When NASA rolls out its latest plan for its Mars program, one tiny company will likely be sharing the stage with space-business heavyweight Lockheed Martin. With the Red Planet now clearly the solar system’s number one travel destination, Mason, Ohio-based BAE Systems/Cincinnati Electronics could play a pivotal role in a series of missions to build a mini-internet around Mars.
March 6th, 2000
Coaching the Stars: The Pro Behind M2M’s Spacewalks
When you watch the actors in Mission to Mars walk in “space,” you can rest assured a pro taught them how. Former astronaut Joe Allen, one of the first to go extra-vehicular in space without a tether, was a technical adviser for the film, which opens March 10.
March 6th, 2000
Mars Exploration Needs a Human Direction
Editorial: The Planetary Society, with the cooperation of SPACE.com, recently held an open forum on the U.S. Mars program. The audience reaction surprised me. Our agenda was about the fate of robotic exploration of Mars after the failed missions of 1999. But most of the comments were about human exploration.
March 3rd, 2000
Nuclear-Powered Probes In The Plans For Mars
NASA is considering the use of nuclear-powered spacecraft in the future to explore Mars — an idea certain to ignite a firestorm of protest on Earth. But the plan to use nuclear power at Mars, as was done with the 1970s-era Viking mission, is “not off the table,” said Ed Weiler, NASA’s associate administrator for space science. “For better or worse, Mars is a faraway planet and using these things makes a lot of sense when you’re trying to build a robust program there.”
March 3rd, 2000
Mission to Mars: Red Planet Beckons De Palma, Story Musgrave
The advance word is that accuracy rules in Disney’s Mission to Mars. The first of two Mars-themed movies coming out this year (Warner Brothers’ Red Planet opens November 10), Mission has been a NASA-friendly project from the start.
March 2nd, 2000
Breakthrough In Solar Sail Technology
A remarkable new carbon-fiber material is causing a revolution in the way scientists are thinking about solar sails, according to engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The fiber is a departure from solar sails of the past: it is about 200 times thicker than the thinnest solar sail materials, but so porous that it weighs the same.
March 1st, 2000
JPL Accomplishes Laser Sail First
A project run by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is claiming a new first: Engineers have used a laser beam to move a sample of extremely lightweight material using nothing more than the pressure of light.
March 1st, 2000
Mars Explorers Hone Their Plans at Conference
Even though a human mission to Mars isn
February 29th, 2000
Russians May Hoist Europe’s Solar Sail
A piece of science fiction fantasy might soon be realized when a real-life solar sail is put into orbit aboard a converted Russian intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
February 28th, 2000
Q & A With Robert Zubrin, President, International Mars Society
Convinced NASA has been slow to begin work towards the human missions to Mars, The International Mars Society is taking matters into its own hands. With $400,000 of privately raised funding, the society is building an experimental Mars Habitation Module and shipping it to a remote island in the Canadian Arctic. The cylindrical module, which will house six “astronauts” will be used to test methods of conducting human exploration of Mars in a terrain not unlike the surface of the Red Planet.