NASA Announcing Alien Life in 2014? Yes, Likely, According to Their Newly Released Graphs
NASA Animation Reveals Likelihood to Finding/ Announcing Life on an Alien Planet in 2014 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/index.html Track Listing: Lil...
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NASA Announcing Alien Life in 2014? Yes, Likely, According to Their Newly Released Graphs - Video
For years, critics have been taking shots at NASA's plans to corral a near-Earth asteroid before moving on to Mars and now NASA's chief has a message for those critics: "Get over it, to be blunt."
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden defended the space agency's 20-year timeline for sending astronauts to the Red Planet on Tuesday, during the opening session of this year's Humans 2 Mars Summit at George Washington University in the nation's capital.
That timeline calls for NASA to develop a new Orion crew capsule and a heavy-lift rocket called the Space Launch System while continuing research on the International Space Station. By the mid-2020s, astronauts would travel to a near-Earth asteroid that was brought to the vicinity of the moon. That'd set the stage for trips to Mars and its moons sometime in the 2030s.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden discusses his agency's plan to get astronauts to Mars during a session at the Humans 2 Mars Summit in Washington on Tuesday.
Some members of Congress want NASA to forget about the asteroid and go directly to Mars or the moon's surface instead. But Bolden said NASA needed the asteroid mission as a "proving ground" for the farther-out missions to Mars.
"We don't think we can just go," the former astronaut and Marine general said.
Bolden said missions to Mars would be important not only to learn whether life once existed beyond Earth, but also to set the stage for interplanetary settlement. That would serve as an insurance policy against any potentially planet-destroying catastrophe on Earth's.
"Only multiplanet species survive for long periods of time," Bolden said, echoing echoing a call for outer-space colonization that has been made by luminaries ranging from physicist Stephen Hawking to SpaceX's billionaire founder, Elon Musk.
Bolden said getting astronauts to Mars by the 2030s would require "modest increases" in NASA's budget. Musk has said he could do it sooner, perhaps in 10 years if enough money was available. But Bolden said an Apollo-scale push to Mars isn't in the cards.
A NASA chart lays out the agency's step-by-step plan for human exploration of Mars.
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NASA Chief Tells the Critics of Exploration Plan: 'Get Over It'
Red Dwarf Star
Artist's depiction of the powerful flare that erupted from the red dwarf star EV Lacertae in 2008.
Unlike Earth, Venus lacks a magnetic field to deflect powerful solar outbursts -- as can be seen in this NASA-created image, a still from the video "Dynamic Earth: Exploring Earth's Climate Engine."
This vertigo-inducing, false-color image from NASA's Cassini mission highlights the storms at Saturn's north pole. The angry eye of a hurricane-like storm appears dark red while the fast-moving hexagonal jet stream framing it is a yellowish green. Low-lying clouds circling inside the hexagonal feature appear as muted orange color. A second, smaller vortex pops out in teal at the lower right of the image. The rings of Saturn appear in vivid blue at the top right.
This Hubble photo is of a small portion of a large star-birthing region in the Carina Nebula. Towers of cool hydrogen laced with dust rise from the wall of the nebula.
This computer simulation shows gas from a tidally shredded star falling into a black hole. Some of the gas also is being ejected at high speed into space.
This image of Asia and Australia at night is a composite assembled from data acquired by the Suomi NPP satellite in April and October 2012.
In this composite image, visible-light observations by NASAs Hubble Space Telescope are combined with infrared data from the ground-based Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona to assemble a dramatic view of the well-known Ring Nebula.
A delicate ribbon of gas floats eerily in our galaxy. A contrail from an alien spaceship? A jet from a black-hole? Actually this image, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, is a thin section of a supernova remnant caused by a stellar explosion that occurred more than 1,000 years ago.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope caught Jupiter's moon Ganymede playing a game of "peek-a-boo." In this crisp image, Ganymede is shown just before it ducks behind the giant planet.
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NASA's 'Earth From Orbit' Highlights Reel Is Literally Awesome
NASA is developing the capabilities needed to send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025 and Mars in the 2030s. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and other agency leadership will showcase NASAs human exploration path to Mars at an Exploration Forum from 12:30 to 3 p.m. Tuesday, April 29.
The forum will be held in NASA Headquarters' Webb Auditorium at 300 E St. SW in Washington. The event is open to the public and will be carried live on NASA Television and the agency's website.
Other senior NASA officials speaking at the event are:
-- Robert Lightfoot, NASA associate administrator -- John Grunsfeld, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate -- William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator, Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate -- Sam Scimemi, director, International Space Station Division -- Phil McAlister, director, Commercial Spaceflight Division -- Dan Dumbacher, deputy associate administrator, Exploration Systems Development -- Michele Gates, senior technical advisor, Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate -- Jason Crusan, director, Advanced Exploration Systems Division -- Randy Lillard, Program Executive for Technology Demonstration Missions, Space Technology Mission Directorate -- David Miller, NASA chief technologist -- Ellen Stofan, NASA chief scientist
Media interested in covering the forum should contact Trent Perrotto at 202-358-1100 ortrent.j.perrrotto@nasa.govby noon Tuesday.
For NASA TV streaming video, schedules and downlink information, visit:
For more information about NASA's human path to Mars, visit:
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Update 10:32 a.m. EDT: Swanson and Mastracchio have removed the faulty backup MDM.
NASA astronauts Steve Swanson and Rick Mastracchio will perform a 2 1/2-hour International Space Station spacewalk on Wednesday. The NASA live stream of the event begins at 8:30 a.m. EDT and the ISS Expedition 39 crew members will work to replace a faulty computer located on the exterior of the space station.
Swanson and Mastracchio will replace the unresponsive backup multiplexer-demultiplexer (MDM). NASA discovered the problem on April 11, and the backup MDM supports several robotic systems aboard the ISS. According to NASA, the MDM "provides redundancy for commanding the Mobile Transporter rail car on the truss of the station." The Mobile Transporter is part of the docking procedure that attaches spacecraft to the space station. For Swanson, it will be his fifth spacewalk, and it will be the ninth for Mastracchio.
The recent SpaceX ISS commercial resupply mission could have been delayed by the unresponsive MDM, but NASA went ahead with the launch and the spacecraft reached the ISS on Easter. There are 45 MDMs located throughout the space station and the backup MDM that failed has been attached to the ISS for more than 10 years.
According to NASA, the faulty backup MDM is located on the S0 truss, on top of the Destiny laboratory module. On Monday, the Expedition 39 crew spent the day unpacking the cargo from the Dragon spacecraft. The T-Cell Activation in Aging science experiment, which studies immune system depression in microgravity, was among the first items unloaded from the spacecraft.
On Tuesday, ISS Expedition 39 commander Koichi Wakata, from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, met with Swanson and Mastracchio and discussed Wednesday's ISS spacewalk. Prior to the spacewalk, the ISS Progess 53 resupply spacecraft, which is currently docked at the ISS, will detach from the Zvezda service module, located on the Russian side of the space station. The cargo spacecraft will spend two days in space, traveling no farther than 311 miles away from the ISS, before reattaching on Friday, notes NASA.
The NASA International Space Station spacewalk is scheduled for 9:20 a.m. EDT and the live stream can be viewed below.
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NASA International Space Station Spacewalk Live Stream: Watch The Maintenance Mission Here [VIDEO]
NASA finds most Earth-like planet to date
NASA #39;s Kepler Space Telescope has found an Earth-sized planet within the habitable zone of the star it orbits, the space agency announced Thursday. The plane...
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NASA Time Trial Track Day Session 1- Chasing 370z and RS5
April 20th Northern AutoSports Association India Time Trial Track Day at Buddh International Circuit Sponsored by Autopsyche Nissan 370Z driven by Omar, Audi...
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NASA Time Trial Track Day Session 1- Chasing 370z and RS5 - Video
AQI analyser : SpaceAPpsChallenge NASA 2014, WoeLab lom (TOGO)
The Air quality Index show us how clean or polluted our air is and what associated health effects might be a concern for us.Our applcation mustprovide real t...
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AQI analyser : SpaceAPpsChallenge NASA 2014, WoeLab lom (TOGO) - Video
Proof Of Machines On Mars - NASA Come Clean!
It is time for NASA to come clean with the world. They have to be seeing the same things that all of us researchers are. We need to know the truth about Mars...
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Why NASA is Experimenting on Twins in Space
To understand the the long-term effects of space on the human body, NASA is conducting an experiment involving twins! Join Tara as she explains what they hop...
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According to NASA, the year 2014 is a big one for the space agency as five of its major missions are planned to be launched into space by December to gather critical data about the planet. And, to mark the significance of the year and what its missions mean for the planet, NASA has asked people to send in selfies that showcase mountains, parks, rivers, lakes and the sky from all over the world.
While NASA satellites constantly look at Earth from space, on Earth Day we're asking you to step outside and take a picture of yourself wherever you are on Earth. Then post it to social media using the hashtag #GlobalSelfie, NASA saidon its website. For Earth Day we are trying to create an image of Earth from the ground up while also fostering a collection of portraits of the people of Earth. Once those pictures stream around the world on Earth Day, the individual pictures tagged #GlobalSelfie will be used to create a mosaic image of Earth -- a new "Blue Marble" built bit by bit with your photos.
#GlobalSelfie sign. NASA
The Earth mosaic image and a video using the images will be released in May. According to NASA, it will monitor photos -- with the hashtag #GlobalSelfie -- posted to five social media sites, including Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google+ and Flickr. Users can also post photos to the #GlobalSelfie event page on Facebook, #GlobalSelfie Google+ event page, or the #GlobalSelfie group on Flickr.
NASA has identified thousands of new planets in the universe in recent years, but the space agency, which currently has 17 Earth-observing missions orbiting the planet to study its atmosphere, land and oceans, has studied Earth more closely than any other planet.
Now, NASA wants to create a different picture of the planet -- a crowd-sourced collection of snapshots of the people of Earth that we could use to create one unique mosaic of the Blue Marble.
To download the #GlobalSelfie sign, click here.Meanwhile, NASA has alsoreleased a video that provides a look back at Earth in 2013 from the viewpoint of orbit. Here is the video:
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Earth Day 2014: NASA Celebrates The Occasion With #GlobalSelfie Campaign
ORLANDO, Fla. -
NASA plans to mark Earth Day by creating a unique view of the planet -- through selfies.
The agency is asking the public to join its "#GlobalSelfie" project by taking selfies to add to a collection that will ultimately be used for a mosaic.
NASA says the selfies will help them capture a new image of Earth that can't be seen using its satellites.
In order to participate, people can download, print and fill out a #GlobalSelfie sign. People are asked to hold up the sign while taking the selfie to indicate the location of the photo.
[RELATED:Download #GlobalSelfie sign]
NASA encourages the public to take the selfie in an area that highlights Earth's beauty, such as its mountains, parks, rivers and lakes.
After taking the photo, people can share their selfies with NASA by posting the photos to social media web sites using the hashtag #GlobalSelfie. NASA will use the selfie collection to create its mosaic.
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What #39;s Up? - NASA SpaceApps 2014
See more at: https://2014.spaceappschallenge.org/project/whats-up/ Overview #39;What #39;s up #39; is a website which allows users to subscribe to daily updates and wat...
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NASA has selected Kathy Lueders as program manager for the agency's Commercial Crew Program (CCP). Lueders, who has served as acting program manager since October 2013, will help keep the nation's space program on course to launch astronauts from American soil by 2017 aboard spacecraft built by American companies.
"This is a particularly critical time for NASA's human spaceflight endeavors as the Commercial Crew Program enters into contract implementation," said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for NASAs Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Kathys experience and leadership skills developed during the ISS commercial resupply contract activity will be critical to safely and effectively leading commercial crew transportation activities for NASA."
Lueders, who will be assigned to the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, previously served as the International Space Station Program's transportation integration manager, where she managed commercial cargo resupply services to the space station. Lueders also was responsible for NASA oversight of international partner spacecraft visiting the space station, including the European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle, the Japanese Space Agency's H-II Transfer Vehicle, and the Russian Federal Space Agency's Soyuz and Progress spacecraft.
"Its exciting to think that Ill be continuing to utilize my background and leadership experience with the International Space Station to help the Commercial Crew Program team and our industry partners execute the next phase," said Lueders.
Lueders began her NASA career at the White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico in 1992, where she managed the Shuttle Orbital Maneuvering System and Reaction Control Systems Depot. She served in numerous positions in the space station program, including the deputy manager for station logistics and maintenance, the vehicle systems integration manager, and the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services integration manager.
Lueders has a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance from the University of New Mexico and a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Industrial Engineering from New Mexico State University.
For more information on NASA's Commercial Crew Program, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew
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Mon, Apr 21, 2014
Scientists using NASA's Curiosity Mars rover are eyeing a rock layer surrounding the base of a small butte, called "Mount Remarkable," as a target for investigating with tools on the rover's robotic arm. And this image of the rover at work was captured April 11 by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
The butte stands about 16 feet high. Curiosity's science team refers to the rock layer surrounding the base of Mount Remarkable as the "middle unit" because its location is intermediate between rocks that form buttes in the area and lower-lying rocks that show a pattern of striations.
Depending on what the mission scientists learn from a close-up look at the rock and identification of chemical elements in it, a site on this middle unit may become the third rock that Curiosity samples with its drill. The rover carries laboratory instruments to analyze rock powder collected by the drill. The mission's first two drilled samples, in an area called Yellowknife Bay near Curiosity's landing site, yielded evidence last year for an ancient lakebed environment with available energy and ingredients favorable for microbial life.
The rover's current location, where multiple types of rocks are exposed close together, is called "the Kimberley." Here and, later, at outcrops on the slope of Mount Sharp inside Gale Crater, researchers plan to use Curiosity's science instruments to learn more about habitable past conditions and environmental changes.
(Image provided by NASA)
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SCARBOROUGH, Maine (AP) John C. Houbolt, an engineer whose contributions to the U.S. space program were vital to NASA's successful moon landing in 1969, has died. He was 95.
Houbolt died Tuesday at a nursing home in Scarborough, Maine, of complications from Parkinson's disease, his son-in-law Tucker Withington, of Plymouth, Mass., confirmed Saturday.
As NASA describes on its website, while under pressure during the U.S.-Soviet space race, Houbolt was the catalyst in securing U.S. commitment to the science and engineering theory that eventually carried the Apollo crew to the moon and back safely.
His efforts in the early 1960s are largely credited with convincing NASA to focus on the launch of a module carrying a crew from lunar orbit, rather than a rocket from Earth or a space craft while orbiting the planet.
Houbolt argued that a lunar orbit rendezvous, or lor, would not only be less mechanically and financially onerous than building a huge rocket to take man to the moon or launching a craft while orbiting the Earth, but lor was the only option to meet President John F. Kennedy's challenge before the end of the decade.
NASA describes "the bold step of skipping proper channels" that Houbolt took by pushing the issue in a private letter in 1961 to an incoming administrator.
"Do we want to go to the moon or not?" Houbolt asks. "... why is a much less grandiose scheme involving rendezvous ostracized or put on the defensive? I fully realize that contacting you in this manner is somewhat unorthodox, but the issues at stake are crucial enough to us all that an unusual course is warranted."
Houbolt started his career with NASA's predecessor in Hampton, Va., in 1942, served in the Army Corps of Engineers, and worked in an aeronautical research and consulting firm in Princeton, N.J., before returning to NASA in 1976 as chief aeronautical scientist. He retired in 1985 but continued private consulting work.
Born April 10, 1919, in Altoona, Iowa, Houbolt grew up in Joliet, Ill., and earned degrees in civil engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He earned a doctorate from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Zurich in 1957.
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Robonaut, the first out-of-this-world humanoid, is finally getting its space legs.
For three years, Robonaut has had to manage from the waist up. This new pair of legs means the experimental robot now stuck on a pedestal is going mobile at the International Space Station.
"Legs are going to really kind of open up the robot's horizons," said Robert Ambrose from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
It's the next big step in NASA's quest to develop robotic helpers for astronauts. With legs, the 8-foot Robonaut will be able to climb throughout the 260-mile-high outpost, performing mundane cleaning chores and fetching things for the human crew.
The robot's gangly, contortionist-bending legs are packed aboard a SpaceX supply ship that launched Friday, more than a month late. It was the private company's fourth shipment to the space station for NASA and is due to arrive Easter Sunday morning.
Robonaut 2 R2 for short has been counting down the days.
"Legs are on the way!" read a message Friday on its Twitter account, @AstroRobonaut. (OK, so it's actually a Johnson Space Center spokesman who's doing the tweeting.)
Space Exploration Technologies Corp.'s unmanned capsule, Dragon, holds about 2 tons of space station supplies and experiments, Robonaut's legs included.
Until a battery backpack arrives on another supply ship later this year, the multimillion-dollar robot will need a power extension cord to stretch its legs, limiting its testing area to the U.S. side of the space station. Testing should start in a few months.
Each leg 4 feet, 8 inches long has seven joints. Instead of feet, there are grippers, each with a light, camera and sensor for building 3-D maps.
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NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has announced the appointment of six new members to the NASA Advisory Council (NAC). The group advises NASA's senior leadership on challenges and solutions facing the agency as it unfolds a new era of exploration.
The six new members are Wanda Austin, Wayne Hale, Scott Hubbard, Miles O'Brien, Thomas Young, and Kathryn Schmoll. The group has a wide range of expertise in the aerospace field. They are joining NAC Chair Steven Squyres and continuing members Marion Blakey, Kenneth Bowersox, David McComas, William Ballhaus, Charles Kennel (ex officio) and Lester Lyles (ex officio).
Wanda Austin is president and chief executive officer of The Aerospace Corporation, a leading architect for the nation's national security space programs. She is internationally recognized for her work in satellite and payload system acquisition, systems engineering, and system simulation and served on President Obama's Review of Human Spaceflight Plans Committee in 2009.
Wayne Hale is a consultant for Special Aerospace Services of Boulder, Colorado. He retired from NASA in 2010 as the deputy associate administrator of strategic partnerships at the agency's Headquarters in Washington after serving in the senior leadership of the Space Shuttle Program from 2003 to 2008.
Scott Hubbard is a consulting professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University, where he focuses on planetary exploration, especially Mars, and also serves as the director of the Stanford Center of Excellence for Commercial Space Transportation. He is the former director of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., served on the Columbia Accident Investigation Board and was director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program.
Miles O'Brien is a veteran independent journalist who focuses on science, technology and aerospace. He is the science correspondent for the PBS NewsHour, a producer and director for the PBS science documentary series NOVA, and a correspondent for the PBS documentary series FRONTLINE and the National Science Foundation Science Nation series. He was also the science, environment and aerospace correspondent and anchor on CNN for 17 years.
Thomas Young served as executive vice president of Lockheed Martin Corporation and is the former director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., former president and chief operating officer of Martin Marietta and former chairman of SAIC. He began his NASA career at the Langley Research Center in Virginia, was deputy director of NASA's Ames Research Center, and also was a member of the Lunar Orbiter Project Team, mission director for Program Viking, and director of the Planetary Program at NASA Headquarters.
Kathryn Schmoll is the vice president for finance and administration at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. She also has served as comptroller for the Environmental Protection Agency and assistant associate administrator in the NASA Headquarters Office of Space Science and Applications, among other NASA positions.
The NAC and its members are assisting the agency on its path to Mars -- a stepping stone approach to exploration that encompasses successful expansion of commercial cargo services to commercial crew, full utilization of the International Space Station until at least 2024, and development of new technologies and the Orion crew vehicle and Space Launch System to travel to an asteroid and the Red Planet.
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Lunar Eclipse as Seen From the Moon (Artist Concept)
With the lunar horizon in the foreground, the Earth passes in front of the Sun, revealing the red ring of sunrises and sunsets along the limb of the Earth. T...
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Lunar Eclipse as Seen From the Moon (Artist Concept) - Video
NASA, Kodak HAWKEYE II / Nikon F3
One of the very first electronic stills cameras used by NASA in space. To see an image of the complete system, visit this post - http://www.nikonweb.com/foru...
By: Ron Volmershausen
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