NASA Announces Mars 2020 Rover Payload “The Mars 2020 mission will be based on the design of the highly successful Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, which landed almost two years ago, and currently is operating on Mars. The new rover will carry more sophisticated, upgraded hardware and new instruments to conduct geological assessments of the rover’s landing site, determine the potential habitability of the environment, and directly search for signs […]

Recent History Suggests Tougher Russia Sanctions Are Needed, WS Journal “The U.S. and Europe made good this week on their threats to start penalizing broader sections of Russia’s economy in a bid to force President Vladimir Putin to end his support for separatist rebels in Ukraine. But recent history of the use of financial sanctions by Washington and Brussels–including against Iran, North Korea and Syria–suggests that significantly more pervasive penalties, […]

INT. FRONT PORCH, FARMHOUSE – NIGHT COOPER: (sighs) We’ve forgotten who we are, Donald. Explorers, pioneers. Not caretakers. Donald nods, thoughtful. Weighs up his words. DONALD: When I was a kid it felt like they made something new every day. Some gadget or idea. Like every day was Christmas. But six billion people … just try to imagine that. And every last one of them trying to have it all. […]

NASA limits foreign contributions to U.S. planetary missions, Science Insider “Today, at a meeting of asteroid and comet scientists in Washington, D.C., NASA officials explained some of the new rules for the next mission, to be selected in 2016. Among them was a stipulation that the principal investigator would not be allowed to recruit foreign instrument contributions in excess of one-third the value of the U.S. instruments on the payload, […]

Hartman: U.S. and Russian Crews to Fly Both Soyuz and U.S. Commercial Vehicles, Space Policy Online “Hartman’s point was that in an emergency, it might not make sense to have all the Russians leave on one spacecraft and the Americans and others on a separate spacecraft because a mixture of experience may be needed to conduct operations. “When you have these rescue vehicles on orbit and you have to leave […]

AIAA Town Hall: We Need Talent for the Vision, SpaceRef Business “After a long day of plenaries and technical sessions there was one last event in the evening for participants at this years AIAA Propulsion and Energy Conference, the Town Hall with a theme of “Where’s MY Apollo Vision for the Future?” … The young professionals in attendance, mostly engineers, were treated to an expert panel of rocket engineers who […]

NASA moves to protect whistleblowers, The Hill “The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is looking to protect whistleblowers at NASA contractors and subcontractors who shine a light on corporate corruption. Government contractors will not be allowed to fire, demote or otherwise discipline employees who blow the whistle on their own companies for abusing their authority by mismanaging a NASA contract, wasting NASA funds, or endangering public health or safety, the […]

Hacker Breached NOAA Satellite Data From Contractor’s PC, NextGov “National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite data was stolen from a contractor’s personal computer last year, but the agency could not investigate the incident because the employee refused to turn over the PC, according to a new inspector general report. This is but one of the “significant security deficiencies” that pose a threat to NOAA’s critical missions, the report states. Other […]

Keith’s 17 Jun note: Have a look at the speakers at the upcoming Space Frontier Foundation New Space Conference. This organization claims to be at the forefront of space exploration. If so then the future will be run by males currently in their 50s. “New” Space? looks more like “old” space to me. What about everyone else? Keith’s 24 July update: They have added a little more diversity to their […]

Announcing the ISEE-3 Interplanetary Citizen Science Mission “After a successful reawakening the venerable ISEE-3 spacecraft is about to begin the first interplanetary citizen science mission. We will be beginning the “ISEE-3 Interplanetary Citizen Science Mission” on 10 August 2014 as the spacecraft flies by the Moon. We have a functional space craft that can do science and is already returning new data. All of our original citizen science objectives remain […]