Sam Martin, 16, has just returned from three weeks at the International Space School and at Nasa’s Johnson Space Center in Texas. For him it was the trip of a lifetime – and has helped to refine his ambitions to be an astronaut.
July 31st, 2000
Can Athena Cut A New Path To Mars
The decision we’ve been waiting for has been reached — NASA will launch a copy of Cornell University’s long-range “Athena” rover to Mars in 2003, rather than Lockheed Martin’s proposal for a second Mars Global Surveyor orbiter with a new set of instruments. Scientifically, it was a very close decision — as even Steven Squyres, the head of the Athena scientific team, admits — but certainly this mission is more likely to interest the general public. However, that same public popularity has apparently led to a sudden startling twist in the mission selection process that began with NASA’s abrupt postponement of the press conference at which the selection was to be announced. The reason for this delay was due to the fact that NASA is suddenly considering a totally unexpected plan to launch a second, duplicate Mars rover to another landing site also in 2003.
July 28th, 2000
Mars mission critical for Nasa
Missions to parts of our solar system may be routine these days but Nasa knows only too well that they remain extremely difficult. Losing two Mars spacecraft in a short period of time, through glaringly stupid errors, did the agency no good at all. Had things worked out the public would be logging on to the Nasa website to hear the Martian breeze whistle across the landscape and scientists would be drowning in data. Instead Nasa is now scrambling around for a new Mars mission that will be both cheap and a sure-fire success.
July 20th, 2000
Flood of data may point to more water on red planet Christian Science Monitor
Mars may have more water than scientists have expected. Last month, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) showed images that suggest liquid water has carved gullies in the planet’s surface in recent times. Now, a new analysis of a Martian meteorite indicates the red planet may have lost less water to space than previously estimated.
July 19th, 2000
NASA Shapes Blueprint for Mars
NASA is all ears for new ways to explore Mars. Future missions could feature smart balloons, robotic rotorcraft, free-flying frisbees or even deep-drilling mechanized inchworms — there’s no shortage of ways to purge that planet of its secrets. Such ideas are among many conjured up by a mix of some 200 engineers, scientists and technologists from around the world meeting here July 18 to 20 at the Lunar and Planetary Institute.
July 10th, 2000
Space Money Club: Lifestyles of the Rich and Weightless
The day is fast approaching when spacefaring citizens will need fast cash out in the cosmos to conduct their daily affairs. That’s the position of attorney at law, Declan O’Donnell, a specialist in space legalities — be they asteroid and lunar property rights or hammering out the finer details of outer-space treaties.
June 26th, 2000
An Interview With Kim Stanley Robinson
The man who can tell you everything about what it takes to terraform Mars is not surprised by the confirmation of water on the Red Planet. In his three “Mars” novels (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars), Kim Stanley Robinson constructed a vision of the Red Planet and humanity’s evolving relationship with it that spans hundreds of years and as many characters. The achievement has been likened to “War and Peace with spaceships”; another comparison might be to a space-age Moby Dick. Robinson spoke to SPACE.com about the discovery of an indispensable requirement for life as we know it, whether native to the Red Planet or imported from Earth.
June 23rd, 2000
What now for Mars?
The possibility of water on Mars will revitalise our efforts to explore our neighbouring world, on which life could have started and may still exist today. Nasa has produced stunning pictures of crater walls that appear to have channels cut in them by running, liquid water. It is something nobody expected, and shows just how much we still have to learn about the Red Planet.
June 21st, 2000
Mars Discovery May Speed NASA, European Plans
The prospect that NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor has detected signs of water at a specific site on the Red Planet is likely to spark debate as to whether or not to send a robotic craft on location to look for life.
June 11th, 2000
Researchers test Mars rover prototype in Nevada desert Las Vegas Sun
The six-wheeled rover inches over the gravel of a wind-swept hillside, carefully avoiding boulders and precipices in a slow-motion hunt for a rock that struck the fancy of distant planetary scientists.