Orono ME (SPX) Apr 04, 2008 - NASA faces many challenges in its quest to establish a colony on the moon by 2020, and providing suitable shelter for the next generation of space explorers is at the top of the list. An inflatable lunar habitat, one of several concepts now on the drawing boards, must be lightweight and flexible enough to minimize packaging size and transportation costs.
Huntsville AL (SPX) Apr 03, 2008 - Each year around this time, John Tripp walks across a lunar surface, pondering the challenges ahead for explorers brave enough to take on its cratered terrain. For now, his moon is a winding ribbon of cement footpaths looped around Huntsville's famed U.S. Space and Rocket Center, where Tripp is a construction foreman.
Huntsville AL (SPX) Mar 31, 2008 - Bright gray, crater-pocked mountains taller than Mount McKinley. Abyssal craters that could swallow several Grand Canyons whole. Recent radar maps of the Moon's southern pole revealed a dramatic, jagged landscape that astronauts could someday call home. But unfortunately, these radar images didn't provide any new information about something that would make living at the lunar pole much easier: frozen water.
Houston TX (SPX) Mar 20, 2008 - NASA's Constellation Program has selected five space-related companies to receive contract awards for a 210-day study to independently evaluate NASA's in-house design concept for a lunar lander that will deliver four astronauts to the surface of the moon by 2020.
Huntsville, Ala. (UPI) Mar 13, 2008 - The U.S. space agency is transforming part of its Marshall Space Flight Center into a lunar landscape for the 15th annual Great Moonbuggy Race.
Paris, France (SPX) Mar 13, 2008 - Newly-released images of the lunar south-polar region obtained by ESA's SMART-1 are proving to be wonderful tools to zero-in on suitable study sites for potential future lunar exploration missions. SMART-1's Advanced Moon Imaging Experiment (AMIE) has collected many images of the lunar south-polar region, with unprecedented spatial resolution.
Moffett Field CA (SPX) Mar 12, 2008 - A scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center is one of 24 researchers selected to join the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission to explore and measure geological features on the moon's surface. Scheduled for launch later this year, the mission represents NASA's first step toward returning humans to the moon.
In early 2009, astronomers on Earth will point telescopes at the moon looking for water -- and NASA will help them find their target.
Tempe AZ (SPX) Mar 03, 2008 - It was July 20, 1969 when the first human walked upon the surface of the moon. The world has changed drastically since that memorable day, but even back then the Apollo era scientists, engineers and astronauts had the right stuff. They had what it took to get to the moon. And now, nearly 40 years later, we call on them again to share their wisdom, experience and opinion as we prepare to return to the moon.
Redondo Beach CA (SPX) Feb 29, 2008 - Northrop Grumman is integrating the cameras, spectrometers and photometer comprising the nine instrument payload for the NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) onto the spacecraft. LCROSS will impact the moon to determine the presence of water ice in one of its permanently shadowed craters at the lunar South Pole.
Houston TX (SPX) Feb 28, 2008 - In a car commercial, it would sound odd: active suspension, six-wheel drive with independent steering for each wheel, no doors, no windows, no seats and the only color it comes in is gold.
NASA has obtained the highest resolution terrain mapping to date of the moon's rugged south polar region, with a resolution to 20 meters (66 feet) per pixel.
Denver (UPI) Feb 27, 2008 - The U.S. space agency is exhibiting a lunar robot rover equipped with a drill, designed to find water and oxygen-rich soil on the moon.
Washington DC (SPX) Feb 21, 2008 - The space around Earth is a busy place, as teeming with traffic as a roundabout. More than 500 active satellites are bustling about up there right now. Some are transmitting radio, television, and telephone signals; others are gathering information about Earth's atmosphere and weather; still others are helping people navigate down here; and the rest are conducting space research.
Mountain View CA (SPX) Feb 21, 2008 - The X PRIZE Foundation and Google have announced the first ten teams to register for the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a robotic race to the Moon to win a remarkable $30 million in prizes. This international group of teams will compete to land a privately funded robotic craft on the Moon that is capable of roaming the lunar surface for at least 500 meters and sending video, images and data back to the Earth.
Boston MA (SPX) Feb 18, 2008 - NASA has selected a proposal by an MIT-led team to develop plans for an array of radio telescopes on the far side of the moon that would probe the earliest formation of the basic structures of the universe. The agency announced the selection and 18 others related to future observatories on Friday, Feb.15.
