A new report suggests that NASA will need to cut programs in order to remain successful.

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Report: NASA Lacks Focus, May Need to Cut Programs

WASHINGTON (AP) NASA, the agency that epitomized the "Right Stuff," seems lost in space and doesn't have a clear sense of where it is going, an independent panel of science and engineering experts said in a stinging report Wednesday.

The one place the White House wants to send astronauts an asteroid doesn't seem to be getting the engines firing at NASA, they said.

"More than two years after the president announced the interim goal of sending humans to an asteroid by 2025, there has been little effort to initiate such a mission," said the report by a panel of the distinguished National Academy of Sciences.

In another withering passage, the panel said NASA's mission and vision statements are so vague and "generic" that they "could apply to almost any government research and development agency, omitting even the words 'aeronautics' or 'space.'"

The report doesn't blame the space agency; it faults President Barack Obama, Congress and the nation for not giving NASA better direction.

The space shuttles were retired in 2011 and are now museum pieces. Few people are paying attention to the International Space Station, and American astronauts have to rely on Russian spaceships to get there and back. Meanwhile, rocket-building is being outsourced to private companies, and a commercial venture plans to send people to the moon by the end of the decade.

Academy panel member Bob Crippen, a retired NASA manager and astronaut who piloted the first space shuttle mission, said he has never seen the space agency so adrift. He said that includes the decade between the end of the Apollo moon landings in the early 1970s and the beginning of the shuttle program.

"I think people (at NASA) want to be focused a little more and know where they are going," Crippen told The Associated Press.

NASA spokesman David Weaver defended the agency, saying in an emailed statement that it has clear and challenging goals. He listed several projects, including continued use of the International Space Station and efforts to develop a heavy-duty rocket and crew capsule capable of taking astronauts into deep space.

White House spokesman Matt Lehrich said he had nothing to add beyond NASA's comments.

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Expert panel: NASA seems lost in space, needs goal

Space rock 2012 DA14 "close encounter" with Earth - February 15, 2013
Miss distant (AU) : 0.0002, Miss distant (LD) : 0.09, H (mag) : 24.4, Relative velocity (km/s) : 7.78, Estimated diameter : 35 m -- 79 m neo.jpl.nasa.gov Orbit diagram: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov 191 total observations over interval: 2012 02 23.02780 -- 2012 05 12.418420 http://www.minorplanetcenter.net (H) -- Absolute magnitude 1 AU = ~150 million kilometers (neo.jpl.nasa.gov 1 LD = Lunar Distance = ~384000 kilometers Credit: NASA/JPLFrom:galaxy387Views:0 0ratingsTime:00:20More inScience Technology

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Space rock 2012 DA14 "close encounter" with Earth - February 15, 2013 - Video

NASA | The Evaporative Stress Index
The Evaporative Stress Index (ESI) provides objective, high-resolution information about the evaporation of water from land surface. The ESI model combines satellite data with other meteorological factors to determine how much water is used by crops and vegetation. The resulting data helps to detect drought. This visualization shows ESI data for 2010, 2011, and 2012. 2010 was a relatively wet year despite occasional drought. In 2011, the ESI shows extremely dry conditions across all of Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma, tracking one of the country #39;s most devastating droughts. In 2012, the ESI shows plant stress in the Corn Belt region as early as May. These warning signs later developed into a full drought that impacted the world #39;s corn and soy been supply. The kind of early-warning detection system ESI provides will enhance the US arsenal of drought monitoring tools and help farmers adapt to drought before it evolves. This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: svs.gsfc.nasa.gov Like our videos? Subscribe to NASA #39;s Goddard Shorts HD podcast: svs.gsfc.nasa.gov Or find NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com Or find us on Twitter: twitter.comFrom:NASAexplorerViews:202 30ratingsTime:01:48More inScience Technology

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NASA | The Evaporative Stress Index - Video

Double Filament Eruption captured | December, 05 2012
Recorded on December, 05 2012 | 00h00-04h00 UTC Double Filament Eruption on E Limb especially observable on AIA171, the 1st event on old AR11615 (incoming new Region) has produced a strong CME with post-Eruption oscillation phenomenon + loops emergence. AIA 304 | Full HD Quality Video | 1920x1080p More real-time Solar data/Imagery/Activity: - Gnosia Research | SIC: Solar Imagery Center http://www.gnosia-research.fr "Courtesy of NASA/SOHO-SDO and the AIA, EVE, and HMI science teams." sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov - Solar Heliospheric Observatory - SOHO: sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov - SOLARHAM.com: http://www.solarham.net - The Sun Today - LMSAL: sdowww.lmsal.com - http://www.SolarMonitor.org: http://www.solarmonitor.org - NOAA / Space Weather Prediction Center: http://www.swpc.noaa.govFrom:GnosiaResearchViews:0 0ratingsTime:00:40More inScience Technology

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Double Filament Eruption captured | December, 05 2012 - Video

SONA: Period of amendments sa RH Bill, nasa page 3 of 27 pa lamang
State of the Nation is a nightly newscast anchored by award-winning broadcast journalist, Jessica Soho. It airs Mondays to Fridays at 9:00 PM (PHL Time) on GMA News TV Channel 11. For more videos from State of the Nation, visit http://www.gmanetwork.com .From:gmanewsViews:0 0ratingsTime:06:28More inNews Politics

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Flight Simulators - A Safer Way to Test
In this NASA video segment explore how flight simulators are one of the most effective tools for pilots and engineers to experiment on aircraft. NASA flight simulators are designed as exact replica of aircrafts enabling engineers to run tests and experiments without risking pilot safety. This segment discusses NASA #39;s use of flight simulators when developing new engineering concepts. NASA flight simulators are also compared to other flight simulators.From:XYZAerialViews:0 0ratingsTime:05:07More inEducation

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LOS ANGELES (AP) NASA is headed to Mars again.

The space agency said Tuesday it plans to launch another mega-rover to Mars in 2020 that will be modeled after the wildly popular Curiosity. To keep costs down, engineers will borrow Curiosity's blueprints, build from spare parts where possible and use proven technology including the novel landing system that delivered the car-size rover inside an ancient crater in August.

The announcement comes as NASA reboots its Mars exploration program during tough fiscal times.

"If we act now, we can build one at the lowest possible price," NASA sciences chief John Grunsfeld said in an interview.

Like Curiosity, the mission will be managed by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, but many other details still need to be worked out including where the rover will land and what instruments it will carry to the surface.

While the science goals are still fuzzy, NASA said the rover at the very least should kickstart a campaign to return Martian soil and rocks to Earth a goal trumpeted by many scientists. The current rover doesn't have that capability.

Despite Curiosity's successful landing, the road to the launch pad was bumpy. At $2.5 billion, the project ran over schedule and over budget.

Jim Green, director of NASA's planetary science division, said the engineering hurdles have been fixed and he expected the new rover to cost less. One independent estimate put the mission at $1.5 billion, though NASA is working on its own cost estimate.

The red planet will see a flurry activity over the next several years. Next year, NASA plans to launch an orbiter to study the atmosphere followed by a relatively low-cost robotic lander in 2016.

___

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NASA aims to send another rover to Mars in 2020

Another rover by 2020, and humans by the 2030s

NASA just announced the plans for the next phase of its Mars program, culminating in the arrival of humans in the Red Planet's orbit by the 2030s. "This announcement," per a NASA press release, "affirms the agency's commitment to a bold exploration program that meets our nation's scientific and human exploration objectives."

One of NASA's big plans for the Red Planet involves a new Mars robotic science rover -- Curiosity's cousin -- which will launch in 2020 and whose design will largely be based on the thus-far-flawless technology that the Mars Science Laboratory employs. That kind of Curiosity mimicry will minimize mission cost and risk, the thinking goes, while leveraging the learnings of previous work.

Another of NASA's plans for Mars, announced earlier this year, is InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) -- a Discovery Program mission that will place a geophysical lander on Mars to study the planet's deep interior. That's slated to launch in 2016.

Taken together, today's announcement means that NASA has a total of seven missions currently operating or being planned-to-be-operated on Mars, with the purpose of exploring our planetary neighbor.

They are:

The plans respond to the findings of the Mars Program Planning Group, which was established and convened earlier this year to help NASA figure out its priorities for its Mars Exploration Program. And they'll advance, NASA says, the science priorities of the National Research Council's 2011 Planetary Science Decadal Survey.

"The challenge to restructure the Mars Exploration Program has turned from the seven minutes of terror for the Curiosity landing to the start of seven years of innovation," John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science, put it in the NASA release. "This mission concept fits within the current and projected Mars exploration budget, builds on the exciting discoveries of Curiosity, and takes advantage of a favorable launch opportunity."

How particularly it will take advantage of that remains to be seen. When it comes to the 2020 version of Curiosity, the specifics when it comes to payload and scientific instruments are still to be determined -- by competition, as per standard processes for instrument selection. To begin with, NASA will establish a science definition team that will work on outlining the specific scientific objectives for the mission.

That team will also, of course, have to grapple with funding as it goes forward. Though the 2020 mission fits within the five-year budget plan in the president's Fiscal Year 2013 budget request, NASA notes, it is also "contingent on future appropriations."

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NASA Just Announced Its Future Plans for Mars

Following up on the success of the Curiosity mission, NASA has announced plans for a new Mars rover scheduled for 2020.

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NASA Unveils New Mars Rover Mission for 2020

New NASA plan grapples with deep budget cuts, announces new Mars rover for 2020

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NASA unveils new Mars rover mission

LOS ANGELES (AP) If you thought NASA's latest Mars landing was a nail-biter, get ready for a sequel.

The space agency on Tuesday announced plans to launch another mega-rover to the red planet in 2020 that will be modeled after the wildly popular Curiosity.

To keep costs down, engineers will borrow Curiosity's blueprints, recycle spare parts where possible and use proven technology including the novel landing gear that delivered the car-size rover inside an ancient crater in August.

The announcement comes as NASA reboots its Mars exploration program during tough fiscal times.

"The action right now is on the surface, and that's where we want to be," said NASA sciences chief John Grunsfeld.

Like Curiosity, the mission will be led by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. But many other details still need to be worked out, including where the rover will land and the types of tools it will carry to the surface.

While the science goals remain fuzzy, Grunsfeld said the rover at the very least should kickstart a campaign to return Martian soil and rocks to Earth a goal trumpeted by many scientists as key to searching for evidence of past life. Curiosity doesn't have that capability.

In the coming months, a team of experts will debate whether the new rover should have the ability to drill into rocks and store pieces for a future pickup either by another spacecraft or humans.

NASA is under orders by the White House to send astronauts to circle Mars in the 2030s followed by a landing.

Despite Curiosity's daring touchdown, its road to the launch pad was bumpy. At $2.5 billion, the project ran over schedule and over budget.

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Mars redux: NASA to launch Curiosity-like rover

NASA officials plan to build a new rover that would follow Curiosity on the surface of Mars. The announcement electrified many of the roughly 18,000 researchers attending the American Geophysical Union's fall meeting this week in San Francisco. The objectives...

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NASA plans new Mars rover for 2020

Giving NASA a strong dose of stability and direction would help sustain United States leadership in spaceflight and exploration for decades to come, a new report advises.

NASA has been pulled in too many directions for too long, according to the report, which was released today (Dec. 4) by the nonprofit Space Foundation. The agency needs to set a unified, long-term vision and be able to work toward it no matter which way the winds of power are blowing in Washington, D.C.

"We think that if you've got your purpose clear, then it becomes easier for you to sit down and detail a 10-year plan and a 30-year plan that you stick to and revisit and revise as you make discoveries," said Space Foundation CEO Elliot Pulham.

A pioneering space agency

In many people's minds, today's NASA is a far cry from the world-beating agency that put a man on the moon in 1969, just 12 years after the Space Age dawned. [Lunar Legacy: 45 Apollo Moon Mission Photos]

Neil Armstrong's famous first steps on the lunar surface were made possible by a laserlike, agencywide focus that just doesn't exist at NASA today, according to the report.

"As the space program has evolved, we have witnessed frequent redirection and constantly shifting priorities at NASA, mixed signals from Congress and the administration, organizational conflicts and the lack of a singular purpose, resulting in a space agency without a clear, stable direction," the report states.

The report argues that NASA needs a unified purpose again. And it recommends what that purpose should be: pioneering. (The report's title is "Pioneering: Sustaining U.S. Leadership in Space.")

"This report does not advocate for space settlement or colonization; rather, it is focused on expanding the human sphere of influence," the authors write. "For example, much of the ocean floor is part of the human sphere of influence through the use of robotics, even if it is seldom visited by humans. One way or another, humans should seek to sustain a presence elsewhere in the solar system."

Pioneering has four phases, as laid out in the report: access (the ability to get to and from a destination); exploration; utilization; and transition (handing activities off when appropriate to other government agencies or to the private sector).

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NASA Needs Stronger Direction to Lead In Space: Report

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - NASA plans to follow up its Mars rover Curiosity mission with a duplicate rover that could collect and store samples for return to Earth, the agency's lead scientist said on Tuesday.

The new rover will use spare parts and engineering models developed for Curiosity, which is four months into a planned $2.5 billion mission on Mars to look for habitats that could have supported microbial life.

Replicating the rover's chassis, sky-crane landing system and other gear will enable NASA to cut the cost of the new mission to about $1.5 billion including launch costs, John Grunsfeld, the U.S. space agency's associate administrator for science, said at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco.

Budget shortfalls forced NASA to pull out of a series of joint missions with Europe, designed to return rock and soil samples from Mars in the 2020s. Europe instead will partner with Russia for the launch vehicle and other equipment that was to have been provided by NASA.

Grunsfeld said NASA will provide a key organics experiment for Europe's ExoMars rover, as well as engineering and mission support under the agency's proposed budget for the year beginning October 1, 2013. The United States also will provide the radio communications equipment for a planned European orbiter slated to launch in 2016.

Details about what science instruments would be included on the new rover, whether or not it would have a cache for samples, and the landing site have not yet been determined.

NASA plans to set up a team of scientists to refine plans for the rover and issue a solicitation next summer.

The National Academy of Sciences last year ranked a Mars sample return mission as its top priority in planetary science for the next decade.

"The (science) community already has come forward with a very clear message about what the content of the next Mars surface mission should be, and that is to cache the samples that will come back to Earth," said Steve Squyres with Cornell University.

"That's really a necessary part of having this mission," he said.

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NASA aims to launch Mars rover twin in 2020

SAN FRANCISCO NASA will launch a new Mars rover in 2020, agency officials announced today (Dec. 4).

The unmanned rover's chassis and landing system will be based heavily on NASA's $2.5 billion Curiosity rover, which has been tooling around the Red Planet since August of this year, said John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science.

"We have a whole new Mars mission, and I'm very excited about that," Grunsfeld said here today at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

The similarity to Curiosity's basic design should allow the agency to save significant amounts of money on the 2020 rover mission, bringing its estimated cost down to about $1.5 billion, give or take $200 million or so, Grunsfeld said. [The Boldest Mars Missions in History]

Some basic guidelines for the mission are already in place. The 2020 rover should help NASA prepare for its eventual goal of bringing samples from Mars back to Earth an effort most scientists regard as the best way to look for signs of life on the Red Planet.

"I think, no question, we want to advance sample handling, coring, analysis of samples to determine caching [of samples]," Grunsfeld said.

The new rover should also land at a site selected for its ability to preserve potential signs of life, according to Grunsfeld's presentation.

The precise details of the new mission, however, remain up in the air. They will be determined over the coming months by a "science definition team," with a call for instrument proposals from the scientific community expected by mid-summer next year.

"While 2020 may seem a long way off, it's really not," Grunsfeld said. "Curiosity was about a decade in the works."

The White House's proposed 2013 federal budget cut funding for NASA's Mars program considerably, spurring the agency to scale back and replan its Red Planet activities. The 2020 rover emerged after this fundamental rethink, and NASA should be able to mount the mission under its current budget scenario, Grunsfeld said.

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NASA to Launch New Mars Rover in 2020

SAN FRANCISCO The unmanned rover that NASA plans to launch toward Mars in 2020 should gather up Red Planet rocks and dirt for delivery to Earth someday, some experts say.

NASA science chief John Grunsfeld announced the new rover here Tuesday (Dec. 4) at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Details of the roughly $1.5 billion mission have yet to be worked out, but some big names in the Mars community are already pushing hard for a sample caching system.

"I hope and expect that its main mission will be to collect and cache a well-chosen set of samples for eventual return to Earth," Steve Squyres of Cornell University, principal investigator for NASA's Opportunity Mars rover, told SPACE.com via email.

"This was clearly identified as the top priority for Mars exploration by the recent Planetary Decadal Survey, and this 2020 rover has the potential to do that job," Squyres added, referring to a 2011 report by the U.S. National Research Council (NRC) that outlines the scientific community's goals for planetary science over the coming decade. Squyres led the committee that produced the survey. [Video: NASA to Launch Mars Rover in 2020]

Former "Mars czar" Scott Hubbard, who restructured NASA's Red Planet program after it suffered several high-profile failures in the late 1990s, echoed Squyres' sentiments.

"Im delighted to see the Obama Administration lay out a plan to return a NASA rover to the surface of Mars in 2020," Hubbard, who's currently at Stanford University, said in a statement. If a caching system is included, we can begin moving toward a sample-return campaign, as recommended" by the NRC.

Bringing pieces of the Red Planet back to Earth would allow researchers to examine them in fully equipped laboratories, which many scientists regard as the best way to search for signs of Martian life.

Grunsfeld said NASA wants the 2020 rover whose chassis and landing system will be based heavily off the agency's Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars Aug. 5 to help pave the way for sample-return.

But he doesn't know if it will feature a caching system. That determination is up to the "science definition team," which will be meeting over the next few months to map out the new rover's mission.

"The question of caching is going to be a trade-off case," Grunsfeld said. "The science definition team is going to have to weigh, what science do we want to get done? How much mass and power do we have available? What can we get to the surface, and where do we want to go?"

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NASA's Next Mars Rover Should Collect Samples, Experts Say

How To Watch Live NASA Space Footage In Google Chrome
I do a review of a pretty cool app for Google Chrome that lets you watch live footage from the international space station as it orbits the Earth. Sometimes, you can even listen to the radio transmissions that the station sends to the Earth. Here is the link to download the Google Chrome App: chrome.google.com Here is the link to try pasting into your web browser if you do not use Google Chrome (they might have the app for Firefox but not sure.) http://www.tvopedia.com NASA international space station google chrome live space footage watch live space footage online watch space footage in web browser NASA TV NASA TV - ISSFrom:wassup2190Views:0 0ratingsTime:03:54More inScience Technology

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How To Watch Live NASA Space Footage In Google Chrome - Video

Having Fun with Ravi 1
Chuckwalla Raceway with NASA-AZ on December 1 2, 2012. Love chasing Ravi around... You can hear the beginning my front rotor cracking and start to become uneven through the caliper as I started losing front braking capacity.From:Jim CozzolinoViews:0 0ratingsTime:08:40More inAutos Vehicles

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Having Fun with Ravi 1 - Video

The #39;X #39; Chronicles Newspaper - November 2012 End of the World Special
In This Edition of The #39;X #39; Chronicles Newspaper NOVEMBER 2012 - 50 Pages These are just SOME of the stories and articles in this edition of THE #39;X #39; CHRONICLES NEWSPAPER Page 01: Radio Broadcast of the Century Page 03: 2012 Mayan Apocalypse Has Dark Side - NASA Page 04: Doomsday Preppers Herald End of World Page 05: LA Survival Group Braces for Dec 21 2012 Page 06: Dates Throughout History that Predicted Apocalyptic Events Page 13: Will the World Really End on Dec 21 2012? Page 18: Mayan Apocalypse Poses Threat to Children Page 19: Why Do People Believe in the 2012 Doomsday? Page 20: Terence McKenna #39;s Magical 2012 Page 21: 7 Reasons Why The World Will Not End on Dec 21 2012 Page 24: Super-comet or Super-dud? Page 25:10 Facts Surrounding Comet Elenin Page 26: Remembrance Day - Nov 11 2012 Page 28: Explaining December 21 2012 to a Child Page 30: Debunking the End of the World Myth Page 31: The Maya Culture Page 35: Top 10 Fascinating Mayan Facts Page 38: Scotiabank Recognizes World AIDS Day Page 40: The Rise and Fall of the Maya Empire Page 41: Theatre of the Mind Page 42: Invited to the Wedding or a Blessed Photograph? Page 43: The #39;X #39; Zone LIVE 26 Hour Broadcast Ushering in Dec 21 2012 Page 45: UFOs In The News Page 46: UFO Sightings Across the US Decreases Page 48: NASA Downplays Rumors of a Discovery on Mars Page 50: The Gathering of the Forces of LightFrom:Rob McConnellViews:0 0ratingsTime:01:43More inEntertainment

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The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - November 2012 End of the World Special - Video