Deeply disappointed British scientists read the last rites for their missing Mars lander Beagle 2 Monday, and called for a new space mission to replace the life-seeking probe. “Under these circumstances we have to begin to accept that if Beagle 2 is on the Martian surface, it is not active,” Colin Pillinger, the probe’s lead scientist, told a news conference. “But now is not the time to grieve. We must look to the future.” After a series of attempts to contact the lander, which should have parachuted onto the surface of the Red Planet on Christmas day, one final attempt will be made to jolt it into life.
January 15th, 2004
Bookies offer heavy odds against Mars landing
If U.S. President George W. Bush is serious about sending a man to Mars, he can put his money where his mouth is and win a fortune. Bookmakers William Hill said on Thursday they were offering 50/1 odds against a man walking on Mars by December 31, 2030. Bush announced plans on Wednesday to send humans back to the moon as early as 2015 and eventually to Mars.
January 9th, 2004
U.S. space stocks take off on Bush lunar, Mars plan
Shares of space-related companies took off on Friday on hopes that President George W. Bush’s expected initiative for a permanent U.S. presence on the moon and a mission to Mars will boost profits. “For the first time since 1972, people think we’re going to have a renewed space program,” said Arthur Hogan, chief market analyst for investment firm Jefferies & Co. “It’s a hot-button topic.”
October 17th, 2003
China space plans? – the sky’s the limit
Will the next footprints on the moon be Chinese? Will
October 13th, 2003
China Counts Down to Great Leap Forward in Space
More than 40 years ago, Soviet astronaut Yuri Gagarin blasted into orbit inside what was described as a tin can on top of a bomb, becoming the first out of the block in the Cold War space race with the United States. China is due on Wednesday to become only the third nation to send a manned vehicle into space, the climax of a program launched by Mao Zedong in the 1950s. China, keen to be a world technology leader, is not limiting its space ambitions to manned flight. It plans to explore the Moon and complete a space station by 2020, before heading for Mars.
September 29th, 2003
Space Station Stay Shows Humans Could Go to Mars
Astronauts stranded for two extra months aboard the International Space Station after the shuttle Columbia accident showed that humans are strong enough to make the long trip to Mars, one of the expedition’s members said on Monday. Donald Pettit, one of three members of the station’s Expedition Six, said he and his two crew-mates who spent 161 days on the space station inadvertently demonstrated humans’ fitness for interplanetary travel. Pettit said the demonstration was not planned, but said Expedition Six demonstrated “that there are no barriers for human physical performance to a trip to and a landing on Mars.”
September 17th, 2003
Boeing: U.S., China Should Cooperate on Space
The United States should work on joint space projects with China, which is preparing to send its first person into space, the China chief of U.S. aerospace giant Boeing Co said Wednesday. “We really think it is a matter of NASA and what they want to do,” David Wang, president of Boeing China, told reporters. China is working on becoming the third nation to send people into space, and many analysts believe the mission could blast off around the country’s October 1 National Day.
September 16th, 2003
China Says Space Launch Countdown Going Smoothly
Preparations are well under way for China’s first manned space mission, widely expected to rocket an astronaut into orbit within the next few weeks or months, the country’s science minister said on Tuesday. “As far as I know, all the preparatory work for the launching of Shenzhou V is going very smoothly,” Science and Technology Minister Xu Guanhua told a news conference.
September 3rd, 2003
Scientist Says No Water Needed to Make Mars Red
Data from an unmanned Mars probe suggests the red planet’s rusty color might have come not from water as widely believed but from tiny meteors raining on its surface, a science magazine said on Wednesday. Scientists exploring the possibility of some form of life existing on Earth’s planetary neighbor are eager to establish whether water exists or has existed on Mars and, if so, in what quantities. The New Scientist magazine quoted Albert Yen of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as saying information from the 1996-97 Pathfinder mission suggested the hue came from meteors and dust containing iron and magnesium.
August 21st, 2003
Mars Findings Pour Cold Water on Ocean Theory
Scans of the surface of Mars have turned up clues about the Red Planet’s atmosphere and suggest Mars has always been a cold, barren place, U.S. scientists said on Thursday. Using the Thermal Emission Spectrometer on NASA’s orbiting Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, geologist Philip Christensen of Arizona State University and his colleagues looked for minerals known as carbonate compounds. The compounds provide clues about Mars’s past because they form when carbon dioxide gas comes in contact with minerals and water.