Free Republic

NASA's Administrator Charles Bolden acknowledged Wednesday there is no back-up plan to fly the International Space Station if Russia cuts off U.S. access to space. "We would make an orderly evacuation," Bolden said during a U.S. House Appropriations subcommittee hearing. Because both countries are dependent upon one another, the $140 billion station would be lost.

We’re returning human spaceflight launches to America. Learn who will take crews to the #ISS. Watch NASA TV at 4pm ET http://youtu.be/ceQycm1uCFI

NASA has been talking about sending people to Mars by 2035. That goal is still on the books, despite recent upheaval in the space program, according to two of the agency's top scientists. "In the near term, Mars remains our primary focus," Ellen Stofan, NASA's chief scientist said May 15 in a talk at the Royal Institution in London ... ....scientists [also] decided to "redirect" an asteroid into an orbit of the moon and are searching for an asteroid that's an appropriate candidate. "Once we find the right one, we'll use all the technology we've got," he said. "We'll snag...

Moscow is banning Washington from using Russian-made rocket engines, which the US has used to deliver its military satellites into orbit, said Russia’s Deputy PM, Dmitry Rogozin, who is in charge of space and defense industries. According to Rogozin, Russia is also halting the operation of all American GPS stations on its territory from June 1. DETAILS TO FOLLOW

Nasa has released pictures of a prototype space suit, parts of which American astronauts could one day wear on the first manned mission to Mars. The public voted on three different designs for the Z-2 and the "Technology" design won by a landslide with 63 per cent of the vote. The design uses luminescent wire to form a light on the front of the suit that can be personalised to help astronauts identify other individuals on their team. The Z-2 is a prototype so will not be making any future trip to Mars itself as it does not have the...

Video released today by SpaceX confirms the landing legs deployed successfully on the Falcon 9′s first stage booster, paving the way for future vertical soft touchdowns on land. SpaceX’s next-generation Falcon 9 rocket was tested following the launch of the CRS-3 mission for the Dragon spacecraft, which launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on April 18. This was the first test of the landing legs deployment with a re-entry burn and soft landing in the Atlantic Ocean. The SpaceX CEO had mentioned the success during a post launch briefing and later tweeted further updates that the Falcon 9 first...

The passing of Neil Armstrong on Saturday appears to be coinciding with a decline in American manned space exploration, as Asian countries develop plans to expand their footprint on the moon and in outer space. China, Japan, and India have all unveiled aggressive space initiatives in the recent months and years. New Delhi has said it plans to launch the first manned mission by 2016 and a Mars orbiter in the coming years. The Japanese already participate in the International Space Station program and have discussed studying asteroids for potential mineral extraction. But China has emerged as the most likely...

Obama Planning to Scrap Shuttle Replacement, Says NASA Michael Asher (Blog) - December 22, 2008 10:13 AM President-elect's transition team planning to use decades-old military rockets instead, say insiders. President-Elect Obama's transition team is planning to scrap NASA's Ares program, the successor to the Space Shuttle, say NASA advisors. The transition team is demanding deep cuts from the agency, and is investigating whether old military rockets such as the Delta IV and Atlas V could be used in place of Ares. NASA plans a permanent moon base by 2020, followed by a manned mission to Mars; plans which the agency...

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A new race for the moon is underway, with countries around the globe preparing to return man to the lunar surface for the first time since 1972. India, the US, China, Russia, and even the UK are developing and finessing programmes for a moon landing. Many of these plans are in the early stages, but in its report ‘2006 Space Year in Review’ Ascend, the world’s leading provider of information and consultancy to the global aerospace industry, shows the race is clearly hotting up. The UK is considering joining NASA’s current space exploration programme, Project Constellation on a bilateral...

On March 30th, the “Science, the Departments of State, Justice, and Commerce, and Related Agencies” subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee held a hearing simply titled “National Aeronautics and Space Administration”, with NASA administrator Michael Griffin as the sole witness. By all appearances this looked to be a routine hearing where members of the subcommittee discussed issues regarding the fiscal year 2007 budget proposal with the administrator, a common early step in the overall appropriations process. As a result, the hearing—which, unlike many other congressional hearings today, was not webcast—got little attention in the press or the space community in...

They're off and running! A piloted rocket ship race to claim a $10 million Ansari X Prize purse for privately financed flight to the edge of space is heating up. Aerospace engineer, Burt Rutan, leader of Scaled Composites of Mojave, California, has formally announced a timetable for back-to-back flights of the firm's SpaceShipOne rocket plane.

Randa Milliron has a vaguely familiar face: defined jaw, prominent nose, clear pale skin and sharp blue eyes that peer directly at you from beneath a row of straight-edged, silvery blonde bangs

NEIL Armstrong's first footsteps on the moon in 1969 inspired universal wonder and excitement. In that moment, it seemed the unimaginable had become reality, and a course for an enterprise in space in which anything was possible was established. Today we know much more about the difficulties of space exploration by humans or machines, and our thinking about space has evolved with our growing awareness of its costs and hazards. Remarkably, those first footsteps continue to inspire. President Bush's remarks on the Columbia tragedy capture a widespread sentiment: "Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration...

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...

Ice on Mars: Americans Pour Cold Water on 'Eureka Moment' By John von Radowitz, Science Correspondent, PA News American space experts today poured cold water on Mars Express scientists' "eureka moment" - the first direct evidence of Earth-like ice on the Red Planet. Excited European Space Agency controllers said their orbiting space craft had detected frozen water at the Martian south pole. The scientists described the find as a "eureka moment" and said it confirmed the possibility that Mars once harboured life. But there was a cool reception among experts at the American space agency, Nasa, to the claim. They...