Free Republic

[BIG snip] Santorum's ad and his Op-Ed, meant to mock Gingrich, in reality can only distinctly not help Santorum's struggling campaign. Gingrich will surely make the inevitable -- and correct -- connection between Santorum's ad and a serious attack on the Reagan space legacy -- and the dreams of America itself. "We'll continue our quest in space…. Nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue," said President Reagan that tragic January night. Well, no they won't. Not if Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney have anything to say about it. "I promise," says Santorum. Worse, whether Santorum's staff understands it...

OSLO, Norway — Norway’s prime minister, polar adventurers and scientists have gathered at the bottom of the world to mark the 100th anniversary of explorer Roald Amundsen becoming the first to reach the South Pole. Under a crystal blue sky and temperatures of -40 F (-40 C), the group on Wednesday remembered Amundsen’s feat on the spot where he placed his flag on Dec. 14, 1911.

Word has leaked out that in its new budget, the Obama administration intends to terminate NASA’s planetary exploration program. The Mars Science Lab Curiosity, being readied on the pad, will be launched, as will the nearly completed small MAVEN orbiter scheduled for 2013, but that will be it. No further missions to anywhere are planned. After 2013, America’s amazing career of planetary exploration, which ran from the Mariner probes in the 1960s through the great Pioneer, Viking, Voyager, Pathfinder, MarsGlobalSurveyor, MarsOdyssey, Spirit, Opportunity, MarsReconnaissanceOrbiter, Galileo and Cassini missions, will simply end. Furthermore, the plan from the Office of Management and...

Canadian explorers have drawn a blank in the latest hunt for the remains of Captain Sir John Franklin's fatal expedition, 160 years after he took his crew of 129 men deep into the Arctic.In 1845, Capt Franklin, an officer in the British Royal Navy, took two ships and 129 men towards the Northwest Territories in an attempt to map the Northwest Passage, a route that would allow sailors to travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific via the icy Arctic circle. Stocked with provisions that could last for seven years, and outfitted with the latest technology and experienced men, the...

Astronomers have discovered a whole new class of alien planet: a vast population of Jupiter-mass worlds that float through space without any discernible host star, a new study finds. While some of these exoplanets could potentially be orbiting a star from very far away, the majority of them most likely have no parent star at all, scientists say. And these strange worlds aren't mere statistical anomalies. They likely outnumber "normal" alien planets with obvious parent stars by at least 50 percent, and they're nearly twice as common in our galaxy as main-sequence stars, according to the new study. Astronomers have...

US SAYS NO ISSUES WITH NEW OIL PIPELINE 20 Apr 2011-US say no isues with new oil pipeline proposed $7 billion 1900 mile pipieline would carry oil from Canada to Texas...

Admittedly, the Egyptian uprising, the nullification of Obamacare and the ongoing ramifications of "Snowpocolypse 2011" could render the controversy about an MTV original program insignificant by comparison. After all, MTV is only out to destroy an entire generation. No big deal. Every adult - not just parents - should take the time to learn about the MTV show "Skins," a new "teen drama" that the Parents Television Council (PTC) has deemed "the most dangerous show on TV." Be careful when you go hunting for information about "Skins" lest your spouse conclude you've developed an interest in child pornography. The publicity...

For the chance to watch the sun rise over Olympus Mons, or maybe take a stroll across the vast plains of the Vastitas Borealis, would you sign on for a one-way flight to Mars?

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a recent interview that his "foremost" mission as the head of America's space exploration agency is to improve relations with the Muslim world.

Scotch whisky meant to warm Antarctic explorers retrieved after century locked in ice Associated Press WELLINGTON, New Zealand - This Scotch has been on the rocks for a century. Five crates of Scotch whisky and two of brandy have been recovered by a team restoring an Antarctic hut used more than 100 years ago by famed polar explorer Ernest Shackleton. Ice cracked some of the bottles that had been left there in 1909, but the restorers said Friday they are confident the five crates contain intact bottles "given liquid can be heard when the crates are moved." New Zealand Antarctic...

On the eve of the fullest moon of the year, NASA scientists were told they won't be able to visit any longer. In his new budget, President Obama plans to eliminate the space program's manned moon missions. On the eve of the fullest moon of the year, NASA scientists were told they won't be able to visit any longer. In his new budget, President Obama plans to eliminate the space program's manned moon missions. When the president releases his budget on Monday, a White House official confirmed on Thursday, there will be a big hole where funding for NASA's Constellation...

Looking back at 2009, crude oil prices rebounded nicely from the 2008 rollercoaster of record highs and devastating lows. The recovery, which primarily occurred in the last three quarters of the year, made it one of the strongest years for crude oil since 1973 on a percentage gain basis. Crude oil gained about 75% in 2009, and natural gas ended the year flat compared to 2008.However, 2009 will also be remembered for its significant offshore oil and gas discoveries worldwide. Of the 10 top discoveries for the year, two were made in the GOM, two were found off Australia, and...

They say no one remembers No. 2, but the second manned lunar landing was memorable for a number of reasons. First, almost anyone familiar with the Apollo program remembers the launch. Apollo 12 was successfully launched in a rainstorm from Kennedy Space Center on Nov. 14th, 1969. As the Saturn V lifted from the launch pad, the familiar voice of Mission Commander Pete Conrad was heard on the air-to-ground loop playfully exclaiming, “That’s a LOVELY liftoff, that’s not bad at all!”, and indeed for a time it wasn’t. While normal at first, all hell broke loose about 30 seconds into...

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Once we’ve demonstrated a 200-kilowatt prototype engine operating at full power on the ground, the next step is testing an identical version in space. We’re already testing the prototype unit in our vacuum chamber here in Houston, and we’re designing the actual flight engine, which is called the VF-200. We signed an agreement with NASA last December to actually mount the VF-200 on the International Space Station in 2012 or 2013. > We would hope that, if not the US, maybe the Europeans, the Chinese, the Russians, or somebody else will develop a nuclear-electric power capability that we can marry...

LONDON (AP) -- BP PLC said Wednesday that it had made a "giant" oil discovery in the Gulf of Mexico but had not yet determined the size and commercial potential of the find. The well, in Keathley Canyon block 102 about 250 miles (400 kms) southeast of Houston, is in 4,132 feet (1,259 meters) of water, the company said.

Intelligent life surely exists on some of the planets beyond our solar system. But we’ve scarcely begun to look for it. With NASA dithering and corporate titans more interested in space tourism, a serious exploration of the stars is limited more by a lack of vision than of technology. But a few scientists think they can use the sun’s light to cheaply propel an unmanned craft deep into the interstellar ether. Their vision may be quixotic, and their first attempt failed. But what will it mean for our solipsistic species if they succeed next time?

NEWTON, Iowa – Marking Earth Day with a pitch for his energy plan, President Barack Obama on Wednesday called for a "new era of energy exploration in America" and argued that his proposal would help the economy and the environment at once. ... But Obama's promise of preserving natural resources and jump-starting the economy ran smack into the reality of this economically struggling town about 30 miles east of Des Moines. The wind energy plant where he spoke, and received a tour beforehand, is a shadow of what it replaced — a Maytag Corp. appliances plant that built washers, dryers...

IT’S a birthright proffered by science and prophesied by “Star Trek,” “Battlestar Galactica” and a thousand other space operas: We’re destined to go to the stars. Our descendants will spread beyond this nondescript solar system and seek adventure and bumpy-headed pals in the stellar realms. Well, cool your warp jets, Mr. Scott, because we’re not about to breach the final frontier. Piling into a starship and barreling into deep space may long remain —like perfect children or effort-free bathroom cleaners —a pipe dream. . . . [A] trip to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star beyond the Sun and 100 million...

Noble Energy Inc., the U.S. oil company that operates Israel’s first offshore natural-gas platform, announced its second discovery in the undersea Levantine basin. A well drilled to a depth of 12,000 feet at the Dalit prospect encountered more than 110 feet of net pay, Houston-based Noble said today in a statement. The announcement follows Tamar, another Levantine basin gas find this year, which Noble called its biggest discovery on record. “With the successes at Tamar and Dalit, we have potentially opened up a substantial new resource basin, where we have an interest in about 3 million gross acres,” Chief Executive...