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NASA's first female launch director, called her team to their stations in Firing Room 1 at the Kennedy Space Center and began the carefully-scripted 46-hour, 10-minute countdown at 10:23 a.m. EDT. Shortly after the briefing, lightning struck two of the three 600-foot-tall protective towers around the SLS rocket at launch pad 39B. The strike prompted a review of data to make sure no sensitive electrical systems were affected, but initial checks indicated the strikes were "low magnitude." SPACEFLIGHTNOW.COM One question mark going into the countdown is the status of a 4-inch liquid hydrogen quick-disconnect fitting that leaked during a practice...

Ticket sales for the Artemis 1 launch, which is targeted for Aug. 29, were so popular after opening Tuesday (Aug. 2) that the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex's website was briefly overwhelmed, Florida Today reported(opens in new tab) late last week. A "quick fix" to the website, however, allowed the complex to sell out two of the three package deals within 2.5 hours of opening ticket sales, the report added. The news comes amid expectations that more than 100,000 people will show up on the Space Coast of Florida, which includes the Kennedy Space Center and the nearby Cape Canaveral...

Ray Bradbury is mad at President Obama, but it's not about the economy, the war or the plan to a construct a mosque near Ground Zero in New York City. “He should be announcing that we should go back to the moon,” “I think our country is in need of a revolution,” Bradbury said. “There is too much government today. We've got to remember the government should be by the people, of the people and for the people.” The native of Waukegan, Ill., has never been shy about expressing himself -- he described President Clinton with a word that rhymes...

Nasa will not be able to meet its target of sending humans back to the Moon by 2020, or even dream of landing on Mars, because it is suffering from chronic underfunding, a presidential review panel has warned. The US space agency needs at least another $50 billion (£30 billion) over the next decade if it is to come close to delivering on its vision for retiring the space shuttle, completing construction of the International Space Station and launching ambitious new voyages of discovery. Buzz Aldrin on the Moon in 1969. He believes a new lunar mission would be pointless...

Despite funding uncertainty, NASA is on track to return humans to the moon by 2020 and set up a lunar outpost to serve as a springboard to explore Mars, officials said Monday. "Our job is to build towns on the moon and eventually put tire prints on Mars," NASA's Rick Gilbrech told reporters here, one year after the US space agency unveiled an ambitious plan to site a solar-powered, manned outpost on the south pole of the moon. "We have the International Space Station; we're going to have a lunar outpost, and someday, certainly, somebody will go to Mars," said...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The name of the new vehicle that NASA hopes will take astronauts back to the moon was supposed to be hush-hush until next week. But apparently U.S. astronaut Jeff Williams, floating 220 miles above Earth at the international space station, didn't get the memo. Williams, through no fault of his own, let it slip Tuesday that the new vehicle's name is Orion. "We've been calling it the crew exploration vehicle for several years, but today it has a name — Orion," Williams said, taping a message in advance for the space agency that was transmitted accidentally...

MOJAVE - XCOR Aerospace will help develop a rocket engine for NASA's next manned spacecraft under a multimillion-dollar contract announced Tuesday. Mojave-based XCOR is teamed with Alliant Techsystems, or ATK, for the first phase of developing a rocket engine that runs on liquid oxygen and liquid methane, nontoxic fuels that could help lower the overall cost of spaceflight. XCOR's portion of the $10.4 million contract is $3.3 million, the biggest government contract the company has had to date, CEO Jeff Greason said. "We were a significant part of this team," he said. "We are very excited about the opportunity to...

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE - Congress agreed to terms on NASA legislation formally endorsing the plan to return man to the moon and expanding a prize program inspired in part by the Ansari X Prize. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Act of 2005, agreed to by negotiators of both the Senate and House of Representatives, formally incorporates the "Vision for Space Exploration" announced in January 2004 by President George W. Bush, directing a new moon mission program. The bill's language directs a "sustained human presence on the moon" as a means to provide a steppingstone for future missions to...

NASA has decided to develop a 100t to low-Earth orbit (LEO) in-line heavylift booster using a highly modified external tank and new five segment solid-rocket boosters (SRB), Christopher Shank, special assistant to NASA administrator Michael Griffin, has revealed to Flight International. Shank says the agency will also develop a crew exploration vehicle (CEV) launcher that will be an in-line SRB with a cryogenic second stage. These will become the launch vehicles to take the USA back to the Moon from 2015 and beyond. Previously NASA administrator Michael Griffin had only expressed his personal preference for Shuttle derived launch vehicles. The...

HOUSTON (AP) - Former astronaut Neil Armstrong says Americans should support President Bush's plan for renewed missions to the moon and beyond. Armstrong said the plan is economically sustainable and that the country must accept the risks associated with space exploration in order to reap technological rewards. "Our president has introduced a new initiative with renewed emphasis on the exploration of our solar system and expansion of human frontiers," Armstrong told a crowd of nearly 600 people Thursday. "This proposal has substantial merit and promise." He was in Houston to receive the Rotary National Award for Space Achievement. Armstrong, 73,...

When President George W. Bush officially announced the new space initiative at NASA Headquarters on January 14, he invoked the memory of a famous pair of explorers, Lewis and Clark. As Bush put it: Two centuries ago, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark left St. Louis to explore the new lands acquired in the Louisiana Purchase. They made that journey in the spirit of discovery, to learn the potential of vast new territory, and to chart a way for others to follow. America has ventured forth into space for the same reasons. A closer reading of history, though, suggests that the...

NEW DELHI (dpa) - India has offered to carry 10-kilogramme payloads free of cost from different countries on its unmanned moon mission, a newspaper reported Sunday. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said Germany, Canada, Russia and Israel have already expressed interest in the proposal. Each 10-kg payload would cost 510 million rupees (US$11.3 million), and ISRO will foot the bill, the Indian Express newspaper reported. "The Indian lunar mission offers a wonderful opportunity, more so since these kinds of offers don't come often," said Marc Garneau, president of the Canadian Space Agency. India's moon mission, called Chandrayaan I, was...

<p>On Jan. 14, President Bush directed NASA to develop an Exploratory Crew Vehicle that would fly to the International Space Station, support construction of a base on the moon, and eventually fly humans to Mars.</p> <p>To support this bold initiative, he promised $1 billion in new funding for NASA over the next five years, with $11 billion more to be redirected from other NASA programs.</p>

<p>Moon base? Old news.</p> <p>In his hotly anticipated announcement Wednesday, President Bush ordered NASA scientists to plan for a manned "foothold on the moon." They might look through their old filing cabinets to start, because the U.S. government and its contractors have been planning lunar colonies since long before Neil Armstrong took his one giant leap for mankind in 1969.</p>

from the January 29, 2004 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0129/p14s02-stss.html Another giant leapScientists around the world are eyeing the moon as a future research lab and a gateway to space exploration, while companies look at commercial prospects.By Peter N. Spotts | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor It's been dubbed Earth's attic, a keystone for understanding the early history of the inner planets, and even a potential safe-deposit box for evidence of life early in the solar system's history. By whatever label, the moon's star appears to be rising. Even before President Bush unveiled his space policy earlier this month,...

Last Update: Tuesday, January 27, 2004. 1:03am (AEDT) Russia, US can collaborate in Mars exploration: Putin Russia and the United States can collaborate in exploring Mars, Russian President Vladimir Putin told US Secretary of State Colin Powell in talks on Monday. Congratulating the envoy on the US mission that has seen two probes land on the surface of the Red Planet in the past three weeks, Mr Putin said that Russia "has noted with interest President Bush's ambitious plans for the conquest of Mars," the Interfax news agency reported. "I believe that in this area there are things we can...

Three-fifths of Americans oppose Bush's mission to moon, Mars WASHINGTON (AFP) - More than three-fifths of Americans oppose President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s proposal to return to the moon and eventually put a human on Mars, according to a poll. His plan to spend billions of dollars to manned mission to the moon and eventually to Mars drew opposition from 61 percent of the 1,003 adults surveyed January 14-15. Bush called late Wednesday for a new space vessel capable of traveling to the moon as early as 2015. He would give the US space agency NASA (news...

Shuttle retired as US heads back to Moon By Alec Russell in Washington (Filed: 15/01/2004) The United States space shuttle programme is to be closed down. The cornerstone of America's space effort for three decades will be phased out by 2010. President George W Bush called for the shuttle to be retired yesterday as he unveiled plans to send man back to the Moon by 2015. Columbia : ill-fated space shuttle Speaking at Nasa headquarters outside Washington, Mr Bush proposed to develop a new spacecraft to take Americans to the Moon, which would be used as a "stepping stone" for...

<p>WASHINGTON  — President Bush's (search) plan to build a space station on the moon and eventually send astronauts to Mars hasn't grabbed the public's imagination, an Associated Press poll suggests.</p> <p>More than half in the poll said it would be better to spend the money on domestic programs rather than on space research.</p>

WASHINGTON Jan. 14 — President Bush beckoned the nation "forward into the universe" on Wednesday, outlining a costly new effort to return Americans to the moon as early as 2015 and use it as a waystation to Mars and beyond. Bush said he envisioned "a new foothold on the moon...and new journeys to the world beyond our own," underscoring a renewed commitment to manned spaceflight less than a year after the loss of the space shuttle Columbia and a crew of seven. In a speech delivered at NASA headquarters a few blocks from the White House, Bush unveiled a plan...