Orbital Sciences Corp. announced Thursday it will acquire the spacecraft development and manufacturing business of General Dynamics Corp.’s subsidiary, General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems.
Spacecraft acquisition is ‘good news for Eastern Shore’
March 6th, 2010ScienceShot: Phobos Has a Cheesy Interior
March 6th, 2010Our moon may not be made of green cheese—as 16th century English writer John Heywood had speculated—but Mars’s largest moon comes close. Phobos is full of holes, according to the latest data collected by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter during a close (67 kilometers) flyby yesterday.
Galileo backed Copernicus despite data
March 6th, 2010Galileo Galilei was right: Earth moves around the Sun, just as Nicolaus Copernicus said it did in 1543. But had Galileo followed the results of his observations to their logical conclusion, he should have backed another system — the Tychonic view that Earth didn’t move, and that everything else circled around it and the Sun, as developed by Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe in the sixteenth century.
After 50 years of NASA, we must not leave space
March 6th, 2010NASA’s strong history of innovation, as well as our dominance in space, is in danger because President Barack Obama has decided to shift the agency’s mission to more Earth-bound tasks.
Maintaining America’s lead role in space
March 6th, 2010It’s my hope that both Congress and the Administration will continue to fly the Space Shuttle until either Constellation, America’s next generation space craft, is ready to launch or a domestic based company is certified to take humans to the space station.
Exotic Antimatter Created on Earth
March 6th, 2010Scientists have created a never-before seen type of exotic matter that is thought to have been present at the earliest stages of the universe, right after the Big Bang.
New Rocket Engine Could Reach Mars in 40 Days
March 6th, 2010Future Mars outposts or colonies may seem more distant than ever with NASA’s exploration plans in flux, but the rocket technology that could someday propel a human mission to the red planet in as little as 40 days may already exist.
More political posturing over NASA budget
March 6th, 2010It’s not all that often that you hear a Republican candidate praise a Democrat running for the same office. But when Democrat Paul Partyka issued a release this week calling out U.S. Rep. Suzanne Kosmas, D-New Smyrna Beach, for not attending a rally of Brevard aerospace workers last Saturday, Craig Miller was…not exactly quick to respond, but he issued a release on Friday — a week later — applauding Partyka.
Bolden: It’s not a Plan B, it’s Plan A (version 2.0)
March 6th, 2010In a memo sent to staff late Friday, NASA chief Charles Bolden again denied reports that his agency was developing a so-called “Plan B” that would serve as an alternative to the controversial new NASA policy unveiled by the White House last month.
Probe may have found cosmic dust
March 6th, 2010Scientists may have identified the first specks of interstellar dust in material collected by the US space agency’s Stardust spacecraft.
NASA forms Plan B team
March 6th, 2010Shelby tells Bolden he’s ‘out of step with Congress’
Alternatives to President Barack Obama’s proposal to kill NASA’s Constellation rocket program began taking shape this week in Congress and, reportedly, inside NASA itself.
ADERHOLT “EXTREMELY PLEASED” THAT NASA MAY BE RECONSIDERING ENDING CONSTELLATION
March 6th, 2010Congressman Robert Aderholt (R-Haleyville) made the following statement after learning that NASA may be considering a “Plan B” to the President’s proposal to end Constellation. Congressman Aderholt serves on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, as a member of the Commerce, Justice and Science Subcommittee, which is responsible for funding NASA.
Massive Fight Under Way To Save Space Shuttle
March 6th, 2010
There is a massive fight to keep the space shuttle program alive for several more years. President Barack Obama wants to cancel both the shuttle and its successor, but now the big guns are coming out to keep it alive.
NASA Uses Fish to Fight Space Sickness
March 6th, 2010
Astronauts love doing zero-G stunts on the International Space Station, but only after the urge to vomit from space sickness has faded. Now fish, snails and other animals could help understand whether living in space can create long-term or even permanent damage in the inner ear.
Globe at Night is Happening Now!
March 6th, 2010With half of the world’s population now living in cities, many urban dwellers have never experienced — and maybe never will — the wonderment of pristinely dark skies. This loss, caused by light pollution, is a concern on many other fronts as well: safety, energy conservation, cost, health, and effects on wildlife.
Dark, dangerous asteroids found lurking near Earth
March 6th, 2010
An infrared space telescope has spotted several very dark asteroids that have been lurking unseen near Earth’s orbit. Their obscurity and tilted orbits have kept them hidden from surveys designed to detect things that might hit our planet.
Discovery’s Astronauts Suit Up, Strap In For Dress Rehearsal
March 6th, 2010
Discovery’s astronauts boarded their spaceship at Kennedy Space Center’s launch pad 39A today as NASA stepped through a practice countdown for the planned April 5 launch of the first of only four remaining International Space Station assembly-and-outfitting missions before shuttle fleet retirement late this year.
Water on moon a path-breaking finding, says ex-chief of ISRO
March 6th, 2010The confirmation of the presence of water on the moon by Chandrayaan-I probes will open vast opportunities for space research, says G. Madhavan Nair, former chief of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
Proposed Bill Would Bring New Life To Shuttle Program
March 6th, 2010
A Texas senator has introduced a bill to close the gap between the shuttle program’s retirement and the next U.S. manned spaceflight program, a program still to be determined with the president’s scrapping of the Constellation Program.
X-51 getting ready for first flight
March 6th, 2010There’s some pretty exciting stuff going on at Edwards Air Force Base as the flight test center team gets ready to conduct an awe-inspiring X-51 first flight.
The plan is to air launch the X-51A WaveRider using an expendable solid rocket booster from under the wing of a B-52, this spring.