NASA Mars Rover Churns Up Questions With Sulfur-Rich Soil

NASA's Martian rover has found some intriguing stuff in the soil and rock that it has dug up. The soil contains lots of sulfur and traces of water. "This material could have been left behind by water that dissolved these minerals underground, then came to the surface and evaporated, or it could be a volcanic deposit formed around ancient gas vents," said Dr. Ray Arvidson. it should be interesting for the scientists to find out which one of these ideas is correct. The soil was dug up when Spirit was trying to cross a soft part of soil with one bad wheel.

New mission to collect, return Martian samples

New mission to collect, return Martian samples

Working with design experts at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., the student engineers have worked out the parts and processes needed to send two landers the 100 million miles to Mars, land them, take samples of soil, rock and atmosphere, and return the samples safely to Earth. The samples will then be distributed to hundreds of research labs to see if they can detect signs of past or present life on Mars.

Mark III Spacesuit Hardware

http://www.marstoday.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=23765

NASA has new requirements for the Mark II spacesuit which may be used in a manned mission to Mars. The required components include a lightweight, aluminum waist joint ring, adapter rings, and a pivot elliptical waist shaft.

First Steps To Mars

The landing site is unknown. The rockets are still on the drawing board. Some of the astronauts haven't been born yet. Never mind all that. NASA's journey to Mars has already begun.

The first steps are being taken onboard the International Space Station (ISS). "Astronauts are stationed on the ISS for six months at a time," says Dr. Clarence Sams, lead scientist for the ISS Medical Project at NASA's Johnson Space Center.

Parking Trouble

We can't escape it, there is even parking trouble in space. Three astronauts went around the International Space Station for a brief trip in order to clear a parking spot for a later mission."The Expedition 15 cosmonauts are slated to launch April 7 from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with U.S. space tourist Charles Simonyi, who will return with the Expedition 14 crew on April 20. Simonyi is paying more than $20 million for his 13-day spaceflight under an agreement between Russia’s Federal Space Agency and the Virginia-based firm Space Adventures.

Spirit Loses And Then Re-Establishes Contact with Orbiter

Spirit, one of the two rovers that is currently exploring Mars briefly lost contact with Earth while the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was in Safe mode. The rover and the orbiter both share the same frequency with Earth and must coordinate communications. Ultimately, Spirit sent data to Earth while the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was on the other side of Mars, out of reach of Earth.

V is for Virus, Volkov, and Vandenberg

A crew of working-class misfits on a beat up old tub encounters a massive derelict ship whose crew is either dead or missing. They investigate and awake an Ancient Unspeakable Evil(™) that begins killing them one by one…
Yes, it’s the plot of the 1979 movie Alien, and the 1997 movie Event Horizon, and probably half a dozen other movies since then (you can throw in John Carpenter’s terribly underrated 1982 movie The Thing for good measure). In essence, it’s the classic haunted house story placed in a science fiction setting.