Once thought dead, Mars spewed floods of lava big enough to bury Canada in recent geologic time, with many eruptions occurring during the past 10 million to 100 million years, and others perhaps within the last 3 million years. “Volcanism is therefore likely to be an active geological process in current geological time in a few localized areas on Mars,” concluded a new study by William K. Hartmann and Daniel C. Berman of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona.
July 20th, 2000
Gore and Bush Space Platforms Emerge
Space exploration may be the final frontier of the 2000 presidential contest: Mars missions, space stations and NASA have been relatively untouched by either candidate or the talking heads on television talk shows. Until now. Advisors to Al Gore and George W. Bush, at a Capitol Hill roundtable held by Women in Aerospace, spelled out the presumed nominees
July 20th, 2000
Space Funding Gets Less Support from Women
Men are more than twice as likely as women to support greater funding for the U.S. space program, according to a new poll of 640 New Yorkers conducted by the Siena Research Institute. One in four men said that the government spends too little money on the space program, while about one in 10 women said the same. In another indication of a gender gap, 59 percent of women said the United States should not pursue the possibility of sending humans to Mars, with only 40 percent of men saying that.
July 19th, 2000
Quietly, Evidence Mounts for Active Volcanism and Water On Mars
When a pair of scientists announced last month that they had found what appeared to be recent evidence for liquid water acting on the surface of Mars, most in the planetary-science community were flabbergasted — including themselves. “I was brought kicking and screaming to this result,” Ken Edgett said at a June press conference held to announce the startling Mars-water conclusion. Edgett and Mike Malin, of Malin Space Science Systems, authored the research paper arguing that newfound surface features on Mars seem to be the handiwork of groundwater gushing out of steep hillsides.
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 16th, 2000
Mars: Take the Long Road
NASA should drop the idea of quick-hit missions to Mars in the style of the Apollo lunar program and instead adopt a longer view, a former Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) director said Saturday. “Apollo is not a particularly good model for the exploration of Mars,” said Bruce Murray, a Caltech planetary scientist who led the NASA lab from 1976 to 1982, speaking on Saturday at the 112th annual meeting of The Astronomical Society of the Pacific.
July 12th, 2000
Mars Arctic Research Station Airdrop Fails
A shipment of equipment that was to be used to assemble a prototype for living quarters on Mars was destroyed Saturday when a parachute failed during an airdrop above Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic. Parts of the Mars Society’s Mars Arctic Research Station were destroyed, and two crucial pieces of construction equipment badly damaged when cargo dropped from a U.S. military transport plane smashed into the ground “without assistance” from a parachute, said Robert Zubrin, president of the Mars Society.
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.
July 10th, 2000
Airbags May Bounce Back to Mars
Just follow the bouncing ball if you want to safely land on Mars. A cocoon of airbags was successfully used on the U.S. Mars Pathfinder spacecraft in 1997: After rolling to a stop, the airbags deflated and the lander station released the Sojourner mini-rover that trekked over Martian hill and dale. Now, airbag landing systems for Mars are set to make a rebound. Not only are they being eyed here in the United States, but in Europe as well.