’ in Sanskrit), reached its destined lunar orbit on Wednesday. The satellite’s on-board engine was fired for 58 seconds. It is now in a circular orbit 102 kilometres from the Moon. It will stay in this orbit for two years and conduct various experiments to gain...
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WASHINGTON — NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander has ceased communications after operating for more than five months. As anticipated, seasonal decline in sunshine at the robot’s arctic landing site is not providing enough sunlight for the solar arrays to collect the power necessary to charge batteries that operate the lander’s instruments. Mission engineers last received...
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India’s first lunar mission Chandrayaan-1(meaning ‘moon craft’ in sanskrit) has passed the tricky man oeuvre of entering the lunar orbit at 5:15 PM Indian standard time. This was an important milestone for the Indian mission to moon which was launched on October 22 from Indian spaceport Satish Dhawan Space Center at Sriharikota. The lunar...
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The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has found evidence of hydrated silica or opal, a form of mineral, over large areas in the Martian surface, including in the large martian canyon called Valles Marineris. The discovery was made by the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer (CRISM) instrument on the orbiter. The findings are published by Ralph Milliken...
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A SpaceX Falcon 1 rocket has failed during its third attempt to reach orbit. Over four years behind schedule, the rocket lifted off from Omelek Island, part of Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, at 03:34 GMT this morning, carrying three technology development satellites, and the ashes of 208 people, including astronaut Gordon Cooper,...
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For nearly half a century the world’s largest telescope, the Arecibo Observatory in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, has been observing our solar system and the universe around it. Completed by Cornell University along with the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 1963, Arecibo’s enormous size gives it the ability to collect more light than any other...
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Sunday July 20, 2008 will likely be a fairly typical summer day in America. People will get up, go to Church, and maybe hold a barbeque in the back yard. Perhaps the more industrious amongst us will wash the family car. Calmness, serenity, and above all, normality will rule the day. And in a...
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An asteroid the size of Pluto that slammed into the Northern hemisphere of Mars created the Borealis basin, based on the latest survey of NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Global Surveyor. The report released by the magazine Nature explains the 1984 observation of the unusual shape of Mars terrain in the northern hemisphere...
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The scientists behind the Mars Phoenix Lander project announced that the soil on Mars was more alkaline than expected and could sustain life. Scientists at NASA or the National Aeronautics and Space Administration claimed that they were “flabbergasted” by their discovery on the possibility that life could grow on Martian soil. “It is the...
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For the first time ever, NASA has confirmed the presence of water ice on Mars. The Phoenix lander, which landed on Mars on May 25, has confirmed to NASA scientists that the white substance it found while digging a trench on June 15 is water ice. “It is with great pride and a lot...
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Previous studies had identified amino acids and sugars in the meteorite that were believed to have formed in space.
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Presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama thundered to long, loud and vigorous applause from a Father’s Day Chicago church crowd that black fathers don’t engage with their children. A month before Obama made this stereotypical and plainly false assertion, Boston University professor Rebekah Levine Coley, in a comprehensive study on the black family, found...
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The United States Navy has successfully destroyed a crippled spy satellite in a decaying orbit, by intercepting it with a missile. A modified SM-3 missile was launched from the USS Lake Erie at 03:26 GMT this morning, and intercepted the USA-193 satellite around three minutes later. It has been reported that the satellite has...
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Space Shuttle Atlantis has landed on runway 15 of the Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility, completing the STS-122 mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Landing occurred at the earliest opportunity today, with Atlantis touching down at 14:07:10 GMT (09:07:10 local time), following a de-orbit burn at 13:00 GMT, and entry interface at...
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Space Shuttle Atlantis today undocked from the International Space Station, beginning its return to Earth. The Shuttle, which had been visiting the station for mission STS-122, delivering the Columbus laboratory to the orbital outpost. Undocking occurred at 09:24 GMT, after connecting hatches between the spacecraft were closed at 18:03 GMT yesterday evening. Atlantis is...
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