Human flight took a significant step forward today as the privately built SpaceShipOne flew into suborbital space for the second time in five days, securing the $10 million Ansari X Prize. With pilot Brian Binnie at the controls, SpaceShipOne rocketed to an unofficial height of 368,000 feet, setting a new altitude record for the craft and proving that private industry can build a viable vehicle for sending paying passengers to space. “This is a milestone for humanity,” said John Spencer, president of the Space Tourism Society in Los Angeles.
September 29th, 2004
Expedition Turns Up Life on Pseudo-Mars
An international team of scientists has found life on a Norwegian island. No surprises there, but the successful field test of a collection of life-detection instruments may be a stepping stone for future endeavors to sniff out life on Mars. “It
September 28th, 2004
Rover Report Card: Prospect of Mars Life More Likely
Rolling, rolling, rolling. Keep those Mars rovers rolling. You can almost hear the crack of a Martian whip. Since January, NASA
September 28th, 2004
Mars Orbiter Spots Rover’s Tracks from Space
A spacecraft orbiting Mars photographed one of NASA’s rovers and its tracks on the surface, the space agency said Monday. The image made by a camera aboard the Mars Global Surveyor shows a dark dot identified as the rover Spirit next to giant Bonneville Crater and the thin dark line of its tracks leading back to its lander. The picture was made by rolling the entire spacecraft, adjusting its rotation rate to match the ground speed under the camera, a process that produces sharper images.
September 27th, 2004
New $50 Million Prize for Private Orbiting Spacecraft
While a team of aerospace engineers takes aim this week on the $10 million Ansari X Prize competition for privately developed suborbital spaceflight, a Nevada millionaire is planning an even loftier contest. Robert Bigelow, chief of Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace, is apparently setting higher goals for private spaceflight endeavors with America’s Space Prize, a $50 million race to build an orbital vehicle capable of carrying up to seven astronauts to an orbital outpost by the end of the decade, according to Aviation Week and Space Technology. Bigelow told Aviation Week that not only would Space Prize winners secure the $50 million purse, half of which he’s putting up himself, but also snag options to service inflatable space habitats under development by Bigelow Aerospace.
September 27th, 2004
Air Leaks from Mars via Planet’s Tail
Like a comet, Mars has a tail, a stream of particles pushed away from the planet by the Sun’s energy. New measurements of the Martian tail reveal how much air the planet loses to space every day and allow scientists to estimate the tremendous loss that may have occurred billions of years ago, making the red planet the dry and cold world it is.
September 23rd, 2004
Life is a Gas: Methane Might Support Underground ET
A new test that produced methane under conditions mimicking the deep interiors of Earth and Mars lends support to an idea that the gas could theoretically support unseen colonies of microbes on both worlds. And the study hints at the possibility of a potential vast supply of petroleum products. While the lab work doesn’t reveal what’s really down there, it has nudged a controversial theory about what’s under our feet one step closer to the mainstream. The research was led by Henry Scott of Indiana University at South Bend and was published online last week by the National Academy of Sciences.
September 22nd, 2004
Mars, Once Warm and Wet, Left Some Clues
A new theory about ancient Mars puts some fizz back in the idea that the red planet was once warm, wet and potentially habitable.
Many studies have suggested that early Mars was covered by large oceans and blanketed by a thick atmosphere rich in carbon dioxide — the stuff that puts the bubbly zing in soda. But if that’s all true, then when the oceans evaporated a lot of the carbon dioxide should have turned into what scientists call carbonates, which should be strewn all over the place.
Problem is, the carbonates aren’t there. One recent study found trace amounts in Martian dust, just enough to conclude that Mars probably didn’t have vast oceans.
The new model provides a way around this problem. It suggests the chemistry of Martian seas was different than has been assumed, so the clues have been missed.
September 20th, 2004
SpaceDev to Build Piloted Spaceship
The aerospace firm SpaceDev cast its hat into the ring of private human spaceflight today, announcing its plans to build a reuseable spacecraft that may one day carry passengers into orbit.
Based in Poway, California, SpaceDev is designing a piloted sub-orbital spacecraft that could eventually be scaled up for orbital flights.