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We are excited to announce that SpaceX has been approached to fly two private citizens on a trip around the moon late next year. They have already paid a significant deposit to do a moon mission. Like the Apollo astronauts before them, these individuals will travel into space carrying the hopes and dreams of all humankind, driven by the universal human spirit of exploration. We expect to conduct health and fitness tests, as well as begin initial training later this year. Other flight teams have also expressed strong interest and we expect more to follow. Additional information will be released...

President Trump has said he wants to "unlock the mysteries of space" and "focus on stretching the envelope of space exploration." He may now have the chance to send astronauts to orbit the moon, a mission that carries significant risk — but which, if executed smoothly, could bring huge benefits to accelerating future missions to deep space...

Stargazers are in for a triple treat: Friday night will feature a type of lunar eclipse, the Full Snow Moon, and even a comet. You’ve likely heard of a “supermoon,” when the full moon appears brighter than usual because it’s closer to Earth. Friday night, something different will happen, in effect. The full moon will be darker. That’s because the Earth’s natural satellite will experience something called a penumbral eclipse. A full lunar eclipse happens when the Earth is right in between the sun and the moon, casting its shadow onto the moon. In a penumbral eclipse, it’s just the...

Life on Earth may have made its mark on the moon billions of years before Neil Armstrong’s famous first step.Observations by Japan’s moon-orbiting Kaguya spacecraft suggest that oxygen atoms from Earth’s upper atmosphere bombard the moon’s surface for a few days each month. This oxygen onslaught began in earnest around 2.4 billion years ago when photosynthetic microbes first flourished (SN Online: 9/8/15), planetary scientist Kentaro Terada of Osaka University in Japan and colleagues propose January 30 in Nature Astronomy.The oxygen atoms begin their incredible journey in the upper atmosphere, where they are ionized by ultraviolet radiation, the researchers suggest. Electric...

"...America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow," Cernan said. "And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus- Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17."

One of NASA’s satellites orbiting Mars has looked back home to record a Martians-eye view of the Earth and moon from 127 million miles (205 million kilometers) across the solar system.

What wonderful news -- investing in actual science and divesting from leftwing lunacy. Some of man's greatest achievements and scientific discoveries came from space exploration. Obama changed NASA's mission from space exploration to Muslim outreach. NASA's Administrator explained that Obama had asked him to "find ways to reach out to dominantly Muslim countries." (More here: Obama 's stone age) TRUMP TO SEND MEN BACK TO THE MOON AND 'EXPLORE ENTIRE SOLAR SYSTEM' RATHER THAN FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE The president elect could put men on the moon once again – and use money from the climate change budget to do it...

Moon Express is a private company that wants to start offering trips to the moon for £8,000 a ticket. The company was founded in 2010 by billionaire entrepreneur Naveen Jain and is planning to launch its first unmanned orbital mission next year. Eventually, it hopes to be sending people to the moon by 2026. So far, Moon Express is the only private company to be granted permission (under US law) to leave Earth and land on the moon. It was given the go-ahead by the US Federal Aviation Administration in August in a move that could open up the space...

A proposed private space mission is planning to visit Apollo 17's landing site on the Moon. A German team wants to land a pair of rovers on the lunar surface to inspect the buggy left behind in 1972 on the last crewed mission to the Moon. The group, called PT Scientists, is one of 16 teams vying for the $30m Google Lunar X-Prize. It has signed a deal with launch broker Spaceflight Inc. to secure a ride on a commercial launcher. The XPrize will award the first privately funded teams to land a robot on the Moon that travels more...

Trump 'will use Nasa climate change cash to fund Moon missions' as part of his bid to 'Make America Great Again' Donald Trump may use climate change research cash to blast astronauts back to the Moon as part of his mission to ‘Make America Great Again’. Members of the US space community believe Mr Trump’s presidential victory could lead to the resurrection of space agency Nasa’s lunar programme, which has not put a man on the Moon since 1972. The huge cost of lunar missions has been the main reason for their demise, blocked either by presidents or Congress. However,...

he powerful earthquake that struck New Zealand was unusual in that a big event on one fault may have immediately triggered a big event on a second fault, experts said on Monday. An earthquake of magnitude 7.8 pummeled central New Zealand at 12.02 a.m., killing at least two people, damaging roads and buildings and setting off hundreds of strong aftershocks. "When an earthquake occurs you are changing the stress field immediately, and if there was one fault that was pretty close to breaking, the energy from an earthquake can just tip it over the edge so that may have been...

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations urged world powers on Sunday to work harder to end Syria's civil war. The conflict has taken half a million lives and created an international refugee problem since it started in March of 2011. Addressing an emergency session of the Security Council, Ban asked, "What excuse is there for anything less than determined action to stop the mayhem? How much longer will all those with influence allow such cruelty to continue? I urge all involved to work harder...

North Korea's new satellite mission aims for the moon, and beyond The North has asserted that international sanctions cannot stop Pyongyang's satellite programme to put its flag on the moon. By Nandini Krishnamoorthy August 4, 2016 12:10 BST North Korea is now reportedly hoping to see its flag fly up on the moon in a decade's time. The space officials in the Kim Jong-un ruled nation are said to be working on a five-year plan to put more advanced satellites into orbit by 2020. Aiming for the moon and beyond, a senior official at the North's version of NASA told...

For the first time ever, a private company has permission to land on the moon. The U.S. government has officially approved the planned 2017 robotic lunar landing of California-based Moon Express, which aims to fly commercial missions to Earth's nearest neighbor and help exploit its resources, company representatives announced today (Aug. 3). ... Previously, companies had been able to operate only on or around Earth. The new approval, while exclusive to Moon Express, could therefore serve as an important regulatory guide for deep-space commercial activity in general, Richards said. "Nobody's had a deep-sea voyage yet. We're still charting those waters,"...

One of the Moon's biggest craters was created by an asteroid more than 250km (150 miles) across, a study suggests. It smashed into the lunar surface about 3.8 billion years ago, forming Mare Imbrium - the feature also known as the right eye of the "Man in the Moon". Scientists say the asteroid was three times bigger than previously estimated and debris from the collision would have rained down on the Earth. The asteroid was so big it could be classified as a protoplanet - a space rock with the potential to become a fully formed world. Lead author Prof...

It stands to reason that if you put an Earth-observing satellite beyond the moon's orbit, there might be the chance that occasionally the moon may drift in front. And in the case of the joint NOAA/NASA/U.S. Air Force Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), this is the the second time the moon has made an Earth transit spectacle. "For the second time in the life of DSCOVR, the moon moved between the spacecraft and Earth," said Adam Szabo, DSCOVR project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., in a statement "The project recorded this event on July 5...

A couple weeks ago I was at a party where out of the corner of my eye I noticed what looked like a giant phone book sitting open on a table. It was printed with perforated green and white paper bound in a binder who’s cover looked a little worse for the wear. I had closer look with my friend James Kinsey. What we read was astonishing; Program 63, 64, 65, lunar descent and landing. Error codes 1201, 1202. Comments printed in the code, code segments hastily circled with pen. Was this what we thought we were looking at? And...

Did a giant impact create the two faces of Mars? 16:29 15 March 2007 NewScientist.com news service David Shiga, Houston Mars's northern hemisphere is lower in elevation – by about 5 kilometres – than its southern hemisphere (see image below). This coloured topographical map shows low elevations in blue and high elevations in yellow and red. The map is centred on a latitude of 55° north (Illustration: Mike Caplinger/MSSS) Mars's southern hemisphere is higher and more heavily cratered than the northern hemisphere, suggesting it is older terrain. The two low elevations (blue) in this map, which is centred on the...

Phobos and Deimos are both small for moons — about 14 and 7.7 miles (22.5 and 12.4 kilometers) wide, respectively — and sort of potato-shaped. Compared to other satellites in the solar system, they look more like asteroids. As a result, astronomers previously hypothesized that these moons were asteroids captured by Mars' gravitational pull. ...previous research suggested that Phobos and Deimos would have relatively irregular orbits. In reality, these moons have nearly circular orbits positioned near the Martian equator. ... huge impact that previous research suggested created the gigantic Borealis basin in the northern lowlands of Mars, which covers two-fifths...