Yulong Tian, secretary-general of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), speaking April 5 at the 33rd Space Symposium. Credit: Tom Kimmell

COLORADO SPRINGS China is pushing forward on a number of space fronts, including milestone-making robotic missions to the moon, as well as scoping out an automated Mars sample-return mission by 2030.

Yulong Tian, secretary-general of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), spoke here April 5 during the 33rd Space Symposium.

CNSA is the governmental organization of Peoples Republic of China responsible for the management of space activities for civilian use and international space cooperation with other countries.

Yulong reviewed major elements of Chinas 2016 Space White Paper a sweeping outline for the next five years of robotic and manned spaceflight, Earth and space science, and an emerging, new thrust in commercial space.

China is currently making policy for commercial space activities, Yulong said.

Concerning Chinas Beidou navigation system, by 2020, 30 satellites can provide services for global users, Yulong said.

Yulong said China plans to orbit more than 30 meteorological, ocean- and land-monitoring spacecraft in the coming decade.

In reviewing Chinas interest in working with other nations, Yulong said that the country has signed more than 100 space-cooperation agreements with 30 countries and space agencies, and in the future intends to cooperate with governments around the world, in climate change research, disaster prevention, space safety, and deep space exploration.

China is developing plans for deep space exploration over the next decade that will involve Jupiter, Venus, and asteroid exploration.

On Chinas manned space program agenda, Yulong said a cargo supply ship is being readied for launch aboard a Long March 7 rocket this month. It will auto-dock with the Tiangong-2 space lab currently orbiting Earth unoccupied, but the mission is a step forward in building and resupplying a larger space station in 2022, he said.

Yulong said that work remains underway to ready the Change-5 lunar probe for an end of November liftoff from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in southern Chinas Hainan Province. The moon-bound probe will be boosted by a heavy-lift carrier rocket, the Long March 5.

Change-5 is Chinas first automated moon surface sampling mission and consists of four parts: an orbiter, a lander, an ascender and a returner.

The lander will place samples of the moon in the ascender, which then departs the lunar surface to dock with the moon-circling orbiter and the returner. The samples are to be transferred to the returner for a journey back to Earth.

Also on Chinas Moon exploration agenda, Yulong said, is the Change-4 thats slated to be launched in 2018. That probe is targeted to achieve the first-ever soft-landing on the far side of the moon, Yulong said.

Yulong said that China approved in 2016 a robotic Mars lander to be launched in 2020. A second step is a return sample from Mars by 2030, he said.

Asked about the challenges ahead in lobbing Mars samples back to Earth, Yulong expressed confidence.

The Mars exploration for Chinawe have solved all the technical problems, Yulong told SpaceNews.

Were on track, he said, but added that the investment in the Mars sample effort is still being pursued.

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LOWELL, Mass. Astronauts, scientists, NASA officials and entrepreneurs will come to UMass Lowell this month to explore the next frontiers in exploration, including space travel, humans ability to live on other planets and research that benefits life on Earth.

Space Exploration in the Upcoming Decade: The Domestication of Space, will unite astrophysicists, researchers, students and industry leaders from around the world to share their work and navigate new challenges. The conference, which celebrates the 60th anniversary of the start of the Space Age, will be held on Friday, April 21 and Saturday, April 22 and is open to the public.

The event is presented by the UMass Lowell Center for Space, Science and Technology (LOCSST) and the Massachusetts Space Grant Consortium. Keynote speakers include:

Before the conference gets underway on Friday, April 21, participants will have a chance to see Valkyrie, NASAs life-sized, humanoid robot, which is housed at UMass Lowells New England Robotics Validation and Experimentation (NERVE) Center. One of only four such robots in the world, Valkyrie is at UMass Lowell so researchers can work to develop its capabilities to assist NASA in space exploration, including missions to Mars.

Subjects of conference sessions include exploring how space travel continues to benefit life on Earth, along with forging new university and industry partnerships to spur research. The event will also feature a competition among students who will present their ideas to design and build miniature cube satellites.

The UMass Lowell Center for Space, Science and Technology is led by renowned researcher Supriya Chakrabarti, physics professor and associate dean of UMass Lowells Kennedy College of Sciences. The center advances humankinds understanding of space and provides research opportunities for UMass Lowell students, training the next generation of scientists, teachers, business leaders and policymakers. In February, the centers researchers saw the successful launch of their Limb-Imaging Ionospheric and Thermospheric Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrograph (LITES) to the International Space Station where it is transmitting images of different wavelengths of ultraviolet light. By studying these images, scientists hope to improve how satellites and GPS navigational tools function by learning how irregularities in the Earths upper atmosphere affect radio signals.

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Space Exploration Experts Look to Next Frontiers at Event - UMass Lowell

program at NASAs Kennedy Space Center

The Chroniclers, a program at NASAs Kennedy Space Center, Florida, recognizing those who helped spread news of American space exploration, will soon have six new names on its wall of fame. (NASA image)

BREVARD COUNTY KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLORIDA The Chroniclers, a program at NASAs Kennedy Space Center, Florida, recognizing those who helped spread news of American space exploration, will soon have six new names on its wall of fame.

Five of the 2017 Chroniclers are retired, and one is deceased. They represent TV and print journalism, as well as NASAs public affairs office.

A selection committee chose the six on March 22 from among broadcasters, journalists, authors, contractor public relations representatives and NASA public affairs officers who, while still working, excelled at sharing news from Kennedy with the world.

This years honorees are, in alphabetical order:

Bruce Hall, a veteran CBS News and NBC News correspondent and producer who covered space for more than 20 years, starting with the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975 and continuing through the early years of the shuttle program, the Challenger accident and NASAs recovery, and the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Scott Harris, Orlando TV reporter and anchor for more than 40 years, and widely regarded for his live coverage of space shuttle launches from Kennedy. Harris worked both the first shuttle launch in April 1981 and the liftoff of the final shuttle mission in July 2011, one month before his passing at age 64.

Bill Johnson, NASA Public Affairs professional whose career at Kennedy spanned more than 45 years. Longtime chief of Media Services, responsible for dissemination of NASA news from and operation of the Kennedy Space Center newsroom and Press Site, Johnson was an awardee of the NASA Exceptional Service Medal.

Warren Leary, science writer and correspondent for the Associated Press and The New York Times for more than 35 years. An award-winning journalist, Leary covered spaceflight, technology, engineering, aeronautics, and medical science, as well as the investigation into the cause of the 2003 Columbia accident.

Robert B. (Bob) Murray, NASAs first videographer to provide live, airborne TV coverage of space shuttle launches and landings. For more than 23 years, Murrays primary aerial imagery was seen on television networks and stations, as well as in publications worldwide.

Phil Sandlin, a photographer for UPI and then AP, covered the U.S. space program beginning with the Apollo moon shots and continuing with the shuttle program until his retirement in 2011. Sandlin was winner of the National Press Photographers Associations prestigious Joseph Costa Award in 2016.

The six honorees, each of whom covered the U.S. space program at Kennedy for 10years or more and are no longer working full time in the media, were selected by a committee of working broadcasters, journalists, public relations professionals, and present and former representatives of NASA Kennedys Office of Communication.

The committee considered a total of 20 nominees for this years awards.

Past honorees include Walter Cronkite of CBS News, Jules Bergman of ABC News and two-time Pulitzer winner John Noble Wilford of The New York Times.

Brass strips engraved with each awardees name will be added to The Chroniclers wall in the Kennedy Space Center newsroom at the Press Site during a ceremony at 10 a.m. on Friday, May 5, 2017, the 56th anniversary of Alan Shepards historic flight as Americas first human in space.

Coincidentally, it was Shepard from whom the first Chronicler honorees received their award certificates in 1995.

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The Pros And Cons Of Privatizing Space Exploration Forbes What are the pros and cons of privatizing space exploration? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. Answer by Robert Frost, Instructor and Flight ... and more »

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"One ofthe goals is toreach new level ofcooperation," Komarov stated. "Many countries and nations coming tothis market and the field ofspace exploration.

Komarov explained that numerous countries ofAsia inparticular have shown "huge interest" tojoin space exploration.

"[O]ne ofour tasks and goals is toget them involved inthe space exploration," he pointed out.

Komarov also said such an approach will create opportunities not only forthe interested countries, butalso forRussia interms ofraising funds and creating additional opportunities.

"We are very active inAsia inparticular," he added. "We have good cooperation withour traditional partners and new countries that appear something likeBRICS Brazil, South Africa, India, China. We see the huge potential fordevelopment inthis sphere and sector, and we are very optimistic."

The Space Symposium inColorado Springs brings together representatives ofthe world's space agencies, commercial space businesses aswell asmilitary, national security and intelligence organizations todiscuss and plan the future ofspace exploration.

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Russia Aims to Develop New Cooperation in Space Exploration - Sputnik International

Both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have officially passed the NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2017, a piece of legislation that grants $19.5 billion to the agency to get humans to Mars.

Members of Congress have stated that NASA is tasked with getting human beings "near or on the surface of Mars in the 2030s," according to the language of the bill itself.

"It is the sense of Congress that (1) expanding human presence beyond low-Earth orbit and advancing toward human missions to Mars in the 2030s requires early strategic planning and timely decisions to be made in the near-term on the necessary courses of action for commitments to achieve short-term and long-term goals and objective."

NASA was the benefactor of $19.3 billion in federal money during 2016.

The document details not only Mars and Mars orbit as possible destinations for targeted space exploration, but interim destinations as well, such as cis-lunar space and the moons of Mars.

To accomplish this, the newly recognized bill orders the design and construction of a Space Launch System, or a rocket of massive scale that will be able to propel a space capsule across the chasm of space between Earth and Mars.

The Act calls for "a specific process for the evolution of the capabilities of the fully integrated Orion with the Space Launch System," as well as an explanation of how these specifications will help further the cause of getting a human safely to Mars.

The lengthy bill does not limit itself to the subject of traveling to Mars, either, but continues with a list of auxiliary projects that could further humanity's reach into space.

The bill approved a long-standing plan NASA has had to send a probe to Europa, a moon of Jupiter that may host a subsurface ocean.

The Act details numerous other explorations of "near-Earth objects," exoplanets, as well as design and build probes and instruments to gather critically important data.

President Donald Trump has shared brief words about Congress' move to further space exploration, saying he is "ready to unlock the mysteries of space."

Though reportedly supportive of continued exploration of the moon, President Trump has expressed intent to end NASA's long-established studies of Earth and its climate.

At this point, the Act is at the discretion of the President, though the passage of the bill is a likely prospect, according to Business Insider.

The current President has not yet made public any plans he may have for the bill or its passage.

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Congress Passes Space Exploration Act, Targets Mars - America Now

Professor in Astrophysics at Trinity College Dublin, Peter Gallagher.

Image: Paul Sharp/SHARPPIX

Professor in Astrophysics at Trinity College Dublin, Peter Gallagher.

Image: Paul Sharp/SHARPPIX

A PROFESSOR IN Trinity College Dublin has been tapped to play a key role in space exploration over the next 10 years.

Professor Peter Gallagher has been appointed as an adviser to the Director of Science at the European Space Agency (ESA). In his role with the Space Science Advisory Committee (SSAC), Professor Gallagher will be charged with interpreting the views and needs of the European science communitys access to space experimentation and data exploitation in the mandatory science programmes.

The ESA is set to invest over 5 billion in space exploration in the coming decade.

Among ESAs flagship missions is Solar Orbiter, which Professor Gallagher is directly involved in. This spacecraft will be launched in 2019 and then take around three years to make its way inside the orbit of Mercury to study the sun and the inner solar system.

He said:

Solar Orbiter will enable us to study the sun in greater detail than ever before and to better understand solar activity and its effects on Earth. Due to the huge temperatures close to the sun, the spacecraft is protected by a heat shield, which has been coated by an innovative Irish company called EnBio.

Im delighted to now play a role in shaping the future of ESAs space exploration programme.

The SSACs tasks include advising and making recommendations on the needs of the scientific community for access to space for their research; formulating and updating medium and long-term space science policy in Europe; prioritising the needs of the scientific community in selecting future space science missions, and laying the foundations for future missions based on recommendations and new discoveries.

Along with the 11 other members of the SSAC, Professor Gallagher will also implement a number of space missions under the ESA Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 strategy.

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Each project will receive funding to support development over the next 2 years before hopefully being ready for use in missions.

NASA is full of brilliant minds attempting to solve all the problems that stand in the way of exploring deep space, visiting Mars, and maybe one day even living on other planets. But there's only so much time in the day and so many people the agency can employ, so NASA also runs the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.

Through SBIR, NASA is able to select and help fund research and development of innovative technologies by small businesses that could ultimately benefit the agency. And 133 of those projects from 112 businesses have just been selected to receive Phase II SBIR funding, thought to be worth in the region of $100 million.

The SBIR program consists of three phases. Phase I establishes the feasibility of an idea over the course of six months with up to $125,000 of funding. Phase II allows Phase I projects to be further developed over the course of two years with up to $750,000 of funding. Phase III sees successful Phase II projects commercialized and funding provided from sources outside of the SBIR program.

These 133 selected projects made it through the Phase I feasibility process and now have a real chance to be turned into commercial products. Projects highlighted by NASA from those selected to receive Phase II funding include:

As the lightweight materials technology highlighted above demonstrates, although these projects are focused on benefiting NASA, they also hold the potential to improve other on-Earth industries such as aircraft design.

With Phase II projects receiving two years of support, we'll now have to wait until 2019 to find out how many of the 133 make it and get turned into commercial and space-ready products.

Matthew is PCMag's UK-based editor and news reporter. Prior to joining the team, he spent 14 years writing and editing content on our sister site Geek.com and has covered most areas of technology, but is especially passionate about games tech. Alongside PCMag, he's a freelance video game designer. Matthew holds a BSc degree in Computer Science from Birmingham University and a Masters in Computer Games Development from Abertay University. More

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NASA Funds 133 Projects to Aid Deep Space Exploration - PC Magazine

One of the tasks that President Donald TrumpDonald TrumpDem super PAC runs ads against 'Trumpcare' Alyssa Milano on Trump: 'Removing him will be up to' women Wash. judge upholds fines for faithless electors MORE has before him, along with revamping immigration and trade, repealing and replacing ObamaCare, and rebuilding the military, is restoring Americas space exploration program to its former glory. Press reports suggest that the administration is looking at an early return to the moon, using commercial partnerships.

To understand the task that the president and whomever he chooses as NASA administrator have before them, it is useful to look back on how profoundly and adroitly President Barack ObamaBarack ObamaTrump administration will hold anti-ISIS strategy session with allies: report Pence, not Trump, plans Ky. healthcare pitch Pence dodges on whether he believes Obama wiretapped Trump Tower MORE crippled the space agencys efforts to send astronauts beyond low Earth orbit. When Obama came into office, he did what a number of other presidents have done to determine their goals for NASA: he formed a presidential commission to study the space agency and come up with some recommendations.

The Augustine Commission, so named after its chairman former Lockheed Martin CEO Norm Augustine, returned with a set of recommendations some months later. The commission found that the program then in existence, Project Constellation, was not executable under any reasonable budget. The program, started by President George W. Bush, had been underfunded and had faced technical challenges for years. The commissions offered two alternatives. The first was Moon First, which would have focused Americas efforts on a return to the moon. The second was Flexible Path, which would have sent American astronauts to every destination besides the moonthe asteroids, the moons of Mars, and so on. Both options would lead to the holy grail of space exploration enthusiasts, a mission to Mars.

The kicker was that both options would cost an extra $3 billion a year for NASA to execute. For the Obama administration, which was not shy about spending money in areas that it cared about, this price tag was too dear to bear.

The governments response was formulated in secret. The results of these private deliberations were rolled out in the 2011 budget request that was released in February 2010.Project Constellation would be canceled, root and branch. Instead, NASA would conduct studies of heavy-lift rockets, deep-space propulsion, and other technologies that it was said, in the fullness of time, would make exploring space cheaper and easier.

Congress, which had not been consulted, reacted with bipartisan fury. The Obama administration made two critical errors. It had not consulted with Congress or anyone else when it developed its plans to kill Constellation. The White House also blatantly pulled a bureaucratic dodge that was apparent even to a first-term member of the House from the sticks. To kill a popular program, one studies it to death. Nowhere in the Obama plan was there a commitment to send astronauts anywhere. Clearly, the White House had no intention of doing space exploration. President Obama had expressed an antipathy to American exceptionalism, and nothing speaks to that quality than American astronauts exploring other worlds.

When Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, Gene Cernan, the last man on the Moon, and Jim Lovell, the hero of Apollo 13,sent an open lettercondemning the cancellation of Constellation, President Obama knew he had a problem on his hands. So, with Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin in tow as a political prop, Obama went down to the Kennedy Space Center to makehis big space announcement. We would go to Mars, sometime in the next 30 years and visit an Earth-approaching asteroid before that. We would not go back to the moon because we had already been there.

Of course, Obama was no more interested in exploring space than he was before. The Journey to Mars, as NASA eventually called it, was set so far into the future, the mid-2030s, as to be meaningless. Mars was the bright, shiny object to distract people from the vacuous nature of Obamas space policy.

Congress mandated the development of the Orion spacecraft and the heavy-lift Space Launch System, with designs meticulously spelled out to deny NASA any wiggle room to play slow walk games. These bits of hardware will be available around the end of the decade along with commercial vehicles.

Obama wasted eight years that might have been spent getting Americans beyond low Earth orbit. The Journey to Mars has been the ObamaCare of space exploration--expensive, unsustainable, and not designed to do what it is alleged to do. Part of the mandate of the current president to make America great again will be to turn that situation around and America back toward the stars.

Mark Whittington, who writes frequently about space and politics, has just published a political study of space exploration entitledWhy is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?He blogs atCurmudgeons Corner.Follow him at@MarkWhittington

The views expressed by this author are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

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How Barack Obama ruined NASA space exploration - The Hill (blog)

U.S. astronaut Peggy Whitson, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky, and French astronaut Thomas Pesquet pose for pictures during a press conference at the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome on Nov. 16.

Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images

Greetings, Future Tensers,

Nothing gets me in the spirit of International Womans Day quite like reading two accomplished female leaders on the future of space exploration. Lindy Elkins-Tanton, director of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, and Ellen Stofan, the former chief scientist of NASA, continue our March Futurography unit on the New Space Race by exploring the role of competition and collaboration in space endeavors. Elkins-Tanton writes that the purpose of space exploration is more than just scientific discoveryits about inspiration. She warns that if India or China beats the U.S. to Mars, it would be akin to a military defeat. Stofan says that we wont get to our next big space milestone without international collaboration, writing, When you are exploring space, going it alone has never been, and will never be, an option.

On a more terrestrial note, WikiLeaks has released thousands of new documents detailing the CIAs hacking capabilities. The document dump shows the CIAs ability to hack smartphones, computers, and smart TVsnot just your AOL email accounts. (Im looking at you, Vice President Pence.)

Other things we read this week while testing our reading comprehension before trolling the comments section:

Sent from my iPhone, Emily Fritcke For Future Tense

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University.

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Future Tense Newsletter: Space Exploration Isn't Just About Scientific Discovery - Slate Magazine (blog)

Members of the Expedition 50 crew aboard the International Space Station celebrated the 2016 holidays together with a festive meal, among them NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet.

NASA

On Wednesday, Future Tensea partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State Universitywill host an event in Washington called Will Collaboration or Competition Propel Humans to Mars and Beyond? For more information and to RSVP, visit the New America website.

The next NASA rover to Mars will launch in 2020. It will be built in the United States, and it will measure wind with a tool from Spain, study rock chemistry with an instrument partially built by the French, and examine the subsurface with a sounder from Finland. This kind of international mashup is actually fairly typical for space missions, which are typically composed of scientists and instruments from countries all over the world.

Partnerships with international space agencies have always been key to NASAs success. (Little-known fact: The first flag deployed on the moon was that of Switzerland, as part of a solar wind experiment with Apollo 11.) When you are exploring space, going it alone has never been, and will never be, an option.

When you are exploring space, going it alone has never been, and will never be, an option.

When it comes to peering outside our solar system, the partnerships continue. The stunning recent announcement of a seven-planet system around the star TRAPPIST-1, a mere 39.5 light-years away from Earth, involved a multinational team and telescopes, both in space and on the ground. A Belgian astronomer originally discovered some of the planets using a telescope in Chile, then further observations with the Paranal telescope in Chile and NASAs Spitzer Space Telescope confirmed the seven-planet system. Three of the planets are located in the habitable zone, where liquid water, critical for life, could be stable on the surface.

The flagship example of partnerships in space is literally the flagship: the International Space Station. The U.S., Russian, Japanese, Canadian, and European space agencies have been operating this amazing orbiting laboratory for more than 16 years, continuously human tended. The astronauts have come from 18 different nations, and experiments from 93 countries have been carried out on the ISS. Every day, astronauts on the International Space Station carry out research that will enable humans to travel to Mars and back. In the microgravity environment of space, our bones lose density, our muscles waste, our cardiovascular system undergoes change. Research carried out on the ISS is helping us develop ways to mitigate these human health effects, which will make it possible for humans to arrive at Mars, after a seven- to eight-month journey, healthy and ready to cope with any potential emergency.

Why Are India, Luxembourg, and Other Countries Getting Into the Space Race?

Your Cheat-Sheet Guide to the New Space Race

When Youre Exploring Space, Going It Alone Isnt an Option

If India or China Beats the U.S. to Mars, It Will Feel Like a Military Defeat

The International Space Exploration Coordination Group comprises 14 space agencies, including the expected bodies like NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Russian space agency. But it also involves space agencies from China, India, South Korea, and Ukraine. The group has produced a road map for human exploration beyond Earth and provides a forum for space agencies to coordinate efforts. While some nations are more focused on the Moon and some on Mars, all realize that no single agency is capable of such a large undertaking alone.

In addition to multilateral efforts like ISECG, NASA has bilateral cooperation with individual space agencies. For instance, the European Space Agency is providing the service module for the Orion capsule that will fly on the Space Launch System rocket to take humans beyond low Earth orbit. The first uncrewed test flight was to be in 2018, but NASA is now investigating how soon it could conduct the first test flight of SLS and Orion with a crew onboard.

The only space agency NASA cannot have bilateral agreements with is China, thanks to U.S. law. The Chinese space agency does work closely with most of NASAs foreign partner space agencies, and the previous NASA administrator, Charles Bolden, spoke publicly about his frustration with the policy. At a public forum with other space agencies in 2015, he stated, If we are not collaborating with everybody, well be on the outside looking in.

One of the chief barriers to international cooperation between space agencies is the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. Some space technologies are covered under these regulations, which were put in place to prevent the export of weapons systems and related technologies. U.S. companies that sell launch services or satellites have complained about the restrictions, which they feel cause them to lose business to international competitors. Even NASA has come under scrutiny for possible ITAR violations. The ITAR restrictions are confusing and seem overly broad, making it more difficult to set up cooperation with international scientists on missions. The ITAR regulations are set up under U.S. law, making it ultimately the responsibility of Congress to decide how much to loosen or tighten the restrictions. Despite these challenges, when it comes to overall goals in exploration, NASA will lead, in part because its budget far exceeds the budgets of its partner space agencies.

While the head of the European Space Agency has called for a moon village to be the exploration priority, NASA continues to set its sights on Mars, with a plan for the first crewed mission to Mars in the early 2030s. NASA does plan to put the precursor for a Mars transfer vehicle in orbit around the Moon in the mid-2020s, providing a stepping stone for international or commercial partners that want to venture down to the lunar surface. But Mars remains the priority goal, with the first orbital mission followed by astronauts to the surface in the late 2030s, to search for evidence of past life on Mars. The private sector will play a key role in this venture, with SpaceX planning to send an uncrewed Dragon capsule to the Martian surface in 2018 in partnership with NASA. SpaceXs capability to land its first-stage rocket boosters back on Earth is helping them to develop the needed entry, descent, and landing capabilities for Mars.

Observing this planet is also a closely coordinated effort. The Committee on Earth Observation Satellites and the Group on Earth Observations provide forums for space agencies or offices from around the world to discuss open data policies, coordinate observations, inter-calibrate instruments, and allow data comparison and validation. These coordination efforts are becoming even more critical, as we cope with changing weather and patterns of growing food, and sea level rise due to human-caused climate change. There can be more immediate payoffs, too, particularly when it comes to disasters. During humanitarian crises and natural disasters, the space agencies (more than 15 of them right now) with Earth-observing satellites that have signed the International Charter for Space and Major Disasters can shift their focus and prioritize processing of satellite data to aid rescue and recovery efforts.

While people often think of space exploration as a way to promote national pride, the truth is that the future of space is international. These partnerships are expanding our knowledge of the universe, helping us search for life on other worlds, making critical observations of our own planet, and moving humans outward into space in a much more rapid time frame, and more comprehensively, than would be possible otherwise. In addition, innovations in technology and science are not restricted to one country. Diverse, innovative teams solve problems, and no one country or company can go it alone when it comes to the final frontier of space.

This article is part of the new space race installment of Futurography, a series in which Future Tense introduces readers to the technologies that will define tomorrow. Each month, well choose a new technology and break it down. Future Tense is a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate.

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When We Explore Space, We Go Together - Slate Magazine

Artwork of the Mars Rover leaving its lander.

NASA

On Wednesday, March 8, Future Tensea partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State Universitywill host an event in Washington called Will Collaboration or Competition Propel Humans to Mars and Beyond? For more information and to RSVP, visit the New America website.

When young Charles Darwin stepped onto the Beagle, he wasnt planning to gather data for science, eventually changing the way humans view life. He had been a mediocre student in school and simply was hired on to be the gentleman companion of the captain. The main purpose of the Beagles voyage was to survey and produce better maps for trade.

Ferdinand Magellan, Christopher Columbus, and everyone else who tried to find the Indies were doing so for trade and national expansion. Sure, they stumbled upon parts of North America and a lot of other handy things and places along the way, but those discoveries were accidents. Sir Francis Drake, John Cabot, and everyone else who tried to find the Northwest Passage were also doing so for trade and national expansion. They also discovered a lot of science along the way, but not by primary purpose.

We often connect exploration with discovery; unexplored wilderness; new understanding; data; and, of course, science. But science has seldom been the motivator for exploration. Science has been an add-on until very recently, when inquiry and wealth and an interesting twist in perception has made science appear to lead expeditions, at least in space. All our robotic missions beyond our planet appear to be motivated by scientific discovery. We plan our mission to Europa to discover whether life has arisen there. We send rovers to Mars to look for water and the potential for life. We seek scientific answers.

At core, robotic space exploration is more for inspiration than it is for science. Orbiters, landers, and rovers inspire people to dream and to take bigger steps in their own lives. More practically, robotic missions are preparation for human missions. We Americans pay for NASA willingly because we are inspired and proud of our national achievements and technological wonders.

And although robotic space exploration is inspiring, human space exploration is far more personal, far more narrative, filled with more relatable challenge and risk. Human space exploration is a way for nations to flex their muscles and compete without having to resort to war. Its our substitute for mutual assured destruction, and that has not changed since the Cold War. (Thankfully, it is an uplifting and constructive substitute.)

Why Are India, Luxembourg, and Other Countries Getting Into the Space Race?

Your Cheat-Sheet Guide to the New Space Race

When Youre Exploring Space, Going It Alone Isnt an Option

If India or China Beats the U.S. to Mars, It Will Feel Like a Military Defeat

Americans have been thrilled by our Apollo successes. For 47 years, we have been the only nation to put a person on another celestial body, and we have been resting on that glory all that time. But that is about to change. The Chinese have an ambitious, progressive plan for landers, humans, and finally a colony on the moon. Multiple private companies, from the United States, India, and elsewhere, have lunar plans. What is going to happen to the American psyche when the Chinese, the Indians, and the European Union put people on the moon, and we are no longer the only ones? How will we react if other nations beat us to Mars?

After the Apollo era, we let the technology that enabled travel to the moon go out of production, in particular the Saturn V, the huge rocket needed to lift the big loads. Not until 2004 did that change, when President Bush announced we were going back to the moon, as a stepping stone for Mars. We began to build the Ares I and V rockets to enable those big launches. But then that program, in whole called Constellation, was canceled in 2010.

Next, also in 2010, the NASA Authorization Act laid out a plan to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 and to Mars in the 2030s. NASA, the science community, and the aerospace engineering powerhouses jumped on this new vision and began work. The graphic designers outdid themselves with inspirational timelines and visions of transport and habitation.

And now the Trump administration says we are going back to the moon perhaps helped by some increasingly influential and inspirational private companies, Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, Orbital, Blue Origin, Bigelow, and the like.

But wait! Where are we going? The moon, asteroids, Mars, space stations? What are we really striving for? If we cant commit to one human exploration target in our solar system, then we must conclude that there is no single overriding purpose compelling humanity to reach one celestial target over another. Yet we feel compelled. Science, clearly, is not the driving impulse. Not even commerce is driving it, despite speculation about riches in asteroids.

Having no consistent target means that the going is the point, not the getting there. And if making the journey itself is the point, then the purpose is showing courage and innovation and being first and fastest and bestin short, its a competition. Human space exploration is about national greatness as compared to other nations. Were still firmly in the Cold War mindset.

When other countries succeed, then, rather than joining together in a positive view of human progress, we will feel that we have failed, and we may be angry and bitterand dangerous.

One concrete solution is not to fail, that we as a nation need to go to the moon and to Mars.

And another solution is to collaborate. Imagine the Americans, from NASA and SpaceX and other private organizations, and the Chinese, and the Indians, and the Russians, and the European Union, are all living in nonstandardized modules at some safe distance from one another on Mars. Would they want to stay apart in such an extreme environment, or would they want to communicate and collaborate (even if thats not the case back on Earth)?

Lets not just hope for collaboration. Lets take more and better steps now to create and foster a space collaboration. We can make private-public space partnerships easier, including those that cross national borders. We can work harder at the international meetings on space topics to create multinational collaborative bodies. We can work harder at developing globally beneficial international standards.

Exploration started out about nations and wealth. Space exploration could be about moreit could be about our species. When we go to Marsit will happenlets make sure it is a step deeper into human civilization as we do it.

This article is part of the new space race installment of Futurography, a series in which Future Tense introduces readers to the technologies that will define tomorrow. Each month, well choose a new technology and break it down. Future Tense is a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate.

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If India or China Beats the US to Mars, It Will Feel Like a Military Defeat - Slate Magazine

The burgeoning space-transportation company owned by Amazon.com chairman JeffBezosthis week is expected to announce some customers and new initiatives, the latest step toward its long-term goal of building rockets powerful enough to penetrate deep into the solar system, according to industry officials.

The moves by the typically secretive Mr.Bezos, these officials said, are anticipated to disclose further details about Blue Origin LLC's strategy to create a family of reusable rockets initially intended to take tourists on suborbital voyages, and then propel spacecraft into Earth's orbit and eventually blast both manned and robotic missions to the Moon and various planets.

Plans for heavy-lift boosters previously unveiled by Mr.Bezos, including one version roughly half as powerful as the iconic Saturn V rockets that lifted Apollo astronauts to the moon, ultimately could emerge as rivals with powerful rockets already under development by fellow billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is working on its own version of a deep-space booster and capsule.

The initial test flight of SpaceX's long-delayed Falcon Heavy, which would become the world's most potent operational rocket, is scheduled for later this year. NASA's much larger booster, called SLS, is slated for its maiden flight in 2018.

So far, Mr.Bezoshas been less specific about timetables to demonstrate the reliability of his emerging heavy-lift rocket variant, called New Glenn, after the late astronaut and U.S. senator, John Glenn. Amazon's founder has been even less specific about a next-generation rocket on the drawing board, dubbed New Armstrong, in memory of the late astronaut Neil Armstrong, who was the first man to set foot on the Moon. That booster is intended for travel deep into the solar system.

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Both self-described "space geeks" with ambitious visions of helping humans establish large-scale settlements beyond Earth in their lifetimes, Messrs.Bezosand Musk have jousted good-naturedly on social media in the past about competing to land the first spent booster vertically back on Earth. Mr.Bezosdid it first after a suborbital mission, but Mr. Musk accomplished the feat by landing the main portion of a Falcon 9 rocket that delivered a payload into orbit.

For the first time, Blue Origin in the next few days is expected to make public specific customers, according to industry officials. A series of announcements and postings on Twitter is slated to follow a separate flurry of news reports last week about Blue Origin's bid for NASA's support to ship experiments, cargo and other hardware to the moon with the aim of setting up a permanent settlement there.

The proposal, which hasn't been acted on by the agency, was first reported by the Washington Post, which is controlled by Mr.Bezos.

Last-minute shifts could change Blue Origin's plans for the coming days, and Mr.Bezosis renowned for teasing the media with broad concepts, often without providing subsequent details. He is scheduled to speak Tuesday morning in the prominent leadoff slot at an international satellite conference in Washington.

The appearance also comes in the wake of Mr. Musk prompting headlines last week with a proposal to fly two fare-paying passengers on an automated trip around the moon by 2018.

Traditional and startup U.S. space companies are maneuvering to take advantage of the principle of public-private partnerships to accelerate manned exploration favored by President Donald Trump's administration.

With a few exceptions, Mr.Bezoshas opted to run Blue Origin since its founding at the beginning of the last decade behind a strict veil of secrecy -- and without seeking substantial federal contracts or development funding.

Last September, Mr.Bezosrocked the international aerospace community by disclosing that his New Glenn rocket would feature a cluster of seven main engines and stand more than 310 feet tall. If it flies by the end of the decade as intended, the largest version of the proposed booster could vie for commercial and military satellite launches with SpaceX, Europe's premier launch provider Arianespace and United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp.

Over the years, Mr.Bezoshas stressed the importance of creating reusable technology able to slash transportation costs by operating much more frequently than today's rockets. He also has talked about his long-term vision of "millions of people living and working in space."

Unlike Mr. Musk, who relishes making a steady stream of splashy announcements setting increasingly aggressive goals, Mr.Bezosremained virtually silent to outsiders until after Blue Origin pulled off its coup of successfully landing a New Shepard booster back at its West Texas launchpad in late 2015.

The unmanned vehicle flew a suborbital test to 333,000 feet, reached nearly four times the speed of sound, and then both the capsule and its liquid-fueled rocket separately landed safely -- ready for another flight. At the time, Mr.Bezosprojected commercial space-tourism flights could start "sometime in 2017." He also said "full reuse is a game changer" for access to space.

In November 2016, when he disclosed plans for a series of larger rockets with substantially more thrust, Mr.Bezosissued a stark reminder of how different his approach is versus that of Mr. Musk.

Noting "our mascot is the tortoise," Mr.Bezossaid "deliberate and methodical wins the day, and you do things quickest by never skipping steps."

Write to Andy Pasztor at andy.pasztor@wsj.com

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Amazon Chief Bezos Expected to Unveil Further Private Space Exploration Plans - Fox Business

Published time: 6 Mar, 2017 14:01Edited time: 6 Mar, 2017 14:03

Private aerospace company Blue Origin set up by Amazons CEO Jeff Bezos is expected to unveil plans this week for future space explorations, according to industry officials.

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It is part of the companys ambitious plan to create rockets powerful enough to reach the outermost corners of the solar system.

Unnamed officials said Bezos might reveal details of Blue Origins project to build a family of reusable rockets to conduct both manned and robotic missions to the Moon and other planets.

The company may announce plans for heavy-lift boosters amid growing competition with powerful rockets already under development by Elon Musks SpaceX. The test flight of the long-delayed Falcon Heavy developed by Musks corporation is slated for this year.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is working on its own version of a deep-space booster and capsule. The first launch of the booster, called SLS, is scheduled for 2018.

READ MORE: Amazon boss wants to start delivery service to the Moon

Jeff Bezos has not detailed any timetable for the companys projects. Among the most promising are the heavy-lift rocket called the New Glenn, and a next-generation rocket called New Armstrong, named in honor of astronauts John Glenn and Neil Armstrong.

Last week, the billionaire proposed an Amazon-like delivery service for potential human settlement on the Moon. The venture is reportedly seeking NASA support to carry out a series of cargo missions which would transport the equipment necessary to establish a human colony on the Moon.

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Amazon chief to announce new space exploration plans - RT

The International Space Station.

NASA/Crew of STS-132

Peter Diamandis: Diamandis is an entrepreneur who has both helped drive the rise of commercial spaceflight and contributed to asteroid mining effortscentral to the space missions of countries like Luxembourgthrough his company Planetary Resources.

Lindy Elkins-Tanton: A planetary scientist, Elkins-Tanton proposed an upcoming NASA mission to the asteroid Psyche, which might reveal a lot about the value of such objects, thereby forcing conversations about who owns extraterrestrial commodities. (Elkins-Tanton is the head of the School for Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, which is a partner with Slate and New America in Future Tense.)

Newt Gingrich: A former speaker of the House and current adviser to Donald Trump, Gingrich has pushed the United States to privatize its space projects, which might further disrupt the governmental monopoly on space travel.

A.S. Kiran Kumar: A space scientist, Kumar serves as the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization.

Robert M. Lightfoot Jr.: Lightfoot currently serves as acting administrator of NASA under Donald Trump.

Gwynne Shotwell: Shotwell serves as president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, a company that has made important steps in the drive to private space flight, challenging its associations with nationalistic ambitions.

Johann-Dietrich Wrner: Wrner, the current director general of the European Space Agency, oversees a variety of intergovernmental projects.

Xu Dazhe: An aerospace engineer, Xu contributed to Chinas growing space program when he served as chief administrator of the countrys National Space Administration until 2016.

International Space Station: Not a person, but a key character here nevertheless. The ISS launched in 1998, and according to NASA, 226 individuals from 18 countries have spent time there.

Chinas Growing Ambitions in Space, by Marina Koren: Koren details Chinese attempts to catch up with other superpowers, and its quest to expand beyond the earth.

How to Make a Spaceship, by Julian Guthrie: This 2016 book explores a competition that aimed to jump-start private efforts toward human spaceflight.

A Place for Ones Mat, by Gregory Kulacki and Jeffrey G. Lewis: This paper details the history of the Chinese space program from the mid-20th century into the early 21st.

A Pragmatic Approach to Sovereignty on Mars, by Sara Bruhns and Jacob Haqq-Misra: Bruhns and Haqq-Misra lay out a series of policies that would allow multiple nations to establish permanent habitation on Mars while also preserving its status as a site of scientific inquiry.

Space Law 101, by Matthew J. Kleiman: Kleiman describes the current state of space law and lays out some issues that it will need to account for in the future.

Trump Advisers Space Plan: To Moon, Mars and Beyond, by Bryan Bender: This Politico piece reports on the new presidential administrations calls for privatization of U.S. space efforts.

Why Are India, Luxembourg, and Other Countries Getting Into the Space Race?

Your Cheat-Sheet Guide to the New Space Race

International cooperation: For decades, international treaties have enshrined collaborative standards for spacefaring countries. Will those norms persist as more countries announce their space ambitions? How will international conflicts complicate renewed efforts to reach for the stars?

Value of human flight: Sending astronauts off planet is expensive, difficult, and dangerous, and many argue that the benefits are more propagandistic than practical. Will such concerns outweigh our ambitions?

Space debris: Every time we send a rocket out of the atmosphere, we end up scattering more trash into orbit, and that junk can be dangerous, potentially disrupting satellites and otherwise wreaking havoc. As more nations and companies accelerate their extraterrestrial efforts, that problem will likely intensify. Can we reach for the heavens without getting our hands dirty?

Accelerated privatization: Long the provenance of government agencies, spaceflight has increasingly become the purview of private companies, especially in the United States. How will the rise of these for-profit organizations reshape the goals of the new space race?

Asteroid mining: The still-theoretical attemptpursued by both private companies and countries such as Luxembourgto extract precious metals and other commodities from asteroids.

Space law: A catchall term used to describe attempts to govern and regulate human activities in space.

Cislunar space: The area between Earth and the moon.

Electrolysis: A process that could be used to convert water into rocket fuel, potentially driving exploration of the solar system.

International Telecommunications Union: Also known as the ITU, this United Nations agency helps regulate satellite positions.

Nanosatellites: Artificial satellites weighing less than 10 kilograms (about 22 pounds), sometimes deployed as part of a communicative swarm.

Outer Space Treaty: A 1967 U.N. document that regulates the behavior ofand cooperation betweencountries and nongovernmental organizations in space

The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu: This award-winning novel imagines the aftereffects of a Chinese attempt to contact extraterrestrials during the cultural revolution.

The Martian, directed by Ridley Scott: In this film, a variety of nations collaborate to bring home an astronaut accidentally left behind on Mars.

The Expanse: In this Syfy channel series, conflict arises between Earth, the asteroid belt, and the outer planets after the colonization of the solar system.

Nigerians in Space, by Deji Bryce Olukotun: This novel tells the story of a geologist tasked with stealing part of the moon.

Sid Meiers Civilization VI: The latest installment of this long-running video game series lets players win by setting up a human colony on Mars.

Mooncop, by Tom Gauld: This short graphic novel follows a police officer stranded on a lunar colony after most of the residents have headed home.

This article is part of thespace installmentofFuturography, a series in which Future Tense introduces readers to the technologies that will define tomorrow.Each month, well choose a new technology and break it down. Future Tense is a collaboration amongArizona State University,New America, andSlate.

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Your Cheat-Sheet Guide to the New Space Race - Slate Magazine

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Jeff Bezos Expected to Unveil Further Plans for Private Space Exploration Wall Street Journal (subscription) The burgeoning space-transportation company owned by Amazon.com Inc. chairman Jeff Bezos this week is expected to announce some customers and new initiatives, the latest step toward its long-term goal of building rockets powerful enough to penetrate ... Would You Book A Flight To The Moon?The Alternative Daily (blog) Why choose to go to the moon? Trump changes commercial space calculationsGeekWire The Trump administration has unleashed a lunar gold rushArs Technica Politico -SpaceX -Washington Post all 229 news articles »

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Jeff Bezos Expected to Unveil Further Plans for Private Space Exploration - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

Dear Editor,

I welcome the news that the Smithsonian Institution will be sending the Apollo 11 command module Columbia on a four-city tour under the title Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission (Fairfax County Times, The history of space travel encapsulated). Our manned and unmanned space exploration programs have set the pace of discovery for decades and achieved remarkable scientific breakthroughs that continue to have countless practical applications in science, engineering, medicine, and follow-on manned space missions.

Nonetheless, without the site survey of NASAs unmanned Lunar Orbiter program (1966-1967) that identified Tranquility Base where Neil Armstrong landed the Apollo 11 lunar lander, there might not have been so many successful manned missions to the Moons surface. Lunar Orbiter reconnaissance missions identified other landing sites as well, making site selection much more accurate and reliable than Earth-based telescopic imaging could. They made possible subsequent landings in more mountainous areas.

I was an active participant in the Lunar Orbiter and Apollo programs (1967-1970) and researched and wrote a history for the NASA Historians Office. In 1977 NASA Headquarters published my book Destination Moon: A History of the Lunar Orbiter Program (NASA TM X-3487) that is available to read on NASAs website at https://history.nasa.gov/TM-3487.

NASAs Langley Research Center in Langley, Virginia managed the program and had five successful orbital missions for five attempts one of the best records of any unmanned program. Following this success Langley managed the 1976 Mars Viking program using much of the technology and experience from Lunar Orbiter.

In preparing for their missions Apollo astronauts studied the detailed photographs that Lunar Orbiters sent back to Earth. Resolution of lunar surface details through the Orbiters 610mm telephoto camera defined details down to one meter in size. Repeated orbital passes over specific target areas made possible stereoscopic pictures of surface features and landing sites that were used in landing simulations by the astronauts.

On August 23, 1966 Lunar Orbiter I took the very first image of the Earth from orbit above the Moon. On August 8, 1967 Lunar Orbiter V photographed the nearly full Earth from polar orbit. These and thousands of other images of the lunar surface, including the dark side of the Moon gave scientists and the public their first true views of the entire surface of Earths natural satellite.

In recent years the original Lunar Orbiter images have been digitized and cleaned up for use in possible future astronaut missions to the Moon. There has been no other orbital survey of the Moon that offers such high quality detail of its surface features.

Bruce K. Byers

Reston

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Reader applauds space exploration pioneers - Fairfaxtimes.com

ARLINGTON Instructors use some fun ways to teach Earth-based sciences that bring out the natural curiosity in students.

But take those same fields of inquiry into orbit, then let student groups build a tabletop Mars colony project, and their imagination takes flight. After all, the basic science principles are the same whether you apply and test them here on terra firma, or in space. Space is just pun intended cooler.

Two Arlington science teachers are over the moon after attending the Space Exploration Educators Conference at Houston Space Center. They returned with a galaxy of ideas sure to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers among their students.

Rachel Harrington, sixth-grade science and seventh-grade math teacher at Haller Middle School, and Angie Kyle, a seventh- and eighth-grade STEM teacher at Post Middle School, said the resources they gained were amazing.

It ignites the passion you had when you were a first-year teacher, and thats enough to move mountains with these kids, Harrington said. Youre excited and thrilled to bring this back and inspire kids to do something bigger than their wildest dreams.

Moreover, she added, Youre surrounded by other like-minded educators who also want to inspire future leaders.

Educators from around the globe participated in the annual event at NASAs Johnson Space Center and Space Center Houston for three days in February. The conference welcomed teachers from 41 states and nine countries, including Canada, India, Japan and the Philippines.

The conference included seminars, hands-on activities, tours and guest speakers. The hosts used space exploration initiatives and the latest information about the International Space Program to boost teachers skills in presenting science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, lessons, in ways that inspire students.

Both Kyle and Harrington have found over time that whenever space science is part of the lesson plan, it gets the students attention.

All the science conducted on the International Space Station connects to all the science we do in middle school, whether growing plants or looking at the impacts of how human systems respond in different environments, Kyle said.

Before Kyle left for the conference to be a pretend astronaut, the class talked about getting a greenhouse. Classroom budgets being tight, she encouraged students to come up with their own proposal. When she returned, the students came up with three inexpensive proposals that used PVC pipe and tarps they just might have a greenhouse before the school-year ends.

For both teachers, this was their first trip the Houston Space Center, but Harrington attended a Honeywell space conference a couple of years ago.

While at the conference, they saw Historic Mission Control Center as well as the space stations flight control room, including stories of what happened during the Apollo days. They also touched moon rocks. Space Center Houston has the worlds largest collection for public view, and more than 400 space artifacts. Their teacher team also successfully designed a Mars rover with mouse traps.

They took their turn in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab, an astronaut training facility operated by NASA near the Johnson Space Center. Their team performed simulated tasks in preparation for an upcoming mission, wearing suits designed to provide neutral buoyancy to simulate the microgravity that astronauts feel during space flight.

A highlight of the visit was meeting astronaut Nicole Stott, a keynote speaker who talked about art in space education. Stott said when growing up nobody told her she could be an astronaut. She went ahead and did it anyway, becoming an engineer first.

Matt Green, James Webb Space Telescope senior staff project scientist, gave a mind-bending presentation on the design and construction of the scope scheduled for completion in 2018. The telescope is expected to see galaxies formed 13.5 billion years ago, at the point when stars and galaxies began to form.

While in Houston, they were able to meet with the planning lead on the NASA Orion Mission, the next generation spacecraft that will carry astronauts to an asteroid, Mars and eventually deep space. Harrington had arranged for her students previously to talk with that person via Skype. She had time to meet with Harrington and Kyle at the conference, but was on her way to meet with the European Space Agency about the project.

A challenging workshop that Harrington and Kyle attended was one that involved working to design a heat shield from common materials. This was an activity the teachers were able to bring back as a classroom assignment, using materials to protect an egg from a blow torch.

The teachers have more experiments in store. For example, studying slingshot maneuvers around a planet, using magnets to mimic gravity. Designing a better space toilet, and creating a urine purification system to make the fluid potable.

Kids love gross-out science, Kyle said, jokingly.

Growing tomatoes from seeds and observing their growth to learn more about photosynthesis is a common science project. Add a few seeds in the mix that took a ride in the International Space Station and study the differences now thats a science project.

The students wont know which of their seeds are more earthly and which are from the space station until they start observing them once they are planted, Harrington said.

Thats the fun of inquiry for the students. They need to report back to the program the effects of space on plants.

Harrington likes to remind students that learning never ends.

I tell them that you need to do it for yourself, always personally and professionally, she said. I am constantly searching for ways to grow myself. They should be doing that every day, too, outside the confines of these four walls and fifty-three minutes.

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Teachers attend space exploration conference, bring back lessons out of this world - Arlington Times

By Jake Keeley | 3/1/17 11:23pm

There are many things that I do not understand, but I do not think I am alone when I say that I do not understand the fascination with space. Im sure if we surveyed elementary aged children, one of the most frequent occurring desired occupations would be an astronaut. Aside from a police officer, or a fireman, kids love astronauts. And I cant totally blame them, as I too enjoy spacecrafts. In fact I have designed and engineered over 100 spacecrafts using LEGOs alone.

And certainly I can remember emulating life without gravity as I was taking big, moon-bouncing strides just yesterday. However, I cant help but ask whats next? There are so many unanswered questions that even if we got an answer, Im not sure we would know what to do with it. Is there life other than us? If the answer is yes, how does that change what we do on a day-to-day basis? If the answer is somehow figured out to be a firm no, does that change our approach either?

NASA couldnt care less about what we think because they are moving. After a long hiatus of being in the news, NASA has found themselves in the headlines twice in the past week. Not only did they recently find seven potentially hospitable planets, the movie Hidden Figures, depicting the story of a team of African American women mathematicians who played a major role in the early US space program, was nominated for the best picture award.

Best picture is certainly no small feat, but seven planets is extraordinary. Not only was the finding monumental, the naming was revolutionary as well.

TRAPPIST-1 finally serves as a nod to rapper Future who not only has a mixtape called Astronaut Status, but has also dedicated an entire project to the one time ninth planet from our sun, only to be reclassified as a dwarf planet, Pluto. No, NASA cant convince me that TRAPPIST stands for The Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope, because no one in their right mind would believe that.

After spending what felt like too long roving the planet Mars with nothing really to show for it, it seems like TRAPPIST-1 presents a real opportunity with some genuine traction. NASA suggests that three of the seven planets are within the goldilocks zone, where the temperature is neither too hot to boil off water, or too cold to freeze it.

However, there is still much to be learned about any of the planets, and it is certainly much too soon to speculate on the prospect of life. The best thing about it is that it is essentially a win-win scenario, because even if we determine that the planets are uninhabitable, we have an entirely new set of planets whose aliens can potentially invade Earth in the next sci-fi thriller.

We can even derive an entirely new species based on the environment TRAPPIST-1 presents. Just think of the possibilities. I already have, and it basically culminates in a reboot of Predator, because unfortunately all Hollywood can do these days are remakes.

In leaking Futures new mixtape, NASA has again sparked our interest in the unknown. Whether it stems from our longstanding love affair with films such as E.T., Star Trek, Star Wars, and other sci-fi films, it is evident that regardless of our reasoning, our infatuation with space will continue into the future.

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What is the fascination with space exploration? - Grand Valley Lanthorn

Space exploration aficionados experienced the thrill of anticipationin the hours before President Trumps speech Tuesday night, with advance word that he was going to call for a return to the human exploration of space.

Sure enough, in his closing words Trump declared that for a country soon to celebrate its 250th anniversary, American footprints on distant worlds are not too big a dream.

Trumps brief, offhand comment had the tone of an impulsive notion that, like so many of his other policy pronouncements, wont get any follow-through. Lets hope so, because the idea of sending humans to explore distant worlds is loopy, incredibly wasteful, and likely to cripple American science rather than inspire it. And thats assuming that Trumps notion doesnt have the ulterior motivation of diverting American scientists from their Job One, which is to fight climate change right here at home.

The idea of sending humans back into planetary exploration, with Mars as the prime target,has been a crowd-pleasing dream of presidents ever since Gene Cernan became the last American to set his footprints on the moon in 1972. As the author Ken Kalfus toted up the record, during the Reagan administration a congressional commission called for a return to the moon by 2005 and a Mars landing by 2015;George H.W. Bush declared that the American flag should be planted on Mars by the 50th anniversary of the first Apollo moon landing (2019);andGeorge W. Bush moved the deadlineout to a moon landing by 2020 in preparation for a leap to Mars and other destinations.

Barack Obama canceled the Constellation program that might have fulfilled the latter Bushs dream, but eased the pain by calling for sending astronauts to an asteroid by 2025, orbiting humans around Mars by the mid-2030s, and landing them on the surface soon after that within his own lifetime.

The romance of human space exploration doesnt belong only to politicians. Its been exploited, for example, by the industrialist Elon Musk, who last year unveiled a vision of human colonization of Mars to turn humankind into a multiplanet species to safeguard against an extinction event on Earth. Musks private rocket company, SpaceX, recently announced that it has taken deposits from two customers for orbital voyages around the moon.

The exhortations by presidents shareseveral assumptions. One is that the manned moon exploration programs Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo have yieldedstupendous returns in science, engineering, and economics and that the exponentially more challenging voyage to Mars will yield exponentially greater benefits. Another is that humans are needed to perform some functions in space that robots cant do. A third (seldom voiced directly) is that only the drama and romance of human spaceflight can attract the public interest and support needed for such an expensive program. At the peak of the space race, NASA commanded fully 4% of the federal budget, a share that couldonly be sustained by tapping into public excitement.

None of these assumptions is warranted, even though the scientific and economic returns from the space programs are invariably invoked as articles of faith. Typical is this claim madein October by two Trump campaign advisors, former GOP Rep. Robert S. Walker of Pennsylvania and UC Irvine economist Peter Navarro: Our past investments in space exploration have produced brilliant returns for our economy, our security and our sense of national destiny. In their article, Walker and Navarro dont actually mention any specific economic returns, brilliant or otherwise. Thats unsurprising, because its hard to identify any that would not have been produced by an unmanned moon program.

The presidential visions of human space exploration all hark back, of course, to President Kennedys 1961 call to send a man to the moon and bring him back alive by the end of that decade, a quest that was fulfilled. That was a different time, however: America was in the heat of technological and economic battle with the Soviet Union, the 1957 Sputnik flight still stung, and the Soviets had recently sent cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in orbit around Earth. Back then we were all vulnerable to the cult of the astronaut; as a kid I knew the names and personal stories of all the original seven Mercury pilots. Today few can summon up the names of shuttle astronauts with the exception of Christa McAuliffe, who is recalled chiefly because of her tragic end on the shuttle Challenger.Todays sense of the limitations of public funding of science and heightened awareness of competing demands on the federal budget closer to home didnt exist in 1961.

Are humans necessary for space exploration? Less now than ever, with the vast advances in robotics achieved since the last moonwalk in 1972. Astronomers and other scientists long have been skeptical of the need for human exploration. In 2010, then-Astronomer Royal Martin Rees of Britain said, The practical case gets weaker and weaker with every advance in robotics and miniaturization. It's hard to see any particular reason or purpose in going back to the moon or indeed sending people into space at all."

As physicist Steven Weinberg observed more than a decade ago, placing humans on a space mission makes it so much more expensive than an unmanned flight that some elements of the mission get jettisoned and those are almost always scientific projects. The public obviously considers the human participants to be indispensable, so much so that a loss of life can almost destroy a space program, as happened with the space shuttle program after two human catastrophes. Accordingly, protecting human lives and health becomes paramount; the cost of those arrangements will be much greater on a Mars flight, which is estimated to take as long as nine months.

Weinberg makes short work of the best example made for the necessity of humans in spaceflight. This is the series of repair missions on the Hubble Space Telescope performed by shuttle crews, the last time in 2009. The Hubble is one of several orbiting observatories that have added immeasurably to our knowledge of distant space. But because it was launched by the shuttle, it was also uniquely expensive. Weinberg quotes Riccardo Giacconi, the former director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, as estimating that had the telescope been launched by unmanned rockets instead of the shuttle, seven Hubbles could have been launched for the same price as the one we got. It would then not have been necessary to service the Hubble, Weinberg writes; when design flaws were discovered or parts wore out, we could just have sent up another Hubble.

What really underlies the lure of human space exploration is its romance and drama, fostered in part by decades of popular culture, including 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Trek and Star Wars, and The Martian. The characters in these space operas are our heroes, but whats often overlooked is that many of these are disaster stories. The thrill we feel from the interplanetary rescue of the stranded astronaut of The Martian obscures the more fundamental question of why he had to get stranded up there in the first place.

Among the dangers of cavalier calls for publicly-funded human space exploration is that monumentalBig Science programs like the space race tend to suck resources away from any science left on the outside looking in. A multitrillion-dollarprogram to put an American on Mars, endorsed by a president, will get first call on the federal budget, leaving behind programs aimed at disease cures, chemistry, and physics far behind.

In the current political climate, the biggest threat is to Earth science, which is increasingly devoted to climate change. It may not be a coincidence that conservatives in Congress have been systematically trying cut NASAs Earth Science budget in favor of planetary exploration, albeit unmanned exploration. They argue that the goal is to refocus NASA on its traditional mission. But thatsa smokescreen, because research in climate science has become a major part of NASAs mission.Theyre really displaying their hostility to research that could undermine the fortunes of their patrons, the fossil fuel industry. If Trumps call for manned planetary exploration is another puff of that smokescreen, it would hardly be surprising.

Sending humans into space would give Americans a sense of mission and grandeur, but thats mostly a sign of civic immaturity. Take the same sums and spend them on curing disease whether the biological malady of cancer or the social maladies of poverty and hunger and pride will surely follow. Keep the astronauts at home, and there will be much more money available to send robots farther out than humans could ever go, and to bring back immeasurably more knowledge.

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Trump's call for human space exploration is hugely wasteful and pointless - Los Angeles Times