All posts tagged "Mars"

CNN's Brianna Keilar introduced nuclear policy analyst Joe Cirincione to discuss the Trump administration's big plans to put a nuclear reactor on the moon.

She mentioned Cirincione's book, "Nuclear Nightmares: Securing the world before it is too late," before segueing into the subject at hand.

"Speaking of nuclear nightmares, last we spoke to you, it was about nuclear wasps, radioactive wasps," Keilar said. "Now we're talking about a nuclear reactor on the moon, which raises some safety concerns."...

Donald Trump may believe the U.S. has a "manifest destiny" to travel to Mars before the end of his second term, but technology and timing are against him, according to analysis by MSNBC.

MSNBC editor Ryan Teague Beckwith noted that Trump's inaugural address included a promise to “pursue our manifest destiny into the stars” and “plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars,” but the president's adherence to the details needed to get there has been less than stellar.

"Trump clearly wants some kind of a space triumph," Beckwith wrote. "He created the Space Force and said he wanted to go to Mars by the end of his first term. He said at a rally...in October that America would go to Mars before the end of his second term, though he didn’t specify whether that meant an unmanned spacecraft or actual American space boots on the ground."...

The NASA astronaut knocks loudly three times on a what appears to be a nondescript door, and calls cheerfully: “You ready to come out?”

The reply is inaudible, but beneath his mask he appears to be grinning as he yanks the door open — and four scientists who have spent a year away from all other human contact, simulating a mission to Mars, spill out to cheers and applause.

Anca Selariu, Ross Brockwell, Nathan Jones and team leader Kelly Haston have spent the past 378 days sealed inside the “Martian” habitat in Houston, Texas, part of NASA’s research into what it will take to put humans on the Red Planet....

Washington (AFP) - Long time, no speak: NASA has re-established contact with the intrepid Ingenuity Mars Helicopter after more than two months of radio silence, the space agency said Friday. The mini rotorcraft, which hitched a ride to the Red Planet with the Perseverance rover in early 2021, has already survived well beyond its initial 30-day mission to prove the feasibility of its technology in five test flights. Since then, it has been deployed dozens of times, acting as an aerial scout to assist its wheeled companion in searching for signs of ancient microbial life from billions of years a......

Cape Canaveral (AFP) - The Artemis program is NASA's plan to return humans to the Moon as a stepping stone for an eventual voyage to Mars. Twelve men walked on the Moon between 1969 and 1972 and one of the goals of Artemis is to put the first woman and person of color on the lunar surface.   The first test flight of an uncrewed Artemis rocket is to take place on Monday. The name Artemis was chosen to echo that of the Apollo program. Artemis, in Greek mythology, was the twin sister of Apollo and a goddess associated with the Moon. Here is an overview of the Artemis program: Artemis 1: test flig......

Washington (AFP) - Seven months in space, a mission that was decades in the making and cost billions of dollars, all to answer the question: was there ever life on Mars? NASA's Perseverance rover prepares for touchdown on the Red Planet Thursday to search for telltale signs of microbes that might have existed there billions of years ago, when conditions were warmer and wetter than they are today. Over the course of several years, it will attempt to collect 30 rock and soil samples in sealed tubes, to be eventually sent back to Earth sometime in the 2030s for lab analysis. "It's of course tryin......