Crowd-Funded Space Mission To Protect The Earth From Killer-Asteroids
Former NASA Astronauts and space scientists have announced their crowd-funded mission to map out the orbit of every potential earth-destroying asteroid, using a space telescope which will orbit around the sun.
Neil deGrasse Tyson Demands A #Penny4NASA To Dream For The Future
The final mission of the space program, launched in July 8th 2011, left a significant void in the hearts and minds of anybody who was fascinated by the discoveries of the world beyond our own. But Ph.D astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has begged to differ, claiming that America's encouragement and interest in space exploration has been slowly dying off way before the previous manned spaceflight.
NASA Budget Highlights
Last Monday NASA held a conference call to go over their budget for the 2013 fiscal year. The conference call, attended by members of the press and prominent Twitter users, inadvertently managed to highlight just how much trouble NASA is in.
In the midst of trying to put a positive spin on recent budget cuts and unrealistic Congressional mandates NASA officials awkwardly tried to engage with social media (the communications director opened the program by Tweeting a grainy photo of the attendees) and paint a rosy picture of what is going on with the federal agency; all the while managing to perfectly illustrate what is wrong with the American space program today.
'Nuclear-Thermal Propulsion' And 'Fission Power Generation' Tech Amongst NASA's 5-Year Research Wish List
The researching of technologies including radiation mitigation, solar power generation, extreme terrain mobility and nuclear-thermal propulsion might not be the first items that come to mind when thinking of your usual wish-list. But that's exactly the sort of technology listed in a new report conducted and published by the National Research Council for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) that it says the organisation must prioritise in research over the next five years if it's to achieve its ground-breaking, long-term priorities and goals. The technologies make up a small part of the 16 high-priority technologies outlined in the report.
The First Lego Man Sent To Space
Mixing both out love of space and LEGO, Toronto-based high school students Matthew Ho and Asad Muhammad have been successful in sending a lego figurine 80,000 feet above sea level, using a weather balloon.
Project Gemini archives the history of space exploration in photos
The Project Gemini Online Digital Archive was released recently by NASA, in conjunction with Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space Exploration.
What we have is a collection of high-resolution photos, which have been scanned from the original mission flight films, spanning ten missions between 1965 and '66. The one thing you can probably take note of while flicking through the photos is the beauty of it all.
NASA unveils hub for open source projects
Continuing with the initiatives NASA has been making to generate an open plain of communication and discussion surrounding scientific research, they have announced code.NASA: a central portal to "continue, unify, and expand NASA’s open source activities."
After just turning Alpha, some of the features are not present yet; but as is there's still much to be done. You can access information and resources from other users looking to make it big via the NASA open source route.
China unveils plans for its space program
The country has published a white paper to celebrate its space achievements in 2011, including becoming the third nation to dock in space, and give a general idea as to where they want to be in five years.
From the paper, it's clear that China sees space exploration as a key part to its continuing development, revealing some rather ambitious plans for the next half decade.