Pieces of what an auction organizer called some of the most exotically expensive real estate on the planet were offered to bidders. A tiny piece of a Martian meteorite weighing 0.44 gram was bought Sunday for $1,000 by an Internet bidder who was not identified.
October 22nd, 2002
UMC Researchers Studying Space-Related Circulatory Problems
University of Mississippi Medical Center researchers are using an advanced computer program to help better understand what happens when astronauts are reintroduced to gravity. When NASA astronauts return to Earth’s gravity, about a fourth of them, mostly women, become so weak they have trouble standing. Others adjust to gravity with few problems. The longer a person is in space, the more difficult the transition. That makes the prospect of a six-month stay on the space station or a trip to Mars that could take over a year a daunting one.
September 25th, 2002
Of Mice And Mars
Mice might just help mankind get to Mars. Two female mice, Chevy and Pontiac, will live in a “life bubble” in Skylight Cave near Black Butte this weekend. The bubble could become a prototype for a self-contained biosphere humans will eventually use to explore the galaxy.
September 24th, 2002
Getting to Mars before 2020 is science fiction to Clarke
We’re lucky to get to Mars in 2020, said renowned science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, lamenting the progress the world has made in space exploration. Clarke, who spoke by telephone from his home in Sri Lanka, was among the participants in an event Monday commemorating the 40th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s speech at Rice University, where he set forth his goal of landing on the moon.
July 27th, 2002
Tiny flying robots: Future masters of espionage
Understanding the aerodynamics that allow insects and hummingbirds to fly is the key to an invention that researchers hope will create a little buzz and a lot of flap. Biologists and technologists at the University of California, Berkeley have spent the past four years developing a tiny robot, called the Micromechanical Flying Insect, that they say will one day fly like a fly. Other projects are taking different paths, but the goal is the same: churn out tiny, nimble devices that can surreptitiously spy on enemy troops, explore the surface of Mars or safely monitor dangerous chemical spills.
July 23rd, 2002
Low wind dashes hopes of record attempt Tuesday
American adventurer Steve Fossett flew a glider over New Zealand on Tuesday in preparation to soar into the stratosphere, but a local pilot warned the weather forecast did not look good for Fossett’s bid to break the gliding altitude record. Fossett, 58, and retired NASA test pilot Einar Enevoldson, 70, want to soar to the stratosphere at 19,000 meters (62,000 feet)
July 5th, 2002
Russia Proposes Sending Team to Mars
Russian space officials proposed an ambitious project on Friday to send a six-person team to Mars by the year 2015, a trip that would mark a milestone in space travel and international space cooperation. Russia’s space program hopes to work closely with the American agency NASA and the European Space Agency to build two spaceships capable of transporting the crew to Mars, supporting them on the planet for up to two months and safely bringing them home, said Nikolai Anfimov, head of the Central Research Institute of Machine-Building.
May 12th, 2002
Mars Shuttle Possible in 2018?
Though it will likely be decades before a human sets foot on the Martian surface, former astronaut Buzz Aldrin and scientists at Purdue University already are working on a shuttle they hope will one day take people from Earth to the Red Planet and back. The interstellar bus line would involve two massive spacecraft that could house up to 50 people on their six-month shuttles between the two planets. The craft would continuously cycle between Earth and Mars using gravity as their primary power source, with an occasional shot from a booster rocket. “If we’re going to go to Mars with human beings, we need to do it in an evolutionary way, so that we can continue doing it,” said Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon.
May 1st, 2002
Research may make a screen scrollable
The day’s getting closer when you might be able to unplug your full-size computer screen, roll it up and stick it into your pocket. Today’s liquid crystal displays, or LCDs — used in laptops, watches and cell phones — are sandwiched between two rigid pieces of glass. But researchers at Royal Philips Electronics have devised a way of making them by just painting the raw materials onto almost any kind of surface: walls, sheets of plastic — or even clothing.
January 14th, 2002
NASA Robot Melts Arctic Ice in Test
A hot-nosed robot melted its way 75 feet into an Arctic glacier in a test of NASA technology that one day could probe for life deep under ice on Earth, Mars and Jupiter’s frozen moon Europa. The cylindrical Cryobot – its copper tip heated to temperatures up to 195 degrees – took four days to bore into the glacier on the island of Spitsbergen, north of the Arctic Circle. “It was basically like a hot iron against the ice,” said Lloyd French, who was among scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology involved in October’s test.