Space Shuttle Atlantis is poised to launch to the International Space Station, and NASA is hosting a Twitter meet-up, or tweet-up, at the launch. If you’re one of the 150 lucky invitees attending the shuttle launch as guests of NASA, I can tell you from personal experience that you are … Continue reading
Category Archives: Space Science
Scholarships for Space Studies
Ah, your Lunar Librarian can well recall his student years, hitting the books and starving more often than not in the pursuit of knowledge. Ramen noodles, rice & beans, ravioli. I seemed to have a very R-rich diet. So that you won’t have to suffer as I did in my … Continue reading
LPSC Round-Up
Howdy everyone! I’m fresh back from the latest Lunar & Planetary Science Conference (affectionately referred to as the LPSC), and what a time it was. I ran into a lot of old friends, met some new ones, and wallowed in copious amounts of Moon stuff. The proceedings are found here … Continue reading
Best of the Moon 2007
Howdy everyone, and welcome to the Best of the Moon 2007! Each year we stop and take a look at the best additions to the Lunar Library over the course of the year. 2007 has been an unusual one for the Lunar Library, not least because your friendly Librarian was … Continue reading
Carnival of Space #30 is Up…
Over at Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy blog. Out of the Cradle will be hosting an upcoming Carnival, so stay tuned! Update: That would be this Thursday, November 29. Be sure to submit your entries early and often to: info@universetoday.com
Senate votes more money for NASA
50 years to the day after the space race began, the US Senate has voted to commit an extra billion dollars to NASA’s budget.
The Moon gets a visitor
There’s lots of talk at the moment about various different nations sending unmanned spacecraft to the Moon. In the meantime, Japan has gone ahead and done it: Japan’s Kaguya probe slid into lunar orbit late Wednesday after a circuitous 20-day trek from Earth to begin more than a dozen science … Continue reading
Putting the ‘spin’ in spin-offs
I don’t much like the spin-offs argument for why we should have a space program. Here’s a good example of why. It’s a weak justification. If you can damn with a faint praise, the spin-off argument is damning with a weak justification. You don’t justify something like the space program … Continue reading
Carnival of Space #18
Image by R.A. Smith from “The Exploration of the Moon” Hear ye! Hear ye! Step right up ladies and gentlemen and prepare to be shocked and amazed at the wonders of the universe that await you here at the Carnival of Space. I’m Ken Murphy, custodian of the Lunar Library … Continue reading
International Space Development Conference – Online Registration Closes Soon!
Howdy everyone! Regular visitors to the Lunar Library know that yours truly is one of the co-chairs for the International Space Development Conference coming up over the Memorial Day weekend here in Dallas. This is the largest citizen space conference in the world, and gathers together leaders in industry, academia, … Continue reading
Discovery launches on complex mission to ISS
NASA press release: NASA’S SHUTTLE DISCOVERY BEGINS MISSION TO THE SPACE STATION CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – The space shuttle Discovery and its seven-member crew lifted off Saturday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 8:47 p.m. EST on one of the most complex missions ever to the International Space Station. Shortly … Continue reading
Finally a science group that thinks returning to the Moon is a good idea
There’s been a lot of whingeing from the science community that NASA’s plan to return humans to the Moon is stealing money from far more worthy pursuits, such as (insert whatever project the scientists in question are working on here). So it’s a real breath of fresh air to hear … Continue reading
Why go back to the Moon?
Writing at the Planetary Society Blog, Mark Adler (who was mission manager for the Spirit Mars Exploration Rover), gives one of the most lucid and reality based rationales I have ever heard for returning to the Moon before engaging in human expeditions to Mars.
Spectacular liftoff heralds resumption of ISS assembly
Space shuttle Atlantis roared away from the launch pad today in an apparently flawless launch, having endured many days of technical and weather-related delays, and a three-year mission postponement brought about by the disastrous loss of her sister ship, Columbia. Eight and a half minutes after liftoff, Atlantis and her … Continue reading
Asteroid Itokawa an indepth look
Did they get the dust or didn’t they? The September issue of Sky & Telescope magazine explores that question in a cover article called Meet Asteroid Itokawa. A discussion of how the asteroid might have been formed, along with Japan’s spacecraft Hayabusa, (falcon) and its attempts to gather soil from … Continue reading
Science versus human exploration
Taylor Dinerman has a piece in this week’s Space Review that is well worth a read. He compares the science-vs-human-exploration situation brewing now with what was going on in the early seventies. History’s warning is simple: if we choose to underfund the Vision for Space Exploration the way we underfunded … Continue reading
STS-121 gains “Fourth of July” launch date
The Fourth of July in the United States, is always a time for picnics, parades and fireworks. Now we can add shuttle launches to that mix. Sunday’s scheduled launch of STS-121 was scrubbed for the second time in as many days. The next launch attempt for Discovery’s STS-121 mission to … Continue reading
Satellite launches going for free at JAXA
If you happen to have a satellite lying around just waiting for a free launch, you might want to have a chat with JAXA. Starting in 2008, the Japanese space agency plans to offer free launches for satellites weighing up to 50 kilograms, as secondary payloads on flights of its … Continue reading
Lunar science fiction reviews
As you all probably know, Ken Murphy has been posting here on this blog, reviews of non-fiction, space-related books. What you may not know is on our companion forums, he has also be providing us with reviews of with lunar centric fictional books. If it has a lunar theme, it … Continue reading
If at first you don’t succeed…
…try and try again. That’s got to be the motto for the CALIPSO and CloudSat teams, who despite trying and trying again, are not having a lot of luck getting their Delta-2 ride to orbit to leave Vandenberg. Patience must be the catchword of the day, too: the two teams … Continue reading
Hubble Space Telescope turns sixteen
On this day in 1990, the space shuttle Discovery launched the Hubble Space Telescope into low Earth orbit. Arguably no other unmanned spacecraft has had as large an impact on the public consciousness over such a sustained period of time. The images Hubble has returned are nothing short of spectacular, … Continue reading
This week at The Space Review
The latest batch of articles is out at the Space Review, and once again Jeff Foust has assembled a fine collection of thoughtful commentary. Before we get to that, I have to add my voice to the others who have marvelled recently at the one-man space publishing phenomenon that is … Continue reading
ESA’ s Venus Express slips into orbit
Launched on 9 November 2005, ESA’s Venus Express ended a 153-day and 400-million km cruise into the inner Solar System firing its main engine for a 50-minute burn, which brought it into orbit around Venus. The orbit will be refined over the next four weeks to achieve the final operational … Continue reading
Add-on LRO payload is officially an “Impactor”
Image above: In this artist’s concept, the upper stage and a “sheparding spacecraft” (left) approach the moon before impacting at the south pole (right). Credit: NASA/John Frassanito and Associates. Since the story broke several days ago the secondary payload that was said to be a lander turns out to be … Continue reading
Lunar add-on payload announced
SpaceRef has very brief article announcing NASA’s plans to tag on a robotic lunar lander mission as a secondary payload to the 2008 launch of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Details however are scant at this time. NASA managers, engineers, and scientists have been reviewing secondary spacecraft proposals that take advantage of … Continue reading