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WASHINGTON (AFP) – A journey from Earth to Mars could eventually take just 39 days -- cutting current travel time nearly six times -- according to a rocket scientist who has the ear of the US space agency. Franklin Chang-Diaz, a former astronaut and a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), says reaching the Red Planet could be dramatically quicker using his high-tech VASIMR rocket, .. The Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket -- to give its full name -- is quick becoming a centerpiece of NASA's future strategy as it looks to private firms to help meet the...

President Kennedy laid down a straightforward if daunting challenge: the Moon. President George W Bush, perhaps looking for a Kennedy moment, set that challenge again. From President Barack Obama, a more nuanced directive is no surprise. But while Obama would forego a headline destination in favour of having NASA develop exotic technologies to enable human exploration of deep space while the private sector takes on the low- Earth orbit transport challenge, one former NASA astronaut thinks he can achieve both goals - and before any crew is carried aloft in a private rocket. THERE AND BACK Franklin Chang Diaz believes...

[Houston, TX. For immediate release] - The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Ad Astra Rocket Company of Webster, Texas have entered into a Space Act Agreement that could lead to conducting a space flight test of the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR(TM)) engine on the International Space Station (ISS). The VASIMR(TM) engine is a new plasma-based space propulsion technology, initially studied by NASA and currently under commercial development by Ad Astra. The agreement was fully executed on December 8, 2008. It was signed on behalf of NASA by its Associate Administrator for Space Operations, William H. Gerstenmaier...

Ad Astra: Taking Spaceflight Into Our Own Hands By Clifford R. McMurrayNational Space Societyposted: 12 October 200610:51 am ET Let’s try a little thought experiment.  Suppose that a stranger walked up to you with the following pitch:   “Good morning.  I and some friends of mine are planning a trip to Antarctica.  We’d like to ask your help.  It’ll be great fun, a great adventure, the trip of a lifetime, really.  I’m sorry we can’t invite you along, but it’s very expensive, and there’s room for just a few of us on the boat.  So you can’t go –...

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (Reuters) - Scientists in Costa Rica have run a plasma rocket engine continuously for a record of more than four hours, the latest achievement in a mission to cut costs and travel time for spacecraft. The Ad Astra Rocket Company, led by Costa Rican-born former NASA astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz, said on Wednesday it hopes to use its rocket engines to stabilize space stations in a few years, and then to power a trip to Mars within two decades. "The first objective is to move small spacecraft in low orbit by 2010," Ad Astra executive director Ronald...

Had trouble finding an electrician, a carpenter, a bricklayer, or any one of a number of other skilled craftspeople for that little project you just can’t handle yourself? Probably. We often read about the scarcity of those we used to call "trades people." (Well, we really used to call them "trades men," but that’s neither proper nor accurate any more.) The trade unions were strong and had extensive apprentice programs so young people could learn the trade from the experts—people who usually had rough hands, sometimes used less than perfect grammar, but sure knew how to build and repair things....