On December 5th, NASA successfully launched the first test flight of its Orion capsule. Scheduled to carry astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit in the 2020s, the spacecraft is NASA’s first deep-space people transporter since the Apollo days.
Science and Space Policy
Asteroid Scheme Still Under Way
Despite funding pushback in the House of Representatives, NASA is full steam ahead in plans for its asteroid retrieval mission.
Radiation Risks for Future Marsonauts
Thanks to a detector carried across interplanetary space aboard NASA's Curiosity rover, researchers now have a much clearer idea of radiation exposure that future astronauts will endure when traveling to and from Mars.
Sequestration’s Impact on Astronomy
From international travel to interplanetary probes, the U.S. budget cuts are having impacts on both ground- and space-based astronomy.
NASA to Snag a Near-Earth Asteroid
Not content to let private companies have all the fun in asteroid exploration and exploitation, NASA managers have proposed a high-flying mission that would capture a small asteroid and dispatch astronauts to study it — all within the next decade.
Asteroid Mining Gets Competitive
Deep Space Industries, Inc, announced plans to send a fleet of asteroid-prospecting to target asteroids in 2015 — and that’s just the first step in their ambitious proposal.
World-Class Telescope For Sale
The impending closure of the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope might be averted if the observatory’s director can find a buyer.
Help Uwingu Make a Difference in Space
Uwingu, a small start-up company, wants to change the way science educators, astronomers, and space researchers do business.
Charting a Course for Heliophysics
A new report by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences examines how studies of the Sun and its influence on Earth have advanced in the past decade and makes recommendations for what should be tackled next.
Running Around China and the IAU
Pluto, quasars, and total solar eclipses over Easter Island were just a few of the topics that came up at the close of the first week of the international astronomy conference in Beijing.
A Changing Landscape for U.S. Astronomy
The budgetary writing is on the wall: the National Science Foundation doesn't have enough money both to operate all of its existing facilities and to build big, expensive new ones. Something's got to give.
B612 Debuts Its Asteroid-Seeking Sentinel
Astronomers warn that it's not a question of "if" Earth will be hit by an asteroid, but "when." If a private group of space veterans has its way, a Sun-orbiting spacecraft will find threatening objects decades before they can strike us.
Asteroid Mining for Fun and Profit
A cadre of space entrepreneurs has hatched a plan to identify thousands of small near-Earth asteroids — and then to exploit the mineral wealth that many of these space rocks are certain to contain.
If An Impact Looms, Then What?
A group of scientists, policy-makers, and science journalists recently tackled the tough who-where-how-and-why questions that will have to be answered if astronomers discover an asteroid or comet on a collision course with Earth.
Webb Telescope: Progress and Problems
Despite threats by the House of Representatives to cut funding, the James Webb Space Telescope plans move ahead.
Will the Webb Telescope Be Canceled?
NASA's next-generation space observatory is already woefully over budget and behind schedule. But if Congressional money-minders have their way, the project will be killed outright in the months ahead.
Praising Arizona — II
S&T contributing editor Govert Schilling visits observatories in southern Arizona.
Praising Arizona — I
S&T contributing editor Govert Schilling visits observatories in southern Arizona
Astro2010: U.S. Astronomy’s Crystal Ball
If you had $12 billion to spend on ground- and space-based observatories over the next 10 years, how would decide what to build? A 255-page National Research Council study, just released, provides some answers.
NASA’s Administrator Visits Boston
Charles Bolden, who took the reins of NASA last July, made an appearance in Boston last week and offered some views about the space agency's future.
New Plan for NASA
The Obama administration abandons NASA's Constellation Moon program, but sets its sights farther afield.
New Report Spotlights Impact Hazards
A meaty review of the impact hazard facing Earth has just been released by the U.S. National Research Council. The bottom line? If Congress and NASA are serious about finding all the truly threatening asteroids in our planet's vicinity, they'd better fund the search properly.
Mel’s Arecibo Adventure
A globetrotting mascot gets a behind-the-scenes tour of the world's largest single-dish radio telescope.
First Family to See First Light
Thanks to eight months of urging by amateur astronomers, President Obama and his family are about to host the first-ever star party at the White House.
New Crater Picked for LCROSS Impact
When NASA slams a spacecraft into the dust near the Moon's south pole next month, the crater named Cabeus will briefly achieve worldwide fame.