Promising an ambitious course for Mars exploration after recent mission setbacks, NASA will send twin rovers to Mars in 2003 to roam the surface in search of ancient signs of water, the agency announced Thursday.
July 31st, 2000
Mars ‘Colony’ Rises In the Arctic
Despite losing crucial equipment and having its original construction crew walk away from the project, the Mars Society’s prototype for a living quarters on the Red Planet has been assembled on the northern Canadian arctic landscape of Devon Island. Members of the Mars Society completed assembly of the 20-ton fiberglass module last week and held an opening ceremony Friday, with a ceremonial “crew” entering the module as if they were astronauts arriving at their otherworldly home.
July 27th, 2000
Space Fungus: A Menace to Orbital Habitats
Now that the Zvezda service module has docked and the International Space Station will soon be habitable, a growing number of cosmonauts and astronauts could soon face a new threat: space fungus. During a recent mission, Mir crewmembers noticed that the view from the station’s porthole was deteriorating due to an unknown film that was spreading like horror movie scum.
July 27th, 2000
Water-Sniffing Rover Selected for Mars 2003 Mission
A long-range rover designed to sniff for water will be launched to Mars in 2003 in a mission similar to the wildly successful Mars Pathfinder mission, NASA announced Thursday. The mission is expected to cost $350 million – $400 million. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will build the rover. Officials also are looking into the possibility of sending a second rover to a different location on the Red Planet — an unprecedented feat that, if successful, could shore up the agency’s bruised image at Mars.
July 25th, 2000
POLL: 72 Percent of Americans Want Mars Mission
Seventy-two percent of Americans want some kind of Mars exploration program, a new SPACE.com/Harris Interactive Poll has found. Forty-three percent of Americans want NASA to work towards a mission to send humans to Mars, according to the poll. Thirty percent of the American public believes NASA should receive additional funding to complete such a mission, while 13 percent said NASA should divert funds from other NASA programs.
July 22nd, 2000
Nuclear Power: The Future of Spaceflight?
The notion of nuclear-powered vehicles launching into space is becoming increasingly realistic as NASA officials talk openly about nuclear rockets as the best way to get to the planets. At the 36th annual Joint Propulsion Conference held here this week, two sessions and at least a dozen papers were devoted to space propulsion using nuclear thermal rockets (NTR). This type of propulsion is rooted in the Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Applications (NERVA) program that was terminated in 1973, seemingly with its coffin nailed shut. “Maybe those nails haven’t been completely pulled out,” admitted Michael Stancati of SAIC in Schaumberg, Illinois. SAIC has supported NASA on a number of planetary mission studies. “But the thinking in the engineering community is that despite sporadic low levels of funding, NTR is the only credible option that makes sense for what we want to do.”
July 21st, 2000
NASA to Make Mars 2003 Announcement
NASA will announce on Monday whether it intends to launch in 2003 a satellite to orbit Mars or a rover to roam the planet
July 21st, 2000
NASA to Begin Fusion Reactor Testing
NASA will start testing a small-scale fusion reactor in about a month in what may be the first step towards building fusion rocket engines that could open the solar system to settlement and tourist traffic. The Gas Dynamic Mirror (GDM) Fusion Propulsion Experiment is one of several advanced ideas — ranging from demonstrated to way out — that NASA is investigating in its constant battle to more efficiently break free of Earth’s gravitational grip.
July 21st, 2000
NASA Delays Mars 2003 Announcement
NASA remains undecided about what type of spacecraft it intends to send to Mars in 2003, and has delayed plans for what was to have been an official announcement on Monday. NASA officials have postponed a press conference, originally scheduled for 2 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (18:00 GMT) on Monday, during which they had planned to announce the agency