Russia's President Announces Plan for Moon Base

This week marks the 50th anniversary of one of the most significant milestones in the “Space Race” between the United States and the Soviet Union, and it comes at a time when Russia once again hopes to sprint head of any rival space program.
On April 12, 1961, Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin became the first human being to enter space and orbit the Earth. (Alan Shepard’s suborbital flight a few weeks later marked the first flight of an American in space.) The 50th anniversary of Gagarin’s flight is a reminder that at several occasions during the early years of the “Space Race,” the Soviets were in the lead; for example, in addition to the milestone of launching the first man into space, the U.S.S.R. also launched the first satellite — Sputnik 1 — on October 4, 1957 and the first space station in April, 1971, and one of its astronauts conducted the first space walk on March 18, 1965.

After the arrival of Apollo 11 on the moon’s surface on July 20, 1969, many of the earlier Soviet successes were forgotten. Gagarin had died the previous year, when his MiG 15 training jet crashed. In the general concensus, America had “won” the space race.

Now, as Russia marks the 50th anniversary of Gagarin’s historic flight, there may be grounds for reevaluating that assessment. President Obama has fundamentally altered the role of NASA in the future of manned space flight, even as private companies are independently developing launch vehicles that could serve a wide variety of private or public missions. (In fact, SpaceX recently announced it plans to build the large booster since the Apollo program’s Saturn V.)

Read More

Water-Powered Spaceship Could Make Mars Trip on the Cheap

Spaceships powered primarily by water could open up the solar system to exploration, making flights to Mars and other far-flung locales far cheaper, a recent study has found.

A journey to Mars and back in a water-fueled vehicle could cost as little as one space shuttle launch costs today, researchers said. And the idea is to keep these "space coaches" in orbit between trips, so their relative value would grow over time, as the vehicles reduce the need for expensive one-off missions that launch from Earth.

The water-powered space coach is just a concept at the moment, but it could become a reality soon enough, researchers said. [Video: Space Engines: The New Generation]

"It's really a systems integration challenge," said study lead author Brian McConnell, a software engineer and technology entrepreneur. "The fundamental technology is already there."

Read more:

NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Delivers Treasure Trove of Data

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) team released Tuesday the final set of data from the mission's exploration phase along with the first measurements from its new life as a science satellite. With this fifth release of data, striking new images and maps have been added to the already comprehensive collection of raw lunar data and high-level products, including mosaic images, that LRO has made possible. The spacecraft's seven instruments delivered more than 192 terabytes of data with an unprecedented level of detail. It would take approximately 41,000 typical DVDs to hold the new LRO data set.

"The release of such a comprehensive and rich collection of data, maps and images reinforces the tremendous success we have had with LRO in the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate and with lunar science," said Michael Wargo, chief lunar scientist of the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Among the latest products is a global map with a resolution of 100 meters per pixel from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC). To enhance the topography of the moon, this map was made from images collected when the sun angle was low on the horizon. Armchair astronauts can zoom in to full resolution with any of the mosaics—quite a feat considering that each is 34,748 pixels by 34,748 pixels, or approximately 1.1 gigabytes."Because the moon is so close and because we have a dedicated ground station, we are able to bring back as much data from LRO as from all the other planetary missions combined,"

NASA's Orion begins road to space travel

Lockheed Martin unveiled a new spacecraft this week that was originally meant to ferry astronauts to the moon but may first be used as an emergency escape vehicle for the International Space Station.

At the same time that the company was taking the wraps off of Orion, it also was showing off a new massive test facility near Denver. The 41,000-square-foot facility is designed to simulate deep-space environments, as well as missions to an asteroid or the moon.

Slated to conduct its first orbital flight test as early as 2013, the Orion spacecraft is set to undergo testing in the new facility to make sure it's able to endure the harsh environments of deep space.

Orion is on track to begin running real space missions by 2016.

John Karas, vice president and general manager for Lockheed Martin's Human Space Flight programs, said in a statement, "Our nation's next bold step in exploration could begin by 2016."

"Orion was designed from inception to fly multiple, deep-space missions," Karas said. "The spacecraft is an incredibly robust, technically advanced vehicle capable of safely transporting humans to asteroids, Lagrange Points and other deep space destinations that will put us on an affordable and sustainable path to Mars."

Orion was first conceived as part of NASA's Constellation program, which was geared to return humans to the moon by 2020. However, last year the Obama administration scrapped the over-budget and behind-schedule Constellation program, deciding instead to focus on sending astronauts to Mars and further into the solar system.

Read More

Total lunar eclipse is coming

Total lunar eclipse is coming at 4:40pm this evening in Japan. If you are in the northern part of Japan, you have the higher chance to catch the lunar eclipse If clear sky, the total eclipse can be seen throughout Japan as the moon rises from east sky.
The last time that Japan had lunar eclipse was 3 years 4 months ago. This is once-in-a-while experience if you are lucky.
According to the report from WeatherNews Japan, because of unstable weather condition on the west side of Japan, the Norhern Japan has better chance to witness the total lunar eclipse.
The characteristics of lunar eclipse are that the moon turns to red.

Interior of Subsurface Cave Imaged on the Moon

The sun angle, camera angle and lighting conditions were just right for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter camera to look all the way down to the floor of the pit. And this is no small hole in the ground — the LRO team says this pit is about 65 meters in diameter! This latest image confirms this object is actually a subsurface cave; a lava tube close to the surface where part of it has collapsed. These lava tubes could be great locations for lunar bases that could protect human explorers from dangers such as cosmic rays, meteorite impacts, and the extreme temperature differences between the lunar day and night.

This is the fourth time that this particular lunar pit has been imaged. Since LRO is constantly orbiting the Moon and it completes a full cycle of lunar imaging each month, the team can do follow up observations of previous discoveries and re-image targets under different lighting conditions.
Previous images had revealed the dark, cave-like entrance, and another showed part of the pit wall.
For this fourth imaging run, the spacecraft slewed 43° to the east and the solar incidence angle was 34° from vertical. This was just the right angle so that if there actually was an open lava tube extending horizontally its floor would be illuminated.
With LRO’s Narrow Angle Camera, the team was able to image a few meters under the overhang to show the interior of this sublunarean void. With this oblique angle, they were also able to capture the layered nature of the mare bedrock in the pit walls. These exposed layers give scientists important clues as to how the vast mare were deposited.
The collection of images now verifies this is actually a cavernous subsurface cave. These pits had been predicted to exist, based on the understanding of the geomorphology of mare deposits and lava flow behavior on Earth, but never directly imaged before.

Challenger Astronauts Memorialized on the Moon

Apollo is a 524 km-diameter impact basin located within the center of the the giant South Pole-Aitken basin. Apollo is also a Constellation Project Region of Interest, identified by NASA as a notional area for future human lunar exploration. The Constellation Region of Interest is located in the southwest corner of the mare deposit that fills this basin-within-a-basin. After the loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger, seven craters on the eastern rim of this basin were named after the crew: Gregory Jarvis, Christa McAuliffe, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Dick Scobee, Michael Smith. Go to the WAC mosaic of the entire Apollo basin and surroundings.
NASA has learned hard lessons from each of our tragedies, and they are lessons that we will continue to keep at the forefront of our work as we continuously strive for a culture of safety that will help us avoid our past mistakes and heed warnings while corrective measures are possible. In memory of our colleagues, I ask the NASA Family once again to always make its opinions known and to be unafraid to speak up to those in authority, so that safety can always be our guiding principle and the sacrifices of our friends and colleagues will not be in vain.

On this Day of Remembrance, as we honor our fallen heroes with tributes and public ceremonies, I will take part in a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. Across the country, flags at NASA Headquarters and the NASA centers will be flown at half-mast in memory of our colleagues lost in the cause of exploration.

Cassini Provides Stunning New Looks at Several Moons

The Cassini spacecraft recently had a mini ‘grand tour’ of several of Saturn’s moons and just sent back some great images of Helene, Mimas, Enceladus and Dione. Above is an amazing view of the Trojan moon Helene, which is only 32 kilometers (20 miles across) and shares an orbit with Dione. Cassini came withing 28,000 km (17,398 miles) of Helene. Thanks to Stu Atkinson for an enhanced version of this raw Cassini image.
Cassini captured several images of the plumes spewing from Enceladus, and other closeup views of the moon’s terrain.
No images available yet from Cassini’s extremely close flyby of Titan over the weekend where it buzzed the hazy moon at an altitude of just 880 kilometers (547 miles) above the surface.
That is 70 kilometers (43 miles) lower than it has ever been at Titan before. The reason for attempting such a close pass is to try and establish if Titan has a magnetic field of its own. But the Cassini team went through hours and hours of calculations for this close flyby, as Titan’s atmosphere applies torque to objects flying through it, much the same way the flow of air would wiggle your hand around if you stuck it outside a moving car window.

Saturnian moon's ocean full of gas

New data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft indicates the Saturnian moon Enceladus may have a fizzy ocean capable of harbouring life.
The findings could explain the vast icy plumes of water that spray into space through fissures - known as tiger stripes - on the moon's frozen surface.
Lead Cassini planetary scientist Dr Dennis Matson from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena California, says "geophysicists expected Enceladus to be a lump of ice, cold, dead and uninteresting".
Instead scientists have recently discovered the moon is covered with geysers shooting plumes of water vapour, icy particles and organic compounds.
Matson says many researchers viewed the icy jets as proof of a large subterranean body of water.
Pockets of liquid water with temperatures around 0°C near the surface could explain the watery plumes.
Cassini's instruments detected have carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and various hydrocarbons in the plumes gas.
In 2009, the spacecraft's cosmic dust analyser found sodium and potassium salts together with carbonates locked in the plumes' icy particles, strengthening the underground ocean hypothesis.

Chinese Mars 500 volunteer to be on 'Mars' for Spring Festival

Wang Yue, Chinese volunteer for the Mars 500 simulation of a manned spaceflight, will step out of the cabin of the experiment's "spaceship" and walk on a simulation of the Martian surface just in time for Chinese New Year, according to the website of China Manned Space Engineering.

The experimental cabin will land on the Mars on Feb. 1. At the end of Jan. 23, the Mars 500 experiment, which simulates a round-trip voyage to the red planet, had completed its 234th day.

As planned, the crew members will participate in a 30-day simulated landing on the surface of Mars.

It is reported that the Chinese participant, Wang Yue, has displayed a strong sense of teamwork and perseverance while conducting his research.

Li Yinghui, the Chinese team's deputy chief designer under the Mars-500 project, said considering the current carrying capacity, the Mars 500 project is a three-stage experiment, including a 250-day virtual flight to Mars, a 30-day stay on the planet and a 240-day journey back to earth