NASA set to launch Mars rover searching for signs of water, life

About time that NASA does something.
I'm surprised they are using an American rocket and not going to the Russians or even the Chinese for the launch.

The State Column
NASA officials spent much of the weekend putting the last-minute touches on a rover headed to Mars this week.

NASA will launch the rover — nicknamed Curiosity — using an Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on November 26, space agency officials said. The launch was originally scheduled to blast off on November 25, however, officials said Sunday that the launch will be delayed in order to replace a suspect battery on the rover’s rocket...

The rover will travel to Mars, where it will land in Gale crater, which is thought to be about three and a half billion years old and more than 95 miles in diameter. The crater has a combined size of Connecticut and Rhode Island with a three-mile-high mountain of layered sedimentary rock at its bottom — an enticing area of exploration for scientists.

Aliens May Strike Humans To Save The Galaxy

The 2012 doomsday prophecy is nothing compared to Aliens being so pissed off at how we take care of the earth that they are going to obliterate us to save the Galaxy!



Time to start drinking folks !

IBTimes
Global warming may not remain merely 'global' anymore, as a new study suggests its cosmic impact.

Beyond endangering the earthly inhabitants, humans may have posed a serious threat to the entire galaxy, possibly prompting aliens to destroy humanity in order to end global warming and save the rest of the galaxy from being contaminated as well.

Surprisingly, the suggestion comes from one of NASA's scientists.

The scenario was brought up in a joint study by Penn State University and the NASA Planetary Science Division, titled "Would Contact with Extraterrestrials Benefit or Harm Humanity? A Scenario Analysis."

"A preemptive strike would be particularly likely in the early phases of our expansion because a civilization may become increasingly difficult to destroy as it continues to expand," the study says. "Humanity may just now be entering the period in which its rapid civilizational expansion could be detected by an ETI (extraterrestrial intelligence) because our expansion is changing the composition of the Earth's atmosphere, via greenhouse gas emissions."

By using spectrometry, extraterrestrials could detect changes in Earth's atmosphere and deduce that we're out of control, speculated the researchers, among a number of other scenarios discussed in the 33-page paper.

'Atlantis is home!'

Lets hope that the U.S Government can pull its collective head out of its ass long enough to get on with the next phase of space exploration, So we may see events like this again !


USA Today
Atlantis lands at Kennedy Space center on the final U.S. shuttle mission after 30 years.

Update at 6:05 a.m. ET: NASA notes that Atlantis, the youngest of the shuttles, has flown 33 missions and traveled more than 125 million miles. It will now go on display at the Kennedy Space Center.

Update at 5:58 a.m. ET: NASA control: "Atlantis is home. Its journey complete. A moment to be savored."

Update at 5:56 a.m. ET: Atlantis touches down.

Update at 5:47 a.m. ET: Shuttle is 10 minutes from touchdown.

Endeavour space shuttle makes last touch-down

One more to go and that is it, no more space shuttle.


BBC
Space shuttle Endeavour has brought its 19-year operational career to a close with a textbook landing in Florida.

The vehicle swept into a night-time touch-down at the Kennedy Space Center after a successful trip to the International Space Station (ISS).

The US space agency (Nasa) is retiring its shuttle fleet and Endeavour will now be prepared for public display at a science museum in Los Angeles.

Only the Atlantis ship has yet to make a final outing.

It was moved to Kennedy's one active launch pad late on Tuesday night to get it ready for that swansong, which is expected to occur next month.

Endeavour's rear wheels touched the runway at Kennedy at 0234 local time (0634 GMT).

NASA Announces Pioneering Mission To Asteroid

Sounds exciting, and it could be if furtherr funding does not get cut from the NASA budget.
Osiris-Rex will not reach the near Earth asteroid designated 1999 RQ36 until 2020 (launch date 2016) it will be awhile.

Irish weather online
NASA will launch a spacecraft to an asteroid in 2016 and use a robotic arm to pluck samples that could better explain our solar system’s formation and how life began. The mission, called Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer, or OSIRIS-REx, will be the first U.S. mission to carry samples from an asteroid back to Earth.

“This is a critical step in meeting the objectives outlined by President Obama to extend our reach beyond low-Earth orbit and explore into deep space,” said NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden. “It’s robotic missions like these that will pave the way for future human space missions to an asteroid and other deep space destinations.”

NASA selected OSIRIS-REx after reviewing three concept study reports for new scientific missions, which also included a sample return mission from the far side of the moon and a mission to the surface of Venus.

Nasa sky-map data's stellar spectacular

Awesome stuff, some of the most beautiful things you could ever see are out in space, new pictures are always exciting.




Here's the gallery, and this is the Multimedia gallery for you technical people, you can select an object, download it, and save it, of course you need to know where the object is (Right Ascension and Declination)and these are in different filters (red, blue,green,)you can view them combined or separately, but you can't view in the all four band mode, but hey it is good enough!

Walesonline.co.uk
Nasa has released a trove of data from its sky-mapping mission, allowing scientists and anyone with internet access to peruse millions of galaxies, stars, asteroids and other hard-to-see objects.

Many of the targets in the celestial catalogue released online this week have been previously observed, but there are significant new discoveries. The mission’s finds include more than 33,000 new asteroids floating between Mars and Jupiter and 20 comets.

Nasa launched the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, which carried an infrared telescope, in December 2009 to scan the cosmos in finer detail than previous missions. The spacecraft, known as WISE, mapped the sky one and a half times during its 14-month mission, snapping more than 2.5 million images from its polar orbit.

The spacecraft’s ability to detect heat glow helps it find dusty, cold and distant objects that are often invisible to regular telescopes.

The batch of images made available represents a little over half of what has been observed in the all-sky survey. The full cosmic census is due for release next spring.

Unmanned US Spacecraft Returns After 7-Month Trip

Uh, Autonomous landing? 7 Months in space!



Can it Carry Cargo?

If it can land itself while carrying say ...

Nevermind! Move along sheeple nothing to see here.

Foxnews
VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. – The U.S. Air Force's secrecy-shrouded X-37B unmanned spaceplane returned to Earth early Friday after more than seven months in orbit on a classified mission, officials said.

The winged craft autonomously landed at at Vandenberg Air Force Base on the California coast 130 miles northwest of Los Angeles, Vandenburg spokesman Jeremy Eggers said.

"It's very exciting," Eggers said of the 1:16 a.m. PST landing.

The X-37B was launched by an Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on April 22, 2010, with a maximum mission duration of 270 days.

Also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle, the Boeing-built spacecraft was originally a NASA project before being taken over by the military.


The Air Force has not said whether it carried anything in its cargo bay, but insists the primary purpose of the mission was to test the craft itself.

Arsenic-based life form discovered on Earth

Not the type of Alien Lifeforms we want to see but definitely Alien.


the Washington Post
NASA held a press conference Thursday afternoon in which they revealed the discovery of arsenic-based life forms on Earth. As Marc Kaufman explained:

All life on Earth - from microbes to elephants and us - is based on a single genetic model that requires the element phosphorus as one of its six essential components.

But now researchers have uncovered a bacterium that has five of those essential elements but has, in effect, replaced phosphorus with its look-alike but toxic cousin arsenic.

News of the discovery caused a scientific commotion, including calls to NASA from the White House and Congress asking whether a second line of earthly life has been found.

NASA Chief Who Called Muslim Outreach 'Foremost' Job Heads to Saudi Arabia

Yep , NASA is not reaching out to the Muslims !

Just because NASA Chief Charles Bolden is Going to Saudi Arabia , that doesn't mean it is some of that Muslim Outreach directive .

Move Along !


Foxnews
The NASA chief who caused an uproar over the summer when he said outreach to the Muslim world might be his "foremost" priority has embarked on a trip this weekend
to Saudi Arabia.

A NASA spokesman said the visit is part of a multicountry tour. Administrator Charles Bolden and a delegation of several other NASA officials arrive in Saudi Arabia on Friday following a trip to Prague. From the Middle East, they will head next to Nepal where Bolden will give a keynote address at a climate change conference.

Though Bolden's comments about Muslim outreach earlier raised concerns that the White House was squeezing him into an out-of-place diplomatic role, NASA spokesman John Yembrick said the trip "was not initiated" by either the White House or the State Department.

"This trip, including the visit to Saudi Arabia, is driven by specific, appropriate agency-level objectives," he said in an e-mail.


Must be code for Muslim Outreach

....

Phantom Eye hydrogen-powered spy plane unveiled

The Phantom Eye can stay in the air for 4 Days , at 65.000 feet .





BBC
Boeing has unveiled its unmanned hydrogen-powered spy plane which can fly non-stop for up to four days.

The high-altitude plane, called Phantom Eye, will remain aloft at 20,000m (65,000ft), according to the company.

The demonstrator will be shipped to Nasa's Dryden Flight Research Center in California later this summer to prepare for its first flight in early 2011.

Boeing says the aircraft could eventually carry out "persistent intelligence and surveillance".

It is a product of the company's secretive Phantom Works research and development arm.

Boeing says the aircraft is capable of long endurance flights because of its "lighter" and "more powerful" hydrogen fuel system.

"We flew Condor [the company's previous reconnaissance drone] for 60 hours in 1989 on regular jet fuel, and that was the maximum," said Chris Haddox from Boeing Phantom Works. "Now we're talking 96 hours."

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-01-28/nasa-to-get-6-billion-to-outsource-crew-ferry-official-says.html

Outsourcing is the way to go for NASA , they have been doing it for years (With American Companies )
For NASA to Accomplish this within A "Government" Structure , it Total Well over the Amount for the Obamacare Plan !


Jan. 28 (Bloomberg) -- NASA would receive a $6 billion boost in funding over five years to spur companies to develop rockets capable of taking astronauts to the International Space Station, an administration official said.

In total, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration would receive $100 billion over five years under President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2011 budget, the official said.

“My initial impression is that this is a real significant indication of support for NASA in a time of tight budgets,” said former astronaut Sally Ride in an interview.

NASA spacecraft confirms water ice deposits on moon

This is really from a couple of days ago , been busy ,busy ,busy !
But Amazing , not only did they find water this time but they found a significant amount ! So much that it will now stir the brains of NASA into a full fledged Moon Mission ! ( If they Can Keep Obama Out of the Way )

....CNET
Making a bigger splash than expected, the crash of an empty rocket stage in a permanently shadowed crater near the moon's south pole last month kicked up a surprising amount of water ice and vapor, confirming the presence of a potentially valuable resource for future space travelers.

"I'm here today to tell you that indeed, yes, we found water," said Anthony Colaprete, the project scientist and principal investigator for the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite. "And we didn't find just a little bit, we found a significant amount."

Holding up water jugs to make the point, he said "if you remember, a month ago we were talking about teaspoons going into glasses over football fields. Well, now I can say today that in the 20- to 30-meter (65- to 100-foot-wide) crater LCROSS made, we found maybe about a dozen of these two-gallon buckets worth of water."

And more than water. Data from the LCROSS instruments show signs of other compounds that may shed light on the moon's evolution.

"It's a whole lot more beyond the water," Colaprete said. "That's the exciting part in my mind, it's not only about the water now. There's actually a lot more here that we're going to be talking about in the months ahead, looking at the LCROSS data."



" With every new discovery in space we come closer to "Seeing" What is Really/actually there !
It is Human nature to Explore , Space should not be left off the Map Because of Some Jackass's Political View ! or Religious beliefs , whats there is there and that is the reality of it , Created by a God , Or by some other means !
For anyone to think that we are the only ones Floating around the Universe , is the root of true Arrogance ! "