New Mars Forums

Discovery Of Real-Time Natural Gas Formation Offers Prospect For Renewable Energy Resource

The Powder River Basin coal mines are generating natural gas in real time through the ongoing activity of anaerobic microbes (bacteria that live in the absence of oxygen) resident in those coal fields.

Methane production by these microbes can be stimulated by the introduction of additional nutrient compounds.

Sort of sounds like the methane measurements on Mars.

Strong, Yet Gentle, Acid Uncovered

Carborane, part of the world's strongest acid.

Atom color code:
orange = boron, gray = carbon,
green = chlorine, white = hydrogen.

Great article of different aspect of acids in general.

Can acids aid those first explorers in doing science on the moon or on mars?

Can they be used to help in the mining and processing operations for not only separating but also for the releasing of locked in oxygen molecules in the soils of either?

My question for the experts was if the colored area indicates thermal energy from or though solar obsorbtion or actual under ground venting. But still spectacular...

This will mean a new guisness book of records entry for the x-43A. Though I wished that this was being designed around manned use but a start is still a start when it comes to new technology development.

NASA Selects Exploration Systems Proposals

The names of the winning proposals and ESMD information

Well the prize game is getting new interest from Nasa in regards to wanting to hand out bigger ones at least.

NASA Lobbying For Authority To Grant Prizes Above $250K

Agreed it is what you do with it once you have it.

Salvaging of satelites maybe a little different for the owner must give up there claims for anyone to feel that it is worth while to venture into a very costly proposition.

The next part about the satelite salvage will be the in orbit ability to change planes over vast distances. Maybe solar energy and magnetic propulsion in some form.

As for the present senerio of bone head concepts and choice making we only need to look at the past to see how if staying the course will end up in the far off future. Stuck in LEO...

I see from the articles dating that there might be the question of, if the core is cooling has the magnetic field also lessened with time? Or is this more of the permanent magnetic material style field that was measured.

To Mars and back in 90 days: UW researchers studying faster space travel methods

Seems like they are being overly cautious on this scram jet project but will it matter in the end run since the follow up steps have been cancelled.

On another note of Nasa it would seem that some of the issues around Nasa is the fact that they have there hands in to many projects unrelated to space.

NASA Helps To Create Complete Human Genome Map and do not get me wrong, for I think that if they can provide the help they should to private industry but it should be not for free.

Here is a quick view of what I know is in the works by foreign nations with regards to future moon missions:

SMART-1, a project of the European Space Agency, was launched in September 2003. It's taking 14 months to reach the moon -- the U.S. Apollo missions took four days -- because it's using an experimental propulsion system, called an ion drive, which starts very slowly and gradually accelerates to a high speed. It requires little fuel and is being tested for use in extremely long missions in outer space. Smart-1 is a square box, measuring about 3 feet on a side and weighing about 800 pounds. Inside are three toaster-sized instruments to study the chemical makeup of the moon in X-rays, infrared light and ordinary light.

Japan plans two lunar visitors but has been having trouble getting them off the ground. The first, a 1,200-pound orbiter called Lunar-A, originally was scheduled to take off in 1999, but has been delayed repeatedly by problems with the launch rocket. It's now slated to go up sometime next year. After settling into a 1,200-mile-high orbit, the spaceship will fire two missile-like penetrators that will drill 1 or 2 yards deep into the lunar surface, one on the side facing Earth, one on the back side. The penetrators will relay data on possible moonquakes and the nature of the moon's core. In 2006, Japan hopes to launch a more ambitious, 4,400-pound package of three satellites called Selene, the Greek name for the moon. The main orbiter will carry 13 scientific instruments to study the origin and evolution of the moon. It will spin off two smaller satellites, one to relay signals from behind the moon and the other to measure the moon's wobble as it circles the Earth.

The Indian Space Research Organization plans to launch Chandrayaan-1, Hindi for "moon voyage," in September 2007. The 1,200-pound orbiter is to circle the moon, 60 miles above the surface, for at least two years.

China, which launched its first man into Earth orbit in October 2003, plans to send up a lunar orbiter in 2007. It's named Chang-e, after a Chinese story about a fairy that flew to the moon. The Chinese space agency announced last summer that it will attempt a robotic soft landing on the moon in 2010 and a manned landing by 2020. The European Project Aurora has a goal of a manned landing on Mars by 2033, about the time the United States might be doing the same.

Finally an update on the sucessor to Hubble.
Fabrication of James Webb Space Telescope Mirror Moves Forward with the opening of a state-of-the-art facility in Cullman, Ala., that will machine the observatory's optical components.