35 Years After Apollo, Return to Moon Will Take New Direction

35 Years After Apollo, Return to Moon Will Take New Direction


With NASA constraints –unlike the blank check they were given for Apollo—they are trying to make due with what they are given and make it to Mars. Getting to the Moon in 1972 seemed unreachable, but now getting to the moon is just a jumping off point for Mars exploration. Now, NASA is considering lift off taking place from the Moon to Mars in hopes that a lunar launch will cut costs and increase the probability of success of hitting Mars at the right time (as we have seen with the simulation it can be tough!).

Blood-red moon 'like Mars next door'

Lunar eclipses occur when the Earth passes between the sun and the moon.

This is an uncommon event because the moon spends most of its time either above or below the plane of the Earth's orbit. Sunlight still reaches the moon during total eclipses, but it is refracted through the Earth's atmosphere, bathing the moon in an eerie crimson light.

So that’s what they mean by sustainable and affordable

NASA Looking to Launch Only A Couple Manned Spacecrafts A Year
Indications are that NASA actually does have have a long-rngae plan for sustainable and affordable human spaceflight: launch two manned Orion missions a year forever. According to administrator Mike Griffin, due to budget problems the agency will not be able to resume human space operations until 2015.

New Sensor Being Developed

There is a new sensor being developed that will be able to detect if there is life on Mars. The sensor will detect even the slightest hint of life's building blocks on Mars and tell if they were made by anything that was or had been alive. "The instrument, called Urey: Mars Organic and Oxidant Detector" has already proven successful. It was tested in the barren desert of Chile the Atacama Desert. As we see in business new technology always gets some kind of funding for the advantages it brings to the field. So maybe this device will bring a new spin to the business and science worlds.

Destination Is the Space Station, But Many Experts Ask What For

Destination Is the Space Station, But Many Experts Ask What For


So the United States is having a hard time forking over the money to pay for the space station that was put into action in 2004 with sixteen other nations and costs $40 billion dollars, but they are wondering about using their money to make a international base camp on the Moon by 2024. This seems really silly that they will stop funding for something that sixteen nations have agreed upon and go start something new on the Moon. Also, with the cuts in NASA’s budget I really do not see how they will fund this exploration/establishment on their own—why not finish what they have started and then try to get more people to help with the base camp.

With this new base camp they are also really worried about the astronauts because they will lose a lot of their muscles. They are planning on using the moon as a launch pad for astronauts to go to Mars.

NASA-Backed Team Developing Sensor to Check for Life on Mars

NASA-funded researchers are refining a tool that could not only check for the faintest traces of life's molecular building blocks on Mars, but could also determine whether they have been produced by anything alive. The instrument, called Urey: Mars Organic and Oxidant Detector, has already shown its capabilities in one of the most barren climes on Earth, the Atacama Desert in Chile. The European Space Agency has chosen this tool from the United States as part of the science payload for the ExoMars rover planned for launch in 2013. Last month, NASA selected Urey for an instrument-development investment of $750,000.

Water on Mars?

New Evidence of Water on Mars
New detailed photos taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter provide further evidence that water once flowed beneath the martian surface. The photos have revealed rock that appears to have been chemically altered by the long-term presence of flowig water.