Displaying items by tag: Space Exploration

The Federal Government is to establish the first Australian Space Agency, aimed at helping  businesses win a greater share of the multi-billion dollar global space market and underpinning a new industry with the potential to create 20,000 jobs.

The Australian Government has signed a treaty with the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration, reaffirming an ongoing commitment by both countries to collaborate on space exploration.

Australia is to establish its own space agency with the federal government set to announce plans for the agency as it looks to cash in on the growing global space industry estimated to be worth $400 billion.

The Obama Administration has recommended commercial ventures to ferry astronauts back and forth between Earth and low-Earth orbit. Can it work? Will it succeed? What if this course of action fails?

NASA administrator Charles Bolden said that walking on the planet Mars by the 2030s is a good possibility if NASA is given a "reasonable and sustained" budget'”and if they use that money wisely.

The space shuttle Endeavour is being prepared for its next-to-last mission into space. Only four other NASA missions of its Space Shuttle fleet remain in the Space Transportation System (STS) program—which is scheduled to end in September 2010.

The NASA website "What Do You Think?" features numerous accomplishments made by the U.S. space agency NASA in 2009 in order to help all peoples of Earth to learn more about our world and the worlds of our Solar System and the Universe. What do you think is the top accomplishment?

The NASA Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) lifted off Monday morning, December 14, 2009, from its California launch pad for its six-month mission to make a detailed survey of the universe in the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum of radiation.

The NASA Mars Exploration Rover Spirit was driving across a crusty surface on Mars one day when it fell through and got stuck. When it tried to drive out its wheels flew up some soft soil under the crust. What it found scientists call "supremely interesting"!

For many months members of the Augustine Commission have been studying the various options available to the United States with respect to its NASA manned space program. Among its conclusions is that under the current NASA budget, the U.S. space agency will not be able to complete its future goals on a timely basis.

At first, spectators and NASA scientists were disappointed that a debris plume was not visible as the LCROSS spacecraft imaged its Centaur rocket impacting the Cabeus crater on the Moon. However, now, enhanced crash images show a 1-mile high plume did occur—much shorter than the 12-mile plume predicted.

Charles Frank Bolden, Jr. was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, July 15, 2009, as the new NASA head. He becomes the twelfth administrator of the U.S. space agency the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Muscles deteriorate in space, including the heart muscle. Because bones and muscles must be exercised even more in space than on Earth to keep them in tip-top shape, NASA is beginning a comprehensive study called Integrated Cardiovascular that hopes to find out more about how to counteract impaired heart function, both in space and here on Earth.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has completed the necessary maneuvers for insertion into orbit about the Moon. NASA confirms its preliminary lunar orbit at 6:27 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Tuesday, June 23, 2009.

NASA is asking the public to give its advice to the future direction of U.S. manned space flight. Use its Web site to make your input while an independent panel is reviewing the manned activities of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Thanks to a 12 year old - and the deliberations of a judging panel - NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover will be named Curiosity.

Two missions to study the very beginnings of our Universe are scheduled to launch together from French Guiana on May 14, 2009. Once in space, they take different paths to a point about 930,000 miles from Earth where they will peek into a time when the Universe was merely the age of a baby--only 400,000 million years old.

A second flyby by the NASA MESSENGER spacecraft of the planet Mercury has found additional pieces of the puzzle to help scientists learn more about the planet. The October 5, 2008 flyby saw 30% of a very dynamic planet that had never before been seen by a probe from Earth.

Although general aspects of the second program to send U.S. astronauts to the Moon in the 2010s may seem similar to the first program in the 1960s, it’s really a whole new ball game out there in space when you compare Apollo to Constellation.

An Earth-based experiment started in Moscow on March 31, 2009, will simulate a space-based journey to the planet Mars. Six would-be space travelers have been locked into a capsule to simulate the two-year mission from Earth to Mars and back.