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The crew of an Apollo mission to the moon were so startled when they encountered strange music-like radio transmissions coming through their headsets, they didn't know whether or not to report it to NASA, it's been revealed. It was 1969, two months before Apollo 11's historic first manned landing on the moon, when Apollo 10 entered lunar orbit, which included traversing the far side of the moon when all spacecraft are out of radio contact with Earth for about an hour and nobody on Earth can see or hear them. As far as the public knew, everything about the mission...

In one of his final interviews from the International Space Station, astronaut Scott Kelly said that the Earth's atmosphere "looks very, very fragile" and "like something that we need to take care of."

NASA's next cargo run to the International Space Station will be delayed for at least two weeks after black mold was found in two fabric bags used for packing clothing, food and other supplies, the U.S. space agency said on Wednesday. The source of the mold, a common fungal growth in humid climates like Florida's, is under investigation by NASA and Lockheed Martin, which prepares NASA cargo for launch aboard two commercial carriers, Orbital ATK and privately owned SpaceX. An Orbital Cygnus cargo ship was more than halfway packed for the launch, scheduled for March 10, when the mold was...

The Times of India reports that the meteorite's blast left a crater 5 feet deep and 2 feet wide. Police recovered a black, pockmarked stone weighing 0.39 ounces, it said. However, NASA scientists in the U.S. said in a public statement that photos of the site were more consistent with "a land based explosion," The New York Times reports. In an email to The New York Times, NASA's Planetary Defense Officer Lindley Johnson explained that death by meteorite impact is so rare that one has never been confirmed in recorded history. "There have been reports of injuries, but even those...

The Obama Administration has put forth its FY 2017 NASA budget proposal, according to GeekWire. The overall spending level is $19 billion, an almost $300 million cut from the current fiscal year. Much of the money comes out of the development for the Orion deep space vehicle and the heavy lift Space Launch System, the very basis of the space agency’s plans for exploring deep space beyond low Earth orbit.

The name of Jesus is not welcome in the Johnson Space Center newsletter, according to a complaint filed on behalf of a group of Christians who work for NASA. The JSC Praise & Worship Club was directed by NASA attorneys to refrain from using the name 'Jesus' in club announcements that appeared in a Space Center newsletter. "It was shocking to all of us and very frustrating," NASA engineer Sophia Smith told me. "NASA has a long history of respecting religious speech. Why wouldn't they allow us to put the name Jesus in the announcement about our club?" Liberty Institute,...

The hunt for signs of life on Mars has been on for decades, and so far scientists have found only barren dirt and rocks. Now a pair of astronomers thinks that strangely shaped minerals inside a Martian crater could be the clue everyone has been waiting for. In 2008, scientists announced that NASA's Spirit rover had discovered deposits of a mineral called opaline silica inside Mars's Gusev crater. That on its own is not as noteworthy as the silica's shape: Its outer layers are covered in tiny nodules that look like heads of cauliflower sprouting from the red dirt. No...

Apollo 14 Mission To Fra Mauro (1971) [documentary] Courtesy: NASA/JSC

Edgar Mitchell, one of just 12 human beings who walked on the moon, has died, according to his ex-wife, Anita Mitchell. Mitchell was 85. Mitchell, Alan Shepard and Stuart Roosa were the crew of Apollo 14, which launched on January 31, 1971. Mitchell became the sixth man to walk on the lunar surface. Mitchell was 85.

NASA's Spirit Mars Rover Found Mysterious Growths On Mars That Could Be The Biggest Discovery In Science Jennifer Deal February 5, 2016 Four billion years ago, Mars looked a lot like Earth does today. So it's not surprising that a team of scientists believe that they may have discovered the first signs of ancient alien life on the planet.(click to the site to see the video)

NASA can't afford to put humans on Mars while also pursuing missions to put astronauts back on the moon, according to a panel of experts who testified to the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Space yesterday (Feb. 3). "Today the future of NASA's human spaceflight program is far from clear," said Tom Young, former director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "There has been continual debate about should we go to the moon or Mars or both ... It is clear, again, that we cannot do both. And there is a need to focus our attention, capability and resources...

Testimony at a hearing before the House Science Committee’s Subcommittee on Space suggested that NASA’s Journey to Mars lacks a plan to achieve the first human landing on the Red Planet almost six years after President Obama announced the goal on April 15, 2010. Moreover, two of the three witnesses argued that a more realistic near term goal for the space agency would be a return to the moon. The moon is not only a scientifically interesting and potentially commercially profitable place to go but access to lunar water, which can be refined into rocket fuel, would make the Journey...

Two big ideas often come up in discussions about the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI. One is the Drake Equation, which estimates the number of civilizations in our Galaxy whose signals we might be able to detect--potentially thousands, according to plausible estimates. The other is the so-called Fermi paradox, which claims that we should see intelligent aliens here if they exist anywhere, because they would inevitably colonize the Galaxy by star travel--and since we don't see any obvious signs of aliens here, searching for their signals is pointless. The Drake Equation is perfectly genuine: it was created by astronomer...

In the aftermath of Challenger, there was never any doubt about continuing, never the thought of quitting. After the Columbia accident almost seventeen years later, however, the program was wound down over the next eight years. Once construction of the International Space Station was completed, the Shuttles were grounded and the shuttle program ended. I think that was a mistake. Space Shuttle was and remains the most capable flying machine ever conceived, built and operated. We learned much from the thirty years of Shuttle flights, and in my opinion, we should still be flying them. Shuttle carried a crew of...

After a year-and-a-half long voyage aboard the International Space Station, a group of fungi collected from Antarctica has proven its ability to withstand harsh, Mars-like conditions. More than half of the cells remained intact over the course of the 18-month study, providing new insight for the possibility of life on Mars. These fungal samples, along with lichens from Spain and Austria, have allowed European researchers to assess the survivability and stability of microscopic lifeforms on the red planet. The tiny fungi taken from Antarctica are typically found in the cracks of rocks in this dry, hostile region. Scientists took samples...

A Lone Morton Thiokol Engineer tried to convince NASA and Thiokol management that their booster rocket is flawed. Both NASA and Thiokol ignore his warnings.The next day The Space Shuttle Challenger explodes over Florida and the Rogers Commission is formed to find out what exactly happened.

I was working with NASA as a public information officer attached to the press site at Kennedy Space Center. My job that morning was to deliver pre-launch commentary at the communication console inside the Launch Control Center at the Cape. I began my shift at the microphone at about 3am, about the time the tanking operations got underway when millions of pounds of pressurized hypergolic fuels were being pumped into the behemoth at Launch Pad 39-B as the seven astronauts breakfasted before suiting up for the big event.

Images from Jan. 28, 1986, are seared into the memories of former schoolchildren, teachers, parents, and pretty much any American now older than 30 - the Challenger space shuttle, meant to carry school teacher Christa McAuliffe into orbit, reduced to a snaky tunnel of smoke in the sky near Cape Canaveral. In the years that followed, a lot would come out about a disaster watched in countless classrooms across the nation: about faulty O-rings, about dangerously cold temperatures, and about how five crewmen, an engineer and a New Hampshire teacher meant to represent NASA in its finest hour became the...

Here is a quick timeline of what occurred around the time of the video: Video recording started at 08:41:35 a.m. (EST) February 1, 2003... Video ends at 08:48:14 a.m. Shuttle is moving at mach 24.66 (18,771 mph) at an altitude of 230,348 ft. The first indication that something is wrong occurs at 08:48:39 a.m ( 25 seconds after video ends ) when one of the Strain (correlates to force) gauge sensors on the left wing Fails (this is close to where a piece of foam had hit the space shuttle during launch) Followed by the first sign of unusual Heating...

Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion (GRAPHIC)